I know who I want for Prime Minister.

I know who I want for Prime Minister.

Until three years ago I never heard about her, but now I wish she was the Prime Minister of Canada. She was born in Vancouver in 1971 daughter of a hereditary chief of the We Wai Kai Nation and received top-notch Canadian education. If you look up her history, you see a record of what a Canadian woman can do. She devoted herself to improving the lives of first nations and branched out to work on improvements for international indigenous people’s rights. She applied herself equally to becoming a true advocate of law being above politics and showing integrity. In 2015 Jody Wilson-Raybould became Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. She has a good record of achievements which ended in 2019 when she was shuffled out.

Jody Wilson-Raybould has proven to me, and millions of other Canadians, that not all politicians are crooked. She was placed under persistent strong pressure to bow to political pressure and abdicate her judicial duties and did not cave in, paying a heavy personal price for her actions. I feel like my faith in people has been restored.

I expect the main political parties to be removed from principles and free of morals to the point of voting for the least evil amongst them, which is not right. I have been watching how we Albertans are demanding that the government will ignore a court decision and build a pipeline. In the depths of my heart, I was hoping that we would win, not with Trans Moutain Pipeline but with the Energy East, but that’s another matter. This week we are dealing with a brave, principled person of a kind which I thought no longer existed.

Our courts are judging a multinational giant Quebec based Corporation for using bribes (and sex) to get contracts. The government applies pressure to sway the courts, and it upsets Canadians. At the same time, we are demanding of the government to use its political power to build an export pipeline which is delayed by the courts. Complicated situation and caught in the middle is an honest politician who is unwilling to act against the oath of office even if it may cause her own party to lose the next elections, which it shouldn’t. Both major parties do that. 

Governments of all political persuasions routinely caved to big corporations in the past in consideration for economic needs and suffered no criticism. What is different this time?

Jody Wilson-Raybould made it clear to all who are watching that businesses who are “too big to fail,” are subject to a law that is different from what the rest of us are forced to obey because they have the power to pressure governments. When you or I break the law, we pay, but when a big company does, the law is circumvented because Corporations provide jobs.

I say this is a problem that must be dealt with sooner or later. If a large company can hold the rest of us for ransom, they should be allowed to fail, and other smaller businesses will spring up, provide the same services and take their place, jobs and all. This is the way of our capitalist economy.

At question here is who is running the country. Are we in the hands of lawless group of massive corporations, or does an elected government govern us? Are those corporations being responsible to Canadian voters or are they using the power of ill-gotten profits to build more strength?

Like the rest of you, I cringe when I see my government finding ways around the judicial system and using it. After all, we look up to our leaders, the lawmakers for a good example. If the people who we pay to lead us with integrity fail, we all fail. During my lifetime I never viewed the government as a good example which we should expect. As a matter of fact, I remember older people telling me before I was old enough to vote that “they were all crooks.” I lived and worked, never missing an election, never having faith in the political system.

One aspect I noticed a very long time ago. That is; that political parties varied in their level of deception. Some told lies boldly and very openly hid their actions, while others attempted to buy my vote by being more transparent. There was a race between them, and they kept switching places. Democracy, as Sir Winston Churchill said, is not perfect, but it’s the best system we have.

I wouldn’t want to live in an undemocratic country, but I know that many countries claim to be democratic while they are not. Even Egypt and Saudia Arabia are “democratic.“ The system only works if there are active, principled people in it who are willing to make it fair and are concerned mostly with the well being of the majority, while not jeopardizing the minorities. We have not yet discovered a law or regulations that can make people treat each other properly without risking a need to fight. Consequently, the prospect of peace, equality, and fairness is treated like a fairy tale.

Perhaps the closest we ever came was with the old statement, “love each other as yourself.” This is so old and has been ignored for so long that no-one even considers it as a real possibility. In a world where everyone is for themselves and three-quarter of the people don’t have hope, I see a ray of light.

Liberals, if you are listening, I hope that your next leadership convention will include Christia Freeland and Jody Wilson-Raybould. I want to see the female spirit used to repair our ailing society — no-one fights as fiercely as a mother protecting her children.

This is my opinion anyway.