Democracy of Hypocrisy

The citizens of Windsor made good on their promise to clean up the Ford Test Track today. As organizers and crews converged on the park, so did pro union citizens, many from different unions that are not on strike; I being one of them. Mike Morency, the organizer of this event, had some words to speak to the people before the clean up was to commence. They were planning to cut the grass, however, the police informed them that they would not be allowed due to safety reasons and for fear of confrontation. Mr. Morency was called out on only doing this for publicity as speculation arises that he wishes to run for city council in the election next year. A question which he quickly shrugged aside. Mr. Morency says that he supports the union and had only planned on cleaning this one park, yet on his facebook group it has come to light that they are planning to clean more city parks. Over all, there were no physical fights, just angry words exchanged between both sides and when I finally left, a small crowd of people were left, along with the police.

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In your seemingly heart felt gesture to organize and clean up the parks of the city, you are also performing work that is done by workers who are on strike.I don't know what has happened to this town; historically, we have been a union city and people seemed to care about one another back in the day. Nowadays, we have the ME generation, those only concerned about themselves, the same people whose fathers, mothers, uncles, grand fathers etc worked in one of the automotive plants or other unionized trade shops in town. But something has changed, suddenly we unionized workers are the enemy and are the endless targets for people to blame. With the strike by the city workers going into its seventh week, the anger and frustration has made many organize an event for Saturday to "take back our parks". Ordinary citizens of Windsor are heading out to the city's baseball diamonds, the soccer pitches and other parks to cut the grass that has grown as some would say, waist high. They will be picking up the garbage and making sure that things will be safe for the kids.

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Link: http://www.windsorstar.com/Business/Operations+risk+without+concessions+Ford/1636703/story.html

First they came after the Chrysler workers, renegotiated the contracts to lower costs,filed bankruptcy, then they went after GM workers, lowered costs, probably filing for bankruptcy, and now, Ford has lined up to the trough to syphon off costs. Ford, of all companies, the one who said they didn't need any government loans. But now, a company spokesperson has said that operations are at risk unless the automaker can secure further concessions from the workers.

“In order to maintain our automotive manufacturing presence in Canada we need to take action to improve our competitiveness and we can’t wait until 2012 when it could be too late to close that gap

said Kerri Stoakley.

Interesting turn of events,for a company that said it was still viable, it seems that what the others got was too good to pass up.

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Link: http://www.canada.com/Loan+warns+home+grown+terrorism/1635686/story.html

It seems the United States has infected Canada with it's mass fear and paranoia as Minister of mass panic and fear mongering Peter Van Loan today says that the home grown terror threat is still real. Taking a play out of George Bush and co's play book, the Minister has reminded us Canadians that the boogeyman is out there, waiting to strike at us Canadians.

I do want to caution people that they would be naive to believe that these threats of terrorism are behind us

Thanks for the heads up, I'm sure most of us have forgotten by now, even though there are daily reports of terror threats and how we need to tighten our security, along with selling out the country to the yanks.

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The United States and Canada have struck a deal which would see the US Coast Guard operating in Canadian waters and the RCMP operating in the US waters should the need arise. Known as the shiprider program ( you know these things always need a cool name), these new rules are intended to improve the ever popular word SECURITY and to eliminate grey areas that both sides have faced in the past, such as either side having to stop at the border and call in the other country for help.

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It looks like the bulls may soon be on parade yet again. Count Michael "Iggy" Ignatieff and the non Conservative Conservative Stephen Harper are talking smack like they are in some kind of pre-fight press conference a la Mike Tyson/Lennox Lewis. Ok ok, maybe not with all the expletives and hysteria but nonetheless it's entertaining in it's own right. Harper says that if the Liberals want to "fight" an election, the Cons are ready. The issue? None other than Employment Insurance, or perhaps its because Iggy is doing well in the polls, hmm, talk about timing eh. Just what we need, another election, this dysfunctional parliament should have it's own variety show because the comedy is top notch, however, I do not believe that we need to go to the polls again.

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Link: http://www.windsorstar.com/Mediator+leaves+town+sight+city+strike/1588833/story.html

Negotiations between the city of Windsor and the outside workers broke off Tuesday leaving no end in sight for the strike which has dragged on for five weeks now. The mediator, who was brought in on Monday has left town and the residents of Windsor are showing increased frustration and a total lack of decency by continuing to dump garbage and other household junk along the streets and fields of the city. There are no new talks scheduled and Mayor "Fast" Eddie Francis said the city will contemplate new plans to deal with the mounting refuse but couldn't offer a time frame of when those plans would be available.

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The UAW is fighting for it's members future in North America as GM plans to outsource and shut down plants in its bid to restructure. GM wants to outsource production to Mexico and Asia and it has caused a stir within the UAW who believes that

"This is really about the shape of GM in the US and its foot print in North America in the future," a senior UAW official who asked not to be identified told AFP

The UAW strongly objects to GM's plans because it basically means that GM's manufacturing will shift from North America to places like China, Mexico, Korea and Japan. The UAW also believes that if GM will be given government money, that they should keep plants open in North America.

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As per usual, Dalton McGuinty has yet again stepped up to the plate and hit the ball way out to left field, way way out. This time, the Ontario government has decided that even though the legal blood alcohol content level is 0.08 as per the criminal code of Canada, anyone caught with levels between 0.05-0.08 will now be considered to have broken the law and will be given a 3 day license suspension, even if it is your first offence. The kicker is that a person will not be able to appeal the decision made by the police officer who happens to stop you. No due process, none. If caught with a similar level of booze in their system a second time, their licence will then be suspended for 7 days and the driver will have to attend an alcohol education program. A third time will get you a 30 day suspension complete with the remedial alcohol treatment program and an ignition interlock condition placed on your licence for six months. Previously, drivers received only a 12-hour licence suspension for blowing a blood alcohol level between 0.05 and 0.08, no matter how many times they were caught. Keep in mind folks, this is for those caught below the so called legal limit, so it seems there are now two legal limits which makes no sense but more about that later.

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