Tag: politics

HR LIASON: A PIÑATA THAT ISN’T THERE

Oh my God.

I can’t think of anything better to really say as the HR Liaison issue came up a third time, and for a third time it was like wading in a pool full of absolute muck.

I’ve never encountered brick-think on such a scale as I witnessed Tuesday night at the Renfrew Town Council meeting.

These people seemingly have a huge degree of difficulty when it comes to determining how Stage 3 grievances are to be heard.  It’s not the most complicated of things, but you’d never know it from sitting in this room for what seems like hours talking about the same thing over and over and over again, all the while cancelling out options with votes as the back-and-forth debate rages, and heads shake.

All of the very worst things that come to mind when criticizing Council come to the forefront on this particular issue.  Add to that the usual ambiguity and imperfection from certain staff by way of explanations that don’t address the question.

It’s like watching a blind-folded kid swinging wildly at a piñata, only there’s no piñata.  Or if you prefer, taking a bunch of cats for a walk without a leash. Walking through a cornfield?

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RUSSIA’S GAMBLE

In most ways, Russia is a difficult nation to understand, as Russians are a difficult people to understand.

At the same time, they can stand astride the apex of the world in the fields of arts, music, sports, even culture, yet be the most despicable collection of louts on the planet.

They know nothing but strength, yet have struggled to attain it and keep it.  They are a geo-political dichotomy, almost as if they can represent the very best, and the very worst of what man-kind can offer.

Plus, they’re just flat-out weird, in a neanderthal type of way.

They are the world’s most paranoid people, and that’s saying a lot.  But they are, and they feel that everyone hates them, one of the few things they can manage to be right about.

If they had a choice between authoritarian government and democracy and freedom, they’d take the authoritarian approach every time, since they don’t have any historical clue as to what the other two things even mean, much less what to do with them.

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THE RESURGENCE OF JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

It wasn’t that long ago where Justin Trudeau took his own version of his dad’s famous “long walk in the snow” and determined that he could no longer be Liberal leader, and by extension, prime minister.

Then Donald Trump came along.

The impact was immediate.  Suddenly the Liberals start to rocket up the polls, as Canadians coalesce around their political leadership in response to an unprovoked war with the United States.  And in a twist of cruel, ironic fate, it’s Justin Trudeau that seems to be the choice of Canadians in dealing with a dangerous mad man.

Are these the machinations of the political gods, keen to find opportunities for their own personal merriment?

That woke, feminist, communist traitor with his stupid socks and pretty eyebrows is now Winston Freaking Churchill?

Man, I thought that I had seen it all in my life, but apparently there’s more, much more.

Justin Trudeau is back.

Until later today.

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IN DEFENCE OF GRETZKY. SORT OF.

Sometimes I genuinely dislike my work, if that’s what this is.

Sometimes, in an effort to be as completely true to yourself and to your values, you have to say things, even do things that may come across as distasteful but, at the end of the day, are recognized as the proper thing to do.  To satisfy your conscience.

To witness the pillorying of Canadian hockey great Wayne Gretzky in his own country was, at first, something that didn’t bother me at all.  It was more with a sense of schadenfreude that I observed the pummelling The Great One was taking from his Canadian compatriots, that this was something he deserved, that he had brought it upon himself.  Serves him right kind of thing.

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COUNCIL SCRAPS OVER HR COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP

The background to this is fairly simple.

Council, until recently, would receive reports from the various committees and departments that undertook the business of the municipality.  One of those committees was an HR Committee.  The head of that committee would be part of any employee grievance process.

When Council transitioned to a Committee of the Whole format, those individual committees went by the wayside.  As for human resources matters, Council still had an HR Liaison in place, but that person wasn’t formally designated as being the replacement for the “committee” that made up the town’s part of a grievance complaint.  That’s a requirement in the collective agreement that exists between the town and its employees, and a requirement that’s not currently being fulfilled after the disbanding of the committee structure.

Staff recommended that, to close this gap, a motion was needed designating what this grievance team might look like, and several options were tendered to Council, and one of those options was recommended.

In my opinion, the staff recommendation was flawed in the first place.

It may have cemented or concretized the protocol as it currently exists, but that’s not a good enough reason to hammer forward with it.

I’m talking, again, about what form of council/staff representation takes the reins in a human resources situation involving a contract grievance brought forward by an employee.

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RECORDED VOTES THE NEW NORMAL?

Renfrew Clerk Carolynn Errett is going to find herself busier than she currently is.

During the last Renfrew Town Council meeting, no fewer than three councillors requested recorded votes.  Usually votes sail past without this technicality, but when they do, anyone beating around the bushes for voting records of politicians would be stymied by the fact that the vote would be recorded as passed or defeated, and the vote count, but not the names of the individual councillors, nor the names of the mayor or reeve, would be attached to those votes.

It appears the campaign machines of three councillors have cranked up, and the sage advisors behind those campaigns have advised their boys to request recorded votes with names attached.

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POILIEVRE “NOT A MAGA GUY”

“He’s not a MAGA guy.”

That’s what U.S.President Donald Trump said this week about Canada’s Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative party and assumed next prime minister after the next federal election, something that can happen sooner rather than later if the political environment versus the United States remains hot or heats up even more.

All razors have two sides, and that’s what makes them dangerous, especially in the hands of little kids, who have a better chance of hurting themselves than others, I guess depending upon what they do with the thing prior to inflicting damage upon themselves.

Things have not been going well recently for Poilievre, as his fortunes appear to be tied to two large things that he may not have accounted for, but really ought to have seen coming:  the resignation of Justin Trudeau and the ascendence of Trump as a de-facto dictator wannabe in the United States.

I can’t understand how theres’s not a 4’ x 8’ bulletin board in the war room over at Fort Tory that prominently features two big-idea questions:

What would we do if Trudeau were to resign?

What would we do if Trump came out swinging at us (Canada) like he intends to cause harm?

I guess those questions somehow eluded the big-thinkers in the Tory War Department, that hothouse of Conservative campaign-fighting, complete with its own rhyming section and slogan machine.  

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AMERICANS FIGHT BACK

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Some of our neighbours to the south are starting to find their heads again.

It’s a little late, maybe even too late, but as the saying goes, better late than never.  

I guess.

They’re starting to wake up to the fact that they’ve elected a monster as president for all the wrong reasons.  Many of them wanted a firmer border.  Some wanted to stop the flow of fentanyl, others the flow of immigrants, many the flow of both.  Some others wanted a crackdown on crime.  And then there was the business of chasing the woke and DEI — Diversity/Equality/Inclusion — crowd out of town.

Instead they’re getting the sellout of Ukraine, the sellout of NATO, musings of takeovers of Greenland, Canada, Gaza and Panama, and tariff wars with major allies and trade partners.

But that’s not what’s got them really mad, although any number of those listed things could cause some serious discomfort for the average American.

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A MUNICIPAL EXERCISE IN BLAME SHARING

The Town of Renfrew wants your input.

Actually, they want your complicity.

The town is pumping a survey of theirs where they hope to get some direction on where to go as they approach the time when they have to do The Big Reveal, also known as the 2025 Municipal Budget.

It’s not a document they’re overly excited about, mostly because it’s going  to be brutal on you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer of Renfrew, Ontario, the people who foot the bill and the people who will be most angry when their tax bill shows up in the mail.

The very people who will be most angry at…them.

They’re going to present this as an example of their commitment to openness and transparency, to demonstrate to you how sensitive they are to your feedback, how they’ve discovered the advantages and benefits of being up-front with the people they provide services for and to.

Sure it is.

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AMERICA WANTS GAZA TOO

Imagine, two criminals getting together to commit a crime.

America’s Donald Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

Both needed to win elections in order to stay out of jail.  Both succeeded.  It’s an irony of democracy where the system can allow thugs like these to take charge by taking advantage of a system based upon freedom and government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  Too bad people can make mistakes.  Big ones.

And they never ever learn.  Not ever.  And whoever said that those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them?  Well, that guy was on to something, because here we are, again.

Hell, even Hitler was elected back in 1933.  The Germans never saw an election again until 1949, sixteen years and 8.8 million World War 2 deaths later.  To say they might have made a big mistake back in 1933 is a huge understatement.

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