Oh, where do I start when it comes to Justin Trudeau this week? Another ethics violation, that makes two since he took office in 2015, and that makes two since he declared he’d do politics differently and hold himself to a higher standard than what Canadians have come to receive from their politicians. As it turns out, he’s been far worse than any other Prime Minister in 152 years.
Trudeau says he accepts full responsibility (most people would issue their resignation in assuming responsibility) but he disagrees with a lot of the report’s conclusions on his judicial interference regarding SNC Lavalin. Huh? He’s not sorry either because he says it’s his duty to stand up for Canadian jobs (those of us that live west of Quebec know this is a lie) and there were no jobs at risk anyway.
What many people aren’t aware of is what SNC Lavalin is charged with doing. It’s alleged that they funneled $160-million in kickbacks to a Libyan dictator (Trudeau likes dictators) to finance the debauched lifestyle of the dictator’s son (superyacht, prostitutes, porn films, nude dancers, private jets, and redecorating of a penthouse suite in Toronto). So, Trudeau’s argument that he was saving jobs by ensuring a deferred prosecution agreement is like saying it’s okay to run an organized crime outfit because it keeps police employed. It’s nonsense. Trudeau knows it. He’s hoping you, the voter, will buy it. And, it falls in line with everything Trudeau has ever done. He has split us all into tribes and then he says favorable things about some of us, apologizes to others for injustices that occurred way back before our grandparents were even born and he hopes it will earn him future votes down the road from those he’s talking to. So far, it’s worked. I’m pleading to Canadians to be smarter than this. He is the worst Prime Minister we’ve ever had. Has to be. I will guarantee you four more years of him and this country’s destruction will be complete. We are on life support now.
The impact of social media was felt this past week in our city as an issue that has dragged out for a couple of weeks played out on CTV and, perhaps, resulted in the firing of the local CTV reporter. It all started when someone found a wallet in a business parking lot. The person who lost the wallet was thankful for having it turned in, but also posted on a Facebook page that she was disappointed money was missing. As you can imagine, that’s a bad look for the Good Samaritan, so from there surveillance footage was somehow released for the entire world to see (the nice lady didn’t take the money) and that went bad too as it infringes on privacy and a store’s security camera footage really shouldn’t end up on a Facebook page either. So, enter the local CTV reporter who did, what I thought, was an amazing story that laid out facts in a very concise manner and allowed the viewer to draw his/her own conclusions to this mess.
One day later, the CTV reporter was fired and she posts on the same Facebook group page that she was told ‘Yorkton isn’t W5’ and since she was on probation her employer didn’t really need much more of a reason to bid her farewell. I’ve seen her dismissal letter and there is no mention of a reason other than because she’s on probation they can, basically, do whatever they want to her as far as continued employment. If, in fact, this story was the reason they let her go that’s very disappointing. While we may be Yorkton, that doesn’t mean ‘W5’ type stories don’t happen here and it doesn’t mean our general public doesn’t have a large appetite for what I call ‘real news reporting’. My personal opinion is that I’d rather have this consumer type of news story as opposed to a camera person being stationed outside a young man’s home to get footage of him being collected by police and taken off to jail (which did happen very recently).
For me, I find the entire thing is hard to understand. She isn’t in charge of airing the story. If that was the reason for letting her go, shouldn’t someone else be on the chopping block too? Either way, why not put an actual reason in her dismissal letter? To basically say ‘we are firing you because we are allowed to for no reason’ seems odd. Nevertheless, I think a great deal of mental anguish has been inflicted on numerous individuals associated with this story and yet here we have Bell Media promoting a day of mental health every January despite the fact broadcast companies are notorious for being big offenders at inflicting mental stress on their employees and I continue to see precious little as far as real action on their behalf to improve working conditions for media people.
Moral of the whole story seems to be this - if you see a wallet on the ground. Leave it there. What a society we’ve become.
Some of us are nice, though. Including: Bryce Sherring, Bill Chow, Kelly Klisowsky, Megan Almasi, Ashley Caouette, and Chantelle Washek.
