Joe Domshy

Generations before me came here seeking a life better than the peasantry and poverty they left. Seeking a land and a life where all are considered equal, and one could thrive on the support of their community, country, and their own contributions. In that time, our government solved issues by giving to the people from the coffers it collected from the people, and it made us strong - as local communities, as territories, provinces, and as a nation.

Nearly a century and a half has passed since my ancestors settled in Skaro, Alberta; and in that time greedy, selfish, and uncaring politicians, pundits, and profiteers have found ways to suck us dry of every bit of profit, production, and pride we can generate. Anyone who works themselves to the bone has nothing to show for it once the bills and taxes are paid, except bone. No more. It's time we used the results of our work for ourselves.

Ottawa has long been filled with those who don't represent us. Even if we voted for the candidate who was elected in our riding, how many hundreds or thousands of people didn't vote for them, and does your elected representative even represent what you need, or do they bow to the demands of the party leader? Do you even know the name of your representative without checking, or have you become so disillusioned that you checked the box nearest the party that you dislike the least? Did you even vote, your lack of care for the process developed after decades of watered-down pandering and lies from the big parties? It's time to fix that. We need representatives that represent the people that live in that riding, full stop. We need an electoral system that lets everyone have a say. And we need to be able to tell our representatives how we want them to vote - party leaders shouldn't get to decide what you want.

The big parties seem to want one of two things: we stop polluting immediately, to the detriment of literal millions of already financially stressed people across the nation; or we ramp up our carbon-heavy resource extraction, pipelines, coal trains, and shipping to a ridiculous extreme. We are better than this black-and-white, all-or-nothing approach. Do we need to stop producing and using carbon-based energy sources? Yes, of course! Can we afford to do so today without jeopardizing the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, not to mention our own security as an independent nation? No, of course not! We can find work for oil, gas, and coal employees using the same skills in carbon-neutral or even environmentally-friendly industries. We can stop subsidizing the billionaires that treat Alberta's and Canada's tax coffers as a personal piggybank and use that money to support the education of the next generations into fields that the world needs, and better prepare them for the future. We can find alternative energy sources that capitalize on the skills and resources we already have, both in Alberta and across the nation. We can push to increase the tons of food per acre to the limits of current human knowledge, and leverage the tens of thousands of acres of farmland managed and owned by our local universities to break beyond the limits of today! We have the skills, knowledge, and expertise to become the leaders in the green technological, industrial, and agricultural revolution; why are we listening to those who say we can't figure out how to do anything but what we already do? We're smarter than that!

It's time to ensure that every Canadian benefits from the same things the billionaires do: Canada's economy. We're ready for the revolution.