Canadian Universities a Breeding Ground for Ignorance

Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965), “Putting First Things First,” (New York, Jan. 1960).

I heard a disturbing story on the radio last week.

As people prepared to attend Remembrance Day ceremonies, and given it is the Year of the Veteran, I was distressed to hear a story about students at York University in Toronto forcing recruiters from the Canadian Armed Forces off the campus. As part of the story it was mentioned the University of Guelph was planning on banning recruiting from their campus as well.

There were actually two incidents at York. On September 22nd, a recruiting officer from the Canadian Armed Forces was at York University for an information session at the Student Service Building. There, she was confronted by a group of students and ended up having to be escorted to her car after students protested her presence. According to the Excaliber, York University’s newspaper, the students “expressed” their concerns and “asked” the Canadian military not to return.

The following week, recruiters from the Canadian Armed Forces returned to set up a recruiting booth at the university career fair, that they had been invited to attend. They were met by student protesters chanting "Army out of Afghanistan, Army out of York". According to a member of a student group known as the Grass Roots Anti-Imperialist Network (GRAIN), “the demonstration happened because of the Canadian military's participation in illegal campaigns of aggression and our opposition of the use of York's campus as a space to strengthen those campaigns."

According to the University of Western Ontario Gazette, the president of the York Federation of Students, Omari Mason, said “the students were not happy with military policies, and students should have a right to debate or challenge anything on campus, as long as it’s peaceful.” Given that the military recruiters had to have York security present in order to dismantle their display and exit the venue, it would hardly seem like peaceful debate. Even his statement in the Excaliber is far from peaceful. In it he is quoted as saying "We gave them a warning a week before about their presence on the campus but they came back for the career fair," says Mason, adding, "They shouldn't be on our campus."

Gave them a warning not to return? Hardly a recipe for peaceful debate. In fact, to my mind, when one side uses force to quell dissenting opinions, it is often called a dictatorship.

That is what is so disturbing. Lately there seems to be a growing trend at universities to force their views on other students. These institutions, whose very existence is supposed to be dedicated to the expansion and open discussion of varying ideas, are becoming institutions dedicated to ignorance and close-mindedness.

The justification for their actions is Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan and Haiti.

In calling them illegal campaigns of aggression one has to ask what they think should have been done? Afghanistan, for instance, was a proven training ground for terrorists from around the world and one of the most oppressive countries known at the time. The Taliban imposed its will on the people of Afghanistan with harsh consequences for any that opposed them. They brutalized, raped and killed with impunity, keeping the masses in poverty while enjoying power and privilege. Although a small country, they were a definite threat to the world by their very support in the training and export of terrorism.

Should we bury our heads in the sand? Should we allow others to suffer while we live in peace? The fact that we were willing to pay the price, and continue to pay it, in the name of justice and freedom for an oppressed people is hardly an act of aggression. Our troops in Afghanistan do not risk life and limb forcing their will on the people of that country but rather do so to stop others from doing it.

It has also been said that we forced out a democratically elected government in Haiti. We could argue this back and forth but, from what I have seen, Canada did not force out the government in Haiti but did rapidly step up to the plate to help when that country was in a state of disarray and the common people were suffering for it. Again, risking death, the soldiers of the Canadian Armed Forces rushed in to help the vulnerable people of that country.

Even the statement that because it was a democratically elected government we should do nothing shows a lack of knowledge. We have only to give a moment’s thought to modern history to see the vulnerabilities in this argument. Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, was “elected”, as is the government of Sudan and most recently the president of Iran, the same person who is calling for the total destruction of Israel. Perhaps the most famous democratically elected leader in the last century is Adolf Hitler and we all know what happened there.

As one comment on a blog points out, “Pacifism is evil because it can only thrive under conditions whereby someone else is willing to do your fighting and dying for you.”

Unfortunately, the students at various universities seem to be pushing their own agendas forward while pushing common sense and knowledge to the background. The policy that is currently espoused by the Central Student Association (CSA) at the University of Guelph highlights this issue.

The policy states they oppose “military recruitment initiatives at the University of Guelph. This includes tabling in the UC, ads in washrooms, or any visible presence on campus by any military organization(s) that is/are known to have participated in, or supported in any way, activities that are clearly illegal.”

Clearly illegal to who?

This attitude imposes their own view on others and, as the incident at York demonstrates, if they do not get their own way then you can count on some form of disruption will force it to happen. Banning recruitment by the Military also limits the opportunities for those students who would like to take advantage of the Canadian Armed Force policies of paying for a recruit’s education.

They apparently have also assigned themselves the role of judge and jury in deciding what is an illegal activity. Neither the actions in Afghanistan nor Haiti have been deemed illegal except by countries whose activities are also questionable. The very act of them deciding what is illegal and then compelling others to submit to their decision is, in itself, worrying. What is their opinion of countries that behave that way? Do they support this kind of thinking on a national level? I doubt it, so why do they expect others to accept it when they behave in this manner.

The CSA policy also states they will actively oppose “military research and research on behalf of military organizations at Canadian universities. Research that benefits military-related organizations involved in, or closely tied to, war crimes will be opposed by and campaigned around by the CSA.’

Grave accusations given that they are partially targeted at the Canadian Armed Forces. We, as a country, have long gone out of our way to prosecute those who have committed war crimes, to the point of placing our troops and public servants in harm’s way to retrieve the evidence to do this. Are they now saying our involvement in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo were war crimes since these were both NATO actions and not immediately sanctioned by the United Nations? This view is reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain’s, the British Prime Minister in 1938, policy of appeasement that was partially responsible for Hitler’s bloodless conquest of Austria and Czechoslovakia.

We also have to ask what they plan on opposing? With the statement that they will oppose any “research that benefits military-related organizations” and given that this apparently applies to the Canadian military would they then oppose the development of things like water treatment equipment, emergency medical procedures and engineering equipment used in rapid deployments? All of these are things developed for use by the Canadian Armed Forces and then, by extension, used by Canada’s Disaster Assistance Response Team. These are very shortsighted statements and show a lack of knowledge of the uses of military equipment in modern society, especially in Canada.

Given the ambiguousness of the idea of “research that benefits military-related organizations”, this can be applied to a huge amount of equipment and appliances in everyday use. Research in Motion’s Blackberry is considered so integral to the everyday running of the United State military that the US government is getting involved in RIM’s patent dispute. They are afraid a court injunction banning the sale of the Blackberry in the US would actually be a threat to national security. It is not hard to find other examples of “research that benefits military-related organizations.” Global Positioning Systems? Military. digital and analog telecommunications? Ditto. Computers, aircraft design, lasers, portable medical diagnostic equipment, etc, etc. The list is enormous.

If a university were to ban all research that involves a military application then they may just as well close down. But, according to Hannah Draper, the communications commissioner for CSA, “we don’t think a university campus is the right venue for the military to be recruiting. We have a code of conduct around suppliers and which employers and recruiters we want on campus.”

So here are the future leaders of industry and, most worrying of all our country, showing a lack vision and an unwillingness to understand the complex issues at hand. In a country dedicated to peace and equality, the lip service paid to this idea while imposing their views on to others, is a disturbing trend. We, as a nation, cannot afford to negate what others have to say, even if it differs from our own beliefs, for in ignorance lies destruction.

Universities are supposed to be institutes of higher learning. Unfortunately, it would seem, ignorance knows no bounds.

Canadians Are Suckers

Easy on the eyesight
Compere collar hair
Mass appealing tonsils
Poisoning the air - no fair

Clap hands for the media man
He always know what to do
Clap hands for the media man
But does he think when he has to read the news
Media man - that's right he's a media man

Media Man - Flash and the Pan, “Lights in the Night (1980)

When I wrote my article on avian flu, I knew I would be revisiting the subject of spin, I just didn’t think it would be this soon. Unfortunately, there is so much spin on the news anymore that it is hard to avoid.

As I pointed out in my previous article, so much of what you read and hear in the news is designed to grab your attention and make it exciting. The problem is so much of it is spun, in one form or another, it becomes extremely difficult to tell what the real story actually is.

Many stories are spun by the people involved. George W. Bush and Condolezza Rice have been giving us wonderful examples of spin for the last few years. One has only to look at how the White House has managed to intertwine Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein together to see spin at it’s finest. Even though there is no evidence of a connection, (in fact, the exact opposite appears to be true) the Bush administration has been so successful in spinning the lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq that a majority of Americans still believe the connection.

Recently, there was a story on CTV news that caught my eye. The content of the story itself was not of huge interest to me it was the way the story itself was spun by the media. The anchor of the news introduced the story by saying that a new spending scandal had been discovered. The federal government, she went on to say, had spent $90 million dollars on land in Vancouver that had never been used, more than the entire Gomery inquiry had cost.

The very fact that the anchor referenced the Gomery inquiry is, in itself, telling. The attempt here was to place the so-called scandal in the same category as the whole advertising scandal in Quebec. It is in the meat of the story where the real details become apparent but only if you pay attention and actually think about it, something the news hopes no one will do.

The story goes that the federal government leased land in Vancouver to build a new Pacific Centre for Environment Canada. The land itself is being used by various rail companies and is now contaminated so that the government is on the hook to clean it up before anything can be done with the land. Where the spin comes in is in the accounting used by the news. You see, this $90 million dollars is spread over 30 years, compared to Gomery, which cost approximately $80 million in one year. They also did not bother to report how much the government was leasing the land to the rail companies for.

It is difficult to separate the spin out of the stories, as everyone seems to have their own agenda. Perhaps it is an attempt to make the government look bad (like they need help), it may be someone’s personal bias or it could be a good old-fashioned attempt to create a need where there isn’t one, often called marketing.

Just look at Listerine.

Listerine was invented in the nineteenth century as a surgical antiseptic. Later it was sold, in a distilled form, as a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhoea. It wasn’t a huge success until the 1920’s when they came upon a condition called “chronic halitosis”, more commonly known as bad breath. Until this point, bad breath was not considered to be that big of deal but Listerine changed that. According to James B. Twitchell, Professor of English and Advertising at the University of Florida, “Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis.” The revenues of Listerine went from $115,000 to more than $8 million in just seven years.

The same could be said for Head and Shoulders shampoo. How many of you were afraid to even scratch your head in public during their ad campaigns in the 70’s and 80’s showing people worrying about dandruff if they did? Now we have to worry about wearing dark clothes because of flakes.

Politicians are the experts of spin. They like to do tiny things that really do not have much affect on our lives, or may be totally useless activities, and then tell us how wonderful they are. A good example of this is the recent implementation of the child booster seat law in Ontario.

Although the goal behind this law is laudable - the idea of saving children’s lives - the reality has to be put into perspective. A recent study found a child was four times more likely to suffer serious injury when wearing a seat belt alone than if they had been using a booster seat. This sounds like a no-brainer but is it really such a priority?

Statistics for the year 2002 show that there were 203,704 injuries and deaths in Canada due to motor vehicle collisions. Of that amount, 16,021, or just under 7%, were children aged 0-14. How many of these deaths and injuries could have been prevented by the use of a booster seat is unknown but even if only one child’s life were saved the law would be worthwhile. The question becomes whether the triumphant pronouncements by the government on how much they are saving our lives are justified?

A lot can be extrapolated from other safety initiatives that have taken place in the United States over the years. Much has been made about how child safety seats have saved out children over the years. The designs, say the manufacturers, are allowing more and more children to survive. But is it the $200 car seat or the fact that they are now placing their children in the back seat, facing backwards and belted in as opposed to carrying the child in the parent’s lap where they become a projectile in a car accident?

Recent innovations give us some clues. Child-resistant packaging saves approximately 50 lives per year, flame-retardant pyjamas 10 lives, air bags in cars five children and safety drawstrings on children’s clothing two lives. When you consider that nearly five million car seats are sold each year, one cannot help but be suspicious. It is a case of creating an outrage greater than the actual hazard. The recent Pit Bull ban in Ontario is another example.

Which is why we should all take these stories with grain of salt and try to keep it all in perspective. After all, it would nice to prove PT Barnum wrong when he said “there is a sucker born ever minute,” wouldn’t it?

Avain Flu in Canada

The reader who thinks the news can be delivered untouched by human hands and uncorrupted by human minds is living in a state of vincible ignorance.

Thomas Griffith

There is a crisis looming in Canada, a crisis that may very well be the difference between life and death.

Avian flu is spreading around the world and has the potential to kill millions of people. Just to make matters more frightening, it has just been discovered that the 1918 Spanish Flu was also avian in origin. The Spanish Flu, thought to be the mostly deadly pandemic in human history, ravaged the planet. In a matter of months, this flu killed approximately 25 million people worldwide. Some estimates put the total killed as high as 100 million people; it spanned the globe and very few people were spared. Twenty percent of the world population suffered its affects to some extent and 500,000 to 675,000 died in the United States alone.

Many countries, states and cities attempted to impose quarantines. In many countries, theatres, dance halls, churches and other public gathering places were shut down for over a year. Some communities even placed armed guards to stop travelers. Even so, the socio-economic impact was horrendous with so many people sick that everyday life was brought to a standstill. Stores were closed or people were forced to place orders from outside and there are even reports that there were not enough health care workers, due to their own ill health, to look after the victims of the flu. Mass graves were dug by steam shovel and bodies buried without coffins in many places because there were not enough able-bodied gravediggers to inter the dead.

Beware, the next great pandemic is coming!

Give me a break.

We have all seen these reports in the media - the “beware” warnings, the doom and gloom scenarios, the sky is falling. These are great for grabbing attention and selling papers and, apparently, for unnecessarily scaring the heck out of people.

Let’s take a look at the Spanish Flu outbreak, the one they are all comparing to the most recent avian flu.

Although the Spanish Flu was undoubtedly one of the worst pandemics to actually affect the modern world, it does have to be put in context. As some of you may, or may not, know there was a little known event happening in 1918 called World War One. This little known war may have had a slight affect on the flu.

The fact that it is commonly called the Spanish Flu actually has to do with the war. When the outbreak first occurred, there was more coverage in the Spanish press than anywhere else due to Spain not being involved in the war, ergo, they were not suffering from wartime censorship. Unlike today, public officials also tried to prevent panic by referring to it as “only the flu” or “the grippe”.

The War and the flu may be intricately linked in many ways. It is believed that the flu may have contributed to the end of the war as many countries were suffering the domestic effects of this illness as well as militarily. In fact, more American soldiers died from the flu than from the war itself.

We also have to keep in mind the dreadful conditions the soldiers were enduring at the time. Trench warfare had itself taken a toll on soldiers. Living in cold, damp conditions, soldiers were exposed to a variety of viral and bacteriological conditions, not to mention the use of chemical weapons and the effects they had on their immune system. This could account for the nearly 22% mortality rate suffered within the Indian Army compared to 5% of the general population. Overall, it is estimated that between 2.5% and 5% of the world population died. Interestingly enough, Japan only had a 0.425% mortality rate, much lower than nearly all other Asian countries.

The war also had another affect. A product known as Bayer Aspirin was just hitting the market in the United States at the time. With Bayer being German, many people distrusted the drug and even thought it might be a form of germ warfare. This was even suggested by US government officials.

The reality is the next pandemic may have already happened and we just didn’t notice.

Our technology and medical advances have contributed greatly to our increase in life expectancy. A large part of this is due to the capability of being able to treat many diseases, which at one time killed many people. Measles was once a very deadly disease but with modern treatments it is considered more a nuisance than anything else.

Comparing the Spanish Flu pandemic to modern flu outbreaks is like comparing them to Bubonic Plague. The Spanish Flu was almost 100 years ago and, I don’t know if you noticed, things have changed a little since then.

When the Spanish Flu broke out it spread around the world with little notice initially. In those days, there was no World Health Organization to monitor such things. Look at how quickly they had a handle on the current avian flu. Let’s keep in mind that in the same amount of time that the WHO has been tracking the avian flu, the Spanish Flu had killed millions of people. To date, the latest flu has killed about 60 people after two years.

Medical science has also progressed in the identification of disease. In 1918, doctors thought bacteria were the cause of the flu. Much valuable time and resources went into attempting to treat the wrong thing. The belief was that a vaccine against these bacteria would help cure it when, in fact, it was only one of many causes of the secondary pneumonia with which the epidemic was associated.

Which brings us to medicine. The majority of deaths caused by the Spanish Flu were from secondary causes not the flu itself. Pneumonia was one of the major ones, fever another. Given the prevalence of antibiotics to treat the pneumonia and the ability to just go to the corner store and pick up some Aspirin, or some generic version of it, many of the deaths that happened in 1918-19 would nowadays never happen.

It is good to be vigilant but the near panic that is happening is ridiculous. The recent ban on Australian import of Canadian birds is a fine example. The discovery of avian flu antibodies in these birds, prompting the ban, indicates that at one time they were exposed to bird flu - not that they have the flu. Since they do not actually have the virus, there is no chance of these birds making anything else sick with it. Top it all off with the fact there are some 144 avian influenzas in the world, and they don’t even know what kind these birds had, it can only add up to a panic reaction on the part of the Australians.

So keep it all in perspective and remember that every headline you read and hear is designed to grab your attention. Take it all with a grain of salt, don’t be a Chicken Little.

Year of the Veteran? Not for Me

Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail, in good spirits.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894), Scottish novelist

Did you ever wonder what happened to customer service?

It seems as if the very concept of customer service is dying. Go to your average department store and you will experience it. Surly clerks, lack of staff and unhelpful managers seem to be endemic.

Since the dawn of the department store we have had inattentive clerks. Contrary to movies, there is always something more important than waiting on customers to a part-time teenage clerk. That is the nature of the beast. When I was that age, girls and hanging with my friends were way more a priority than customers were. Even though I was being paid to wait on them, and did my utmost to appear friendly and courteous, they were an imposition on my time when one of my friends was around.

Small, family-run businesses, on the other hand, thrived on customer service. Members of the community ran these places and, not only would business suffer if the customer service was not up to par, they would have to face the displeasure of their friends and colleagues at the next Chamber of Commerce meeting, the next Shriner’s meeting or even at the bowling alley.

Now, though, bad customer service seems to have crept into all aspects of our lives.

We are constantly being paid lip service from companies. Wal-Mart is a fine example of that. They like to advertise how wonderful they are with all their employees jumping to help but go into the store and try to actually find someone who isn’t wearing a false smile. One can’t blame them really, working under sweatshop conditions, their jobs constantly in jeopardy if they rock the boat, but still, I wouldn’t mind a little customer service. Sorry, but someone greeting me doesn’t really make up for it.

Not to say all companies are like that. Canadian Tire, to their credit, did give me a gift certificate worth $20 to make up for my wife driving into the store to pick something up and then discovering that the item on their website was not actually what they carried. WestJet is also famous for their customer service. Unfortunately, more are like my experience with U-Haul, who gave us a gift certificate that was only good if you rented one of their trucks. Given that renting their trucks was a nightmare, prompting my complaint in the first place, and that I had made it clear that there was very little chance I would ever use their service again, the gesture was an empty one.

But what can you expect when even our politicians have fallen into this model of customer service? Living for the sound bite, they tell you how they are there for the people but then ignore the people.

For example, look at the recent review of the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). The much-heralded look at the post-secondary situation in this province was supposed to help students continue in school with the aim of helping them find jobs later in life. To that end, former Premier Bob Rae was appointed to look into all aspects of the program.

What did we get in the end? We now have yet another report gathering dust on a shelf in Toronto. Not that it addressed what is probably one of the greatest issues facing OSAP, the ineligibility of the middle class. You see, OSAP is set up to dole out money based on the parent’s income tax returns not real expenses. With ever increasing living expenses, middle class parents have less and less money to pay for a child to continue in school.

But, in keeping with the idea of paying lip service to the customer, the government will throw money at the problem and proclaim the wonder of their existence. Rather than rolling up their sleeves and actually addressing the problems, they will announce some wonderful funding, get some headlines and continue on doing nothing.

Then there is my own personal experience with the Federal government.

After my retirement from the Canadian Armed Forces, I was supposed to get a Certificate of Service, a Service Pin and a wallet card. That was 7 years ago and I am still waiting.

I have attempted over the years to find out where they are. In typical governmental bureaucratic fashion, I was bounced from department to department until, finally, I was told they had been sent to me. But where had they gone?

Finally, this summer, after tracking down phone numbers, leaving countless messages and having to involve my Member of Parliament just to get someone to return my calls I was told...they had been sent. Not where, just sent.

Having had enough of this run-around, I again invoked my Member of Parliament to find out where. Finally, I was given an answer. In a classic example of the ineptness that Ottawa has become famous for amongst the rank and file of the Armed Forces, they had sent it to an address that was two years out of date. Not only was this an old address but, there were two messages correcting it sent to Ottawa and no other paperwork showed this address. But, I should pay for replacements.

Say what?

Being a man of principal (and a bit stubborn), I set out to prove it was their incompetence, and therefore their responsibility, that caused this situation. I gathered up all my documentation, scanned it and emailed it all off to my Member of Parliament, the Minster of Veterans Affairs and the Minister of National Defence.

To her credit, my Member of Parliament, Rose-Marie Ur, immediately emailed back an acknowledgement of receipt and some suggestions, but the other two? Nothing!

Finally, after over a month of waiting, I received a response from Veterans Affairs. Again, in their characteristic manner of giving customer service, they informed me that they were passing the buck to National Defence. They did not, at anytime, say they would help but instead, said that since I had written the Minister of National Defence they were sure he would address the issue.

Did I mention that, to date, I have heard nothing from National Defence?

Given this is the “Year of the Veteran” you would think there might be more consideration given to this problem, especially since the main reason I want this now is to get Veterans plates for my car.

Perhaps it is just to make former military members feel like they are back in the service. I certainly feel like it. This is the same sort of run-around one would get as a raw recruit. Maybe that is what they are after, to make me feel comfortable by treating me in a manner that I am used to, one that, like the smell of your mom’s baking, elicits memories of earlier days. Now that’s customer service.

Public Figures Just Can't Win in Canada

Welcome to the grand illusion,
Come on in and see what happening,
Pay your price, get your ticket for the show.

Styx, “The Grand Illusion” (1977)

With the smell of turkey in the air, and the phantom ache of my missing wisdom tooth in my mouth, I sit and reflect on what I am thankful for.

When we look around the world there are many things, which we, as Canadians, can be thankful for. I have only to look around me to see that.

I have a roof over my head that is not in danger of coming down in a hurricane or being flooded out. I have a TV to watch, although there is usually nothing on and I have warmth that I may be able to afford this winter. My wife would be thankful if I finished putting up the drywall and actually replace the roof on the front of the house but I believe, in the big picture, she is thankful for this house as well.

We are both thankful that we aren’t Americans, given the situation there.

But mostly, I am extremely thankful that I am not a public personality in this country.

We, in this country, seem not to be happy unless we are blaming a politician for something, whether it is their fault or not.

In this province we elected Mike Harris to be Premier. Why did we do that? We believed he would keep his promises. For the entire time he was Premier he did exactly as he said he would. He stopped pandering to special interest groups, he took on the unions and he attempted to represent the silent majority, that group of people who were too busy trying to earn a living to be at Queen’s Park protesting.

For that, he was pilloried by the media, ridiculed by people and has basically been relegated to history as a bad Premier by the populace. Never mind that he was re-elected by a majority and was the one politician who kept to his word. Even now, the media talks about how refreshing it would be to have politicians who were completely up front, the very people who complained about Mike Harris.

Prime Minister Martin is another figure who just can’t seem to win lately. Last week, in a speech to American businessmen and on CNN, the Prime Minister finally got tough over the whole softwood lumber dispute. He pointed out how the American tariffs were adding an average of a thousand dollars to the cost of every new house built in the United States and how it put the entire North American Free Trade Agreement in jeopardy.

Of course, the Conservatives immediately attacked him. Their opinion is that he should stop making threats and get back to negotiating a settlement. It seems to me the whole dispute mechanism was negotiated with the United States; so what is there to settle? And why would we believe them anyway? There is just as much chance we would negotiate a settlement just to have the United States ignore it in the future. The only time they seem to insist on anyone living up to any agreement with them is when the rulings go in their favour. Unfortunately, the Conservatives seem to be so in bed with the Americans that they cannot see the forest for the trees.

It is sad, but a reality, that the Americans only respect strength. Unless someone stands up and slaps them in the face, they tend to ignore the truth. Even the vague threat of linking oil exports to the States to any retaliatory action has finally got their attention. Even the prestigious Wall Street Journal has come out in favour of the PM’s statements.

Perhaps we should keep up the momentum by launching a massive public relations campaign to show the American people the harm their administration is doing with their blatant disregard of NAFTA. Then we should launch a lawsuit against the United States government for breach of contract and damages. These are the types of things the Americans take notice of.

Then there is the whole David Dingwall affair. Dingwall, who was, until recently, the CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint and is a former cabinet minister, has been attacked by the opposition for excessive spending while CEO. Once again we have missed the point.

Sure, one can question the mentality of a person making $277,000 a year submitting receipts for packs of gum and bottles of water but the bigger question is who approved these expenses? He, in the big picture, did nothing wrong with submitting receipts for these. The real problem, and the part that should be the major issue in parliament, is that someone actually approved the payment of these. Sure there maybe a mentality of entitlement within the government, (which may explain why he even thought he should be paid back) but until the people who approve such expense are brought to account this situation will continue.

It is the same thing with Paul Coffin and the advertising scandal in Quebec. Coffin is the person who recently pleaded guilty to fraud for billing the government for services not rendered. The larger problem is that this situation is endemic in the dealing of government contracts, whether federal, provincial or municipal. Advertising, and other service contracts, are considered to be cash cows for any company that gets them. Not only are you expected to pad the bill due to the lack of government oversight, but the officials who are in charge of awarding these contracts expect to be wined and dined by anyone who wants these contracts. Until we address those sorts of issues we, the taxpayer, will continue to be ripped off. Like suckers at a magic show, we continue to be fooled by the misdirection put out by the various players, who with one hand point at someone else while emptying our wallets with the other hand.

So, with this in mind, I am also thankful for my wisdom tooth. At least I knew what was causing the pain and, unlike our politicians, it was easily removed so I can go on with my life.