Policy over conduct

7/11/2018

I have been asked by a number of citizens to comment on the re-emergence of an 18 year old editorial from a Creston, BC newspaper that was written by a reporter who at the time has stated she was groped by Justin Trudeau.

Many news organizations both inside and outside of Canada have now reported on this alleged incident and many have taken issue with the response from Mr. Trudeau.

The common criticism against our Prime Minister is that he has used a double standard by not holding himself to the same zero tolerance principle that he has held to other members of the Liberal caucus while facing similar circumstances.

From my perspective, I have had a long standing policy to not comment on the conduct of other members of Parliament past or present.

At this time I see no need to change my position on matters like these and will not comment further.

Instead this week I am going to focus on something the Liberal Government has done that I agree with and support.

In my June 26th MP report I referenced that on July 1st, Canada’s retaliatory counter tariffs against a variety of USA imported and produced goods would be implemented that will make many USA produced goods more expensive for Canadians to buy.

The list of USA produced items that would be subject to a 10% tariff on July 1st, 2018 was extensive and included common grocery store items such as yogurt, coffee, pizza, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, soups, dishwasher detergent, toilet paper, and some appliances.

This week the Liberals announced that mustard made in the United Stated would be removed from the tariff list.

Why do I support this decision?

In short because Canada is the largest producer of mustard seed in the world.

As an example French’s mustard, despite being made in the United States, is made from almost exclusively Canadian grown mustard seed.

Even French manufactured, Maille mustard, contains a significant percentage of Canadian grown mustard seed.

This example of mustard seed is effective in establishing the degree that the United States and Canadian economies have come to work together as a result of free trade.

By eliminating this tariff the Canadian mustard seed industry will remain competitive.

My question this week does not relate to mustard but rather to Greyhound.

As many citizens will now know this week Greyhound announced intentions to withdraw service from western Canada.

Greyhound has cited many factors for this decision but primarily it is an overall decline in ridership.

At this point it is unclear what role Government at all levels may do in response to this decision.

My question is:

Will you be affected by the loss of Greyhound service in British Columbia?

I can be reached at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca or call toll free 1-800-665-8711.

1 Comment

Justin neufeld

7/11/2018 12:24:19 pm

Hello Dan

Loss of public transportation is always a bad thing for the economy. As airfares even today continue to skyrocket, many Canadians have no other choice but to take the bus.

Greyhound has however been riddled with issues since the 80s. The old dilapidated and unreliable buses make travelling a major pain with unreliable buses, uncomfortable seats, unreasonable customer service, and even surprisingly over expensive fairs for their service.

This has led to many people focusing on reduced travel, ride sharing, or simply doing without.

But I had an interesting experience in cancun when I was in university vacationing there. I decided to refuse all tourist centered travel, and used only local infrastructure. Their buses were $0.25 cdn anywhere in the city and their ridership was packed elbow to elbow. My ex girlfriend and I took the local regional bus (similar to greyhound) and were astonished. Cancun had brand new mercedes buses with lcd tv screens on every seat with independent clinate control and great leg room. All for the price of $2.50 to go from Cancun City Centre to The Mayan Riviera where we adventured to Talum and Coba.

So why was ridership so much higher in such a poor country. Why were fairs so low but buses new and nice. Why were they so much better there for so much less money.

The answer is unmitigated corruption in Canadian transport. We spend billions on perpetual projects that never get finished. Our highways are backed up by light after light after light making the consumer spend billions on conjestion inefficiency. The answer is that 1/3 of the Canadian econony is transportation. And 1/3 of that 1/3 is made up of transportation inefficiency.

The powers that be that syphon and vampire the consuner tax revenue and whom are lobbied by the corporations that vampire and syphon billions for transportation are why our airlines and buses are frustrated at every angle. Greyhound is a failed model but public transport has succeeded in spades everywhere else on earth.

Its time that government lift the veil of ignorance and shine a bright light on all the thievery that takes place against Canadians either through over taxation, corruption in bureaucracy, over expenditure on projects that could be done for cheaper, inflation, and all the other uber obvious problems that have brought us here.

In Europe, you can travel all over the continent all year round for about 5k. In Canada the average household cost of transportation is nearly 20k. Europe is mostly public transport.

We need to focus on rebuilding Canada. The old model has to go. We need better public transportation but it doesnt have to be socialized. We can do it better like anywhere else in the world and we can do it cheaper with new technologies like mag lev and hyper loop. Its time Canada stopped squeezing the dried out rock which is our population of every cent they have. Canada needs to increase our citizen ownership interest. We cannot do that by letting our transportation industry comoketely collapse because of its own bureaucracy and corruption.

Thanks Dan

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Policy over conduct

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