CALL IN THE ROBOCOPS

 

To Catch the RoboCallers.

Galagher – ‘tell us what you really think about this Robocaller nonsense’.

I do think in many respects that it is just nonsense – I call it a prank albeit a serious one that sadly needs to be dealt with.

I say nonsense due to the fact that we in this country have many truly serious issues to deal with – as do all other countries but it never seems to fail, we continually get distracted by the minutiae.

In that respect, I would give Robocalling a 1 in the scheme of things in contrast to the 10s I would allocate to our debt situation, the aging of the Boomers, the green energy fiasco, the desperate need for cheap energy on so on.

I blame the opposition parties for once again making an issue out of nothing.  I guess it is easier for them to deal with trivial matters.  The problem with that though is we all suffer in that it takes away from the truly important issues.  We have seen it time and again – regardless of which party is in power.  As voters and as citizens we should all be appalled.

That said, I still believe the Robo Issue needs to be addressed now that it has become a matter of public concern.  In democracies we need to be fully assured that our system is free from manipulation, even of the prankster variety.

I’d make it Elections Canada problem to deal with – that is what they are there for.  If their investigation determines that their is sufficient truth to the opposition complaints – then call in the Mounties to do a full scale criminal investigation.

To waste everyone’s time with the expense of time and money on a Commission of Inquiry is stupidity in the extreme.

Further, Elections Canada is now on notice that this type of thing may be happening so they should get into the modern age and come equipped to deal with these types of complaints at future elections.

Two can play at Robocalling – the Robocaller and the Robocop.

Harper and company have taken the approach I have recommended above and for that they should be given the benefit of the doubt.  If Elections Canada does investigate and finds that his party or any other party for that matter, is officially involved – they will have some serous explaining to do and hopefully some serious fines to pay.

All this though reminds me of times past when local parties of all stripes engaged in some very questionable activities come election time.

Booze was the biggest culprit and not in the sense of having consumed too much but that was indeed a problem.  It was handed out like water to prospective voters in the hopes of securing votes for their candidate.  When I was a young conservative the going rate was a mickey per vote.

The locals were also quite adept at ‘reverse canvasses’  - this would take place when the other parties went around delivering pamphlets to the various door steps and putting up their signs – these guys and gals were followed at a safe distance by a competing team who deftly went about their business gathering up these self same pamphlets and taking down those self same signs.

Everyone grumbled about it but no one lodged a complaint because these nefarious activities were universal.

And the stories – one in particular comes to mind:

This chap and his wife each voted for another party. Come election day, the husband asked his wife to go down into the root cellar to fetch something.  As soon as she got off the latter – the husband shut and locked the door and left her there all day until the polls closed.  I forget whether or not their marriage survived but it likely did given that there was less divorce back then. They certainly became legend.

I must confess that I did something along those similar lines.

On one Election Night I received a call from a voter who said he would go and cast his vote for the Tory –only if I drove him to the poll.  A vote is a vote so off I went.

When I got there he introduced me to his new common law wife.  My mind quickly went into overdrive.  ‘Would you like to come and vote too” I enquired.  She responded by saying her hair “was a mess” but I persisted and she finally agreed to go with us.

It was at this point, while putting on her coat, that she admitted she would be voting for another party and would therefore “be cancelling out her husband’s vote”.  I was sick – here I came all this way to realize a vote for the good guys and now I would be taking along a voter who would only neutralize it.

My mind swung again into overdrive.  “Perhaps your hair is a bit of a mess” I proffered, “you would not want to go out not looking your best”.

She readily agreed – the day was saved, or should I say vote.

Looking back to those days, I have to wonder if we’d have used Robocalling too, had it been available to us?

It would have been wrong to do then – it is wrong to do today, but in the scheme of things there are far more important things our Elected Officials need put their minds to.  Leave Elections to Elections Canada.

As I see it…

‘K.D. Galagher’

I Feel Betrayed....

Dalton McGuinty told me so and now I find out from Don Drummond that it was all a lie.

I would have been inclined to think Drummond was the liar, except for the fact that McGuinty now says Drummond is the one telling the truth. Imagine.

What a fool I've been.

A little history.

Readers will know that prior to the last Ontario Election I was an outspoken critic of our Premier - the Rt Hon. Dalton McGuinty. It will therefore come as no surprise that I did not cast my ballot for his candidate in my local Riding.

Once the Election was over however, and he was returned to power , I accepted my fate and indeed conceded that the Electorate At Large - EAL - knew better than me and therefore I turned my thinking around 180 degrees. McGuinty had been correct all along.

When he said, as he did in the many months leading up to the last Election, that Ontario never had it so good - post Election, I realized that the man knew of which he spoke. When he said manufacturing was booming in this Province, that new jobs were being created all over the place - the guy had to be right and I had mistakenly voted against him.

When he told us Green was good - that it not only saved the environment - but created 000's of new jobs - post election, I was now on side. The People had spoken and who was I to go against the grain.

Hydro rates too high - it was all nonsense.

Ontario's new Have-not Status was good for us since it provided us with Transfer Payments from the Feds for the first time in our long and distinguished history as a Province.

I could go on and on - but you are smart readers and will by now have gotten the drift. I was wrong to have suggested Dalton was lying - oh sorry - misleading us - he was right and I was wrong and the EAL could not - nay would not be fooled and saw the Premier for the upstanding gentleman that he was.

I say 'was' because again - that was then and this is now. With the Drummond Report - commissioned by the Premier and accepted as fact by the self same Premier - we now find out that I was right in my Pre-Election Suspicions all along.

Simply stated - the Province of Ontario is falling apart economically.

Unemployment is up - manufacturing jobs are becoming as scarce as hens' teeth. The Debt / Deficit is running out of control.

Indeed stats show that Ontario's financial situation is worse than California's a State that is considered for all intents and purposes as bankrupt. And not only that -our total debt is about $250 billion - just slightly less than Greece and yet our populations are similar. We are quickly becoming the Greece of North America.

I can feel some smirks out there - "exaggeration" I can hear some of you saying - but we'll not have long to wait to see how much of an exaggeration it is. The Ontario Budget will start to set the course to a leaner, meaner Province. And the Budget after that and the one after that will continue full speed down that road to solvency.

But just think, had Dalton and company started on this conversion earlier - say in his first term - how much less pain there would be.

I think some believe that I want to see Ontarians / Canadians lose their benefits but, in fact, the reverse is true. I want to see us all hold on to as many benefits and entitlements as possible, realizing that in order to achieve this - some restraint is needed on the part of each and every one of us. The longer it takes to seriously address our fiscal imbalance, the greater the loss of these benefits and privileges will be.

Dalton McGunity and his cohort have fiddle away years in delaying action but more sadly, they have gone off on expensive tangents - such as his Green Energy Program which has made our Debt Situation even bleaker, all the while encouraging business to move elsewhere to escape dramatically rising energy costs.

So I feel betrayed - but not surprises.

As I see it...

'K. D. Bell'