Photo Credit: blog.nz-online.de

Am I the only Canadian that wishes Barack Obama could be my leader? Politics aside, the man can speak. When he gives a speech, people listen. When Stephen Harper gives a speech, people fall asleep, or at least I do. From the moment Obama took office and said that he would “unclench his fist and extend an open hand,” I was hooked on the man and stopped really listening to whatever it is Stephen Harper says. I paid a hell of a lot more attention to Obama’s most recent State of the Union address than I did to Harpers speech at the World Economic Forum. As I said earlier, I fall asleep staring at his grey head of hair.

Now we are all a little Obama obsessed. From the minute the guy took office, the media frenzy around him has been unparalleled. What other American leader has been on late night talk shows? I only wish Stephen Harper was that cool. But, let’s be honest, his Democrat party has taken a few knocks lately. After losing Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate, Obama effectively lost his bid for universal health care; a major downer for a guy who campaigned so hard on the topic. However, as a brilliantly effective speaker, he overcame this loss by now extending his unclenched fist to the Republican Party. By requesting that they overcome their differences as Democrats and Republicans, he cleverly placed the onus on the Republican Party to work with him and his government to find solutions. He states that “what the American people hope – what they deserve – is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics.” Ahhhhhh. Doesn’t that sound good? Doesn’t that sound appealing in our current and seemingly never-ending minority government? Instead of just proroguing Parliament, it could actually be possible to work together to achieve something better. Doesn’t that sound refreshing? It does to me and it probably did to lots of Americans too.

Undeterred by his loss in the Senate and convinced he can find a way to work with the Republicans on health care, he continued to push the Republicans into negotiations by spelling out reality to Congress. He states that, “by the time I’m finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance. Millions will lose it this year. Our deficit will grow. Premiums will go up. Co-pays will go up. Patients will be denied the care they need.  Small business owners will continue to drop coverage altogether. I will not walk away from these Americans, and neither should the people in this chamber.” Cuz if they do now, boy do they look bad after the President called ‘em out. If only Stephen Harper could be that bold on our ailing health care system that once was the envy of the world. And if you don’t think it’s crappy have a seat in an ER waiting room and see how long it takes to get to you. Unless you have an absolute emergency, you will be waiting a very long time. You see, that’s the way our system works. It is made to deal with disasters, not prevent them, even though preventing them would probably be cheaper and healthier. But this is not discussed. We seem to be concerned about wait times, but have no solid ideas on how to lessen them. It seems a commonality with Stephen Harper to have lots of ideas, but no details to back them up – ideas are cheap and easy to formulate, details aren’t.

And so, not surprisingly, I have become somewhat skeptical of our government. Liberal, NDP, Conservative – I don’t trust any of ‘em. No one wants to work together and everyone seems to want more power. I find myself jealous again as Obama acknowledges, “we have to recognize that we face more than a deficit of dollars right now. We face a deficit of trust – deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years.” But they haven’t just been growing south of the border, they are growing here too. Unfortunately our leader isn’t man enough to stand up and say it even though it is the reason he has yet to be given a majority by the people. We don’t trust you Steve-O, don’t you get that? Maybe you should turn up the part of Obama’s address when he said, “rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it’s time for something new. Let’s try common sense.” I want some common sense up here in Canada. I want Obama.

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Tags: barack obama, canada, stephen harper, usa

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Federal Government, united states. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.