OTTAWA – Despite the fact Thomas Mulcair blew the
election campaign, and was unable to make inroads with a very populist and
compelling back story, the NDP will not be unloading him this weekend as their
leader.
They
should, just not yet.
There
is still time before the next federal election to turn the page on Mulcair but,
despite one big union’s push to bounce him now, there’s no one in the diminished
NDP who could take any shine off the “sunny ways” of Justin Trudeau.
In
the metaphor-filled world of politics, Trudeau remains the “sun” as represented
in the Aesop fable of The Wind and the
Sun, and Mulcair represents the “wind” that lost in both the fable and in
last October’s election.
Our
prime minister, a newstainment phenomenon, is still basking in the limelight of
celebrity being shone on him nationally and internationally, but he will become
over-exposed soon enough.
In
fact, his novelty is already beginning to wear thin among many who fluttered
their vote his way as he continues to exhibit an almost pathological ache for
the spotlight.
But
he is not quite there yet, which is why Canada still needs Mulcair, at least
during Question Period where he is the best in recent memory at skewering prime
ministers.
Delegates
at the Edmonton convention this week should therefore not solely blame Mulcair
for their defeat, although there will undoubtedly be some anger over losing
high-profile “faces of the party” like
deputy leader, Megan Leslie, Peter Stoffer, Paul Dewar, Jack Harris and a very
bitter Peggy Nash.
In a
Huffington Post blog this week, the defeated Toronto MP threw her party’s
campaign team in the Dumpster, but claimed she’ll wait to hear Mulcair “speak
from the heart” in Edmonton before voting to oust him.
The Canadian justice system is a complex beast
that is often on trial itself, as those of us uneducated in law wrestle with
its fairness in high profile cases.
There
have been a few lately. Jian Ghomeshi, the former CBC radio star acquitted on
sexual assault charges. The Ol’ Duff who, as Michael Dennis Duffy, awaits judgment
later this month on fraud and bribery charges related to his expenses in the
Senate.
And,
most recently, Marco Muzzo, the 29-year-old son of a mega-rich Toronto-area
developer who was just sentenced to 10 years in prison for a drunk-driving
crash that claimed the lives of three young children and their grandfather.
It
was gut-wrenching to watch the children’s mother, Jennifer Neville-Lake, speak
outside the courthouse about the incredible loss inflicted on her life.
We
can only imagine her pain because, as losses go, hers is apocryphal.
Personally,
I wanted Ghomeshi convicted because I believed the women he stood accused of
assaulting, and because I always thought of him as a pompous little prick.
In
the end, it seems I’m only half right.
As
for Duffy, who helped me with contacts early in my career when he was in
television, I want to see him acquitted on the bribery charge only because it
was trumped up, as evidenced by no co-briber/bribee ever being charged.
As
for the rest of the charges, I couldn’t care less.
The
Senate is a mess in need of a severe cleaning.
As
for Marco Muzzo, there’s the familiar refrain of “but for the grace of God,”
coming as I have from a generation when drinking and driving was not yet taboo.
I
suspect many reading this now are shuddering at their own embracement of the
once-familiar saying of “having one more for the road.”
There were likely more than a few close
encounters before I put the plug in the jug, of course, but twisted judgment
back when I was the same invulnerable age as Marco Muzzo blessedly never ended
up with twisted metal.
There
was no MADD back then. No RIDE.
In
other words, my generation had yet to be educated about the perils and the
possibilities.
OTTAWA — A few Sundays ago, Cardinal Thomas
Collins, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto, warned the 200 congregations
within his spiritual domain not to be “dazzled by sweet words” when it comes to
medically-assisted death.
He called it “destructive to the human person,
and destructive to our society.”
But
he ignored the fact that medically-assisted death is already happening across
this country, and that the form it now takes is nothing but inhumane.
Eighteen
months ago, my mother, Shirlee Bonokoski-Gillis, who we all loved immeasurably,
passed away in hospital at the age of 90.
But “passed away” paints too kind a picture to
describe the reality that she died because of being denied fluids and intravenous
sustenance until her body finally gave out.
In
other words, she was killed. But it took a week.
As a
family, we had no options. Mother had suffered a major stroke that, instead of
killing her outright, left her in a coma from which there would be no escape.
So
she was sedated with morphine, and kept physically comfortable until the denial
of the necessities for her continued life worked its morbid magic.
There
is no way to “dazzle’ this with “sweet words.”
The
doctors and the nurses who attended to her palliative care could have sped up
the process, of course. They could upped the morphine to the point of overdose,
but there were strict protocols to follow.
I
sensed from hallway conversations that they would have helped nudge her along if
they could, but they didn’t.
It
would have been the humane thing to do in such a hopeless situation, but
questions regarding ethics and liability overruled compassion.
OTTAWA — It is easy to be complacent unless you
have seen terrorism up close, but Brussels is not close.
It’s somewhere over
there. In Europe.
But it is not here.
On
Tuesday, when Brussels was ripped apart by explosions, the story quickly moved
down in the news hole when word came out that former Toronto mayor Rob Ford,
infamous for his crack-smoking drunken-stupor antics, had died from the cancer
he had been fighting for 18 months.
Significant
local news is always the trump card.
Rob
Ford was only 46. His death was sad, but not tragic.
What
happened in Belgium was tragic.
To
have walked the fields of Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, with the wreckage of
Pan Am Flight 103 still smoldering, the stench of jet fuel in the air, and all
the bodies not yet gathered, is to have any complacency about terrorism
disappear.
To
have been in London, Eng., in the aftermath of the 2005 subway attacks by four
home-grown suicide bombers, where 52 civilians were killed and 700 injured, is
to witness how vulnerable we all are.
No
one saw it coming on that July morning in London. And so no one had a chance
once all was in motion.
People
just living their lives were suddenly no more.
When the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi
washed up on a Turkish beach last September, the picture of him lying face down
in the sand galvanized international attention on the Syrian refugee crisis
like nothing else.
If
the Syrian refugee situation needed a marketing tool, and Liberal politicians
needed a gut-twisting compassion component for their campaign as election day quickly
approached, the search was over.
Alan
Kurdi’s lifeless body sadly fit both bills.
The
now-Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, led by Immigration
Minister John McCallum, promised 25,000 Syrian refugees would be given
sanctuary by year’s end, a pledge that failed but certainly ramped up the
compassion meter, and got small-town Canada motivated to accommodate Syrian
families within their communities.
Small
towns like Collingwood, Ont. (Pop. 21,000).
Thomas
Vincent is co-chair of the Collingwood Syrian Family Sponsorship group, a
volunteer organization that has raised more than $90,000 to sponsor two Syrian
families.
The bureaucratic
paperwork was long ago signed, sealed and accepted. They have a welcoming committee
standing by, and a housing committee, which was quick off the mark. They have
organized tutoring for English as a second language, as well as computer and IT
services.
They
have arranged for new furniture and clothing, and have committed to pay every
single bill their sponsored families incur during their first year.
In
fact, they have been ready for months.
Thomas
Vincent, however, increasingly feels like he is waiting for the mythical Godot,
the no-show character in Samuel Beckett’s famous play
OTTAWA — When prison watchdog Howard Sapers
began penning his annual report on the litany of ills he continues to see
within the federal corrections system, he did so thinking it would be his last
kick at the can.
His
pink slip had already been signed.
The
Harperites, long on law and order but short on any expressed compassion for the
incarcerated, made no secret about Sapers being an increasingly irksome pain in
their collective psyche since his appointment in 2004.
He
was a watchdog who would not give up the bone.
If
his recommendations were not acted upon, for example, he would bring it up in
his next annual report in a bolder fashion and with a louder denunciation.
His
contract, therefore, would not be renewed.
But
then came an early writ drop, leaving Sapers unable to give his swan-song report
to Parliament. Then, lo and behold, the Conservatives got booted out, and
suddenly Sapers had time left on his clock.
Hence,
the tough words he was originally aiming at the Harper government finally got
tabled last week and, as for his job as corrections investigator, he just might
see himself re-appointed at month’s end by the Liberals.
Now,
according to the Canadian Mental Health Association, one in five of us suffer
from some degree of mental illness.
Social
media campaigns, and educational programs, have had success in recent years in
lifting the stigma surrounding mental illness, even if too many of us walking
the streets today still remain adrift when it comes to getting acute help.
But
imagine going to the ER of your hospital suffering from mental distress and,
instead of being helped and eventually seeing a psychiatrist, being tossed in a
solitary confinement cell at the hospital and simply left there.
This
is the norm in our penitentiaries.
This
is their cuckoo’s nest. This is where corrections officers, few skilled at
dealing with psychiatric inmates, tuck away the “crazies” who become too bothersome.
OTTAWA — When Lisa Raitt was sworn in as
Minister of Transport in the summer of 2013, it was less than two weeks after
Lac Megantic, the oil train disaster that killed 47 people in a horrific
inferno that all but razed the Quebec town.
It
was a daunting baptism into a new portfolio.
To
say that Raitt made rail safety her No. 1 priority would be an understatement
because rail safety, and transportation safety in general, was drilled into the
bureaucrats who worked for her, as well as into her political staffers.
As
her senior communications advisor at the time the writ dropped that saw the
Trudeau Liberals elected, I can attest to her dedication to safety’s priority.
In
fact, it was Raitt’s initiative to immediately bump up the number of safety
inspectors and protocols and then, among other measures, to work with her U.S.
counterpart to develop (and begin manufacturing) the rail cars that will soon
be carrying dangerous cargos.
In
late February, the report Raitt commissioned to fast-track a mandatory review
of the Canadian Transportation Act, triggered by disruptions in the rail
shipment of grain during the 2013-2014 crop year that cost the western economy
$6.5 billion in losses, was finally tabled in Parliament.
Written
by David Emerson, a former lumber company executive who had served as a cabinet
minister in both Liberal and Conservative governments, the 268-page report was
not a headline grabber, nor was it expected be.
The
only recommendation that even touched rail safety, beyond advocating voice recorders
in locomotives, was one that suggested regulations covering the shipment of
crude oil and gasoline should be expanded to include a wider range of dangerous
goods such as ammonia and chlorine, complete with tonnage fees to cover the
costs of an accident.
Had
the Harperites been re-elected, this would have been a done deal.
OTTAWA — There will be a lot of long faces today
in the Langevin Block, home of the Prime Minister’s Office, as those who
thought they were members of the A-Team begin to realize they are actually
members of the A-minus Team.
This
can be hard to swallow for young egos inflated to the point of bursting, but with
skin still too thin to risk pricking.
But the facts speak
for themselves.
Those toiling today in the
dark confines of the Langevin Block, aside from rare exceptions, will be seen
internally as the less chosen ones among the chosen ones.
If
they were truly on Justin Trudeau’s A-Team, for example, they’d be in Washington,
getting ready for their leader to dine with the President of the United States,
buying cuff links and decorative Easter eggs at the White House Gift Shop, and
not schlepping down the street to fetch another organic coffee at the
Bridgehead.
It will be a missed
“opportunity of a lifetime, the pomp of a celebrity-packed White House rivaling
the Oscars, and with a lame duck president showcasing Canada’s hot new prime
minister and his equally hot wife in a fashion never offered to former Conservative
PM Stephen Harper, a cold and nasty a fish if there ever was one.
It has, in fact, been 19
years since a Canadian PM – Jean Chretien via Bill Clinton – has been so
feted.
There have been reports ad nauseam
pushing the idea that this state dinner is a sign of warm relations now been fostered
between the States and Canada, but no mention that Obama getting along with
Trudeau bodes well for nothing.
Obama is on his way out and,
to most Americans who know little of life north of the 49th, Justin
Trudeau is nothing more at the moment than a curiosity piece who got where he
is today because of his father’s name and his good looks.
OTTAWA – When the Trudeau Liberals bring down their first budget on March 22, artfully dodging the Ides of March by a week, the most powerful person in cabinet will ultimately be Treasury Board President Scott Brison. He will become the go-to money man, and no dosh can be dished out to any MP’s list of wishes, promises and cabinet mandate fulfilments unless it has his signature. This makes Brison the big man on the Trudeau campus when it comes to defining which projects among the plethora of Liberal spending promises get the higher priority, and therefore which projects get the quickest influx of the billions that will be ultimately added to the federal deficit. Sitting on his cheque book, in fact, will make Scott Brison the tallest person in the Liberal caucus. The once-upon-a-time Progressive Conservative MP, who crossed the floor in 2003, oddly only four days after voting in favour of a merger between the PCs and the Canadian Alliance, will be the face of who decides the fate of our tax dollars, and who will consult with Finance Minister Bill Morneau to determine a priority sequence for the rollout. But first he must run it by the person who, despite being behind the scenes, is truly the most important person on Parliament Hill when it comes to the dispensing of public money, and that is a bureaucrat with the seemingly unpronounceable name of Yaprak Baltacioglu. Best attempts over the years has it as YAP-rak Bal-ti-CHOO-lu.
OTTAWA — “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” Justin Trudeau said on the road to becoming prime minister. It’s pretentious nonsense, of course. When I think of a Canadian, and the struggle to adapt in a new land, I think of the humble abode now standing derelict in a southern Saskatchewan wheat field as a present-day reminder of where my father, Mathias, was born in 1918 as one of 13 children. I do not think of convicted terrorists with dual citizenship as being bona fide Canadians, and with all the rights of Canadians who would consider such actions treason. My father was proud of his hardscrabble beginnings because it represented his family putting down roots in a new land that promised only opportunity, and staking claim to a country he would fight to defend without second thought. His father, Tomas, had come to Canada from Russia in 1903 with his brother Anton, their families later listed in regional history books as among the earliest pioneers. It was not an easy go. The hardships were extreme. Surviving the first years took determination because, unlike today, there was no social safety net of any description, let alone electricity or hot and cold running water. Their type would not take to Trudeau’s pandering. I am proud of that legacy, and that my father joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in his early twenties when duty called, and flew multiple missions with Bomber Command over Europe in the Second World War, managing to survive an odds-against mortality rate. His cousin and best friend, Daniel Bonokoski, was not so lucky and never made it home from Bomber Command, and there is now a lake in northern Saskatchewan named in his memory as one of the province’s “valiant ones.”
