How Many Times Do I Have To Tell These Idiots - I am the Winner!

When I was about 7 or 8, there was a kid at school who had the best stuff. An only child, everything he had was new. I remember this, because everything I had was hand-me-down. It didn't bother me much - it also meant our garage was full of kid equipment - but seeing a kid with a new baseball bat or a new bicycle still poked at that little part of my heart that once, just once, wanted to clip the tags off of something.

Of course another kid having new stuff was nearly as good. You can hardly play baseball or tetherball on your own. So Robbie would swan into the school yard with his new stuff, and if he wanted to play, he had to let us play too. The fact Robbie was lousy at sports wasn't lost on us; but we wanted to use that stuff, so we let him play. Unused to not being the best (only kids, by default, are the best in their households), he'd sulk and pout and eventually take that shiny stuff and go home. We'd shrug, and go back to our worn out leather mitts with someone else's name written on them, our bats that weighed enough to take out a burglar's lights (my Dad told me that was why he kept that bat beside the bed), and our crappy little softballs with the unraveled stitching.

Robbie believed that if he left, the game was over. He was wrong. But I do think I need to go check my class pictures more carefully, to see if Robbie grew up to be Prime Minister. I had a little deja vu this morning as I read Stephen Harper's remarks about 'losers don't get to govern'. With talk of a coalition heating up again (you know, that majority of voters who didn't vote for Harper) as opposition parties dare to discuss - gasp - getting along. Harper has reminded those of us who forgot our schoolyard days that 'winners are the ones who form government'. I love his phrasing. It is most excellent. I haven't rolled such a stupid statement around in my head since George W. reminded us he was the decider.

So we get Harper being both the decider and the winner. And we all know what happens if those 'losers' get a little too stroppy for Harper: he cancels the government, takes his bat and ball and goes home. To a place where he is still the best, still the smartest, and still gets all of his artwork hung on the fridge.

Such a proud moment for Canadians, as their leader conveniently points out the winners and losers for those of us unfamiliar with the democratic process. And it's a good thing he was saying all this with Britain's recently installed new 'winner' by his side, who has taken giant strides to working with the 'losers'. Starting with not calling them losers, I'm guessing.

Stop pouting, Stephen. It's almost as unattractive as proroguing parliament.

Totally Disgraceful

I want to be upbeat and optimistic. Really I do. I'm looking out my window at the same sunshine you are.

But the past few weeks have seen my mood change from troubled to livid over the things this Canadian government is doing, and how Canada is being represented around the world.

It's bad enough that the immigration minister, Jason Kenney has seen fit to foist his own prejudices and intolerances onto official notifications sent out on behalf of MY country. The actions of the status of women minister, Helena Geurgis, are beyond the pale. Scroll down for my diatribes on this dyanmic duo.

But catch the news today: Harper, using all the wisdom he can keep in a one inch square box, has decided that Canada's role in aiding and assisting women and children in developing countries will not include any birth control.

No, at the G8 and G10 conferences set to begin, "International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda pointedly left birth control off the list of aid projects the government intended to support, saying that “saving lives” was more important than family planning."

Oh, my. It's not bad enough that we are having this conservative family values garbage crammed down our throats here at home, now we're going to export this dangerous, judgmental and heinous practice into developing countries? If this feels like a re-run, you're right: It's what George W. Bush used his power for when he wasn't clearing brush on his pretend farm in Texas.

How dare you administer to the health and well-being of women who have no access to those services that would make their lives better - that would save their lives and those of their children? How dare you not make available to them the ability to make choices which very much mean the difference between life and death? It was been proven over and over that when women are given education and medical services, they overwhelmingly create stable homes for their children, and take control of how many children they have.

In countries around this world where rape is a tool of war, and patriarchal societies force women into dangerous, unwanted pregnancies, how dare a first world country go in to help and not give these women all the tools they need to allow both them and their children to thrive?

And are we truly sending in someone like Bev Oda, who was so ineffective in her last portfolio - wait for it - Status of Women! - that she was dumped? Bev Oda, she of the 17,000 bucks worth of limo rides she got busted for expensing. How the hell does a woman who insists on carting her arse around by LIMO get to be the one to judge how women in developing nations have to watch their children die?

“We have chosen to focus the world’s lenses on saving the lives of mothers and children,” Oda said. “When we know what we can do by providing clean water, vaccinations, better nutrition, as well as the most effective way is the training of health care workers and improving access for those women, that is what we are going to do.”

Bull. Has it never occurred to these politicians who prefer to see women barefoot and pregnant (must kill them that we get to vote, now) that it would be far more effective if they had to supply these services to LESS people, to more healthy people, and to people who had a hope for survival?

Oh, and Mr. Harper and Ms. Oda? "Improving access" included access to birth control in my book.

And it should in yours.

Canada is disgracing itself on the national stage.

Again.