Bridge over troubling waters

Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Moving thing from from A to B, has announced, during a Montreal area by-election that the feds will build a $1 billion bridge across the St Lawrence River. Bribery, you ask? Pandering, you wonder? NOPE. Just good planning. If the bridge wasn't announced right away then it would delay the 10-15 years project by a few days. Hypocrisy, you muse? Right.

How stupid do politicians think we are? Well, quite frankly, we are that stupid. Cannon knows how to make hay when the sun shines. And we are the cows that eat up that hay.

So $1 billion for a Montreal bridge. There was no mention in Cannon's release about the province or city contributing to the cost. Just the feds - by themselves.

Wouldn't it be nice if the feds could extend that largess to Ottawa, the nations' capital? We have a $4-5 billion LRT/transit plan that is designed to draw us into the 20th century, at minimum, and possible into the 21st. So far the feds have earmarked $200 million for the project. We need a byelection in Ottawa to get that contribution up. I suggest that Pierre Poillievre, the Perfect PP, resign to trigger that by-election. Then Lawrence can dump some needed cash into Ottawa.

Health Board for Ottawa?

A word of warning to city council and all Ottawa taxpayers. The idea of an 13 member independent health board (including 6 councillors) to make "non-politicized" decisions may sound like a great idea... and it is... BUT...

Do not let the board get away from you like the Police Services Board did. You may remember the latest fiasco called the city budget wherein the Police Board demanded a whopper of an increase in their suck on the taxpayer teat and council had no recourse other than to say "how high".

I wonder if the same could happen with this health board? I wonder if the board decided that there should be free Wii systems for all kids to counter the spread (no pun intended) of obesity and put a one year price on it of $10 million, would council have the right or the gumption to overturn an "independent" board?

Careful for what you ask... you might get it... in the ear!

Norm Sterling shines bright

There must have been at least one course in law school that Norm Sterling, the mighty 30 year Ontario MPP for Carleton-Mississippi Mills, took that no one else was offered. He seems to be an expert in detection of underground metal fatigue.

The story is that a culvert under the 417 highway just east of Ottawa collapsed this week. It caused a bit of a delay for traffic but no harm was done. According to the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) the 30 year old culvert was scheduled for replacement and that there was no way to predict when it could fail.

But that was not good enough for Normie. "I suspect that it could have been predictable", claims he.

If he is right then the MTO spokesperson, Brandy Duhaime, is lying to us. She commented that, ".. there are some things that are just unpredicted events."

So let me weight this for you. An MPP, who trained as a lawyer, versus the spokesperson for MTO. I think I will go with MTO.

It is interesting, to say the least, that the 30 year old pipe is being retired as beyond its usefulness; but Sterling, who has sucked off the public teat as an MPP for the same 30 years, carries on being useless.

Ottawa - closing in on oblivion

When will Ottawa get its act together?

Garbage is mounting up all over the place. According to the Ottawa Citizen this morning, the Carp Mountain is being fitted with extractors to convert the odour of rotting garbage into electricity. This is not news. It has been talked about for the past two years. The news is that they are talking about it again.. ad nauseum.

On the garbage front what's the current situation with Plasco? You remember them. They convert garbage into electricity by blasting waste into atoms. The city has been running a pilot for the past few years and I thought that the kinks had been worked out.. Why isn't the city having Rod Bryden built a bunch of these plants around the city. If it works - get on with it. The cost per tonne is more than a landfill but with Plasco you don't have to worry about space requirement and lingering odour.

The Concert Hall issue is dead - apparently. Rumour is that the city might be trying to tie up the fed and provincial monies that were earmarked for the Concert Hall to something called a Cultural Centre. Sounds like the Concert Hall incognito. If there was not enough support for the Concert Hall - what chance is there for support of a Cultural Centre?

Randall Denley loves John Tory

It appears that the Ottawa Citizen's senior opinion guy, Randall Denley, is still working on becoming the head communication guy for the Ontario Conservative party.

In his writing today he tells us that John Tory, head of the Ontario PCs is misunderstood, underestimated as a leader and not in the same pit-bull-league as Ontario Premier Dalton "Bates" McGuinty.

Take this quote from the article by Denley: "Few Canadian politicians had as bad a year in 2007 as John Tory. The PC leader worked three years for his crack at the Ontario premiership, seemed to have it in his grasp, fell into a Liberal trap, got his butt kicked, and even lost his own seat."

Cry me a fricken river, Randall. This the same John Tory who destroyed the campaign of Conservative Kim Campbell when he, as campaign manager, authorized some of the worst attack ads ever seen in Canada. This is the same John Tory who managed the campaigns of Ontario Conservatives under Larry Grossman (who?) and some other guy, who's name I cannot even recall. This is the same John Tory who headed the expansion of the CFL - no, hang on a bit - they actually lost a team in that period.

The faith-based funding issue was not a trap set by McGuinty. It was Tory who blew it by not understanding the fundamental law of political campaigns: Never release trial balloons DURING an election!

And, by the way, Tory didn't"lose his own seat". He never had the seat to begin with.

I have a bone to pick with "Eye on Ottawa"

After the last municipal election a group was formed to be a "watchdog" on the current Ottawa city council. I offered to join the team but was rebuffed because, as I was not a candidate in the election, I am a nobody. It is kind of interesting that when the team formed in 2006, there were a whole host of names of defeated candidates. Here we are in 2007, one year later, and the membership is one. Luc Lapointe was defeated in the downtown Somerset Ward (14), which is the 25 year (and counting) fiefdom of Diane Holmes.

I am less annoyed that I was not good enough for the "Eye on Ottawa"; I am more annoyed at all those former candidates that dropped away from the organization. If you are going to be a candidate for a council seat you had better be more than "just a candidate". You had better be dedicated enough to stick around, after your election loss, to act as a critic.

None of the original members of "Eye on Ottawa" who have since dropped out had better put their names forward at the next election. They have not earned the right.

But with all this said, that is NOT the bone I have to pick with the "Eye on Ottawa".

The "Eye", in its latest news release (December 13, 2008), slams the Ottawa Mayor for not delivering on his "Zero means Zero" election promise. Our "all wise" city council, not giving two hoots about fiscal discipline, is about to deliver a 4.9% property tax increase, plus a 2% surcharge for infrastructure maintenance, plus a 7.5% increase in bus fairs, abd including a 9% police budget increase... and they are not yet finished the process.

If the council had listened to Mayor Larry, and I do admit that Larry's message was not very succinct, they would have taken some firm stances on items such as the police budget and city staffing levels and forced some of the costs out of the system to save taxes. Could they have gotten to zero? Bloody right they could have!

The "Eye on Ottawa", and it appears that there is only one "eye", should be slamming councillors and backing the mayor rather than the other way around.