More 'affirmative action' that will backfire

So, now we have Trudeau -- who is dropping like a stone in mainstream popularity -- pandering to the, let me get this straight, 'LGBTQ, Two-Spirit and intersex communities' -- with $100 million of our tax dollars to fight discrimination and support diversity. 

Please, Gawd, no.  Why does any self-sufficient group need public support?  They don't, but they'll all vote Liberal as long as the money flows -- mark my words.  Supporting one group leaves Canadians on the hook to support any other Trudeau, on a whim, decides needs money.  This is the same guy who said we couldn't give more money to struggling and homeless Canadian vets because, "They are asking for more than we can afford right now."  Gawd help us!  

Remember when there were just two genders?  Remember when there were just "straights" and "queers"?  What was wrong with that?  OK, maybe three, i.e., straight, gay and bi.  But now we have......wait for it.....get out your pen and notebook....

• Two-Spirit 
• Lesbian
• Gay 
• Bisexual 
• Transgender 
• Queer,
• Intersex, and 
• Additional sexually and gender diverse people

But to keep it simple and a snap to remember, it's all summed up in...

• 2SLGBTQI

What could be easier and clearer!

According to our fearless, read "now fearful", leader this is all absolutely necessary to, "Break down barriers, advance rights and build a better future where everyone in Canada is truly free to be who they are and love whom (sic) they love."

Last time I checked, Canada was one of the freest and most diverse countries in the world.  No one that I know, or read about, is denied anything because he/she is "2SLGBTQI".  My own brother was gay, so I know of what I speak.  No, folks, it's all about votes.  I couldn't care less who is straight or who is queer.  If they're qualified for a job, they get it.

There are Pride Parades in every major city in this country and people celebrate them with gusto.  Where's the problem?  (Although, I have to say that unfortunately Pride Parades have degenerated into porn, in my opinion, to such an extent that I could not bring my grandchildren to them to remember their late great-uncle, for example.  Just too much porn.)   

I predict Trudeau's latest move is going to backfire because people will resent public money being spent on this wild, marginal notion.  We're going to see the usual backlash against anyone who pushes this agenda -- just as we did with the women's movement of the sixties.  That's what happens with affirmative action; deep down, people don't like it.  Anyone remember when Catherine McKenna, the failed cabinet minister of a few years ago, stated in the House that women should be given special treatment in the workplace just because they were women?  Thankfully, Candace Bergen stood up and reamed her about that comment, saying it was insulting to women to be told they had to be pandered to.  

I'm sick of affirmative action, but apparently, Chrystia Freeland isn't.  A tough, seasoned trench-fighter herself who pulls no punches, Ms. Freeland is now upset that some guy in Grande Prairie heckled her.  Really?!  You're a politician, for Gawd's sake, and you ventured into Alberta where the Liberals are viscerally and passionately hated.  Politics is a vicious blood sport and, by the way, you have lots of that symbolic red stuff on your own hands, Ms. Freeland.  

Tom Mulcair spoke out against it, sort of, but he was the only one who dared.  Everyone else clutched pearls and wrung hands about how mean it was.  Apparently, the few words directed at Freeland have made the situation so dire, security has to be beefed up for female ministers.  So pathetic.

 

To remind you of Ms. Freeland's own personality, manners, sensitivity and disregard for parliamentary decorum, here she is in the House clipping her toenails.  Is Lametti thinking about arresting her for public indecency?  Did the Speaker upbraid her?  Rhetorical.

Doesn't look to me like she'd be offended by a little name-calling, but here she is today, looking very timid, frail and upset:

This is why I could never be a politician.  Not a good enough actor.

  

  

More females effing up

It's depressing to me that so many women in high places are failing.  Top of mind is, of course, Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public "health" officer, whose sole job it was to watch out, and prepare Canada, for any random, murderous pandemic that might come down the pipe.  

She failed miserably.  Formed 20 years ago in the wake of SARS, the only job the Public Health Agency has is mobilizing a national response to any abnormal disease outbreak.  That was -- and remains -- Tam's ONLY job.  Didn't do it.  

Then we have Brenda Lucki, about whom nothing more need be said -- except that she also failed utterly to protect Canadians a number of times with tragic consequences.  Much blood on her hands too.  She even admitted she effed up during her testimony at the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting!  She admitted it several times and apologized in front of the committee.  Yet still, like Tam, she keeps her job!  It's unfathomable.

Next on the list is the catastrophic CEO of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, Deborah Ale Flint.  Googling her, we learn she was plucked from a similar, four-year stint in Los Angeles.  But listen to this!  In her bio she is credited with receiving an award for Toronto's globally-recognized Healthy Airport Program.  Healthy Airport Program?!  What a joke!  Echoing the years-long coverage of the mess that defines Pearson, a letter in today's 'Globe and Mail' describes Pearson as having, "Dirty floors, torn seats, poorly-managed stations, dilapidated and filthy food areas and disgraceful washrooms."

Undeterred and clearly delusional, Ms. Flint nonetheless doubles down and brags about having developed, "A new strategic plan, known as 'Pearson Strong', creating the airport of the future by building our business in a Smart, Healthy and Profitable way."  (Her incorrect caps, not mine.)  

As for her female colleagues, they don't seem to be much help.  One such VP, Karen Mazurkewich, bizarrely, boasts Chinese antique furniture and Canadian animation (??) as two of her main passions.  Really?!  

So, a fail for Ms. Flint and her female colleagues.

As for Chrystia Freeland, 'nuff said -- and it's all bad.  Responding to Jared Kushner's chronicling of the renegotiation of the NAFTA deal and her delaying tactics and media leaks, she said he was a bully.  Great way to get out of addressing your own dismal performance, Chrystia!  She was the problem, as far as I am concerned -- and I was one who worked on the original deal with the Americans back in 1988.  I am very proud of the work we did and sorry she has sullied it with her own bullying.  

Next we get to the famous Globe columnist and urban-born Torontonian Tanya Talaga.  Today, she was harping on about the case of Dawn Walker, a native woman who faked her own death and fled illegally across the border to the US with her son in defiance of a court order.  As I have said, Ms. Talaga knows about as much as I do about growing up native on a reservation, but she never misses an opportunity to grab headlines and act "expert spokesman" for whatever is current on that file.  

Completely ignoring the fact that Ms. Walker flagrantly broke the law, Talaga claims it was, "The failure of the justice system and the RCMP."  In her world, we need another justice system for Indigenous people.  "We need Indigenous peace-making to be made part of Canada's justice system.  Canada's police system has not worked in favour on Indigenous people.  Instead, it has met the legacy of generational trauma left by residential schools with brute force and decades of misunderstanding," writes Talaga.

Really??!!

"It is time for a new model.  We need widespread change, not more reports calling for police to participate in reconciliation events at powwows.  That's not the answer to a long legacy of racism, violence and misogyny.  Indigenous peace-making practices deserve a place in Canada's justice system."

Wrong.

She is advocating for different standards and sentences for natives and that is wrong.  That will open the door to Sharia law and every other bogus system anyone wants to set up.  We already have a "healing circle" justice system for natives that has been an abject failure, with perpetrators being "healed" with smudging and chanting.  It didn't work and criminals were back out on the street lickity-split to re-offend.  

Someone in mainstream media needs to call Ms. Talaga out on her bullsh-t.  But no one will ever chance it.

Affirmative Action suspends the Merit Principle.  These women are examples of how it doesn't work.     

  

Getting a makeover

Seems Ms. Lucki has been spending time getting a beauty(?) makeover, instead of being the Commissioner of the RCMP.  

Reluctantly forced by law to appear before the Parliamentary Committee looking into the mess she had made of the tragedy in Nova Scotia, where 28 innocent people were slaughtered, Lucki had evidently ditched her uniform -- huh??!! -- and donned a summery, flower-print frock for the occasion.  Really??!!  It was also obvious she had taken the time and effort to grow her sensible, professional, short haircut into some sort of bob and had actually dyed it.  

Really??!!  Don't you have more important matters to attend to than your makeover?  The makeover she should have been attending to was the dismal culture in the RCMP.  Her testimony was unbelievable.  She actually blamed the media for "negative" coverage of the massacre.  The media!  They were reporting on the butchery in Nova Scotia.  Did she expect "positive" coverage on that mess?!  She also said that RCMP morale had been affected by the "negative media coverage".  You could not make this up!  

Morale is her responsibility.  Period.  The end.  Asked about the myriad of investigations, reports, inquiries and recommendations into what needs to happen with the dismal and demoralized RCMP, she said, "We are studying and looking into the recommendations."  "But you haven't done anything yet," she was asked.  "No," she replied.  She actually admitted there had been no reforms in the RCMP under her watch.  She was appointed in 2018 and four years later -- and 28 months after the worst mass killings in Canadian history -- she has done nothing and nothing has changed??!!  

OMG!

What a disgrace to her gender, i.e., mine.  Shame, shame on her.  She has so badly let down the side and has once again demonstrated how affirmative action fails us all.  

Here she is at the Parliamentary inquiry.  A disgrace:

She should have had her a-- fired immediately after the debacle!  But Trudeau will never do it because they would be admitting he had made a disastrous and deadly appointment -- like so many of his other duds.  

    

  

Good news on the native file!

I was delighted to read that an Indigenous man, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, has been named head of the Canadian Medical Association.  Told by teachers as a child he was developmentally-delayed, Dr. Alika nevertheless persevered and succeeded.  "I was told there was just no hope for me," he told an interviewer.  "But those experiences helped me appreciate the things around us that need a little bit of help."

Born and raised in Regina by parents who valued education above all, Dr. Lafontaine believes that, "As someone who comes from a background where I know what it feels like to not have a voice, I can reach out in a different way.  I can feel what people are feeling in a way that doesn't burden the person who's experiencing the pain as much," he added.  This is a good news story.  Now let's just hope he doesn't get all preachy about all-things-Indigenous and just sticks to the knitting.  

Another success story is Michelle O'Bonsawin, recently appointed as the first native justice on the Supreme Court of Canada.  A Franco-Ontarian, she hails from Sudbury, went to Osgoode Hall and has a Masters in Law, among her many other accomplishments -- like being a professor.  Very impressive.    

The thing that troubles me is that such appointments are so rare they have to be uniquely celebrated.  Hopefully, as more natives take up more senior positions in this country, a smaller fuss will be made.  All I can say is, cheers to getting an education -- the residential school variety or not.  

       

Talk about being prepared

A Texan friend sent me this.  As a former-girl guide, this really hits home when it comes to being prepared:

_______________________________

Not reported by ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, or MSNBC.  Do you wonder why?

 Montana Girl

11-YEAR-OLD WHO SHOT ILLEGALS.  Thanks FOX NEWS for reporting it.

A Shotgun-armed Preteen vs. Illegal Alien Home Invaders:  

Two illegal aliens, Raphael Resindez, 23, and Enrico Garza, 26, probably believed they would easily overpower home-alone, 11-year-old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two-story home.

It seems these crooks hadn’t learnt two things:

1. They were in Montana; and

2. Patricia had been a clay-shooting champion since the age of nine.

Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house.  She quickly ran to her father's room and grabbed his 12-gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun.  Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor, only to be the first to catch a near point-blank blast of buckshot from the 11-year-old's knee-crouch aim.  He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals.

When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street, where he bled to death before medical help could arrive.  It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a 45-caliber handgun he had stolen during another home invasion robbery.  That victim, 50-year-old David 0'Burien, was not so lucky; he died from stab wounds to the chest.

Ever wonder why good stuff never makes NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, or ABC news?  An 11-year-old girl, properly trained, defended her home and herself against two murderous, illegal immigrants and she won.

She is still alive. Now THAT is Gun Control!

More............

In my previous blog about the scam that is the Indigenous industry, I mentioned that the information had been forwarded to me by a reader.  What I did not mention was that it was an Indigenous reader who sent it me.  I asked her why she didn't post it herself?  "I can't because my whole family works in the industry."

See, that's the problem.  Until natives start telling the truth and calling their own leaders out on this financial boondoggle bullsh-t, they will advance neither culturally, nor socially.  No civilized society thrives without debate and so far, the only debating is among non-Indigenous researchers and scholars.  As long as native leaders continue to moan and dig up (literally, in the case of children's "graves"), the past, they will go nowhere -- except, of course, to the bank.

I have written about the "Sixties Scoop", decried hysterically by people like Tanya Talaga (herself born and raised in urban Toronto) and Pam Palmeter (another urban-raised "expert", in her case Fredericton) who tear their hair out in the media.  But now we learn that these children had to be removed from their parents because of abuse and neglect -- not to be tortured, starved and killed.  In fact, that's what would have happened had they not been removed.  

I was hoping for a few comments about the revelation that it was native leaders who wanted the schools to continue and expand.  But, none were posted.  That is disturbing because it would be nice if people reacted to truth now and again.  

So I guess the only one missing socks is me!  Ah well, blogging is what I will continue to do because I enjoy it.  

This will knock your socks off!

A reader of my blog sent me this.  It's an accurate account of what really went on in residential schools and why.  It's a disgrace that journalists are so lazy and do NO research.  They just parrot the latest "Woke" garbage.  Read on and become enlightened:

In 1959 Indigenous Leaders Wished To Expand The Indian Residential School System

And the Federal Government Rejected Their Request

Researcher Nina Green has uncovered records from 1959 that show Indigenous leaders wanted to expand the Indian Residential School system and have at least two more schools built - contradicting claims by Indigenous activists that IRSs were designed for the purpose of genocide.

Historian John S. Milloy’s 1999 book ‘A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System’ mentions a meeting of the Catholic Indian League of Alberta that took place in 1959 in which a request for the construction of two new schools was requested by Indigenous leaders, but later rejected by the federal government. This is not the story Canadians are used to hearing about the history of residential schools.

A 1959 issue of a Winnipeg publication called the ‘Indian Record’ features a large group photo taken in front of the Ermineskin Residential School, of members of the Catholic Indian League of Alberta, features the title - Indian League Urges Vocational Schools.

“The need for more vocational schools in the province and the urgent need for a central all-Indian trade school in Alberta was stressed recently at a convention here attended by 100 Catholic Indians from all parts of the province.” -From ‘The Indian Record’ 1959

The charge today is that IRSs were designed by the federal government and the Catholic church to intentionally commit cultural genocide.  But if that were the case, why would one hundred Indigenous leaders in a single province want to expand a system, supposedly so hostile to their own interests?

Another line in ‘The Indian Record’ piece that caught my eye:

“Indians present voted unanimously to claim the education of their children at all levels, including high-school, in all-Indian schools on the Indian reservation. It was generally felt that the so-called integration policy which consists in sending Indians to non-Indian schools was premature…It was asserted that this integration, to be successful, requires four conditions.”

The conditions are laid out as follows 1) Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous must opt-in. 2) Non-Indigenous teachers must be willing and able to work with Indigenous students 3) The rights of parents must be respected at all times 4) That the socio-economic status of the Indigenous be equal or close, to that of non-Indigenous people.

Once again, these puzzle pieces seem to be assembling an image that does not resemble the one currently projected onto Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. The description on Amazon for Milloy's book contains the following quote referring to the Indian Residential School (IRS) system:

"In the early decades, the system grew without planning or restraint. Despite numerous critical commissions and reports, it persisted into the 1970s, when it transformed itself into a social welfare system without improving conditions for its thousands of wards."

The IRS system transformed itself into a child welfare system? Spontaneously? For what reason? Could it be because they were dealing with marginalized people who were somewhat resistant to integration, and living in increasingly squalid, unsafe and unhealthy conditions? 

In a conversation with retired Manitoba judge and columnist Brian Giesbrecht, I asked what his thoughts were regarding Milloy’s point about IRSS being used for child welfare purposes:

“I don’t think Milloy is right about the IRS system transforming itself into a social welfare system in the 1970s. I think that process began long before. I believe that the use of IRS for neglected children was necessary because of the rapid deterioration on reserves beginning in the 1950s when binge drinking became a major social problem. The federal government saw what was going on and tried to respond to it by enlisting the provinces to apprehend children. (This produced the 60s Scoop). But the need was so great that IRSs were used in addition to child welfare apprehensions. All of this is still going on today. Perhaps 90% of the children in Manitoba’s child welfare system are Indigenous despite the fact that Indigenous people make up 10% of the problem. The jail statistics are almost as bad. Indigenous leaders and all politicians have no answers for this appalling dysfunction within Indigenous communities, so blame residential schools instead of trying to deal honestly with the massive problem.”

The appalling dysfunction and desperate conditions described by Brian are not consistent with what the majority of Canadians experience in day-to-day life. Some reserves are extremely remote and cut-off from services and economic activity, and the people in them experience disproportionately high levels of fetal alcohol syndrome, violence and sexual abuse. What kind of education are kids living in these places receiving? And why are we so obsessed with former IRS students, when the tragedy is happening right now on reserves?

Indigenous activists and the neo-tribal elites of the Aboriginal Industry have been using the desperation on reserves as a means to extract government aid. The privileged Indigenous elites who manage the funds, demand that there be no over-sight, nor accountability. They appear to be siphoning off proceeds meant to help poor Indigenous people. This has been going on for years as conditions on reserves get worse. Matters have become dire and there’s little hope things will get any better. This continuation of desperation is not a situation the activists and neo-tribal elites are likely to reverse, as it is not in their interests to solve these problems. The Aboriginal Industry benefits when problems, and the processes involved with proposed solutions, are prolonged and on-going.

‘The Indian Record’, November, 1959

Chiefs, councillors and delegates from Saddle Lake, Beaver Lake, Leigoff, Peigan, Blackfoot, Blood, Sarcee, Winterburn, Meadow Lake, Gold Fish Lake, Onion Lake, Bobtail, Louis Bull, Ermineskin and Samson reservations were present at the Aug. 5-6, 1959 meeting of the Catholic Indian League of Alberta at the Ermineskin Residential Catholic School. “The need for more vocational schools in the province and the urgent need for a central all-Indian trade school in Alberta was stressed recently at a convention here attended by 100 Catholic Indians from all parts of the province.” -From ‘The Indian Record’ 1959 Meeting held in Hobbema, Sask.

In an conversation with retired Manitoba judge and columnist Brian Giesbrecht, I asked what his thoughts were regarding Milloy’s point about IRSs being used for child welfare purposes:

By James Pew, ‘Woke Watch Newsletter’, August 2022

 

Outrageous!

So, it appears the head of CTV fired Lisa LaFlamme because she let her hair go grey.  Wow!  Michael Melling, the head of CTV, was the guy who fired her.  I hope the board dumps his ass because this is a clear indication of what he thinks of women.  Not much.  

Luckily for Sandie Rinaldo she started dying her dark hair a long time ago because at 72, she's definitely hiding a lot of grey under that blonde dye.  And poor Angie Seth better watch her back -- and maybe even buy some black hair dye -- because she's got a lot of grey in her locks.

After more than half a century of battling uphill for every crumb, women seem to have made no progress -- not with the likes of Melling running shows.  Maybe Melling got his attitudes about women from playing Minor Hockey -- another forum where men are Neanderthals and women expected to be compliant Barbie's.  It's so depressing for my cohort, those of us who risked it all and went to the barricades soooooooo long ago, deluding ourselves into thinking we'd make progress.  Sigh.............

Looking at the board of Bell Media, the chair is a guy called Gordon Nixon.  Out of 13 members, five are women.  All the men are very button-downed and straight-laced.  Sigh.............

Here's a letter I had in 'The Calgary Herald' today, which has now been superseded by the news that has just come out about Lisa LaFlamme's grey hair being the problem.  Sigh...........

    

Out of the mouths.....

Was hang'in with granddaughter yesterday and admiring her luscious hair -- the colour so many women spend hundreds to copy.  "Your hair is so gorgeous," I said.  "I know and it's not coloured," she replied to a stunned me.  Well, obviously not.  She's eight.  

"You know, grandma, if people colour their hair, it's not really them.  They're trying to be someone else.  Like, if you dyed your hair, you wouldn't be you."  I was floored!  Where does this wisdom come from??!!  I don't discuss hair with her, and she doesn't read my blog, so this comes from her own observations.  I think I will be enjoying more of her bon mots as she grows.  Here she is in her mother's beautiful front garden, with the carrot she picked for me, and out for dinner the other night:

     

Women. Again.

So, Lisa LaFlamme has been dumped from CTV after many slogging-it-out years.  Wanting to know who was behind it, I googled the Bell Media org chart and learned it was someone named Karine Moses, senior VP, content development and news.  And who is Karine Moses?  She is a dyed blonde with several degrees.  You know my take on dyed blondes, so I needn't elaborate.  But obviously, it was personal because when you come right down to it, isn't everything?

The journalist in me never relies on public "statements" put out by either side; I always want to know who's behind any move like this -- dumb or otherwise.  But what didn't work at all was the one issued by Moses:

"Ms. LaFlamme demonstrates an unfailing commitment to delivering the stories that matter most to Canadians as part of Canada’s leading news team.  Lisa has deftly guided viewers through both turbulent times and celebrations.  We wish her nothing but the best as she begins a new chapter.” 

Huh?!  What "new chapter" was LaFlamme beginning?  According to her, nothing.  She was a stunned as the rest of us.  And Moses used the present tense for "demonstrates", so with a glowing, current review like this, why did Moses unceremoniously dump her?  As I said, it's gotta be personal.  Women can't help themselves and that's too bad -- especially since LaFlamme was named top Canadian national news broadcaster not long ago for CTV.  Had I been writing Moses' statement, I would have stuck to a corporate line about "moving in a new direction.....renewing a mandate.....changing directions.....new audiences....blah, blah, blah."  I would not have sung the praises that highly for someone I had just canned because that just begs the question, why'd ya dump her?

Frankly, I'm starting to realize what a misogynist I can be, given the right situation.  What do I always say?  Women are their own worst enemies.   

Olga

Now and then, just to get away from Cochrane and its dismal restaurants -- think Mr. Mike's and Macdonald's -- we drive into downtown Calgary to lunch at the grand, old Palliser Hotel.  It is a favourite, the food is excellent and I love lobby bars and restaurants for people-watching.

Yesterday, Olga, the charming young woman who seated us (I always ask the server his/her name and give ours; it ups the level on both sides).  Noticing her accent, I asked where she was from.  "Ukraine", she replied.  "Oh, when did you arrive?"  She told me she had come to Calgary in April, because of the war.  Naturally, that launched me into journalist/interviewer mode, she being the first refugee from that war I had ever met.  

Olga had been an air traffic controller in Kiev and her husband a commercial pilot.  She was also eight months pregnant with a three-year-old son to take care of.  But there she was, not taking welfare and working an early six-to-two shift at the hotel, while her husband had signed on as a pilot with Sunwing airlines.  After obtaining a university degree, Olga then had to train to be an air traffic controller for another two years.  "We had a wonderful life in Kiev, a beautiful apartment, family and friends," she said, "But we had to leave everything behind to get to safety."  But did she complain?  No.

So, here they are and I predict they will be very successful here in Calgary.  Her husband will move up the ranks at Sunwing and Olga will eventually get hired as an air traffic controller here.  Surprisingly, she said they would be moving back to Ukraine when it was again safe.  Somehow, I doubt it.  Nevertheless, I was very impressed with these two.

Still remember it

My first kiss.  This is probably an "indelicate" blog, but when have I ever been delicate.  My first kiss was so innocent.  For some reason, I was thinking about this milestone and rite of passage while driving home from the pool today.  Maybe it was a song on the radio?  Anyway, it was in winter, under the light of a street lamp outside my house on Rockcliffe Way in Ottawa, with snow lightly falling -- right out of a movie.  I was 14, he 15 -- so waaaaay more "experienced" than I.

His name was Tony Parker -- of the Parker Pen -- and he lived in a mansion on Range Road.  He was a year ahead of me and I thought I had died and gone to heaven!  I mean, the fact that an older boy was interested in me was heady stuff.  (I still remember the shape of his lips, by the way.  Can you imagine that!?)  To call on me, he had to walk from Range Road to Lindenlea -- quite a hike.  We went to a movie and after that, my memory drifts and I don't recall how long we "dated", if you can call it that.  

As time went on, I had several boyfriends over my high school years, but that kiss lingers, as it must for all young teenaged girls.  

Ah, innocent memories.  I wonder whatever happened to handsome, "mature" Tony?             

$127.9 million

That's how much we're giving to the Muskeg Lake Cree for..uh...something or other?  Marc Miller, another of Trudeau's well-rewarded McGill party cronies currently botching the Indigenous-Crown Relations file on the heels of the equally-incompetent Carolyn Bennett -- another "botcher-par- excellence"-- just announced this latest picking-of-the-Canadian-taxpayer's pocket.  

I'm not shocked; it's practically a daily occurrence.  But I remain pissed off that we continue to hand the natives so much additional money -- over and above the billions we already give them.  "This is going to provide an opportunity for a better future for those living here," said Miller, echoing the sentiments of chief Kelly Wolf.  

Do they really think anything's going to change?  Money hasn't solved one thing for natives for hundreds of years and it still won't.  They remain mired in litigious land claims and lawyer-enriching lawsuits, living on reserves (follow the money for why) that do nothing to enhance the lives of their children.  Why oh why does this continue?!!  When will someone wake up and put a stop to it?!!  Poor Harper tried, but failed, to get this albatross off our necks; Trudeau just dines out on it.

A few days ago, Miller also chimed in on the pope's visit.  "The worst thing that could happen is that no action is taken by the Catholic Church after Pope Francis' visit," he opined, side-stepping and trying to avoid any blame whatsoever.  What "action" does Miller expect and who's supposed to take it?!  All I can see is more money being handed out.  

As expected, most native leaders (all graduates of the evil residential school system, I might add) denounced the apology as too little, too late.  But I bet if money changes hands, it will be neither.  They also came down hard on the pope for issuing an apology in the air on the way home, instead of on the ground.  Whaaaaat??!!  Didn't the poor guy apologize ad nauseum everywhere he went?

The other cute trick the government and the Catholic Church are pulling is dumping the whole thing on the Vatican.  No one seems to mention that the church just stepped up to man the schools, but it was the government whose policy it was implementing.  It wasn't the Catholic Church who arbitrarily undertook to set up the schools, it was the government.  As for the church, they are conveniently dodging the whole mess and pointing all fingers at the pope.  

What must be remembered by the likes of Tanya Talaga, Pam Palmeter and other inauthentic, prominent "Urban Indian" personalities is that the church is run in Canada by the bishops -- not the Vatican.  Talaga and her ilk are posers, dining out on their heritage with no knowledge of how the whole process began and ended.

With apologies to, and respect for, my honest native friends, I am heartily sick of it.  But it does make good blogging.     

Sixty years

That's about how long it had been since I had entered a bowling lane, but boy, it was still just as much fun!  Took the grands to the local lanes the other day and found that it was much easier to keep score and track of who's turn it was to bowl.  They now have your names on a screen above your lane, which automatically records your scores.  In spite of numerous gutter balls, I managed a couple of accidental strikes and won!  

Hadn't seen a Fanta for ages; happily, they also served adult beverages!  All-in-all a great way to spend a few hours for anyone of any age.  

Finally, a "graduate"

David Parkinson, writing in today's 'Globe and Mail' actually used the word "graduate" when referring to a native who attended a residential boarding school.  So, we know at least one person was not only a "survivor", but also a "graduate".  I was relieved.   

He also pointed out that those who integrated into main-stream society after graduating did much better than those who returned to their reserves.  He claimed this was the reason reserves are in such dire, economic straits.  Well, no kidding.  Why would someone who aspired to a better life off-reserve and who wanted to attend university -- like all the successful native leaders did -- even consider throwing it all away by moving back to a desolate reserve? 

Looking at leaders such as Phil Fontaine, Ovide Mercury, James Bartleman and Murray Sinclair we see that they were all born on reserves, but went to residential schools and on to university, where they obtained law degrees, enabling them to become the leaders they are today.  Had they moved back to their reserves, they would have vanished into nowhere.  The two successful natives who spoil an otherwise civilized narrative are the strident and hysterical Pam Palmeter and Tanya Talaga -- both women (unfortunately) I do wish would settle down and be quiet.     

Learned something else, reading 'The New Yorker' the other day.  I was not aware that natives kept slaves themselves, but apparently they did.  The Muscogee, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole tribes kept Blacks as slaves after the latter had been "emancipated".  They even had a thriving intertribal raid-and-trade slave economy.

Often, to escape capture, Black fugitives sought to go native, with varying results:  Some tribes incorporated them, others killed them and others returned them to slavery.  "We owned some, we were some and we slept with some," said one descendent of a native tribe that engaged in slavery.  

Other than publications most people don't read -- like 'The New Yorker' -- you neither hear nor read about this inconvenient truth because it spoils the downtrodden narrative the "wokes" fan to prove a point.  God forbid anyone should mention this tidbit!

The more you read, the more you learn.