Crime doesn't pay - but justice sure does.

If you were to listen to New Brunswick Provincial Justice Minister, Stephen Horsman, one would be led to believe that there is some disorder in our courts – specifically regarding the amount of money provincial court judges are making.  A provincial court judge in New Brunswick currently makes a salary of $204,000 a year – certainly nothing to sneeze at – but it is the lowest pay for the position in the country. For sake of comparison, their colleagues in Ontario are making a whopping $280,000 a year; only $20,000 less than a Federal court judge hauls in.

Our New Brunswick magistrates are having a hard time keeping up with the Ontario Joneses with the pennies we’re paying them, it would appear. I could only hope that someone would pass the collection plate for these poor, unfortunate souls who are being forced to live on such a meager sum of money. That extra $80,000 a year would mean so much to these folks who are just scraping by in these rough times. I feel like we should start some sort of telethon, at the very least.

Have no fear, downtrodden residents of New Brunswick, Mr. Horsman has a plan! The Honorable Minister has recommended that the province increase the salaries of the 33 Provincial court judges by a whopping $36,000 to $43,000 a year – and guess where that money is going to come from! The public coffers funded by Mr. John and Jane New Brunswick, of course – who will throw all cares to the wind to ensure that our judges have the finest robes and gavels in the land.

As media personality Dennis Miller used to say, “I don’t want to go off on a rant here”, but I feel one coming on.

In a province that is absolutely swimming in debt, to the extent that the government is proclaiming that anywhere from $400 million to $600 million in cutbacks need to be made, why are any of our elected officials even entertaining the idea of paying out an additional $1.4 million a year on judge’s salaries?  There is no word to be used for this other than obscene.  The median household income in this province sits at a paltry $66,000 and we’re looking at giving some folks in politically appointed positions almost two thirds of that amount as a raise to their already generous salary. That is madness, folks.

These bureaucrats are the same bunch who want to go scorched earth when there are talks of wage increases for police, teachers or healthcare workers of one or two per cent. They’re the same group that is cutting funding to our schools and hospitals, and proclaiming that in order to solve this province’s deficit crisis we need to have an “all hands on deck” mentality – when what they really mean is all their hands in our pockets.

In New Brunswick where the minimum wage is a slight $10.30 an hour, an employee working 40 hours a week would gross less than $22,000 a year – about half of this proposed increase for our gavel banging friends behind the bench.  That minimum wage rate just increased, by the way, and one would think it was going to lead to total economic apocalypse the way hands were being publicly wrung about it.


What I want to know is what happened to all this fiscal restraint our new Premier, Brian Gallant was talking about right before the last election? What about the promises of no more waste? Oh, there are restraints alright, the figurative ones that will be used to hold us peons down while we bear the brunt of all these forthcoming governmental economic slashes and cutbacks.  The rich keep getting richer and the poor… well, we just keep taking it.

This province is broke, folks – on the verge of real bankruptcy, even. The mere thought of such an exorbitant increase to these judges’ salaries shouldn’t even be entertained, let alone carried out. I have seen some pretty outrageous acts by government in my lifetime, but this one may very well take the oft-referenced cake.

In one of my favorite movies of all time, 1976’s ‘Network’, the character Howard Beale makes an impassioned plea to viewers of his news program:

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job… We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be."

He then continues with his suggestion to start turning the tide:

"All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING… My life has VALUE!’  I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

That’s how I feel right now, and this is how all residents of New Brunswick should feel.

The problem is that we’d likely end up in front of a judge if we took Howard’s advice.

How ironic.

Je Suis Charlie

I originally planned on writing this week’s column about a New Brunswick satire site that many folks are mistaking for real news through the site’s prolific posts on social media. Although this would be a fun piece to discuss the merits of headlines such as “New dating app matches unemployed NBers with wealthy Albertans”, the subject of satire I planned on discussing took an unexpectedly dark turn.

Last week, French satire magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’ had its Paris offices stormed by masked gunmen who opened fire on the staff. As of this writing, twelve members of the staff were pronounced dead and the apparent cause of the shooting is that the magazine posted a cartoon of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that Islamic fundamentalists found offensive. This isn’t the first time that ‘Charlie Hebdo’ has come under fire, either.  Back in 2011, their offices were firebombed when they published an issue with another cartoon of the prophet Muhammad, and listed him as a guest editor-in-chief.

Reactions to the attack have been those of outrage, as one would expect, and large demonstrations erupted all over the country in support of the publication and its slain workers. What concerns me, though, is the number of people who have stated that the publication was “playing with fire” and never should have published the cartoons to begin with.

These are very dangerous times we’re living in, folks.  I talked about it a couple of weeks ago when Sony Pictures pulled the movie ‘The Interview’ from theatres under a threat from entities thought to be associated with North Korea. Threats were made to people’s lives because of a stupid stoner comedy, and here we have a dozen people dead because of a newspaper cartoon. The very fabric of our right to free speech is being threatened by those who don’t like what we have to say, and it’s scary to see how many people are willing to acquiesce to the demands of others who believe their right to be offended trumps our right to freedom of expression.

It’s time to be concerned.

As someone who shares my opinions in this publication on a weekly basis, I should feel somewhat secure in my ability to speak my mind on any topic I choose. Although I continue to speak openly and honestly, there’s always a niggling voice at the back of my head that always asks if I should be censoring myself from time to time – and what I say isn’t even that controversial most weeks. What if I do say something that offends someone? Do we live in a culture now where someone could perpetrate or threaten an act of violence against me and there would be a segment of the population who would think that I “got what was coming to me” because I touched on a taboo topic? Could my views subject my loved ones to harm because someone disagrees with them so vehemently? I’m not sure of the answer to that question anymore.

We should be at the height of civilization right now, but we’re not.  We’re a society of weak and scared people who have forgotten how to stand up for our rights and freedoms. We are a population of the willingly oppressed and politically ignorant who sit back and allow our way of life to be stripped away from us in the name of political correctness and an overwhelming hesitation to rock the boat of status quo.  In a world where satire is needed simply to cope with the overwhelming amount of garbage that’s pushed down on us from above, a dozen people responsible for shining a harsh light on the sacred cows and the ridiculous conventions of our social order are dead – and some people think it’s okay because they “pushed the wrong buttons” with some people.

That’s all kinds of messed up.

In a culture where we’re constantly bombarded with media that tells us how we should live every aspect of our daily lives, I refuse to be told what I can think and what I can say because of the possibility of offending someone.  Knowing that there are people condemning the Charlie Hebdo attack on one side of their face while insinuating that it may have been deserved on the other side sickens me, and I am ashamed to share this planet with them.

The Charlie Hebdo massacre should serve as a wakeup call to people about the importance of speaking loud and speaking often about issues that are important to them. This tragedy should increase satire by one hundred fold toward the elements of our society that are wrongly viewed as ‘off-limits’ to show that we will not be threatened by those who do not agree with what we say.  We should savor now, more than ever, our inalienable right to speak our minds no matter the topic, and know that we will be safe in doing so.

As I type this, I find out that news sources all over the world are pixelating the cartoons out when reporting on the massacre to avoid further upset.

That sound you hear is our collective spine withering away. 

It's not just the 'Mom and Pop' that's disappearing.

If you were one of the unfortunate souls who spent any amount of time out Christmas shopping these last few weeks, you would think that Canada’s brick and mortar retail business was booming. Elbow to elbow shoppers at local shopping meccas and seemingly endless sales would lead one to believe that everything is hunky dory in the land of your neighborhood merchants.
That’s not quite the case.

Aside from the Black Friday and Boxing Day madness that has happened the last few years, the reality of the current retail situation in Canada is that a large number of businesses are hurting, and we’re seeing the way in which Canadians spend their money changing right before our eyes.

Working as a sales manager of a retail establishment, I have begun to see firsthand how many people have begun to move away from actually leaving their homes to do their shopping. With many purchases only a click of a mouse away online, what incentive do most shoppers have to leave the comfort of their couch anymore? 

If you need evidence of how poorly some sections of the retail sector are doing in this country right now, look no further than Target Canada. It was just over a year ago that the US giant made its way north with the promise of great products at low prices – with serious talk being thrown around that they would unseat the king of the retail mountain, Wal-Mart in no time. After losing an estimated $1.5 billion since they opened their first store in this country, their plans for northern domination have turned into a great white gaffe.

Sears Canada, a staple of this country for longer than any of us have been around, is bleeding money right now with layoffs in the thousands and store closures seemingly every time you turn around. The Chicago based headquarters for Sears has seriously considered selling off the Canadian retailer to interested parties, but there are none. Save that yearly Christmas Wish Book because it may soon be a collector’s item.

Best Buy Canada, Reitman’s, Chapters and many more businesses are on the list of other Canadian retailers that are in danger as 2015 begins. These are stores that have been part of the retail landscape of this country for longer than I can remember, but dwindling sales are leading to more and more speculation about their futures. Is the abandoned mall that is cropping up with increasing frequency all over the United States destined to creep north into Canada? It seems like it very well may be.

So why is this happening? Surely lower prices and convenience are factors, but I don’t think they’re the biggest ones. I think a big part of the problem is that many organizations need to start focusing on the skill of customer service again because it is truly a dying art with many companies. I can count the number of times I have had exceptional service from a retailer on one hand in the last year, and I don’t hold out a lot of hope for 2015. Mediocrity has almost become exceptional in today’s marketplace because bad service is so commonplace. ?

I come from an old school mentality of a consumer who would gladly pay a few dollars more for an item in a brick and mortar store if it’s backed by top notch customer service delivered by an expert selling me the product.  Is it any wonder, though, that many people would prefer to shop online rather than deal with disinterested employees who often times know nothing about the products they expect you to buy from them?

A perfect example of this is the fact that I ended up ordering my wife’s Christmas gift online this year after three local merchants that sold the product (that I knew nothing about)  all gave me a response along the lines of “I haven’t the slightest clue” when I asked them to guide me in a purchasing decision. Their suggestion was that I do my research online. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy of extinction!

I, for one, don’t want a future where I can’t go into a store and hold a product in my hands before spending my hard earned money on it. By the same token, I’d like to know that I’m valued as a customer when I do purchase something from you. It’s not rocket science, but I’m amazed by how many companies just don’t seem to get it.

Maybe the change is inevitable. Perhaps we’re destined to move toward a predominately online marketplace where the human element is all but eliminated and people become even less social than we are now. There’s the distinct possibility that I’m just an old fogey who is digging my heels into the ground as I fight against a tide that is sweeping in with or without me.

Either way, you have to wonder where people are going to get the money to patronize these online monolithic companies when, faster that you can double click, we’re eliminating the jobs of the people who used to sell us these things.

Put that in your cart and ponder it.

A Life In Pictures... Or a year, anyway

Last year around this time, I gave myself a task for 2014. I decided that I wanted to commit to taking one photo per day from my life and posting it to Facebook.  By the time the year was over I would have 365 individual snapshots that I could look back on that would remind me of the highs and lows, the unique moments, and many of the seemingly mundane happenings that make up the lion’s share of our lives.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal to most people that are reading this column, I’m sure, but there was quite a bit of significance to me.

One of my favorite movies of all time is the 1986 John Hughes film, ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’.  One of the picture’s most famous lines is delivered during one of Ferris’ many fourth wall breaks where he directly addresses the audience. He says:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

I feel like my life has been moving at an alarmingly high rate for a long time – especially since becoming a father. What used to feel like endless waves of free time in my youth has turned into far too little time with my family and friends, and far too many hours spent at work or doing things that fall into that great catch-all categorization of ‘adult responsibility’.  Hours turn into days, days roll over to weeks, and weeks blend into months; with only a few vivid memories standing out along the way. 

Like Marty McFly in ‘Back To The Future’, I sometimes wish I was able to build a Delorean time machine to make time stand still – or at least slow down a bit.

My ‘Project 365’, as I called it, was my attempt at making some of those fleeting memories more tangible. It was also an exercise to see exactly where my year had gone. I finally took a look at all the photos I have taken for the first time before writing this piece.

There’s a lot of filler – like the time I took the photo of my kitchen clock at five minutes to midnight to show that I almost missed my photo deadline. There are about a dozen pictures of the never ending snowfalls of last winter – always with some expletives added. There’s the funny photo of the contraceptives in the clearance basket at the drug store; not something most people would want to compromise the quality of for a few pennies, I’d wager.  There’s one of my ever-expanding bald spot, a few of sights around Moncton, and what photo album would be complete without the odd selfie here or there?

I knew that I would find some good, quality photos I took this year, though. What I didn’t expect to find were emotions that came bubbling back with many of the snapshots I had catalogued. I also didn’t realize that events that seemed to have happened eons ago have been a part of history for just a few months.

There are the photos I took of our neighborhood and my family while in lockdown during the first week of June.  There is the incredible monument of gifts that was on display outside RCMP headquarters in the days following the lockdown, and the double rainbow that stretched across the sky in my backyard.  There’s a rain-soaked Canadian flag on the day of the Ottawa shooting, the demolition of Highfield Square, and gas prices under a dollar – a sight I never thought I’d see again in my lifetime.

These aren’t the most important ones, though.

There’s that great shot of the storm day home with my family back in February. There’s the first time I took my son fishing.  There’s my time in Boston chronicled with three great friends. There’s the first day of school. I have a couple of truly great shots of my kids’ birthdays. A memory of a July night spent with my beautiful wife listening to a Zydeco band on Main Street.  Apple picking, Canada Day fireworks, my dog during the first snowfall, Christmas lights and the Santa Claus Parade; they’re all there – along with many more too numerous to mention.

2014 seemed to go by in the blink of an eye, but all these photographs show me how much life I lived – and how much love I was surrounded by - in these last 12 months. As someone who regularly comments on how fast life is moving, this was a great chance to stop and look around for once.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I am making a promise to myself this year to do something similar to my ‘Project 365’ photo album – to chronicle the year that will be. My hope is that anyone reading this may find some inspiration to do the same, and that you may find as much value in your next 365 days as I did my last 365.

Happy New Year, everyone. 

F&*K Tha Police? Seriously?

When exactly did the police become public enemy number one?

I’ve been on this planet almost 40 years now and I’m proud to say that I have never once had a run-in with law enforcement.  I’ve been subject to the odd vehicle checkpoint, was a witness in some court proceedings, and had to call the police at a couple of past workplaces – but I’ve never found myself in the sights of a cop who wanted to cuff me and throw me in the back of the paddy wagon.

I have friends and relatives on police forces, knew almost every member of the town police by name back in my hometown, and have had some really good experiences with the RCMP both in and out of uniform since I moved to Moncton ten years ago. That’s why I’m increasingly bewildered at the number of people who profess to “hate cops”.

The situation in Ferguson, Missouri last week is bringing a lot of bile to the surface because of the acquittal of the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown. Officer Darren Wilson was found not guilty of murdering Michael Brown because a jury of twelve decided that Officer Brown had just cause in discharging his firearm in the act of self defense.  Officer Wilson was allegedly struck by Mr. Brown – a suspect in a nearby robbery - and an attempt was made to wrestle Officer Wilson’s firearm away from him.

While many will point to racial tensions in the area as the cause of this incident, I’d like to skip over that whole hornet’s nest for a moment. I’d just like to know how anybody in their right mind could ever think that you’re going to get away with both striking an officer and making a play for his gun. Put aside all the cries of racism and police corruption and put yourself down on Main Street in Moncton. You’re walking down the center of the road and an RCMP officer flags you over and tells you to get out of the street.
Do you a) take their advice and get over on the sidewalk or b) reach in through the window to strike the officer and decide that it’s a good idea to steal their gun while you’re at it?

If you chose option ‘b’, congratulations – you’re likely going to get shot.

The whole Ferguson issue can’t be boiled down to that simple of a summary, but it seems like the media is just sensationalizing this beyond all rational limits. It’s accomplishing nothing other than making many of the citizens of Ferguson look like a living crime wave and generating ammo for those who are just looking for more reasons to loathe the ‘five-oh’.  I watched almost 20 minutes of CNN footage where the crowd chanted expletives in the background aimed at police, and people thought it was great. That helps no one.

When I was growing up, the only people who had issue with the police were the ones who were always getting in trouble. My Granddad always used to say “If you want to avoid trouble with the cops, don’t break the law – it’s pretty idiot proof”. Today, though, because of wing nuts like United States conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, entertainment that glorifies police/citizen confrontations, and a culture that thinks that we should be able to do whatever we want (because we’re all beautiful and unique snowflakes), police have become a popular target for scorn because “they’re trying to persecute us, man!”

Give me a break.

I’m not saying that all cops are great people. Like every other lot in life, they have their share of bad apples. Right now, there is a large movement just outside my home town to expose the truth behind a crime that happened almost 25 years ago where evidence points to a teen boy having been beaten to death by police officers. There are jerks on every police force, I would wager – much like there are awful doctors in every hospital and rotten teachers in almost every school.  You don’t see anyone torching a town over malpractice or bad grades, though.

I have a great distrust for anyone who has great anger towards those whose job it is to protect us. The events of this past June in Moncton would point to my feelings having some merit. I’d be the idiot my Granddad referred to if I thought that there were no ‘bad cops’ that put on a badge every day with the intention of just going out and making life difficult for people -  I just don’t believe that they’re anywhere close to the majority.

Whether it’s Ferguson, Missouri or Moncton, New Brunswick,  I believe our police forces deserve far more respect that what they receive. They’re mainly a group of guys and gals trying to make a living doing a very dangerous and often thankless job.

What do I know, though? I’ve never fought the law. 

Can there be dignity in death?

What would you do if you knew the exact date you were going to die?

29 year old Brittany Maynard knows that her life will end on November 1, 2014. She knows this because her death is her choice.

The California native was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in January of this year.  Glioblastoma multiforme is an exceptionally aggressive form of brain cancer that grows and spreads very quickly, with most victims not living past three years. Mrs. Maynard was pronounced as having stage 4 of the disease and her prognosis was less than one year. It was at this point that Mrs. Maynard and her family moved to Oregon so she could be in one of the five states that have legislation that allows assisted suicide. Mrs. Maynard met the criteria set forth in the legislation and was given a medication that will allow her to die peacefully and without pain once it’s ingested.

It’s a process that is currently illegal in all provinces and territories in Canada.

Over a decade ago, my grandfather was confined to a hospital bed after being diagnosed with bone cancer. A mountain of a man that I looked up to my entire life, I recall seeing him cry after a month of confinement and asking why someone wouldn’t just help him die on his own terms. I watched him wither away over the next fifty four days, and I don’t know what caused more suffering for him; the pain of his disease or the fact that his friends and loved ones saw him helpless and in his weakest moments.

I did some research at the time of my grandfather’s illness and found out that if anyone had assisted him with his wish to die, that individual could have faced imprisonment for up to fourteen years.  Instead of being able to do something to ease his pain, I had to sit and watch while the closest human being I knew to Superman got more and more depressed as his body started to fail on him. He said that if we put a dog or cat through the ordeal he faced we’d be locked away for animal cruelty. It breaks my heart to know that he was completely correct.

Why would we – as a supposedly advanced society – allow for people to suffer through terminal illnesses when their wishes to be euthanized are crystal clear? An even better question is why euthanasia is still illegal in Canada when a poll released earlier this month shows that an overwhelming majority of Canadians (84 per cent) are in favor of assisted suicide.  It’s illegal because there are still some people who think they have the right to make decisions that affect us from the cradle to the grave – whether we like it or not.

Citing reasons including (but not limited to) morality, religious conviction, and the Hippocratic Oath that states a doctor should do no harm to a patient, there are many entities that stand firm on the belief that assisted suicide should never be made available in Canada. Shockingly – at least to me – is the fact that the Council of Canadians with Disabilities is a staunch opponent of the move to legalize assisted suicide.  Considering that many people who wish to partake in assisted suicide are those whose disabilities adversely affect their quality of life, I would expect the CCD to be in full support… but what do I know?

There may be hope for the future, however.

 In 2012, a lady named Gloria Taylor became the first Canadian to ever be legally granted the right to die in this country.  A British Columbia Supreme Court ruled that Mrs. Taylor – who was incapacitated by ALS – would be denied her fundamental constitutional rights if she were not allowed to seek assistance in carrying out her death, since she was physically unable to do so herself.  The B.C. Supreme Court has since demanded that the Federal Government re-examine the laws regarding assisted suicide because they assert that they are a clear violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I think they’re right.

The forthcoming decision on the rights of Canadians to have access to assisted suicide will be one of the biggest in our country’s history.  I have seen too many friends and loved ones suffer through their final days instead of passing on peacefully; able to share final lucid and loving moments with those they care about.  The paradigm needs to shift.

I would have given anything to watch one more baseball game and share a beer with my Granddad at home in his final days instead of watching him wither away in a hospital bed. We all face death. Let’s hope Canada allows us the choice to die with dignity sooner than later. 

To my wife...

Saturday, July 15, 2006. My fiancée and I boarded a restored Mississippi riverboat at the St. John Marina along with 75 of our closest friends and relatives to be bound in life-long matrimony. We wrote our vows to one another, emphasizing fidelity and honesty and communicating that what we were entering was a partnership in the truest sense of the world and we had no aspersions to the contrary. We weren’t into the fairy tales – we knew that a marriage was work.

Seven years, some of the aforementioned hard work, and two handsome little boys later, we’re still together – so we’re doing alright. Seven years may not seem like a long time to be married, but in today’s climate it may as well be our 50th anniversary. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but people really don’t seem to be staying married anymore. As a matter of fact, most people are deciding not to get married at all.

For the first time in Canadian history, there are more unmarried people in this country over the age of 16 than there are married people. Of those that are married for the first time, it’s estimated that 40% of those will eventually end in divorce. That’s a whole lot of people with future profiles on the Plenty of Fish dating website.

Since my wedding seven years ago, I personally know of no less than two dozen marriages that have ended. Duration of matrimony ranged anywhere from thirty five years to three days and reasons ranged anywhere from infidelity to “it was just a bad idea.” Divorce wasn’t something you heard a whole lot about when I was a kid, but it seems like today it’s as common as grabbing a burger and fries at a drive-thru. If you can believe it, I actually know people who got engaged with the idea in their mind that it would eventually end in divorce; but getting married just seemed like the “right thing to do” because they had been dating so long. My trip to Cape Breton this month includes a stop at a wedding for a girl who is on her third marriage, and she’s not even 30 years old yet. I hope she’s not offended that I’m not bringing her a toaster this time.

Everyone’s got an opinion on why marriages don’t last now. I have heard a lot of people say that there’s no romance anymore, and that’s why people can’t stay married. Romantic love has been shown, chemically, to be no different to your brain than consuming mass quantities of chocolate. Sonnets and fields of daisies may get you a mate in the first place, but when you’re planning on waking up to that same person and their morning breath every day for years, it’s going to take more than Haiku and flowers to get you through it.

Others say that we live in a culture where when we want something, we get it instantly. After we get it, if it breaks down we replace it instead of fixing it in most cases. In a society where we just throw stuff away and get a new one when we have problems with it, why would we ever treat our relationships any different? Everything in this world is disposable now, why not your mate?

So, why do people even bother getting married now? It’s clearly not the ‘cool’ thing to do and more and more people seem to be opting out of the institution. Frankly, it seems like more people are concerning themselves with preventing other people from getting married that they are in entering into a marriage of their own. They’re not interested in wearing a wedding band, but they’ll be damned if a homosexual couple wants to buy some matching rings and say their “I do’s.”

I can’t answer the question as to why everyone else gets married, but I can certainly tell you why I did. Ten years ago, I was lucky enough to find a fantastic woman who wanted the same things I did from life – but who was perfectly content in letting me be who I was on our way to get all those things. She understood that you can’t change a person, and was perfectly content in letting me continue to be my incredibly flawed self while quietly helping me develop the parts of myself that I wanted to change.

I wanted nothing more in this life than to be a Dad, and I knew that with my wife’s amazing personality and zest for life that she would be the perfect mother to my kids if I were fortunate enough to have them. A mere five years into her Mommy career, while balancing a demanding full-time job, she has earned herself an unquestioned spot in the Maternal Hall of Fame.

My wife is brilliant, funny, patient, kind and her inherent goodness cancels out some of the boneheaded antics I inject into this world. She is the only person I know that can match my stubbornness and the thought of divorce isn’t even on our radar because I swear we would stick together no matter what – if for no other reason than us refusing to admit failure.

I love her with every fiber of my being – and it’s not just the ‘eating way too much chocolate’ kind; I would gladly take my final breath if it meant that she could go on to live another day.

I know that this column should be used to discuss important events and share my opinion on them, but today there is no more important event for me. It’s the anniversary of the day I completed the other piece of my puzzle and women of the world breathed a sigh of relief that another hopeless galute was taken off the market.

Happy Anniversary, Mrs.

Here’s hoping for a hundred more.

Girl... you're made a woman too soon

Many people ask me how difficult it is raising two rambunctious boys under the age of 5. My response is usually that it’s probably a lot easier than raising two girls.

Since becoming a father, my hair has thinned and there’s a lot of gray where there used to be brown. I think if I were the Dad of two kids blessed with double X chromosomes, I wouldn’t have a follicle left on my head and I would probably be heading toward my third heart attack by now because of the way we, as a society, treat our young ladies.

Girls have always had a harder time growing up because of the constant objectification of women as sex objects and old-school misogynistic views that have always lingered around in our culture. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but the 21^st century is such a confusing beast in the way it treats young females compared to times gone by, I don’t know how any of them ever gets to womanhood in one piece.

For example, a few weeks back I received my annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. It’s been a regular highlight of the winter season for me since I leafed through my Granddad’s copy with Cheryl Tiegs on the cover almost 30 years ago. On the cover for the second year in a row was the lovely Kate Upton – a girl that many men would consider the physical apex of the female species.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “this clown talks about objectification and misogyny in one breath and then talks about women in swimsuits in the next! Burn him at the stake!”  I assure you, I’m going somewhere with this.

It didn’t take long for the media to verbally start sharpshooting Miss Upton by calling her ‘chunky’ and immediately ranting about how she needs to lose some weight. If a woman who is widely renowned as being one of the most beautiful in the world is being told that she needs to drop a few pounds, what hope does the average girl have of ever measuring up to these impossibly ridiculous expectations?   Eating disorder, anyone?

Turn the page on Kate Upton for a moment and let’s examine the recent stomach-turning events that occurred in Steubenville, Ohio. Two teenaged football players raped a drunk and unconscious 16 year old girl while their friends videotaped it, tweeted about it, and sent pictures of it to all their friends who weren’t there. It’s rumored that others took part in the assault, and even urinated on the girl, but nobody would fess up about other parties involved.

Some of her female classmates turned against the victim because she was a “snitch”, and others seem to think she did something to provoke it. After the two perpetrators were found guilty and sentenced to a couple of years in juvenile detention centers, major news outlets carried the story and reported how the two young men had ruined their futures and how irresponsible use of social media was a key lesson to be learned here.

Where was the empathy for the victim?

Since we’re on a roll, I’ll let you know that Victoria’s Secret has recently announced that they are launching a line of sexy undergarments for girls in middle school – lacy and risqué with slogans like ‘Feeling Lucky?’ and ‘Call Me’ emblazoned on the rear end. A must-have for any discerning 12 year-old; undoubtedly to complement their yoga pants with ‘Juicy’ written on the behind.

If you buy these drawers for your pre-teen daughter, you have failed as a parent– just for the record.

Maybe the most disturbing fact of all came to light when I talked to a young girl I know shortly before Christmas. At 19 years of age, she was proud as a peacock of the fact that she had only been with 13 sexual partners. As I searched for a nearby defibrillator, she remarked that she was one of the most conservative of her group and her number wasn’t even half of some of her friends’.  According to her, guys know that there are plenty of girls that are willing to “give up the goods”, so if a girl wants to keep her beau she’s got to be willing to have sex or else risk losing him.

My mind is blown.

Parents have to teach their daughters to navigate all these physical and emotional landmines of today’s world while growing up; when all they should be worried about is how to become healthy and well-adjusted adults. What we’re doing as a society is trying to crush any sense of independence and self-worth these young girls have and creating an environment where they’re easy targets to be exploited to the fullest.  My hat’s off to the young ladies who manage to escape these pitfalls, because you’re certainly stronger and more capable than I ever was at your age.

I don’t know if I could handle raising little girls, but I’m trying to do my part to help those who are. My boys are being taught to respect all women as they would their very own mother – who they both adore.  It might not seem like much, but it’s building a base for the future that won’t tolerate some of the things we see today. This past weekend, my five year old put his teachings into action and brought a bouquet of flowers to his daycare sweetheart’s figure skating exhibition because she worked so hard and he “wanted to make her feel special”. I’ve since had nearly a dozen young women say that their boyfriends have never done such a thing for them.

What’s it say when a preschooler oozes more machismo than many full grown men? It says that we’ve fallen down in a big way and it’s time to bring the respect back to the fairer sex.

Guys, if you’re not sure where to begin, my boy has plenty of swag to go around. 

New Brunswick is sinking... and I don't wanna swim.

I am not a native New Brunswicker.

I was born and raised on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, and aside from a couple years of work and my University education I spent the majority of my life there. Cape Breton Island is a place I love dearly and I saw myself living there until retirement, but the economic reality of the Island is that it’s a dying place that has nothing to offer to young individuals or families looking for a future there.

In the summer of 2004, my girlfriend at the time (now my lovely wife) and I decided that Cape Breton was no longer for us. Despite our love affair with my home and native land, we realized that what ‘The Cape’ had to offer us didn’t exactly gel with our future aspirations.  My lady had fallen in love with the east coast way of life after moving here from Ontario, so we decided that we wanted to take our respective skillsets and try to carve out a life somewhere amid the Atlantic Provinces.

We chose the rapidly growing city of Moncton, New Brunswick and moved in the middle of a freak blizzard in November of 2004. We married, bought a home, had two beautiful children and nailed down stable careers. We have made this wonderful city and beautiful province our home for the better part of a decade.  Moncton is where we want to be.

So why do I feel as though the sentiment toward my family and I isn’t mutual as it pertains to the leadership of the province of New Brunswick?

The government of this fair province doesn’t seem to be in line with my family’s priorities as of late. Every day I see news of another bilingualism brouhaha, more essential services like health care being axed, questionable use of our education dollars, and suspect judgment from our elected officials that makes my head spin worse than the Tilt-A-Whirl at the old Bill Lynch Shows.

We have the debates over shale gas and the proposed pipeline that would bring oil from the western oil sands to be refined in St. John. With these two endeavors we’re promised a land of milk and honey where jobs are plentiful and well-paying, and everyone will live in a gumdrop house on lollipop lane. Good paying, stable jobs are something this province needs to bolster its sagging economy but one would be insane to ignore the possible environmental risks involved with both of these projects. 

What a sensible governing body would do might be to commission studies from both financial and environmental experts impartial to an outcome and actually pay attention to the findings. What’s our government doing, though? They’re playing the part of the political eunuch and having their strings pulled by every business and special interest group with a stake in the outcome. The province needs to get with the program and realize it’s not the business community or the environmentalists with the most at stake here, it’s the people of New Brunswick that call this province our home who will have to live with the decisions surrounding these endeavors for the next century.

I think the last straw for me was the budget that was just released by the powerful folks in Fredericton. As a preface to the document being drawn up, our esteemed Premier was bandying about the idea of holding a referendum to ask the plebiscite whether or not to raise taxes – a somewhat comical gesture after building a cornerstone of his election platform on the promise of no tax hikes.  You see, I have two University degrees, but neither one of them has anything to do with taxation. So why, pray tell, is the elected leader of my province asking me what to do?  I don’t ask the mailman how to fix my leaky faucet, so when it comes to how you’re going to fix our suffocating deficit problem the ball is in your court, sir. That’s what I thought we paid you for.

Regarding our budget, it would seem as though the best solution to our ever- growing debt in this province is to reach in and take more money from the already light pockets of ‘we the people.’ It looks like my wife and I will increase our contribution to our province’s coffers by way of personal income tax by roughly 25 per cent each. As if my bi-weekly deductions weren’t enough to make me nauseous to begin with, these new amounts are sure to contribute to my lifelong dream of a bleeding ulcer.

Believe me, folks, I want to “Be…In this place” but the events of the last few years are making it really difficult. We have a government with no direction, a population that is so used to being beaten down that they accept it as normal, millions of dollars being spent ridiculously trying to dictate what language we should be speaking when there are much bigger fish to fry, and what seems like a concerted effort to take every dollar of our hard-earned money to fund an ineffective group of elected officials that probably shouldn’t be managing a lemonade stand – let alone an entire province.

As someone relatively new to New Brunswick, I implore you all to take back control of this province. Voice your concerns loud and often and remind your government that they work for you and not the other way around.  If you don’t, this beautiful province will die; believe me. I’ve got a whole Island that’s proof of what happens when people become complacent and let poor decisions by government dictate their situation.

I’ve left one place that I love already because I couldn’t see a future there. I’d prefer not to have to do it again.

Teach them well and let them lead the way

My oldest boy is starting school this coming September and I’m one proud Poppa. Until I hit University all my educational experience had been with Nova Scotia public schools; so being a Dad doing his due diligence, I have been trying to familiarize myself with the New Brunswick education system.

I have been to the kindergarten orientation events, met a few teachers and have toured my son’s school a few times.  I know it’s early in the process but I’m happy to say that I haven’t seen anything that has set off any alarms as of yet – at least at this level.

I wish I could say the same about the provincial education system. To explain why, we have to switch gears here for a second - so you may want to grab a beverage. 

If you read every section of the Times & Transcript, you may notice that I have another gig writing movie reviews once a week in the Metro section. A have an affinity for documentaries and a few years ago I reviewed one about the deplorable state of the US education system called ‘Waiting for Superman.’  It’s a high level view of how there are basically two tiers to the US education system: privatized schools that arm their students with a proper education at a cost,  and the public school system which is grossly underfunded and severely lacking in the tools to provide its students with the opportunity to learn that every child deserves.

How did this happen? Well, there’s a lot of money poured into the US education system – over $800 billion a year. With all that money floating out there, it was only a matter of time before corporate interests decided they wanted to grab a piece of the pie. Make no mistake about it, big business is king south of our borders and if there’s a buck to be made they’ll snatch it up in a heartbeat – even if it means dumbing down generations of kids to do it.

The US education system was long considered too difficult an area for big business to break into because of bureaucracy, politics, and the sheer number of individual schools that would have to be dealt with – but they didn’t quit trying and an opportunity emerged.

With advice and assistance from big business communities under the guise of goodwill, many states began to issue standardized testing for all schools within their borders. The criteria for schools to get a good score were extremely high; so many schools fell short of the benchmark.  Panic ensued and many ‘failing’ schools scrambled for ways to get up to snuff. Guess who swooped in to get these schools up to speed by way of private ownership? It was the business sector, of course - coming in on a white steed to fix a problem they created.

So now, you’ve got public schools falling further behind because of increased funding going to these new private “enriched” schools, and a slow move toward every school in the land becoming ‘pay to play’ – at least the ones you would want to send your children to.

So where am I going with this?

I’ve been reading stories about Premier David Alward awarding a 2.5 million dollar payment to a program called Elementary Literacy Inc. to combat the issue of low literacy rates among elementary school students in our province. On the Elementary Literacy Inc. web page, they describe themselves as a private sector initiative armed with a staff of “trained volunteers” that will work one-on-one with children in need of additional help with reading. Now I’m completely on board with kids being given every advantage with developing their literacy, but I’d be a liar if I said my spider-sense wasn’t tingling off the charts right now.

I have a few questions and they’re questions everyone should be asking. Questions like why this spending of taxpayers’ money was never put out for public discussion. Back in October, schools in the province were told they may not receive their full annual operating budgets due to cuts, but the provincial government finds this much money to give to a private company for a literacy experiment? In a country where scrutiny of government spending is at an all-time high, people just seem to be shrugging this off like it’s no big deal and I don’t know why.

I’d also have to ask why, with so many qualified teachers out of work in this province, the $2.5 million wouldn’t have been spent within the education system on a program that would get licensed teachers teaching again – even on a part-time basis to staff a literacy program.  If my children needed some assistance with their reading, I’d feel quite a bit better about it being delivered by a licensed educator as opposed to a volunteer possibly being given a crash course from the Hooked on Phonics program.

I could be completely off base folks, but along with the push for standardized testing across the province from  Halifax based ‘think tank’ AIMS  (Atlantic Institute for Market Studies) a few years back, this gift to Elementary Literacy Inc. is bringing public education and the private sector a little closer to each other than this Dad is comfortable with.  It may be an entirely benevolent effort, but recent examples in the US school system have me worried.

I’m normally a very easygoing sort of fellow, but there is nothing more important to me than the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of my children. My boys are bright, capable kids with an entire world of opportunity ahead of them. They’re not commodities to be exploited by private enterprise for a quick buck, especially through our education system.

In the US, they’re still waiting for Superman to solve their education crisis. We need to make sure we never need him in New Brunswick.

Holy pedophiles, Batman!

As a father of two beautiful boys, it both nauseates and angers me that there are so many people in this world who would wish to do them harm. It seems as though we can’t turn on a television or read a newspaper these days without hearing about child exploitation and sexual abuse around every corner. The subject became a water cooler topic and was brought to the forefront of the public consciousness with the Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno Penn State scandal and there have been a few notable cases of late worth discussing because of their proximity to us.

A daycare operator in Shediac was charged with attempting to possess child porn and two separate incidents of trying to produce child pornography. As bad as those accusations are, they didn’t involve any children entrusted to the care of the facility. If you want an example of that, look no further than the case of the local daycare operator whose spouse has been charged with owning and producing child porn involving attendees of the facility. Details are few and far between, and officials have been extremely tight lipped as to the specifics involving the accusations. The accused, to say the least, will not likely be welcomed back into polite society with open arms even if he is acquitted, based on the nature of the charges. I don’t have enough space (or gag reflex suppression) to even talk about the arrested St. John councillor and his child pornography connections.

Child exploitation is one of the worst crimes that can be committed against the most innocent members of our society. Anyone who perpetrates or covers up the crime should be treated like the fabled Frankenstein monster and chased through our villages with torches and pitchforks. A stigma is attached to those who commit and conceal these crimes, and rightfully so. The question I would have to ask, though, is why Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky and the three local suspects tied to paedophilic crimes have been vilified while the person who is alleged to be complicit in covering up one of the largest systematic child molestations in modern history is being applauded as some sort of man of great character?

I’m looking at directly at you, the supporters of Mr. Joseph Ratzinger - AKA Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Benedict XVI has sat in power for the last eight years, but the last three years of his Papacy have seen an unparalleled number of sexual abuse disclosures come to light. Aside from an official “oh, we’re sorry about that” delivered by Pope Benedict in 2010, there has been little to nothing done about the millions of children who have been victimized at the hands of Catholic Church clergy. Why am I being so hard on Mr. Ratzinger? Surely he couldn’t have stopped these monstrosities all alone? Let’s rewind a tad for a bit of a history lesson.

After Joseph Ratzinger was promoted to Cardinal and before he was appointed as supreme leader of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II put Cardinal Ratzinger in charge of the ‘Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith’ in 2001. The purpose of this department was to dig deep into the allegations of child rape and torture at the hands of Catholic priests. In May of that same year, a letter was drafted by Cardinal Ratzinger for every bishop in the Catholic Church; reminding them of the seriousness of a particular crime that greatly concerned the church.

Surprisingly, that sickening offense was not the rape of young children, but the reporting of any incidents of sexual abuse to authorities outside the church hierarchy. It was strictly a matter to be dealt with internally, and never to be leaked to the outside world and its prying eyes. What was the penalty for blowing the whistle on any holy hanky panky? Punishment would be possible excommunication from the Catholic Church. Molesting a child won’t get you booted from the church, but telling the authorities about someone abusing a child very well may. How’s that for a barometer of morality?

The church’s internal methods of dealing with offending priests was to send them to ‘therapy’ rather than have them prosecuted, and many abusive clergy were simply reassigned to other diocese so that their sexual crimes might continue. If Ratzinger was involved in this cover-up as a Cardinal, it would be hard to deny that he had a hand in the concealment as Pope.

So, as it stands, Pope Benedict’s final day in office will be February 28^th – where he will then retire to the confines of private living quarters in the heart of Vatican City. Citing “health concerns and frailty” as his reasons for being the first Pope to step down in over 600 years, his decision is being trumpeted as honorable and wise by many Catholics. Personally, I think his self-imposed exile isn’t honorable, and is quite cowardly in the face of this groundswell of accusations.  His only wisdom is staying in hermitage at Vatican City to avoid prosecution on the slew of charges that are already rumored to be coming his way.

So where’s the justice? Do the claims of doing the Lord’s work excuse those from the judgment and scorn that we lay so freely upon others accused of similar crimes? To speak with many Catholic faithful and to hear their unapologetic reverence for Pope Benedict, the answer is a resounding “yes.”  The cross seems to have a new role as a shield, protecting its holder from even the most deplorable of actions in the eyes of the blind faithful.

Heaven help us and our children if this is, indeed, the truth.

Can I get an Amen?

...And February made me shiver

I used to enjoy February. The end of winter is in sight, memories of paper bags filled with Valentine’s Day cards in grade school, and the way we get a crazy extra day every fourth year. It was always a perfectly harmless month, much like any of its eleven calendar siblings.

That all changed on a snowy Wednesday morning in February of last year when I received word that my younger brother had been killed in an unfortunate accident at 34 years of age. His passing left a stain on the month that will follow me until the end of my days.

Little did I know how soon that stain would darken.

My mother was admitted to the hospital this past Saturday morning with a sudden and acute health issue. On another snowy morning in February – this past Sunday, to be precise – I was notified that my mother had passed away at only 54 years of age.

As I write this, I am preparing for a 3 day trip home to Cape Breton to visit with the remaining members of my family and say goodbye to the woman who brought me into this world. It’s a very confusing time for me, as a big part of me feels like I’m bidding farewell to someone I hardly know. You see, despite what you may have thought, not every mother/son relationship is the stuff of 80’s sitcoms where the Huxtables or Keatons sat around the dinner table and solved all their problems over meatloaf. Family relationships can be difficult, messy, and even destructive entities – and my mother and I are the perfect example of this fact.

A single Mom at 16, my mother gave birth to four healthy boys by the time she hit the age of 32 – the age where I became a father to my first child. My mother was largely alone throughout her child-raising years and handled three of her four rambunctious boys while being little more than a child herself. As a self-absorbed teenager and 20-something, I didn’t understand what fueled many of my mother’s behaviors.  I didn’t approve of many of the decisions and life choices she made and I had no issue with questioning them loudly and often. It was her behaviors and my aggressive criticisms and reactions to those behaviors that drove a wedge between us for the better part of my adult life.

We went years hardly speaking, and when we did it was only unkind words that were exchanged on both sides of the equation. It seemed like the rift between us was irreparable, and I had all but given up in trying to patch things up; it was then I found out I was going to be a father.

I called my mother when I found out my wife was pregnant. I told her I would like for her to be a part of my life again and my child’s life as well, with the rule that things needed to remain civil between us. I didn’t want any of the issues between my mother and I to spill over to my child, and she agreed.  For almost five years and with the arrival of my second child, she showed a loving side of herself that I had either never seen or long since forgotten. She was the perfect Nana to my boys and took an exceptional amount of pride in the role.

It’s only now, as a father of two preparing to lay his mother to rest, and having seen her affection for my boys that I finally understand her.

I went into parenthood with an emotional toolbox filled with the experiences that only 30+ years on this earth can provide. I also had the most loving and supporting spouse a man could ask for.  I’m not a perfect parent – but I’m far more equipped to deal with the stresses that raising children can bring than my mother ever was at her incredibly young age. I sit and ask myself today how I would have fared as a single parent with three children before my 21^st birthday. An asylum probably would have been a pretty safe bet.

As a parent, you give every bit of yourself to your children and they become the center of your universe. What happens, though, when you haven’t had that opportunity to figure out who you are? How difficult it must be to provide a foundation for your children when you, yourself, are built on a bed of straw.

I get it now, and I only wish my mother were around so I could tell her how sorry I am.

My mother’s funeral is Friday, and I am likely sitting in a church as you read this – an oddity in itself. I was chosen earlier in the week to write her eulogy and I feared that I would have nothing to say that anyone would want to hear.  I see now how wrong I was.

I won’t talk about the woman who I butted heads with so much through my life. I’ll recall fondly the woman who walked me to school on my first day of kindergarten. I’ll laugh about the woman who tortured me throughout my childhood with viewings of Dirty Dancing and Grease. I’ll talk about her love for animals and her wonderful singing voice. I’ll talk about how her surprising me with a big plastic swimming pool in my room on my sixth birthday was one of the best moments of my life and how her bringing me to see E.T. as my first ever theatre movie was an event that brought me to writing movie reviews 30 years later for this very newspaper.

I’ll pay respect to the woman who did the best she could with what she had available for her children.

I’m going to talk about my Mom.

LIEstrong

Society loves its heroes. We’ll take a random person, place them on a pedestal because of some arbitrary achievement, and hold them up as an example of what we should all strive to be in our daily lives. Our heroes come from all walks of life, and some are well deserving of our adulation. The big problem in our culture is that we’ve made a habit of deifying those from the sports and entertainment world.

You star in a popular TV show, and suddenly you’re a shining example for humanity. You have a song that makes it to the top of the pop charts and you’re on the request list to visit and inspire sick kids at the hospital. You’re a star athlete and you have the masses crowing for your face to be chiseled on the side of a mountain.  Heck, you could have no identifiable talent at all and still be worshipped by us, the great unwashed masses. Does the name Kim Kardashian ring a bell?

Yes sir, people sure do love a hero.

Oddly enough, the only thing we seem to love more than building up our idols is tearing them down to rubble. The ones we hold in such high esteem are quickly dragged back down to earth as we kick dirt on them and cry foul about how they have so terribly disappointed us.

If you want an example of how fickle we can be, look no further than Mr. Tour de France, Lance Armstrong. Unless you’ve been in a cave for the last 2 weeks and had no exposure to media of any kind, you know that Mr. Armstrong has been publicly crucified for ‘cheating’ during all seven of his Tour de France wins. There have been Oprah interviews, shocking exposes, and analyses on every genre of TV program known to man. Everyone you talk to seems to have an expert opinion on what he did or didn’t do, even if they previously thought Lance Armstrong was a stretchy children’s toy from the 70’s.

I have to wonder how many of the folks ripping Mr. Armstrong apart can seriously say that their lives were profoundly affected by the allegations launched toward him. I freely admit I don’t know and don’t care about the specifics of the doping accusations, and I suspect that most of those standing high on their soapbox don’t understand it either.  I personally like to imagine his blood was laced with gamma rays like the Incredible Hulk. It makes the story more interesting for me.


The funny part of the situation is that what Mr. Armstrong has admitted to is so widespread in the cycling world that in the 2010 Tour de France, every single competitor who placed in the top 10 was found guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs.  That’s not as interesting a story as ‘Super cyclist falls from grace,’ though, so it gets tossed aside.

Performance enhancing drugs or no, there’s no magic potion that can suddenly make a man able to bicycle two thousand miles across, arguably, the most demanding athletic course in the world. You have to be some sort of freakish athlete in the first place to accomplish that feat. If superhuman athleticism wasn’t a prerequisite, every middle aged guy you know would be buying a racing bike and some spandex shorts to take their shot at glory. If you want something to be outraged about, ponder that visual for a bit.

Mr. Armstrong has been vilified by a large segment of the population, but there is one key fact that seems to be missing from many folks’ tarring and feathering sermons. Since 1997, Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Foundation has been responsible for raising over $500,000,000 for cancer research. For those of you going cross-eyed looking at all those zeros, that’s five hundred million – half a billion dollars- to combat one of the world’s biggest killers.

A survivor of testicular cancer, Mr. Armstrong served as an inspiration to other folks battling cancer of all types and showed that victims of the dreaded disease don’t have to lie down and wait to die. There’s an inarguable value there, regardless of his sports morality.

Baseball players Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez, along with mixed martial artist Vitor Belfort took performance enhancing drugs. Boxers Roy Jones Jr. and ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley hopped aboard the PED train too. Players from every major sport have been implicated in PED use and if I were to list the names of just the cyclists who have been busted in the past decade, I could fill a dozen columns of this size. The funny part is that most of the athletes implicated have been welcomed back to their respective sports with open arms, and not one of them has started a world recognized charity organization.

Mr. Armstrong admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs and lying about it. From the public outcry you would think he personally went to people’s homes and killed their dogs. We know that’s not the case, though. An NFL franchise would have offered him a lucrative quarterback contract by now if it were.

I couldn’t care less about Lance Armstrong’s cycling accomplishments and how he achieved them. What I do care about is a man who has spearheaded a movement that has done far greater things than any sport ever could.  If one hand is filled with the half billion dollars the Livestrong Foundation has raised and the other is filled with seven tainted Tour de France victories, Livestrong will win every single time.

The end truly does justify the means.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Canadian Idle!

A large percentage of the population seems to love reality television. Survivor, The Amazing Race, Big Brother, The Apprentice - you name it and it’s got an audience somewhere.  If I were to ask 100 random Metro residents what the name of last season’s American Idol winner was, I venture a large portion of them would be able to tell me.

 Now, if I were to ask them about an idle of another type, the Canadian ‘Idle No More’ movement – I’m not sure how many folks would be able to respond appropriately.

There’s a phenomenon sweeping the nation that has been punctuated by flash mobs in malls, obstructions of transportation lines, marches on Parliament Hill, and peaceful protests in our own fair city. In a society so fascinated by reality television, it’s baffling that so many are missing a slice of true reality TV playing out every night on Canadian news broadcasts.  The stakes, however, are much higher than the winner walking away with a new Escalade, a trip to the Riviera, or some cold hard cash. The entire future of our country and the way our government and our Aboriginal citizens interact with one another could change forever.

In one corner, we have the Federal government led by Stephen Harper; one of the most polarizing figures in Canadian political history. At the center of the Idle No More groundswell is Bill C-45 (now passed into law and known as the Jobs and Growth Act) which Aboriginal people assert erodes treaty rights, destroys environmental protections, and compromises Canada’s democratic process due to the way it was forced through the legislature.

In the opposing corner of this unfolding drama is Canada’s First Nations Leaders. They are trying to communicate a unified message about the Idle No More movement with the unfortunate problem of not having all their membership on the same page. Many leaders had petitioned for a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss concerns, only to have select leaders boycott the engagement at the eleventh hour unless the Governor General was present at the meeting as well.  First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo was left scrambling to save face on what should have been the organization’s finest day. The meeting occurred without much accomplished, by most accounts.

Another key participant of note is Chief Theresa Spence of the Attawapiskat Reserve in Northern Ontario. Chief Spence is, as of this writing, engaged in a hunger strike to force the Prime Minister and Governor General to meet with Aboriginal leaders about Native treaty rights. She is also working to bring attention to environmental dangers she is concerned the current government will be bringing about with their passage of the C-45 bill.  While Spence works to bring attention to these issues, many media outlets are bringing attention to the millions of dollars she has, allegedly, mishandled while many residents on her reserve live in squalor.  While being held as a beacon of inspiration for many across the country, Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal alike, her motives are being viewed by many as a smoke screen to draw attention away from her reserve’s finances.

Finally, we have the rest of the Canadian people – who seem to be divided into three separate groups on the subject.

The first group is fully in support of Idle No More and the causes that it is representing itself as fighting for. They are standing in solidarity with our Aboriginal brothers and sisters and want what they want – fairness for our Native community, our environment, and all Canadians. 

The second group is the folks who are tired of the demonstrations, tired of the rabble rousing, and feel as though the First Nations community has their hand out once again and is focusing their aggression in the wrong direction. They see the Idle No More movement as the Native community trying to wring even more privilege from our government when they should be focusing their ire on the reservation Chiefs who are mishandling the reserve coffers. They want the Native community to stop looking for what they see as handouts and to start getting their houses in order without any more government assistance.

The third group, the people I hope this piece will affect, are the ones who don’t know about Idle No More and really don’t care. It’s a politically pivotal time in Canada and Idle No More is something that promises not to go away any time soon. Even though the movement was originally launched in protest of Bill C-45, it vows to continue even after the passing of the bill into law. January 28^th has been earmarked as an ‘International Idle No More Day of Action’ with large scale protests planned, at the very minimum.

With Idle No More being a grassroots movement with no clearly identifiable leadership, the central message may or may not be getting lost. You don’t need to agree with what Idle No More professes to represent, but you should at least educate yourself on the basics of what’s happening around you. The internet can be used for more than looking for pictures of Grumpy Cat (as much as I do love him).

 It’s like my Granddad used to say, “When it hits the fan, you’ll only get half the splatter if you’re standing firmly in one place.” Pick a spot, Metro.

By the way, for those interested, last year’s American Idol was Phillip Phillips. His debut album is excellent.

Nosey neighbours ain't the nightly news

Let’s face facts, folks. Whenever something out of the ordinary happens around us, we all become rubberneckers and looky loos in search of the story. We want to know the specifics when things go down, gathering tidbits of information like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter. It’s basic human nature and a fact that’s hard to dispute.  Exhibit A, you’re reading this newspaper.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to stay abreast of what’s going on in your community and around the world, but at what point does the insatiable need for “the scoop” start to override basic human judgment and decency?  Sadly, I think we’re coming dangerously close to that line; if we haven’t stepped over it already.

Journalistic integrity didn’t even cross the mind of a photographer last month when he snapped a picture of a man who had been pushed onto a subway track in the path of an oncoming train. As the train bore down on the husband and father, the photographer made no effort to save the man; instead snapping pictures that he eventually sold to the New York Post. One of the photos made the front page of the publication with a headline shouting about the man’s impending demise.

“But that’s New York”, some might say. “That’d never happen here”, most would implore.  Normally I would agree, but there’s a very disconcerting trend that has taken hold of our area with its roots in the age of social media – more specifically Facebook.  Folks armed with cell phones, digital cameras, and police scanners have dubbed themselves citizen journalists, of sorts,  and have made it their mission to share every single bit of “news” that happens in our area.

It’s become newsworthy when Mrs. MacDonald from down the way takes a spill getting out of the bathtub. Minutes after the ambulance leaves the dear lady’s home, you can bet there will be pictures online with two dozen comments speculating “what really happened”. Your Uncle Joe double parked outside the coffee shop? Within the hour, his license plate number is known from here to Kouchibouguac.  If a crime or incident of great public interest occurs, a kangaroo court is instantly established in these groups with waves of information being discussed, regardless of their validity.

As much in poor taste and downright silliness as these examples may be; the real damage comes when basic human empathy and compassion are being ignored. There have been times when folks found out about an accident (occasionally fatal) that a loved one had been involved in by seeing a photo that someone snapped at the scene. People, so eager to be the first with “the skinny”, completely dismiss any sense of accountability for their actions when a retraction or apology to the affected parties isn’t necessary. A swift click of the “delete post” option and it’s like it never happened.

These groups do provide a valuable service to drunk and dangerous drivers, in case you were looking for a tangible contribution. If one wishes to go out for a drive after one too many wobbly pops, all one need do is log into Facebook and you’ll instantly find out where all the police checkpoints or roadblocks are set up. Should it be comforting to us safe and sober drivers to know that the people we share the road with have a leg up on the law if they wish to drive recklessly? Forgive me if I don’t see it that way.

It’s like this, gentle readers; journalists don’t just wake up one morning and decide that they’re a reporter. It takes years of study and honing their craft to earn the right to be called a newsperson. They are bound to a strict code of ethics and do their jobs with impartiality, accountability, and with strict analysis and consideration of all facts before bringing their story to the public at large.  There are guidelines and rules in place to make sure news is being reported fairly, humanely, and accurately. When these parameters are ignored, nothing positive is going to happen.

Over sixty years ago, George Orwell wrote the classic novel 1984. It told of a dystopian future where constant government surveillance is a part of life under Big Brother‘s watchful eye. I wonder if Orwell ever envisioned that Big Brother would be alive and well in 2013; but instead of being governmentally driven it’s 100% powered by the folks you share a community with. Instead of capturing people at their worst and weakest, interfering with the operation of law enforcement and bringing coffee shop gossip to the worldwide web, wouldn’t this time and effort be better spent elsewhere?

I’m no journalist, folks. I’m just some a guy with a lot to say who has been generously given a place to say it.  This column does not make me Andy Rooney. A camera, police scanner and Facebook login don’t make anyone Tom Brokaw, either.  They do have the ability to make folks a Tom of an entirely different variety - a peeping one. 

I’m glad we don’t have a subway system. I’d hate to find out how many locals would extend a zoom lens instead of extending a hand to help.