A Wednesday mixture
How about that Ruby Woman? Kenny Rogers sang a song about it (Ruby don't take your love to Town) and yesterday the MP Lady from Brampton, spoke about it - love that is. "Whenever anybody came to my house I showed them love and respect!" she said at a kangaroo court in Ottawa. Ruby Dhalla, a one time Bollywood North actress and full time chiropractor - cal me Dr. Dhalla, was being interviewed by the ethics committee for alleged bad treatment of her servants and not much love was being shown by anyone.
Now who set this up? Some blame Jason Kenney the Minister of MultiCulturism, who is trying to make inroads and waves in ethnic communities. With alleged promises of new passports and sponsorship the two caregivers (servants) made some allegations about being underpaid and overworked. The Tories jumped on it and dragged RD into court (!) and Iggy has written her off and the whole mess was televised. At the end of the day the chair of the committee told the press that he had heard two different accounts and didn't know who to believe. So what was achieved? A big smoke screen for the other more substantive committee hearing down the hall.
The other meeting down the hall; Mulroney gets his dates wrong and totally screws his case. In the committee room down the hall from RD BM was bombasting his way through a performance led by his lawyer, answering all the setup questions and paving the way for the deification of brian and the satanisation of KarlHeinz. Admitting he took the money, in cash, and not once but three times, he said that he kept it all secret because he didn't want to open up the "Airbus situation" and sully his reputation. The "Airbus situation" was a defamation case that he won in the 90s. The problem with the statement, "I did it to protect my reputation [and not link it to Airbus]" was that he took the money TWO years before the "Airbus situation" ever happened. Oooops - I can't wait to see what the KH lawyers do with that one.
A big win for the most underrated pitcher in baseball today. Roy Halliday of the Toronto Blue Jays creamed the opposition Yankees in a 5-1 complete game. Pinch me, the Blue jays are winning lots of games.
More on the costs of building a Community Centre in Cobourg. A couple of days ago a local letter writer - Martin Partridge, of Cobourg - wrote a letter to NT.com wherein he exposed the fallacy of the CAO of Cobourg's statement that the CC could be built "With little cost to the taxpayer" Partridge in his letter here pooh-poohs the idea and says that all the money is the taxpayers, not just the Cobourg contribution. Following it up with an email to him where I asked him if he was fer or agin the idea he replied with this.
"I am completely against any major capital investments in Cobourg until we see where this economy is really headed. My view is that the seniors should use some available Cobourg space at modest cost, the existing indoor skating rinks should be improved but not replaced, the Y should cope for the foreseeable future with its recent enhancement, and the lawn bowling site should be left exactly as it is. I think both the times and existing public sentiment cry out for belt-tightening, not pie in the sky expansion. Feel free to post the above, citing my name if you wish."
This is probably the majority opinion around Town, I wonder when the majority will get an opportunity to express it?
More about planning, this time from Ottawa. Yesterday two noteworthy events happened, one was a rally outside of City Hall demanding that no expansion beyond the Urban Boundary take place and the other was a committee discussion where Ottawa councillors supported the idea of not building beyond the boundary. I report this because the opinion of the Ottawa Planner relates to a situation here. The story is here but this is what the Planner said, that is important.
"Ottawa council could avoid a series of fights at the Ontario Municipal Board by holding the line on its urban boundary, according to its top planning lawyer. Tim Marc says changes to the provincial Planning Act since 2003 have strengthened the city’s hand in controlling development. If any urban expansion in the official plan is permitted, the revised plan can be appealed to the provincial board, which has the power to overrule city land-use decisions. However, if no expansion is approved, no appeals can be made to the board." (Ottawa Citizen)
So in the application before us in Cobourg, on the East side of Brook Rd. the Cobourg Planners may want to look at this opinion - I hope so, before the whole mess costs a lot more money than we need to spend.
If you think some of the stuff I write is personal and caustic look at this one. Based in Ottawa it appears that nobody knows who owns the website, either way a lot of people are hitting it every day.
Now who set this up? Some blame Jason Kenney the Minister of MultiCulturism, who is trying to make inroads and waves in ethnic communities. With alleged promises of new passports and sponsorship the two caregivers (servants) made some allegations about being underpaid and overworked. The Tories jumped on it and dragged RD into court (!) and Iggy has written her off and the whole mess was televised. At the end of the day the chair of the committee told the press that he had heard two different accounts and didn't know who to believe. So what was achieved? A big smoke screen for the other more substantive committee hearing down the hall.
The other meeting down the hall; Mulroney gets his dates wrong and totally screws his case. In the committee room down the hall from RD BM was bombasting his way through a performance led by his lawyer, answering all the setup questions and paving the way for the deification of brian and the satanisation of KarlHeinz. Admitting he took the money, in cash, and not once but three times, he said that he kept it all secret because he didn't want to open up the "Airbus situation" and sully his reputation. The "Airbus situation" was a defamation case that he won in the 90s. The problem with the statement, "I did it to protect my reputation [and not link it to Airbus]" was that he took the money TWO years before the "Airbus situation" ever happened. Oooops - I can't wait to see what the KH lawyers do with that one.
A big win for the most underrated pitcher in baseball today. Roy Halliday of the Toronto Blue Jays creamed the opposition Yankees in a 5-1 complete game. Pinch me, the Blue jays are winning lots of games.
More on the costs of building a Community Centre in Cobourg. A couple of days ago a local letter writer - Martin Partridge, of Cobourg - wrote a letter to NT.com wherein he exposed the fallacy of the CAO of Cobourg's statement that the CC could be built "With little cost to the taxpayer" Partridge in his letter here pooh-poohs the idea and says that all the money is the taxpayers, not just the Cobourg contribution. Following it up with an email to him where I asked him if he was fer or agin the idea he replied with this.
"I am completely against any major capital investments in Cobourg until we see where this economy is really headed. My view is that the seniors should use some available Cobourg space at modest cost, the existing indoor skating rinks should be improved but not replaced, the Y should cope for the foreseeable future with its recent enhancement, and the lawn bowling site should be left exactly as it is. I think both the times and existing public sentiment cry out for belt-tightening, not pie in the sky expansion. Feel free to post the above, citing my name if you wish."
This is probably the majority opinion around Town, I wonder when the majority will get an opportunity to express it?
More about planning, this time from Ottawa. Yesterday two noteworthy events happened, one was a rally outside of City Hall demanding that no expansion beyond the Urban Boundary take place and the other was a committee discussion where Ottawa councillors supported the idea of not building beyond the boundary. I report this because the opinion of the Ottawa Planner relates to a situation here. The story is here but this is what the Planner said, that is important.
"Ottawa council could avoid a series of fights at the Ontario Municipal Board by holding the line on its urban boundary, according to its top planning lawyer. Tim Marc says changes to the provincial Planning Act since 2003 have strengthened the city’s hand in controlling development. If any urban expansion in the official plan is permitted, the revised plan can be appealed to the provincial board, which has the power to overrule city land-use decisions. However, if no expansion is approved, no appeals can be made to the board." (Ottawa Citizen)
So in the application before us in Cobourg, on the East side of Brook Rd. the Cobourg Planners may want to look at this opinion - I hope so, before the whole mess costs a lot more money than we need to spend.
If you think some of the stuff I write is personal and caustic look at this one. Based in Ottawa it appears that nobody knows who owns the website, either way a lot of people are hitting it every day.
4 comments:
Your thoughts on the Dhalla mess, with the tories and the evil Jason Kenney cast as the villians, are interesting. I hadn't thought the whole thing could be just a smokescreen to shield Mulroney.
But I see a flaw in this argument: the tories sent the former PM off on a lonely ice floe some time ago, didn't they? Why do they want to protect him now?
As for Dhalla, we'll never know the truth. Just another uppity woman driven out of politics either by others' dirty tricks or her own shameful greed. Either way, she will be gone and some of the boys on both sides of the fence will be pleased.
DJO
Re Town Issues:
I sincerely hope Mr. Partridge will give serious thought to running for Town Council next time.
His response to Ben's email makes absolute perfect sense. Why, oh why, can our elected councillors not see sense on anything? They are out of touch with the rest of us, and their stupid schemes are going to cause the Town terrible damage.
Martin Martin he's our Man,
If any Liberal can do it,
then Martin can!
The Mulroney testimony is pure soap opera. He smirks, he cries, he boasts, he takes shots at the current PM! He snivels as he whispers how his family was scarred for life by these and the Airbus accusations.
And Schreiber lands in hospital having gall bladder surgery. That man will do anything to avoid being sent back to Germany! Is that one of his seven promised scandals?
Perhaps the CBC could turn the whole inquiry into a "Best of" special and hire Rick Mercer to narrate. It would be even more hilarious than the real thing once the boring bits were edited out.
It's one of those things where if you don't laugh, you'll cry.
In the meantime I shall content myself with watching Lyin' Brian squirm on the hotseat yet again. It was he, after all, whose example destroyed the honour of being a Canadian Conservative prime minister.
I have this vision of John Turner delivering the coup de grace: "You had an alternative, Mr. Mulroney, you had an alternative."
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