Witness(es) to Yesterday - Guides to the Future - Discovering a New "Purpose" for Canada

Here's how boring I am ....

I was reading the diaries of Wm Lyon MacKenzie King (online microfilm) in an effort to 'get behind' his decision in 1940 to merge the Offices of Secretary of the Cabinet with the office of Clerk of the Privy Council.

After impatiently manoeuvring around in the very awkward retrieval system (hmnpf ... imagine complaining about access time being too slow - a couple minutes vs. a trip to a far-off library's archive) trying to find references to Lord Byng & Arnold Heenan when C.D. Howe's name kept appearing.

(Idea inside an Idea - actually part, but not part of where I'm going)

It struck me ... wouldn't it be great to sit down with these guys and have them analyse today ... and get their comments on the time and events between the war effort and now?

I remembered Patrick Watson's "Witness to Yesterday" show - a well-brief actor portraying a famous person being interviewed by Watson - some of them were fabulous, all of them were informative.

Does anyone know P Watson's email?

Wouldn't it be mind-blowing to gather experts on the achievements of Howe, King, Laurier, Borden, Trudeau, Dief and have a Witness-to-yesterday-style Leader's 'debate' ?
how about .... during the election?


An amazing "big thinking management" concept occurred to me while reading about the agricultural to industrial transformation of Canada by C D Howe and THEN his/the transformation of the economy back into peacetime.

Incredibly, all the transportation, communication, airports etc infrastructure improvements he did as part of his 'Minister of Everything' war effort were ACTUALLY components of HIS/THE greater plan for peacetime.

I'm impressed with this guy - even if it took the powers of the War Measures Act (and a War) to provide the context for his participation.

So all that leads to this

Canada became Canada, not Brit, not American, but its own self over the course of the two great WW's.

But since the peacetime reconstruction (& baby) boom of the late 40's & 50's, we really ran out of gas - inspirationally at least.

What great "thing have we done as a people" ... what inspired vision has taken hold of us. ... What take-charge guy/gal has there been to 'make it happen'.

It occurs to me the only 'great and major' decision for ALL Canadians that has taken place since St Laurent's time is the decision reached by the brain-trust behind the Pearson Minority Liberals to take the country s l o w l y d o w n t h e S O C I A L I S T ideological path - the dictionary calls it "social democracy".

This unstated management policy change to embrace 'social democracy' in the mid sixties was 'somebody's' inspired plan for 'greatness' and an 'everlasting legacy', but since it WAS unstated i.e. never boldly announced, I think it was by design and default a poor plan: not comprehensive, not budgeted properly and poorly integrated into the existing (or future) fabric of Canada - just applied/imposed piecemeal to get/ stay elected.

The Brain-trust had been out of power from 1957 til 1962 after having enjoyed 'running the complete country' from the late thirties thru the late 50's -- and I'm sure they felt being IN was better than being OUT and that THEY were the BETTER ONES to be in charge (of what THEY had created).

(aside, what IS the whole story on the pipeline scandal that took Howe out & the Lib's down in 1957 - NB another great parallel between 1957 Dief election & today - except no C D Howe anywhere)

So, they planned on how to transform Canada into a 'government-reliant' people that could not & would not "live without" government in every aspect of their lives.

The decided to transform the "standard-issue" of Canadian of the 50's - that knew who s/he was and what s/he stood for (and against) into a more malleable, mushy kind of 'not quite sure of anything' consumer of government information, services, grants, tax concessions, special treatments and election lies.

E.G. The 'free' provision of healthcare allowed government to supervise and regulate your life in the name of healthy well-being (publicly) and to mitigate costs (in reality) - why do we have seatbelt laws, workplace Health & Safety laws and 'the free flu shot' - to keep YOU safe and healthy? Heck no, to make sure you don't create an avoidable expense.

By expanding the "services" of government, the role of government was expanded. The population gradually transformed by mass 'higher' education in socialist thinking, increased financial services (baby, student, single mom, new business, old age, old age spouse, ....) that were all financed by 'not-quite-enough-taxes' thereby creating a monstrous fiscal mess.

I won't go into how immigration policy was changed to import and indoctrinate voters, isolate, undermine and (with a bit of luck and a little time) assimilate the old Brit-U.K-German-in-North American work ethic, mask the outrageous "special treatment" given to the block-voting, over-represented-from-day-one-in-Parliament-French-Catholic (oops, not anymore, make that) Humanist population within Quebec, and most recently import a permanent underclass.


BOTTOM LINE and real place I wanted to get to today

Canadians all got a little excited in Centennial year 1967 and built arenas and statutes all over - that was nice ...but it's while ago.

What really great mission could we take on ... as a country .... that would take everybody's attention off "whether their Charter rights had been violated" and "whether the government owed me compensation" ... and place the common will behind a common goal.

C.D. Howe was called " a fascist .... but a nice fascist" (I'm pretty sure it was a compliment to his iron determination, albeit with a word we don't use much in a complimentary sense today) and it took his type of individual to affect the last "declared transformation" of Canada

Do we need a committee of 21st Century C D Howe's?

or do we just need a magnificent objective?

The most intriguing aspect of contemplating this sort of challenge is that we could take on this task as either;

1) a free-enterprising collection of individuals,

or as

2) carefree drones following a master central plan

.

All the components are in place for either one.

.

What a wonderful Crossroads to reach.

Sorry - Much longer & rambly than intended