PONDERABLES
If having effective protocols in place can allow NHL teams to come into Canada, why can’t the Toronto Blue Jays play their home games at their real home? When it comes to COVID-19, what’s the difference between hockey and baseball?
Has anybody noticed that we haven’t had a Governor General for almost five months?
THINGS I FIRMLY BELIEVE
Although there is undoubtedly satisfaction felt by some people when it happens, knocking over a statue doesn’t change one syllable of history. In fact, because the act represents only one side of a story, it distorts it.
Canada has never been so leaderless.
BEGGING THE QUESTION
Justin Trudeau’s appropriate condemnation of anti-Muslim racism after the tragedy in in London, Ontario, begs the question as to why he is not vilifying the Quebec government for their bigoted anti-Muslim legislation. Could it have anything to do with hypocritically pandering for votes? And doesn’t the same apply to Conservative leader Erin O’Toole?
JAGMEET SINGH’S SHOCKING IRRESPONSIBILITY
Before last Tuesday, if someone asked me to pick NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s most irresponsible statement, I would have had a hard time because he’s made so many. Not anymore. His suggestion that Muslim women will be killed if they walk down the street in Canada wearing a hijab takes every prize for abject irresponsibility.
It’s also time for Singh to stop whining about being discriminated against; he got elected an MPP in Ontario and a federal MP from BC didn’t he? And like Justin Trudeau and Erin O’Toole, he refuses to oppose Quebec’s bigoted racist legislation, branding him as just another hypocritical politician pandering for votes.
ANOTHER QUESTION FOR JUSTIN
Justin Trudeau’s virtue signalling is always in high gear when he’s pontificating about mistreatment of Canada’s Indigenous population by the Catholic Church through its role in the hideous residential schools, for example his insisting on an apology from the Pope. But what are his views on his father’s 1969 White Paper on how to deal with Indigenous people?
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and his then Indian Affairs Minister, Jean Chretien, presented a White Paper to Parliament proposing that “Indian status” be eliminated and all special programs available to Indigenous people because of their “Indian status” be ended. Trudeau’s and Chretien’s position was that complete integration of all Indigenous people into mainstream Canadian society was highly desirable. Wasn’t that the stated goal of the residential schools?
A BY-ELECTION SHOULD BE CALLED
When an MP crosses the floor to join another party instead of sitting as an Independent, as former Green Party member Jenica Atwin did this week by joining the Liberals, a by-election should immediately be called in the MP’s riding. As Atwin won her Fredericton seat in the last election by a razor-thin .04% of the total votes cast, she’d probably be trounced, as all turncoats should be.
MORE INCONSISTENCY FROM FORD
Premier Doug Ford and his hapless chief medical officer, David Williams, refuse to open barber shops and hair and nail salons when not a scintilla of evidence has ever been presented that such business establishments contribute to COVID-19 spread. Yet Ford, presumably with Williams’ blessing, officially exempted the thousands of people gathered for the vigil in London Tuesday night from the province’s physical distancing rules.
TIME TO TERMINATE THE TRAPEZOID
The ridiculous goalie trapezoid should be eliminated. It was always an idiotic gimmick, introduced by Commissioner Gary Bettman to placate some owners and executives, led primarily by Bobby Clarke. They convinced Bettman that Martin Brodeur’s puck-handling skill gave the New Jersey Devils an unfair advantage. Well, Brodeur has been retired for over six years now, and wandering goalies handling the puck actually add excitement to the game; especially when they mishandle it.
AN APPROPRIATE PLACE TO RECEIVE MY SHOT
I received my second COVID-19 vaccine shot last Monday at the North Toronto rink, a very appropriate place for me to do so. During the late 50s I played dozens of games in goal there for a team called the Mainliners in a Toronto industrial league. During the 80s my son played many games in goal for Toronto Young Nats against the Toronto Red Wings, whose home rink was North Toronto. So we both received many shots at that rink. And prior to the pandemic, my grandson played games there in the Greater Toronto Hockey League. But, he’s not a goalie, so his shots were ones he took, not ones he received.