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 read more

Ol’ Tom got me all riled up here. Pensioners in this country, who worked hard all their lives, make $519 a month. And that’s TAXED. And we’re gonna give this crook $317,000 severance? In the seven months she worked for us, she made about $100,000 a month. $100,000 A MONTH. She defrauds the Ontario taxpayer to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and our “esteemed” health minister Caplan doesn’t even have the guts to fire her. They came to a “mutual decison” to “resign”. Give me a break.

People with MS can’t pay for their meds and are being  cut off. Kids with autism can’t go to their therapy. Going to emergency in this province takes 5-13 hours. Waiting read more

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 read more

At a speech at an Ottawa Rotary Club, Ontario’s Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Watson told the members that the Ontario Government now mistrusts the City of Ottawa after they used money designated for infrastructure for snow removal instead.

I suppose the irony is lost on Mr. Watson: he works for the least trustworthy government since Bob Rae had his day(s):

We will not raise your taxes

Right.

As I was standing at 7 am, with about 200 other people, in a dingy and poorly lit hallway, waiting for the doors to open to give us access to the glorious Ontario healthcare a la 2009, I was thinking to myself: I just forked out another $900 last year to make our healthcare system better and faster, shorten wait times and whatever else was promised to us, and here we are, herded like cattle in a small hallway waiting for “the system” to serve us better. We were out at about 10:30. Just to do some bloodwork. Three and a half hours! Some of us have to get back to work, you know. That’s three and a half hours of waiting, read more

Thursday, April 23, 2009. Question period. The Liberals spent the first half hammering away at the government to get our own homegrown Omar the Terrorist back home. He’s a Canadian citizen, you see. A nice, Canadian citizen (and, uhm, an  accused terrorist with a looney-tunes terrorist family). Following this onslaught, the Liberals used the second half of question period attacking the government on failing to point out to the Americans that Canada is NOT the source of terrorists coming into the US.

Do you have to be a Liberal to see the logic in that? Because I sure don’t.

Funny how the current deficit budget is now universally referred to as “The Conservative Deficit”, even after this current budget was forced upon us by the Liberals, NDPers and the bloc-heads after a mid-winter stand-off on the Governour General’s front stoop. As I recall, the Conservative’s Economic Update, brought forward in December, did not make us go into a deficit at all. It was after the three stooges reared their ugly heads and blackmailed the country, that the current deficit budget was tabled. In fact, the Libs and Dippers were crying foul that the $30B wasn’t enough.

So now it’s the “Conservative Deficit” eh? And as usual, Canadians just happily go along with it. After all, we Canadians like to hear what we want to read more

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 read more

One government giveth, the other taketh away.

Lovely isn’t it?

Anyone else find it curious that the first “tax rebate cheques” will be rolling out, uhm, say, three months before the next provincial election? And that’s Federal CONSERVATIVE money, by the way, that the Ontario Liberals will be happily handing out just before they need to be re-elected. And I’m sure we’ll see Dalton “That’s Not True” McGuinty’s trademark fake smile as he pretends to be Santa Clause, and how much do you want to bet he’ll say: “Oh, and btw, this cheque doesn’t come from us, it comes from Ottawa!”

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 read more