A very scary number

Since 1946, Canadian taxpayers have given natives $3,300,000,000.  That's more than three trillion dollars and where has it landed us?  Nowhere -- not for the natives and not for the rest of Canada.  It's tragic and a scandal of gargantuan proportions. 

An article in The Calgary Sun contained so many depressing facts I could barely finish it.  But people need to know what's going on with natives in this country -- especially as leaders are meeting in Regina as I type.  And especially amid the floundering of the 'Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women' commission which has hit the rocks hard.

• Every chief of the 600-odd reserves in Canada makes more than the prime minister;
• One of Trudeau's first acts was to cancel the Accountability Act, introduced by Harper, which would have forced chiefs to tell their people where the money was going;
• According to RCMP stats, there are 6,420 missing persons in Canada;
• 1455 are women, 164 are natives;
• 88% of murders of native women have been solved;
• 89% of murders of non-native women have been solved;
• 83% of native victims were murdered by a close relative;
• The overwhelming majority of native murderers had already been convicted of a violent crime;
• A two-tiered justice system gives native perpetrators lighter sentences, or none at all;
• 40-50,000 years ago, native ancestors came from Asia across a land/ice bridge;
• They were neither indigenous nor homogenous;
• They killed each other and the Iroquois actually completely wiped out the Huron;
• They practiced violent slavery, to which European settlers put an end.

I could go on.  What is needed is to get these people off reserves and into mainstream Canada.  The answer to the youth suicide epidemic is not to send in more mental health workers.  The answer is to get off the bloody reserves, get properly educated and get jobs.  Sadly, this will never happen because The Indian Act is the mechanism by which the chiefs get their money and that means the reserves and their destitute inhabitants stay put.

Don't believe them when they say we need to revise the act.  That will never happen.

Let's do it again!

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  So, in that spirit, let's name Murray Sinclair head of the inquiry into the Thunder Bay Police Services Board because the last time Sinclair headed something, he took seven years and spent $62 billion to find out.....basically......nothing new. 

I am talking about the 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' Sinclair ran about native residential schools a few years ago.  So, why not get Sinclair to run the Thunder Bay investigation into police handling of a few native youth deaths in Thunder Bay?  Great idea, if you want to get nowhere.  And let's give the guy a deadline of October 31 for an interim report and March 31 for the final -- a guy who took seven years to traipse through Canada the last time.  Do you think this guy will get anywhere in three months?!  And just to top it off, let's give him a mandate so broad he can do whatever he wants! 

It's another financially-ruinous disaster in the making which Sinclair will string out for years.  Mark my words.  I guess the Senator's presence isn't required in the Senate, if it can do without him for a few more years.  And I predict he will blame the police for everything he finds.  He will ignore the fact that the kids who died or drowned were in care and out wandering, drinking and drugging in the public thoroughfare at all hours of the night. 

He will do this because he is a native.  Period, the end.  What is the deal?  We need an inquiry about natives so let's call Sinclair -- our go-to native judge? 

It's a disgrace and a travesty designed to let Trudeau continue his selfie meanderings. 

 

 

Once a year

That's the only time I get my car properly washed.  B and I take both cars way-the-hell-and-gone down Macleod Trail to 'Bubbles', a detailing wash.  We then go to 'Chop' in the Chinook Mall for a lovely lunch.  Except today, I could find nothing on the menu worth eating. 

I hate arugula.

And everything had arugula.

I also hate aioli.

And everything had aioli.

I hate "smoked".

And everything was smoked.

I hate "spicy"

And everything was spicy. 

"The chicken club, is it really smoked smoked?" I asked the server (wanted to say 'waitress', but apparently that term has gone the way of  'stewardess').  "I really like it and it's not that smoked," she replied.  So I ordered it.

What a mistake.

Not only was the chicken smoked, so were the cheese and the bacon.  What the f??!!??  It was like eating a BBQ grill.  Can no one prepare actual food that tastes like it actually tastes?  Apparently not.  I picked my way through the onion rings I had had the sense to order and left the rest.  The waitress asked how everything was; looking at my plate she could have figured that out all by herself. 

Predictably, the bill included the sandwich I didn't eat. 

Upon leaving, we were asked by the stunned "hostess" how everything was?  "Awful," I told her.  "Smoked is an acquired taste," she stupidly said.  "I am very old and have yet to acquire it," I replied.  "Do you want to speak to a manager?"  "I told the waitress and I told you and if neither of you is empowered to do anything about it, why ask me how everything was?"  To which she had no reply. 

It's all such expensive crap.               

My take

The people of St. Apollinaire didn't reject a Muslim cemetery.  Rather, they voted in favour of secular, non-denominational cemeteries in the municipality.  That was the question, so people can calm down.  You have to remember that when Quebeckers turned away from the dominance of the Catholic Church, that province became the most aggressively secular in the country.  A few years ago there was also a huge kerfuffle about a Catholic religious symbol hanging in the Quebec legislature, so it's a general rejection of religion and an affirmation of the democratic separation between church and state -- not specifically anti-Muslim.

Remember when that idiot Dalton McGinty was pondering Sharia Law in Ontario??!!??  And to think he is now a professor at Harvard...........it is to weep.

Any cemetery I have visited has people of all faiths buried in it -- Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, you name it -- because by the way, I don't think there are special sections roped off for individual religions in heaven.  It won't be, "Protestants here, Catholics there, Methodists on this side, Lutherans on the other."  No, anyone who makes it will be thrown in with everyone else.  And since we're dead, who cares?

Frankly, I think it's segregationist for Muslims to insist on their own burial ground.  This is Canada, muck in.  

So predictable

The natives are boycotting the inter-provincial meetings because they want equal status with the provinces.  They want to deal nation-to-nation with both the feds and the provinces.  People when are you going to get it??  Native bands are not "nations".  I mean, what country has 600 equal "nations" within it?  Why did Trudeau say they had a right to deal nation-to-nation with Canada?

What a dumb move. 

Seriously.  By any definition, native bands are not nations.  A nation has to raise taxes, support itself, provide education, health care, infrastructure and be able to defend its borders.  None of the 600-odd native bands within Canada does this.  Rather, they are supported by the rest of Canada and given billions annually via The Indian Act.  Do away with the act, stop taking the money, run your own shows and then call yourselves nations.  Otherwise, be quiet and cooperate.

But of course they don't have to cooperate, as the provinces do, to receive equalization payments into which the provinces themselves contribute.  Native groups can boycott anything anytime because they will still get their money.  They would rather stay outside the tent and complain than roll up their sleeves and get to work to better the lot for their own people. 

Trudeau senior started all this, with his canoe trips and his buckskin jackets.  Trouble is, he did not know what he was conjuring.  It is all such a scam.           

Sixteen

That's the number of children left behind after the deaths of two native women here.  Found burned to death in a car, they were from the Stoney Reserve in Morley, just down the road. 

Sixteen children!  One of the women posted a picture on facebook at 3 a.m. Sunday morning, so they were alive then.  My question is, what were they doing in a car with an arab man in the middle of the night?  Who was looking after their brood of 16?  As I always told my kids when I imposed a curfew, "Nothing good ever happens after midnight."

And it's all downhill from there.

Although never mentioned in coverage of these deaths, drug use is a huge problem on that reserve.  In fact, the main industry is selling fentanyl and then reviving victims with naproxen.  They even train band members to administer the antidote, so crushing is the problem.

Makes you wonder how many hundreds of kids have been left behind by the deaths of the missing and murdered women?  When you engage in risky behaviour, as these women did, you can expect dire consequences.  And you have to know the rest of the country will be paying to raise your deserted offspring. 

Partly right

I said a while ago the next governor general would be a native woman.  Got the native part wrong, but the woman part right.  Nevermind, she is a francophone, so Trudeau's on track with two out of a number of boxes ticked.  What really would have been in keeping with Justy's philosophy would have be to have appointed a:

• LGBTQ
• Female
• Native / Metis (to get the francophone part in there)
• Handicapped

What we have is Julie Payette, who will be named GG tomorrow.  All she has to do is deal with that ridiculous hair.  Waaaay too distracting, unkempt, dated and unprofessional.  I think that look went out with flashdance in the eighties. 

I've said it before

When you put inexperience and feelings ahead of efficiency and diligence, you get disaster.  That's the fate the incompetent Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's Inquiry has brought upon itself.  Now, a fifth top official has quit.  Obviously, chair Marion Buller is the problem -- regardless of how many times Minister Carolyn Bennett steps up to a microphone to bs her way through this mess.

It doesn't matter how many condescending native outfits the minister sports -- stupid looking in my view -- nothing's happening!  The problem is it's not an inquiry.  It's about families wanting to vent and have their personal stories heard -- not about an efficient investigation into the facts.  That would take experts with well, actual expertise.  The RCMP has done all that can be done; now all people want to do is cry in public. 

I predict another Murray Sinclair, multi-million-dollar, seven-year fiasco. 

Navratilova was the last

After her brilliance, it's been all downhill for the women's game.  No more serve and volley, no more out and out winners, just unforced errors, as they call them.  Frankly, there's no such thing as an "unforced" error in my view because your opponent forces you to make one.  (Remind me to tell you about the time I was dinked to death by an inferior player, who annoyed me so much I kept pounding it out.)

But I digress.

It all began with Chris Evert when she started that relentless baseline pounding in the seventies.  She also introduced the two-fisted backhand -- something hitherto illegal.  At least she didn't start the grunting and screaming, now seemingly a must in the women's game.  That special honour goes to Monica Selles.  (Is that the reason someone stabbed her?  Sorry, cruel even for me.)  Steffi Graf brought some class and skill back to the game a few years later, but now it's all pound, pound, pound and scream, scream, scream until someone hits it out, or into the net.  A number of years ago, Wimbledon attempted unsuccessfully to ban screaming, but that valiant effort to bring back a little politesse to the game was blocked by money.  At least you still have to wear white. 

I miss the old game of skill and finesse the way Stephan Edberg, Pat Cash and even John McEnroe played it.  Raonic used to be a serve-and-pounder, but many of his winners in the last game I saw were won with angle shots and tap-in's at the net.  Too bad he's so boring and dull, an attitude Bjorn Borg perfected.  Where are the Connors and McEnroe's of this sport when we need them?  And the player who perfected 'rude' was Pete Sampras, a guy who blamed a tummy ache or the weather whenever he lost.  Never gave any credit to the poor slob across the net who had just beaten him.

Don't assume I play well, because I no longer play at all -- my hips having decided against it a number of years ago.  But I still love it.  The best tennis moment for me?  2004, centre court, Wimbledon, watching Federer beat Roddick for the title.  Doesn't get any better than that.               

Another place....

....I have yet to visit in the six years we have lived here is Stampede.  Hate crowds and they're huge there.  I would go to the rodeo events, but the tickets are $200-$300, which is ridiculous, so the closest I get to cowboy season is the wearing of one of my beautiful cowboy hats and a pair of my gorgeous boots.  Even then, people look at you as if you're a tad touched because no one outside Stampede Park dresses in Western wear for the 10-day event. 

It's not just Stampede, when we lived in Ottawa I avoided the Ex, the Tulip Festival and Winterlude like the plague.  In addition to the crowds, the porta-potties are another HUGE no-no.  And lineups!  People here actually queued for five hours to have a pancake!!!!  In 31 degree heat!!  Are they insane??!!  I mean, there's nothing cheaper and easier to make than pancakes so stay home and fire up the griddle.  Who wants to stand in a marathon line with screaming kids, behind and in front of strangers.

Must be showing my age, but not me.   

Some people think....

...if it's not on facebook, it didn't happen.  These insecure types have to plaster every place they go and everything they do, eat or drink all over the internet.

I'm sick of it.

We just spent three days on vacation with our brood and I think I took four pictures -- none of me, by the way.  I know people who would have stuck 50 on fb and written inane descriptions of each obvious moment.  "Here's a muffin I ate....Look at my kids in the pool....we took a walk and saw a dead bird....look at my coffee!....This is the dinner I made."  Frankly, I'd find a photo of what came out of them after the dinner more biologically interesting. 

But no one ever posts a picture of that. 

And secret smokers would never post shots of themselves furtively sneaking a fag behind the garage.  Similarly, ever seen a drunk selfie?  Me neither.  Facebook is a useful tool to keep up with far flung friends, but it can be carried to extremes.  My philosophy is, if stopping everything to pose for a selfie is going to ruin the moment, don't.

   

Won't change anything

The Trudeauites have decided to give the Democratic Republic of Congo (an oxymoron right there) $100 million to combat violence against women.  Won't do any good whatsoever because violence against women is a culturally-accepted practice in most African countries.  Men beat their wives and daughters all the time and men rape women and children all the time. 

Guess where that money will end up?  Right in the pockets and Swiss bank accounts of corrupt politicians and government officials, where most aid money given Africa ends up, which is why I never give a cent to any country in that continent.  I give to the SallyAnn, period. 

Speaking of Trudeau, his international "cool" as landed him number three in the G 7.  Three!  Apparently, only one in a hundred politicians has the "cool" factor and our dunce has it in spades.  Must be genetic because his father also had the "cool" gene -- in spite of the mess he made of the Canadian economy.  His son is following in his father's incompetent footsteps and all I can hope is that Canada is rich enough to survive three terms because I predict that's what Canadians will give him.  Sadly, the Conservatives chose a decidedly uncool leader who hasn't a hope in hell of beating him. 

We're effed for the moment. 

Out of the teepee....

....and into a drum dance.  Trudeau Lite (TL) is a very confused scatterbrain.  Couldn't even watch Canada Day celebrations on The Hill, that's how cringe-inducing it was.  Poor Charles and Camilla, gamely greeting every native/metis leader TL threw at them in an over-the-top Indian extravaganza. 

It was all-Indians-all-the-time.  As did Kate and William, HRH and the Duchess must also have thought Canada is compromised of nothing but natives.  Everywhere.  I know we are trying to redress everything and anything, but methinks the pendulum has swung a tad too far.  And it won't do any good as far as native goodwill is concerned.  The demands will simply grow and grow and grow, as leaders abandon merely dining out on their grievances and throw themselves into serious gourmandizing.

What about our vets, the people who made Canada what it is?  Where were they?  Who was celebrating and thanking them?  No one. 

But the topper had to be Bono and The Edge -- a couple of Irish lads who have absolutely nothing to do with Canada.  What the eff was that all about!!??  Following on the heels of Gord Downey and his Order of Canada, just another case of TL inviting his favourite rock stars to entertain him.  Not only is he selfi-mad, he's also an unstatesman-like, common groupie.

All so sad.