Defending Canada

 Defending Canada is something I have talked about a great deal in the past. It was what made me Conservative really; desiring that the military be well prepared for any eventuality. Our military is the backbone of our rapid assistance program in Canada. When there is a flood, an epic ice storm, etc. the military are called in to help achieve a return to normal living. But they need the tools and we do not spend enough on the military when there is a liberal government in power. PM Harper changed all of that where the Conservative Party is concerned. He promised all sorts of items for the military but then got hung up on money. I am a fiscal conservative but military spending is so important for a country like Canada. We have a huge land mass that our military has to manage and they can not do it without the proper tools. 

Worrying about what would Russia think is a non-starter. We are part of NATO and that is an iron ring around all of our countries. It is time to commit to buying the needed items that have been discussed for the last twenty years. We owe it to ourselves and our NATO partners. Our military must be functional; we have a huge country to manage. But I continue to believe as I have since I was a child and we said no nuclear weapons on our soil that we should continue to be a nuclear weapon free zone. We will not be responsible for the devastation of the world. The best thing that could ever happen in this world is that the nuclear weapons that we do have would be in a world arsenal which could be used to protect us from whatever may come our way from outside of the world and that might include destroying asteroids. It would appear though at the moment that we can not have peace unless we are ready to make war. 

What communism really doesn't see is that the human spirit must be free, it is in our genes, it is what kept us alive for thousands of years and it cannot be trained out of the human existence. Communism tries to capture the human spirit and control it. I do not think that will ever be possible and hence democracy works best in the world although I will give China credit for finding the best in democracy by encouraging free enterprise and supporting the small business owner. Russia as it let in free enterprise allowed a small portion of their population to basically continue to hold down the Russian people by permitting some to become enormously rich whilst the bulk of the Russian population has not prospered as they have elsewhere. But then Russia is now a dictatorship managed by President Putin and the oligarchs who go along with his destruction of the peoples of Ukraine.

One of the other hallmarks of democracy is the right to protest. I have no problem with the right to protest just how it is done so as to not inconvenience the rest of the population. If you have a valid point to make then we listen. This last protest (Truck Convoy) was something we all wanted to end but public health rules run recovery from  pandemics. The government and the people should really not interfere in public health rules. They have been set up to protect the population especially from non-vaxers who constantly threaten us with measles, other communicable diseases that are unsafe for a portion of the population and now the pandemic because they will not get vaccinated. The pandemic is starting to look endemic I think (will wait on public health for that) and if everyone was vaccinated then the cases would, for the most part, be trivial. Non-vaxers will have to take their chances with everyone going without masks one of these days and one hopes that they do not end up in ICU costing all of us who took the time to get vaccinated a great deal of money. Also they use up spaces for people with other medical needs that have had to wait a goodly amount of time for care.