For those Gotcha Conservatives (hello, Andrew Harris!) who were impatiently bombarding me last night with emails and tweets, demanding my reaction to the gas plant schmozzle, I say this:

• I was on TV, co-hosting the Sun News Network’s excellent coverage of the Nova Scotia Liberals’ smashing victory, and therefore a little, you know, busy; and
• I don’t have any association whatsoever – zero, zippo, zilch – with the Ontario Liberals, so stop asking me to be their spokesperson.  Given who is running the show over there, I can assure you: I am an Ontario Liberal in Exile.

That said, I have penned a column about the gas plant schmozzle for this Sunday’s Sun.  I want you to buy the Sun, so here is a taste, but not the whole meal. You’re welcome.

**

…I’m from Calgary, and I’m a little slow, but I can tell you any oil patch boy or girl knows this much: the energy sector is like the stock market.  It is, in its essence, totally unpredictable.  And don’t just take my word for it.  The tall foreheads at Harvard University, for example, call it “predicting the unpredictable.”  Said one of them, in the august pages of the Harvard Business Review: energy prices and costs are “devilishly difficult to analyze, let alone predict.”

“Devilishly difficult.” I like that, because I’m a sucker for alliterations.  But also because it’s Harvard, and it’s true.  Predicting the unpredictable is bad, bad politics.

The Ontario Liberals’ mistake was that they were too helpful, and they tried to answer the question.  Had I been asked at the time – and I wasn’t – I would have said: “We promised to move those gas plants, and we’re making good on that promise.  Citizens didn’t want those gas plants, and we listened to them.  All of Ontario’s political parties favoured moving them, and all acknowledged there would be a cost.  We intend to do everything we can to keep the cost down.”

See? No numbers.  No predictions. No risk.

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There are more here. Watch them. Me, I’m my way out of the office to buy half-a-dozen Dodge Durangos, to pay for more commercials like this one.

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My Sun News Network hosting duties complete, I can now celebrate Stephen’s huge, historic win – and take a trip down memory lane, when I spoke before the Nova Scotia Liberal AGM!

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Live! A giant, disembodied, crazed head attacks Brian Lilley on the Sun News Network set on Nova Scotia election night!

Brian didn’t make it.

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Language changes.

Many eons ago at Carleton University’s journalism school, Prof. Roger Bird was listening to some of us energetically debate whether the proper spelling was “cigarette” (as The Canadian Press style guide dictated) or “cigaret” (as the Globe and Mail then bizarrely insisted).

Finally, Bird, who most of us adored, held up his hand. “Look,” he said. “Language is dynamic, guys. It changes all the time. Journalism, and society, have to accept that and reflect that.” Bird, or course, was right. Thus, every year, we hear about how new words and phrases are added to the lexicon.

The Oxford Dictionary, for instance, has just this year accepted “selfie” (a photo of oneself, taken by oneself), “phablet” (a device somewhere between smartphone and tablet), and, my personal favourite, “omnishambles,” which is defined as “a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations.”

The way in which we deal with important symbolic Canadian things, like our national anthem, are usually an omnishambles.

In 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to his credit, used the Throne Speech to announce that he wanted to restore the “original gender-neutral wording of our national anthem.”

That is, change Robert Stanley Weir’s famous lyric, “in all thy sons command,” to “in all of us command.” Two words. From what it has been, to what it originally was.

A national omnishambles thereupon erupted, with traditionalist folks, mainly Conservatives, braying and screeching that the world was about to end.

At the time, I opined that the Conservatives had made a mistake, not in the decision they had made, but in the ham-fisted way in which they had communicated it. They thereafter beat an indignified retreat, and the anthem remained as is, in all of its boys-only ingloriousness.

Until last week, that is, when a group of prominent women — Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats among them — launched a super-slick website respectfully requesting the change to the original words. Some of these wild-eyed radicals included a former Conservative prime minister and a current Conservative senator.

To those who would say “enough with changey stuff, already,” the Restore Our Anthem group say: “In our opinion, change never stops and Canada never stops evolving, nor should it.” True, that.

They go on: “An amendment of the word sons in our national anthem is one that is not meant to alienate, but rather incorporate, every person in this country who identifies themselves as Canadian — a definition that has changed significantly over the years and will continue to do so.”

No biggie, right? The group of esteemed Canadians notes, also correctly, that government has lots of other things to worry about. But tweaking two words in the national anthem shouldn’t take up too much of their time, at all.

Newspaper editorialists and columnists have mostly shrugged at the initiative, with most suggesting it is probably a good idea.

Most online commenters, who are overwhelmingly white, conservative, angry and wearing pyjamas in their mother’s basement as they type up angry missives, think the Apocalypse is nigh.

I side with Roger Bird, at that long-ago journalism class. Language changes, whether we like it or not. This is one language change that is easy to do — and overdue, too.

An omnishambles it is not.

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Snippet below. Link here.

“…According to the Toronto Police document, Lisi set about trying to retrieve a stolen phone in March.

Ford and Lisi (who has a criminal record for assaulting and threatening women) are friends and Lisi has told people that he has provided drugs to the mayor, which the Star has not been able to verify. Lisi has been an occasional driver for Ford and is known as someone who has tried to help the mayor.

…four days after the Star and Gawker published news of the crack cocaine video, Lisi made aggressive attempt to retrieve the video, visiting the home where the infamous photo of Ford was taken (Ford is pictured with a man who was later murdered and two men who were later arrested in Project Traveller).

The video, which the Star viewed three times, shows an impaired Ford smoking what appears to be crack cocaine and making homophobic and racist remarks. Ford has said he cannot comment on a video he has “not seen or does not exist.”

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Tune in!

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Glen Pearson doesn’t like what I had to say about Michael Ignatieff.  He says I’m “vicious,” “cutthroat,” “shadowy,” “arrogant,” “repellant,” “brutal,” “maddening,” and a practicioner of the “old politics.”  Wow! And those are just some of the nice things he says.

Anyway, I’m not sure what to say, or even if I should, having no recollection whatsoever of meeting Glen Pearson.  The only time he registered on my consciousness (or the public’s), in fact, is when he went on and on – and on – at the 2006 Liberal leadership convention, talking endlessly about himself, to the point that he stomped all over the time allotted for Stephane Dion to speak.  Dion’s microphone was therefore cut off, thanks to supporter Glen, who thereby impressed us all as a self-absorbed ass.

Having spent ten minutes this morning trying (vainly) to locate any evidence that Glen left behind any Parliamentary initiatives of note, I think he’s a bit upset that most of us didn’t really think about Glen that much.  To us, he recalled Pierre Trudeau’s famous maxim – you know the one.

In the end, to quote Himself, Glen was a loser, one who admitted that he and politics “never fit together.”

On that, we’d all agree.

UPDATE: From a commenter, who knows Glen well: “When Dion was elected leader, Pearson talked like he was Dion’s point man. When things started turning sour for Dion, we had an EDA meeting in which Pearson lamented that they couldn’t get rid of Dion fast enough, and had some rather nasty things to say about Dion’s character. He was Iggy’s man now.”

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Gary McHale is suing me.

McHale, who you can read about here and here and here, is suing me because I wrote a Sun Media column describing him as “an Ontario anti-Native, anti-police activist who has spent time in jail for his misadventures.”  He is also suing because I asked him why he did not bar racist Paul Fromm and the neo-Nazi Northern Alliance from attending his rallies.

I am vigorously defending the action, which will culminate in a trial in Hamilton sometime in the next few months.  I will be posting details about the trial, so that those of you who wish to attend can do so.  I fully expect the far right to be in attendance, too, as they have done so in various other such lawsuits against me in the past.

I am also seeking contributions for costs of defending McHale’s lawsuit.  If you want to contribute, please click on the “donate” button to the left, under the blogroll.  It’s going to be expensive, because we plan to fight McHale every step of the way.  If you want to donate directly to my legal team, Ruby Shiller Chan Hasan, you can do so by contacting them here.

My web site’s readers are (I think) the smartest folks on the Internet.  They have helped expose all kinds of things in the past.  I’m asking  for their help with some additional research once again, about these points:

• that McHale is anti-Native
• that McHale is anti-police
• that McHale has spent time in jail
• that Paul Fromm showed up to express support
• that the Northern Alliance showed up to show support

You can send whatever you find to me here, or in comments, below.

If you can help, in any way, I will be eternally grateful.  I intend to fight McHale for as long as it takes (in the Ian V. Macdonald case, the litigation went on for sixteen years, and all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada).  Every bit helps, as they say.

Thanks, guys.

UPDATE: McHale has tried to post a comment on this web site, saying that he “loved this post.”  Glad to hear it.  So, to the many folks who have already made generous donations – and/or who have sent along kind words – let’s keep at it!

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