Lament for the Plastic Grocery Bag

In perfect detail, I remember the moment my grade 5 teacher announced to our class, the death of President Kennedy and the uncontrollable tears that rolled down her cheeks. From the launching of Sputnik, to the deaths of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the first moon landing, the Challenger disaster and the morning of 911, these events and my personal circumstance, are forever seared in my memory and remain as vivid today as when they occurred.
It's part of the human condition to remember important historical and life-changing events as though they occurred only yesterday and so, standing in the grocery store check-out line last Thursday, I never expected to be confronted by one of these moments, when unexpectedly and sadly, I bore witness to the beginning of the end of a dear old friend.

"Sir, where are your bags?" asked the cashier.

"Huh?"

"You're supposed to bring in your own bags, sir. It's for the environment"

"I beg your pardon?"

"THE ENVIRONMENT!"

"What?"

"Haven't you heard about Global Warming?
You know, greenhouse gasses, carbon footprint and all that.
That's why we eliminated the bags. Don't you pay attention to the news?"

"Hmm." I thought to myself. "An environmental lecture by a grocery clerk. How lovely..."

"Sir, if you didn't bring in your own bags or containers, you'll have to purchase them at your own expense"

After a moment of hesitation, I recovered from the unexpected verbal assault and stammered weakly.

"Err....that's okay, I guess."

"And just how many bags will that be, sir" she announced in a loud and annoying voice that dripped with much to much sarcasm.

I searched around for moral support, but found only the hostile, disapproving faces of both clients and staff, who seemed to be staring me down, in some sort of perverted shaming exercise.

Intimidated, but unapologetic, I considered punishing the clerk for her condescending rebuke, by making her count out 137 bags, which I quickly figured, would cost me a mere $6.85, a pittance for a well-deserved comeuppance. Yup, I thought, that would certainly teach the snotty bitch, but unfortunately, that's not what came out if my mouth;

"I'll take two bags... No three......HOLD ON, MAKE IT FOUR!!!!!" I hissed defiantly.
"And here's a quarter. KEEP THE CHANGE!!!!!"

It was at that precise moment, I sadly realized that the disposable grocery plastic bag will soon go the way of the dinosaur and disappear from our stores forever, just as in SAQ (the state run liquor stores), killed off by the social engineers and radical environmentalists bent on foisting their radical religious/environmental doctrine on an unsuspecting and complacent public.

The environmental Ayatollahs and their minion of marching crusaders have decided that the plastic bag has become a symbol and instrument of the devil polluter and so, they have declared it verboten.
Those reasonable voices objecting to the stupidity of this pseudo environmental measure will undoubtedly go unheeded, shouted down by the howling mob of sheep, repeating the gospel of scientific stupidity.

The Earth gods have spoken.

My poor, poor friend, the plastic grocery bag is to be no more, another sad victim of intolerance. Those plastic bags that I so lovingly hoarded and recycled, the plastic bags that served me in so many useful ways, how will they ever be replaced?

No job was too small or demeaning for my little friends. Picking up dog crap or carrying my lunch to school and later in life, to the office.
Serving as a hat in a rainstorm, boots in a flood, or a handy vomit bag, in unfortunate circumstances.
Yes, my plastic bags have served me well, never complaining, not even when used to envelop a poopy diaper, and sent packing down the apartment building garbage chute, in the most undignified of manner.

It doesn't matter that almost everyone recycles plastic grocery bags. It probably rates as the highest second use product in the world. It's a rare breed of person that doesn't have a stash of these handy little suckers somewhere in their home or apartment, a stash that we lovingly keep topped up.

Plastic bags are environmentally cheap to produce and break down rather quickly in the garbage dump, even faster than natural products like wood. But as in any religious debate, reason has no place.

As I lament the imminent loss of the plastic bag , I remain fearful that it is only the start. The know-betters, flush with victory, are surely gearing up for the next round.

So what will that battle be?

Gas BBQs? Wood fireplaces? Disposable hypodermic needles? SUV's?

No...no..no...The next target is much more dangerous and ubiquitous.

According to the environmentalists, there is a product that threatens the very foundation of our ability to sustain our way of life on earth.

The next war will be waged on .....the disposable plastic water bottle.

All I can say is....

.... TO THE BARRICADES!!!!

Vancouver Set to Eclipse Montreal's Olympic Disaster

The financial situation of the Vancouver Olympics has deteriorated so badly that it appears that the organizing committee, known as 'VANOC' is destined to lose more money hosting the games than the city Montreal did in 1976.
I'm sure nobody in Quebec thought that something like that would ever be allowed to happen again in Canada.

It took Montreal over thirty years to erase the 1.5 billion dollar loss generated by the 1976 summer Olympic Games, a loss which heralded in the modern era of Olympic cost excesses.

Adjusting for inflation, the Montreal loss is equivalent (in today's dollars) to about 4.5 billion dollars and sadly, it's a number that Vancouver is well on it's way to replicate or surpass.

Sadly, a combination of cost overruns, added security requirements and the world financial recession has led to a catastrophic change in fortune for the Vancouver organizing committee.

Originally budgeted at $1.7 billion, the games may end up costing upwards of $6 billion, when the costs of all the ancillary projects and infrastructure improvements are added in. These include the expansion of the 'Sea to Sky' highway to Whistler, the expansion of the convention center and building of the Olympic village, as well as hundreds of other small and medium projects.

As for revenues, corporate sponsorships, which were expected to generate up to a billion dollars in revenue are now predicted to be less than a third of that number, as companies, hit hard by the recession, re-evaluate their commitments.
TV revenue and ticket sales are expect to ring in only about $800 million, so the shortfall is dramatic.

The problems of escalating costs is not restricted to any one particular element.
Security costs have skyrocketed from an estimate of $170 million to over a billion dollars.
The Olympic village, a condo project of 800 hundred units, required a city bailout when the developer pulled out, as costs rose to an estimated 800 million dollars. Other projects, such as the expansion of the convention center have also gone way over budget.

The idea that the games would be self-financing, as promised by VANOC are now completely discredited. In fact no recent Olympic game hosts managed to break even, with Calgary showing a $910 million loss, $1.4 billion for Barcelona, and a $2.3 billion loss for Sydney.
It is estimated that China spent over $40 billion on the 2008 Summer Olympics!

Research by University of Alberta sports economics professor Brad Humphreys suggests that the Athens games in 2004 which were budgeted for $1.6 billion, ended up costing $16 billion.
The London games, which are to take place in 2012 were originally budgeted at $8 billion, but $19 billion has been already spent, with the games still three years away.

It seems that the bloom is definitely off the Olympic rose and it may be harder to find willing hosts.

"Even the government is going off the Olympics," states a recent headline in a London newspaper. "Is it too late to give them to the French?"

Vancouver's only saving grace is that the mammoth loss will be shouldered in part by the federal government, something Montreal was never able to achieve.

It's Hard to Keep Up with All the Scandals!

It's getting to the point that there are so many scandals in the news that it's hard to keep track of all of them. Most of us shrug our shoulders and give up.
Here's a brief review of the essential facts, to keep you up to date. It won't take but five minutes...

1. Shreiber/Mulroney Scandal
It 's hard to believe, but this sucker has been kicking around for over 15 years, making it the by far the longest running scandal in Canadian history.
The latest incarnation has Judge Jeffrey Oliphant looking into the dealings between world renown briber, Karlheinz Schreiber and ex-PM Brian Mulroney. Depending on which nose stretcher you believe, Mr. Schreiber gave either $225,000 or $300,000 in cash to Mr. Mulroney after he left office. Mr. Mulroney conveniently forgot to declare this money as income to RevCan for many years, but did make a mea culpa to the agency when he realized that the story about the payout was about to become public. No reasonable explanation for the payment has yet to be made and the burning question about possible payola in the acquisition by Air Canada of Airbus airplanes will probably never be answered. Between Schreiber, Mulroney and the gaggle of dead witness', it unlikely we'll ever learn the truth...

2.Water Meter Scandal
This juicy scandal was touched off by the revelation that a senior member of Montreal Mayor Tremblay's team, Frank Zampino vacationed on the yacht of one Tony Accurso, part owner of a consortium that was bidding on a $350 million municipal contract for water meters. According to Zampino, the company's successful bid had nothing to do with their close personal relationship and that it was also strictly coincidental that Mr. Zampino landed a job, (after leaving municipal politics), as a senior executive in a company related to the water meter contract and owned Mr Accurso!
Remember Mr. Accurso's name, you'll be hearing it often.

3. Sponsorship Scandal.
Did you really think this scandal was over?
It lives on, years after the Gomery Inquiry laid bare a 10 year old scheme whereby Federal government money was funneled to certain Quebec advertising agencies (who did little or nothing to earn the money), who then kicked back a portion of the funds to the Liberal Party of Canada. Several players have already gone to jail, but one company, Groupe Polygone and it's president Luc Lemay is still negotiating a settlement in relation to a $35 million claim by the crown. Recently, the company went to court to demand that certain media revelations be kept confidential. It seems that the information in question was leaked by someone who was not supposed to do stuff like that, and by the company's logic, the public should not be allowed to hear the damaging evidence.
Of course, in keeping with the Canadian principle of transparency and the public's right to be informed, Judge Jean-François de Grandpré, sided with the company and issued a gag order. urgh.....

4.SHDM Scandal
When ethical questions were raised over at Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal, auditor-general Michel Doyon examined the real estate transactions of the agency, in the 2 year period after the Mayor Gérald Tremblay's Union Montreal party privatized the SHDM, (over the objections of the city’s legal department.)
The auditor concluded that the SHDM sold some of its $300-million worth of real-estate holdings either without “the required authorizations” from the city, at “less than their fair market values” or without trying to obtain the best possible sale price.

“I recommend that the SHDM turn the matter over to the police for investigation,” Doyon writes.

The SHDM sold 4 million square feet of land in the east end of Montreal, for a quarter of its evaluation to Construction Frank Catania et Associés.
A parcel of land in St. Laurent was sold to a private developer for one dollar, five days after the city bought the land for $733,000. The lucky purchaser? A company owned by our good friend ---Tony Accurso.

By the way, the Canada Revenue Agency is also investigating three companies owned by Accurso for alleged tax fraud.
Tony's may be a busy guy, but he sure is careful about having his picture taken. Considering all the publicity surrounding him, you'd think Googling his name would bring bring up hundreds of photos, not so. Try it.
This file is being sent off the the Sûreté du Québec (Provincial police) for investigation, where it is sure to languish for several years, as in the case of........

5. Outremont CCI Scandal
Eighteen months after seizing documents, the Sûreté du Québec doesn't seem to be any farther along in their investigation of the cost overruns in the building of Centre communautaire intergénérationnel (CCI) in Outremont.
The project was the brainchild of ex-mayor Stéphane Harbour, who you might recall, was forced to resign because of excessive expenses (including a $6,000 booze bill charged to the city, for a secret watering hole in city hall) in an affair that became known as "Whiskeygate." The file of this grandiose project has the fingerprints of two old city hall favorites, Franck Catania and of course, our favorite son,-- Tony U-know-Who!

6.FIER-Boréal Scandal
The Parti Québécois has attacked the Quebec Liberals, claiming that they redirected money originally slated for economic development in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region to companies run or controlled by Liberal supporters.
The PQ charges that the Fonds d’intervention économique régional Boréal (FIER-Boréal), which was supposed to invest in high-tech ventures in the region, has invested more than $6 million in Quebec companies, but only one of which was in the Saguenay.
The rest of the money—two-thirds of which was provided by the Quebec government—went to Montreal area companies. The kicker is that, over $1 million of that money went to companies that had as shareholders, two of the fund’s three administrators. Pietro Perrino and Valier Boivin, who both happen to be Liberal party hacks deny any wrong-doing.
“Not only was the money not invested in the Saguenay,” says PQ MNA François Legault, “it was invested to enrich some little friends of the Liberal party.”
Raymond Bachand, Quebec Minister of Finance and Economic Development, who was peppered by embarrassing questions in the National Assembly, promised a full investigation by Investissement Québec.
This one is just getting started. What fun!

New Poll Shows Ignatieff's Liberals On a Quebec Roll

Looking at today's polling numbers out of Quebec, it's becoming abundantly clear that the Federal Liberals under Michael Ignatieff are on quite a roll.

A bit of number crunching shows that if an election were held today, the Liberals would make quite a breakthrough.

Here is the Quebec seat distribution in the federal Parliament, as of last October's federal election;

Here is a hypothetical seat distribution if Quebeckers voted last week;

Here are the ridings that the Liberal would take away;

Compton--Stanstead (BQ), Ahuntsic(BQ), Alfred-Pellan(BQ), Brome-Missisquoi(BQ), Brossard--La Prairie(BQ), Gaspésie--Îles-de-la-Madeleine(BQ), Gatineau(BQ), Jeanne-Le Ber(BQ), Laval(BQ), Louis-Hébert(BQ), Haute-Gaspésie--La Mitis(BQ), Outremont(NDP), Pontiac Saint-Lambert(CONS)

Here are the ridings that the BQ woud take away;

Chicoutimi--Le Fjord (CONS)

The following ridings, now held by the Bloc, are in danger of going Liberal should the Liberals increase their polling numbers by just 2% with a commiserate fall in support of the BQ.

Abitibi--Témiscamingue, Compton--Stanstead, Abitibi--Baie-James--Nunavik, Saint-Maurice--Champlain, Shefford

Interestingly, the drop in Conservatives support by over 30%, translates to a loss of only 2 seats.

Frenglish 101

Anyone who has used Google or Yahoo to translate a web page or an article from one language to another knows that it is a tricky science, with the results far from acceptable.
Translation remains one of the few tasks where humans wildly outperform computers. One of the key elements is to use a translator who's native language is one that the passage is being translated into.

Last year I wrote to Ports Canada about the embarrassing language used on the Champlain bridge. Some of the messages on the electronic message boards included;

"STAY ON THE RIGHT LANE"
and
"ROADWORKS ON DECARIE"

To their credit, these problems have disappeared. No doubt they have an anglophone reviewing the messages before they are allowed to see the light of day.

The latest agency to slaughter the English language is Transport Quebec. I hope that the department can scrounge up at least one English employee who would be able to review English advertisement before they were sent to be published.
The quality of the English used in Thursday's advertisement advising the public of the closure of the LaFontaine tunnel, left a lot to be desired.
Ultimately it is a embarrassing reflection on the department.



I've highlighted the most apparent gaffe, but almost every single notation suffers from faulty translation or has grammatical errors or problems in syntax.

See how many you can find....