Where Are Our Priorities?

During tough financial times governments and people in general have to make big decisions on where our resources will be utilized. Unfortunately the people and programs most effected nearly always impact the most vulnerable in society.The first layer of cuts effect none as these are just the extra money put in budgets for the just in case syndrome.

The people making these cuts make a big fuss to get us ready for the real thing. Politicians try to make us feel that the next set of cuts are absolutely necessary so they send out notices to finance people and demand a percentage cut across the board. The leaders leave the cuts up to the people on the ground and there is still little impact as people making budgets can play with auditors to cook the books.

The next level of cuts are often motivated by political considerations and attack individuals. Programs for inner city youth will go, people who look after our safety in food production, engineers in the environment business are cut, grants for the arts will take a hit and I could go on and on.

In the end we have a budget which will  reflect cutting and slashing and leave many of our citizens scrambling to make ends meet. At this time Canada and the provinces are facing this dilemma and it will be interesting to see how each body deals with the challenge. Since there is a strong move from the right wing conservatives across America ,we the middle class and working class are left unprotected. Unions which traditionally protected the workers are ignored by the government, workers become pawns in the hands of the big business as they manipulate ownership rules and close down plants and open them again with labour rates greatly reduced.

Social programs are greatly affected and our old, needy and unemployed are going to find life a little tougher. It is a sad situation but all we can do is hope that the decisions which are made will not wear out our moral and economic fabric. Canada is getting  poor press world wide because of the actions of our government. The world is not looking kindly to the changing face of the civil Canadian of the past. The world always looked to us as the gold standard in human rights and as peacekeepers. What is our image becoming with the present trend of international decisions betraying that trust we earned over decades of service.

The world is watching as never before and during the next decade we could erase the good done if we don't get our priorities right.