Category: Happy’s Personal Rants

This is a grab bag of opinion articles on whatever grabs my fancy from personal issues and observations to whatever quirky thing that piques my interest.

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CANADIAN GUN ENTHUSIAST

The literal effect of firing an AR-15 according to the anti-gun Liberals and their supporters. Photo Credit: Tony Chand Formation Imaging Services © Crown Copyright DND/MDN
The Bigotry of the Canadian Anti-Gun Movement

There is an ancient philosophy which states, ‘Live and let live.’ The estimated 7% of Canadian men and women who are legally allowed to own firearms wish that the rabid anti-gun rabble would abide by that statement.

In the interest of declaring why I have a ‘pony in the race’, here is my relationship with firearms. Growing up on a farm, I started hunting by myself with a .22 rifle at about the age of 12. Through school, I obtained my Hunter Safety certification, something I highly recommend to everyone starting out with firearms. Through the military, I have trained with and shot submachine guns, different types of rifles and handguns, .50 cal Heavy Machine Guns, and ran main gun shoots with Royal Canadian Navy ships. Presently, I do not have a Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL) or own any firearms. This RCMP website details the steps involved regarding obtaining a PAL and storing/using firearms in Canada.

As for my attraction to firearms, I enjoy hunting and eating wild game, I enjoy the satisfaction of being able to hit what I was aiming at, and while I was with the RCN, I really enjoyed watching the large shells obliterate the targets. I would say that gun enthusiasts would consider possessing and using firearms as mostly a lifestyle choice be it for whatever myriad of reasons. We live in a free and open society where as long as its citizens follow prudent and safe practices consistent with public safety, there should be no issue with one’s choice of pursuits or hobbies.

Getting back to the thesis of my argument regarding the virulent anti-gun crowd: the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines bigotry as the ‘obstinate or intolerant devotion to one’s own opinions and prejudices.’

Just as a thought exercise, replace ‘gun ownership’ with ‘gay marriage’ in the statements below. Looking through that lens, compare the arguments for and against either concept:

  • Why does a Canadian need to have ‘gay marriage’? The typical argument goes along the lines of ‘I don’t believe in ‘gay marriage’ so why should it be tolerated in Canadian society?’ Ban it!
  • ‘Gay marriage’ is dangerous to Canadian society! Despite mountains of statistics detailing that law-abiding ‘gay marriage’ Canadians are not the issue regarding violent crime and the breakdown of society, the anti-‘gay marriage’ advocates want more and more restrictions. Ban it!
  • The government needs to enact more regulation and outright bans against ‘gay marriage‘! Despite the government’s position on ‘gay marriage’ and pandering to powerful political voices opposed to the concept, even law enforcement does not endorse legal ‘gay marriage’ bans. Ban it!

Heaven help the hunters who pose with their kills when the SJWs decide to start ‘bashing’ them. The viciousness of the attacks display an unreasoning hatred reminiscent of a lynch mob. If a person is poaching, there are stringent penalties in place to punish them. But if a person is legally hunting with a legal firearm, then where is the justification for the vitriolic bile and hatred?

As with any prejudicial stance, there is no reasoning which will persuade people of the anti-gun movement that firearms should remain in the possession of legal owners. Their arguments are riddled with hyperbolic ‘facts’. If one shooting occurs because of a firearm, that is one too many. If one legal gun is stolen, they should have been banned. (That’s actually called victim shaming along the lines of blaming a provocatively dress woman for being raped.) Guns are just plain scary, especially the black ones that are termed ‘Assault Rifles’ (a made-up designation).

The crux of the argument, is the opposite side does not understand the ethos of using or owning an instrument to which they only equate with the sole purpose of killing. As society moves further and further away from original sourcing of their food, relying more on the state for their protection, and being subjected to horrifying mass shooting media imagery, it is understandable as to where these attitudes originate from. But just because you do not understand someone’s desire for responsibly keeping and using firearms does not justify society’s attempts to ban them. That is when bigotry edges towards facism.

Returning to my original statement, if I am doing my own thing and not bothering you, then I would kindly ask you to return the favour. Once I cross that line, especially while employing a firearm, then there are strict, severe punishments under the law for doing so. But instead of going after the thankfully small amount of ne’er-do-wells here in Canada, the idea is to blanket punish the law abiding majority. At that point, if you can neither justify or explain your position using logic or facts and only using your feelings on the matter, then you are by definition, a bigot.

To paraphrase a saying coined by The Globe and Mail’s Martin O’Malley and made famous by the elder Trudeau, “there’s no place for the state in the gun cabinets of the nation.”

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BEAN-COUNTING FARMER

Input Costs Associated with Growing a Commercial Grain Crop

The social media feeds were buzzing over a large Federal Carbon Tax levy on a propane bill from a Saskatchewan grain drying company. Angry commenters were concerned that the cost was going to be transferred to the consumers. Not to worry, grain is sold on the open market and it is the farmer who has to eat this cost. They do not have the luxury of passing their input costs along to the consumer.

Here’s a quick exercise in cost comparisons for the consumer versus the farmer. In 1920, adjusted for inflation a dollar was worth about $11.91. White bread was about 10¢/loaf (1lb) or $1.19/loaf in 2019 dollars. Compare that to about $1.88/one pound loaf today. For the farmer, their wheat/bushel has dropped in value over the last 100 years from about $17/bushel to today’s value of $7.

That increase per loaf has not been going to the farmer. The middle men have been passing along their increasing costs along to the consumer. Meanwhile, the farmer’s input costs have been steadily rising and they have been forced to become more and more efficient or just simply go under.

In order to better understand the costs to farmers associated with growing cereal, pulses, or oil seed crops, presented here is a list of all the major inputs. The Manitoba government releases a very detailed guide each year to help farmers estimate their upcoming costs. As a rough guide, in order to be profitable a crop of wheat needs to produce in the range of 30 bushels/acre. Again, the farmer is unable to pass any of these costs along to anyone else. They only receive what the market will pay when it is time to sell their crop.

Also, as a note, although farm fuel (known as marked or purple gas & diesel) was exempted from the Federal Carbon tax (only after concerns were raised), it does not mean that farmers are not paying significant extra costs due to this draconian tax.

  • Land Costs – for older farmers, their land is no longer mortgaged. For younger farmers or for a farm to expand, agricultural land is becoming prohibitively expensive and harder to carry mortgages on. Farmers from Europe, BC, Alberta are selling their land and coming to Manitoba to buy our relatively cheap land and driving up the cost. Here is an article illustrating the climbing value of SK farmland. Many farmers also rent land which in Manitoba can run at $60/acre and up.
  • Crown Land Costs – Many farmers lease Crown land from the government as a method of using land at a relatively low cost. In Manitoba, the long leases are being dropped to 15 years and changes are coming where highest bidders may be able to snap up leases. Farmers are concerned about being squeezed out of the market if they cannot compete against these increased costs.
  • Land Taxes – As land becomes more valuable, the assessed value for taxes increase. Municipalities are receiving windfalls from large landowners and see them as cash cows when applying special levies. The mantra is ‘if you can afford to have land, you can afford to pay more tax.’
  • Land Improvement Costs – Although there is sometimes some assistance from the Municipality or Watershed organizations, if a farmer wants to improve drainage, plant trees, or improve their land, the costs and paperwork are borne by the farmer.
  • Fertilizer Costs – This is one of the highest input costs and is most subject to Carbon Tax pressures. Farmers spread or inject a variety of fertilizers onto their fields depending on soil need, crop grown, or time of year. A main component of most fertilizer blends is nitrogen. Nitrogen fertilizer in MB is made with natural gas at the Koch Fertilizer plant in Brandon. This plant is the highest CO2 emitter in MB and is firmly in the government’s crosshairs regarding emissions. Due to it being a large emitter, private sweetheart deals were being negotiated with companies like these regarding the Carbon Tax. Fertilizer prices themselves fluctuate regularly due to a number of factors, so it has been difficult to determine what increases have been passed down to the farmers. Koch is a private company and is reticent regarding this issue.
  • Seed Costs – Farmers source their seeds from a wide variety of outlets. Our farm happens to plant our own wheat seed and buy canola and soybeans. But even with our own seed, we pay a mobile seed cleaning company to clean it in order to remove poor seeds and weeds. Canola and soybeans are bought as treated seed. A 50lb bag of canola seed will cost $600-$700 and is sown at about a 4-5lb/acre rate.
  • Planting Costs – most farmers plant their own fields with their own equipment. But in certain cases, such as corn which needs a special seeder, it may not be worth it for the farmer to have their own machinery. In these cases, a custom outfit would be hired.
  • Machinery Costs – most major pieces of farm equipment for preparing the field, seeding, maintaining, harvesting, and transporting grain to the buyers cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Farmers cannot share too much equipment as everyone’s fields and crops need attention at the same time, so each farmer needs their own machines. In addition, farms need to replace and upgrade machinery on a timely basis or the cost of the upgrades becomes prohibitive.
  • Maintenance Costs – farm machinery needs regular maintenance and is prone to breakdowns due to the adverse conditions they are run in. Filters can be $100 a piece. Oil and lubrication has to be constantly monitored. Bearings burn out and have to be replaced. The list can be endless. Plus, back when machinery was less sophisticated, a farmer could fix most of their own gear. Now, technicians from the dealerships frequently visit the farms to set sensors, conduct mobile tire repairs, update GPS monitors, etc. Also, in many cases, the machine must be transported to the shop for major repairs.
  • Fuel Costs – this is a major bill on any farm. Thankfully, marked fuel or purple has a cost discount plus it was exempted from the Carbon Tax. Originally, the Liberals were going to include it but an uproar helped change their minds. But added into the fuel bill category, is a liquid called Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF). Many newer engine equipped machines come with DEF tanks which are designed to reduce the pollution created by diesel engines. Some machines such as our combine are unable to run if the DEF tank goes empty. Unfortunately, DEF freezes at zero degrees and it creates obvious problems during Prairie winters. It’s just another cost built into the system.
  • Spraying costs – without the use of herbicides/pesticides there would be no use in even planting a crop. As a side note, organic operations also use these products which are typically more toxic than synthetic products. Mother Nature throws everything she’s got at the farmer to knock down his crop from pests, to fungus, to weeds, etc. Sometimes the farmer can spray their own fields, sometimes they may need to contract aerial spraying, and sometimes they may need to contract high clearance sprayers all for various needs.
  • Harvesting and Storage costs – special equipment in the form of combines, grain carts, grain trucks, augers, and grain bins are needed to bring the crop in. None of these items are cheap and when the crop is ready, it is taken. Also, with certain crops such as corn, again the farmer may hire a custom outfit due to the specialized machinery. A very handy invention are the grain drying systems that run on forced air (with some systems, heated by propane or natural gas) are available. This allows the farmer to harvest damper crops and dry them as opposed to being caught by the weather and unable to get the crop off. Mother Nature can be a bitch, so technology can aid the farmer greatly. The Liberals are also bitches and did not exempt those fuels from the Carbon tax.
  • Labour costs – during busy times of the grain cycle, the farmer may hire temporary help. When it’s time to go, the farmer can’t dilly dally as prime conditions do not last long and there are only so many hours in the day.
  • Transport costs – when the Prairies started producing grain in earnest and the rail systems started to crisscross the land, little towns with elevators were placed every 5 to 10 miles along the tracks. This was to accommodate the farmer’s horse drawn grain carts. With large scale mechanization after WWII, trucks became more common and elevators spread out to every 10 to 20 miles. With time, the trucks are larger, rail tracks were torn up, the grain companies consolidated, and the little elevators have all disappeared to be replaced by centralized inland grain terminals which are 100 to 200 miles apart. Some farmers transport their own grain still but many hire trucking companies with B-trains to custom haul. The fuel for those haulers is not Carbon Tax exempt and that extra cost is passed to the farmer.
  • Subscription & Advisor Service costs – long gone are the days when I was a kid running across the field with a  string acting as a reference point for Dad as he tried to run me over with the sprayer. GPS and auto-steer functions run the larger equipment now. The precision needed is a service that needs to be paid for. Also, farmers keep up with the torrent of farm information available and subscribe to periodicals and crop advisor services. Crop advisors can cost $3-4/acre and will constantly monitor the farmer’s crops.
  • Insurance costs – Again, Mother Nature is frequently a stone, cold bitch and frequently attempts to wipe out a farmer’s crops. Crop and hail insurance is a vital component required by farmers otherwise a bad year or two in a row would wipe them out. Insurance claims do not replace the entire amount of your losses but take the sting out of them.
  • Banking costs – the banks and other loan companies make sure to take their little slices of the farmer’s bottom line for the privilege of using their services.
  • Hopes & Prayers costs – Thankfully, these are free! To be a farmer, you have to be an eternal optimist, ready to bounce back from constant adversity from all corners be it Mother Nature, costly government regulations, or meddling townies who feel they know better.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

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DISGRUNTLED FARMER

The Canadian family farm is in its sunset years unless action is taken soon

Canadian Farmers in Crisis and No One Cares

*** Trigger Warning ***

If you are a farmer you might be triggered if you read this and may need to seek a safe space in the Back 40.

*** Trigger Warning ***

As Canadians prepare for their Christmas feasts of turkey, ham, potatoes, and all the trimmings, it would be nice if they would give a thought to all the hard working farmers who make it possible for them to be enjoying all of their food abundance. It would also be nice for Canadians to wake up to the fact that Canada’s family farm is headed towards extinction.

Once in a while, I get into a circular farm related discussion on social media with some townie who think they are farming experts and don’t need to listen to someone who actually farms. The easy way to shut them down is to challenge them to go without any farm produced products for six months and I will go without whatever they produce for the same period. Townies would be eating grass to stay alive and most of the population would be dead in a month without a regular food supply. So, maybe farmers are perhaps a vital industry and maybe they should be treated as such.

As you are loosening your belt after too much holiday eating, many Prairie farmers are selling grain and livestock to generate some year-end income in order to pay the bills. Farmers sell their produce on the open market and get paid according to whatever the going rate is. The problem is that over the years, their input costs keep increasing and unlike other industries they cannot recoup their losses by passing increased costs along to the consumer.

Here are a few examples. Adjusted for inflation, the $7/bushel wheat that our farm has been selling this week was worth $34/bushel back in 1870. The feeder calves we sold at market the other day are fetching about the same price per pound as my great-grandfather was getting back in 1918. The value of farm receipts wildly fluctuate year to year with StatsCan reporting that farmer’s net income across Canada took a 45% drop in 2018 compared to 2017.

Imagine for one second if a union or civil servant was asked to take a 45% pay cut for the coming year.

So what’s to be done in order to bring this crisis to the forefront of Canadian politics? Here are a few thoughts:

  • Canadian farmers need to take a page from their EU counterparts and stage large protests. At less than 2% of the population, farmers do not wield much political power except in specific pockets such as the dairy industry in Quebec. Shut down Ottawa for six months or as long as it takes until the politicians start paying attention. Going on strike would not be practical as Canada produces such a surplus of food, most of it gets exported. But if there were food shortages, that would get the public’s attention pretty quick.
  • Farm groups need to mount massive advertising campaigns to educate the public on the importance of farmers to Canada and the World’s food supply. The Dairy Farmers of Canada are on the right track with their recent ad series. Like it or not, marketing ads work.
  • Farm groups need to pressure politicians to shut down NGOs and activists who are spewing absolute nonsense about farm practices. Alberta is on the right track with beefed up laws to crack down on nuisance farm protesters. The anti-farm crowd uses constant fear-mongering, hyperbole, and outright lies to demonize farming. This has led to burdensome and costly regulations enacted by legislators who have little to no understanding of farming and its benefits.
  • Food security should be a national interest. Government programs need to be set up to halt and reverse the hemorrhaging being experiences by Canadian farmers. Very few young people are staying with or entering the field of farming. Incomes need to rise and farmers need to be paid a fair price for their produce. But none of this is new as farmers have been dealing with this crisis since the mid-80’s and have been proposing the same solutions to deaf ears.

It is unfortunate that our country is so vast and our farmers are so independent. Otherwise serious action probably would have taken place much earlier to halt this farming crisis.

So have a thought this Christmas season regarding who made it possible for you to set your table.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

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SAFETY OFFICER EXPERT

The Tyranny of Safetyism

“If it’s not 100% safe, then ban it!”

This is the mantra of a growing section of society where even if the risk of harm is miniscule and virtually non-existent, if even one person is hurt or killed, the practice or product must be banned. Personal liberties and freedoms need some curtailing even in democracies, but where is the point where the Nanny State goes too far?

The premise is termed ‘Concept Creep’. As quipped during a Big Bang Theory episode where Penny and Leonard’s mother were doing shots at the Cheesecake Factory, ‘If one is good, then more must be better!’ You could re-word this quote to say, ‘If less is better, than none is the best!’

To illustrate some of the safetyism prevalent in Canada, let us start with the food we feed our children. Of course, ‘good’ parents want what’s best for little Timmy and Jane. Hence, the explosion of organic foods and the drive by advocacy groups to drive containments that may only be in the parts per billion down to absolute zero.

Instead of rehashing the arguments of why paying three times the cost for organics is a rip-off and why ‘the dose makes the poison’, let us examine a common food item, honey.

If you have an infant under the age of one, Health Canada recommends that you do not feed them honey as it may cause infant botulism. The younglings are unable to process botulism spores until they are a little older and at the age of one year, it is deemed safe for healthy infants to finally taste bee juice.

There seems to be some merit to these honey recommendations as some studies have shown C.botulinum to be present up to 25% of honey batches tested. But according to Health Canada, since 1979 of the 42 cases of infant botulism reported, only 3 were linked to ingestion of honey. Although life threatening, when caught early and treated fatalities are only 2%. These stats come from the States where they credit physician education for mitigating the mortality of infant botulism cases.

Heck, but most parents would agree, my kid isn’t starving for food so why take the chance with honey even though the risk by the numbers is very, very low. But botulism still will occur and it’s more than likely going to come from one of the many other vectors that are all around us. Besides, according to Canadian Traffic Collision Statistics, these same parents are many more times likely to hurt their infant in a vehicle accident driving to the store to buy the honey.

Moving on from innocuous and vague threats in our food supply, there is another hot button safety item that is burning up the social media feeds as the Liberals get set for another round of gun banning.

In general, the anti-gun side which has no clue as to what is involved regarding the legal purchase, use, and storage of guns let alone hand guns, wants to outright ban all guns. They are ‘scary’, why do you need an AK-47 to hunt deer, they’re used to kill women, etc. They just want guns to disappear off the face of the Earth and we’ll all be happier.

The 2 million legal Canadian gun owners have taken some umbrage to these broad sweeping statements which would eventually see a general disarmament of the population. First off, are there not more pressing issues? Violent crime in Canada, especially with a firearm, is an anomaly. According to 2016 figures, violent crime committed with a firearm only occurs .6% of the time.

A Canadian is just as likely to die from stabbing and beating as compared to being intentionally shot by someone but again those numbers are only about .6/100,000 people. The vast amount of people dying from guns, at 75%, are those committing suicide. Banning guns will not prevent suicides as they will just find some other method.

It begs the question, why are leftist governments so intent on banning guns and does it not seem that their end goal is to legislate them out of existence? It won’t reduce the incidence of illegal guns or crime on Canadian streets as the US is flush with weapons already making their way North.

Moving along, the Manitoba Government would like to wish all those merry makers a joyful party season where officers will be impounding your vehicle, confiscating your driver’s license, and levying stiff fines starting at $400 for the penalty of having one drink. Despite the fact that impaired driving rates have dropped by 2/3rds in the last 3 decades and Manitoba already had good numbers, it’s not enough if only one person dies due to drinking and driving.

Of course, if a person is physically impaired and hits the .08 BAC or higher, they should not be operating a motor vehicle. This .08 BAC was actually researched and was not a number pulled from a hat. But this is where concept creep insidiously makes its way into legislation. Some evidence from BC’s dropping of the limit was given as proof that these new measures were going to save more lives. The BC numbers seem to indicate an extra 50 people are alive each year since they have dropped the BAC limit to .05. Just for comparison’s sake, BC’s overdose deaths for 2018 were greater than 1500. There seems to be a disconnect as to priorities.

But the new, arbitrary limit can easily be reached by having one drink. Are you actually impaired with one drink, compared to maybe not getting enough sleep the night before? How soon will it be before the government decides that zero drinks will be the new limit? Shouldn’t the government be removing sleepy drivers off of the road also? Maybe we should just shut down all the highways and keep people in their houses and confiscate all vehicles.

Canadians seem to be becoming timid creatures, afraid of their own shadows, and willing to accede to the State when it comes to what’s good for them. Concept creep is inexorably strangling our personal liberties and freedoms. When did we cede all personal responsibility to government as to what risks we as individuals were willing to take?

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

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CANADIAN POLITICAL PUNDIT

Canada’s Parliment Buildings in Ottawa, Ontario

Thoughts on Canadian Political Reformation

If the trend in Canadian politics keeps moving along its present course, the country is destined for a seismic shake-up. Most places in the world would move to an outright civil war or coup d’état but as Canadians are so ‘polite’, we will probably talk things to death.

Here are a few political ideas that should be studied for their validity and worth in order to re-engage voters and to heal the divides that are threatening our country:

  • The concept of fairness within Canadian society needs to be reasserted.

Canada has always been a country of disparate regions, religions, and cultures. What used to hold us together as a nation was equality, hence the concept of Equalization payments to help the ‘have-not’ provinces. Instead we have become a fractured nation split off into this camp or another.

Representation by population is not working. Pierre Elliot Trudeau remarked during his 1982 Constitution Speech, ‘For if individuals and minorities do not feel protected against the possibility of the tyranny of the majority, if French-speaking Canadians or native peoples or new Canadians do not feel they will be treated with justice, it is useless to ask them to open their hearts and minds to their fellow Canadians.’ You might as well add Western Canadians and anyone who lives outside of a major urban center to that list in order to bring it up to date.

Canada needs a system of government where the ‘forgotten’ Canadians feel they have a voice and are not ruled by the population of the Greater Toronto Area.

  • The election cycle is too short.

The terms for a sitting representative should be lengthened to at least 10 years. As it stands, a government hardly gets going before they have to start electioneering for another term. If businesses and individuals could be certain that policies would be stable and government decisions would stand for a reasonable period of time, then everyone could plan accordingly.

As a check and balance, once the representative was elected to office, they would be limited to one or maybe two terms. My leaning is towards one term only, then the elected official could put their head down and just work towards what was best for their electorate.

  • Voters at all levels of governance need to be reengaged.

Turnout for Municipal elections barely reach 30%. Numbers for younger voters are low. If terms were lengthened, then the opportunity to vote would not come around that often and people would naturally want to have their say.

There could be a carrot and stick approach. All levels of government could be elected on the same day and it could easily be deemed a National Voters Day and a Stat day off. The stick would be severe penalties for eligible voters who did not at least attend a polling station. You would not be forced to vote but you would be strongly encouraged to at least show up.

Voting would at least mean something again and people would not feel as disenfranchised.

  • Politicians need to be held accountable.

The reason people do not vote and feel disenfranchised is because they feel they are not listened to. ‘So what, I voted, those bastards are just going to do what they want anyways,’ is the general sentiment. It seems that politicians, regardless of party affiliation, will say and do whatever it takes to get into power. Then their hope is their foibles, missteps, or outright corruption is forgotten by an absent-minded electorate during the next campaign cycle.

Here is an example of where a politician should have been locked up instead of being lauded for having her picture hung up in the Ontario Legislature. During a recent lecture in Madrid, Tom Harris of the International Climate Science Coalition, detailed the debacle of Ontario’s wind and solar power generation. It is becoming increasingly clear that wind and solar are becoming expensive boondoggles. Even Kathleen Wynne acknowledged the fact that Ontario electricity prices were going to hurt her election chances. She was right and she and her party were spectacularly tossed out.

The consequences for incompetence are literally just, ‘Ah, if they don’t like me, they can just vote me out.’ But a wily politician knows how to buy the population off or misdirect them just long enough to sneak back into power.  Again, most of them seem to be untouchable.

To borrow a Navy model, in order to prevent witch hunts against politicians who were acting in good faith, Boards of Inquiry with actual teeth should be set up to police major political decisions that go sideways. Typically, with the present system, some underling falls on their sword and their sacrifice is held up as an appeasement to the masses to show that justice was done. In actual fact, the ‘sacrificial lamb’ usually just goes into purgatory for a few months then is soft parachuted to another cushy position, eg. Gerald Butts.

When a government policy goes sideways, the inquiry process needs to start at the top right at the Prime Minister if need be. Jail time and real consequences need to be on the table so that these officials are motivated to perform their best for Canadians.

There will of course have to be some checks and balances in order to not stall all government work due to a fear of making a mistake. But this type of system of accountability has worked for hundreds of years in the Royal Navy so it should be adaptable to government.

  • Elected government officials should meet minimum qualifications.

Rule One should be, just because you have a famous name or celebrity status does not make you eligible for political office. Depending on the level of government you are running for, you should already have a certain amount of leadership experience.

As examples, a captain of industry, military personnel with command experience, or leaders of their fields of interest should be the ones holding the reins of Canadian political power. Looking good in selfies and a penchant for showing off designer socks are not qualifications. Even a string of educational letters behind your name should not carry much weight if you have no experience in the real world. Canada deserves the best and the brightest to lead the country and represent our positions on the world stage.

The position of being a politician should be one that a person aspires to become not one which people view with derision.

  • Electoral platforms should be set at least one year in advance of the election.

Too often, such as with the last Federal Election, policies and their implications are swept aside as the narrative gets side-tracked over some inconsequential issue. It just shows our collective disdain for the political elite who are just going to do what they feel like anyways.

Instead, for the upcoming 10 year term, the proposed policies and their respective pros and cons need to be firmly and openly laid before the populace. Priorities need to be discussed, plans need to be drawn up, and deadlines need to be set. Failure to adhere to the plan will be met with consequences. As part of the consultation process, the population would have a strong say in what direction they would like the country to move in. But actual experts would also be given a say in order to blunt any populist movement that was based on misinformation, deceit, or foreign interference.

As an example, a solutions to the woes of Canadian Natives have been kicked down the road by successive Federal governments since the start of Confederation. Frankly, if real deadlines were imposed, it would deliver some motivation for some actual progress. People would have hope that they would have some real progress to look forward to.

This is not an exhaustive or perhaps even a practical list of political Canadian reforms. But if Canada does not do something soon to ease the political convulsions shaking our regions, it will possibly irreparably fracture our great country.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

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Observer of Western Culture

The Western Cultural Tug of War

Unless you are interested in German history, few will have ever heard of the WW2 Allied air raid devastation of cities such as Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, or a host of smaller towns and villages. It has been estimated that 410,000 German civilians were killed by bombing raids with the vast majority of deaths coming in the last year of the war. Paradoxically, the German public did not rebel against Hitler’s National Socialist Party and the hoped for civil unrest against the Nazis did not materialize.

Now let us do a little thought experiment and imagine for one second that I felt it was appropriate to create a symbol to remember all the innocent Germans who died in those attacks. Sure, some critics would say most of them deserved it because they were personally rounding up Jews, gays, gypsies, and other undesirables for the ovens. But there were plenty of innocent German children literally burnt to death during the fire-bombing of their cities. The guiltless dead should be remembered.

Let us continue this hypothetical exercise and visualize the creation of a red poppy with a stylized swastika in order to commemorate those deaths. The resulting unholy, apocalyptic firestorm would be legendary. Except for a handful of neo-Nazi groups, there would be swift, universal condemnation of such a creation along with probably calls for my prosecution for Hate Speech and Crimes Against Humanity.

The reason I am bringing up this touchy topic is to highlight the cultural tug of war within society over which particular symbols, phrases, thoughts, statements, etc. are deemed acceptable for public consumption or exposure.

The brouhaha over poppies earlier this November clearly illustrated the divide over what used to be culturally acceptable with what is now becoming the norm. Don Cherry’s ‘You people’ statement has become a racist euphemism. It is old, white male privilege and misogynistic to suggest that Canadian immigrants should wear the poppy for Remembrance Day. Not that long ago, it was deemed patriotic and respectful to remember Canada’s war dead (all of them despite which ‘group’ they belonged to) with a sacred symbol that tied all Canadians together for a brief period of solemn remembrance.

Here in Manitoba, a young, female, high school student was berated, accused of Hate Speech, and disproportionately punished with suspension due to a poster stemming from an alleged incident over Rainbow poppies. It is deemed to be a ‘call to incite violence‘ against the gay community by using such phrases as ‘Keep it in your pants’. This is despite the societal norm and actual laws against public nudity. But if you are marching in a Pride parade with your penis flopping around, that is given a pass. Throw a Rainbow poppy on your lapel for good measure to help flaunt your Freedom of Expression and the assemble against white male oppression is complete.

From my personal experience, I attended a 2010 Vancouver Pride parade and witnessed plenty of bare chested women and one group of about 20 men proudly displaying their penises to the 200,000 plus crowd. Somehow, I do not see this as acceptable behavior if I wandered into a crowded women’s public washroom and whipped it out for a piss. Of course, I could get away with those type of actions if I identified as a Transgender woman.

As an aside, I have reached out to the young lady’s father to see if anything has come from the incident but he has declined to answer. Plenty of hate and attention has been directed at the student, school, and staff, so I will trust that the local School Board has done their due diligence on this matter.

Another percolating story to do with verboten phraseology is gathering steam regarding Bill Peters, the head coach of the Calgary Flames. A decade ago when Peters was the coach of an AHL hockey team, he supposedly committed the unforgivable sin of using the word ‘nigger’. The accuser, Akim Aliu, who according to some pundits such as CTV’s Jess Allen, does not represent the standard white colour of hockey players. Therefore the use of that specific pejorative directed towards him was doubly racist. Using slur words to put down entire categories of people, races, or genders have been used since time immemorial and there are hundreds of different words used to insult others. Did the 20 year old Aliu have such tender feelings and naiveté to be so mortally appalled by gutter language to the point that it destroyed his subsequent hockey career? Or perhaps, the man just was not that talented and is looking to cash in on the flooding tide of moral outrage culture. Ironically, it sounds as if he was playing offensive rap music for the team and Peters was ticked off about the choice.

Are insults and verbal abuse acceptable in polite society? Of course not. There are definitely better ways of motivating and interacting with people especially if you are in a position of authority over them. I had an Executive Officer onboard HMCS Athabaskan who yelled and berated me on a daily basis. To be fair, he was surly and abusive to most of the officers. Also, I was not particularly talented as a MARS officer, so looking back, I can see some of the man’s frustration. But instead of choosing to melt from those experiences, I choose to see them as a metaphor related to the tempering of steel and see myself as a stronger individual from the abuse.

The idea of exposing people, especially the young, to adversity and difficult topics is the thesis of a book I recommend, ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. As our hyper-sensitive, Western nanny culture fueled by social media justice warriors seeks to ‘protect’ more and more of society, they create the intolerance of an Orwellian totalitarian state. If you think the occasional banning from Twitter or Facebook is infringing on your right of Free Expression, soon it might be steep fines as being contemplated in BC. So despite laws on the books against actual Hate Speech and Hate Crimes, politicians are being encouraged to erode Canadian Charter Rights. Soon, biased politically appointed tribunals reminiscent of witch hunts or the Inquisition may be deciding to fine/banish/destroy the heretics because of hurt feelings. As described in the book I mentioned, society is trending towards adapting to the ‘most sensitive’ person as opposed to the previous paradigm of catering to the ‘most reasonable’ person. Less and less will the average person be inclined to speak up for fear of swift and damning retribution. The road to Hell, a.k.a. Political Correctness, is indeed paved with good intentions.

The pendulum of ever evolving culture swings back and forth between the vocal, minority progressives and the silent majority. Time will tell regarding which aspects the bulk of the population will adapt to and which will be rejected as a step too far. What is disturbing is the creeping, fascist tactics of the progressives who seem to act as if all methods of distributing their narrative are warranted. Free expression is universal and just because you think something is hateful and offensive does not mean that it needs to be banned or cancelled. People do have the option of ignoring ideas or actions they do not agree with.

Oh, if you feel like becoming a social pariah and enjoy receiving death threats from anonymous social media users, feel free to run with that swastika poppy idea that I posited.

Good luck with that little piece of Free Expression.

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Veteran Supporting Don Cherry

Photo Credit to Charles M. Schulz and the creators of Peanuts

Grapes and Wrath

From 1943 to 2005, the NHL enforced the ‘Two line pass rule’ in order to prevent players from ‘cherry picking’. Cherry picking in hockey was deemed to be a lazy way for an attacking player to get a jump on the defence. Cherry picking is also a derogatory term for picking and choosing items that are most advantageous to your position. This past Remembrance Day, Don Cherry got reverse cherry picked and was summarily fired from Coach’s Corner, a position he co-hosted for 38 seasons.

To be absolutely clear, Sportsnet definitely had the right to fire Don Cherry’s ass. It was reported that the network received an unprecedented amount of complaints about the now infamous segment. One little inconvenient item that came up in the Rebel News interview was that Coach’s Corner ran numerous times that night. Ron MacLean gave it a ‘thumbs up’ and the show’s producers had zero issues and not a peep was said to Cherry about blowback from his remarks. But the complaints came in the next day, blood was on the ice, and everyone piled on.

As Don has said since the firing, he is disappointed that he did not get a chance to clarify his statements and he would have liked to finish the season. But he understood the decision and is prepared to live with it.

Time will tell whether or not Sportsnet’s actions will adversely hurt their bottom line.

So, let us take a quick, dispassionate look at the actual transcript of what got some people so riled up:

“You know, I was talking to a veteran. I said ‘I’m not going to run the poppy thing anymore because what’s the sense? I live in Mississauga, nobody wears — very few people wear a poppy. Downtown Toronto, forget it! Downtown Toronto, nobody wears a poppy.’

He says, ‘Wait a minute, how about running it for the people that buy them?’

Now you go to the small cities, the rows on rows.

You people love — that come here, whatever it is — you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey. At least you could pay a couple of bucks for a poppy. These guys paid for your way of life, the life you enjoy in Canada. These guys paid the biggest price.

Anyhow, I’m going to run it again for you great people and good Canadians that bought a poppy.”

So for anyone familiar with Coach’s Corner, this is typical Don Cherry getting on a roll. It is no secret that he adores and supports the members of the Canadian Armed Forces. It is no secret that at times he is not the most eloquent of speakers and does not mince words. In fact, there is very little middle ground regarding the man, people either love or hate him.

On the hate side of the column, Ron MacLean’s apology seemed to hurt Don the most. Don says that he understands why Ron did what he did and hopes they can still be friends.

Many others were less charitable about the long time TV personality’s choice of words. Numerous media figures and politicians slammed Cherry. For example, Peter Mansbridge conflated Cherry’s commentary with ‘The notion that they were all white is not only dangerously wrong, it’s an insult to those thousands who lie in the ground in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and so many other places.’ One might be confused about that leap of logic when you read the transcript.

From the world of Facebook, a Lana Ray, a former employee of the Ontario Native Womens Association wrote a very long piece opining that support for Don Cherry is ‘institutional gas lighting’ and ‘Through his comments, Mr. Cherry reinforces a master narrative of white supremacy and settler colonialism.’ That’s quite the stretch pass to infer that all the woes of Canada’s Indigenous peoples can be encapsulated in a rant about getting people to wear more poppies.

Many people that I have spoken with about this incident have had a visceral reaction to Don Cherry’s remarks. In their eyes, he is a straight up racist, misogynistic boor with no redeeming qualities and should have been de-platformed ages ago. The use of the phrase ‘You people’ was described as the trigger determining the racism charge.

In fact, the deeply offending phrase was discussed today by Cynthia Loyst, a co-host of CTV’s The Social. She was speaking about the ‘grandfathers and weird uncles’ in your life who talk about ‘those people’. Supposedly, ‘those people’ being referred to ‘always have a certain type of skin colour’. Obviously, although Cherry did not say immigrants or New Canadians of colour, the insinuation is that he is an old school racist along with all the rest of the old, white, male Canadians. Ironically, Ms. Loyst, only a short time later says ‘you people, who are into sports’. Somebody, some would say the virtue-signally left, likes shifting the goal posts.

This is the crux of the arguments in favour of the firing of Don Cherry. People are selectively choosing some out of context remarks and are uncharitably projecting their worst case ideas of what he meant. Don has repeatedly said since the firing that his intent was to say ‘Everybody’ should be wearing poppies. This was corroborated by one of the few sports columnists who is actually sticking up for the man. Toronto Sun columnist, Joe Warmington during a CTV interview, said that he already knew what Cherry was going to say on Coach’s Corner because he had interviewed him the evening before. Don’s intent was to scold ‘Everybody’ who was not wearing a poppy.

Don has a habit of saying ‘you people’, ‘you kids’, and ‘you this and that’. It is nomenclature that can be used to indicate a group of people, for example, those Canadians who were not wearing poppies this year. Don Cherry is not the only person who uses this term.

So if he meant ‘Everybody’ should be wearing poppies, what exactly is the outrage about? Are his detractors for people to wear less poppies and to devalue Remembrance Day and veterans? Who are the real bigots and racists in this lopsided rink?

Ah, but numerous articles and people pointed out Cherry’s history of misogynistic and insensitive attitudes towards women, Natives, climate alarmists, etc. But a lot of other people would say, he was just stating opinions shared by many other Canadians and that he was not the most politically correct while stating said opinions. Let it never be said that along with enjoying hockey, Canadians are ever tired of airing their opinions.

From the beginning, Don Cherry was hired for Coach’s Corner to be an entertainer. Being flashy and somewhat controversial was part of the gig. But in the end, Sportsnet decided it was time to pull the goalie.

For all Canadians, lovers or haters of Don Cherry, I would suggest that you read through his Wikipedia entry. As mentioned, he spent close to four decades co-hosting Coach’s Corner. His accolades and charitable work are quite impressive and he ranked #7 on CBC’s The Greatest Canadians series. It was a sad day for Canada when this man was summarily terminated with zero attempt made to let him explain himself.

Of course, what really drove the knife home and has pissed off his supporters was the coup de grâce occurred on Remembrance Day. For those offended by Cherry’s words, maybe you should think about that cruel act. Do a few missteps here and there through the course of an illustrious career really warrant the lopping off of his head just because the mob demands it? Are his critics so perfect that they will always be onside no matter the issue? Grapes was a Rock’em Sock’em type of guy, not afraid to take an opponent into the boards. I guess that is offensive to people who are more comfortable playing from the bench.

Whichever side of the play sheet you fall on regarding the man, Don Cherry was a true man of integrity. In typical selfless fashion to the troops, Grapes was more concerned about his firing interfering with the day for the veterans then for his own well-being.

Remembrance Day was sad for an extra reason this year.

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Canadian Patriot

Using the Thunberg Effect for Political Manipulation

During the classic Peanuts scene where Charlie Brown is flying through the air about to land flat on his back after Lucy yanks the football away, do you know what’s going through his head? ‘Why do I keep falling for this and oh boy, this is gonna hurt!’ Whump!

This Friday after a brief tourist stop in Calgary, Edmonton is going to play host to the latest environmental messiah, Greta Thunberg. She is going to be leading a Fridays For Future climate protest and has been invited by the mayor for a meeting. The rest of her itinerary has not been made available but most eco-celebrities usually take a helicopter tour of the oil sands so that they can see first-hand the raping of Mother Earth.

Let’s begin with how Ms. Thunberg decided to swing up to the center of Alberta’s oil patch. What an amazing coincidence that she’s doing a whistle-stop tour of Canada’s ‘eco-shame’ mere days before the Federal election!

Well Charlie Brown, I’ve got a football for you to kick!

Ms. Thunberg is an eco-propaganda weapon to be used for mobilizing the ‘woke’ virtue-signalers to action. Her itinerary doesn’t just happen by chance. My suspicion is that the Liberal, political master-manipulator, Gerald Butts, called in some favours through his World Wildlife Fund cabal. His puppet Prime Minister is having a tough time in the polls and ‘minority’ government scenarios are being tossed around. So Butts gave Greta’s handlers a call to see if she could swing by Alberta for an election stop.

Here’s how the scenario will play out. They have a useful dupe, Edmonton’s mayor Don Iveson, who is going to make a big splash over the young lady’s visit. The Provincial government has said they want nothing to do with her. This plays into the Evil Axis narrative, Scheer, Kenney, Ford, that the Liberals have been pushing. The United We Roll acted accordingly to the dog-whistle and is setting up a counter protest. Of course, the bought and paid for ‘Canada’s’ broadcaster has been directed to cover the event wall to wall. Rosemary Barton might even do a breathless Live Coverage of the spectacle hoping to catch some yellow-vested, rough neck accosting the young climate saviours.

The upshot of the entire staged event is to continue the Liberal narrative that Alberta ie. Conservatives are fine with poisoning the world and are hostile to young, eco-saviours. The aim is not so much to win over a seat or two in Alberta but with the excessive MSM coverage, the hope will be to push millennials to emotion vote for anyone but the Conservatives. Since the Liberals, NDP, and Greens are already planning their minority government, it doesn’t really matter who they vote for as long as it isn’t Scheer’s Conservative candidates.

Thankfully, there’s a few Canadians who are becoming aware of these master political machinations. Particularly in Alberta, which has borne the brunt of the latest round of eco-warfare, the populace came to their senses and elected a warrior to stand up to their blatant attacks on their primary industry. Jason Kenney rightly put together a war room to deal with these NGO attacks on Canada’s way of life.

There are many naïve Canadians who want to be nice to Greta on her visit. We can show her around, demonstrate all of our innovative methods of oil extraction, and educate her on the gold standard Canada requires regarding resource recovery.

Canadian’s are just too nice. Despite the fact that if every Canadian laid down and died on Friday, literally we would have statistically zero effect on the world’s overall environment. No amount of logic will sway the Greta eco-zealots of the world.

But if the enviromentalists aren’t interested in listening to any sort of sense, then what are they interested in? They are basically only interested in destroying the present system of Western capitalism and replacing it with their idea of utopia.

But how do you approach the complex task of destroying the West’s system of capitalism to replace it with eco-socialism? You start with the low hanging fruit. That’s why these eco-types trot up to the oil sands on their biblical pilgrimages. Alberta is an easy target because of accomodating, sucker Canadians who are just the nicest.

Normally, I would say Ms. Thunberg should have been stopped at the border and denied entry to Alberta. She is a foreign agent bent on destroying our Canadian way of life. China, Venezuela, Russia, or Saudi Arabia, would keep her out or have her arrested. They’ve watched those same Peanuts episodes and I’m sure they’re laughing at the Western countries who are all taking prat falls due to the environmentalists.

Unfortunately, Gerald Butts is running a dirty campaign and this latest political gambit was an opportunity that couldn’t be past up. Canada will lose this propaganda battle. Hopefully, Canadians will wake up and stop playing the fools so that we don’t lose the war.

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Observer of the Human Condition

The Religion of Panphobia

There seems to be a truism that the masses are most easily controlled by the powerful through the tool of fear.

Organized religion figured this out long ago. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife or thou shall suffer eternal damnation in the pit of hell plus all the other little chestnuts to be found in the Bible, Koran, and the other holy writs. For Krishna’s sake, don’t step on a worm or your karma will be screwed up!

The important bit was the ephemeral nature of the reward or punishment. The carrot that enticed the unwashed masses to this religion or that was the beautiful Heaven beyond the Pearly gates or the promise of the 72 virgins to slake your eternal lust. The stick involved the fire, devil, and pitchforks for eternity. The more sophisticated religions even threw in the concept of purgatory where the ‘white collar’ sinners could spend a century or two before moving on to salvation.

The key to the grand religion scam was man could never prove what exactly happened to your ‘soul’ when a person went to the great beyond. Coincidentally, the powerful figured out this was an excellent way of controlling their populations other than through brute force. Face it, when the major religions of today started their ascendancy, life for the average person was brutish, hard, and short. Pretty much, people didn’t have much to lose and someone was smart enough to hoodwink the common folk into self-policing themselves. Tell the narrative of thou shall not murder, steal, commit adultery, and especially the one about no other Gods but me and the populace constructs their own morals. It makes the job of the elite much easier and conveniently leaves them in the positions of power.

Then came the age of enlightenment and Western world organized religion started to collapse. We went and started educating everyone and settled on a democratic system of government. People’s lives got better, longer, and easier. They stopped buying in to the brimstone and damnation arguments.

But the old motivator of fear as an effective tool to rule humanity did not disappear. It only morphed into another form.

At no time in history has humanity had such access to knowledge. Literally every fact, theorem, or event is a Google click away for a sizeable chunk of our world’s population and more so every day. But what do we all focus on? Is it MIT studies of their latest engineering feats? Are we reading the collective works of Shakespeare or the other literary giants? Nope, we’re hooked on cat videos and Twitter feeds of vacuous celebrities.

And what are the high-tech power mongers selling to the hooked in, Internet surfing, Netflix watching masses? Fear! 

The granddaddy of the latest scheme with their Gore, Suzuki, & DiCaprio prophets is of course the climate. It has been a brilliant strategy. Pick a cause with religious overtones, Mother Nature, Gaia, The Great Mother, toss in the ‘think of the children!’ argument, some Indigenous props, and showcase a hockey stick graph that describes how we’ll all burn and/or drown. Then throw in a few bogeymen like CO2 from burning fossil fuels or methane emissions from cattle and you have convenient strawmen for the masses to rail against and stick their pitchforks into.

During the 1800s, the Western world began to rightly separate church and state. This was done because science was starting to dispel religion’s dogma that hitherto been accepted fact. For example, despite the contemporary Flat Earth Society’s contrarian arguments, the world is indeed round(ish) and is easily proven to be so. Oh, and despite the Catholic church’s objections, the Earth is not the center of the Universe because Galileo used a scientific instrument (ie. A telescope) to determine that moons orbited Jupiter.

But Western society is undergoing a reintegration of the Church of Environmentalism/Progresive Liberalism/Political Correctness and the state. The faithful dutifully go about separating their refuse into the correct blue boxes, recycling bags, and composters. Diversity is our Strength. #MeToo. Governments push ‘green’ technology and to phase out dirty CO2 emitters. There are compulsory tithes (Carbon taxation) from all the sinners. Everyone should just get along and banish all borders. LGBTQQIP2SAA. Kumbaya!

Paradoxically, the truly faithful decry and denigrate actual facts contrary to their accepted tenets. In Canada, the actual recycle rate of plastic, despite decades of Blue Box campaigns, is only 11%. Clothing in North America is only recycled on the order of 1%. Solar and wind power, electric cars, and other ‘green’ technologies are turning out to be massive, expensive, tax paid failures. But the true believers turn a blind eye to contrary facts and call them heresy. Hey, as long as you separate your bottles and tin cans, ban plastic straws from your Starbucks latte, and use reusable grocery bags, why can’t you continue to enjoy running around in your gas guzzling SUV?

Of course, if you want to commit true blasphemy then call into question any of the accepted climatic change ‘facts’ and you’ll soon find out how many Facebook friends you’ll lose. The Arctic ice is melting and the polar bears are dying! Well, explain how there are more polar bears than ever and the Antarctic ice shelf is growing as confirmed by NASA. CO2 is a pollutant and is killing the planet! Well, CO2 is a vital building block for plants and they’re greener and more productive than ever. We’re all going to drown due to rising ocean levels. Oops, gotta keep moving those goal posts because as the decades go by on some of these claims, the facts don’t actually line up with reality.

But the real trick is to keep your population in that constant state of fear. This is accomplished by keeping your claims vague and shrouded in pseudo-science that can’t be easily disproven. How else would outfits like ‘Moms Across America’ be able to convince you that a few parts per billion of glyphosate detected in your bowl of Cheerios is going to cause your children to grow cancerous tumours. Despite thousands more in the bun, it will be the few extra hormones in your burger that are going to result in your daughter having breasts at the age of eight. The antibiotics in the chicken feed will create pandemic super-bugs. Gluten is bad for you. GMOs create Frankenfood. Vaccines cause autism. Animals should all be freed from their human enslavers and we should all be eating bean curd. Monsanto, Big Pharma, and government are all in on the ‘Big Conspiracy’. Of course, throw in Neo-Nazi, gun wielding, immigrant, white cops are going to kill us all, especially the Blacks. Shout your narrative long enough and even if it can be disproven, the converted won’t believe your claims anyways.

Life expectancy has dramatically risen with modern medicine but the fear tactic that garners the best results still involves death, usually by the dreaded disease of cancer. Not surprisingly, the most fervent of the faithful are women. It could be characterized by any one of the Brothers Grimm fables where the aging beauty fears the loss of their youth and vitality. Young, hot women instinctively know that their appeal has a short ‘Best Before Date’. Hence, the target market for the organic industry, celebrity fads, and ‘snake oil’ merchandise is female. Absurdly, after many decades of empowerment and equality, women have been sucked into supporting these flim flam movements. What sane individual would ever believe that sticking a jade egg up their twat was a good thing? Gwyneth Paltrow was laughing all the way to the bank.

This constant bombardment of fear mongering has created a neurotic, mis-informed, maladjusted population that is easily distracted and can be led around by the nose by the oligarchy who have tapped into this new religion.

Humanity does not move forward with ever increasing enlightenment and progress. Rather, the banal masses succumb to whoever shouts the loudest from the fanciest and best of soapboxes.

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A HEALING SOLDIER

The Disconnect between Society and Our Veterans

It has been a familiar lament of soldiers throughout time that once the war is finished then society would rather forget about them. In many cases, they come home ill or injured, broken in body or spirit and the adjustment to a ‘normal’ civvy life outside of their military family is challenging.

In Canada, as of late, there have been a few feeble attempts in regards to lessening the pain incurred by a releasing member. The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has tried to mitigate the shock of the transition process with their Second Career Assistance Network (SCAN) program. During your duty hours, a service member can attend seminars and receive counselling on resume writing, interviewing, and where to search for jobs. The website du jour that gets pushed is LinkedIn, which in it’s time was probably more professional but has turned into just a more civil cousin of Facebook. The CAF’s efforts are better than nothing but is little more than kind of pointing you in the right direction. Remember, military personnel get moved so often that those personnel contacts that are so important when looking for work are typically absent. So in many cases, the member has to keep scanning electronic job boards ad nausea and fire off applications in the blind. All the legwork after release is upon the member who is dumped out with a few meagre tools in their job hunting toolbox.

Once a member has been released, they come under the auspices of Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC). At least VAC is listed as an agency to visit upon release so personnel can actually learn something about them and what they can offer for transition services. If you are undergoing a medical release with a pension attached, they’ll help administer getting the monies to you plus other services. If you’re somewhat able bodied, VAC is not much use to you. About all they can provide is up to a lifetime $1000 credit towards career service expenses such as professional resume writing or counselling. It will take some red tape and three to six months to be reimbursed but a few dollars to help with a polished resume is better than nothing. But unless you are really broken, you will not be talking to VAC again until you are looking at being put in a home.

The Government of Canada (GOC) tries to play a part in easing the process of military transition. They allow former military members to compete for internal advertised positions for up to two years after release. It is mostly a waste of time as there is already a handpicked nominee in mind when these advertisements go out. Either that or the process is so geared towards a specific person with a specific set of skills, that a service member doesn’t have a chance unless there is someone coaching them on what HR is looking for. The external GOC positions are also available and most say ‘Eligible veterans and CAF members may apply‘ but all that might get you is the fact that they will at least look at your resume. The entire process to be hired for a GOC job usually takes between 12 to 18 months. Again the positions are looking for specific civilian skill sets that most members would not have and many positions are just for an anticipatory hiring pool where no one may ever be hired. Plus, the HR process is out of touch between linking prospective job seekers with jobs they would be suited to. During the tests and interviews, there is no mention or askance of any skills that would actually be beneficial to the job in question. To illustrate this in an example, HMC Dockyard Halifax needs Sail loft/ Marine Survival Technician Apprentices to work at the Boat Shed. This job is tailor made for ex-RCN bosuns as that was their job onboard ship. But the written test administered was geared towards an officer worker as was the standardized interview. There was not even a question about, ‘Are you good working with your hands?’ The only useful thing about the GOC hiring process is it keeps a bunch of HR people on long term employment as it is next to useless for veterans.

Outside of GOC services there are a few organizations which try to help struggling veterans in transition. Canada Company, a non-profit started in 2006, has been linking up veterans and their spouses with industry through their Military Employment Transition program. Their site proclaims that they have had 2100 hires (in separate emails, they say 3000) since inception. Considering in the close to 12 years they have been around, about 60,000 Regular Force and 25,000 Reserve Force personnel have left the service, that was a re-hire rate of about 3.5%. Not a great track record but again better than nothing. The GOC must have gotten tired of their success rate or wanted to hire more civil servants because Canada Company is being shut down in favour of a contracted service, Agilec. This new GOC contract will just end up being a means to keep the HR company employed while being able to point to something to say, ‘Hey look! We’re taking care of those Vets!’ At least the old outfit was private and non-profit costing the taxpayer nothing. It also attempted to bridge the gap between military skill sets and the standardized civilian skills HR departments look for when they are screening applicants.

This is a huge challenge for ex-military members. There is no section on the computerized job application forms where you can translate all of the innumerable skills and courses that you have picked up over a military career. For example, how do you convey the concept of being in charge of the security of a ship and her company in foreign port where not only you are authorized to use deadly force but are able to order others to do so at your direction. Civilians are unable to comprehend the enormous amounts of responsibility placed upon even the most junior of members. Hence, the gravitas associated with military service will typically be glossed over or ignored.

A few Canadian companies proclaim to be ‘Veteran’ friendly and actually ask for self-identification during the initial application process. Typically, it is just a few ex-military folks who made it out in the civvy world and are trying to pay it back to their former comrades. The Old Boys and Girls club does try to look out for one another where and when they can. Networking will always be the best avenue to find the good jobs.

There are also a few contracted agencies or school programs here and there that will attempt to help a veteran with skills upgrades or to link them with prospective employers. Helmets to Hardhats will offer heavy equipment or construction courses at a discount and will help veterans hook up with employers. Prospect Human Services attempts to link up veterans with those elusive employers. But the problem with all these outfits that want to be helpful is the poor translation of former military abilities and skills to something a civilian employer can understand. In fact, the Prospect recruiters want you to dumb down your military career as it is too intimidating and your resume will be tossed. It seems redundant and demoralizing to go back to school for courses or to start at an entry level position to ‘fit’ civilian job specifications when the member already has years of similar experience.

This is why it is so difficult to find meaningful employment for a member who was in uniform for the mid to long term. The job hunting process is degrading enough especially to someone who had proudly served their country. Being in uniform means sacrifice, time away from family, multiple moves, and sometimes a cost to your body and mind. Finding a job after release is hard enough but to be told that all that military effort and training was for naught, well that is disappointing to say the least.

It is encouraging that there are plenty of good intentions on the part of the government and other Canadians. They just fall short when it comes to concrete results. Veterans are prone to higher incidences of mental and physical issues by default. They do not want handouts but they would like a hand up. Their unique sacrifices in the service of their country demand better results than the current status quo. This is why veterans are taking the GOC to Supreme Court over things like disability pensions and sexual misconduct and gender discrimination. It is why a group of veterans are camping on Parliament hill to raise awareness of the lack of progress in PTSD treatment programs. Veterans get a little irked when PM Trudeau comes out with gems like ‘You’re asking for more than the government can give.’ especially when he seems more concerned with re-integrating returning ISIS fighters. The Liberals have already argued in court that Canada has no ‘duty of care‘ to its veterans. If the PM doesn’t get it about veteran’s issues than how will the average Canadian understand what they are up against? A couple minutes of remembrance in November does not make up for the rest of the year that a veteran is suffering.

In the end, it only seems like it will be veterans looking after other veterans whether they meet at the Legion, the Clubhouse, or through other veteran run organizations. The military becomes your family and family is who you can really count on.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

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