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“Well, Rose, it is a nice long story, and full of romance and all this and that, and of course I will never be ungentlemanly enough to call a lady a liar, but if it is not a lie it will do until a lie comes along.”
Damon Runyon’s anonymous narrator in “Dream Street Rose” in The Best of Damon Runyon
[gview file="http://www.thejohnrobson.com/AnnRobson.pdf"]
And another thing. Today's newspapers report that former Foreign Minister John Baird has been hired as an international advisor by Barrick Gold Corp. and CP has nominated him for a position on its board of directors. Lucky him. Now I do not dispute that John Baird is a very talented, hard-working and persuasive individual with a real gift for getting along with people, well suited to these new posts. Still, two things puzzle me.
First, apparently the CP job will pay $235,000 a year, possibly more. Yet it leaves time for the Barrick post and perhaps others as well so it's not a full-time job. What can even someone as talented as John Baird contribute that's worth that much as a part-time gig?
Some news stories suggest he's being hired for the connections he made in his time in politics. Well, if they're worth that much, more power to him, though arguably it suggests governments have too much largesse at their disposal if knowing your way around them is this valuable. But I also note that in response to concerns about the ethics of landing such splendid advisory jobs after playing a major role in tightening up the rules about former politicians becoming highly-paid lobbyists, Baird tweeted that “I consulted the Ethics Commissioner before joining Barrick and before accepting CP’s invitation to serve on their Board. Got the green light.”
Does he suppose morality is a technical field to be delegated to highly-paid experts?
Oh well. Maybe in his world it is.
So the House has voted to extend the military mission against ISIL. For the record, I favour this decision. But notice that not one Tory voted "Nay" while not a single Liberal, NDP or Green MP voted "Aye." What worries me about this rigid partisanship, on all sides of the aisle, is that it no longer surprises us. Indeed, we'd be surprised and possibly offended if we discovered voters in some riding had inadvertently sent something other than a trained seal to Parliament.
Some nearly did. Liberal MP Irwin Cotler almost deserves a Profile-in-Courage award for abstaining because the issue is complex. But refusing to choose isn't much of a moral triumph.
Interestingly, one former Tory voted Nay and one former Liberal voted Aye. Presumably many still in both caucuses also have doubts about the party line. If they could find the guts to cross it, or at least boldly to abstain, we might get real parliamentary debates.
Where shall we find such parliamentarians? Oh yeah. We have to elect them.
Dang.
What an amazing feeling! This afternoon we made our target... or rather you did. Our Magna Carta documentary is now funded and we are planning the actual trips and filming. We understand and appreciate that the people who backed the project trust us to tell the story properly and we will do it. We want to thank everyone who contributed, who helped spread the word, who encouraged us along the way and made it possible. Stay tuned as we move forward... and if there are any questions you especially want to see the documentary address please let us know.
We're actually going to take the rest of this evening off. And then tomorrow it's back to work on the film.
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If you love your freedom, thank a Greek. Specifically Themistocles. Click here to read the rest.