Editor:
Re: Why Donald Trump was right and what it means in New West (letter to the editor, Jan. 25)
I could write an essay on each one of those problems mentioned in the opening paragraph. So I will.
Health care needs to be reformed. A single-payer, government system is OK here, but they need to incentivize our brightest minds to enter the field. Presently, with the longest wait-times and a high level of patient dissatisfaction, these doctors and nurses are dealing with a lot. We need more staff to support them.
The only way to support a single-payer system is to grant tuition-free education for health-care professionals who practice in Canada. The wages ought to be adjusted for inflation, but these people are already well-paid and salaries are not the problem.
We also need to look at the most successful medical systems and see what their ratio of medical professionals to patients is and accommodate accordingly. This is a long-term plan and will not fix everything overnight. For now, we will need to recruit medical professionals from other countries and introduce an equivalency test for Canada to expedite the process. The resulting burnout and exhaustion can be fixed with more professionals so that nurses and doctors are not working double and triple shifts.
Inflation, I believe, will generally correct itself. It didn't help that we were giving away free money at the beginning of the pandemic. Unemployment also disrupts the supply chain and contributes to inflation, so we need to begin creating better job opportunities to accommodate people.
Many of the present day, unskilled labour jobs (like fast food and grocery stores) can be automated. This means we will also need to retrain individuals to do new work.
If we advertised Canada as a leader in post-secondary education, we could provide a one-time, tuition-free education for everyone college-aged by making foreign students pay more. We would also need to recruit the best and brightest minds to teach at these colleges and universities. Obviously, the government would need to invest in more grants for cutting-edge research (i.e., quantum computing, robotics and AI, renewable energies, etc.) to attract these professors.
A better society with higher-paying jobs is the end goal. This would help break the cycle of suffering by allowing people some measure of financial freedom and leisure activities so that their entire lives are not spent working to provide the essentials.
The major problem with addiction is that broken people perpetuate suffering and, without hope of ever becoming something, most people succumb to their addictions. We can help to alleviate the trauma by providing more and better mental health support, trauma counselling, and by catching these problems and intervening at an earlier age.
Poverty is not only a social issue, but an economic and moral issue as well. That's why it's imperative we implement a "monopoly tax" for corporations that control over 50 per cent + 1 of their given market share. Then, we can lower the other taxes being levied against individuals and families.
This will also help to level the playing field for small- and medium-sized local businesses, to give them an opportunity to establish themselves.
At present, the main problem with the world is that many people don't feel like they have a place in it, and that the elites rule it with or without their assistance. I am convinced that if more people could live a purposeful life and have a decent work-family balance, there would be less trauma and therefore less addiction.
In terms of ending present-day addiction, we need to use a three-strike policy: if you are caught with illicit drugs after three warnings, you are sent off for mandatory detox. The same with overdoses: if you overdose even once, you are automatically put into mandatory rehab. The safe injection sites and "drug-sympathetic" culture we are creating in impoverished neighbourhoods is further declining these places and demoralizing the people who live in them.
This, however, does not take care of the supply issue. We need more CBA with drug-dogs to sniff out these shipping containers and the various other border crossings where illicit drugs reach Canada. Tougher drug laws would also help, particularly in cases where the supplier is known and is cutting his/her supply with fentanyl and other drugs that lead to death. Cases like that, in my opinion, should be treated as manslaughter.
Regarding homelessness and the housing crisis: There is no reason we cannot build rent-to-own houses and the debt will be paid off in 20 years at $833.33 per month for a $200,000 home of 1,000 square-feet.
Greggory Morris
