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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Dalton McGuinty, we hardly knew ye.

Every time I encountered the former Ontario premier over the course of a decade and a bit — and I did so many times, as the chair of his election war rooms in 2003, 2007 and 2011 — I’d remember that aphorism, most famously applied to one of McGuinty’s heroes, John F. Kennedy.

Funny, easygoing, family oriented, down to earth: All of those descriptions of McGuinty, written many times over the years, were true.

But it was also true that, for most of us, Dalton McGuinty was essentially unknowable. Even now, just days after he has slipped off the political stage (probably) for good, he remains an enigma wrapped in a mystery.

It may have been a case of his inner circle keeping outsiders, even ardent supporters, away from him. It may have arisen out of his desire to keep some things to himself. Whatever the reason, Dalton McGuinty was — and remains — the most private public person I have ever met.

It didn’t hurt him at the ballot box, obviously. He won a massive majority in 2003, and humiliated what back then looked like an unbeatable Conservative political machine. In 2007, he won another big majority against a formidable opponent, John Tory, one of the most decent and sensible guys you could ever hope to meet.

In 2011, he came within one seat — one seat! — of another majority government. I and others were with him on election night in Ottawa, and he wasn’t defeated by that (even though most of us were very, very disappointed). Instead, McGuinty seemed energized by the result, and looking forward to what lay ahead.

What lay ahead, unfortunately, was month after month of political gridlock, bell ringing in the legislature, scandal mongering in committee, and precious little legislation passed. Prorogation, when it came, was simply a reflection of what had been happening at Queen’s Park since the night of the 2011 election — which is to say, nothing.

His policy achievements were myriad and multiple (personal favourites: Naming a stretch of the 401 after fallen soldiers and a holiday in February).

His political achievements were significant, too: He was the winningest Ontario political leader in our lifetimes. It is unlikely anyone will match his big back-to-back-to-back wins anytime soon.

He made mistakes, certainly, as do we all.

I thought it was a mistake to not immediately resign when a new leader was selected.

I thought prorogation was probably unnecessary. I thought his press release about the deleted e-mails — which seemingly threw assorted loyalists in his office under the bus — was a terrible mistake.

Most of all, I thought it was a mistake not to do what my former boss, Jean Chretien, always taught us: Fight back.

Fight, fight, fight — never give any quarter. Never give up. Admit that you’ve lost battles, sure, but never the larger war. After working/volunteering for Dalton McGuinty for more than a decade, I still respect and admire him.owever, I was heartbroken over what happened in that press release about deleted e-mails. As I said to some equally shocked Liberal friends, “Chretien would have never, ever done that to any of us, even if we deserved it.”

My relationship with Chretien was different — basically, I had one.

McGuinty? He ends his two decades at Queen’s Park much as he began it — as a likeable, easygoing guy, who was, in his essence, totally inscrutable to all but a few.

What motivated him? What angered him? What were his regrets and his proudest achievements? What made him happiest, in the centre of his soul?

We never knew. And now, after so long, we still don’t.

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Dr. T. Douglas KINSELLA, CM, BA, MD, FACP, FRCPC.

Like some men, and as was the practice in some families, my brothers and I did not hug my father a lot. As we got older in places like Montreal, or Kingston, or Dallas or Calgary, we also did not tell him that we loved him as much as we did. With our artist Mom, there was always a lot of affection, to be sure; but in the case of my Dad, usually all that was exchanged with his four boys was a simple handshake, when it was time for hello or goodbye. It was just the way we did things.

There was, however, much to love about our father, and love him we did. He was, and remains, a giant in our lives – and he was a significant presence, too, for many of the patients whose lives he saved or bettered over the course a half-century of healing. We still cannot believe he is gone, with so little warning.

Thomas Douglas Kinsella was born on February, 15, 1932 in Montreal. His mother was a tiny but formidable force of nature named Mary; his father, a Northern Electric employee named Jimmy, was a stoic man whose parents came over from County Wexford, in Ireland. In their bustling homes, in and around Montreal’s Outremont, our father’s family comprised a younger sister, Juanita, and an older brother, Howard. Also there were assorted uncles – and foster siblings Bea, Ernie, Ellen and Jimmy.

When he was very young, Douglas was beset by rheumatic fever. Through his mother’s ministrations, Douglas beat back the potentially-crippling disease. But he was left with a burning desire to be a doctor.

Following a Jesuitical education at his beloved Loyola High School in Montreal, Douglas enrolled at Loyola College, and also joined the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps. It was around that time he met Lorna Emma Cleary, at a Montreal Legion dance in April 1950. She was 17 – a dark-haired, radiant beauty from the North End. He was 18 – and a handsome, aspiring medical student, destined for an officer’s rank and great things.

It was a love like you hear about, sometimes, but which you rarely see. Their love affair was to endure for 55 years – without an abatement in mutual love and respect.

On a hot, sunny day in June 1955, mid-way through his medical studies at McGill, Douglas and Lorna wed at Loyola Chapel. Then, three years after Douglas’ graduation from McGill with an MD, first son Warren was born.

In 1963, second son Kevin came along, while Douglas was a clinical fellow in rheumatism at the Royal Vic. Finally, son Lorne arrived in 1965, a few months before the young family moved to Dallas, Texas, to pursue a research fellowship. In the United States, Douglas’ belief in a liberal, publicly-funded health care system was greatly enhanced. So too his love of a tolerant, diverse Canada.

In 1968, Douglas and his family returned to Canada and an Assistant Professorship in Medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston. More than 35 years later, it was at Kingston General Hospital – in the very place where Douglas saved so many lives – that his own life would come to a painless end in the early hours of June 15, 2004, felled by a fast-moving lung cancer.

Kingston was followed in 1973 by a brief return to Montreal and a professorship at McGill. But an unstable political environment – and the promise of better research in prosperous Alberta – persuaded the family to journey West, to Calgary.

There Lorna and Douglas would happily remain for 25 years, raising three sons – and providing legal guardianship to grandson Troy, who was born in 1982. At the University of Calgary, and at Foothills Hospital, Douglas would achieve distinction for his work in rheumatology, immunology and – later – medical bioethics.

He raised his boys with one rule, which all remember, but none observed as closely as he did: “Love people, and be honest.” His commitment to ethics, and healing – and his love and honesty, perhaps – resulted in him being named a Member of the Order of Canada in 1995.

On the day that the letter arrived, bearing Governor-General Romeo LeBlanc’s vice-regal seal, Douglas came home from work early – an unprecedented occurence – to tell Lorna. It was the first time I can remember seeing him cry.

As I write this, I am in a chair beside my father’s bed in a tiny hospital room in Kingston, Ont.,where he and my mother returned in 2001 to retire. It is night, and he has finally fallen asleep.

My father will die in the next day or so, here in the very place where he saved lives. He has firmly but politely declined offers of special treatment – or even a room with a nicer view of Lake Ontario.

Before he fell asleep, tonight, I asked him if he was ready. “I am ready,” he said. “I am ready.”

When I leave him, tonight, this is what I will say to him, quietly: “We all love you, Daddy. We all love you forever.”

[Warren Kinsella is Douglas Kinsella’s eldest son. His father died two nights later.]

[From Globe’s Lives Lived, June 15, 2004.]

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…it’s a punk rock video, seen by thousands!

And, now, it’s a story reported by not just the Toronto Star and Gawker – now no less than CTV is saying there is evidence of the video, too.  And the police have that evidence, and have had it for weeks.

The noose tightens.  Wise up, conservatives: (a) the more you get close to the stink on this “mayor,” the more the stink will get on you, and (b) HE IS DESTROYING YOUR BRAND FAR BEYOND GTA.

Quote:

CTV News has learned that Toronto Police were investigating the existence of an alleged video involving Mayor Rob Ford, several weeks before the story first appeared in the Toronto Star.

As part of the investigation leading to raids on Thursday, officers obtained telephone wire-tap evidence.

A highly-placed source confirms to CTV News that on those wiretaps, persons of interest discussed that video in detail, and referred to the mayor’s alleged presence in the video.

CTV News has not seen the video, and cannot confirm its existence or authenticity.

The video purports to show the mayor smoking from what appears to be a crack pipe.

 

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• Postmedia’s Glen McGregor harangues Conservative MP Michelle Rempel about the origins of the hair products she uses. I am not making this up. Rempel was much more restrained than I would have been. I would have told McGregor – he of “Rape Caroline Mulroney Contest” infamy – to fuck off. (Oh, and that asshole Paul McLeod of the Chronically Horrible thinks it okay for McGregor to do what he did. What a scumbag.)/li>
• Notorious shock jock and coward – and Rob Ford enabler – John Oakley permits a piece of human garbage to refer to Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath as “a whore.” That’s a quote. No real surprise, either, coming as it does on the program that has provided Ford with an uncritical forum for years – and which said nada when Ford last week removed the only remaining woman from the powerful city executive committee.

Politicians making sexist comments? Happens too often, and the media rightly condemn it when it does.

Now, what about the media making sexist comments about female politicians?

I’d like to see our media condemn that, too.

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