Ponderables
When will thin-skinned Environment Minister Catherine McKenna realize that her one-note, supercilious, condescending preaching style repels far more people than it attracts?
And is this the reason her days in her current portfolio appear numbered?
Things I Firmly Believe
Unfortunately, there will always be homeless people among us simply because many of them actually prefer that way of life.
The phrase “going forward” is almost always redundant.
The NHL Needs To Crack Down On All-Star Truancy
Alex Ovechkin and Carey Price, seemingly with the approval of their teams, have decided to skip the NHL all-star game, supposedly to preserve themselves for a run at the Stanley Cup. These guys are assuredly not entitled to treat the all-star break as a holiday.
Alex Ovechkin has already collected well over $100,000,000 under a contract which will provide him with a total of $124,000,000. Carey Price is in the first year of an eight-year extension under which he will collect $15,000,000 this season and a total of $84,000,000 over its full term.
If Ovechkin and Price think that their only obligation for their enormous wealth is to the Washington Capitals and the Montreal Canadiens, respectively, they are badly mistaken. They also owe it to the league, the players association, and, most of all, hockey fans everywhere to participate in the all-star events.
If wanting to “preserve” themselves for their teams’ Stanley cup run is a valid reason to miss the all-star game, then only players from about half a dozen mediocre teams would be participating, and some all-star game that would be! Unless Ovechkin and Price can produce legitimate medical evidence, not speculation, that they need the time off, they should play. And even if they physically can’t play they should attend the other events because they owe it to the game to honour the distinction of having been chosen for their divisional all-star teams. If they don’t show up, they should be suspended for more than the mandated one-game, and their complicit teams should be fined, say, $10,000,000 each.
I’ve always admired these two players’ skills and the way they play the game, but unless they change their minds about attending the all-star game, I’m about to change mine about them.
A Suggested NHL Scoring Rule Change
Under NHL scoring rules, players who are assessed a minor penalty have their records charged with a full two minutes even if they return to the ice after serving just a few seconds because the other team scores. I have no problem with that, but I’d like to see the scoring rules changed so that players are also charged with a full two minutes when a delayed penalty is waived off because a goal is scored before the penalty call is made.
Our Incorrigible Prime Minister
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, by allowing a Liberal fundraising video to be shot in his centre block office, has once again shown both an astonishing lack of judgement and the depth of his feeling of self-entitlement. This time by deciding that the prohibition against MPs using their parliamentary offices for partisan purposes doesn’t apply to him.
His spokesperson’s explanation that “due to Mr. Trudeau’s time constraints in his other important work as prime minister,” he had to do it there is pathetically laughable. For example, he could have done it in the foyer or in any number of meeting rooms. Furthermore, he lives a short drive away, and presumably would be going home anyway, so why not shoot it there? The spokesperson dug the hole deeper by going on to say that the Liberal party “is in the process of making an appropriate reimbursement.”
Reimbursement has nothing to do with the problem, which is that the prime minister deliberately broke a long-standing, clear-cut parliamentary rule. The idiocy of this reimbursement idea is further demonstrated by questions such as: who is going to determine how much a fair rental fee for the prime minister’s office should be? And what criteria can be used when he’s already entitled to use the office? He just wasn’t entitled to use it for a partisan Liberal party purpose.