When you are in politics, time is one of the most critical determining factors you face. From the moment the polls close until your term is up, a four-year term gives you 1,460 days to accomplish something.
Then, you are back in election mode. Relatively speaking, that 1,460 days is no time at all when trying to pass laws, get capital projects approved and built or change long-entrenched policies. The clock never stops ticking, night and day, day in, day out. When you subtract nights, weekends, and statutory holidays, the 1,460 days is down to less than a 1,000 days. Add to that the very many other election cycles that SA国际影视传媒� because they overlap or intersect with yours SA国际影视传媒� can delay or assist your progress.
The relentless compression of time was such an important issue for me that during my time as MLA I installed a countdown app on my phone that ran constantly, tracking every day, hour, minute and second of the rapidly diminishing 1,460 days. As a minister meeting with officials, I would constantly refer to the shrinking number of days left to get things done. This felt like pressure to some, I am certain, but that was my goal. In my experience, bureaucracies do not have those same sense of urgency that I did. Time is everything.
U.S. President Donald Trump can lie, bully, intimidate, deport, intern, try to suppress the vote, gerrymander boundaries, stack the courts, try to subvert their constitution with his billionaire sycophants, try to limit free speech and the press, but he canSA国际影视传媒檛 stop political time, short of an outright coup. We have seen this blitzkrieg kind of approach before and it is hard to sustain when you are trying to conquer the world, while your own country is torn by internal political divisions and constantly battered by increasingly violent extreme weather events. So Trump is on the clock and he knows it. In one year, Congress will have elections, in six months, the world will likely be in a recession and Trump will soon be 80. Time stops for no one.
In Canada, Trump has come after all 41 million of us. So, now we must mobilize and organize, carefully, at every level, in the national interest. We all have a role to play in this unprecedented political drama. Trump relies on shock and awe SA国际影视传媒� flooding and dominating social media and every other bandwidth with endless bombast, braggadocio and BS. He tries to drown out everything else by sucking up all the available political oxygen, driving up stress and anxiety levels and seeking to intimidate with his unprovoked, extreme threats. His seeks to goad us into reacting. We have to see it for what it is.
Political leaders and key personnel are mobilizing far and wide at every level to address this threat. They are identifying what needs to be done to make Canada as Trump-proof as possible. As I have mentioned before, an internal free trade agreement to finally deal with the self-imposed economic red tape that is choking us as a country is a really great place to start. I hope we can get even more creative.
I am an old pensioner, and like other Canadians, I am not happy with what is currently going on. I will not abide the threats to our country. The role for most of us in this national crisis is to not add to the confusion, just carry on with our daily lives and routines as much as possible and tune out Trump. I am currently in transit down south. As I was leaving home for the airport yesterday, I mentioned to my wife how increasingly anxious I was feeling. Her advice was to try shutting off all news feeds for 24 hours. Tune out the incessant Trump barrage SA国际影视传媒� designed to create chaos SA国际影视传媒� and see how I feel. Now, 16 hours and counting, as I sit in the Edmonton airport, waiting for my flight and writing this column, I can tell you I feel much calmer, and I feel better able to focus on my agenda, not TrumpSA国际影视传媒檚. My wife spoke wise words to me and I share them with you and what happened when I took her advice.
In the turbulent days ahead, we all have a role to play on Team Canada. Our country has not faced such an egregious threat to our very existence in a very, very long time. Canada needs us all to do our part. If we do, we will get through this, although our world will never be the same.
