As the weather breaks, it’ll be interesting to see how the City of Yorkton goes about solving the issue of road maintenance. Driving is akin to navigating your way through a minefield. Fixing the many, many potholes requires money and depending on who you talk to, the city is pretty much tapped. It’s still too cold to do anything about it now, but hopefully in the near future we won’t be bouncing up and down through the corner of Darlington and Dracup on a daily basis. What a disaster that four-way stop has turned out to be. I could identify more problem spots, but that would take up the rest of the article. I think we could all name a few. Road improvements are needed.
Chad Nehring has always been a class act, but it was personified even more over the weekend. The Springside/Yorkton product is playing in the American Hockey League with the Hartford Wolfpack. His club was in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania for a game on Saturday night and he made a point to track down 15-year-old Mackenzie Flett. Mackenzie is from Yorkton and plays hockey for an elite team in that city where former NHLer Kerry Huffman is the coach. Take it from me, a person who lived far away from home at a young age, that it’s nice to see a familiar face from home when you live so far away.
Toronto Blue Jay outfielder Kevin Pillar is out with a strained oblique after he endured a powerful sneeze over the weekend. Is it just me or do baseball players get hurt too easily? I remember as a kid reading about Wade Boggs straining his back while putting on cowboy boots. Marty Cordova missed time due to a scorched face from a tanning bed. Former Blue Jay Glenallen Hill fell out of bed and crashed onto a glass table while having a nightmare about spiders. My favorite, though, is Jason Kipnis straining his hamstring while stretching to avoid straining his hamstring.
I’m hardly one to lead by example when it comes to following traffic laws, but I feel it’s important to give a shout out to the Yorkton City RCMP traffic officers, who do an excellent job. By the way, I haven’t noticed any traps in the city for quite some time. On Sunday, I was out and noticed an officer hurrying to the rescue of an elderly person who, possibly, suffered a medical emergency while driving. I also noticed ordinary citizens oblivious to what was happening around them and not making it easy for a cruiser to respond. When the lights (or cherries as I like to call them) are on, you need to get out of the way so they can reach their destination quickly and safely. In particular, if you are at a traffic light and you have a green light but there is a police car fifteen feet away approaching the red light, you should yield before you proceed. Like I said. I’m no expert when it comes to a lot of things when it comes to driving, but keep this in mind. It may help save a life.
Police in Fort McMurray are issuing tickets for $172 if patrons of Tim Horton’s stop on the road to wait in line at the drive-thru. The same could be done in Yorkton. I’ve seen vehicles clog up Broadway. If you have done this and haven’t received a ticket, you are fortunate.
News outlets reported on a protest in Regina over the weekend about police brutality. There were 100 participants. If 100 people went to a regular public event, does it even register? 100 is insignificant in a city the size of Regina and I will re-iterate that I just don’t see police brutality as an issue in Saskatchewan, or even Canada. I’m not saying it never happens, but when you factor in the number of officers with the number of calls received in this country on a daily basis, it’s just not an issue. We should hold a rally thanking the officers for keeping our communities safe. I shudder to think what it would be like to live in a city where the law is non existent or corrupt.
There has been some resistance from folks who don’t like the concept of bill C-51, which is, widely, known as the federal government’s anti-terror bill. The bill, though, isn’t just about terrorism. It’s about granting greater powers to police authorities to target activities that could undermine the security of Canada, as well as activities detrimental to Canada’s interests. Paranoid people will tell you this is a bad thing and that government agencies will now be spying on you while you make supper. This, of course, is utterly ridiculous. I’m okay with government agencies pooling their resources to better grasp who is in disagreement with fundamental Canadian values. There are terror outfits who may do a good job of hiding from certain law enforcement agencies, but if something suspicious pops up with Revenue Canada at tax time, then I think it’s, perfectly, fine to share that with a department like CSIS. All this bill really does is close a few loopholes that prevent bad people from being caught.
Nice person mentions this week to John Arnott, Mike Reagan, Garth Hilts, Trevor Hove, and Nolan Johnson.
