Richmond Hill is a city in Ontario where 162-thousand people live and, evidently, precious few of them care enough to speak up on a couple of things with their municipal government that have come to light with me in the last week. In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, banning prayers at city council meetings, one councillor thought it would be a good idea to sing O Canada at the beginning of each session. Well, he was outvoted 5-4 because the lyric ‘God keep our land glorious and free’ could be deemed unconstitutional. There you have it folks. Our own national anthem is offensive to the citizens that call Canada home. Apparently, to the majority of the 162-thousand that live in Richmond Hill, anyway.
But, hey, who’s calling Richmond Hill normal? This is also a city government that has banned the use of the number 4 in all street addresses too because the number, in Chinese, sounds like death. In fact, one realtor went on record and said he’d have a hard time selling a home if the address was 4. He estimates a home in Richmond Hill that already has the number in its address could sell for as much as $35,000 less than market value just because the buyer is superstitious (I’d also like to add coo-coo). While 4 is bad for Asians, it has spread to Caucasians in Richmond Hill too because they have a lot of friends who are Asian, according to this realtor.
I was messaged a radio clip (editorial) on Sunday from a friend of mine in Swan River, who wants to apologize on behalf of that community to the owners of a fast food establishment in Yorkton for one of their citizen’s behaviour. The radio clip is from a wannabe big time radio executive type who was, possibly, bullied as a kid (but I’m no expert) so he’s using his position as a real small time player in a small community to push around those who don’t know any better. The long and the short of it is that he held up the drive-thru line and kicked up a toddler like tantrum until he was refunded over a small portion of his order that he may or may not have received. To this, I would like to extend this apology that was forwarded to me, but I’d also like to say that even though Swan River is a very small community, it would be in their best interests to ignore this person, who has been known to cause issues from time to time just to make sure people in town are talking about him. There is no better way to combat a person like this than through complete ignorance. I won’t even dignify his name in this column and I won’t speak of him again. He’s not worth it to me. I hope business owners in Swan River recognize aligning themselves alongside his brand through advertising could send a message to potential customers who are not enamoured with this person’s behaviour.
It does remind me of the time I was working for Fox FM and I was doing a remote broadcast in Swan River and this same person called the police because I was disturbing the peace by playing music from the Fox over the speakers from the vehicle that was parked in front of the street. If you know me, you know I don’t intimidate well in situations like that. I didn’t turn it off. I wasn’t issued a ticket either. I think I, maybe, turned the speakers around to try and appease him. Anyways, recalling that event gives me a chuckle. I need to go to Swan again sometime soon.
This is a PG rated newspaper so I won’t repeat the obscenities that were hurled at a Toronto television reporter while she was covering a soccer game, but suffice to say justice has been served as the $107,000 a year salaried Hydro One worker has been canned from his job for detrimental conduct. People will say what you do on your own time shouldn’t matter when it comes to the work place and I can’t say I disagree more. If I owned a business and had an employee do something that could damage my company’s income, I should have a right to terminate. If he was a city bus driver and people refused to get on his bus because of what they have seen on the news, the city has a right to eliminate him from the work force. He’s a hydro worker who could come to your house to do work. Would you be comfortable with him there knowing he doesn’t hesitate to use those sexually explicit comments? What if he had an urge to act on those comments? The employer should have recourse and I’m glad, in this case, they did and used it.
Nice person mentions this week to Brendan McGuire, Gerry Vandane, Marty Sveinbjornson, Krista Ruf, Kelly McTavish, and Evan Taypotat.
