Happy birthday

— 02.15.2019 01:15 AM

Many guys will understand what I mean when I say this: your father is both a bit of light, and a bit of shadow, over your path through life.

Mine, T. Douglas Kinsella, MD, OC, would have been 87 years old today. So many years after we lost him, he remains a constant in our lives. He still illuminates some of the path. Without even being here, he still quietly persuades me to examine the choices I have made.

Me? I have made bad choices. I have been reckless and cruel with too many. I have not lived by the single rule he left us.

“Love people, and be honest,” he said to us, and I often feel I have done neither.

He saved many lives as a physician, and he won accolades, and he was a member of the Order of Canada. But for us – my brothers, my nephew he raised, my closest friends – he was the man we aspired to be. Not for the distinctions he received, but for how he was, in his soul.

He was unfailingly honest; he was kind to everyone he met. He married his high school sweetheart, and was with her every single day for 50 years, and my God how they loved each other. We would sit there at the kitchen table in Calgary or Kingston or Montreal, and we would listen to him. He’d listen to us, too, and persuade us to try and figure things out. There were some great times, around that table.

The best thing is having a father like that. The harder thing is knowing that you will never be like him.

I had a dream that he died in 9/11; I don’t know why, but I did. I woke up weeping, and remembered that I wasn’t a boy anymore, and that he has been gone for more than a decade. I don’t think he would like what his son has become. I mostly don’t.

So I put on my pants and shoes, and went out into the day, looking for what’s left of the path.

Happy birthday. I miss you.


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#LavScam shocker coming

— 02.14.2019 04:03 PM

Hearing a poll is coming.

Hearing that the pollster started fielding before #LavScam erupted.

Hearing the pollster was also in the field for two days afterwards – and caught plenty of the negative reactions Canadians are feeling.

Hearing that there has been a significant shift – and not in a good way for Justin Trudeau.

At all.


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UPDATED TWICE: why the chair of the House Justice Committee thinks Jody was demoted

— 02.14.2019 02:44 PM

The male Cowardly Chair of the Justice Committee opining on the reason why Jody Wilson-Raybould was demoted.

Spoiler alert: the Cowardly Chair thinks it’s lack of French. Seriously. He says it, right at the 5:30 mark.

UPDATE: Anthony says I’m a liar, here. You decide. But I sense some folks are starting to get a bit, you know, nervous.

UPDATED AGAIN: He said it twice! Here he is saying the same crazy crap to Graham Richardson! Who’s the absolute liar now, pal?


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The Standing Cowards on Justice and Human Rights

— 02.14.2019 10:12 AM

A bit of next week’s Hill Times column:

The cowards included the House of Commons committee that professes to be all about “justice and human rights,” but doesn’t espouse either. Last week, the Liberal members of that committee actually voted to deny you the opportunity to testify about what you know in the metastasizing SNC-Lavalin obstruction of justice scandal.  They did that, right out in the open. They voted, instead, to shield their political masters in Justin Trudeau’s office, and convene secret meetings.

These are their names: Anthony Housefather, the obsequious, sycophantic weakling who leads the committee.  Ali Ehsassi, who is alleged to be a lawyer, and said this of the alleged obstruction of justice: “there is nothing to be concerned about.”  Colin Fraser, who is thankfully quitting politics, and who also claims to have once practiced criminal law.  A nonentity named Ron McKinnon, who actually said the committee shouldn’t invite any “random people” from PMO to testify – even though the Opposition had a decidedly non-random list, ready to go.

Oh, and Randy Boissonnault and Iqra Khalid.  Those two, in particular, distinguished themselves as Nixonian exemplars.  When this sordid, sickening affair grinds to its inevitable end, in a courtroom somewhere, it is Boissonnault and Khalid who will receive special commendations for unalloyed dishonesty and cowardice.  Boissonnault, for saying out loud – like Donald Trump, who says it all the time and in what lawyers call “similar fact-situations” – that the whole affair is “a witch hunt.” 

He said that, with a straight face.

 


Comments (28)

#LavScam in tweets

— 02.13.2019 07:24 AM

From yesterday:


Comments (5)

Dear PMO, cabinet, MPs, et al.

— 02.12.2019 05:41 PM

Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.
Let her speak. Let her speak.

LET HER SPEAK.


Comments (24)