Future editions of the Oxford Dictionary of Canadian English will be able to shorten their definition of “stupid” and its array of synonyms simply by referring the researcher to the cross-referenced phrase, “See ‘Pelletier, Jean’”.
Jean Pelletier is, for the moment, the head of VIA Rail, a position he landed in solely because of his service to (and probably servicing of) former PM Jean Chretien. VIA was also mentioned in the last Auditor-General’s report as one of the companies for whom several questions remain unanswered about its share of over $100 million in “sponsorship” money.
Yesterday, Myriam Bédard, a former employee of VIA Rail, said in public that she had raised questions about the bills being paid for sponsorship-related services from advertising companies presently implicated in the scandal. In her words (from an article by Alexander Panetta on canoe.com): “ ‘You change the colour of the sky in an ad. Instead of being white, you make it blue,’ Bedard said. ‘You know it's very simple. It's (basically) a photocopy of the same ad - and you have a bill of $2,000 or $3,000 for that. This is way too much.’ She said she was rebuffed when she asked whether the ads could be handled elsewhere at a lower cost. ‘And they said to me, ‘No. That's the way it is.’”
In exchange for her raising these concerns, she apparently was branded “not a team player” and lost her job. At the early stages of discovering the truth behind the story, there is some debate about whether she was pushed, or jumped. Whether leaving was her choice or her boss’s, she is adamant that she did not want to lose that job.
In response to Ms Bédard’s public statements, her former boss, Mr Pelletier, expressed his opinion, in public, by saying, “I don’t want to be mean to her, but she is a poor girl who doesn’t have a husband that I know of. She has the stress of a single mom who has economic responsibilities, Basically I pity her.”
(Phew, what a lucky thing he didn’t want to be mean to her!)
Overlooking the absurdly malicious non sequiturs of Mr Pelletier’s response, consider the additional facts that Ms Bédard won two gold medals for Canada in the Lillehammer winter Olympics (1994) in the biathlon – a sport that combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting, and is usually accompanied by adjectives like “gruelling”. Ms Bédard was indeed married, and had a child by that marriage, but she has since remarried, and now happily shares her life with a new husband – and has done so for the past two years. The family car is a BMW. None of that should be relevant to the matter at hand, but it really deserves a mention to show just how appallingly wrong the first response of Mr. Pelletier was.
Mr. Pelletier has since issued an apology for his remarks, but only after a very public suggestion was made by the current Prime Minister that he do so.
So to recap – I am a man under close watch because I head a company alleged to have mismanaged vast amounts of money in a program now considered universally to have been a “scandal”. The phrase “can use all the friends I can get” is not too far from my present needs.
A former employee, who happens to be not unattractive and is, by Canadian standards (oh hell, by any nation’s standards) a national hero for winning Olympic double gold (and, incidentally, not testing positive for any performance-enhancing drugs), says she questioned what she thought were unreasonably high bills charged for simple graphic tasks. So I respond by attacking not her allegations, but her, personally and abusively. (As one journalist put it, Do I really want to upset someone who can ski and shoot at the same time better than anyone else in the world?)
(Ruffle of dictionary pages) Yep, “stupid” pretty well covers it. How did I ever get to be head of VIA Rail, anyway?
Saturday, February 28, 2004
Friday, February 27, 2004
The process by which I commute to and from work each day is a 15-minute walk, followed by a 20-25 minute bus ride, followed by a second 15-minute walk.
At one point at the work-end of my second walk, I have to cross an intersection that governs eight lanes of traffic east-west, and eight lanes of traffic north-south, with advance, delayed and turn-only light arrows kicking in as well, under a schedule I have yet to fathom (but then I’ve only been walking this route for almost two years). When the little white “Walk now” man finally lights up, it allows about six to eight seconds before changing to the little red “Maybe you should stop walking or this bus will crush you” man.
And environmentalists wonder why so many people drive to work.
I spent a weekend in Montreal recently and discovered they have several intersections where the pedestrian crossing lights include a lighted countdown telling walkers exactly how many seconds remain before the “Don’t walk” symbol appears. And these intersections, almost without exception, seemed to allow time enough for even a slow senior with a walker to complete the journey, assuming he or she was poised to start when the light first changed. Very civilized, that.
Being Ottawa, this city also experiences numerous snowfalls from December to March and, on my walking route, there is a paved pathway that takes a diagonal cut through a small park. After each snowfall, no matter how large it has been, it takes almost no time at all for sufficient foot traffic to pound the snow down to a walkable surface. And you are no doubt thinking, “Well, sure, but only until the sidewalk plows clear it off, right?” Wrong. Because this path, despite the relentless physical evidence that it is heavily used throughout the winter, is never cleared by either plow or shovel the entire season.
Not only is it not cleared, there are two small staircases along its way that are chained off and blocked with a sign authoritatively stating “CLOSED / FERMÉ”. But people resolutely step over the chain and, occasionally, step on it with enough force to tear it from its mounting bolts, leaving it buried after the next snowfall. And days later, maybe weeks later, fiercely determined city work crews replace the barrier, followed usually minutes later, at most hours later, by even more determined pedestrians who trample it right back down again.
It’s not an urban wildlife nesting area or anything that needs protecting from boot-clad feet. Whatever isn’t paved is covered in large, flat stone squares. It’s a well-used pedestrian route and the physical evidence of how well used it is is there for all to see. (By winter’s end, in fact, so many snowfalls have been packed down by walkers, one is often walking fully six inches above the pavement, and a sure sign of spring is the eventual first bloom of asphalt every year about mid-March.)
I do have a point (nod to Ellen DeGeneres). We are killing the very air we breathe with our relentless injection of carbon monoxide into our planet’s atmosphere. In cities, when one sees such a determined effort to seek an alternative to one-person / one-car driving, shouldn’t someone say, “Let’s spend a little extra here, and assign a work crew to keep that path clean”? Shouldn’t we encourage people to walk more, instead of building and rebuilding barricades to make it harder for them to do so? Shouldn’t we priorize pedestrian traffic at major intersections, instead of treating walkers like it’s a case of “ready, set, sprint” and instead tell motorists, “Just hold your damned horsepowers; people are walking here! You’ll get a turn in a minute, a 60-second minute.”?
What’s so hard about that?
I know – it’s because for every one walker there are 25 drivers. And on my pounded-down footpath, it’s the two little staircases, isn’t it? Because you just know the day will come when some pedestrian will slip and crack his spine on a patch of ice on one of those steps, a bit of frozen glaze that a worker missed, and the city will be sued for negligence, and for pain and suffering, and it’ll never be something the pedestrian should have considered before deciding to leave his winter boots at home that morning, and it’ll never be because this is a Canadian city in winter and sometimes you will encounter a patch of ice, because it always has to be someone else’s fault, and that someone’s gonna pay!
But that’s a whine for another day.
At one point at the work-end of my second walk, I have to cross an intersection that governs eight lanes of traffic east-west, and eight lanes of traffic north-south, with advance, delayed and turn-only light arrows kicking in as well, under a schedule I have yet to fathom (but then I’ve only been walking this route for almost two years). When the little white “Walk now” man finally lights up, it allows about six to eight seconds before changing to the little red “Maybe you should stop walking or this bus will crush you” man.
And environmentalists wonder why so many people drive to work.
I spent a weekend in Montreal recently and discovered they have several intersections where the pedestrian crossing lights include a lighted countdown telling walkers exactly how many seconds remain before the “Don’t walk” symbol appears. And these intersections, almost without exception, seemed to allow time enough for even a slow senior with a walker to complete the journey, assuming he or she was poised to start when the light first changed. Very civilized, that.
Being Ottawa, this city also experiences numerous snowfalls from December to March and, on my walking route, there is a paved pathway that takes a diagonal cut through a small park. After each snowfall, no matter how large it has been, it takes almost no time at all for sufficient foot traffic to pound the snow down to a walkable surface. And you are no doubt thinking, “Well, sure, but only until the sidewalk plows clear it off, right?” Wrong. Because this path, despite the relentless physical evidence that it is heavily used throughout the winter, is never cleared by either plow or shovel the entire season.
Not only is it not cleared, there are two small staircases along its way that are chained off and blocked with a sign authoritatively stating “CLOSED / FERMÉ”. But people resolutely step over the chain and, occasionally, step on it with enough force to tear it from its mounting bolts, leaving it buried after the next snowfall. And days later, maybe weeks later, fiercely determined city work crews replace the barrier, followed usually minutes later, at most hours later, by even more determined pedestrians who trample it right back down again.
It’s not an urban wildlife nesting area or anything that needs protecting from boot-clad feet. Whatever isn’t paved is covered in large, flat stone squares. It’s a well-used pedestrian route and the physical evidence of how well used it is is there for all to see. (By winter’s end, in fact, so many snowfalls have been packed down by walkers, one is often walking fully six inches above the pavement, and a sure sign of spring is the eventual first bloom of asphalt every year about mid-March.)
I do have a point (nod to Ellen DeGeneres). We are killing the very air we breathe with our relentless injection of carbon monoxide into our planet’s atmosphere. In cities, when one sees such a determined effort to seek an alternative to one-person / one-car driving, shouldn’t someone say, “Let’s spend a little extra here, and assign a work crew to keep that path clean”? Shouldn’t we encourage people to walk more, instead of building and rebuilding barricades to make it harder for them to do so? Shouldn’t we priorize pedestrian traffic at major intersections, instead of treating walkers like it’s a case of “ready, set, sprint” and instead tell motorists, “Just hold your damned horsepowers; people are walking here! You’ll get a turn in a minute, a 60-second minute.”?
What’s so hard about that?
I know – it’s because for every one walker there are 25 drivers. And on my pounded-down footpath, it’s the two little staircases, isn’t it? Because you just know the day will come when some pedestrian will slip and crack his spine on a patch of ice on one of those steps, a bit of frozen glaze that a worker missed, and the city will be sued for negligence, and for pain and suffering, and it’ll never be something the pedestrian should have considered before deciding to leave his winter boots at home that morning, and it’ll never be because this is a Canadian city in winter and sometimes you will encounter a patch of ice, because it always has to be someone else’s fault, and that someone’s gonna pay!
But that’s a whine for another day.
Thursday, February 26, 2004
“Almost one-third of Canadians (31%) would find a mini Arnold Schwarzenegger the most amusing to see out of a list of larger-than-life celebrities. One-quarter (25%) of Canadians said they would be amused to see a mini version of Canadian hockey commentator Don Cherry. Other celebrities on the list of larger-than-life celebrities included Madonna (14%), Donald Trump (10%) and Michael Jordan (9%).” – from a news release issued today by Pepsi-Cola Canada to back up their breathless announcement that they have just launched a new “mini” can of their cola.
Was there some sort of public clamour for a smaller-than-usual serving of Pepsi that I missed? Did the marketing folks at Pepsi all show up for work last month and say to themselves, “I think a littler can of this stuff will sell like hotcakes”? Even more to the point, what _is_ the market for this thing?
What I think is that Pepsi has been smarting from the recent trend in school board / cafeteria fare revision to take “pop” out of their vending machines and offer students beverage choices with an ostensibly higher nutrition value, beverages containing, say, 5 per cent real fruit juice. And I think the Pepsi folks concluded that making a lunchbox-friendly format is the way to go – because the present standard can is both too bulky and too heavy to conform to the backpack chillpack style of lunch container preferred by most school brownbaggers. (Emphasis on “I think”. What I know of “preferred” is based on nothing more than my experience of packing school and work lunches for at least ten years, and finding no place at all for a standard can of pop therein.)
The result? A brand new way to get more garbage into the world’s landfills faster than ever before. Don’t look for them in school vending machines, for sure, but do take a look in school cafeteria garbage bags starting in a week or two. My guess is that’s where Pepsi hopes these things will go by the truckload.
“The 237-mL (8 oz) can is a part of Pepsi-Cola Canada Ltd.'s continuing commitment to innovate and offer consumers the widest variety and choice in the beverage industry.” – from the same news release.
Bullshit. The can is a part of “Pepsi-Cola Canada Ltd’s continuing commitment” to keep kids firmly latched to their cold caffeine habits, despite schools’ modest efforts to reduce same.
Was there some sort of public clamour for a smaller-than-usual serving of Pepsi that I missed? Did the marketing folks at Pepsi all show up for work last month and say to themselves, “I think a littler can of this stuff will sell like hotcakes”? Even more to the point, what _is_ the market for this thing?
What I think is that Pepsi has been smarting from the recent trend in school board / cafeteria fare revision to take “pop” out of their vending machines and offer students beverage choices with an ostensibly higher nutrition value, beverages containing, say, 5 per cent real fruit juice. And I think the Pepsi folks concluded that making a lunchbox-friendly format is the way to go – because the present standard can is both too bulky and too heavy to conform to the backpack chillpack style of lunch container preferred by most school brownbaggers. (Emphasis on “I think”. What I know of “preferred” is based on nothing more than my experience of packing school and work lunches for at least ten years, and finding no place at all for a standard can of pop therein.)
The result? A brand new way to get more garbage into the world’s landfills faster than ever before. Don’t look for them in school vending machines, for sure, but do take a look in school cafeteria garbage bags starting in a week or two. My guess is that’s where Pepsi hopes these things will go by the truckload.
“The 237-mL (8 oz) can is a part of Pepsi-Cola Canada Ltd.'s continuing commitment to innovate and offer consumers the widest variety and choice in the beverage industry.” – from the same news release.
Bullshit. The can is a part of “Pepsi-Cola Canada Ltd’s continuing commitment” to keep kids firmly latched to their cold caffeine habits, despite schools’ modest efforts to reduce same.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
How can anyone watch / listen to / read about the current scandal embroiling the Government of Canada and not feel a great sickness at what it says about politics in general, and Canadian politics in particular?
Alfonso Gagliano, to take just one example, said, in effect, "I've done nothing wrong". The illness in government is that he genuinely believes he's done nothing wrong, because he works in a system where it is perfectly normal to reward (using someone else's money) people who are loyal to you.
And not just to reward loyalty, but even to go so far as to offer your more prominent loyalists protection -- of a sort -- after they've been caught out in an especially egregious example of abuse, becoming for example Canada's Ambassador to Denmark. (I mean "Ambassador..." as the reward, not the egregious abuse.) What in God's name did the Danes ever do to us?
In an in-depth news item on CBC-TV last night about the situation, (a news item that began by posing the not-so-long-ago-unthinkable public question, "Is corruption systemic in Canadian politics?") former PM Jean Chrétien outlined the terms under which a Third World country would qualify for Canadian foreign aid. He cited verifiable circumstances like: a complete absence of corruption; a transparent, fully disclosed system of accountability. Based on those criteria, Canada wouldn't even qualify for our own foreign aid!
Unless a sea change takes place soon, and the entire system is flushed from the top down, I have a hard time imagining that a political career, or for that matter even voting, will ever hold much appeal for younger, more cynical and more knowledge-seeking minds presently moving though the upper ranks of high school or the early years of university. The outcome will be that we will be governed by leaders and representatives whose "election" occurs with fewer -- often far fewer -- than half of our voices even registering.
But maybe that's what we deserve for so swiftly forgetting the political sins of the past of those who hold power in this country when they seek to renew it every four years or so.
Alfonso Gagliano, to take just one example, said, in effect, "I've done nothing wrong". The illness in government is that he genuinely believes he's done nothing wrong, because he works in a system where it is perfectly normal to reward (using someone else's money) people who are loyal to you.
And not just to reward loyalty, but even to go so far as to offer your more prominent loyalists protection -- of a sort -- after they've been caught out in an especially egregious example of abuse, becoming for example Canada's Ambassador to Denmark. (I mean "Ambassador..." as the reward, not the egregious abuse.) What in God's name did the Danes ever do to us?
In an in-depth news item on CBC-TV last night about the situation, (a news item that began by posing the not-so-long-ago-unthinkable public question, "Is corruption systemic in Canadian politics?") former PM Jean Chrétien outlined the terms under which a Third World country would qualify for Canadian foreign aid. He cited verifiable circumstances like: a complete absence of corruption; a transparent, fully disclosed system of accountability. Based on those criteria, Canada wouldn't even qualify for our own foreign aid!
Unless a sea change takes place soon, and the entire system is flushed from the top down, I have a hard time imagining that a political career, or for that matter even voting, will ever hold much appeal for younger, more cynical and more knowledge-seeking minds presently moving though the upper ranks of high school or the early years of university. The outcome will be that we will be governed by leaders and representatives whose "election" occurs with fewer -- often far fewer -- than half of our voices even registering.
But maybe that's what we deserve for so swiftly forgetting the political sins of the past of those who hold power in this country when they seek to renew it every four years or so.
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