The expression dodging a bullet could never have been more applicable than it is today.
Mother Nature lobbed the Covid-19 virus at the world and it stuck fast here and there.
We all pitched in to make sure the virus had nowhere to spread to and for the most part we were successful. The tactics governments used in Canada, federal and provincial had consequences that are still being debated over today, despite most Covid-related mandates being lifted.
So the majority of us came out of the pandemic unscathed. Unfortunately many suffered with Covid and died, but you could say we all dodged a hail of metaphorical bullets.
Between the pandemic and the next big event, we had no time to breathe as a federal election whizzed right by us. Then it was various complaints about the restrictions coming out of the pandemic.
While all that was going on there was the distant rumbling of a fragile and vulnerable supply chain beginning to vibrate like a long suspension bridge about to collapse. The equipment parts’ manufacturing industry for farm equipment began to stumble and the traditional global supply chains began to clog up.
The Americans panicked about our cherished Prince Edward Island potatoes and consequently delivered an astonishing blow to the potato industry in Canada.
The fallout from the wobbling global supply chain cannot be underestimated.
After most of what was ailing us calmed down a bit after two years of craziness the Russia, Ukraine war came along.
Then when no one was paying attention the fuel industry decided this would be a great time to increase prices and blame that on both levels of government.
You almost need to borrow money to pay for the gas to drive your car to the grocery store then get a mortgage from the bank to pay for your grocery bill. That particular event was and is a continuing to be a thorn in our entire collective butts as we think about the consequences of war and its collision with justice and morality.
A side note to that horrific event of course is that the amount of fertilizer that comes from Russia and the fact that those supplies will be cut off is just another challenge in an endless round of challenges.
This spring heralds another emotional challenge, which might be as entertaining as it will be interesting. That will be the provincial election to be held no later than this June.
The amount of issues, emotion, debate and information voters will have had to digest in order to make an informed choice will surely be mindboggling. Once the provincial election and Covid is truly over with and the Russians and Ukraine have hopefully come to some kind of arrangement, and the supply chain has been reinforced, the price of gas lowered and the price of fertilizer accounted for there will be only one final challenge or bullet left to dodge.
That would be the weather.
Ironically most of our previous challenges, except for Covid, have been political in origin or the result of an unstable market place, which again can be a man made kind of thing.
The weather does not care for politics or global market forces; it just is.
And these days it seems to want to rocket from once extreme to another. Another expression, a cousin to “dodging a bullet” has to be “feast or famine.
Either we will get the kind of weather that is on the side of a rich and healthy summer for growing crops or we will get something that just makes it harder.
At least the state of our weather with or without climate change is a natural event, and there has to be some comfort in that.
Joseph Morin
