A U.S. court has now said no – in an, ahem, huge judgment, here.

Which moves to reprise my column on Canada’s worst-ever minister, Melanie Jolie. Here it is.

Dear Minister Joly:

May I call you Melanie?

You’ve blocked my access to your ministerial Twitter account, so please forgive the formality of an open letter. I sense that I’ve upset you, which concerns me deeply.

Let’s leave aside, for a moment, the propriety of a public servant (that’s you) blocking the access of one of your employers (that’s me) to one of the official platforms you (a public servant) use to communicate with the likes of me (one of your employers). Let’s leave all that aside for a moment.

Let’s get to the pith and substance of the matter, shall we?

Have I been critical of your performance as a cabinet minister? Well, yes, you could say that. Among other things, I think you are possibly the worst cabinet minister in the history of Confederation. You make Bev Oda look like Margaret Thatcher. You make Stockwell Day seem positively Churchillian. You stink at this politics stuff, you know?

The evidence before the court of public opinion is myriad and multiple.  It is overwhelming.

Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations, for example.  In my experience, countries only get one opportunity to celebrate their 150th birthday.  Governments, meanwhile, get plenty of notice that a 150th birthday celebration is coming.

You rendered our 150th in Ottawa a fiasco, however.  And don’t just take my word for it.  Here’s just a sampling of the bon mots sent to you by other citizens (who, again, are your employers):

• “Shame on you Ottawa. Shame on you Heritage Canada and the organizers. You failed us!”

• “I have never seen such a poor, chaotic display. Shame on you Ottawa.”

• “The organizers of Canada Day 2017 should be ashamed of themselves for the shoddy work that went into this year’s event.”

• “Please, [Minister Joly], I beg you to step out of your protective shell and acknowledge what a mess Canada Day was and take some responsibility for it.”

• “Time for you to resign!”

But you weren’t done.  Nope.  The Netflix announcement – which essentially saw the streaming behemoth being granted tax-free status for a piddling amount of investment in Canada’s cultural sector, and most particularly in the province you profess to represent – was also a debacle.

A sampling of commentary about the Netflix mess:

• Globe: “[Joly’s] fall from grace in her home province has been swift and merciless, sped by her maladroit attempts to sell a deal with Netflix…”

• National Post: “[Joly] she has been savaged in Quebec media, artistic and political circles.”

• Journal de Montreal: “[Joly sounds] like a living answering machine having a nervous breakdown.”

But there’s more!

As you will recall, there was the matter of the plaque affixed to the new Holocaust Monument in Ottawa.  It didn’t mention the six million.  Or the word “Jews.” Or “anti-Semitism.”  You hurriedly ordered the plaque replaced, but not before just about every Jew in Canada noticed.

The resulting headline in the Washington Post, then, actually made me wince: “Canada forgot to mention Jews on new Holocaust monument dedication plaque.”

Ouch.

Anyway.  Let’s forget about the Holocaust Monument, and the Netflix thing, and Canada 150.  Let’s forget about all that.  Let’s turn the page. Let’s focus, instead, on your latest decision, which I will render all-caps, because I think it merits it:

MELANIE JOLY HAS SPENT $5 MILLION TO BUILD A HOCKEY RINK ON PARLIAMENT HILL.

And it’s not just any $5 million hockey rink.  No, not in Joly World.  It is a $5 million hockey rink that:

• Prohibits the playing of hockey.

• Will be in existence for less than a month.

• Is a block from the biggest skating rink in the world, the Rideau Canal.

Oh, and the Toronto Star reported this: “The rink, which will be available for free public skating from Dec. 7 to Jan. 1, is budgeted to cost about $215,385 per day that it’s open.”

One of my readers informed me that works out to about $300 per skater, per leisurely skate.  I’m not sure Wayne Gretzky made that much in his prime with the Oilers, Melanie.

And here’s what you had to say about Skate-gate: “We believe that it is really good news because this will be here for a month, and this will support, of course, important programming.”

“Really good news.”

It isn’t, Melanie.  It isn’t.  It is a disgrace.  It is disgusting.  It is an actual scandal. It is.

Melanie, it is also time for you to go.  You aren’t helping your reputation – and you are regularly hurting the reputation of this government, which is a not-bad government, as governments go.  Resign, for the love God, resign.

Oh, and I’d tell you that on Twitter, too.  If you weren’t, you know, blocking me.

Your friend,

Etc.

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The email arrived at 6:03 a.m. It was accompanied with a little graphic of a flashing red siren, up near the top, presumably to signal its importance.

“Take action,” the email said.  “Tell the Canadian Government you’re disappointed.”

The email was authored by the “CEO” of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, in Ottawa.   “Yesterday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed to acknowledge that it is Hamas – not Israel – that is responsible for the current violence on the Gaza-Israel border.  This is very disappointing – and we must let him know its unacceptable.”

If you clicked on that last part, it mines your data, and then it takes you to a three-paragraph letter to Trudeau.  If you click on some buttons, the paragraphs and the wording get changed around, so that the Prime Minister is under the false impression that the letter-writer authored it him or herself.

In the letter, the lobby group’s “CEO” makes no specific reference to the 104 Palestinians – among them 12 children, one an eight-month-old baby named Leila Anwar Ghandoor – who have been killed during the course of the demonstrations at the Gaza Strip. Nor did his letter mention the number of people who have been injured – more than 12,600.

Oh, and one (1) Israeli soldier has been injured.

(And, before either side bombards my inbox, please be advised that none of the above information comes from Israel or Hamas.  It comes from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who get called in where there’s complex emergencies and natural disasters. Canada helps fund it.)

Also not mentioned in the CIJA letter is the name of one of the wounded: Dr. Tarek Loubani, an emergency-room physician from London, Ont.  A sniper shot Dr. Loubani in the legs with high-velocity tactical rounds.  At the time, he was wearing one of those distinctive green surgeon’s outfits, and he was standing with several orange-vested paramedics.  He wasn’t near any of the protestors when he was hit.

Dr. Loubani, who has worked in several war zones as an emergency doctor, told theGlobe and Mail: “I am very seasoned about not being shot at. I know where to stand. I know where to be. I know how not to get shot. Snipers don’t reach me because of mistakes. I did everything right. We were all huddled. We were high visibility. It was quiet at the exact moment I got shot.”

In other words, this Canadian man was targeted by a sniper in the service of a foreign nation.  The sniper would have known he or she was aiming at a doctor.  Perhaps he or she had orders to do so.

One of the clearly-identified paramedics rushed to assist Dr. Loubani.  Later that same day, a sniper targeted him, too, and killed him.

As noted, the CIJA letter said nothing about the attempted murder of Dr. Loubani. The Israeli Embassy apparently didn’t say much about it, either, simply referring the matter to a “fact-finding team” with the Israeli Defence Forces – that is, the organization that attempted to kill the Canadian.  The IDF would investigate the IDF.

All this proved to be a bit too much for Canada’s Prime Minister, and rightly so.  The use of disproportionate force was “inexcusable,” Justin Trudeau said.

And: “We are appalled that Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian citizen, is among the wounded – along with so many unarmed people, including civilians, members of the media, first responders, and children.”

At this juncture, some disclosure: I have been a member of the board of the former Canada-Israel Committee (CIC).  I have been a legal advisor to the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC). I have worked for most of my adult life exposing and opposing anti-Semitism.  I love Israel and Israelis.  I am a Zionist.

I parted ways with Canada’s Jewish leadership about a decade ago, however, after a dispute with the aforementioned “CEO.” Someone in the Jewish leadership had decided to ferry two Muslim-hating white supremacists on a junket to Israel.  One of them, blogger Kathy Shaidle, has said this of Muslims:  “Your religion is fucking retarded…[you are] ungrateful belligerent foreign savages…most of them can’t even read…What we really need to do is stop immigration from Pakistan and other crazy Muslim countries filled with illiterate, violent tribal peasants…”  She has also called Muslim children “parasites.”

Parasites.

When I pointed out Shaidle’s statements to the “CEO,” and objected to her being feted in Israel, I was removed from the CIC and CJC.  I haven’t spoken to the “CEO” since.

In the interim, however, the exceedingly-well-paid “CEO” has overseen the elimination of the CIC and the historic CJC.  CIJA has also lurched to the Right, where it has become little more than a mouthpiece for the Likud Party. To many, in fact, CIJA has become a puny echo chamber for Donald Trump’s Islamophobic Middle Eastern policy.

I again looked at the email from the “CEO,” trying to detect a reference to the baby, Leila Anwar Ghandoor – or even for Dr. Loubani, a Canadian who was in Gaza to save lives.  There was no mention of either.

So I looked for the “unsubscribe” button, down at the bottom of his email, and I clicked it.

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Random thoughts on that startling Abacus poll this morning:

• On the one hand, the Abacus survey doesn’t entirely take into account regional realities, seat distribution, and turnout – so Doug is still way ahead, as in the 2016 Electoral College in the US
• On the other hand, the PC-407 mess – which, to be fair, predates Doug’s arrival as leader – isn’t really reflected in the period in which Abacus was polling
• On The One Hand, um, again, regular readers know my long-held view that “scandal” stuff does not excite voters nearly as much as it does the media or politicos – mainly because normal people think those of us in politics/media are all crooks anyway
• But back, er, to The Other Hand: the media are frustrated that Doug is winning without (in their view) working for it – so it’s in their interest to drive this 407 narrative to make it more of a race

NDP surging in latest Ontario poll: PC 35, NDP 34, Liberal 24. https://t.co/kpMilfHpq0

— National Newswatch (@natnewswatch) May 20, 2018

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