Opinion Columns

Imagine you’re in a game show, facing two doors.  Behind door No. 1 is a gas-powered car, engine running. Behind door No. 2 is an identical electric car, also running. To win your choice of car you must spend two hours inside the hermetically-sealed room with that running vehicle. Now the choice becomes life or death.

This is a story about the past, circa 1970-80. It’s about a little town with a river running through it (and a sprawling rural county) that seemed far away from the vast smudge of lights of Toronto.

I live and breathe politics and am what some people call a policy wonk. The impending federal election should have me feeling like a kid in a candy store. But I’m just not feeling it at the moment. After the last gazillion months of COVID, I’m feeling the need for a break.

Last month this space focused on how the market has extended its reach into our daily lives by ensuring that everything is for sale, from air for our tires to bottled water to our free time. More than ever, the value of something is equated with its monetary value determined by the market — not for its intrinsic worth to you or me.

“My concern came in hearing of that new Canadian temperature record in Lytton ­, 49.6 C, a heat usually associated with Jacobabad, Pakistan, one of the hottest places on the planet.”

Why do we buy water? Quite simply, big business has told us we should. It’s healthier, says Nestle Pure Life and Aquafina (the latter owned by Pepsi). Why put your faith in stringent municipal testing in towns or cities when you can put your faith in the Corporation?

When I was young and wanted a drink, I went to the kitchen sink, poured myself a glass of water… Continue reading “The big lie says progress is good”