It Just Got Personal

Today, everything changed.  A terrorist opened fire in our nation’s capital, killing a Corporal at the National War Memorial where we honour those who fought for and defended our country and the freedoms we cherish. He then took his weapon and his deadly agenda to the halls of our Parliament, where gunfire ensued and he was killed.  Our nation’s capital went into lockdown. We used to say this doesn’t happen in Canada. We cannot say that anymore. There is no going back.

We don’t know yet what motivated the attack, but experts are saying it should be seen as a terrorist attack, and that it may well be the first of more to come.   The world is watching as ISIS continues to develop and gain hold as an extremist force in the Middle East. As dangerous as Al Quaeda is, I believe the greater and more immediate threat is ISIS. Why? Because they radicalize citizens from within populations to turn against their own countries, forsaking families, friends and beliefs. And these people, once turned, commit unthinkable acts of violence and death on innocents. How the hell do we begin to fight that?

I am angry that this has happened in my country. I am so truly sorry for family of Cpl Nathan Cirillo, especially his six year old son. This was a good man whose life was senselessly taken by another on whom life was wasted. Extremists disavow themselves of the rights and privileges the rest of us respect and enjoy the moment they embrace their new belief of terrorism. I won’t give them the benefit of the doubt or consider them capable of reform. Theirs was a conscious choice to embrace something that they knew was wrong. How, in this day and age, post 9/11, post-genocides and holocaust, can anyone not know that radical extremism utilizing terrorism is evil?

I love my country. Fiercely. Proudly. We welcome the world, embrace diversity, excel at peace and diplomacy and hockey. Acceptance and tolerance are values I want to my kids to live every day. Canadians are known for being accommodating and non-aggressive. We get mad “in a Canadian kind of way”. That does not mean we are push-overs and that should not make us easy targets for any reason. I hate that terrorism isn’t just the physical carnage, but the emotional and spiritual costs paid by those who survive. Now, we don’t get to be so open and friendly with the world, or with each other. We know what’s out there, and how their game is played. There was a heightened state of alert before today’s attacks. We have reason to believe more will come because ISIS has come to roost.

ISIS is a global threat that needs to be dealt with swiftly and decisively. They’ve made it clear that they are intolerant, inhumane and exist to serve only their purpose, utilizing whatever means necessary. The only way to deal with them is to exterminate them, like the deadly infestation they are, anywhere they appear. We cannot afford the mistake of giving them more time to gain a stronger hold. And we are fools to believe nothing else is coming. ISIS has established they have no boundaries, globally or morally. God forbid we let them prove that on our soil.

I keep a mug in my kitchen, filled with pencils, where I see it everyday. It’s part of daily life in our family hub. Nobody important gave it to me; it isn’t an heirloom or expensive. But what it represents is beyond measure. The mug says Cantor Fitzgerald. If you, like me, watched those Towers fall, and lived through the endless days into nights of news coverage during 9/11, you learned this firm suffered the loss of most of their people. They were a family, with families. I can never forget.

Didn’t See That Coming!

 

It’s a Liberal Majority. Wow! Haven’t had one of those for a while. And I think that sends a very powerful, very clear message to the other two parties about just how much nonsense the electorate is willing to choke down. Seriously, though, if you lead your campaign with “I’m cutting 100,000 jobs but then I’m going to create a million” just what did you think was going to happen? Sorry, Mr. Hudak, but evidently we’re not as stupid as you hoped we’d be. Thank God! Stepping down promptly was the right move, by the way. And I don’t think the Federal Conservative Party will be asking for your resume anytime soon, either. This is one mess they didn’t want to have to clean up. A lot of Tory strongholds fell like dominoes on election night. That’s a lot of losses in the province of plenty. And that’s ground that will come at a high cost to recover for the next Federal Election.

As for the NDP, I think it is safe to say Andrea Horwath learned a very valuable lesson at the taxpayers’ expense.  I don’t think she will be challenging budgets again anytime soon. The only thing saving her at this point is that she is still new, not that that should be an excuse. The election was a bad call on her part, and she’s got some serious work to do around re-establishing her party as the brand people can trust and believe in. What has worked for the NDP in the past is what they sorely lack now on both the provincial and federal levels: a charismatic leader with vision who believably will defend the average Canadian and their interests against the more self-serving issues of the other two major parties.

As for the Liberals, they should consider this a bona fide intervention by Fate. This is a second chance not to be wasted. Truth is, nobody wanted to hand Kathleen Wynne a win, but she was the lesser of three evils. The old “rock, cliff and a hard place” scenario.  Now, she has the chance to truly absolve herself of the taint of Dalton McGuinty’s scandals – and don’t think we’re finished with him yet. He’s got other skeletons buried just waiting to fall out. Kathleen needs to commit the party to rebuilding Ontario, not just rebuilding her party’s tarnished image. What she can accomplish provincially will carry on up federally, for Justin Trudeau to use to bolster his sagging credibility. I see the political leader in Wynne, and I see a unique person who can take the helm: she is not the traditional older white male at all. She is a new face when the party desperately needs one, in a province that has demographically morphed beyond recognition from what it was 30 years ago.

To Kathleen Wynne I say this: You’ve been given one hell of an opportunity to leave your mark and Ontario needs a real leader. Lead us out of the mess of the past and show us how to build the future.  Your time is now.

Now For Something A Little Different …

  

It’s election time again in the province of Ontario.  The three parties have been slavering at the thought of finally getting to sling mud and rhetoric at each other once more, under the guise of convincing the electorate that only one of them is truly fit to govern, while the others are criminally incompetent. Same old schtick, different year. Or maybe not…

Ontario doesn’t need to spend more money on finger-pointing and name- calling. This province has been the driving force of Canada, but mismanagement and negligence have only exacerbated growing problems: crumbling infrastructures in major cities, the billion-dollar gas plant debacle, declines in support for health care and education. The arithmetic of politics scares me. I’ve never been able to rationalize how job cuts and spending cuts will actually create more jobs and economic prosperity. I don’t think I’ve actually seen this equation successfully play out anywhere.The truth is, whatever happens here, for better or worse, directly impacts the rest of the country.

What Ontario desperately needs is a party with a real leader at the helm. However, not one of the major parties currently running offers that. I’m sorry, but Kathleen Wynne, Andrea Horwath, and Tim Hudak are not leadership contenders. None of these individuals inspires confidence in me. What do they inspire? Let’s do a quick run-down.

Kathleen Wynne, LIberal Party: she got the dirty end of the stick when she inherited the party and its hidden secrets from Dalton “I’m running now before I get caught” McGinty.  Really. When someone cuts and runs as fast as Dalton did, you have to know something awful is going to hit that proverbial fan. And it did. Scandals to the tune of billions of tax-payers dollars. And cover-ups: remember that tech who was the boyfriend of somebody wiping incriminating data from the hard drives, and Kathleen didn’t know. Sorry, but Kathleen’s a big girl. She walked into this with her eyes open. And yes, her party is still responsible for the mess her predecessor made. That’s how I see it. That’s how the electorate sees it. That’s how Kathleen needs to see it. She can’t play the “I didn’t do it” card and expect that to absolve her from the sins of the past. The Ontario Liberals need to pull a “Phoenix rising from the ashes” in order to move on. Raze the existing party. Start completely fresh. And put a dynamic, appealing, proven-results leader at the helm.  Ideally, someone who takes over the party, remakes it and convinces us by action, not words. We need to see that strength and fight in order to believe again. Kathleen is not delivering.

Andrea Horwath NDP: She’s sincere, committed, comes across as nice. But when you are at the helm of the underdog party, nice is not enough. You need to be bigger, bolder and constantly challenging the other two parties. That’s what Jack Layton did so well. He nipped at the heels of the Liberals and Conservatives, actively pointing out their failings with accurate details. And then offering up recommendations.That’s why people believed in the NDP. As they did with Bob Rae. Like Jack, he had vision and great ideas. To lead this party, you have to be better than the leaders of the other two parties: smarter, braver, stronger, and unquestionably trustworthy. Because the NDP is the party that keeps the other guys in line. There was a brief shining moment when I thought the NDP could pull a dark horse coming straight up the middle, but then Andrea had to do damage control for her party. Given that,  Andrea comes across only as satisfactory. That might run the party but it won’t be enough to govern the province.

TIm Hudak PC:  Be afraid. Be very afraid. There was something about him I did not like from the beginning, and then when he announced all the cuts he was making to the public sector, I knew why. He is like the second coming of Mike Harris. We all remember Mike. Cut to the bone and then cut some more. And people in Hudak’s party don’t even like him. Apparently, he’s a little tyrannical. But this is the man promising to create a million jobs. Evidently he’s a magician and not a mathematician. I’m not surprised. Tory party sleight of hand is just how they’ve always done things. Being trust-worthy is not something I could ever accuse them of.

So where does that leave Ontario? What each leader offers to bring to the table and what they’ll actually serve up will be very different. I can only hope for someone who doesn’t make things worse than they already are. I hate when the choice has to be the lesser of three evils.