Great Britain is vaccinating 200 people every minute. One person dies in a Canadian long-term care home every hour.
Canada? Brilliantly, we shut all vaccine production labs here, forcing us to rely on the charity of other countries. How's that working out? Exactly. My question is, where's Waldo?! Exactly.
In a truly bizarre column in yesterday's Globe, two journalists complained about hiring practices in the communications and publishing industry. One was the head of the 'Canadian Association of Black Journalists', the other from "Canadian Journalists of Colour'. Both were female.
(Aside: Why you need two such associations representing basically the same demographic I have no idea?! But I digress.)
Anyway, their premise was that newsrooms need to hire more blacks and browns. As a journalist who plied my trade for a number of years in Toronto's cutthroat and competitive publishing world back in the seventies, I have to ask, why? Just because they are black or brown? That's just dumb. No one hired me because I was a woman. I was hired because of my competence and even had to take a writing test as part of the process. The fiasco of the women's movement comes to mind when hiring began to be based on gender 40 years ago. How did that work out? Just look at Payette, Hadju or Tam. We could also throw in Clarkson and Jean and hundreds of others who didn't work out. They're your answer.
In their column, they bizarrely, but predictably, tossed in the George Floyd killing, for no reason apparent to me? (It's similar to how Indigenous spokespeople and columnists link everything to colonialism and residential schools. Whatever the issue, it's the fault of residential schools and colonialism. Regardless.) In the Floyd case, was this unfortunate not hired by some newsroom? What has his killing to do with hiring black journalists?! Beats me!?
These women have apparently been badgering media companies demanding answers to what they have labelled a "Call to Action". They seem not to understand that journalists are hired because of competence, not colour. That's not to say there aren't qualified black and brown candidates, but obviously not as many because of demographics. It's all in the numbers, not colour.
They claim that one national broadcaster created an internal tool that measures inclusion to weave diversity data into every facet of news operations. Huh? How is that relevant to the actual business of journalism?
Forty-five years ago, I applied, and was interviewed, for a job at Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I got the job and was thrilled, but when they discovered I was pregnant, they immediately cancelled the competition. But lo and behold, a few months later, they quietly hired the guy who had come second. I took it to the Department of Labour, who wrote a weak letter of enquiry to the president of CMHC (at the time, Bill Teron). Naturally, Teron wrote back saying that was not the reason.........blah blah blah. Nothing happened and I left CMHC for another job.
Not getting a job because of a pregnancy was unadmitted standard practice back then, which is why I tried to hide my condition. Afterall, who wants to hire someone who will shortly be taking six months' maternity leave. It was wrong, but I get it from the employer's perspective. However, this is not the same as insisting someone be hired because of colour, which these women want. A journalist of colour would not be leaving his/her post because of colour as a pregnant woman would be doing. I believe hiring is -- and should be -- based on competence, never on colour.
Seems to me, the more people like these women insist on qualifications extraneous to the actual work they will be doing, the weaker their position becomes.
Now we learn that a Calgary biotechnological company could have started work on producing a COVID vaccine right here last March, but thanks to the incompetent feds, was turned down when they asked for funding. You can bet they were turned down because the Liberals hold no seats in Alberta. You can also bet that Tam's grimy hands were all over this disastrous decision.
The CEO of Providence Theraputics said that waaaaaay back when the pandemic first reared its ugly head, his firm went to Ottawa asking for $35 million. A full five months later -- five months! -- they got a measly $4.7 because Canada's vaccine "deal" with China had fallen apart. Had they been able to start earlier, Brad Sorenson says they'd have finished trials at the same time as Moderna. "Now, we're one year behind them in getting our vaccine to market."
This is criminal. The Providence vaccine is also more effective than both the Moderna and Pfizer varieties and only requires -20 C refrigeration. The really criminal part is that three days after Trudeau announced, with great fanfare on May 16, that the feds had signed a deal with CanSino Biologies, the deal actually fell apart. However, this little tidbit of news was not announced until the end of August, when the feds started desperately casting about for alternatives to their failed deal. Incredibly, even up until July 16, the lying Trudeau was still claiming the cancelled partnership with China was a go.
So folks, there you have it. Again.
So, the federal government -- meaning you and I -- blew $391,000 after-the-fact to find out Julie Payette was a disastrous choice. That's what they paid a "consulting" firm to learn of the bad job she had done in the Montreal Science Centre and COC when it came to running a harmonious workplace.
For Trudeau to say she was properly vetted is simply a bold-faced lie. How could they have missed her dreadful performance and all the formal complaints about harassment in those workplaces?! Instead of forking over $391,000 to crony consultants, why did no one pick up the phone and call the people who knew all about her incompetence, arrogance and temper in dealing with employees and colleagues?! Just another example of Trudeau's arrogance and inability to listen to any opinion other than the one he and his school-chum buddies hold.
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Could someone also tell me why no other province or the feds have adopted the Nova Scotian model of rapid COVID testing? There, downtown bars and restaurants have recruited volunteers to rapid-test patrons upon entry so they can remain open. Apparently, since these pop-up clinics were launched in December, just a handful of the nearly 14,000 people tested were confirmed to have the virus and most were asymptomatic. This no-brainer meant such people did not inadvertently shed and spread the virus into the community.
Duh?!
Millions of rapid-test kits have been purchased by the feds and are available right now, so why aren't they being used in other provinces?! Apparently, because other provinces insist that all tests must be given by someone with medical training -- not by trained volunteers, as Nova Scotia is doing.
I smell the nurses' union here. Once again, the useless Tam needs to step in and order other provinces follow suit. But she won't.
That was the name of the lively and charming nurse who administered our drive-thru COVID tests this morning. (B has had a nagging and persistent cough for weeks and I got sick of it, so booked a test for both of us; he has to have a negative result before a respirologist will see him.)
When I booked it on-line, the process was sooooooo complicated and convoluted I despaired of what we would face when we drove up. But, lo and behold, it was flawless! We were in and out within 10 minutes. The odd time, a bureaucracy will actually come through. Now we just have to wait.
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On another topic, a friend's daughter has decided to allow her 10-year-old daughter to dye her hair pink. She has also allowed this kid to wear Doc Martins. Really?! This is what happens when you force-fit a toddler into Mary-Janes, bows and gingham. They rebel, but not in a nice way.
When my daughter was young, I didn't interfere in her choice of clothes because something told me that would lead to bizarre choices later on. Sometimes, this kid went to school wearing one of B's T-shirts as a dress, with one of his ties as a belt. I remember one parent-teacher meeting, during which I explained my philosophy saying, "I let her choose her clothes and dress herself because I don't want her to decide an orange Mohawk, visible tatoos and pins in her eyebrows and lips would be great ideas later on."
So, no surprise this 10-year-old is striking back. Let's just hope it's a phase. Otherwise, she'll be unemployable.
Despite Alberta's throwing another $13 million into the rabbit hole of a "unique learning strategy" for Indigenous youth, graduation rates for these students continue to fall. Throwing money at Indians is never the answer, as I have said many times. Now we learn that only 38.8% of such students are graduating within three years -- a significant gap from Alberta's average of 55.8%.
And only 46.9% of Indigenous students complete high school within four years, while 64 % of other "regular" students graduate. Rates are declining steadily.
Alberta's Indigenous rates are declining badly behind other provincial averages -- about 17 percentage points between the board's overall graduation rate. Apparently, the problems include:
Now, according to Lori Pritchard of the Calgary Board of Education, the answer is to assign each Indigenous student a trusted teacher or adult to check in to ensure each has personal needs met and is working towards success. Why bother when these students know that money will flow regardless of their education?!
OMG come on!
I've predicted this many times: Julie Payette would be a disaster. And she was. On five occasions, I've written blogs about this mess:
There are many indicators about someone that tell me all about them. Their hair is the first thing, as I have also blogged many times. After that come their clothes, shoes -- actually shoes come before clothes -- nails and makeup. Doesn't matter if they're attractive or not. I just have a knack for sizing someone up using the signals they themselves have chosen to project. They tell me all about their values; I don't have to apply any of my own.
I knew Payette would be a disaster from the get-go. Anyone who wears their hair like that at her age -- or at any age -- is completely inappropriate and out-of-touch. The PM (I hate even calling him that) did not do any vetting when he jumped on her for the job of viceregal. Afterall, she was a star, an astronaut and a brilliant scientist! But the job of GG is one of diplomacy, tact and respect for the office and who it represents.
Payette had none of any of these.
Remember, this was a woman charged with assaulting her then-husband in 2011. Then she was booted from the Montreal Science Centre for bullying and harassing staff -- the same reasons she was subsequently kicked off the Canadian Olympic Committee. How could he have chosen her?! Because he's shallow and vacuous, that's why. Oh, and by the way, I forgot she actually killed a pedestrian in a traffic "mishap"! And no one noticed!?!?
In her bullsh-it statement, she actually mimicked the words of Trudeau when she said, "People don't all experience something in the same way." I'm sure the guy she killed experienced it in a completely different way: He died. That was Trudeau's excuse when he groped a female reporter in BC. He also lost it when he actually crossed the floor of the House of Commons to manhandle and shove another female MP out of the chamber.
By insisting she hire her bestie as her secretary, she abandoned government protocol which had always relied on seasoned staff, like the late Esmund Butler, to run the ship and keep it properly afloat. No, apparently Payette and Asunta regularly threw tantrums abusing and belittling staff.
And let's not forget that, even after the renovations she had demanded had been made at the cost of hundreds of thousands, she refused to live in the GG's official residence -- all with the approval of the demented and delusional Trudeau.
This appointment and "resignation" was an insult to Her Majesty. In trying to replace her, Trudeau again is ignoring the learned committee Stephen Harper struck to find and assess potential candidates for governor general. He'll just ask Telford and Butts to come up with a few star names -- the way he disastrously picked Payette.
And speaking of delusional, how she could use her ludicrous hippie son as her official escort in various duties was beyond insulting to everyone in attendance.
Good riddance. G-d help us with his next pick -- and it better not be Harry and Meghan! Meghan's imperiousness is intolerable.
