Politics

On Saturday December 4th I was in my usual spot on the couch on a Saturday night watching the Leafs on CBC with my kids. And there you were Don coming into my living room and spraying all over the furniture like a dog visiting a tree farm. You were going on and on about how if you are someone like me that loves hockey, but believes it is about more than two guys trying to beat the crap out of each other, then you are some kind of bleeding heart leftie or some such nonsense.

I was embarrassed for you Don; you looked and sounded like a fool in front of my 3 kids. Two of them play hockey. They, to be really blunt Don (and I know you will appreciate bluntness) thought you were an idiot and said so. These are tough farm kids Don. They aren’t afraid of a little rough stuff, but you showed yourself to be so out of step with today’s game- a game based on skill and speed that is was really hard not to just feel sorry for you Don. I know Don, for guys like us that really weren’t all that good we had to rely of fighting and so on to keep up. But really Don is that what you want for today’s kids- it sure isn’t what I want as a father of two hockey players and as someone who loves hockey at all levels. Heck put me in front of a game from anywhere to the fun and joy of tykes playing, to the spirit in girls hockey, or my Owen Sound Attack or my heartbreaking Leafs and I will enjoy it. I’ll even cheer for both teams when a great save is made, or a wonderful play, because I love hockey that much.

Greetings Mr Dewar,

I am a constituent of yours who lost his job at Nortel in March 2009, after 12 years of service to that company. This was not long after their declaring bankruptcy, and as such I did not get a red cent from them. A friend of mine with 12 years of service got cut just prior to the bankruptcy, and he got a very nice $60,000 severance package.

Here we go again, one of the owners of the Ontario Beer Store is taking a small Ontarian brewery to court. Again. This time Budweiser(tm) is taking Brick Brewing to court over "Lime Beer". Last time around it was Brick again, being taken to court over stubby bottles under the pretense that they are "non-standard". Nevermind that Sleeman bottles are too.

What do you mean "one of the owners?". "The province owns the Beer Store, doesn't it?".

Nope. The beer store was traditionally owned by Molson and Labatt, about 50/50. Somehow Sleeman managed to wedge itself in for about a 10% stake, leaving about 45% for each of the other parties. OK, arguably that makes sense - the Ontario Beer Store owned by Ontarian breweries. What's wrong with that?

Well, the biggest thing that is wrong with it, is that none of those 3 breweries are Canadian-owned anymore. So the Ontario Beer Store monopoly is entirely owned by foreign mega-corporations. Labatt has been bought out by Belian Interbrew, since renamed to InterBev - the same company which bought Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser(tm)). Molson is now owned by Coors in the US, and Sleeman is owned by Sapporo of Japan.

As folks who know me have come to know over the years, I've almost always got a political opinion, and it's rarely a mild one. So I thought I'd write a bit of something about my beliefs - where they started and where they are today. But also a bit about what I feel Canada needs in terms of politics.

Anyone who knows me from Stellarton knows that I grew up in a household that was very deeply steeped in the Labour Movement and by extension the NDP. Hey, it was a coal mining town and we saw that even in the early 90s with the Westray Mine disaster (which was underneath Stellarton) that mining bosses treated their employees pretty terribly, and had very little regard for human life if it got in the way of profits. So as much as I think today that a lot of labour unions have overstepped their bounds and ask for too much, I also see very clearly that there are areas where unions are needed today every bit as much as they were needed 100 years ago. Indeed, in cases like Westray we see how little progress has been made.