A lady at the Fairbank Summerfest said, “the world is on fire.” And she didn’t mean the heat wave in Toronto. She said we’ve had to face so many things one after the other since COVID, and now this.
I first heard about what happened from my wife. She gasped in the car. “They bombed Iran!” I didn’t know who did it, but I immediately thought, “World War III.” My second thought was, “This war is going to cost us.”
Right now in the neighbourhood, at the Ultramar gas station at Oakwood and Vaughan, prices are about to break $1.40 for the first time in months. Experts are warning us to brace ourselves for large jumps in gas prices and food prices as the war with Iran escalates.
As the lady at Summerfest said, “How much can we take?”
She talked about her work in the community to help strengthen our main streets, our parks, and our recreation spaces. We talked about the need for family doctors. But when the agenda becomes war, all of that is thrown out the window.
Prime Minister Carney just agreed to increase our defense spending to 2% of our GDP. That’s $28 billion each year. Now NATO is demanding 5%. More than $60 billion a year. Those public funds would go a long way towards beefing up our healthcare, our schools, our transit, you name it.
But as things stand now, that money, our tax dollars, is going towards weapons, bombs, tanks, and fighter jets.
While the world led by Trump looks crazy, there isn’t much we can do about it.
We try to make life better.
Until a few men decide to start a war.
