So, where's my new car?

Author: Lee Ballantyne

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Lee Ballantyne

I presume you’re all as excited as I am at the prospect of a new car in the driveway sometime in the next year.
You didn’t hear about it? Surely you must have read that Canadians are now partial owners of General Motors and Chrysler. As a co-owner of any company, I expect something for my investment. And what could be better or more appropriate than a new vehicle?
As a group, Canadians have given GM and Chrysler – two bankrupt automotive giants – a total of about $14 billion. That’s 14 thousand million – a figure around which I have trouble wrapping my math-challenged brain. If you spent $1 million a day, it would take you almost 40 years until you were broke. You get the idea. It’s a bundle.
And I don’t remember being asked if I wanted to buy a Chevy Malibu or a Dodge Challenger. But it looks like we’re all buying them anyway, which must be particularly irksome to Ford owners, a breed that never much liked Chevs or Chryslers in the first place. Ford may be on shaky financial ground, but it hasn’t asked us for help and hopes to turn things around without a handout.
I don’t know how many drivers there are in Canada (Google was no help) but suppose there are 10 million, give or take a hundred thousand or so. Let’s fire up GM and Chrysler plants in Canada and start churning out a car for each of us. It will save jobs and generate taxes, keep auto industry suppliers open. When we take delivery of the car, we can pay the freight charge.
It can be a win-win situation for everyone and don’t we all love it when we inadvertently fall into a win-win situation?
Some other win-win scenarios:
• You get fired from a job you secretly hated all along and the payroll computer mistakenly sends you a paycheque for months.
• You get so sick you miss work for three weeks and lose weight at the same time.
• Your two favourite colours are Blue and Blue Light.
• When you check in at the Do Drop Inn, the sheets are clean and the TV remote works.
• The box of Popsicles you just bought is more than half full of the best flavour of all, root beer, and contains not a single banana-flavoured confection.
• And finally, much to your astonishment, the grubby punk in the hoodie and droopy drawers who entered the convenience store a few seconds ago was not packing a handgun with robbery on his mind and even held the door for you when you left together.