Wednesday, December 2, 2015

A short sweet opinion

When I started Each New Day back in September, I said this:

One day back in the spring, I noticed that I was spending a lot of time taking part in discussions on Facebook. I was commenting here and there, leaving behind observations, some of which were researched, others that were well-thought-out and carefully written.

A few days later, I wanted to take another look at some of the things I'd written and I had no idea where to go to find them, so random was my commenting history. I was suddenly struck by how easily misplaced some of our thoughts are when they're part of just one of thousands of discussions by millions of people on Facebook.

That’s when I decided to start this space so that when I have something I think is worth saying, I’ll say it here and then I’ll always know where to find it!

Today, on Facebook, the trending topic was the Trudeau family's nannies and whether or not their wages (which are very low, by the way) should be paid by taxpayers. Lots of people made the case that they were simply part of the Prime Minister's household staff and it's petty to bother about such a small thing when there are real issues out there.

Other people thought the optics weren't good. Trudeau had made the campaign about the middle class and was now acting like an entitled rich guy.

I left a comment on at least four separate discussions and here's what I said, every time:

The Liberals spent many years promising universal child care and never delivered although they spent a long time in power within the range of those promises. They made it a very loud talking point during the recent campaign to disparage the NDP's plan for universal child care in that special Liberal language: "We don't have a child care plan but the NDP's plan is worse than ours." (See what I did there? Liberal-speak.) That's part of the reason why it's an issue. No one would say the PM's family doesn't need child care. Of course they do. What about all the other families who need child care?

The flowers are apropos of nothing. I put them here simply because they're so pretty.

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