It must be hard to be the government of Alberta, what with so many billions of dollars to handle, so many departments to juggle. I know I wouldn't want the job.
It must be hard to be the government of Alberta, what with so many billions of dollars to handle, so many departments to juggle. I know I wouldn't want the job. Now despite years of trucking $100 per barrel oil out of the ground, the government finds it can't make ends meet, so it has to cut nine per cent out of program spending.
Now we've all heard the refrain that the government should reduce its bureaucracy and the frills/perks that go along with the job of being an MLA. I think everyone - bar the pencil pusher that's being written out of a job - finds the idea of a lean government appealing. Several voters also don't like the idea of any kind of taxes, health care premiums or increases in royalty rates, so I suggest going one step further in the pursuit of ‘lean.'
The though is, if I do say so myself, dazzlingly brilliant in its simplicity.
Eliminate the government. Start with the MLAs and move through every department. It will be a shock to the system, but eventually everyone will get used to it, and adapt to local order or no order at all. We wouldn't be the first country to try such a model; just look at Somalia. Being a landlocked country, we shouldn't have to worry about problems with piracy, in any case. Or take Antarctica, a place to which we share a similar climate - no government simplifies things for penguins and all down there.
If you think about it, half of eligible voters in Alberta don't turn up to vote most of the time anyway, so I don't think they would miss the erratic election schedule or the drive to their local polling station in our inhospitable Canadian weather.
Lest you think I'm being hasty, let's consider all the benefits of this suggestion.
First and foremost, this means NO TAXES. Right there, I think we can get a lot of people on board.
We won't have a transportation department, but just imagine, with all the money we will save from having no government and no taxes, we will all be able to buy big trucks that can just drive off-road wherever you need to go.
We won't have an Alberta Education department, and since we've done away with taxes, we won't have public schools either. There are several options to deal with this, such as: a) we can pay for private schools; b) people could buy a Snuglis and transport their kids to work with them, and stick an iPhone in their hands so they won't be intrusive; or c) we could put those lazy, unproductive leeches to work doing tasks that don't involve any reading or writing. That might help solve the chronic labour shortage we keep hearing about.
We won't have a public health system, obviously, so we'll pay doctors and nurses directly. Or we could just barter for their services. They will prescribe medication and perform live-saving surgeries, and I will buy them a fruit basket. Or perhaps that's too little. A fruit basket and a box of chocolates? Winner!
I could go on, but the more I think about it, the more I see what a waste of time having a government at all can be. Many people make such an uproar over assaults to democracy, the one-party system, the one leader running roughshod over a so-called ‘all-party committee', the lack of change, year after year after year.
Really, it would save us all a lot of breath to do away with the whole system altogether.
