Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolven
I do have a bit of a beef with the start of your post. Not everyone is taking bribes. The problem when you say something like that is that you "both sides" the issue and then make it normal or acceptable because "why should we care if one party is taking bribes because everyone is taking bribes....".
But it is not true.
If our memory reaches back far enough, there was a whole thing ~12 years ago when some letters leaked from one of the big developers saying they hate Nenshi because he refused to take their bribes and allow them to do what they want. People would bag on Nenshi for all kinds of reasons but you couldn't say he was corrupt or took bribes.
I would happily support the most arrogant guy who constantly acted like he was the smartest guy in the room if I could be confident that he wasn't owned by corporate interests.
This is the punchline of the new class war. You have Corporatists and then you have Populists.
- The Conservatives and the Liberals are both Corporatists who will "drive the economy" and "unleash our companies" with the vague promise that the money will trickle down through job creation and stuff. These parties are the best funded because of their support from corporations and rich people.
- The NDP (and Green) are still trying to be parties for the people (true populists) and thus they are less well funded because they do not have the big rich donors and they rely heavily on grassroots donations and volunteers.
If you want to stop the cycle of corruption, vote for the party who will prioritize you over a faceless corporation.
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I agree a lot with your post, it's not that every person is taking bribes but there are enough decision makers, moves and shakers that are. This is where the corruption comes into play though. I think we in Canada sometimes are very naive to corruption with our officials, thinking it doesn't happen to the same level as it does in corrupt countries. It happens in similar degrees but we have the economy to mostly hide it, other countries don't.
The examples I used are very suspicious with very high credibility but in that case we are talking about a few hundred million in spending, that is a rounding error for AB healthcare budget. There are other examples of clear conflicts of interest, very suspicious dealings with Dynalife labs amongst one of them. Problems, problems, problems and then it was a $100 million buyout or something and things got magically better. Recent deals at AHS for things like food services, cleaning and laundry services and more look very suspicious.