Author: Doug Rutherford

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Still Waiting for Reassurance…

I asked for  clarification in the ongoing question about “special” waste storage and asked if our neighbour actually had a permit to store it here, as well as why the department would issue one in the middle of a residential neighbourhood. The answer I received was to contact the director of environmental protection.

However, I discovered that trying to get hold of a government department director on a Friday is not an area where one counts on success. I left a lengthy voice mail with his phone, but have  not yet received a response.

Part of the yard across the street.

Now, the neighbour has gone a bit weirder on us. He’s run a rope across the front of his driveway with bizarre things across the front. There’s some chairs, a vacuum, an exercise bike and a toilet seat tied to the rope. I’m not sure why the rope is there. I’m really not sure why the toilet seat is there. I am sure, though, that I don’t want to know why there’s a package of tampons on each of the chairs….

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No Reassurance Yet

Well, in continuation of our last post, I did get an answer from the office of the Minister of the Environment Department. We were looking for reassurance that the guy across the street wasn’t storing hazardous wastes in the neighbourhood.

I say “hazardous” for the purpose of clarity. Here, the government refers to these as “special waste,” since the old term sounds dangerous and you wouldn’t want to needlessly worry if some were to spill. The newer one, “special,” just makes them sound… well, special.

The only problem is that their answer really isn’t reassuring at all. When the response about potentially storing hazardous waste is that “he has a permit.” Ahhh?

My hope, and we have asked for clarification, is that the answer is not as well worded as it could have been, or maybe a little more generic than it was intended. I am, of course, working on the assumption that the Environment Department would not issue a waste storage permit for the middle of a residential neighbourhood. Of course, making assumptions is never a good practice, is it?

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Our Neighbour Does Match a Certain Stereotype, Doesn’t He?

Looking across the street is a lot like watching Deliverance. We have been trying for three years to get the current tenant across the street to clean up his property. Sadly, this is a losing battle on several levels. The neighbour is running a recycling/dump service/used car business in a residential neighbourhood.

We have made several attempts to have something done through the Maintenance Bylaw and the Zoning Bylaw, but there has been no success. Keep in mind that he previously lived about a mile away and his previous neighbours complained for almost ten years to get that place cleaned up. By the way, the owner sold the property so he had to move before the City was capable of making him clean the property.

What is he like? Well, he’s had about 50 tickets issued against him in the last two years. Yet, here’s what you face when you give him a ticket. He’s from Texas and, as has been mentioned in previous court appearances, believes that he just living his lifestyle. The fact that 7 or more of his immediate neighbours might complain about his property at least weekly is their problem, not his.

The interesting thing is, it doesn’t matter how many fines he gets since he doesn’t own the property. If he doesn’t pay, it just gets added to the property tax bill and the property owner is impossible to find, in Alberta, and his daughter. In short, going to the landlord is not an option.

We have a new ploy. We’ve asked the environment department to guarantee that he is not housing hazardous waste on the street. This was put to the Environmental Protection department and the minister four days ago. Unfortunately, there has been no response. Another request was sent this evening. If there is no answer by Monday, we’re going to ask the new premier and the press why the Minister and the department aren’t answering us.

How bad is it? He moved in after the previous tenants were evicted by the territorial government. If we’d known what we were getting, most of us would have fought the eviction. After all, a crack house was highly preferable to the current neighbour and the particularly telling point is that doesn’t bother him at all….

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I’m a Little Tired of Senate Whining…

Could we stop talking about the Senate? The embers of disbelief from the Prime Minister appointing three losing candidates to the Senate are still cooling. Now, with the Ontario provincial elections on, we have the Liberal Party screaming to have it abolished.

Let’s just take a quick reality break here. First, the Senate exists by legislation of the Constitution Act (1982) and its previous versions. You want  to abolish it? Go for it. All you need is pass it through the House of Commons and then get the approval of 7 out of 10 provincial legislatures, where those provinces comprise more than 50% of the population. Because that is the only amending formula for a major revision of the constitution.

By the way, you’ll notice that passing it through the Senate is not a requirement. If the Senate does not approve a constitutional amendment, the House can wait 180 days and re-approve the amendment and Senate approval is no longer required.

And, bluntly, don’t think that this sort of thing is just going to happen. Most of the provinces would like to do a bit of constitutional wrangling, rather than one single piece. Therefore, a First Ministers’ meeting on the constitution, or probably several, will be needed to get any amendments going. As we remember from the election earlier this month, the NDP stated that, as part of their platform, they were willing to reopen the constitution in the aim to get Quebec as a full signatory to it. This was criticized by both the Conservatives and Liberal Party. Mr. Harper, in Asbestos, QC, said:

“We are in the middle of an economic recovery and the real priority for families are jobs, growth, affordable services and keep their taxes down and those will be the priorities of the Conservative government, not resurrecting old constitutional debates.”

When we consider that this looks very much like “I’m not interested,” we do have to remember that a politician’s opinion in April isn’t necessary a politician’s choice in May. That being said, we can probably safely assume that a Conservative Prime Minister is not going to do anything that vaguely looks like he’s meeting the demands of a Liberal premier during an election. We all know that certainly isn’t happening…

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Politician Excuses: Revised

For those of you who missed it, there is a neat story running around about George Lepp, a Conservative candidate in the upcoming Ontario provincial election. It seems that pictures of his private bits spent 20 minutes posted on Yfrog, an online social media site, with a link on Twitter. Yes, this is one of those news stories that make you scratch your head. But, as the details come out, more than normal head scratching appears to be needed.

I know, all of you are asking about where the pictures came from or, maybe, why he posted them. Remember that posting the picture to Yfrog and then linking it to Twitter isn’t something one would normally do by accident. You see, according to his campaign spokesman, the picture was unintentionally taken when his Blackberry in was “in camera mode in his front pocket.” Apparently, the next step in this sad tale is that his Blackberry was stolen when he was jostled by protesters and apparently posted by whoever stole it. Notice that there is no dispute on the ownership of the picture’s contents.

OK. The Toronto Sun reported “The pictures — too graphic to reproduce in the newspaper — are of a man naked from the waist down, showing a close up of his penis and his crossed legs.”

So, explain to me the following. First, seeing your crossed legs, not counting anything else, in a picture taken from as close as the contents of your pocket makes me wonder what sort of lens is in a Blackberry camera. I haven’t seen the picture (nor do I want to…) so I can’t really determine if the picture is taken from as close a source as is suggested. Secondly, how much of your skin can you see from inside your pocket? A friend on Twitter said he tried to take pictures of his junk from his pocket with his iPhone but had no success. Obviously, Blackberries are way better than iPhones. I mean, picture the ad: Need to take pictures of your penis from your pocket? There’s an app for that!

So if you think I believe the explanation, you’re a bit off target. I’m a bit unsure how it got posted to Twitter, but I really wonder why someone runs around with pictures of his own bits on his cell phone camera… and, who believes you should vote for him….

Additional Note:

It seems someone has decided that the story was a bit weak so the new version seems, according to CBC, that the ownership of the bits in question is now a mystery. Mr. Lepp’s spokesman is saying that no one knows the source of the picture or how they were posted. The best part of this… same spokesman, different story. Don’t you love politics?

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Retirement Parties

I’m going to a retirement party this afternoon. It’s for three people, and sadly, not one of them is me.

I wouldn’t mind retiring, although I’m still young enough that, if I did retire early, I would take a huge penalty on my pension. Said penalty, by the way, is age dependent and permanent. The age dependent thing isn’t awful to think about, although the permanent bit certainly is.

And, there is the double whammy thing happening, too. Clara retired on January 12th. Fortunately, that’s long enough ago that she’s stopped gloating for the most part. I can live with the odd little zinger sent my way. You know, complaining about how cold it is when it hits -40 and then saying, “Oh. That’s right. I don’t have to go the work this morning… but, you do.” The worst one was, “Do you know the hardest thing about retirement? You never get a day off from it.” I’ll concede that the last one made me go down to the basement and have a little cry…

So, I’m going to head upstairs to the cafeteria in a little while and give best wishes to the three people who are getting ready to move on to better things and are not taking me with them. But, really, I’m still not ready to retire. After all, I’m still, for the most part, having fun. Notice I did qualify that with “for the most part.” However, the college is kind of neat in that the things that happen that aren’t fun are always really entertaining….

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Got Me a Hot Date

Woo hoo! I got me a hot date. Don’t tell my wife…

Actually, my hot date is with the knee surgeon. I’m going back for another scope and debridement (no, this has nothing to do with divorce) on June 7th. My last one was 3 years ago and probably represented about a year of no knee pain at all for the first time since about 1970. No, it’s not the replacement I was told I needed in 1985. Instead, it’s the 6th repair job on the same knee and, while I’m happy I’m getting something, I’d much rather be getting a new knee than a duct tape and baling wire job.

That, sady, is not going to happen soon, though. It’s not that I don’t need a replacement, but rather the lifespan of a replacement and the cost to the medical system of having it done. See, right now, a replacement knee lasts between 10 and 15 years. Apparently, as my surgeon tells me, they last even less time if you use it as a knee. (By the way, that is my plan. No, I’m going back to downhill skiing or anything along those lines, but I would like to go back to biking again.) As things presently sit, replacements done again do not last as long as the earlier ones too. Therfore, if they replace my knee now, they will probably have to replace it two more times afterwards. Yes, it also costs the territory about $15,000 each time.

One would think that wouldn’t be an issue. However, we recently made national news with the story of a man waiting two years for a hip replacement. The reason given is that the territory only does six hip replacements a year because of cost.

Even if I do end up on the waiting list, it will be about tw0 years before I actually get my knee replaced. Considering a first appointment with the orthopoedic surgeon took 14 months and can take up to 24, needing joint surgery here is a lengthy process. Of course, a lot has to do with the problem that the surgeon has to come up from BC to do clinics since we don’t have one here. And, this is the part I don’t really grasp. When I first wrecked my knee, Sydney, NS had a population of less than Whitehorse does now. Sydney had a greater outer area population, but we also have the rest of the territory as potential clients too. At the time I was injured, we had three orthopedic surgeons living and practising in Sydney. Sadly, the territorial government doesn’t seem to understand why we don’t have one here, although expecting the current government to have a clue (hey, our premier is a convicted heroin dealer, after all) is apparently more than one could hope…

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Memorial Service, Part II

As I have mentioned previously, we went to a friend’s memorial service on the weekend. It was quite well attended and was a very nice service. Emile Aubichon was 52 and killed in a motorcycle accident. There was a large number of friends, family, friends of family, and the biker community turned out in large numbers as well.

We met Emile through his brother and sister-in-law. I worked with both at the college, and Clara worked next door at the Archives. We would go to the Kopper King, famous in Stan Rogers’ song, on Thursday evenings for cheap beer night. Shortly after this tradition started, Emile showed up as well. He was a good friend, lots of fun, and despite his quite large size was really nothing more than a big teddy bear. I think it was almost impossible to not like Emile. Even after most of us stopped going to the KK when its food and service deteriorated badly and the realization set in that their cheap beer night wasn’t cheap, I’d still run into Emile around town and we’d hold long gabfests in parking lots or Tim Horton’s.

So, several of have gotten together and decided that his memorial service, regardless of how nice and well run it was, had to have a Part II. After work Thursday, we’re heading over to the KK for a beer or two in his memory. No, not everyone will be there, but if you knew Emile and can make it, we’d be glad to have you.

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New MPs

I am  suprised by the number of people who automatically assume that the NDP will fail as an official opposition party. Interestingly enough, almost no reason is given for this presumed failure… and when one does show up, it’s usually that their MPs don’t have a great deal of experience.

I find this particularly strange since all of the other parties have a number of new MPs. For example, the Conservative Party has  37 new MPs, 22 from the province of Ontario alone, yet no one is saying that the party will fall apart because of their inexperience. The Liberal Party has only 2 new MPs out of 34 seats, but they have far greater problems than inexperience on their back. The Bloc has a single new MP,  but that also represents 25% of the 4 seats they hold. And, of course, the Green Party’s single seat is also filled with a new MP.

So, why would inexperience be an issue? Policy is not set by new MPs, but rather by the parties themselves. And, it’s not like all of the members are new, just as is the case for all of the other parties (other than the Green Party). All parties have methods for ensuring the training and indoctrination of new members into parliamentary procedure and function. The House itself also runs training for new MPs. It seems strange that people would put forward a reason for poor performance that crosses all party lines.

Actually, I don’t have an answer as to why the NDP would perform more poorly than any of the other parties. Let’s be honest. They do have a leg up on other parties. For example, the Liberal Party doesn’t have a leader (and the last one they had wasn’t even capable of defending himself against out of context or just invented slights put forward by the Conservatives, so would hardly be capable of running either an opposition, or heaven forbid, a federal government). Yes, he did teach at Harvard but is a perfect example of where book smarts don’t work out in all contexts. Worse yet, the best bet for an interim leader, Bob Rae, probably won’t garner any more respect than Michael Ignatieff or Stéphane Dion. If they make him permanent leader, my first assumption is that the party won’t exist after the next election… if it does before the next election.

One thing to note. A number of those new NDP MPs are currently, or were currently, political science majors. This probably gives them far more insight than new MPs with a background in business or law. I’m expecting the NDP will do an excellent job at holding the government accountable, or at least as good a job as any opposition can do against a majority government. At the very least, since I haven’t really supported any particular party for the last 10 years, I’m willing to do the responsible thing and at least give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, it seems to be a better approach than whining, which has been far more prevalent…

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A Nice Weekend

A long weekend is always a good time to head out of town and enjoy the fact that we live in a beautiful place. The weather was less than perfect. Saturday was far and away the best weather day of the weekend but we spent part of that day in town. We went to a friend’s memorial service for part of the day. There was a great turnout and it was a lovely service.

Sunday and part of today, it rained, quite hard at time. However, there were still some high points.

sunset image
Sunset, 11 PM.

For example, we had a marvellous sunset on Saturday evening. The sky had turned a neat shade of red and yellow and the sunset picture had a lovely view of the horizon over the ice and some open water. The additional bonus is that this sunset happened at 11 PM. It is late May and there is still almost a month left until solstice. So, there is still an awful lot of daylight left to add.

The lake, as you can see in the picture, is still largely iced over. Some of this is not really solid and much of the lake cover is more like a slushee than ice but it will still be a week or two before anyone gets to throw a boat in and do a bit of fishing . I’m still trying to figure out how my knee surgery will fit into the lake’s schedule but we will see. I have to get the boat inflated and put the floor boards in and then configure the trailer since that has yet to be done. I also have to determine whether or not the bloat will function with the motor as a long shaft or whether I have to remove the adapter and convert it back into a short shaft. And, since I can’t take any real vacation until after June 1st to make sure that everything gets done, this may not happen.

So, when will I get out next? Ryan’s grad is next weekend so we won’t go anywhere then. Therefore, we must wait and see, wait and see…