Some days, I wish we could go back
By Bill Fox/Columnist
I was watching the movie Back To The Future recently and noticed when Michael J. Fox went back to 1955, a car pulling into a gas station had three attendants coming out to serve. What a great new idea! One cleaned the windows and checked the oil, one checked the air pressure in the tires and one filled the tank with gas.
Recently I had to put air into one of my tires. Have you had this experience? I was taken aback to find that you must now put in $1 to get the air compressor to work! What happened to free air to fill your tires? How does the really elderly cope with this? I think we might be heading in the wrong direction here.
Likewise, I was reading about part of the reason we have so much youth unemployment. In our greed, we have outsourced much of the work that used to be done in Canada to countries such as China. I wish we could go back to the days, when we would pay a little more to know that the quality of workmanship was Canadian.
I wish we could go back to:
– speaking to real people when you phone a company without having to press all the numbers to get to speak with the appropriate customer relation expert.
– actually speaking to someone from Canada about your problem. I had a problem recently and asked the person I finally got through to if they were in the Philippines. She laughed and said no, she was in Jamaica! I didn’t really find that so funny.
– the days when politicians kept their promises. I’m becoming so frustrated with our prime minister, Stephen Harper and his broken promises. In 2008, Harper promised senate reforms like having an elected senate and pledged that “all appointments would be made on merit-based requirements.” Now more than 10 current or retired Conservative-appointed senators are being investigated for various abuses of their positions. Another broken promise was a balanced budget this year, but we now learn, according to the parliamentary budget officer that there will be a $1-billion budget deficit in 2015!
– when politicians’ first priority was trying to help and improve the lives of all our citizens, not just their supporters! Today, many politicians of all stripes, in all levels of government, seem most concerned with being re-elected.
– less greed in the oil industry. You do the math: when a barrel of oil is about 160 litres and the current cost of a barrel is less than $50, why are we still paying well over one dollar a litre at the pumps?
– the days when their seemed to be less monopolies and collusion. You don’t notice our local gas stations with much difference in prices do you? Doesn’t seem to be any real competition that would benefit the consumer. Likewise Bell Canada seems to have so much influence on our lives and thought. BCE Inc., formerly known as Bell Canada Enterprises, owns Bell Media, which operates the CTV network. As well BCE, owns 18 per cent of the Montreal Canadiens and a 37.5 per cent interest in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, owner of several losing Toronto professional sports franchises. You could spend lots of time looking at everything that Bell Media owns and controls from TV and radio stations and specialty channels to magazines, etc.
– the days of less violence and no guns in homes except for hunting rifles.
– the days when churches spoke to people and challenged us to live more wholesome lives built on faith, hope and charity…and people listened!
– when money didn’t influence and speak to us so much. Do you think anyone would be listening to Donald Trump if he weren’t rich?
– when it didn’t take enormous amounts of money to run for political office, and elected officials could vote freely on what they felt, instead of being dictated to how they had to vote on certain issues.
I could go on and on, but must get back to the present where you can contact me at bdeefox@hotmail.com.