Catpaw – diary of an angry cat

It has been a good month for Canadian politics. Both the Provincial Liberals and the Federal Tories (Conservatives) have been supplying us with a steady diet of nonsense. And I’ll bet you thought only the British were having such fun with their politicians. I’ll get to the Liberals in a later post. The Tories are infinitely more entertaining at the moment.

I’d like to say I’m shocked by Canadian Transport Minister John Baird’s language when talking about the rejection of  Toronto’s application for infrastructure stimulus funding. I’d like to say that… but I’m not. Baird dropped this little gem on the public:

Twenty-seven hundred people got it right. They didn’t. That is not a partnership and they’re bitching at us, ….They should f— off.

“They” being the City of Toronto and  it’s  2.6 million citizens. I wonder how many are V-O-T-E-R-S? Baird later fell back on the old chestnut that he didn’t know he was being quoted in public. Hmmm… journalists, journalists in a media workroom where he uttered the F-bomb … hmmmm….. He was talking about Toronto’s application to replace it’s streetcars etc using the Federal stimulus money. There is the possibility the application may not have been done correctly. BUT… to have a top Tory Minister tell a large city of voters to f**k themselves because he is having a temper tantrum is not a smart move! I think the Tories need to crawl out of the sand box and stop being children.

Speaking of children, I’ve been enjoying the latest Tory attack ads on Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. The fact the Tories think running gutter ads is a good move speaks as loudly as Baird’s temper tantrum. This shows a great deal of contempt for the public to think we are dumb enough to fall for these lame ads. I could write better attack ads, in my sleep! The firm that wrote them should be fired. Not for writing the ads, but for creating such pathetic ones. The ads give me the giggles quite frankly. One line says something like Ignatieff will leave the country and go back to the US (where he was a professor) if he doesn’t win the election. Gee… do you think we could get all the politicians to do this? Was this a threat or a promise? Can you put this in writing?

And where do I start with Natural Resources Minister Lisa “OHHH isotopes are so sexy” Raitt? Canadian politicians are a weird lot. Only in Canada would you get a politician making a sex tape about isotopes. Italy, France, UK, US .. well their sex tapes would be … about sex.. not little isotopes. Okay, so she was refering to the issue of resolving the isotope problem, not the little buggers themselves. Her actual words were:

Ms Raitt: “But it’s sexy…Radioactive leaks, cancer.”

Ms. MacDonnel: “Nuclear contamination”

Raitt: “But it’s only about money”

Nuclear contamination, radioactive leaks, cancer, people dieing needlessly because of the shortage of medical isotopes… Yup they sure are sexy topics. Time for another HMMMMMM …..

Ah but it doesn’t stop there. Last week Raitt came under fire for the mishandling of secret documents. Evidently one of her aides left the documents in a CTV news studio. No one in Raitt’s office bothered to enquire about them for a week. I guess losing secret documents isn’t that big a deal anymore. One more scandal involving a politician should be a big Ho Hum by now. But I feel obliged to ask what about the word secret was not clear to the staff? Why were they taken from the office during a junket to a NEWS station. HMMM time again – secret documents, TV news station, previous questions about isotope shortages and Chalk River … Oh did I not tell you the documents dealt with the contentious Chalk River Nuclear Facility? Silly me. The documents revealed the government has put a lot more money than they are admitting into keeping the very aging plant running. This is a deadly serious matter. It supplies a large portion of the world’s (not just Canada’s) medical isotopes. Chalk River is about 60 years old  and is costing more and more to run and there are doubts as to it’s safety. Not really a subject I’d call sexy. Raitt’s solution is to do more mining, “Know what solves this problem? Mining”. It doesn’t. Mining doesn’t address the Chalk River problem. If the facility is not running properly, then all the mining in the world will not help.

Meanwhile, back at the sex tapes… Raitt’s communications director, Ms MacDonnel accidently left the tape recording of the above conversation at the Halifax Chronicle’s office back in January of this year. When she realised she left her recorder at the newspaper’s office, MacDonnel asked  the Chronicle to hold onto it for her until she picked it up. Months later, she still had not retrieved the little stick of dynomite from the newspaper. To their credit, it wasn’t until MacDonnel left Raitt’s office over the missing secret documents debacle, did they get permission to find out what was on the recorder. They simply hung onto it, waiting… waiting … Just imagine their glee when they listened to it. I’ll bet there was some dancing in the editor’s office that day. I think we have a theme going folks – politician, secret documents/tapes, privacy issues, news rooms, reporters.

Now back to let’s go back to our foul mouthed Minister of Transport Mr. Baird. He has now been dropped into this mess. Accusations are now emerging concerning his role in a possible coverup of Ms Raitt’s alleged mismanagement of Toronto’s Port Authority when she was in charge of it.  Baird is accused of interfering with the Authority by changing the constitution and helping Raitt avoid an audit that might damage her political career. Toronto Port Authority is a troubled organisation – it is running a large deficit, has faced numerous lawsuits and controversies. Baird is accused of covering up Raitt’s $80,000 in travel and hospitality expense, made during her 2 year term as Head of the Authority. Another question has been raised as to why Baird changed the board membership from 7 to 9. Opposition MP’s are alleging it was to stack the board with his own people after 4 of the directors requested an audit of Raitt’s expenses and management. Was this a subtler way of telling the public ” they’re bitching at us, ….They should f— off”?

Oh, by the way, the Prime Minister’s office said just a little while ago the comments were made out of frustration. Baird says he didn’t know he had walked into a media room and the comments were private. There, that makes it all better doesn’t it? Once again, Media Room, reporters, tape recorders … I know what the Tory problem is! They have a problem with basic recognition skills, they simply can’t tell when they are in a newsroom. It’s okay to leave your profanities and secret tapes lieing around, after all no one, including a reporter will ever, ever see or hear them.

See the Halifax Chronicle for a full run down on the Rait Tapes

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