It's the Same Everywhere

Yet another Great Lie

Two days ago, I wrote about the challenges involved in getting health care in Nova Scotia. As expected, I received a comment saying that things were bad in Vancouver as well.

That equivalence is one of the things that our politicians love: people believe that things are bad everywhere, and just quietly accept that nothing can be changed.

But is that true? Is health care (or education, or municipal zoning, and trans rights) really the same in Nova Scotia or Vancouver, Montreal or Saskatchewan? The simple answer is no, it isn’t the same.

A good example are restaurant worker’s tips, a topic that I wrote about earlier this year. It turns out that in some provinces tips are protected by law, and have to go to the server. In others, like Nova Scotia, there are no rules, and it’s not unusual for the employer to grab the tips. And in Manitoba they actually go one step further and declare that the bosses own the tips!

By the same token, when living in France we saw a country where tips were unheard of, servers were well paid, and everyone took a ninety-minute lunch break every day. Where supermarket food was actually very high quality, there were no plastic bags, and where annual vacations started at five weeks. And where every single town has a 30 KMH s[peed limit, with massive speed bumps and traffic circles to slow down drivers.

All of these things are possible there, but impossible in North America.

Can Nova Scotia have top quality health care? Can Manitoba protect workers’ tips? Can our cities and town slow down drivers and encourage walking and biking?

Can Canada have 300 KMH fast trains instead of VIA Rail? Health care that includes dental coverage, prescription drugs, and eyeglasses?

Of course we can have all of these things. That we don’t is entirely because our elected politicians have chosen to withhold them.

The real question is how can we change this?

The first step is to talk to other people, and tell them that no, it isn’t like this everywhere. Describe the places that do things better. Talk about what your town or province lacks that another is able to provide.

Once you’ve done that, start demanding that your politicians step up and really answer some hard questions.

Why does Alberta have this, but we don’t?

Why does BC have specialist appointments in weeks instead of months?

Why can France have five weeks of vacation, but we get three?

Why, when it has been studied to death, can’t we give the homeless a decent minimal income so that they can afford a home, instead of forcing them to live in tents?

And when the politicians try to claim that “there isn’t any money,” let’s ask them directly why there’s still money for petrochemical companies and multinational corporations.

It’s time to stop listening to lame excuses like “it’s the same everywhere” or “we don’t have any money” and start writing our own story.