Business is not often built on benevolence. And no matter how badly business leaders think the government has screwed things up, Canada is not ready for fascism. Yet, Perrin Beatty, chief executive officer of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, says that big business in Canada is ready to step in and show the government how to get us out of the coronavirus pandemic.
The most memorable aspect of Perrin Beatty’s career is that, as a politician, he was in the cabinets of both Joe Clark in 1979 and Kim Campbell in 1993. Other than those two outstanding leadership events in Canadian history, he worked with businessman-cum-politician Brian Mulroney in between. It seems that this might leave a person with a dim view of Canadian politics.
But ever an optimist, Mr. Beatty says big business is ready to step in and fix everything. They will get us all vaccinated and healthy much faster than the current government.
Volunteering to help in this are senior executives of a new biotechnology company in Calgary, Providence Therapeutics, Pfizer Canada, Shoppers Drug Mart (Loblaw?), WestJet and Blackberry. Beatty says that this group will be able to call on other chief executives as needed. Why other business leaders would want to be involved is not explained.
But like the fascists of 1930s Italy, it sounds like these executives would not only get our trains running on time but they would get us all vaccinated. Mind you, what Beatty does not explain is where all these millions of doses of vaccine are from. And, since Pfizer has already let us down on delivery of vaccines, are we supposed to wait until 2022 for the possible Providence Therapeutics product?
I think enough people have had a good laugh about the Canadian Army stepping up to give us all a shot (or two) in the arm. It was like the time the super mayor of Toronto called in the army to dig us out of a snow storm that was deeper than the mayor was tall. We all made fun of going out to play in the snow with the army guys driving Bison armoured personnel carriers. At least, the army did not think it could do a better job than the city politicians.
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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
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