It’s not just any day that a political party uses caucus funds and the floor of the legislature to attack a private citizen who belongs to no political party at all.
Move over, Rush Limbaugh. They’re making me famous.
*
(Upate for John Gormley Live listeners, the original post under discussion is here.)
Hey look! Someone from one of our esteemed Human Rights Commissions has come here to seed a “hate” remark against an identifiable group. Let’s all join in on their attempts to perpetuate their employment and “relevance.”
Ready now? Sing along with me, folks: “Short people got no reason…” C’mon, “John Vest,” you can work your pipes better than that…
Kate, all the right people hate you. That’s the best advertising there is, when they start fulminating about what you said on their own dime.
I love this part the most: “The posting compares potential Station 20 users in downtown Saskatoon with drug addicts and petty criminals.” Well, isn’t that mostly who lives there?
They just hate it when people tell the truth about their projects.
All you Dippers, now pay attention kids. The CHRC is as of right now proposing to make what I just said ILLEGAL. So ok, you’re a poverty advocate (!) you think I should go to jail for that.
Ok, this is the part where you have to use your noodle. Today, the CHRC is being run by Liberal appointees who agree with you that I should go to jail. Tomorrow the CHRC can be stuffed with guys like -me- by the party NOW in power. See if you can imagine what I would do to you for the crap you spew on your web sites.
Think I might start with a thousand dollar fine for using swear words, two thousand for using the word “progressive” in a non-mocking way. But only on Lefty sites. Complaints about Conservative sites would all be “two sided” faxes.
Are we getting this yet, morons?
Darren,
If you live in that area of Saskatoon then you know the real reason private companies closed and won’t open a grocery store there. It’s not the hard working people with jobs that make it impossible to keep anything on the shelf. So I don’t think Kate was talking about you.
‘Hurtful’ – that’s quite the denunciation. Trust the pantywaists at the NDP to inject the ethics of kindergarten into politics. If hurt feelings now define the boundaries of political speech we may as well just stop speaking altogether and communicate through a series of back rubs and eskimo kisses.
Kate, you’re becoming less relevant.
Between shooting your mouth off, being unable to make witicisms, and recycling the same post titles like an envirofreak recycles toilet paper… your blog is becoming more and more useless.
Maybe take a break for a while and reflect. Come back with some fresh writing. You used to sound smart and witty and make good points. Go back to that.
Just what I thought — Kate you are a bad, hurtful person! Shame on you. To the corner with you for 5 minutes — just think about what you have done. After that you can have your milk and cookies 🙁
I love it when a private citizen is not afraid to speak freely, even in Canada. I have zero knowledge of the area or project in question.
What I do know is, they must be awfully scared of Kate’s influence, if they are trying to discredit her at every turn.
Here in Calgary, a few years ago they built a fancy drop-in centre for the homeless, right on the riverbank downtown. It’s capable of housing up to a thousand people. While it was done with the best of intentions, what has happened is that the area has become an open air drug emporium and crime has skyrocketed. The homeless population downtown and in the surrounding area has exploded. Businesses in the area have shut down. Nobody in their right mind uses the once-popular nearby riverside pathways at night. A family friend who was an occasional drug user moved to the area and was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong.
Sad to say, but by centralizing shelters and social services all that was accomplished was to provide a ready market for drug pushers in one easy to access location. The building overflows at night now, so other shelters have been set up in the area and around town. Believe it or not, the residents of outlying shelters are actually bussed back downtown for the day. I guess this is so they can have access to “services”. What used to be a relatively minor problem in Calgary has become a huge headache.
NUKE THE POOR!!! There, I said it. (just kidding)
Certainly adds perspective to your post from yestertday:
“What it means is this…”
Brad Wall is getting politically corrected,eh?
Do you notice that none of the people throwing outraged hissy-fits can point out anything that was factually wrong with anything Kate said? Not one of the Dippers or media leftards said that anything wasn’t true.
All they say is “hurtful,” “mean” and the like. Well leftards: The truth hurts. Deal with it.
If Kate said anything that was not factually based, I’m sure she’d update the post. Until then, F.O.A.D.
Well Lore Weaver, I take the exact opposite view.
The best thing that has happened in Canada in a half century is the emergence of the internet into media communications and Saskatchewan native Kate McMillan is involved by blogging.
I am an aging Canadian sick and tired of having to listen and pay for (CBC) and other Canadian incestuous monopoly media leftist bullshit.
Finally there emerges in Canada a voice loud and clear that cuts to the bone of what Canada has become.
I have yet to hear ANY Canadian on air ( or newspaper) personality declare in clearer words what Kate has said about self sufficiency.
And while she does not have access to the airwaves or TV she is making a difference and if ever we get a MSM in Canada with the balls to put her on air she could damned well debate any crypto – communist from Jack Layton to Bob Rae to Stephane Dion to Maude Barlow into the sludge pit of socialism.
Go Kate , why not get John Gormley to have you on his program and go at at Brad Wall for starters.
I am sure it would be listened to on the internet across Canada with ratings Gormley never knew existed.
So to you from Ontario I say, Lore Weaver get your head out of your @** because as Bob Dylan’s song says “Times They are a’Changin’.”
And Kate McMillan in Canada , like Rush Limbaugh in the US, is in the forefront of that change.
Thanks Kate!!
Um, free advice: if you’re trying to convince the non-regular visitors to your 8-million-visitors-and-counting site that you’re just a normal, private citizen under attack from the NDP and the MSM, maybe DON’T link to your National Post column.
See, most people don’t write for a national newspaper. And it kinda makes you look a little more influential than you probably want to at this point.
Ringo,
Kate isn’t hiding. Wall is.
And maybe you can refute any factually based errors in Kate’s original post. Or is Truth now to be an offence?
Point out what she said that wasn’t true. Else, what’s the problem here? Don’t like the truth? Then let the grown-ups handle the world’s issues.
johnnyRingo…
The day your name is mentioned in the Legisltive assembly or HoC because you have stirred up some insightful thinking and one of the so-called ‘representatives’ is feeling threatened, is the day Kate should take advice from you.
I actually agree with Brad Wall. Kate is free to say what she wishes, but Brad Wall shouldn’t endorse it. Kicking people when they are down should be above a politician.
I shudder to think of the effect “Dr.Laura” might have on some of you.
You weren’t on the local news last night. Just curious Kate, why didn’t you go on the air to stick up for your comments or didn’t they offer you airtime?
Kate,
In Canada, Richard the Worm would take Dr.Laura to a human rights tribunal for not being sufficiently loose with the truth.
Telling it like it is hurts the feelings of people who need a kick in the a$$. They don’t like to be told to “get with the program” regardless of how many steps there are. It’s their right not to have to hear the truth. We are required by big brother to engage in official polite fictions (to paraphrase Steyn) so as not to be “insensitive” to the losers, deadbeats and crack-whores who all vote NDP.
What isn’t being said about station 20 west is:
There are already two dental clinics at P and 20th. The westside community clinic already exists, it was to be moved (about 5 blocks).
An election promise not kept by the new government? Wow, that’s gotta be a first.
These may be good things to have at St. 20W, but not with $8 million of health budget money.
I gave three phone interviews yesterday, Todd and stood by my comments in all of them. Question though – did any of them bring up my reminder that the Saskatoon Fire Dep’t has picked up (using a full crew and truck in each case) over 3,000 needles in the city this year?
Or is that too insensitive to mention in this context?
“Kicking people when they are down should be above a politician.”
The hell you say. I was down and out thanks to booze, drug addictions, and mental illness. Friends who wouldn’t accept my excuses and who kicked my ass relentlessly got me out of that funk and I’m grateful to them for it. I’m a firm believer that the best thing you can do for most poor people is give them a good swift kick in the ass. I know. I’ve been there.
I’m now a successful business owner, husband, father to a wonderful little girl, and an active member of my community. This all started with an ass kicking. So, yes, we need more of this from everyone, including Brad Wall.
And pardon me while I link whore:
http://www.urbanrefugee.ca/?p=44
“… it’s like solving a stray cat problem with feeding stations.”
Actually, Kate, they are addressing that problem in many urban centres exactly like that. Since trapping and putting down feral cats would not cure the problem (as other cats would move into the territory), they are trapping, immunizing and (you will like this part) spaying and neutering the critters before returning them to the hood. The result is the same number of cats, no kittens and no rodents.
Now if we could only spay and neuter the other indigenous denizen… Tommy can you hear me.
No, they didn’t. I think you have some good points but it’s just the nature of the language that blows them out of the water for most people. I’m just surprised that the news couldn’t bother the time to send a van out to Delisle for a video interview.
Since when has being reviled by the NDP ever been considered a liability?
COMING SOON: KATHERINE MCMILLAN COLLEGIATE!
Considering that the CCF/KKK/NDP demigod, Tommy Douglas, got a school named after him when he attacked the poor and referred to unwed mothers as ‘common prostitutes’, you should have a school named after you too, Kate. Although, your comments were nowhere near as offensive as T.C.’s.
And what happened to Jean Cretien after the welfare and beer comments? Maybe the school isn’t going far enough…Prime Minister Katherine McMillan!
This is really funny. I miss Saskatchewan a lot.
Gormley is going to be talking about you, and this issue, maybe you knew that.. I think just after 9:30.
http://www.newstalk650.com
Fear and censorship of the truth. That’s the mark of a nation ‘progressing’ into the abyss.
In Toronto, the vast majority of gun crimes are commited by black kids. Whether this statement is repositioned by the left as hurtful and insensitive does not make it any less true. However, by not acknowledging this fact, is the culture and its government contributing, in fact, an accessory to the next murder commited by a black kid?
We can go on with the “not all, blah, blah, blah” argument as well. Which is true. But, so what? What does that solve? It’s irrelevant.
The same can be said for all groups – “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslim,” for example. Yet the disturbing negative repositioning of this obvious fact has put all citizens in jeopardy and unbelievable inconvenience. White Grannies being strip searched at the airport comes to mind.
In other words, utter collective madness, in order to keep the lie intact.
Truth must be stated and acknowledged in order to create real and lasting solutions. The finger pointing leftists do not solve problems. They create and perpetuate problems. It’s in their best interest, otherwise they will not have a political party.
Of course Brad Wall has to distance himself, even if he agreed with Kate. If he did not do so, he would pay politically for it, spearheaded by the political parties that create and perpetuate problems. And the lie.
Johnny Pinko and Daly’s posts are a testament to this fact. These people are not simply useless – never contributing solutions – they are dangerous to a healthy, functioning society.
Quote censorship on a blog. Don’t use the word God even if it is a quote. This is interesting.
Irwin,
Wall could have just told the media that he didn’t feel the need to comment on the writings of a private citizen with no ties the government, party of person.
He also should have asked the leftard Media if they thought it reasonable to demand that the Premier yay or nay every opinion from every member of the public. He could have further asked the leftard media if they considered their performance in keeping with their duty to the public.
But that would have taken a pair and politicians go without.
Edgar – it’s expected that commentors will remain on topic. Your posts weren’t, so there were deleted.
Warwick,
True. However, doesn’t his response show how deeply the lie is ingrained in society?
Because of this, it’s likely little will be done to clean up the neighbourhood, once again. A lot of hand wringing with the hands firmly tied behind the back.
Same goes for gun crime in Toronto. Because of the perpetuation of the lie, more people will die.
The truth, however inconvenient, must be dealt with. Half the solution is knowing and acknowledging the actual problem.
Given their AGW claim, even leftards should get this.
“Ms. McMillan’s statements were petty, hurtful, and offensive…”
I guess it wasn’t worth considering whether Kate’s comments were “true” or “false.” Anybody who gets in the way of the establishing-heaven-on-earth-where-everyone-is-happy political philosophy must be dealt with.
My American-patriot wife and I grew more than a little tired during her years of B.C. residency of that sneakily veiled “American-style” pejorative thrown about amongst other comments by B.C. NDP politicians.
She found it “petty,” and might have even found it “hurtful” and “offensive.” But then, those on the Left can never offend. They just Speak Truth to Power, don’t they?
Hypocrites…
yup.
But to the left, being seen to be “doing something” is more important than actually doing it.
Sending the “right message” is better than doing the right thing.
Being inclusive if better than being honest.
The media enforce this on the politicians who are too cowardly to speak out against it.
.
Regarding the gathering of the drug addled and the diseased at ‘feeding stations’.
IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME
.
Free stuff always gets a line up. Completely objectionable miscreants will only be around as long as they are tolerated.
We have seen what intolerance has done to smokers. They are few now and shrinking fast. How was this done? they took away the smoker’s habitat It works.
Once the scummers of society are no longer allowed to piss on the street they will start looking for a urinal. It’s that simple. Kate’s feeding station analogy was perfect.
I come for a poor family and a poor neighborhood. In fact when I was a kid most people were poor by today’s standards. We weren’t thieves or druggies. our neighborhoods were perfectly safe. We weren’t angry at the so called rich. We did not have the unrealistic expectations that unrestricted use credit has brought to today’s poor. Our attitude was that, ‘if you can’t afford to go the ball then go to the barn dance’.
We were a little more humble in those days. We didn’t have fragile feelings because we were taught to ‘buck up’ toughen up, get busy and make something of yourself!
That is all gone now and we are as Pierre Trudeau once put it on one of CTV’s Xmas interviews with him “We will be a society of less” He meant in material terms, but it turned out just the opposite. We have more stuff than anyone can imagine, but we are a nation with shrunken spirit. Thanks to the political correctness and nanny state that tells us we have a freaking right to everything including undamaged “feelings”.
I am glad I won’t be around to see Canada’s society reach full bloom. It will be like nothing any sane person would want to live in.
Darren,
I can understand where you are coming from, but I don’t entirely agree. I used to live just off Dewdney Avenue in Regina, our equivalent to 20th in Toon town (in fact I still own my house there). Yes there are plenty of decent people living in that neighbourhood, but there are also a lot of problems, all of which Kate identified most pithily in her post. Drug abuse and alchohol abused? Check. Feral Children? Check. Theft? Check (hell they stole the radiator out of my truck in order to get sell the copper). High unemployment? Check. Broken families? Check. Violence? Check.
We used to have a Real Canadian Superstore a few blocks from my house on Albert Street. It has been closed for years, allegedly because the shoplifting rates were too much. There’s no proper grocery store in the neighbourhood. I’ve thought of sponsoring some of my wife’s Vietnamese relatives over to start a grocery store as the it the neighbourhood could definitely use one, but I can envisage it being more trouble than it’s worth.
The answer isn’t to have the government run a grocery store in such a neighbourhood, its to persuade the residents in the neighbourhood to begin behaving in a civilized fashion so that businesses will be prepared to locate there. As usual Kate is spot on. As usual our politicians plug their ears and scream hum loudly when the obvious is pointed out.
On this “If you build it they will come” subject, it is always interesting to see the number of “homeless” in Phoenix decrease as summer approaches. Then in the fall they all come back, as if by magic.
This by the way is one of the most conservative states in the USA, with America’s Meanest Sheriff running the show in Phoenix. At least they beg in a more decorous fashion than the street goblins in NYC or LA.
Of course that may also have something to do with the “shall-issue” concealed carry permits.
Response to the speed bump comment that was posted. Maybe to deep.
Why was my comments different from this again. Oh God was in it.
Peter:
Would that be too … as in also?
BTW. I grew up on welfare and now have a pretty decent net worth.
Every day we have choices to make … the biggest choice for me was understanding I’m responsible for my own decisions and I’m nobody’s victim.
I used my God-given free will to make the decisions that allowed me to step out of the darkness and into the light.
It’s not easy for anybody who feels sorry for themselves as they languish in the dark. Every day you have another opportunity to take charge of your own life and step into the light.
Your choice. Oppression is a self-imposed condition.
Sean said:
The hell you say. I was down and out thanks to booze, drug addictions, and mental illness. Friends who wouldn’t accept my excuses and who kicked my ass relentlessly got me out of that funk and I’m grateful to them for it. I’m a firm believer that the best thing you can do for most poor people is give them a good swift kick in the ass
Now there is the TRUTH, crystallized. This is why state welfare can’t work: it lacks the power of moral suasion which only friends and family can provide. In today’s morally-challenged world, people can no longer feel shame taking money from government, where it grew on trees.
An earlier thread went dead before I got to say this BUT: Shame is good. Shame is a constructive human emotion which triggers shame-avoidance, to wit, self improvement.
Shame on government for banning shame!
Way to go, Kate!
Me No Dhimmi
Further to that point, the social workers/shrinks et al all say that you should employ tough-love to your friends and family. You need to let them hit rock-bottom before they’ll change. So you have to stop being an “enabler” of your loved-one’s bad behaviour. Being the enabler to a drunk or druggie is bad.
The next thing that these SAME PEOPLE say (as there isn’t a conservative social worker in existence) is that the government needs to be the Enabler to millions. Yet they fail to comprehend the contradiction.
Enable one junkie as a private individual: Bad.
Enable millions as the government: Great! Let’s have a double helping of stupid!
These “social” programs (although a better term would be “Anti-Social” programs) make the government the enabler that allows the bad behaviour to continue indefinitely.
It seems to a leftard, faux-compassion is more morally-pure than effective intervention. Thus, the leftard’s habit of symbolism over substance continues ad nauseum.
And yes, we have lost the value of shame – mostly because people stopped feeling it. That happens when charity is moved from private giving to government entitlement. When charity is considered a “right” then you don’t have to feel shame for taking it – especially when you have a middle-man facilitating the transfer.
Life At the Bottom by Theodore Dalrymple.
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Bottom-Worldview-Makes-Underclass/dp/1566635055
“Theodore Dalrymple is a physician and psychiatrist who practices in England. He writes a column for the London Spectator, contributes frequently to the Daily Telegraph, and is a contributing editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. His other books include Mass Listeria and So Little Done. He lives in Birmingham, England.”
What it’s like and why they stay there
“Here is a searing account—probably the best yet published—of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does. Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in Engalnd, has seemingly seen it all. Yet in listening to and in observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple’s key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives. Drawn from the pages of the cutting-edge political and cultural quarterly City Journal, Dalrymple’s book draws upon scores of eye-opening, true-life vignettes that are by turns hilariously funny, chillingly horrifying, and all too revealing—sometimes all at once. And Dalrymple writes in prose that transcends journalism and achieves the quality of literature.”
Migawd Warwick, this probably means I’m gonna die soon, but I can actually remember when having a mortgage was not something you talked about [my parents’ generation]. It was vaguely shameful.
Yeah, that’s the thing: faux-compassion and faux-rage for people who don’t exhibit that faux-compassion. Aw what the hell, and fauxtographs to document it.
In fact, “kicking people when they’re down” is what government “enablement” does eh?
Was it Reagan who said, scariest words in the English language: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. Goldwater?
To say nothing about how big government actually destroys strong family bonds by making it less urgent that they be maintained.
Hi Kate,
I’ve been following your story with great interest. First off, don’t worry about politicians, they’ll eat their own babies for a few extra votes. Losing an endorsement from Mr. Wall is unfortunate, but in his conscience he knows that he got much of his boost from you and other people getting out the news.
I’ve also noticed that it is the general actions of the left to assassinate character when they can’t assassinate logic or reason. You are right on this issue. Feeding stray cats only gets you more cats. Encouraging people into behaviours that must be supported by the state is akin to theft from the taxpayers.
One only has to visit our recycling depot, safe injection sites and crack dealerships in East Vancouver to see that generations of “helping the homeless” has actually encouraged more people into this life of squalor. What those in the homeless industry don’t realise is that the short term gains from giving things to the homeless has the long term consequence of producing children addicted to substances under the poverty line.
Good stuff Sean. I had a sibling in your former siuation.(on the streets in Toronto)We tried to help, but in the tough love worked for him…he’s doing well now.
It is about choice, it is possible to get out of the gutter. The nanny state only makes it harder to get out.
Had a roommate that drank a lot, tried help him and understand him, he just drank more. Kicked him out and he damn near froze to death on the street, three years later he has a home and a job, says hitting bottom was the only thing that saved him,said he saw the truth. The majority of politicians do not speak the truth, they only say what they think the people want to hear, and to be politically correct is to be a liar. Lying helps no one. I believe a lot more ‘suffering’ people will rise from their bed of needles because you told the truth Kate.
Hullo, Mugs!
( Apologies for slow response- this darn blog software does not notify me, like forums do– I’m not rude, I just didn’t “hear” you… )
Regarding this?
I suspect that fella’s a Troll– you know you are getting over the target when you start drawing flak, and when SDA is “speaking Truth to Power” ( as our stateside leftists like to intone ) they come out of the woodwork.
It’s a simple fact of human behavior that when you subsidize something, you get more of it. Like “free” needles attract the doper population to an area.
It isn’t nuclear physics or quantum mechanics– you GrandDad- or mine– would look at this stuff and mutter “damn fools- what did they expect would happen?”
station 20 west should never have even been considered i lived in the inner city for most of my life …finally got out…..the organization who was putting it up are crooks…Quint and Chep…they have taken low income families and placed them in houses that should be condemmed and then tell them they are home owners and the government..aka Mr.Calvert just keeps giving them money for all these projects…and when they fail who pays?….we do tax payers…ya its not nice to say drug addicts, hookers ,junkies…but drive down 20th you will see it for yourself i am so sick of dillusional ppl…the hood is what it is ..S20w would have been destroyed within the year