PONDERABLES
How does minister of public safety Marco Mendicino remain in Trudeau’s cabinet after being caught lying about the imposition of the Emergencies Act and again about the harmful effect on legal gun owners of the government’s proposed gun law legislation?
Was minister of transport Omar Alghabra’s comment last spring that the harrowing conditions at airports were caused by people “forgetting how to travel because of the pandemic” the stupidest ever uttered by a cabinet minister?
How do Brendan Shanahan and Kyle Dubas keep their jobs?
What’s the real reason Lisa LaFlemme was fired?
A JEOPARDY! PONDERABLE
Given Ken Jennings’ unparalleled association with the Jeopardy! brand, and given that Mayim Bialik is not universally popular with Jeopardy! fans, why is she still co-hosting with him?
THINGS I FIRMLY BELIEVE
The two most overused utterances on radio and TV are “nice to have you.” and “thanks for having me.”
Jordan Baker is the best umpire in Major League Baseball. Angel Hernandez, as he’s always been, is the worst; but Doug Eddings is closing in on him.
SOME MORE TANTALIZING COUNTRY SONG TITLES
You Can’t Make Love To A Memory
I’m Getting High Remembering
This Time I Hurt Her More Than She Loves Me
Ring On Her Finger, Time On Her Hands
You’re The Best Break This Old Heart Ever Had
TRUDEAU PONDERABLES
When is Justin Trudeau going to realize that although it’s fine to think globally the reality is we live locally?
Given that Trudeau has flown the equivalent of three trips around the earth in the past year, has there ever been greater hypocrisy than his constant harping that the rest of us have to make travel sacrifices and pay a carbon tax in order to reduce Canada’s carbon footprint while he uses fuel-guzzling Challenger 650s and AirbusA310s to fly somewhere every chance he gets?
And would the incredible problems at Pearson Airport have been quickly solved if Trudeau had to fly commercial?
CHRYSTIA FREELAND’S AMAZING ACCOMPLISHMENT
Deputy prime minister and finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, has accomplished what many people thought to be impossible; she’s become as arrogant as Justin Trudeau. She reached this lofty height of ostentation twice last June. First, at the parliamentary hearing into the imposition of the Emergencies Act where she actually smirked while she insultingly and condescendingly evaded answering questions, and then again while delivering an economic speech to the Empire Club in Toronto, when she seemed to think the audience wouldn’t notice that much of her content directly contradicted her own government’s economic policies. And her long, lecturing answers to questions have become as annoying as Trudeau’s talking-point-laden evasiveness.
MELANIE JOLY RETURNS TO FORM
Since the 2021 election, Melanie Joly has been the minister of foreign affairs, a Trudeau appointment that raised many eyebrows because she had failed miserably in three previous cabinet posts. Pundits wondered when and how her incompetence would eventually hurt Canada’s international reputation. The answer also came last June when the government’s deputy chief of protocol at Global Affairs attended Russia Day celebrations at the Russian Embassy, an incredible insult to Ukrainians and their supporters throughout the world.
CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT
Having to watch a Blue Jays broadcast with Matt Devlin doing play-by-play and Pat Tabler doing his version of colour is cruel and unusual punishment. Devlin speaks in phrases, not sentences, which means viewers have to figure out for themselves what he’s trying to say. Tabler tends to just babble away. His overuse of the word “that” in place of the article “the” is particularly annoying. And he seems to have no other measurement reference than “a little bit.” I counted sixty-seven times he used it in one game, and a friend told me he once heard Tabler use it five times in one sentence. Neither Devlin nor Tabler ever utter anything that would qualify as an insight.