Random Thoughts – The Turning Tide, A Local Masochist, Snow Clearing and More
January 29, 2022
1. Yesterday, I passed by the Central Community Church near the corner of Scott and Geneva. Parked in their lot was a GO bus fitted out to administer poison injections.
The local mainstream media probably reported a flood of activity, but as you can see, there wasn’t exactly a whole lot going on there. The guy in the vest standing at the door looked bored, and the cars parked nearby were probably just from those working inside. A nurse or two, perhaps, along with a secretary. Just waiting in case someone shows up. Hoping someone shows up. Because there’s only so many games you can play on your phone. I also noticed the black SUV parked close by. I suppose a hearse would have been too obvious.
In any event, a short time later, a car pulled up on Geneva. Getting as close to the bus as he could get, the driver slowed down and honked his horn repeatedly. I’ll spare you the stream of profanity he unloaded on the guy in the vest before taking off.
The tide is turning. And not a moment too soon.
2. Yesterday, someone left a voice mail at the house. No, it wasn’t from a telemarketer. It was from Sal Sorrento, the newly minted candidate for the Doug Ford Party in St. Catharines, looking to “chat” about his candidacy. He even invited a call back.
I’m not going to bother returning the call, but if I had been by my phone, I’d sure have given him an earful. The kind of earful he’s going to be hearing over and over again from disgruntled ex-supporters and ex-party members feeling the sting of being so badly betrayed by a premier who sold himself as a fiscal conservative who turned out to be indistinguishable from Andrea Horwath’s NDP.
Sorrento’s timing was equally shocking. Perhaps he hasn’t been keeping up with current events (and I get accused of living in a cave), but Canadians from coast to coast are in the midst of an uprising against the unlawful totalitarian rule imposed on them by Justin Trudeau and his BFF, Doug “Closed for Business” Ford, the man Sorrento is representing and thinks deserves to be re-elected.
Say what you want about Sorrento’s questionable judgment. He must be one hell of a glutton for punishment. But the man’s got balls. Can’t deny him that.
3. Around the same time of Sorrento’s call came an email from CPC (oddly, they’re still calling themselves “conservative”), giving members an update on their internal report analyzing the most recent failed election campaign. Normally, such reports are only for the most senior people in the party, they say, but Erin O’Toole wanted this to be a transparent process. Sure, he does.
The “key findings” are almost comical.
One of the big ones was how far they’ve fallen behind on data. And because of staff turnover, they haven’t had the time to “build the digital foundations we need to win.” Then they talked about how “policies from past campaigns have caused significant and sustained brand damage and reputational harm within cultural and ethnic communities.”
Huh?
They went on to claim that O’Toole asked for a complete analysis of the entire campaign including his own performance. Ever since the election, party members and supporters from coast to coast have been giving him that analysis. Loud and clear. But he’s still ignoring it.
They wrap up the email with a bunch of rhetoric. We are fully committed to making the changes we need to in order to win the next election. We’re going to make the changes we need to win. We’re going to make Erin O’Toole Prime Minister.
The only way Erin O’Toole will ever be prime minister is if he joins the Liberals. And the only way the Conservatives will form government again is when they return to conservative principles. You cannot defeat Justin Trudeau by trying to emulate him. It’s a hard lesson they still haven’t learned.
4. Like most cities in Ontario, St. Catharines has a bylaw requiring homeowners to plow their sidewalks within 24 hours of a snowfall. Yet five days after the recent blizzard, the city still hadn’t gotten around to clearing sidewalks on their own property, even as trucks were going around salting bare streets. Walking down Niagara Street, I felt like an alpine mountain climber. Before bylaw officers go around fining homeowners, I hope the mayor and every member of council are assessed a hefty fine after the abominably poor job the city did. It’s not that we don’t pay enough in taxes.
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