Morning from Montréal. Where the Mutual Funds companies rip you off and you have no evening news!
This CBC lockout is really boiling my potatoes. Thank godess I still have Dave Bronstetter in the morning; I can't fully wake up without his dulcet tones. But what the hell is the deal here? Do we not realise what an asset the CBC and their underpaid employees are? I am having serious pangs with the way my country seems to be headed.
Mr. Martin, are you listening? No, of course you're not. That's why we are rapidly moving towards privatised health care, that's why we're hangin' up Hydro Lines around pristine Québec waterfalls, that's why you all don't feel the necessity to explain EXACTLY what's happening with Canadian troops in Haiti.
Running under the same contradictions that I'm pretty used to as a Canadian, our government seems to selflagellate over inconsequential shit like the Sponsorship scandal... Are we really SO idealistic to believe this kind of crap hasn't happened in our government before? Really think that Mulroney wasn't greasing his fair share of fat-cat palms? Do we really think a Conservative government would be more transparent? Or are 'we' just pissed because it's got something to do with Quebec and National Unity and all that same tired sky-is-falling hysteria that only succeeds in making the Separatists (I will NOT call them the other S word) reaffirm the idea that the rest of Canada doesn't understand Québec and makes the rest of Canada reaffirm that Québec is whiney kid at the front of the class always asking for special treatment. Just makes us all hate each other just a little more doesn't it?
But what really gets my panties in a wad is what I saw on my local news (what's left of it). Justice Gomery's expressionless mug requesting the VIEW from Canadians on how our Liberal government can rebuild our trust. In an embarrassingly Canadian-cliché move, The Gom is actually probing regular Joe Canadians, to tell him and the other stupid white men how to DO THEIR JOBS...
One of the serious questions involves Canadians' views on how to "ensure clearer accountability between the executive and administrative arms of government". Well, let's see for starters, let's have all government staff outfitted with those electronic tracking bracelets like they gave to Martha Stewart. Or maybe just put them all in a pen and zap them with cattle prods.

My point is, perhaps the government could ask our opinion on RELEVANT issues? Ask us our thoughts on things like child poverty in Canada or the homeless epidemic in a country that prides itself on its quality of life or the fact that few people can get proper mental health attention from qualified doctors. Governments mismanaging government funds has occurred since the dawn of governments and I'm not sure even cattle prodding them will change that. But if The Gom is proposing that the views of regular Canadians ACTUALLY MATTER...THINK of what we regular Tom, Dick and Harriets could accomplish if we were asked on a regular basis? Wasn't that the point of voting for whoever you voted for? To have your voice heard? Or do you just get a kick out of making little check marks in little boxes?


"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
Alas!Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar"...T.S Eliot(1925)