Cheers & Jeers

Cheers: to labelling. Or branding. Or something. You have to like the title given to the new Conservative omnibus crime legislation by its authors. They went with the lovely title “The Safe Streets and Communities Act.” Sounds like a new, improved detergent. Other possibilities? For the next change to the country’s environmental legislation, how about “The Happy Trees and Flowers Act”? Simple wildlife legislation is so dull, so how about the “Cute Bunny and Bambi Act”? And just in case George Orwell’s “1984” has fallen down your memory hole, it’s worth considering that, in the novel, the Ministry of Truth was in charge of propaganda, the Ministry of Plenty was in charge of rationing, the Ministry of Peace was in charge of war, and, most of all, the Ministry of Love was in charge of law and order. So when the feds introduce the “Internet Oversight, Security and Privacy Act,” (or some equally pleasant-sounding variant) better watch what you say. Anywhere.

Jeers: to making other plans. There’s going to be a district forum in Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, and all the candidates are invited. They’re not all coming, though: you may remember in the last federal election that the federal Conservatives made a practice of avoiding things like debates. In fact, they seemed to be downright allergic to anything that would let voters compare them one-on-one to their opponents. Now, it seems, the provincial Tories might be taking a leaf from the same book. The explanation? PC candidate John Noseworthy’s election plan is to knock on doors to talk to constituents. Let’s see: you could meet with a room full of people who are involved and interested in hearing your plans, or have one-on-ones with perhaps-interested, perhaps-disinterested voters on a street or two in the district on a Tuesday evening. How do you reach the most people? Perhaps, more to the point, how do you keep yourself away from the risk of coming up short?

Jeers: to things that really don’t add up. So, let’s see if we got this right: federal Defence Minister Peter MacKay used a search and rescue Cormorant helicopter to fly from a fishing camp vacation to Gander, and that’s supposed to be all right because he was cutting his vacation short for the opportunity to “familiarize” himself with search and rescue services. Then, same day, he took a federal government Challenger jet to London, Ont., to make a defence procurement announcement, which was supposedly all right because there weren’t any available commercial flights between Gander and London that day (a day when, presumably, MacKay wouldn’t have been flying because he was on vacation, except for the astounding coincidence that he happened to have spontaneously cut his vacation short for the unexpected search and rescue opportunity). Then, he flew in a Challenger jet to Halifax, so he could attend a lobster festival in his home riding, which is supposedly all right because lobster festivals are “government business.” Once again, lucky timing meant the SAR trip cut the vacation short so all those other dominoes could fall into place. All right, then. You can’t make this stuff up. This makes as much sense as a bunch of Quebec advertising agencies spontaneously deciding to harvest undeserved sponsorship cash. What is MacKay? A closet Chrétien-era entitlement Liberal? Time to walk the plank.