If Only Life Were Fair

By Mark Taliano

Long ago I learned that life isn’t fair, but I still get angry when it isn’t.

If it were fair, instead of making excuses for the Tar Sands and the quick death of Bill C-311, our Prime Minister would be celebrating the creation of Green jobs.  After all, we’d be benefitting from a renaissance of research, development, and the study of the European way of saving the environment. We’d be driving small eco-friendly cars, taking fast trains and trolleys, and breathing cleaner air too.  Of course the clean air would contribute to increased longevity and fewer deaths, but that’s another story.

If life were fair, we wouldn’t have Third World hospital care in Canada. As silly as it may sound, we might even value humans more than the almighty dollar (but we’d have to keep it a secret and not tell the Americans). We’d realize the obtuseness of rationalizing that one distant hospital could possibly serve all our needs, and that time critical emergencies would clearly lead to otherwise preventable deaths.  We might even listen to the doctors and nurses in the field when they spoke about medical issues and the Hippocratic Oath. Big Business would still be shouting that its way is right (especially when it’s getting handouts), but we’d surely see through it, remembering the Keynesian –generated, anti-regulation inspired stock market crash, and know that humans are more important.

If life were fair, we WOULD have to give up some things though.  Those shiny new attack jets would have to go, and we’d probably have to forgo the lavish G-20 meetings in the middle of large cities, even though the ensuing conflict always gets great press.

Despite the press, we’d become what we were once so proud to be: peace-keepers and diplomats.  Surely those are important values now more than ever, when world cooperation is vital to avert catastrophic environmental crises and the ensuing human tragedies.

But life isn’t fair, so poor countries and poor people will continue to suffer more than most, particularly when they try to feed themselves, find a place to live, or pay for health care. And Canada’s image will likely be further tarnished when the world sees our neglect.  But maybe Canada wasn’t meant to be a role model

Too bad life isn’t a bit more fair.

Mark Taliano is a Niagara resident and a frequent contributor to Niagara At Large

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