Does God exist? A daughter’s view (updated)
I wanted my daughter to go to Mass with me. Here, fittingly for modern times, is our text exchange.
UPDATE: She came in at the end of the Mass. Wow.
In Sunday’s Sun: could Trudeau lose?
As the Liberal party’s leadership race inches towards its mid-April conclusion, one fact is undeniable: Justin Trudeau has won it.
The Montreal MP has raised more money than all of his opponents combined. He attracts fans in the thousands, even in previously hostile territory like rural Western Canada.
And successive polls show that, under his leadership, the Liberals could plausibly vault from third-party status to government.
His ascent to the Liberal leadership hasn’t been without its challenges, of course. His musings about Albertans may have cost his party a real shot at winning the coveted Calgary Centre byelection. And his stated positions on the now-defunct gun registry and foreign ownership in the energy sector genuinely upset many traditional Liberals.
Meanwhile, the likes of Jason Kenney, Martha Hall-Findlay and Marc Garneau continue to fling assorted slings and arrows. But to no effect.
The verbal missteps, the undeniably rightward tilt of some of Trudeau’s policies, have done nothing to impede his momentum.
The word “juggernaut” gets applied too often in Canadian politics (remember Paul Martin?). In Trudeau’s case, it fits. No one has seen anything like this in a long, long time.
So, can anything derail the Trudeau juggernaut?
Paradoxically, it is the Liberal party itself that has provided its political adversaries with the ammunition they need to deny Justin Trudeau the Grit crown.
Slightly more than a year ago, more than 3,000 Liberals gathered in Ottawa’s Convention Centre and, in a textbook case of the sort of mass psychosis that occasionally seizes otherwise sensible politicos, voted to create a new category of membership: “Supporters.”
To become a “supporter,” one need only provide one’s name, address, e-mail, date of birth and check a single-sentence pledge to “support” the Liberal party, and not some other party. Once you do that, you can vote for the next Liberal party leader, just like long-time, paid-up members do. That’s it.
The risks inherent in such a ridiculous move are obvious, and certainly should have been obvious to delegates to the Liberal policy convention. Any political enemy can now sign up hordes as “supporters,” then vote for the weakest of the many no-name candidates.
Why face Justin Trudeau in 2015, when you can face off against George Takach, Deborah Coyne or Karen McCrimmon?
Never heard of Takach, Coyne or McCrimmon?
Of course you haven’t. That’s the point. They don’t even hold seats in the House of Commons, but they have arrogantly concluded they should be leader of the (formerly) most successful political machine in Western democracy.
The gaggle of nobodies crowding the stage at the Liberal leadership debates would be entertaining, were it not for the fact that their mere existence provides mischievous Conservatives and New Democrats with a truly historic opportunity to deny Trudeau’s ambitions. Cons and Dippers would be fools not to take advantage.
Will they?
Attendees at 2012’s Grit policy conflab evidently thought not.
But with Elections Canada and the RCMP now investigating the Harper Conservatives in the ongoing robocall scandal, was that such a wise decision?
In the end, the very thing that has made Trudeau seem so formidable may also be the thing that ensures he wins: His online popularity.
On social media — Facebook, Twitter and the like — he is a legitimate phenomenon.
If his leadership team is smart (and they mostly are), they will convert Trudeau’s thousands of social media supporters into voting supporters. It shouldn’t be difficult.
But as the federal Grit convention moves towards its interminable end — held, once again and ominously, in Ottawa — watch for mysterious surges in the “supporter” category.
If there are enough of them, and if they are out to stop a juggernaut, this too may become a fact: Justin Trudeau will lose.
Power to the people
My Mom, living in Kingston as she does, is happy about this. So too all of her friends and neighbours. Story here.
Can the provincial government ignore something like this? Not if they want to keep that seat.
Paywitless
Isn’t this stupid? Isn’t it beyond idiotic?
Let me put this in caps, so my plaintive cry is heard by Globians:WHY TWEET A LINK TO A STORY THAT IS BEHIND A PAYWALL?
And they wonder why newspapers are dying. Wonder no more, etc.
Frankster vs. Puffster
I know the whole sad tale (believe me, I’ve heard it from both Bate and Duffy, ad infinitum), so it sort of bores me now. What I liked to read again, however, is Bate’s wordsmithing. He still has a style that still makes me laugh out loud.
Of course, I remain unimpressed that he let one of his underlings (the Deflower Caroline Mulroney Contest guy) publish our home address in Ottawa – thereby leading to late-night visits by neo-Nazis, and ongoing police protection, including that nice officer who camped out in our guest bedroom for quite a while, operating various surveillance equipment – but it was fun to read Bate’s prose again.
Michael Bate is 107.
Hey, I should’ve run for the LPC leadership, too!
I’d be second only to that guy with the great hair! Okay, and maybe the astronaut, too. But I coulda been a contender!
FWIW: @justintrudeau now has 187,000+ followers on Twitter. @marcgarneau: 11,565, @mhallfindlay 7,456, @joycemurray 4,814 #LPCLdr
— David Akin (@davidakin) February 22, 2013
Big gamble
As a former Kingston resident – and as a guy whose Mom is still there – I find this poll quite interesting. That is a solid Liberal seat.
If Ontario Liberals want to get re-elected, therefore, they need to cool it on the casino stuff. Big time.
Timing is everything
Anticipated question at the next Ontario NDP caucus meeting:
“How do we vote for the Throne Speech or Budget now?
We live interesting times. Or, some people do, anyway.
The case against Cash
NDP MP Andrew Cash is in an egregious conflict of interest. There can be no doubt or debate about that:
It doesn’t matter how he voted. He voted. That is not just a perceived conflict of interest, it is a real conflict of interest.
In the past, it is noteworthy that Cash has attacked Rob Ford for “dirty tricks” – which raises an interesting irony. In Ford’s well-documented case of conflict of interest, the amounts of money in issue were much smaller. And, in Ford’s case, the money did not go straight into Ford’s personal bank account. In Cash’s case, tens of thousands did.
When you do a Google scan of Cash’s piety in similar cases – including during the period where he was receiving CBC money while voting on the CBC – his hypocrisy is jaw-dropping. Take a look at this instance of Conservative conflict of interest, which Cash rightly derided as the Conservatives’ “new accountability standard.”
On the face of it, he has violated sections 8, 11, 13, 14, 16 of the Code and possibly more. The Act applies, as well. He must be investigated by the Integrity Commissioner and he must be sanctioned.
If he and his party were in way consistent, of course, Cash would be resigning his seat. That is what they would be demanding if a Conservative or Liberal had committed an offence as serious as this one.
Will he resign? Of course not. Will he do the “right thing”? Of course not.
And on and on the bullshit goes. Of course.
Just a game (updated)
As I write this, I’m at Ted Reeve Arena, the rink in my neighbourhood. My son’s team, the Penguins, is playing Ted Reeve Thunder. If we lose, that’s the end of the season, pretty much.
Sitting here, I’m reminded of this story. It’s been on the minds of lots of coaches, players and parents, this week.
The fact that it involves the Penguins and Ted Reeve teams isn’t the only reason. I’m preoccupied with it because my son, Son One, should be playing tonight. But the doctor won’t let him.
About three weeks ago, at a tournament in London, my son was driven into the boards, hard, by a player who used his knee to do it. My son was carried off the ice and couldn’t walk.
He hasn’t played since. Yesterday, I took him to the doctor, and was told that the damage may be significant. Tomorrow, we’re trying to get him an MRI.
It isn’t how we figured the season would end. Why did it happen to our son, and other sons?
Well, other people have their reasons for the bad stuff that happens in amateur hockey. Us? We attribute lousy refs. In the GTHL, we have an abundance of crummy officials. They’re terrible. They’re the dregs.
Kids will continue to get hurt if we continue to have refs who don’t know what they’re doing. To me, to us, it’s that simple.
The kid who ended my kid’s season didn’t get a penalty. And he did it right in front of a ref.
Want kids to be safer when they play? Get better officials.
Oh, and one other thing: it’s just a game. It isn’t worth kids getting hurt.
UPDATE: We won! Not dead yet!