Just Sayin

I recently returned from my annual, winter, month-long automobile pilgrimage to the Gulf of Mexico where I visit some family and friends in Fort Myers while on a 'working' vacation, and then the Atlanta area on my way back (I'm a Pisces and I've always considered the ocean air, salt water beaches, and intercoastal waterways of Florida as a substitute womb ever since I got out and first went there)...

On November 29, 2022, the Superior Court of Justice struck down as unconstitutional the provincial Conservative government’s Bill 124. Passed in June 2019, this piece of wage restraint legislation’s most objectionable provision limited wage increases for approximately 780,000 workers in the public sector to 1% per year for a 3-year moderation period.

A story on CTV’s website in early August reported that, although an overwhelming majority of registered Conservatives supported Pierre Poilievre for leader of the Conservative Party (44% to 17%), most Canadians preferred Jean Charest to become leader of the party, with a larger percentage of voters indicating they would not vote Conservative in the upcoming federal election if Poilievre becomes leader.

In life, even though you choose your words carefully, non-verbal communication – such as facial expression, hand gestures, gaze patterns, posture, and body movements – can lose you a poker hand, diminish your chances in a job interview, or even get you convicted by a jury.

Canadians are as politically disparate as the vast and diverse landscape we inhabit. Our elected legislatures need to accommodate the competing interests of a great number of factions — some economic (think agricultural, manufacturing, fishing, energy), some cultural and linguistic (English, French, First Nations, Old World immigrants), and some ideological (conservative, liberal, labour-oriented, religious), including many overlapping and distinct viewpoints in between, on these, and from other perspectives.

As recently as last year a newspaper editorialist proposed . . . “While the Crown is not perfect and does not rule in Canada, it is above partisanship, symbolizing the unity of the nation. This makes the monarchy a deeply authentic part of Canada’s political heritage and of its political culture of stability, peace, order, and (fairly) good government.” What a load of crap I say!

Time’s up for civil jury trials! One compelling reason to do away with them relates to the “inconvenience” of citizens sitting as jurors. How many Ontarians can afford unpaid time off work?

Scrolling through social media posts can be as entertaining as people-watching in a crowded mall. If the content isn’t always riveting, the passionate conviction and absolute certitude of some of the views found there can be nothing short of startling.

This summer, Canadians were rocked by the news that the remains of over 1,150 unidentified indigenous children who attended residential schools in BC and Saskatchewan were found in unmarked graves or buried on the grounds of the schools (215 were found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School; 182 at St. Eugene’s Mission School; and 751 at the former Marieval Indian Reservation School).

That “Honour in Service” is still the Windsor Police Service’s official motto might be the most extraordinary of all the curiosities surrounding one of its officers fatally shooting an innocent pet owner’s dog in its own fenced yard in broad daylight.

On October 17, 2018 the Canadian government passed the Cannabis Act, making the purchase, possession, cultivation, and consumption of limited amounts of marijuana legal for Canadian citizens. In so doing, we became only the second country in the world (after Uruguay — that vanguard of enlightened social awareness) to legalize recreational cannabis use.

It is as mournful as it is disconcerting that such a large segment of our population is disinclined, or outright refuses, to avail themselves of any of the free COVID-19 vaccinations supplied by our government to fight this pandemic.