To the Editor:

I write these letters to try and make people think and question their very existence. The words I write come from my heart and are my thoughts, because I am completely unplugged; no cell phone, no iPad, no computer, and no hockey puck named Alexa. What I find people choose to ignore, is that all your electronics are always listening to every word you speak, with all your hopes and dreams, and slowly lull you into an intimate relationship of pondering and control.

Due to this pandemic and the ensuing isolation, the people of this planet were rocketed forward electronically – decades in only a couple of years – and I truly believe the human mind was not built to consume a mountain of information, good information, propaganda, fake news and much more than meets the eye and in some cases pitting Canadians against Canadians, Americans against Americans, all in the hope of destroying any semblance of democracy.

As far as trying to protect the planet, we pretty well screwed that up: oil and gas production is up, both here and in the States. We’ll start drilling off the shore of Newfoundland and Labrador by 2026. Add to this the fear of loss caribou herds in Québec – they don’t care they’ll wipe them out, lumber is more important.

The middle class is a thing of the past now – it’s either higher class or lower class. The rich will always have a home, while those in the lower class, such as young couples, will never be able to own a home in their own country. Apartment landlords are now comprised by multinational corporations with very deep pockets. No heat, no conscience, no compassion, we’re just numbers.

Many people in the very near future will end up homeless, with absolutely nothing. I don’t know if you can wrap your head around that. Affordable housing is only a carrot to be dangled before us at election time, along with financial offerings just to buy votes. We must come pretty cheap.

I just recently heard on the news that one third of our politicians at the federal level are landlords. Now to me that would be a conflict of interest, but not to them.

Our world is at a very fragile state right now; politically, environmentally, medically. It seems to be the making of a perfect storm. I hope we can see our way through without too much collateral damage, but I fear it will be much more catastrophic than anyone ever thought.

We have businessmen as premiers who don’t listen to the Minister of Health at the beginning of pandemics and believe they know everything. There is no way to know about everything and in actuality they know squat. As long as this goes on we will continue to flounder and in some cases die.

There is no knight in shining armor on our horizon, no magic bullet, no one with all the answers. Our only hope is that we as Canadians, we as humans, try to make the right choices for our future and the future for the very young and innocent and try to leave them some semblance of a planet.

Orson Welles once said, “We know the price of everything and the value of nothing”.

The race I write about at the beginning of this letter is our human race. Take the time to value your family, friends, our forests, our wildlife, our streams, rivers and lakes. Value your very existence and don’t ever take it for granted.

I hope you find the truth,

Andy Perreault

Vankleek Hill