Musings by Rod McQueen Blog

The secret’s out

Whatever happened to budget secrecy? Here we are on the day Finance Minister Jim Flaherty brings down his budget and we already know that he will announce an end to the immigrant investor plan, legislation for better consumer prices in Canada versus the U.S., as well as more money for skills instruction, infrastructure projects and the auto sector. And, oh yes, there will be an overall deficit, supposedly the last for the Harper government.  And I read all this in my morning paper, as supplied by officials in the know and the minister himself. Time was when a journalist who...

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Funny money

We’re all trying to get used to the new polymer currency, battling with bills that stick together, and worrying about them melting in a parked car if summer ever comes. For my part, I’ll accept the Bank of Canada’s claims that the bills last 2-1/2 times longer than the old cotton-paper series. Over time, we’ll learn if they really are difficult to counterfeit. And yes, we’ve joined some 30 other countries using polymer. I’m fine with all that. What bothers me is that we’re stuck with portraits of people that can only be described as duds on each of the five...

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Where’s St. George when you need him?

What is it about TV personalities that makes print journalists go all weak at the knees? The profile in Saturday’s Globe and Mail about Arlene Dickinson, a panelist on CBC-TV’s Dragons’ Den, is positively fawning. Yet it’s written by Jackie McNish, one of the paper’s hardest-hitting investigative journalists. Dickinson is so deft at what she does that she cries while telling McNish about helping an entrepreneur. The article ends focussed on Dickinson’s napkin, still moist from the tracks of her tears about someone else’s travails.  Gad. Nowhere in the profile does it say that precious few of the “deals” that...

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Three’s not even a crowd

I saw a statistic recently that between 1892 and 2012 the stock market rose 9 per cent a year. I thought that was a huge annual increase, far beyond what I’d ever heard before, so I asked a group of friends who have worked on Bay Street for their thoughts. Yes, they said, that sounds about right, but don’t forget that’s a gross number. You have to subtract fees, take account for inflation and pay taxes. The real number, net, net, net, as they said, is more like 3 per cent annually. Three per cent! Such a low result came...

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Scots wha hae

Flush with success in the early going of his mission to Israel, Stephen Harper has announced that his next sortie will be to Scotland. “There are five million Canadians of Scottish origin. We hope to snare all of their votes,” said a spokesman for the prime minister who asked for anonymity because of his Irish roots. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, not wanting to fall behind in the global quest for popularity, said he will travel next week to the Philippines to shore up support through the families of nannys working in Canada. The prime minister’s trip to Scotland will include...

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A horror story

I’ve just been reading a horror story and it’s not by Stephen King. The title is “The State of Ontario’s Indebtedness: Warning Signs to Act.” Published by the Fraser Institute, you can read it here. Let me summarize it for you. Every year Ontario runs a deficit and that loss does not go away. It gets added to the debt. No surprise there, but no one seems to be paying attention. Certainly Ontario Minister of Finance Charles Sousa seems content with the way things are. But compared to California, which is supposedly a basket case, we’re far worse off. Ontario’s...

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Hopes, dreams and aspirations

Rather than make foolish predictions this year, here’s the top seven things I’d like to see:  1. The Ontario Securities Commission charge some high mucky-muck we all know with a criminal offence, rather than just the usual passing parade of small-fry pump-and-dump artists. 2. The rear-end of Rob Ford in this fall’s mayoralty race. No apology required when he exits public life. 3. Prime Minister Stephen Harper offer the same loyalty to staff and MPs that he expects from them. 4. Well-written stories worth reading in my local papers. 5. Tolls on major Toronto roads to raise revenue and reduce...

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The crystal ball revisited

Time to revisit the predictions I made a year ago for 2013. You can read them here or believe me when I describe them. My first idea was so far off base I got both parts wrong. I said that Sandra Pupatello would be chosen leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and be defeated in an election later in the year by Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives. Of course, Kathleen Wynne got the nod, there was no election, and Hudak doesn’t look like he will ever win despite the government’s multiple failings. One wrong. Second, I said that the the all-new...

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Disorder of Canada

When the Order of Canada was launched in 1967 I had the naive notion that it would honour only a select few deserving Canadians. After all, the high-minded motto is Desiderantes Meliorem Patriam, which can be translated as, “They desire a better country.” How many people could pass muster to make it over that stratospheric bar? Well, it turns out, quite a few. Another in the semi-annual list of honorees has just been released and there are far too many names announced that don’t deserve such status. Indeed, the number of winners is beginning to be embarrassing. While the top level,...

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Christmas wishes

With grateful thanks at Christmas to my faithful readers. I hope that 2014 will bring you good health and good humour.

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The Wynning card

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Christmas card this year bears not your usual photo. Typically, there’s the elected member, a cheerful and long-suffering spouse of the opposite sex, a couple of cherubic kids, and the requisite Golden Lab. In Wynne’s case, this first family is like no other ever seen in Canada. In addition to Wynne’s two daughters, a son, son-in-law and two granddaughters, there’s also her female spouse, Jane Rounthwaite. The two women have been married for eight years. It would have been oh so easy for Wynne to have used instead a portrait of herself or a still from...

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Brothers Plumbing

Some tradespeople are better than others, some charge more than others, and some charge the earth. Brothers Plumbing, 130 Osler St., Toronto, falls into the latter category. I’ve used the firm before so Brothers was my first call recently when I had a running toilet. Marcus replaced the flush valve and flapper. Since he was already at my house, I thought I’d have two other small jobs done at the same time: replacing leaky pop-up plugs in a tub and a sink. Big mistake. Turns out Brothers charges by the job, so I now had inadvertently asked for three jobs....

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The Lambert legacy

Amid the flurry of  skyscrapers rising in Toronto, there are precious few architectural gems. The only eye-catching designs are the L Tower by Daniel Libeskind at the Sony Centre and the Absolute World condominiums – aka Marilyn Monroe – by Yansong Ma in Mississauga. I spent 90 minutes recently rediscovering the Toronto-Dominion Centre and have decided to anoint those six buildings as Toronto’s best design. The trouble with the TD Centre is that’s been around for so long that everyone takes it for granted. It nearly didn’t happen and the fact that it exists at all is due to the vision...

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How to save National Post

On September 17, 2001, I was fired from my position as senior writer at National Post. I was just back from holidays, and not a little shocked. But many others were sent packing that day, too, almost one-third of the entire newsroom staff. At the meeting to inform all of us, Editor Ken Whyte praised our skills and said that no more talented group of journalists had ever been assembled. Then they told us to go back to our desks where we would find that email and other computer access had also been terminated. We had two hours to gather...

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The Campaigns

Last night’s launch of the five-part documentary series The Campaigns on CPAC was excellent. Entitled The Great Free Trade Debate the first episode covered the 1988 election featuring party leaders Brian Mulroney, John Turner and Ed Broadbent. Beginning with a recent campaign was wise; next Sunday’s goes all the way back to 1917. In addition to excellent footage and production values, there were insightful interviews from various Mulroney spear-carriers including Harry Near, Hugh Segal and Marjorie LeBreton, all of whom told me things I didn’t know. For example, after Turner topped Mulroney in the debate, Norman Atkins advised Mulroney to...

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