The Ottawa Citizen has been running a smear campaign aimed at the federal Conservatives called “Wish You Were Here“. This campaign is to highlight the federal prorogation and keep it in the eye of the public even though nobody else is talking about it anymore. Every day, it lists a number of area MPs and gives us their schedules to see what they are up to because they aren’t working on the hill.

However, today’s edition went horribly wrong: it seems the cons are working hard with many meetings and visits, the libs are either taking the day off or not saying where they are, the bloc did not respond, and the one NDPer is working:

John Baird (Cons.) Ottawa West-Nepean:

Three constituency meetings. Meeting with deputy minister on three issues. Infrastructure Canada briefing. Meeting with Department of Finance regarding budget Recommendations.

Mauril Belanger (Lib.) Ottawa-Vanier:

Declined to provide a copy of his schedule but says he is working every day.

Lawrence Cannon (Cons.) Pontiac:

Meetings and briefings.

Paul Dewar (NDP) Ottawa Centre:

Drop in to Dovercourt Recreation Centre for Family Day Free Swim. Attending CAS Foster a Snow Angel event on Parliament Hill. Reviewing constituent requests and follow-up. Official correspondence — foreign affairs and constituency matters. Research on foreign policy issues in preparation for diplomatic meetings. Speech preparation for remarks to Child Welfare League. Imagine Haiti Fundraiser at Arts Court.

Royal Galipeau (Cons.) Ottawa-Orléans:

YMCA. Heritage Canada Foundation. Meeting constituents about Canada Revenue Agency issues. Preparing ministerial memoranda about key economic development issues that impact on Ottawa-Orléans. Family Day Potluck Supper at Grace Presbyterian Church, Orléans. Evening activity in support of the victims of the recent Haiti Earthquake, Arts Court.

David McGuinty (Lib.) Ottawa South:

Spending Family Day with wife and four children.

Richard Nadeau (BQ) Gatineau:

Did not respond.

Gordon O’Connor (Cons.) Carleton-Mississippi Mills:

Declined to provide a copy of his schedule.

Pierre Poilievre (Cons.) Nepean-Carleton:

7:50 a.m.: Morning briefing. 9 a.m.: Reading correspondence. 10:30 a.m.: Travel to meeting. 11 a.m.: Meeting with PMO policy advisers. This meeting runs until 2 p.m. with possibility of extending to 4 p.m.

Marcel Proulx (Lib.) Hull-Aylmer:

Schedule details unavailable.

The same professional “protesters” who keep crashing the G8 and G20 summits everywhere. Organized, and bused in, carrying weapons and wearing ski masks, these are no ordinary protesters. These are anarchists. Most of the time, these idiots don’t even know what they are protesting. All they look for is clashing with local police to get them on the evening news crying about police brutality.

Go home and get a life, you bums.

A brand new garage for Ottawa’s OC Transpo’s bus fleet: $29 million.

Oh, the columns are placed so that our articulate busses can’t turn in it, better change the design while we’re building it: add $30 million.

Jeepers, we forgot: we have double-deckers too: raise the ceiling and add another $30 million.

Total: $97+ million dollars. For a garage.

Are you all nuts there at city hall?

After years of supporting campaigns to conserve water in the City of Ottawa, the city has now run into a problem: water consumption is down so much, that the city is looking at a $7M deficit in revenues, and in return will have to increase the rates on everything (including your water bill) to make up for it.

So, first they ask us to consume less, we do what they ask, and then as a thank you, they hit us over the head with an increase on the very bill they asked us to reduce.

I think the brains at city hall are made of 100% water, as opposed to the regular 70%.

And don’t get me started on exactly WHY we should be conserving water: it’s only the most abundant–and most recycled–substance on the face of the earth.

I know this has been a busy news week, with such utterly important subjects as Michael Jackson’s Memorial Extravaganza, Shannon Tweed Day (yes? no? ye.. no? no!), and Did He or Didn’t He (also titled: Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t), and a nearly missed photo op (would you want to be in the picture with people who think they can influence the weather? I wouldn’t either) but I’d like to point your attention to another pressing issue: the City of Ottawa Weed Team.

Upon getting a complaint from a neighbour, the City of Ottawa Weed Team was sent out to a suburban back-yard to take note of the unruly collection of grasses and weeds protruding through their fence and peeking into their neighbours’ yards, and to subsequently deliver a bylaw notice that the home owners should mow their weed-yard down, or else… [the City of Ottawa would do it for them, and send them the bill]

Now, I am not one to go for the eco-nut back-yard let-it-grow-wild meadow-experiment, however, I do believe in property rights, and as such a homeowner has the right to grow any plant he or she wants to, even if it does invite an infestation of aphids and bees.

The irony is, ever since the City of Ottawa banned pesticides (and herbicides) on their own property (long before Dalton banned it for everybody else), and they cut the budget for city property grass mowing in half, coincidentally around the same time, the city is one big collection of tall grasses, weeds and other unsightly growths and are in effect in constant violation of their own bylaw. Take a drive down Merivale Road, Baseline Road, St. Josef, Carling Ave. The weeds are three foot high! 

I think the City of Ottawa has better things to do than to lecture ordinary citizens about keeping their lawn neatly trimmed and bickering on whether we should have a Shannon Tweed day or not: the latest property tax increase is currently set at 28%, to be wiggled down to, say, 26.3 by the time the budget gets approved.

Get to work, you bums!

We have the guys on video.  They brought a gun and a sword. They eviscerated the victim, live on video, cut off his fingers and then killed the guy. Five guys got off (I suppose hanging around a guy with a gun and sword who ends up killing someone just isn’t a crime in this country), the sixth, Mr. Man (Wahab Dadshani), who defended HIMSELF against the full might of the Canadian prosecution, got convicted for MANSLAUGHTER. Murder just wasn’t proven. We’ve got a dead guy. A murder weapon. The act on video. (Lenny would say: I love it when they make our job so easy). But murder wasn’t proven. Bringing a gun and sword and someone ends up dead at the end, just isn’t premeditated. For manslaughter, Mr. Man will get up to six years, with time served he’ll probably be out next week.

What a joke.

So we headed down the Queensway late Sunday night to drop off our daughter and her boyfriend at the (depressing) downtown Greyhound bus station. They are headed back to Vancouver (where they study at Emily Carr University on Granville Island) via bus: you just can’t beat $240 for two people to travel across the country. However, for your $240 you can count on losing at least one bag along the way. It’s just that kind of a gong-show.

What I want to talk about is the new “security measures” implemented since the unfortunate incident in Manitoba last summer. These “security measures” are supposed to protect the travelling public from crazies with knives. As you may have seen, I put “security measures” in quotation marks, because, well, the “security” isn’t there, and “measures” is a very big word for what it is: two guys beside a fold-out plastic camping table, and all that is keeping ”us” separated from “them” is a type of barrier you may find at your local bank branch (those posts and the retractable “tape” type separators to guide you through a maze to the teller). The kids were required to open up their “carry-ons” and since they each carry laptops and electronics all had to be taken out and opened. My daughter could not get her laptop out of her bag quickly (her mother taught her how to pack well) so the “security” guy said she could move on without looking in her bag. The line-up was getting long… After the kids went past these two guys, we followed them along the walk-way from Checkpoint Charlie to the doors (about 30 feet, again, all that separated us was the tape) and did our hugs (that’s right: we hugged eachother right through the security barrier keeping “public” and “secured travellers” apart) and said our goodbyes, at which time we could have easily passed them several knives, guns, cleavers, baseball bats, what have you, if we were so inclined, without the “security” personnel ever knowing about it. Then they step out to the bus platform, and the bus driver loads the bus with their bags. Unfortunately, the bus driver has no idea which bags were “carry-on” (and thus: checked out) and which bags are luggage (not checked at all) and so they could have easily switched an unchecked luggage bag for a “carry-on” bag… Put your knives in the “luggage” bag, then step out of the door and carry-on your un-checked luggage bag onto the bus.

This is what Greyhound came up with: how can we calm the public with the cheapest “security measures” possible, to give the illusion that “we’re doing SOMETHING”, which isn’t anything at all: it’s all a show. Even my feeble attempt at putting myself into a ”criminal mindset” could penetrate that fortress of security on at least three occasions. Can you image what those crazies can come up with? 

Who said: “The only thing worse than no security, is a false security”?

This OC Transpo mess just won’t go away: after John Baird proposed to lift the exemption on Canada labour safety laws</a> on OC Transpo, Ottawa’s public transit, effectively limiting the maximum number of hours a driver can drive in one shift to 14, all the drivers are coming out of the woodwork today and yesterday complaining that this is unfair: you sure can drive for 16 hours straight. No problem. We’re a little bit sleepy, but that’s OK. We gotta make that overtime! Overtime! Two times and a half! Overtime! Uhmmm… 16 hours shifts… wasn’t the strike all about “quality of life”, and “drivers deserve to spend some time with their families”? How do 16 hour shifts fit in with that? Do you want time with your family, or do you want 16 hours shifts: 8 hours regular pay, and 20 hours of overtime pay?

Seems like quality of life = money, not family.

So I’m sitting in my favourite recliner yesterday evening come 11 pm, with a half eaten bag of pretzels on my chest, waiting for the local A news of Ottawa to come on, and what did I see appear on my TV? A comedy show! The A news had been cancelled. No announcements, no fanfare.

CTV, the station’s owner, had cancelled a whole bunch of news shows across the country for its A channels. As a private company, they have to cut back as ad revenue continues to decline, as opposed to the publicly funded CBC which just keeps on truckin’ without layoffs. CBC is out there with more employees than all the private broadcasters combined, competing with private companies with taxpayers’ money. How are Global and CTV supposed to compete with buckets and buckets of taxpayer’s money?

With no news at 6 nor at 11, and good old trusty Max Keeping of CTV’s CJOH is nowhere to be found on the Bell ExpressVu dial, people in Ottawa have lost ALL of their local news in one foul swoop. The only local news is now on in the idiotic morning show from 6 to 10. For some reason, morning shows have to be light and fluffy, with airhead hosts (Kurt Stoodley and Karen Solomon–at least she’s gone) and silly, feel good segments.

Do we need any more reasons to finally privatise the CBC?

The Heart and Stroke Foundation released a ridiculous report this week about the cost of healthy foods across Canada. It found that Calgarians pay much more for healthy foods than say, Ottawa or even North Bay (if you know North Bay, you’d know it’s slightly… uhm… “out of the way”, adding transportation costs), and that in general, healthy foods are more expensive than unhealthy foods. They are implying that price is the biggest factor in Canadians eating less healthy.

The report relies heavily on volunteers who fed their families for a week by shopping at regular well known grocery stores. Items included 6 apples, bag of potatoes, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, 1% milk, cheddar cheese, lean ground beef, peanut butter among other things. They all shopped at different, but well known stores, severely flawing (is that a word?) the study, because in order to be able to compare findings, the parameters have to be the same.

The findings of the report are astonishing: it concludes healthy food is more expensive than non-healthy foods and it says prices on healthy foods vary widely across the country.

I don’t know about Brooks or Calgary, but the prices they give for Ottawa are plain ridiculous: $13.31 for less than two pounds of lean ground beef? $9.70 for 900g of whole wheat pasta? I am sorry, but I don’t think I will be able to find these prices on any stores around town, not even down town in the shop where the senators shop. Lean ground beef is usually $3.99/pound, and if you follow the sales, between Loblaws, Independent, Loebs, IGA, Value Mart, Farm Boy, Walmart and what have you, you can always pick it up on sale for $1.99/pound. $9 for whole wheat pasta? Go to the most expensive store, and it is sitting there right beside the regular pasta for about $2/900gr.

Here’s a thought: homemade pasta sauce. Tomato sauce, lean ground beef, peppers, onions, mushrooms, any veggie you want to throw in there, can of crushed tomatoes, tomato paste. make a big vat, freeze supper size portions, and you can have three, four meals made for about $12 TOTAL. And it’s all veggies in there.

No, I think the problem with Canadians eating less healthy foods is not price, but sheer laziness. It is much easier to open up a can of soup and zap it up, than to start by boiling down your beef bone, add celery, onion, chop your carrots, add some noodles, salt pepper. Of course, a can of soup is laden with fats and salts, whereas your own soup is lean and healthy.

The problem with healthy food is that you actually have to prepare it. You have to spend 30 mins before supper washing and chopping your veggies, and people don’t want to do that any more. They also do not want to drive to Walmart to pick up what’s cheap there, then head on to Loebs to pick up what’s on sale there, then head to Loblaws to shop sales there. If you plan your route, you can hit three, four stores on one saturday afternoon, and have bought only sale stuff to prepare suppers for the entire week. But you see, this requires effort.

It has nothing to do with price: picking up a pizza is so much easier, even though it’ll cost you $20 for one supper, whereas if you made pasta sauce, you would have had six suppers for the same money, and eat much, much healthier.

This report goes in my “give a break” file.

It has come to this: we are now officially issuing “Rainfall Warnings“.

We’re gonna get some rain today, and by golly, be warned! You might get wet!

Give me a break.

Ottawa radio host Lowell Green was reprimanded by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Counsil for “abusive and discriminatory” remarks to Muslims in a show he did in December 07. The show was a reaction to the story of a British teacher who had named her teddy bear “Muhammad” and was effectively chased out of Sudan. Of course, a show of this kind brings out the most vocal of Muslims, as it has many times. And all it takes is one complaint.

One example of the silly ruling:

In one instance, Green responded to a Muslim caller with the word “Baloney!” and, in another, told the sympathetic, apparently non-Muslim, caller she had “abandoned common sense” and was being “silly”.

If you know Lowell at all, you could substitute the words “Ontario teachers”, “OC Transpo Drivers”, “CAW Union Workers” for the word “Muslim” in the above quote, and you’d have a regular Lowell Green show. But then again, Ontario teachers, union workers or drivers won’t call the CBSC and cry discrimination.

Of course, thanks to the liberal ”values” in this country, Lowell cannot know his accuser, nor can he respond to the accusations. He cannot ask any questions on the subject, nor can he defend himself. He cannot even discuss the fact he was reprimanded, a rule he blatantly violated this morning by having a show about it! He may just be taken off the air for this.

Such is the state of freedom of speech in this country.

You should all tune in at cfra.com and listen online. This is a fight for freedom of speech in this country.

If you’re interested in the CBSC decision, you can read it here. The media release is here. If you wish to send a well-worded email to the CBSC, you can contact them here: Ronald I. Cohen – National Chair, John MacNab – Executive Director, Teisha Gaylard – Director of Policy.

PS. The story in the Ottawa Citizen states that “Lowell Green did not return the Citizen’s calls on Friday”. Lowell Green has just stated on the radio he never received any calls for him on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, neither at home or at work from the newspaper.

The Ottawa Citizen has a story today about how teenagers do not wear boots, toques or mitts, even in -32 degree weather. Quoting a grade 10 student walking down the street in the Glebe, the story tells us that teens do not want to wear toques because of the potential to mess up the bed-head hair-do, and do not want to wear gloves or mitts because they cannot operate their iPod with them. And wearing boots, well, that’s just, like, not cool. Throw in a transit strike, and what you have is thousands of freezing teens shivering by the glow of their cellphone screen, trying to look cool (but not cold).

I probably did the same thing when I was a teen. Of course growing up in The Netherlands, it didn’t get much colder than -5.  And we didn’t have cellphones or iPods then to keep us warm, either. I had saved my paper route money for months and purchased a nifty new gadget called a “walkman“, which didn’t operate so well under 4 degrees. Or over 25.

Now I can’t even remember a time when I thought appearance is more important than survival.

As for you teens here it Ottawa, I hope that cellphone freezes to your ears.

Looks pretty good right now, doesn’t it Mr. Cornellier?

Ottawa’s Amalgamated Transit Union voted against the city’s latest offer yesterday, prolonging their strike indefinitely. They claim it is not about money, but about their ”quality of life” eg. the scheduling.

Right now, scheduling is in the hands of the drivers (union). They can pick their own shifts based on their seniority, currently resulting in $8 million dollars a year in overtime pay because senior drivers pick the lucrative shifts, some booking more than 60 hours a week (resulting in about 30 hours/week of overtime pay) while junior drivers are sitting in the garage waiting for work (and being paid). Some workers are now being paid for 12 hour shifts while they only work for 6 or 7. The city wants the scheduling back to save the $8 million overtime pay.

(As a side note: how hard is it to make a friggin’ schedule that has everyone working a solid 7 hours a day/40 hrs a week? They do it in every company in the world that has shift workers, yet OC Transpo cannot make it work. Who do they have working over there in scheduling?)

If this is really about quality of life, and not about money, take a pay cut of about $8 million dollars, and you can have your current scheduling. City will get their savings, and you will get your quality of life. Everybody happy.