After two years of incredible challenges, frustration and disruption it is time for this country to get back to a culture of integrity, accountability, and stability. As I’ve heard from so many businesspeople across the province, we’re sick and were tired and we are losing faith in our political leaders.
It’s time that we get back to normal. The normal of taking off our masks, looking each other in the eye and caring for each other while putting the greater good first to get this country back on the rails.
It’s time that our leaders start acting like adults. Enough of the leadership by opinion poll (which is likely populated by Russian bots). How could this be the leader’s source of information and policy formation? It’s time leaders be what we all envision of the role to be; higher minded policy folks, with vision, looking beyond today and beyond the insatiable appetite for votes and asking what is in the best interests of our country.
It’s time that we learn to treat each other with more humanity. Enough of posturing for ego, self-interest and self-aggrandizing and put this country first like our forefathers did. As one AEG event attendee shared with me, they were watching The Crown and their 13-year-old son asked, “Is there anybody leading like Churchill did back in his day?” Our kids are looking for leadership; for someone to step up and lead us through these tumultuous times.
It’s time that we look for leadership from our community leaders and stop thinking that there is someone else that’s going to do it. We have all gone about our busy lives, and hoped somebody else was going to lead, but it appears we have been looking in the wrong places.
It’s time that we realize that this country is too important to be left in the hands of politicians. We’ve left it to them, and they’ve made a mess of it. There was a time in our history in which we would get great leadership from our politicians and we could expect them to hold themselves to a higher standard. That time is history.
It’s time that we remind each other that this province and this country are the greatest places on earth. We have been gifted with natural resources unmatched the world over. We have salt-of-the earth people who built this country, we have ingenuity and we have grit. These are the things we should be concentrating on and should be the character traits of the leaders that we’re looking for. Enough of the elites, the highly educated, and the professional politicians who have never gotten their hands dirty. If they haven’t had dirt under their fingernails, who are they to tell our salt-of-the earth people how they should live?
It’s time for all of us to get back to basics. Say please and say thank you. Be grateful. Be accountable for your actions by making commitments and keeping them. It’s time we respect the money that Martha and Henry worked so hard to earn, and when they give some of it to the government in taxes, the public service should treat it as a sacred trust and spend as wisely as Martha and Henry would spend it themselves.
This country is too important let it slip away into the grips of those who aren’t serving Canada. Our leadership must come from each and every one of us on an hourly and daily basis. No one else is going to do it. Let’s take this country back, it’s time.
Alberta Enterprise Group (AEG) puts Alberta businesses first by sharing information, advocacy and building bridges to new markets. AEG members are business owners, senior executives, investors and entrepreneurs representing firms in every major Alberta Industry. AEG members employ over 100,000 Albertans and generate billions in economic activity each year.
