It ain’t fancy, but it’s home for the next two months!

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…shortly, anyway. First lunching at my favourite resto on Earth, the Yang Sheng. My wake will be here. 

Had a great chat with two very impressive and highly professional Conservatives, while I was here. I won’t name them (a) to protect their careers and (b) to keep everyone guessing. 

BBQ pork and noodle in soup awaits!

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Anyone miss me yet?

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That little person? That’s my daughter. She is amazing. Tonight, somewhat older, she graduates from high school – and, I suspect, she’ll be graduating on the honour roll.

It’s been quite a journey for her, and us, her family. From Whitehorse, to Ottawa, to Vancouver, to Toronto. And this weekend, she’s going back to camp to be a counsellor, and – after that – she’s off to Dal. She was accepted at every single university she applied to – Brock, Waterloo, Lakehead, Guelph, Trent, others – and she was offered scholarships, too. Unlike her closest friends, she has to work hard – really hard – for every “A” she got. But she got plenty.

Every single morning for years, she has gotten up at 5 a.m. to get to the swimming pool, where she turned out to be a bit of a star. She intends to try out for Dal’s vaunted swim team, and she wants to get to the Olympic trials, too. Given how hard she works at things, I think she just might make it.

She has had plenty of struggles. A few years ago, the ostensibly Christian elementary school she attended decided to have a fundraiser at an exclusive golf club down on the water. Given that the golf club had had a history of barring minorities – like First Nations people, and since our daughter is (as of last week) a certified citizen of the Carcross-Tagish First Nation in the Yukon – we objected. Some Rosedale wannabe parents fought us on that, and I fought back. We ended up pulling her out of there, and we haven’t talked to any of those snobs since.

Our daughter, meanwhile, has grown up into this calm, quiet, determined person with great taste in music (we go to all-ages punk shows together all the time, and she loves Bad Religion) and a quirky sense of humour (she and Son 3 and I can recite Scott Pilgrim vs. The World by heart).  Oh, and her bedroom is messy all the time.  And she loves hoodies and Uggs.  She’s an atheist, and she couldn’t be less interested in politics, and she thinks SFH is goofy (all of which I think is wonderful, because she arrived at those positions on her own).

So, daughter, I say to you – in the presence of the many wk.com web site-visiting folks who have gotten to know you a little bit, over the years – I am so proud of you, and I love you tons.  I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by, but it has.  And, tonight, there you will be – holding your diploma, and heading off to another part in your life, one that won’t involve your parents or brothers as much.

We’ll still be there at poolside, however, cheering you on, and forever reminding you that you are (and forever will be) so, so amazing.

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Pic sent by Milo, their Nasties-knowing manager!  Will they let us open for them when they return to this side of the pond? Stay tuned!

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Quote:

The Prime Minister’s office sent information yesterday to The Advance regarding a money-losing speech Liberal leader Justin Trudeau made in Barrie in 2007.

On Monday, PMO communications officer Erica Meekes sent The Advance details of an engagement that netted Trudeau a $10,000 fee, but left Georgian College with a $4,118 shortfall. The information was sent via email with the caveat it be referred to as coming from a “source,” not the PMO, when used.

“As a follow-up to the growing controversy over the weekend on Justin Trudeau charging charities for his speaking services, I have enclosed further materials that demonstrate the scope of this practice, cost on the organizations, and in many cases, poor outcomes and large deficits as a result of his speaking tour,” the email stated. “As discussed, these materials are provided to you on background, and should be attributed to a ‘source.’”

Lessons to be learned from this extraordinary story:

1.  If you want something to be off-the-record or background, reach an agreement in advance, not post facto;

2.  The media in this country, formerly deferential, are now turning on the Harper Conservatives with ferocity and as one beast; and

3.  Justin Trudeau still has them spooked – otherwise, why make such a pathetically-transparent attempt to change the channel, orchestrated in the highest office in the land?

Oh, and Barrie Advance folks?  You’ve got balls.  Well done.

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What part of Canada is the most corrupt?

After Monday — and if you were to ask Maclean’s magazine — it would seem to be Quebec. Monday morning, Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum was arrested at his home by members of the province’s anti-corruption unit. Ironically, Applebaum was named Montreal’s interim mayor last November — because the previous mayor, Gérald Tremblay, was forced to resign due to corruption allegations.

Before Monday’s events, the City of Laval asked to be placed under trusteeship, after gangsterism and fraud charges had been laid against its former mayor and 37 others. NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair has claimed — 17 years after the fact — that mayor tried to hand him an envelope full of cash.

And, earlier, one political organizer almost boasted to the inquiry that he had rigged at least 60 municipal and provincial campaigns since 1995. Around the same time, Stephen Harper patronage appointee Arthur Porter -the powerful former head of Canada’s spy agency watchdog — was named in an arrest warrant for his role in the construction of a Montreal hospital. He’s now in Panama, fighting extradition.

Right about now, Maclean’s magazine is saying, “Told you so.” Back in 2010, a publicity seeking polemicist there wrote a ludicrous story headlined, “The most corrupt province.” Said the magazine: “The history of corruption is…long and deep in Quebec.”

Political corruption exists in Quebec, as the Charbonneau Commission — and, before that, the Gomery Commission –made clear.

But it is inaccurate and unfair to suggest Quebec is alone, or the most corrupt.

In recent years, the politics of every province has been muddied by corruption allegations. A quick recap:

• British Columbia: Under the Liberals, the provincial legislature was raided in a kickback scandal — and, earlier, the NDP was found to have siphoned monies raised for charity into its own coffers.
• Alberta: Last month, a former municipal official was arrested in connection to yet another alleged construction-related kickback scheme — and, before that, political parties were found to have been illegally receiving money from municipalities for, among other things, golf games.
• Saskatchewan: The province’s PC party essentially ceased to exist after 14 of their MLAs were convicted of fraud and breach of trust in an expense account scam. Even the deputy premier was convicted, and given a year in prison.
• Manitoba: The Legislature Building in Winnipeg itself stands as a symbol of political corruption — having been erected, almost literally, on a foundation of kickbacks and bribes. Manitoba’s lieutenant-governor ordered an unprecedented inquiry into the affair, which led to the resignation of the then-premier.
• Ontario: One of the biggest political scandals in years saw the head of the Ontario air ambulance service secretly paying himself nearly $5 million over a two-year period, making him perhaps the highest-paid public official in Canadian history. A police investigation continues, and into gas plants, too.
• Atlantic provinces: $4 million paid in bribes in Nova Scotia; a former New Brunswick premier quits politics entirely after becoming enmeshed in a construction conflict-of-interest scandal; a federal Conservative minister was accused of corruption in the House in a hydroelectric deal, and later lost his seat in a byelection.

And so on, and so on.

Is Quebec the worst? Decide for yourself. But before you start throwing stones, take a good look around you.

The chances are pretty good you live in a glass house.

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I was up at the cabin all weekend, attending to more important matters.  So I didn’t hear about Scott Reid’s attack on Jean Chretien in the Ottawa Citizen until I got back.

I won’t link to it.  It’s a piece of shit, and what you’d expect.

Here, however, is just a little of what you need to know about Scott Reid.

• December 2005: Reid says, on national TV, that poor parents would choose “beer and popcorn” over the well-being of their children.  The statement was considered to be one of the reasons the Liberals lost power shortly afterwards.
• June 2005: Reid is forced to issue an apology to me, and pay significant damages, for libel.  Reid admitted he was “intemperate” and lacked “civility.”  With the thousands that were paid, we built a deck at the aforementioned cabin, which we still call “The Scott Reid Memorial Structure.”  True story.
• October 2004: Reid is forced to apologize to the then-Premier of Newfoundland, for threatening him over an offshore accord. “He’ll pay for it,” hissed Reid, who caucus members wanted fired over the incident.

And so on.

There’s plenty more, but you get the picture.  To Jean Chretien, I say: Scott Reid is (unfortunately) living, breathing proof of that old maxim: you’ve been called worse things by way better people.

Beer and popcorn boy isn’t fit to lick the bottom of your shoe.

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