John Gormley's Blog

The phones on John Gormley Live lit up this morning when we talked about a recent episode of road rage that could have cost a 23 year old guy his life.

It was a classic case:  bad driving and stupidity meets stupidity, some anger gets thrown in, along with some fear and aggression and then -- toss in a bit more testosterone -- and someone ends up in hospital.

Long story short:  a car full of young guys cuts off another vehicle.  The guy in the second vehicle - a big, 23 year old -- gets out, swearing and yelling obscenities. He walks toward the first car "calling out" the young punks who caused the problem and threatening.  They get out, take one look at an angry guy big enough to cause them a world of hurt, and they reach inside the car and out comes a machete, a tire iron and another weapon.

The balance of power shifts as the aggressive little punks take after the angry driver, beating and stabbing him.  Mercifully, he survives.

This is not a defence of the thugs who nearly killed this guy (quaere, what were they doing with weapons in their car in the first place?) 

But it isn' t a defence of Mr. Angry either.

A few years ago, the Canada Safety Council and the Alberta Motor Association published the following Road Rage Prevention Tips.  They're worth remembering  -- and pass them along to someone who might need them!

• Leave yourself enough time to get to your destination; avoid the temptation to speed and "make time" on the road, which puts stress on you and the drivers around you.
• Don't take traffic problems personally
• Avoid eye contact with an aggressive driver
• Don't make obscene gestures, which can "make you a player" and escalate the incident
• Don't tailgate
• Use your horn sparingly (the polite honk can be misinterpreted)
• Don't block the passing lane (some drivers think you're aggressively holding them back when you do this)
• Don't block the right-hand turn lane
• Create a relaxing and comfortable environment in your car that will help you stay calm
• Report aggressive drivers to the police
• If you believe another driver is attempting to start a fight, immediately get help. Do not get out of your car and do not go home. Instead, proceed to the nearest police station or, if one is not nearby, to a public place
• Don't overreact to every mistake on the roadway. Downplay the event and it will fade away.

As the Saskatchewan NDP fraud cover-up scandal finally lurches to a halt 16 years after it started,  the nation's most morally perfect political party -- chock full of only the most noble, virtuous and self-righteous -- should be taking a few moments right now to stop, reflect and get ready to offer the rest of us an explanation.

Back in 1992, when the just-defeated Grant Devine Conservatives in Saskatchewan were imploding -- actually they'd done that years earlier -- Conservative MLAs were being publicly investigated, charged and perp-walked over a caucus fraud scandal that implicated a dozen MLAs.

For the newly elected Roy Romanow NDP this was the political equivalent of winning the lottery -- every week had a different Tory going up in flames. 

While this political fraud scandal was unfolding, it turned out that the NDP had a fraud of its own going on at the same time, as an employee of the NDP forged cheques in the caucus office and blew out of town with nearly $6,000 stolen dollars and a please-forgive-me confession letter left behind.

The NDP's top staffer in its Caucus Office, Jim Fodey and his political masters could have gone to the police.  After all $6,000 was not a huge theft and the whole case "would have been long forgotten if those that learned of [the theft] had dealt with it in an honest, straightforward and transparent matter". 

But they didn't.

Instead, Fodey cast "a veil of secrecy and deception" over the theft, "misled the police", concealed the existence of the confession letter (even swearing another employee to secrecy) and even misleading the media about the departure of the thief by saying "an audit turned up no evidence of wrong doing".

At the same time, the NDP's Caucus Chair, Moose Jaw MLA Glenn Hagel "played no active role" in Fodey's deception but did give a "factually inaccurate description of events" to NDP MLAs and "took no steps" to undo the misleading of the media that Fodey had pulled off.

Just how and why some in the NDP were prepared to lie and conceal the existence of a criminal act, even from the police, who were actually told that "everything was in order" is anyone's guess. 

But you'd have to be either naive or thick to suspect that this had no connection with trying to politically minimize the NDP's own fraud problem when the NDP's opponents were knee deep in a fraud of their own.

So, life moved on.  The NDP won three more elections and in the intervening 15 years even Jim Fodey stayed employed in the NDP Caucus Office.

 In 2007, the bombshell dropped when a file of police reports, the confession letter and some NDP file notes ended up in the possession of the Sask Party.  And the file showed a damning paper trail: the NDP files had the confession letter hidden away at the same time the NDP were telling the police that no theft had been committed.

So broke the story of the NDP fraud cover-up scandal.  Amidst a great deal of bloviating, whining and anger, the NDP tried accusing those with the files of being in possession of stolen property.  For desperate deflection strategies that one didn't work well.

So, the NDP government -- under seige from the Opposition -- managed not to hold an inquiry, not to appoint a lawyer or judge to look into the allegations of a fraudulent cover-up but to refer the matter to the Legislature's Conflict of Interest Commissioner.  

Today, Conflict Commissioner, Gerry Garrand, released his report.  Wherever I've used quotation marks above -- these are the Commissioner's words not mine. And the Commissioner noted that those who learned of the theft "chose to deceive and mislead others about the theft for misguided political objectives".

Now the old and new NDP can wonder why simply telling the truth seemed such a bad idea at the time. 

And, while they're at it, the new generation NDP can explain why as this scandal blew up in 2007 they fired Jim Fodey and then thought it appropriate to pay him severance of more than $130,000 of public money.

When you read the findings of the Conflicts Commissioner it is clear -- painfully plain and obvious -- what Fodey did.  And what he did deserved a firing for cause -- no thank yous, no good-byes and certainly no severance pay.

The Commissioner's report is here:

http://www.gov.sk.ca/adx/aspx/adxGetMedia.aspx?DocID=2590

With the Canadian political leaders' debate vying for attention with the U.S. vice-presidential debate -- it couldn't have been more different.

In the Joe Biden - Sarah Palin tilt, it was the seasoned Senator and charismatic Governor:  respectful, good exchanges and, as Biden put it, not a time of questioning motives or attacking people.  Evidently, whether Palin won on style or Biden on substance, American politics still has some class.

Then there was the Canadian farce.  Sitting around a table shaped prophetically like a toilet seat, we were subjected to two hours of questioning motives, name calling, nasty shots and the kind of interrupting and behaviour that any debater in middle school knows won't get you past the judges.

Who won?  Who cares?

Impressions include the NDP's Jack Layton -- always a telegenic guy who never met a microphone he didn't like -- sounding quite mean.  But, he can take consolation in not sounding as petty and nasty as the Green's Elizabeth May.

Of course, the Bloc's Gilles Duceppe isn't in play -- he fields only 75 candidates.

So this leaves the two main combatants,  Liberal Stephane Dion & Conservative Stephen Harper.  Dion tried, like Paul Martin two years ago, the "big" debate annoucement.  This one -- unlike Martin's constitutional amendment -- was to convene a big meeting on the economy.  Not sure it gets Dion where he wants to go.

Harper just sat there, took the shots and defended himself. 

WIth Harper and Dion each having clearly distinguishable points of view, it's truly lamentable that, unlike Biden and Palin, we couldn't see a real debate between the only 2 people with any hope of becoming Prime Minister. 

And, while watching two debates at once, it was clear that what passes for debate in Canada is really a classless affair.  We are better than this.

With Jack Layton, NDP leader, in studio the talk turned to the Northern Alberta oilsands. 

He confidently trotted out increased water pollution, more cases of human cancer and poisoned fish -- all the result of the oil sands projects near Ft. McMurray.

Suspicious of this -- I've seen data that says Jack is dead wrong on this -- I asked him about reclamation, where the mined soils are returned to a natural state.  He, again confidently expounded that "reclamation has never taken place at the oilsands".

Huh?

Have a look:

http://sustainability.syncrude.ca/sustainability2006/environmental/reclamation.html

"... and here comes pride in the backstretch, heartache goin' to the inside", as the old country song goes.

By the time that Canadians vote on Oct 14th, there will be plenty of pride -- wounded and otherwise -- and heartache goes without saying, as for every winner in this campaign there will be a handful of those whose ambitions fell short.

This is Canada's 40th election since 1897 and our third since 2004.  And much like our friends to the south who elect either a Democrat or Republican president, Canada's head of government is also a two party affair -- either Conservative or Liberal. 

But in our Parliamentary system it's the leader of the party that wins the most seats that is asked to form government.  In a minority government, where no party has more than one-half of the seats (like Liberal Paul Martin in 2004 and Conservative Stephen Harper in 2006) elections are more frequent and there is typically less political stability.

Much of this campaign -- whether you want Liberal Stephane Dion's carbon tax, the Green Shift or believe, as I do, that it's a wealth transfer targetting Western Canada -- will be about minority vs. majority governments.

Stephen Harper has presided over the longest minority government in Canadian history.  Most minorities last less than 18 months -- Harper's has been 32 months.   Some say that minority governments are good because they moderate (and ultimately handcuff) governments from being too extreme.  Others -- and I'm in this camp -- prefer governments, either Liberal or Conservative, to get on with governing and then be judged in four years time on what they've done.

So, this time -- much like the last -- you'll hear a lot about Stephen Harper on a personal level.  Liberals will argue that he is so untrustworthy, so "hidden agenda" laden that he can't be trusted with a majority.  Conservatives will counter that Harper has provided good governance and has been as advertised.  And, besides, in a leadership comparison he is head and shoulders above the Liberal's Dion.

While the campaign is supposed to be Green Shift vs. Green Shaft -- the environment vs. how to turn around a struggling Central Canadian economy -- this will be a very personal campaign. 

Yes, the race is on.

While 50,000 people spent Sunday afternoon strolling through downtown Saskatoon celebrating the granddaddies of carbon-producers, the custom automobile, the We Are Many festival was limping to it's taxpayer funded conclusion on the other side of the river.

This picture was taken at 1:45pm on Sunday August 24th, from beside the mainstage -

Snapped at the same time, this was the main stage...

How are you feeling about how your tax dollars were spent?

In response to the Taliban's recent threat-filled 'letter to the Canadian people,' a Canadian officer has a few choice words

George Petrolekas, Citizen Special
Published: Thursday, August 21, 2008

An open letter to the Taliban:

You purport to speak for Afghans and Afghanistan yet your only questionable legitimacy comes from the barrel of a gun, the slaughter and intimidation of innocents supported by the profits of the opium crop that you protect. You do not answer for the night letters you send, the people you behead, or the villages you hold hostage whose only crime is that they do not agree with your views.

And yet you dare say that we come to kill your innocent, equally forgetting the deaths of thousands of innocents committed by your fellow travellers in crime; so conveniently forgetting the slaughters of Bali, Madrid, London and New York City. Your words may sound high and mighty, but your actions and deeds betray the truth of what you are: a movement committed to the enslavement and servitude of those whose voices cannot be heard. You revile America forgetting that it gave you more food, flour and wheat than any other nation while you were in power; what did you do for the Afghan people?

People you have fooled say that Afghanistan was more secure under your rule. But what is security under an institutionalized cabal that "legally" kills, amputates and disfigures those who do not agree with it?

You kill the defenceless, and those who come to give hope, simply because they are foreign, and you do so not as men, but hiding behind the disguise of women, or using women and children as shields, or using those who have lost the ability to think to carry out your crimes. And in doing so, you defile the very words of your God and his prophet. How can the prophet feel peace in the face of your cowardice? You have killed more Afghan men, women and children by your bombs and attacks than any other nations combined. While we may have killed innocents by accident, those deaths pale in comparison to the thousands you have killed by design. God may forgive us the loss of those souls; he will never forgive you.

You condone the poppy, protect it, encourage it, tax it, and sell it. Yet the damage to your own countrymen is not of importance. A country that could once feed itself now cannot, and in the wake of the opium trail there are hundreds of thousands of new addicts in Afghanistan, and greater numbers in Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and all the other republics that border you. Your selfish lust for power does not even respect those of your own religion.

You ignore the voice of the Afghan people as expressed in votes that your own intimidations could not suppress. The United Nations supervised those elections. They were more closely watched and safeguarded than almost any other elections in history; and people not only voted with their hands on a ballot, but with their feet in travelling miles for the first opportunity afforded them to at least have a voice in their affairs.

You speak of respect in the community of the world and the community of nations, yet it is you who ordained the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. These were not yours to destroy, they were the legacy of humanity and its existence on this planet, but as always, you turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to anything that does not ascribe to your views. You kill doctors, teachers and aid workers, making a mockery of the words "God the merciful and compassionate." Your deeds make you the ultimate apostates, your actions are the ultimate heresy.

And even in the face of such cowardice, lies and betrayal of the Afghan people, the hand of peace has been extended to you time and again with the simple request that you denounce violence and intimidation. But no, that does not serve your needs, which are among the vilest ever seen on this planet: simply to ply a nation back into servitude.

And so, we are in Afghanistan to give voice and protection to those whose voices cannot be heard.

If Afghans truly wish us to leave, we will do so. We are not an occupying power. We have never attempted to impose our religious or political values on your nation. We accept Afghanistan as an Islamic republic. We accept that democracy will not and may never be like the way we practise it and that freedom of speech and religion will not be like ours. But we do assist that vast majority of Afghans who believe that a girl has a right to go to school, that a village, a district, a province and a nation should allow its people to have a voice in their own affairs.

And in the face of your threats, you will also find that we are made of sterner stuff as are the Afghan people who only wish to live lives in some semblance of security. Liberty does not come freely and ours has been a steep price to pay, and that gives us no joy, but we pay that price in the fervent belief that to not do so is to consign a nation and a people to a darker fate at your hands. And thus we will continue until you are no more.

If those Afghan voices tell us that we should leave, then we will. But we will never leave them alone to face the threats and killings that so brutally demonstrate what you are, because you do not and never have spoken for the Afghan people. And with God's help, you never will.

George Petrolekas was involved in the Afghan mission from 2003 to 2007, representing Canada at NATO's operational headquarters in Afghanistan.