Bread and Circuses

Stephen Harper is talking about maybe funding infrastructure projects for sports arenas – because he’s the hockeyest prime minister in the history of ever! Never mind that we’re facing critical shortfalls in our knowledge infrastructure, we don’t have any real rapid transit in this country, and our competitiveness is dangerously low – but we need more sporting arenas. What’s that line about bread and circuses again?

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and the former head of CSIS are off to Australia to learn about asylum seekers and human traffickers – because they can’t stop whipping up a moral panic about our asylum process (and Tamil refugee claimants in particular) apparently.

In the wake of the current round of parliamentary trips taking place, there are reminders about the dangers of sponsored trips from other countries, who might use said travel to try to influence politicians to their particular points of view. Of course, being as our MPs have no budget for international travel, it makes it hard for them not to take up these travel offers if they want to find out what’s going on abroad. But hey, what’s knowledge when we’ve got a bottom line to worry about, right? Perhaps we need a better balance.

What’s that? Harper barred local media from asking questions at an event on the west coast? You don’t say!

Oh, look – Statistics Canada’s own internal study shows that a voluntary survey would be less accurate than the mandatory long-form census. But hey, it’s not like this government actually listens to things like data or experts when they’re doing what they feel is right.

Apparently RCMP Commissioner William Elliott can do no right these days, as he is now being criticized for wearing a uniform – along with a gun – during a visit to Afghanistan. Remember that Elliott is a civilian with no firearms training. This is not only a breach of protocol, but one has to wonder how insulting it might be to the front-line officers who had to go through six months of training to earn the right.

While I refuse to feed the media frenzy around that Florida pastor’s now-aborted plans for this weekend, I will however indulge Scott Feschuk’s witty riposte to Stephen Harper’s two cents on the issue.

And finally, Heather Mallick of the Toronto Star details her own sordid history with Fox News and its viewers, and talks about why Sun TV News is a very bad thing for Canada.