Alan Pickersgill - The View From Here

(December 22) - It is Christmas and I have something good to say about the Prime Minister. Not a tongue-in-cheek thing, and not a back-handed compliment disguising a thinly veiled insult. Nope. It is an honest-to-goodness point of agreement: an elected Senate. An idea whose time has come.

The one we have now was constructed to mirror the British House of Lords. They have lifetime appointed peerages; we have lifetime appointed senators. Or close to lifetime. They get pushed out at age 75.

Unelected men and women uphold or overturn decisions made by elected men and women. They act on behalf of the person who heads the family that rules the Commonwealth. This person got there not by merit but by selective breeding.

I have something for the PM’s Christmas stocking: a poultice to cleanse the carbuncle of monarchy from the buttock of our body politic. We need to rid ourselves of appointed senators and governors-general. There is a lot wrong with politics south of the border, but two elected houses isn’t part of it. Because it’s Christmas, I’ll pledge to help Harper get this done if he asks me to.

There’s something for Jack’s stocking as well. He’s the only national leader who’s ever set foot inside my house. I put some eggs on to boil and made him a chopped egg sandwich.

I can offer him a copy of Poker For Dummies. If he had this on his bookshelf a month ago, he might be Minister of the Environment today. Instead, he took a look at the cards he’d been dealt, laid them on the table and stood up looking like the cat that ate the canary. He was reaching over to rake in the winnings when he noticed a royal flush in his opponent’s hand. Always keep the cards close to your vest until the other player is forced to fold.

Santa Claus and his reindeer might stop at Liz Sandals’ place on Thursday morning and give her a lift to Mexico and Jamaica. They could drop her off with the families of labourers sent home by Rol-Land Farms. She’ll see first-hand the poverty they endure and the health problems they develop from pesticide exposure and poor working conditions. When she gets home she can return the gift.

Workers on factory farms now have the right to unionize. She could convince her provincial and federal colleagues to stop the quick and easy deportations of men and women who choose to exercise that right.

When the Christmas sleigh gets to Carden Street, Santa could reach into his sack and pull out a team of lawyers. They will help our mayor launch a legal challenge to Murphy’s Law. This is the one that says whatever can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible time. It bedevils our city.

The penny wise but pound foolish council we voted out of office two years ago got the new city hall off to a very bad start. To save money, they fired the original architect and hired one whose project costs quickly mushroomed. Then they hired a construction company with very little experience on projects this size. The ground was custom designed for Murphy.

Now he’s at it again. Several years ago, Mike Harris downloaded a pile of social services to municipalities. Most went to Wellington County, but the city picks up three-quarters of the county’s bill. The McGuinty government has begun the process of taking back this responsibility. It should have removed some financial burden from the city’s shoulders.

Last week council adopted next year’s budget. Then they found out the province didn’t just take back the social programs. They also took back an operating grant. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of one and a half million dollars.

All the arithmetic hasn’t been done yet, but it looks as though there will be a net negative savings. That’s the modern way of saying we could lose our shirt. Murphy’s taking it.

To all of you good readers, whatever you celebrate, do it peacefully. Spend some quiet time with the people who are close to you and give a stranger a gift of kindness.

# posted by Alan Pickersgill @ 11:31 AM