Saskatoon has just over 200 thousand People.
This morning on John Gormley Live, it was revealed that the health region hands out about One Million needles a year to drug addicts (double the number handed out in Calgary or Edmonton). It was revealed that about 100 thousand are never returned. It was also revealed that pushers are now providing “pre-loaded” needles … ready to use … and full of juice. It was also revealed that the health region pays people to go around and pick up needles that have been discarded and that City of Saskatoon Firefighters pick up to 3500 needles a month in ground sweeps.
And finally, Regina hands out 2.5 million needles … I’ll say it slowly … 2.3 – million in a city of under 200,000.
Build it and they will come.
Cjunk has more on this quaint little corner of Saskatoon.
Immigrants
Taking the jobs Brits don’t want to do.
Since 2004, when citizens of eight central and eastern European countries were given the right to work in Britain, the number of UK-born people working here has fallen by 500,000, from 24.4 million to 23.9 million.
Over the period, the number of migrants in work, including people born abroad but now naturalised as British citizens, rose by 1.1 million – to 3.3 million. They now make up one in eight of the workforce.
Personally, I’m relieved that Canada’s policy towards immigration has been so open and generous. It is often pointed out that we are not “replacing” ourselves, and population growth is critical to sustain a healthy economy.
This is a point driven home by history, and the sobering recollection of the economic stagnation and mass deprivation that extended from coast to coast in the pre-Trudeaupian 60’s, when Canada’s population was a mere two-thirds that which it is today.
University Heights
Seems a good choice to me. Sociology profs created the blueprint, why shouldn’t they get the credit?
Heston
Reader Tips
Open for Monday.
Pushing Back
Playing hardball … fuddle duddle eh!
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has advised The Canadian Press he intends to sue the national news agency for defamation for a headline it ran on a story featuring controversial comments he made on a home-movie videotape made more than 16 years ago.
“The headline of the article is false and defamatory of Premier Wall and, given the breadth of its publication, is likely to result in significant damage to Premier Wall’s reputation,” says the letter from the premier’s lawyers, dispatched Friday to The Canadian Press.
The headline, published Thursday, referred to the release of a video by Saskatchewan’s opposition NDP that showed disparaging comments from Wall, current Saskatchewan Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski, and others who were working on the 1991 provincial re-election campaign of then-Tory leader Grant Devine.
Update:
Brad Wall announced this morning that he will not proceed with the suit.
So much for growing some.
Free Tibet
Or we keep our 14 year old besequined ribbon twirlers at home;
Come to think of it, it would make a great Olympic event of itself: try to carry a torch (or baton, or any object) 31 miles through a major city, smiling the whole time, while being assailed by an angry mob.
As I write this post the relay is barely half-way across London, and the event is degenerating into what looks like a rolling series of Reagan shootings – someone attacks the procession, 20 policemen jump on them, another one shouts Go! Go! Go! and the torch continues on its way.
Because it’s easy to send completely ineffective political messages on the backs of kids who didn’t get a vote on the venue. “Seldom has so much been seized from so few to accomplish so little.”
Not so easy a symbolic “closing of the ports to Chinese goods”.
“Behind Warrior were the 1,000 horses of the Canadian Cavalry”
A reader sent along a few thoughts with this item;
I served in the Canadian military, and sort of keep an interest in these things, especially Canada’s military history, but I have never read anywhere that a Canadian cavalry outfit was in combat in WW1. One of the last cavalry charges, and perhaps the biggest final charge, strikes me as something notably historic – in any military history. And, here it is that this country performed this, undoubtedly gallant and magnificent, act.
So, why is this not something that is presented in Canadian schools? How come there isn’t some heroic painting honoring this event? It should be one of those instantly recognizable national symbols – right up there with our other great national symbols, like – “We Are Our Social Programs”, and “Our Culture is Multiculture”, etc.
I guess it’s way too late for any of that stuff now.
It’s not too late to pass it along to your kids or grandkids.
Update – andycanuck sends along this link to the Charge of Flowerdew’s Squadron, c.1918.
Reader Tips
Tips thread open. I’ll be out most of the day and next, so things will get pretty slow around here unless a couple of the guest bloggers wish to pop by.
Inside Sadr City
He Said “Mosq**to”, You Said “A Ni**er”
Let’s call the whole thing off.
“a nigger will try to kill you just for a slice of pizza or a piece of chicken…” – Ian Fine, senior general counsel and director-general of dispute resolution at the Canadian Human Rights Commission*
(Source: National Post – April 5, 2008)
This time, it’s the CHRC getting the knock on the door from government officials wanting answers. Questions: does a Tribunal with a 100% conviction rate get a chance to plead guilty? And if a newspaper publishes hate speech when quoting a CHRC official quoting a white supremacist, would the CHRC accept the complaint?. Should ask Macleans about that.
More…
*Editor’s Note: This post was written according to the Warren Kinsella Rule Of Quote Attribution – “We reduce honesty by cutting out the middle man!”
You Know That You’ve Made It As A Blogger
When you publish a post on Nestor Pistor, and Metro shows up in the comments.
Lukiwski – Stop Apologizing
In today’s Ottawa Citizen yours truly has a few comments quoted near the end.
Almost everyone has a skeleton or two inside their closet. But keeping them there, locked safely in the past, has never been more difficult for people in public life, as Tom Lukiwski discovered this week.
The Conservative MP apologized again yesterday for the anti-gay screed he uttered on videotape, 17 years ago, in a political backroom in Saskatchewan.
“I will spend the rest of my career and my life trying to make up for those comments,” he told the House of Commons.
In other news, Svend Robinson was released on parole this week.
Lukiwski, shut up – you’ve said enough. Stop being a chew toy. Give it a month, and even Google will have trouble remembering your name. You’ve spent enough years in political life to know the truth behind “there, but for the grace of camcorder…”
Charles Adler and I are on the same page;
Do I want to spend hours chatting about what a couple of drunken hacks laughed about in private 16 years ago? No. They were getting stupid with each other and some other fellow travelers. They were stupid to tape it and stupid not to trash the tape years ago.
Would it be a stupid move for me to get into public life? Yes it would be.
My honest approach to such stupidity would be covered by certain media types as enabling sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. Why would any intelligent person want to participate in such an intellectually dumbed-down environment as today’s political circus?
Indeed. The chances that anyone who has survived the eyeball-scratching of internal party politics to rise to a position of national prominence without uttering a few politically nuclear epithets is near zero.
This type of indignation is highly selective. For example, I’m described in the Citizen as running a controversial blog, yet there’s a NDP riding association president in Saskatchewan who lists among his “daily reads” the Number One Source On The Progressive Net For The Word “C*nt”[TM].
To date, the NDP’s official party net nanny hasn’t noticed, You’d have thunk he’d have found it whilst surfing. Someone ought to tell him before Lorne Calvert hears about it in the Leg.
Before Corner Gas (Updated)
Thanks to reader Vitruvius;
“Tonight, […] we have, here in the studio, prepared for you a special selection, off of the original vinyl, from the inimitable Mr. Nestor Pistor’s famous Metro on Broadway album, which would have been performed, unless we’re very much mistaken, in the early ’70s. This track is 12 minutes long, 9 megabytes big, and is probably not safe for work, unless like me you are fortunate enough to work only amongst a small group of friends, otherwise you should probably listen to this in a closet at home with the lights turned off, and play something safe at work, like rap. Oh, and also, this is guy beer-drinkin’ humour, so even though it’s pretty good guy beer-drinkin’ humour, if you don’t grok that shtick: skip it.”
Correction – Les Pavelick graces us with a visit in the comments;
Hi,,,,Just F.Y.I.
I started doing ”Metro ” About 5 years before Nestor came around.We are not the same person, I am the original. I did the cotton pickers live from the hat tv show, with host JJ cennon in the early 70’s and am still doing the odd gig. you can check out Metros web site at www.metroscomedy.com/
I am the same metro who did the 11 days from xmas. not Nestor ….I do reside in Sk.
Diboja metro
SDA – Saskatchewan’s Leading Celebrity Site!
The Party Of Robert Byrd
…of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it has been disclosed that 33 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Democrats all, sent a letter last month to Senate Democratic Harry Reid of Nevada warning him that he had better not give any money to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the Hill reported.
Or else.
Reader Tips
Tips for Saturday.
Some Bigots Are More Equal Than Others
Or, as Kathy Shaidle likes to say, “Journalists – our moral and intellectual superiors!”
(Great work, Richard)
Update: I’m told that CTV.ca has quietly cut the offending portion from the tape on their online site. Not that there was anything wrong with it! **** Update 2: Or did they? Others tell me the segment is now intact.
No News Is Bad News
Lloyd’s of London warned yesterday that an absence last year of natural disasters or man-made accidents was putting pressure on firms to reduce premiums in 2008.
The world’s oldest and biggest insurance market said that though the lack of major disasters had allowed firms to push up profits 5% in 2007, underwriting margins were being squeezed.
h/t reader Fred.
“Identity Politics”
… can actually exacerbate suspicion and resentment. If some notional “communities” are being treated differently and being encouraged to cultivate difference for social or political leverage, then getting past a person’s skin colour or place or origin seems more difficult, not less. One is continually being reminded of how different a person is, or thinks he ought to be. A cynic might point out that the racial grievance industry – and the various commentators and lobbyists who benefit from it – depends on people being preoccupied by the colour of a person’s skin. And therefore, one might suppose, there’s an incentive to make sure lots of people are.
You’d Think
“The preceding would be on the front page of the Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail if it were true.”