Who Is the Fool?

Mar 2011

On April 1, April Fool's Day, it is always fun to think of whom I might designate as James Bay's biggest fool. There have been some doozies--the fool who does a U-turn at the Five Corners, the fool who doesn't pick up after her dog, the fool who jaywalks after dark, wearing all-black clothing.

But, sadly, this year I have decided the biggest fool is I. I have put up with a provincial government that has met precisely 42 days in the last year--less than half the usual allotment. I haven't protested the unelected Senate, which keeps paying salary and expenses to a convicted fraud artist. I've done little to tell Prime Minister  Stephen Harper just how much out of synch his values are with mine--that the "Harper government"  has abandoned all pretences of democracy and honour. 

I haven't made enough noise about the obvious need to amalgamate our local police forces, indeed to amalgamate the 13 regional municipalities. 

I haven't done enough to protest the fact that we are running food banks and soup kitchens because of our idiotic lack of shelter and guaranteed annual incomes. I haven't fought hard enough to increase taxes on the really rich and their corporations.  Nor have I been vigorous enough in the cause of peace, objecting to Harper's absurd plan to spend billions on fighter jets while hospital emergency patients are being treated in a doughnut shop.

So I'm going to stop fooling around and start demanding better from our institutions. No foolin'.

Anne Moon