Tag: politics

BAT 365: MIXING COFFEE AND POLITICS

It didn’t take long for the BATs — Boys At Timmy’s — to go sour on Mark Carney.

That’s not entirely accurate though, because in order to go sour on something, you must first have had some, albeit grudging, degree of sweetness, although that’s way too strong of a word to apply to the hard men who hold court at Tim Hortons franchises across this great land every afternoon of the week.  Long accustomed to being the primary political thinkers in their respective communities, they never really took to Carney in the first place.  Instead, when they saw the political winds shift biblically from the Conservatives to the Liberals, they decided to hold their fire and seek cover, at least and until their natural instincts of baked-in oppositional thinking kicked back in.

To see them, and to hear them rise from the metaphorical ashes and begin their campaign of perpetual sour grapes is sort of like watching a healthy ecosystem re-balance itself, like a creek snaking its way through a modern subdivision.  Except for the healthy part.

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GENERALLY SPEAKING

As Canada’s top soldier, the Chief of Defence Staff serves at the pleasure of the prime minister.  That means that, while Canada’s top soldier, you’re not the top dog when it comes to chain of command.

And that means that when you appear in public, or comment in public, it’s a really good idea that you exercise the prudence necessary to ensure that you articulate the policies, goals, and aspirations of Canada’s military in a way that’s consistent with what the political masters are saying, in this case both the prime minister and the Minister of National Defence.

So, for Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignon, it means that she needs to keep all the ducks in the proper row, as she’s ultimately accountable to Prime Minister Mark Carney and his defence minister David McGuinty.

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A DANGEROUS WOMAN GETS MORE DANGEROUS

Alberta lost around 5,600 people to Covid-19 during the epidemic that swept the world five years ago.  That’s close to 12% of the national total, not bad for a province with just about 10% of the national population.

It’s not clear what those numbers would have looked like had many Albertans not picked up their Covid vaccinations while in the heat of the battle, despite being citizens of Canada’s most vaccine-resistant province, although Saskatchewan has emerged as a bit of whack-job as well when it comes to common sense and vaccines. Alberta, after all, is the province that chased away Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province’s chief Medical Officer of Health.

Alberta, as you may already know, exists fully a century behind the rest of us when it comes to a lot of the important stuff.  As proud as they are of themselves as being the Texas of the North, that distinction only really applies to oil patches, cowboy hats, and an innate ability or inclination to just simply get everything wrong when it comes to their attitude around a lot of the important stuff, like the environment, or the basic stuff surrounding life and death.  And sadly, many in that province would rather die than admit they were wrong about something.

Totally in keeping with both herself and the hatchet-job government she leads, Premier Danielle Smith has announced that, henceforth, Covid vaccinations of the future will be available only if you pay for them, and not as a result of the government providing them.  The Alberta government estimates that the shots will cost around $110/dose, but Smith and her cronies will escape public discontent since everyone will blame it on the Trudeau Liberals.  Or the Carney Liberals.  Or any Liberals, really.

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ISRAEL STRIKES IRAN HARD

I always knew that it was inevitable.  But when the Americans told their diplomatic staff in several Middle East countries to pack up and head home on Wednesday, it became imminent.

Israel attacked Iran again, and this time it was for keeps.  These two countries have been in a shadow war for decades, and have recently traded blows, right around the time that Israel was putting the boots to all of Iran’s proxy terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.  

When that it-for-tat business was happening between the two, I took note of the Israeli targets in Iran, and mostly took note of the fact that the Israelis stayed well clear of Iran’s nuclear facilities, something that most international pundits gave Israel credit for, as in credit for showing such remarkable restraint.  Those international pundits have a shocking naivety.

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TOPPLED STATUES AND HISTORICAL ACCURACY

We keep putting him back up, and they keep knocking him back down.

We are the people of Ontario, as represented by the government of Ontario, and as driven by the premier of Ontario, meaning Doug Ford.

They are the people who protest the things that we do, and show their displeasure through paint attacks, graffiti, and pushing things over, even smashing them when possible.

The him is Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.  Actually not Sir John in the flesh, because he’s long dead, but a bronze statue of him, this one in a prominent position at Queen’s Park, the location of our provincial government.

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COUNCILLOR ADVOCATES FOR HOME OWNERS

It’s late in the third period and your team is down by three goals.  Or it’s the seventh inning, and the boys are down by four, your starter has been knocked out of the game, and your best player swinging the hottest bat was injured back in the third, yet remains in the game, albeit hobbled and a shadow of his regular self.

You’re at a Renfrew Town Council meeting, your eyes are stinging, and you’re questioning all the concepts of good governance you’ve ever learned and experienced.  You’re two-and-a-half hours into the meeting, and you’re convinced that if you stay any longer, it may become a police matter, or a health matter, or both.

So you leave the rink.  Shut off the television.  Gather your belongings and leave.

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COUNCILLOR ASKS FOR BAFN REPORT

Props and bravo to John McDonald.

The Renfrew councillor introduced a motion whereby town staff is to identify and and provide all relevant documentation outlining the relationship existing between the Town of Renfrew and the Bonnechere Algonquin First Nation, especially as it pertains to the BAFN presence at Ma-Te-Way.

This is one of two items I requested information on last October, but was told to go stuff myself by Clerk Carolynn Errett and former Acting CAO Kelly Latendresse on the grounds that the request was “political” in nature.  And staff doesn’t do political.  They told me to direct the question to Council instead.  Which was really cool because that was the very body that refused to even acknowledge my request in the first place, much less respond to it.

But now, after eight months, a real live councillor, John McDonald, is going to take a crack at it.

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INDISPENSABLE? INDEFENSIBLE?

The first thing I noticed was the seating plan. 

As a former teacher, changes to seating plans were almost traumatic events for students since they had no idea what neighbourhood of the classroom they may be calling their new home, and, of course, had no idea of who their new neighbours might be.  No matter the intent behind the seating shift, it was inevitable that some students would be delighted by the change, with others less so.  And the major determining factor as to whether you were a “winner” or a “loser” was entirely social, and having to do with friends, or possibly a lack thereof.

I tuned in to the Renfrew Town Council live-feed after-the-fact, viewing it this morning rather than putting myself through the whole death by a thousand cuts experience you get when you attend in person.  And the first thing I noticed was what I call the head table, the one where the big cheeses sit, the mayor — Head of Council — the CAO, and the Clerk.

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STRONG MAYOR + WEAK MEDIA

What do you get when you simultaneously have a strong mayor and a weak or non-existent media?

This isn’t a joke, where there’s some amusing punchline to follow that question.  This is a joke because this is what happens when the wool is being thrown over our collective eyes.

I’ve already written about strong mayors, about that senseless move by Premier Doug Ford to empower mayors unnecessarily, while at the same time seriously undermining local and municipal democracy.

This comes from a populist premier who champions things like “a buck a beer” and drinking alcohol in public parks.  He’s the guy that allowed alcohol sales in corner and grocery stores, without fully mapping out how all those empties are going to be collected and processed.  He spent millions in penalties to the Beer Store to break an agreement already on place just to get that booze into those stores.  All this from a guy who doesn’t drink himself.

Ford is a guy who moves based upon whatever the last horoscope might have said, or whatever the last lobbyist may have promised.  He’ll bash ahead with his newly-discovered mission until we make him stop.  Then he apologizes, gives us the patented “Gee, golly, shucks,” and we forgive him for it, even giving him credit for having the political courage to admit when he’s wrong.

He is the quintessential ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission kind of fellow.

And full disclosure, I’ve voted for him.  Not every time, mind you, but I have.

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GERMANY AWAKENS

There’s almost nobody left alive today who would remember this from a first-person perspective.

For over eighty years, European security has been guaranteed by the United States.  The continent that had given birth to two world wars, and plenty of others before that, has seen a peace that is virtually unrivalled by any other time in its history.  And as I mentioned, that’s primarily the dividend of having the Americans as a strategic ally.

The enemy is Russia, once known as the Soviet Union, or even the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) as they were once formerly known.  From 1945 until 1991, the Russians were the existential threat, poised as they were to roll right over Western Europe, but held in check by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) which had the United States as its most powerful member.  During this time, known as the Cold War, the two sides stared each other down over the barricades erected by the Russians, not to keep us out, but to keep their occupied populations in.

Then, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed upon itself, the victim of its many unsolvable problems, primarily involving Russian incompetence and a general backwardness.  From that point, with Russia a mere rump of its former self, Western Europe, and in fact Eastern Europe as well (formerly members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact) began to experience e a peace dividend, where money no longer had to be spent in untold billions to manufacture and procure arms with which to defend their sovereignty against the big bad Russian bear.  The bear was off licking its wounds, and Europe thrived as a result of it.

But the Russians never go away.  Never.

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