Biggest fool of them all

I'm not a big fan of polls. But a recent poll conducted for the The Comedy Network reveals that Canadians have chosen the federal Liberal Party as "Fools of the Year."

TOP 5 CANADIAN "FOOLS"

1. The Federal Liberal Party (34%): for its involvement in the sponsorship scandal and ultimate election defeat.
2. Celine Dion (27%): for pleading that officials send kayaks to rescue New Orleanians after Hurricane Katrina.
3. CBC (13%): for locking out its employees and thus giving away viewers to other channels for reasons nobody really cared about.
4. The Canadian Electorate (12%): for electing a Stephen Harper government.
5. Team Canada (11%): for one of its worst performances ever at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games despite a star-studded line-up and a $100-million US NHL payroll.

Good riddance

Pauline Marois is leaving politics. Although she undoubtedly has her admirers among PQ hardliners, I have nothing but contempt for the woman. I am happy to see her go.

Among her accomplishments highlighted yesterday were the creation of the province's low-cost daycare system, the constitutional amendment replacing religious school boards with linguistic ones and the drafting of youth-protection legislation.

I will always remember Marois as the person who kicked the English out of our local elementary school when she handed control of the school over to the new French school board. Until then, the school was one of the pioneers of French immersion education in Canada, operating as a completely bilingual school with a student population that was 60% English and 40% French.

Imagine that! A bilingual school! In Quebec! I’m not making this up. Of course, Marois wasted no time putting that to a quick end once she had a constitutional amendment in hand permitting segregated schools.

As to Marois’ other "accomplishments," she, more accurately, created a high-cost, low-price daycare system. Having lived through the system, I have never understood why advocates for institutional daycare in other parts of the country have lionized the Quebec model. For example, we were forced to enrol our daughter full time to secure a place even though we only needed care for three days a week. Is it any wonder that costs have spiralled out of control?

And finally, her youth protection legislation apparently did not obviate the need for forceful advocates to speak out against continuing injustice. One casualty along the way was youth court Judge Andrée Ruffo, who was removed from the court "for repeatedly speaking out on the inadequacies of the youth protection system."

Darth Harper

I have decided to end my little trial subscription with the Toronto Star after seeing Sunday's editorial cartoon. It is actually quite offensive when you think about it.

I sent them the following note:

I want to cancel my subscription... I know the Star is a Liberal paper, but publishing an editorial cartoon equating our prime minister with Darth Vader is going way too far. I simply cannot stomach it. Good bye.

I certainly won't miss their editorials or the spin they put on the news. However, I will miss some of the ads. So to all those advertisers that might wish to attract me as a customer, you better start advertising in the National Post since it is the only newspaper I will be getting from now on.