Were we that incompetent?

The airports are federally-regulated, correct?  Run and overseen by bureaucrats, right?  If all those people are getting paid, why are the airports in such a disastrous mess?  The coverage of Pearson is absolutely appalling, with people lined up for days, flights cancelled and overall mayhem ruling supreme.  And that ludicrous Alghabra telling people that many large airports are in a post-COVID mess too.  That's your excuse when you knew -- or should have -- that this was coming for at least a year?!  

Were we that incompetent?

Then there's the Afghanistan mess, with promised refugees left in danger while bureaucrats fiddle around.  Not that I want any more refugees flooding the welfare offices, but why did that dunderhead Trudeau promise we'd take thousands?  Same with Syrians and same with Ukrainians.  We can't even find housing for legal residents already here, but he's bringing them in by the plane load.  Insane!

Then there's Marco Mendicino blatantly lying to Parliament about law enforcement having requested the Emergency Act.  Turns out they didn't, but he just keeps lying.  He'll probably be blaming bureaucrats for that mess.  

Were we that incompetent?

The MP who first introduced the "blame the bureaucrats" game was Doug Harkness, appointed minister of defence in 1960.  At the time, my uncle, Elgin Armstrong (later minister of national revenue), was the deputy minister and Harkness made him wear the Bonaventure scandal about the cost overruns in the overhaul of the HMCS Bonaventure.  Uncle Elgin had nothing to do with the mess, all the decisions about handing out the lucrative contracts were political and awarded by the minister, but he actually named my uncle in Parliament.  Thus began the tradition of blaming the bureaucrat.

I remember that time very well.  Uncle Elgin's office was in one of the "temporary" buildings at the corner of Elgin and Laurier, where city hall now sits.  Back then, deputy ministers didn't have drivers and palatial offices.  Elgin drove us to high school (Lisgar) every day before continuing on to his tiny office with his one secretary (Miss Mitchell -- not scores of assistants and policy advisors and chiefs of staff) around the corner.  

Uncle Elgin was one of the wonderful uncles I had in my life back then and around the time of the "Bonny", I was at my aunt Betty and Uncle Elgin's place almost every day because his kids and I were very close and lived around the corner.  I started noticing that he was smoking more and having maybe two, instead of one, cocktails at the end of the day.  The consummate professional public servant, however, he never mentioned a word about what he was going through.  The only hint I had was when my mother once quietly said that Uncle Elgin was under a lot of pressure.  Matter closed.

No, he most definitely was not incompetent.

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I'd like to put my two cents' worth in about Pride Month.  Firstly, it's a month.  As I have pointed out before, it's Aboriginal Awareness Week, Black History Month and International Women's Day.  Now the gay community is also getting a month, but that's not my issue.  As you know, my late brother was gay and committed suicide at 32 because of it.  I'd like to take my grands to a parade, but I can't.  Why?  Because the participants have turned such parades into pornographic lifestyle displays.  From what I have seen, people march and gyrate wildly in G-strings and other suggestive garb.  I'm certainly no prude, but I can't let little children watch, so we don't go.  That's on them, no one else.

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And what about Trudeau traipsing around California for the Summit of the America's.  Galling, when there are so many messes right here at home.  But instead of getting down to the work that needs doing here, he's off in Los Angeles handing out $27 million to help illegals escape....whatever.  The other galling thing is the president of Barbados, Dame Sandra Mason, sat down with him to ask for money.  You should not have hived your country off from the Commonwealth, Sandra; now you have to go hat-in-hand begging.  And, now that you no longer have the Queen as Head of State, please drop the "Dame" moniker.  

But you won't, will you.