Let's clear up the GG thing

Not sure how nyone could think my comments on the GG and her reaction to the Haiti tragedy were racist baffles me, but a couple of people close to me did. The fact that she happens to be black and from Haiti does not bear on my comments that she is the constitutional representative of the Queen of Canada and that her personal travails should have no bearing on her role and the job she is paid to do. As I said, when my world collapsed every now and then, no one at any of my offices cared a whit. I remember one morning my boss (a woman, by the way) asked me how I was and as I teared up, unable to reply, she turned on her heel and muttered, "Wrong question," and veered off. She had kids, an ex-husband and other baggage and didn't think mine was important either. She was right, of course -- or should I say typical of all the women I worked for in my 40-year-career. Theirs was an I'm-all-right-Jack attitude and personal issues were not what any of us were paid to concentrate on at the office. And G-d help you if you went on stress leave! That was the kiss of death and male or female, black or white, young or old, your career died then and there.



But back to the GG. She and her predecesor made "state" visits to a bunch of countries not part of the Commonwealth. You and I paid for them, but these were other circles I could not square? Ms. Clarkson running around with an entourage to countries of the northern hemisphere like Finland and Iceland. Why? And Ms. Jean making a state visit to Haiti when first appointed. Haiti is part of the francophonie, not the Commonwealth. It also has no "state" per se, but is another failed state with a dictator. Suffice to say, the GG has been a political appointment for a long time and I fear that its currency has been de-valued to the point that no self-respecting patriotic folk will want the job in the future. So, all that to say that my earlier blog on the GG was not racist. It was about doing your main job and sticking to the knitting. By the way, I was glad to see she was back at her post at Rideau Hall yesterday overseeing the latest cabinet shuffle. Good on her.



I am not going to comment about the tragedy in Haiti except to echo the words of columnist David Warren who said that when there is no state to deal with disasters the gangs take over. That is the case in Haiti now, where aid is bottlenecked at the port, distribution impossible in many cases because once released it immediately gets highjacked and stolen by the ruling lawless gangs. He also talked about the tsunami in Thailand, where well-meaning donors of much needed drugs had to watch while millions of dollars were spent destroying the drugs because no one could read the labels. That's the kind of mindless deluge that is tragic.