This is just getting started

The tragedy of the remains of 215 children (*See note, below) found in a mass grave at a residential school in Kamloops is only the tip of what will turn out to be a very big and cripplingly expensive iceberg.  Estimates are that between 2,000 and 6,000 native children died while in various residential schools.  That's a whopping number and very, very sad.

But what needs to be determined is what they died of.  The always ludicrous Jagmeet Singh is claiming they were "killed".  That's ridiculous.  What killed them were diseases, such as tuberculosis, diphtheria and typhoid brought to the area and spread by the builders of the national railway, as well as the malnourishment they had suffered on their own reserves before being sent to the schools. In fact, native parents thought their children would be better off in these schools.  

Let's not forget that settlers of this country wanted to give natives an education and a chance to succeed in the larger society.  Natives did not have any written language, something the well-meaning residential schools tried to remedy.  These schools were not started to punish children and by the way, it was not only the Catholic Church that effed up; so did the Anglican and United Church schools.  The problem was that natives, like everyone else, had no immunity against Western diseases, but natives did not -- and do not -- like to take "white man's" vaccines.  Even today, they are averse to vaccines.

Back in the fifties and sixties, native rates of TB were six times higher than the rest of the population -- a trend that continues today.  What acerbates the cases are HIV, diabetes and substance abuse that weaken the immune system.  My research also tells me that the families requested their children be buried on site because they could not afford to transport them back to their homes; the burials were paid for by the department of Indian Affairs.

What's next?  More graves uncovered, lots of DNA tests, lawyers getting rich and many, many lawsuits.  All survivors and families of schools have already been paid $40,000 each, but you just wait until the lawyers are finished with it.  This is what Murray Sinclair wants and, forgetting that natives do not generally vote in secular elections, you can bet Trudeau will do it.  "Proper" means "money".  Our grandkids are financially doomed because Canada is descending into "junk bond" territory.  

 *Note:  As of February, 2022, it has been revealed that the so-called "graves" have turned out to be tree-roots -- not childrens' bones.  Naturally, no correction or retraction by the media or Indians.  

 

OK, now I get it

The reason Trudeau is holding off on calling an election is because many of his rookie MPs -- including a number of ministers -- do not have the seven years in required to collect a pension.  Ah, that's what it's all about!  

No longer do people run for Parliament on principle.  No, they run to get lifetime money.  Don't know why it took me so long, but the penny finally dropped.  He's also counting on the fact that his baffling lead in the polls will hold until the seven years are up for his buddies to collect.  Then he'll call one.  

And as long as O'Toole leads the Conservatives, Singh is effectively a Liberal, Blanchet sticks to his one-trick-pony agenda and Paul remains irrelevant, Trudeau is safe.  The myriad and piling up of scandals seem to escape the mindless public, who will still vote without thinking or doing any research whatsoever.

That's democracy for you.  As Churchill said, it's a very poor form of government, but it's better than anything else.   

A shameful display

Against my better judgement, I watched 'The Me You Can't See', with Harry and Oprah.  It was a disgusting display of an ingrate complaining about how hard-done-by he has been -- mistreated by his father and the Queen, while wallowing in his millions and living in lavish palaces and mansions.

He should be deeply ashamed of himself, but of course isn't.  What an entitled, spoiled brat he has revealed himself to be.  Well, he's ensured the world now sees what he really is, but I'm sure it's not the "me" he wanted us to see.  If he's looking for sympathy, forget it.  

Even worse were the 15 "experts" blathering on about mental health.  They make tons of money convincing people they are mentally ill, encouraging people to indulge in every perceived slight.  The charlatans in this documentary dine out on people's weaknesses and, of course, Meghan must be encouraging it.  

It' all so sad.  In my opinion, if Harry had intended to continue bashing and trashing his family and the Royals, he should not have had to gall to attend Prince Philip's funeral.  At least Meghan didn't go.  She's hiding in the bushes while she pushes Harry to do her bidding.  There is obviously a reason she is estranged from every member of her own family.   Shame, shame.     

Never held a real job

So, thanks to the auditor general, we now find out who is accountable for the disastrous handling of this pandemic.  Karen Hogan says it is the deputy minister of health, Stephen Lucas.  Although she didn't say his name, she said the deputy was responsible.  Ultimately, it is, of course the minister -- the incompetent Hadju -- but within the machinations of the department, it all falls at the DM's feet.

Well, I'm saying his name.  As a journalist in Toronto, I dug into every story I wrote, that was my job, and I just had to get to the bottom of this one.  In researching it, I found that the clerk of the Privy Council at the time was Michael Wernick who approved the appointment of Lucas -- the same guy who threw Jodie Wilson-Raybould and Jane Phillpot under the bus and had to "retire" early because of his disastrous performance.

Reading Lucas' CV, I found the words "consultation, policy development, climate change, clean energy -- guess he forgot that GM and Ford are really running the economy -- international and intergovernmental relations, policy, planning, coordination....." and blah, blah, blah.  In fact, he has a degree in rocks, er, sorry, geological engineering and structural geology and tectonics.  In other words, Lucas has never held a real job.  So, they put him into health in 2019 to safeguard the well-being of Canadians --  just in time to not deal with the pandemic.  Talk about blood on your hands!  He has lots of it.

Frankly, government needs only a few departments:  "Taxation, defence, corrections, health care and infrastructure.  Everything else is bumph, but health care has been a disaster.  Hadju and Lucas are accountable.                

A dichotomy

 In speaking with a friend, who is a Franco-Ontarienne, I asked her what she thought of C 96.  "I like it," she replied.  I asked why French had to be protected and legislated in Quebec -- overriding the constitution -- and she said it was because immigrants were not speaking French.

First of all, Quebec has not even signed the constitution, so how it can unilaterally and arbitrarily change it is ludicrous, but I digress.  The real question is, if immigrants are the issue, and Quebec has had control over immigration since 1968, why are immigrants not speaking French and why is Quebec accepting people who are not going to speak French?  

Once again, the problem is numbers.  Quebeckers are not reproducing themselves in sufficient numbers to ensure the survival of the language, hence immigration -- even with the enticement of $10 per day daycare.  But since 98% of the world's business is conducted in English, why would immigrants limit themselves to French?

See what I mean?!

Immigrants are the problem, but Quebec controls immigration, so it's back to the same old solution:  Force people to speak French.

When B was part of the negotiations leading up to the federal/provincial conference of 1980, which amended the constitution, he told me one of the key provisions insisted on by Quebec was the protection of the language, so it was protected in the constitution.  But apparently, that was not enough, hence the further draconian measures of C 96.

In the "real" world of finance and business, French has become a nice-to-have accoutrement.  English rules with the money boys.  Trudeau will find he has stepped on a landmine and opened up pandora's box, paving the way for any other province to trample upon the constitution and do whatever it wants.

As I have said, Canada is no longer a country.    

Canadians finally waking up

I have been bemoaning the "leadership" in this crisis for the past year or more, but finally, Canadians are rising from their torpor and realizing that Tam and her merry band have completely botched this pandemic.  According to the latest polls, we have sinking confidence in all levels of leadership, as Canada flounders around trying to get people vaccinated.

How many times have I said Tam should have been fired, charged and jailed long ago?!  So should all the provincial ministers of health and chief public health officers.  But it's too late for that because that would be an admission Trudeau has failed to keep Canadians safe.  An admission of guilt?!  That is something our clown leader would never make -- unless it's to another country or citizens "wronged" a hundred years ago.  

Speaking of vaccines, I had my first back on March 26, but can't get another for love or money.  At least people in Ontario have actually been given an appointment for a second; not here in Alberta.  Thank you Deena Hinshaw and Tyler Shandro!  Great job!  And speaking of great jobs, a big shout out to Caroline Quach Thanh, head of the National Advisory Council on Immunization.  She brilliantly went on national television and told Canadians she would never forgive herself if  she let her sister get the astrazeneca, who then died of a rare-remote-almost-nil blood clot.  How brilliant!  Hey, birth control pills have a much larger instance of blood clots, but millions of women have been taking them with confidence for 60 years.  Thanks to Quach Thanh, provinces immediately stopped using it and people started refusing it.

What a disaster.  

Canadians may be finally waking up, but it'll do no good.   

Things that make a difference

It's amazing what impresses people.  When I worked for Customs and Excise a number of years ago, I heard the wife of one of the assistant deputy ministers had died.  I had met her at a number of social/business functions over the years and noticed that no one talked to her.  In fact, they pointedly avoided her.  So, I went over to chat.  Yes, she was very odd -- bordering on the crazy, judging by the wacko things that fell out of her mouth -- but I carried on.  When she died, I sent this ADM a sympathy card.  He was so grateful, as he told me at the first senior executive meeting he attended after she had passed.  

Next thing I know, I am being tapped for a new position as director of consultations for the newly created GST.  Why?  I can't be sure, but during lunch with the deputy after I had accepted the job, he told me that he had been golfing with Dick and it was Dick who had suggested me for the post.  Did my sympathy card play a part in Dick's thinking of me?  I believe it did.

A couple of years later, the DM's sister died and I went to the funeral parlour to pay my respects.  He was impressed; I was promoted.  Again, because of the visit to the funeral home?  Not totally, but these gestures indicate humanity and character, so I tend to think it had made an impression.  

When the ADM of personnel died shortly after he had retired, I went to the funeral and again, among the people who showed up were the ADM and the DM.  Others have such character, including a woman I had interviewed for a position I was staffing.  Before I had made the decision, my brother died and she sent me a sympathy card.  I was floored, but her gesture influenced me.

So, when in doubt, go to the funeral or send a card.  

  

They're all tent dwellers

That brilliant take on the never-ending and insoluble Arab/Israeli wars was uttered 50 years ago by my late husband, Bob Russell, may he rest in peace.  

Frankly, I side with the Arabs in this real estate war.  Not because I agree with the Arabs on many fronts -- especially their treatment of women -- but because they're the ones who had their land stolen by the British at the end of WW 1 and handed over to the Jews as a homeland.  It was an economic decision on the part of Britain because Britain was broke and could not afford to service Palestine, along with all the Commonwealth countries they had on their backs.

War, my friends, is all about real estate.

Then Israel decided to expand its reach and grab the left bank, encroaching further into Arab territory.  So, with the Arabs' penchant for teaching their children to carry on fighting past injustices, this just continues.  It's the same with the natives' inter-generational plaints and woes here in Canada.  Most of those going on about the evils of colonialism and residential schools have never actually attended one.  But hey, who cares if it means more money!

I have a friend who has lived and raised her family in Israel for 50 years, but one subject I never raise is the war with the Arabs because I know what she will say.  As with the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, they all must have the same opinion -- as do the francophones in Quebec.  Discussing the matter on a trip to Montreal, another Quebecois friend said, "Every francophone is a separatist, so don't kid yourself."  And so it is with the natives; they must hate and battle other Canadians.   

_________________________

And now a word about Bill 96.  Of course, it's completely unconstitutional and illegal, but with Trudeau eyeing an election to secure a majority, he needs all the seats he can muster in Quebec.  He doesn't give a fiddler's farthing about the West because there are few seats to be had and none are -- or likely to be -- held by Liberals.  And who's going to challenge it?  Not the other provinces because they see an opportunity to pull the same unilateral move on other files they object to.  Now it's a free-for-all and damn the constitutional torpedoes.  

Canada is fast becoming what Kevin O'Leary called Greece:  A non-country.  The constitution is in tatters and I'm fast aligning with those here in Western Canada who want to go it alone.  What a great job, Trudeau!  

I am shocked

 Apparently, the "Blogger Team" (whoever they are?) has been flagging some of my posts to see if they violate their "community standards".  Got emails saying a couple had been flagged for review and after said review, they emailed me to say they had been reinstated.

I find this shocking!  For all my blogs, I research numbers and never post anything that defames anyone.  Yes, I have strong opinions -- which is why I have a personal blog -- but I don't post anything that is anything other than my opinion.

When I tried to answer the emails, I got "no reply".  There is something very wrong when strangers can decide what I may, or may not, post.  Folks, this is very scary.  

My, my, my

 So, now Major General Dany Fortin has been relieved of his job as the guy who rolls out the vaccines while an investigation takes place into.....something.  Whadda ya wanna bet it's a sexual complaint?!  

Who's surprised?  Not I.  That's the culture of the military and, as I have repeatedly said, there are undoubtedly lots of other officers shaking in their boots waiting for the skeletons to come tumbling out of their own ugly closets.  

Speaking of vaccines, what an unmitigated disaster.  The latest comes from the assistant chief medical officer of "health", who is now telling us to self-assess about the risks we might be willing to take this summer.  Whaaaaaaa?!  Trudeau is covering it all with the handy slogan, "One dose Summer, two dose Fall."  How cute!  What the eff does that mean?!  For those of us who have had only one dose and have no idea when the next will come, what are we supposed to do?  Follow the ineffectual advice of the inept Tam and act as if we haven't had any vaccine?!  She should have been fired, charged and jailed long ago, but our Feminist-in-Chief PM will never do it.  He does not follow the "Stick with the winners" approach.  His watch-words are "Stick with the losers" and he is surrounded by a ton of them.

The other incredulous thing is that Quebec wants Bill C 10 to pass because "French language and culture" need to be protected.  Why do they need to be protected if they are so important and vital to that province?  This has gone on for generations, so something is very wrong if a language and culture can't be spoken and written on their own merit, thus ensuring their own intrinsic protection.  Oh yeah, I forgot.  Too few "pure laine" Francophones around these days. 

Canada is a ridiculous country.

     

Money, as usual

Why it took me so long, I have no clue?  In all the coverage about the idiocy of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's threat to shut pipeline line 5, no one mentioned the key ingredient:  Money.

She knows full well she can't actually physically turn off the tap, because of the dire consequences for neighbouring states, as well as her own, so this was simply a bluff.  No, what I finally found, in some obscure article, is that she is going to confiscate Enbridge's profits as of her arbitrary deadline of May 12th.  Yep, she's going to simply dip into their accounts and rip off the profits.

In the meantime, everyone will be tied up in expensive legal knots fighting her moves.  As I mentioned, (See "I hope my Michigan friend enlightens me," May 6, 2021) Whitmer can't turn the taps off because of a small legality outlined in a 1977 treaty that prohibits state governors from interfering with national pipelines. 

So, nice move, Whitmer.  You're going to collect money until the courts decide and tell you you can't.  After that, you'll be fighting for years to keep it -- all the while spending it.  Oh, and by the way, my Michigan "friend" did reply to my questions about her Whitmer.    

This is very sad

I have copied and pasted this from something a friend sent me.  It makes me scream:

__________________________________

Kneeling, worth reading

“I watched the Democratic leaders of Congress kneel in the halls of Congress for about nine minutes, for the death of a man named George Floyd. 

 I have never seen them kneel for a fallen *Police Officer. 

I have never seen them kneel for a fallen *Soldier. 

 I NEVER SAW THEM KNEEL FOR THE *SOLDIERS THAT HILLARY &  OBAMA LEFT TO DIE IN Benghazi!! 

I have never seen them kneel for the thousands of (black and white) *babies aborted EVERY DAY. 

 I have never seen them kneel for a murdered *white man or woman. 

 I have not seen them kneel for the thousands of *black-on-black murder victims. 

I have not seen them kneel for the thousands of *elderly people that died in nursing homes due to the Corona Virus.(Especially N.Y.)

 I have to ask: *WHY are Democrats putting the life of George Floyd as more valuable than the lives of everyone else? 

In fact, Democrats have put so much value on the life of George Floyd, they have allowed rioting, 🙅looting, 🔥 arson, 🧟 ‍♂ ️ murder, and   💣 mayhem in communities Nationwide...  

 ASK YOURSELF - WHY NOW?" 

The family (brothers and sister) of George Floyd opened a Go Fund Me account to "help the family"? It has already raised $14,455,100.00  and still counting from donations as of June 22, 2020. Yes, almost $14 1/2 MILLION. And now another $27 MILLION from the city of Minneapolis.

This is for  a guy who was arrested NINE times; was a convicted drug dealer (and at a drug deal the day he died); held a gun to the stomach of a pregnant lady while his five buddies robbed her home; did prison time three different times totaling about eight years, and obviously didn't learn from our penal system. And America is memorializing him by painting murals of the guy on the sides of buildings like he's hero? Unbelievable!! 

You got to be kidding me.  Crime does pay! .....and to pour salt in the wound, Rep. Pelosi (democrat) presented his brother a folded American flag flown over the Capitol in his honor in a beautiful tri-cornered presentation case.

Are you throwing up yet?

_______________________________

WTF?!

Would someone please tell me why Theresa Tam keeps warning every fully-vaccinated Canadian to behave as if he/she hadn't been??!!  Then there is the head of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, Caroline Quach Thanh, putting the fear of God into anyone who even contemplates getting the Astrazeneca jab.  

WTF is the watch word, folks??!!

Then, for some reason, we have the highest rate of infections in North America, when every person I see is totally masked and keeping the sacred distance?!  Captain Drone-a-Thon, Hinshaw, blames politicians and they throw the whole mess over to "following the science", i.e., Hinshaw.

It's been a disaster from day one and, as I keep marveling, no one has been fired and replaced??!!  How can that be??!!  Too bad all the incompetents are women.  They've set those of us who went to the barricades in the late sixties back 50 years.  Great job, ladies!

It pisses me off.  

 

Remember this guy?

Russell Williams started out as a peeping Tom, then graduated to breaking, entering and stealing women's underwear.  Then he moved on to hanging around, trying on their underwear and lounging around on their beds.  As these behaviours failed to adequately excite him, he upped it to rape and finally his ultimate pleasure:  Murder.  

That's what apparently happens, milder behaviourers escalate as the thrill fades.  All this time, women were complaining and saying they felt "uncomfortable" around him, but he was a colonel and thus nothing was done.  Heck, he even got to fly the Queen around during her visits to Canada!  This is why the military has to get serious about sexual harassment, assault and rape.  Williams was charged with breaking into 82 houses before he graduated to murdering four young women.  Even then, it was a fluke that caught him, not the military.  But, folks, he started with voyeurism.

No one ever talks about this link and the attitude of the armed forces that overlooks it.  Will anything change?  I doubt it.  Bizarrely, no one mentions this in the blanket coverage of the Vance scandal.  No one even references it?!

Well, I just did.  Think about that, please.  How many other perverts are there in the military and other quasi-military organizations lurking around in the shadows?  Just heard horrendous coverage of the Ottawa Police Service, where a number of officers have been investigated for, or charged with, sexual assault.  Everyone knows this goes on because it's simply infused in, and accepted by, the culture.  

Many men must be shaking in their boots, waiting for the flood gates to open and the other shoe to slam them hard on the head.

  

I hope my Michigan friend enlightens me

 Why in Gawd's name is Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer determined to shut down oil pipeline 5 when she knows that it currently supplies more than half of the state's requirements?!  I am sure she couldn't care less that it also supplies 45% of Ontario's crude and more than half the crude refined in Quebec, but the question is why is she doing it, knowing how devastatingly it will cripple her Canadian neighbours?

The line has been bringing crude to Central Canada by way of Michigan since 1953 with not a disaster to its name.  But, according to the genius Whitmer, "It's a disaster waiting to happen."  OK, let it wait.  Apparently, Canada is threatening to invoke a 1977 treaty that would compel Michigan to keep the line.  OK, so invoke it.  

Whitmer has also failed to take into account the colossal increase in ship, rail and truck traffic that will fill the vaccum left by the pipeline.  Estimates are that 800 tanker cars and 2,000 oil trucks will be rolling menacingly through both countries a day -- a day! -- if line 5 is shut.  Lac Megantic anyone?  "This is an aggressive action against Canada's national security," says Roy Norton, Canada's consul general from 2010 to 2014.  "It is a stunningly unfriendly act against Michigan's friend, partner and best customer."  But Biden has chosen to stay out of the fray because Whitmer is a big democratic ally and helped get him elected.  And as for Twinkle Toes Trudeau, we all know he doesn't like pipelines and is determined to continue to bankrupt Canada into third-world-junk-bond-green status.

All Trudeau did when Obama cancelled Keystone XL was shrug.  That line would have brought Western Canadian oil to American refineries and ultimately to southern US ports for export.  We needed that line too, but somehow just benefiting Alberta was a "who cares" moment.  Now, however, when Ontario and Quebec are going to freeze in the dark it's "red alert" time!    

But that's where the votes are, so that's the wheel that gets greased.  Maybe Legault is regretting his banning of Energy East, now that he knows voters in Quebec will be mightily pissed, as refineries shut and gas prices soar.  We all know how Quebeckers love their big, fancy cars. 

Just to help matters, natives in Ontario have now come out in support of Whitmer.  Well, of course they have.  They don't seem to have figured out that the bags of money they are handed comes from pipelines, duh!  Oh wait, they probably have, but who cares!  They get their "money for nothin' and their chicks for free".

 

Thanks to our inept "leaders", Canada is no longer even a country.  Instead, it is a collection of self-centred regions.  All very sad. 

__________________

Note:  Asked my friend what she thought.  Haven't heard a peep because she is a loyal Democrat. 

Here's why...

 ...Alberta has the highest per capita cases of COVID in North America.  North America!  Here's one reason why:

 Last weekend, thousands of idiots attended a rodeo in Bowden, where they milled and thronged, cheek-by-jowel, maskless.  How dumb is that?!  But the fact is, Calgary has no identity, other than Stampede.  It is made up of completely separate and wholly self-sufficient quadrants; there is no viable centre of the city.  Where we live in Citadel, for instance, we can get everything we need or want within a mile radius -- including supermarkets, liquor stores, hair salons, restaurants, malls, box stores, etc.  You name it, it's right here.  So with no Stampede last year and a virtual one this, locals are desperate for a rodeo.  That is why they went to the small one in Bowden -- that and the fact that Calgarians generally listen to no one.

Another reason Albertans are simply ignoring the harranging of medical officers is because our chief "medical" officer of "health", Deena Hinshaw, is impossible to take seriously.  I call her Dr. Drone-a-thon because that's all she does.  She stands there, expressionless and drones out a bunch of meaningless numbers, without giving any context whatsoever.  What do the numbers mean?  We never find out anything -- expect they are very high.....drone....drone...drone.  And please G-d, do something about that hair!

And as for Tam, well, you know what I think of her.  Ontario is also in a mess and columnists are starting to ask the same questions I have been scratching my head about:  Why do people like Williams in Ontario and every counterpart across the country keep their jobs!?  Tam was asked to "clarify" the contradictions between the national health committee of "experts", who are advising people to pass on astrazeneca and J&J and wait for pfizer or moderna, while at the same time, out of the other sides of  their mouths, they are saying to just get whichever you can, after you do a self-assessment.

Hello!  We're not able to do that!  That's your job!  Tam's response and "clarification"?  One the one hand this and on the other that.....blah.....blah.....blah.

No wonder people are simply throwing up their hands in exasperation.  Heads must roll, but won't.