There is a meme circulating that shows a two-lane highway through a flat wheat field with the caption, “Saskatchewan, social distancing since 1905.” The date refers to when the province, more associated with wheat than people, joined confederation. And anyone who has driven through Saskatchewan recently can tell you there hasn’t been a population boom.
There is a story circulating right now about a truck driver who stops for the night at the only hotel in a small town of Nowhere, Ontario. He walks in and asks to see the room before he rents it and as a deposit he puts $100 on the desk. The hotel owner gives him the keys and the truck driver goes upstairs.
On April 2, in the midst of a worldwide COVID-19 response, the United Nations decided to cozy up to the regime at the core of the pandemic – the Chinese Communist Party. In what many would call a bat-guano-loco move the United Nations has decided to appoint China to a UN Human Rights Council panel. A panel designed to play a role in selecting human rights investigators.
In the doom and gloom health and financial forecasts peppering every news channel and daily media briefing it is tough to think there is any good news out there. Brief moments of levity, like Premier Doug Ford proclaiming the Easter Bunny an essential service, are far too rare – and somehow criticised for making light of something in dark times.
I went for a bike ride to pick up some essentials on Tuesday and decided to take a spin through the Queen’s Park grounds. As I was riding past the east entrance I saw Premier Doug Ford climbing into his ride. I didn’t get a chance to talk to the premier – I kind of wish I did – but I did do something many of us in Ontario are doing right now, I gave him a “thumbs up.”
When Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phillips stood in Queen’s Park on Wednesday to deliver an economic update in place of the 2020 budget he had one job – make sure the cure for COVID-19 isn’t worse than the pandemic itself. By cure I mean the response from an economic standpoint, not the actual vaccination health care professionals and scientists around the world are working on right now.
There was a positive sense of glee across Premier Doug Ford’s face during his Wednesday presser as he spoke of the Beamsville, Ontario distillery Dillon’s. For anyone who has not heard, the Beamsville distillery is changing course somewhat to turn its booze making apparatus into hand sanitizer production. According to reports the sanitizer will be provided for free to health care workers and first responders.
This may be a total shock to my readers, but I am going to say something nice about the Ontario Liberal Party. Right now the number one challenge to Premier Doug Ford’s Ontario PC government does not come from the official opposition – the Ontario NDP. The biggest challenge to Mr. Ford comes from the party of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne – now under new management.
During the 2018 Ontario Election campaign PC Leader Doug Ford said he would open up the mineral and economic riches of the so-called “Ring of Fire” even if he had to bulldoze the road himself. The “Ring of Fire” is roughly 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay and is said to possess multi-generational economic potential. Key finds in the area are chromite, nickel, copper and platinum.
Nearing the wind up of his presidency Barrack Obama lamented he did not do enough to heal partisan woes in the United States. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times he invoked Voltaire, the French philosopher, who warned not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.