The Saskatchewan Government recently announced a fairly bleak financial picture and a couple of major reasons as to why that’s the case are: the continued low price of a barrel of oil as well as the increase of people using social programs. Once again, I come back to the same thing I’ve harped on a number of times in this column: we need more people paying tax, not the same ones paying more. The best way to do that is to, actually, cut social programs and get people back to work. And, I’ve expressed concern right from the get go on the government’s budget being based on a $56 barrel of oil. As of this writing, we are at $48. We are going to need a number of months of oil to be over $60 in order for reality to fall in line with the April projection and I just don’t see it happening. Get ready for even more financial pain in this province.
In Australia, government has banned construction of a synagogue over fears it could be a terrorist target. In fact, they called the risk ‘probable’. So, keep this in mind the next time you are asked to be tolerant. The message in Australia is fairly simple - be tolerant of a violent religion and don’t provoke them. We will not even ask them to be tolerant so we can live together in harmony.
Montreal’s Olympic Stadium is being used to house an influx of asylum seekers and to the best of my research, it appears the majority of these people are from Haiti. They had been living in the United States on a temporary protection status after an earthquake in 2010. That is set to expire in January and our Prime Minister, who says Canada is wide open, has become the new home hope because the States are getting set to send these people back to Haiti in 2018. This isn’t a surprise. It’s been the plan all along. But, in an effort to stay, people are now leaving the US and crossing into Canada, even at ‘irregular’ (our government’s word) border locations. To help you understand, ‘irregular’ means ‘illegal’. I’ve read a number of stories that tug at the heart strings but the fact remains that these people were accepted on a temporary basis. That was clear. For them to try and establish permanent roots and now cry foul doesn’t get sympathy from me.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders lost 30-15 to the BC Lions on Saturday night and it was 30-0 with about four minutes remaining and Brandon Bridge came into the game and threw a couple of late scores in garbage time to make the score appear closer than it really was. Bridge may or may not be the future at quarterback for the Riders, but I don’t know what the team has to lose by finding out now. The club is 2-and-4 and the upside with Kevin Glenn doing it is, at best, a playoff spot. The upside with Bridge doing it may not be a playoff spot but rather peace of mind of knowing the quarterback position is in good hands for years to come. The down side would be that Bridge isn’t good enough and the search continues. Either way, this team needs a quarterback that can lead them for the next number of years. Glenn isn’t it. We don’t know if Bridge is it, but playing him would give us some answers.
In Virginia, organizers have disqualified a team of 12-14 year-old girls softball players after they won their semi-final game and then one of the girls posted a SnapChat photo of the team and six of the girls were flipping the middle digit at the camera. While this shows very little in the way of class, I can’t say I’m in favor of disqualifying them. The host committee deemed the post inappropriate and said the picture violated terms of sportsmanship. I believe we will see a day when a softball team wins a lopsided game, say 16-1, and they will be disqualified for running up the score too high when it wasn’t necessary. I just think when you are playing competitive sports, this is part of life. It wasn’t long enough ago that I forget what it was like to be a 13-14 year-old baseball player and I can tell you, with absolute certainty, I would have run a fastball into the ribcage of one of the players who flipped the middle bird if I was in this situation. But, alas, we can’t do that anymore. It’s even more likely, players would know beforehand that if they gave the finger to the camera, there would be consequences from the opposing team’s pitcher in the final and it never would have happened at all.
Some moron has done a study that says eating patterns of cats and dogs in the United States can have the same kind of effect on the environment has 13.6-million cars a year. The answer is simple. It’s time to ban pets. Hold a massive killing in order to save the world. Who funds this stuff? Even worse, who decided it needed publicity? If Trudeau gets a hold of this, we are likely to see some sort of carbon tax on having a pet.
Nice people this week: Bev Lowenberg, Cherryl Kotzer, Denine Rundel, Curt Nordin, and Phil Devos.
