From today’s Hill Times: wither goest the Reformatories

— 11.28.2011 08:24 AM

Weird, weird, weird. I don’t understand many things, at my advanced age. Stephen Harper’s government is one of them.

When you watch them, as some of us are sometimes compelled to do—in the way that we watch car crashes in slow motion, over and over—it is difficult to discern a method in the midst of the madness. It is just messy, some days, with no purpose.

So, as some pundits have observed, the Harper regime sometimes look like they have forgotten they are no longer a minority. They have a majority, and they can make decisions—like scrapping the long-gun registry—in the way that a majority government makes decisions. Fine.

But then they do weird things. Such as declaring that they will destroy all of the long-gun registrations made over the years. Despite the opposition of the police, and crime victims, and assorted Parliamentary officers—who have correctly pointed out that, with the destruction of government records, the Cons are breaking the law.

 


Comments (53)

Quiz

— 11.27.2011 07:48 PM

The coverage of his Kingston murder trial is starting to bug me.

So, here’s a quiz: is the phrase “honour killing” anywhere in the Koran?


Comments (17)

In today’s Sun: is the party over?

— 11.27.2011 01:00 AM

Peter C. Newman, having just been asked why Michael Ignatieff never became prime minister of Canada, muses.

“He was an impressive man,” says Newman, as he waits to go on to a Sun News talk show. “But he was the wrong man.”

The wrong man. That, in sum, is the verdict you are left with when you read — as I did, quickly — Newman’s impressive new book, When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada. Ignatieff was brilliant, erudite, accomplished and decent.

And, mostly, the wrong man.


Comments (41)

Letter inbox

— 11.26.2011 10:52 AM

A very delayed but nevertheless fervent AMEN to your column in mid-October asking “What would Jesus do?” re the Occupy Movement.  

The Sunday morning prior to the column appearing, as a retired Pastor, I was sitting in Church at a worship service and thinking, “This is not CHURCH, we are just playing CHURCH.  That is where the CHURCH is”.

Thank you for your columns, providing a dose of reality in the midst of often very (undeclared) biases represented as thoughtful comments. 

   Albert Bailey


Comments (24)