Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1988 told his cabinet it had captured “the soul of Canada” and made the Progressive Conservative Party stronger than at any time in 100 years, newly declassified records show. The Party was reduced to two seats in the following election: ‘Holding faithful to values would ensure the government retained office for years to come.’
Auditors have uncovered irregularities in spending by Canada’s embassy in Dakar, Senegal. The audit period coincided with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Senegalese tour in a failed bid to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council: “There is room for improvement.”
Records show Edmonton leads the nation in applying for federal home equity loans under a CMHC program. Cabinet had no explanation for millions of dollars’ worth of successful loan applications compared to other cities with similarly priced real estate: “Some were skeptical, calling this a Band-Aid solution.”
Beneath a colourful display
of peace and friendship,
athletes in Sochi 2014
competed under the most unusual
conditions.
Surrounded by security personnel,
snipers,
helicopter gunships,
they strive for peak performance
while their email accounts are sniffed,
text messages intercepted,
social media monitored –
so that no terrorists, gays,
or other such extremists
spoil the spirit
of the greatest show
on Earth.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
Popular culture is rich in metaphors for mothers as life-giving and delightful, with scant mention of the other biologically necessary parent. The few that exist are mean: Father Time (mortality), Fatherland (Nazi Germany), Old Man Winter, etcetera.
Groucho Marx said for all the Tin Pan Alley sheet music written in tribute to moms a century ago, he could recall a single dedication to dads entitled Everybody Works But Father. The lyrics went like this: “Mother takes in washing/so does sister Ann/Everybody works in our house’/but my old man.”
Into the breach steps Montréal novelist Heather O’Neill with Wisdom In Nonsense: Invaluable Lessons From My Father, a warm and funny collection of memories of O’Neill’s dad, a single parent. O’Neill beautifully recounts the point in all our young lives when the centre of a child’s universe is the space occupied by a dominant parent. Even trivial recollections attain mythological stature: dining on Pepsi in teacups, and Jell-O in a champagne glass, and delicious cubes of Camembert cheese Father O’Neill shoplifted from the local groceteria.
“My dad was determined to take care of me properly,” writes O’Neill. “He made pancakes and cookies and sewed my clothes. He was actually really good at that. He was a little worse at what he regarded as an integral part of parenting: the dispensing of advice. But nonetheless, it was one of his favourite things to do.”
Father O’Neill was a maintenance man whose world view was shaped by manual labour and minor brushes with the law. Never keep a diary, he told Heather; they’ll just use it against you in court. Play with Jewish kids because they’re going places, and if you must pick an instrument in music class, choose the tuba.
“He said the world didn’t have enough tuba players, and, thus, there would always be a shortage,” writes O’Neill. “You could always get a job if you played the tuba. I was very worried about being able to earn a living.” At school, O’Neill looked longingly at the tuba “as though it were a fat millionaire in a tailored suit who would take care of me the rest of my life.” Heather was assigned the trumpet instead, and wept.
Father resented Paul Newman deeply, personally, as a talentless, pretty-boy Hollywood poseur whose life was blessed with dumb luck. “He steamed the labels off old bottles of Paul Newman salad dressing and filled them with a perfect mixture of oil and vinegar and spice,” writes O’Neill. “But he hadn’t made a cent off it. Where was the justice?”; “Sometimes the doorbell would ring out of the blue and I would be terrified that it was Paul Newman at the door, coming to stir things up.”
On birthdays, Father gave Heather unsigned NSF cheques. “They represented not what he could give me, but what he wanted to give me,” she writes.
If caught in a bar fight, grab a ketchup bottle, Father advised: “It is inconspicuous in your hand and creates high drama when it smashed against someone’s head.”
Never tell Teacher what your dad does for a living, since it is nobody’s business: “He told me to tell the teacher that he was a spy and therefore all the required information was classified. The gym teacher asked me if it was true that my father was a spy. I looked down at my burgundy running shoes. ‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ I responded.”
“By teaching me to lie about who I was, my dad instilled in me the notion that the differences were actually superficial,” writes O’Neill. “They were just outward trappings. And if you were to change coats with a rich person, then you would immediately become one.”
Look up Wisdom In Nonsense. Buy it. Give it to your own father. He will understand, and it will bring you closer.
By Holly Doan
Wisdom in Nonsense: Invaluable Lessons from My Father, by Heather O’Neill; University of Alberta Press; 64 pages; ISBN 9781-77212-3777; $11.95
Inflation has dampened public support for costly climate programs, says confidential in-house Privy Council research. Canadians are willing to pay no more than a 10 percent premium for green products and services, figures show: “69 percent strongly or somewhat agree environmentally friendly options are too expensive.”
The Commons government operations committee has ordered a ten-year audit of all federal payments to a contractor implicated in ArriveCan irregularities. Investigators found GC Strategies Inc. of Woodlawn, Ont. won millions without having to bid: “If there is something crooked – if, if, because we are not a court of law – but if something is not right, we have to identify it.”
Cabinet yesterday budgeted more than $11 million for its judicial inquiry into election meddling by Chinese agents. Fifty-three lawyers are attending the Commission on Foreign Interference: “I will make every effort to get to the bottom of things.”
MPs must not call senators “lazy,” “arrogant” or “dismal,” the Commons ruled yesterday. The order came after one MP denounced senators with numerous adjectives including “unreasonable, undemocratic and unwise.”
Financial information on 48,000 Canadians was hacked by identity thieves attempting to defraud pandemic relief programs, Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne confirmed yesterday. The Canada Revenue Agency at one point locked 800,000 online accounts it suspected were breached: ‘There were numerous cases of fraud.’
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland yesterday awarded a $2.1 billion tax break to electric auto battery manufacturers already receiving billions in subsidies. Only the companies were told of the 10-year tax holiday: “There are no other stakeholders to consult.”
Federal departments have suspended all work with an Ontario contractor implicated in ArriveCan irregularities, the Government Leader in the Senate said yesterday. Senator Marc Gold (Que.) disclosed the action as MPs questioned whether crimes had occurred: “None of this was necessary, none of this was normal.”
MPs yesterday by a 208 to 115 vote gave Second Reading to a children’s rights bill that would ban spanking in the home. Critics opposed the New Democrat measure as federal intrusion into family life: “Are there parents in the House?”
Media need more “public funding mechanisms” to cover the news, says the Canadian Media Guild. The submission to the Commons heritage committee was contradicted by one MP who warned Canadians have lost all trust in subsidized media: “I don’t know if it will ever come back.”
The Commons by a 210 to 115 vote yesterday passed into law a bill to appoint a part-time parliamentary artist laureate at $20,000 a year. The bill was acknowledgment that painters, sculptors and other creators face a hardscrabble existence, said one MP: “It can be a tough world.”
