Ponderables
How come as men age their hair migrates from their heads to their ears, noses and eyebrows?
What are the odds on “sunny ways” being a Trudeau catch phrase in this fall’s federal election?
Things I Firmly Believe
Donald Trump will never realize that being president of the United States is about running the country and not about aggrandizing himself.
There’s a lot of truth in the old country song If You Can’t Bite, Don’t Growl.
Rita MacNeil’s Iconic Tea Room Closes
Even though I knew after Rita MacNeil’s death six years ago that it would be inevitable, I was still somewhat saddened this week to learn of the closing of her iconic tea room in Big Pond on Cape Breton Island. The building was originally a one-room school house which later was renovated to become Rita’s home for a time. When her career took off she again renovated it and turned it into a small tea room, thinking it would be an enjoyable hobby and provide some seasonal employment for a few people in Big Pond. But it quickly became such a popular tourist attraction that during the summer more people were turned away each day than could be comfortably accommodated.
So, at one of our regular business meetings in the early 90s, Rita presented her manager Leonard Rambeau and me with a detailed plan for a major redesign and expansion of the tea room, a plan to which she’d obviously given a lot of thought. I emphasize here that ego had nothing to do with this. Characteristically, Rita simply wanted to be able to please more fans and provide employment for more people in her the little community of Little Pond.
When I pointed out to her that this would be a very expensive proposition she turned on her ever-persuasive, heart-melting smile and said, “Lyman, isn’t it your job to solve that problem.” Indeed it was. Because the tea room was such a popular tourist attraction, I suggested that checking out the availability of government grants might be the best starting point. Leonard and Rita agreed.
Leonard set up meetings with the appropriate deputy minister in the Nova Scotia government, and local federal MP David Dingwall (yes, he of the “I’m entitled to my entitlements” fame) at which my job would be to try to extract a considerable amount of money from their respective governments, which turned out to be the easiest negotiations in which I was ever involved. Both men were sympathetic to the proposal, asked all the right questions, to which Leonard and I apparently had all the right answers because adequate funding was quickly approved and Rita’s dream endured for over two decades.
Another Trudeau Evasion
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is still steadfastly refusing to explain why he allowed a Liberal MP from the Montreal area to collect $130,000 in salary even though the MP spent only a couple of days in Ottawa since last spring.
Nicola Di lorio announced last April that he intended to resign his seat, but didn’t get around to doing so until this week. At the time of his announcement he stated that he needed to devote all his time to some undisclosed personal situation, the details of which never have seen the light of day. Whatever they were, they didn’t prevent him from working full time at a Montreal law firm and participating in a number of time-consuming extra-curricular activities.
Di lorio said that Trudeau had given him “some government assignments” to work on during his absence from Ottawa, but it’s pretty hard to see how he could manage to fit them in, and the prime minister has basically been silent on the matter. In any event, Di lorio’s main responsibility to his constituents was to be in his parliamentary seat, which he seemed not to understand and Trudeau seems not to care.
In a nutshell, Trudeau hasn’t explained why this parliamentary truant continued to be paid, has provided no details about the so-called assignment’s mandate, and hasn’t revealed what reports, if any, Di lorio produced in connection therewith. All of which raises the question of whatever happened to Trudeau’s 2015 election promise of complete government transparency.