WHERE TO START

This has been another one of those weeks where way too much happened to whittle down this edition of the Real Deal with Don MacNeil, so I have decided to fall back on a old concept (that’s code for crutch) and write about all of them in something I like to call the “Piecemeal with Don MacNeil.”



My Favourite Martin

While Canadian citizen Brenda Martin languished in a Mexican jail for two years, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Helena Guergis, claims she has been doing all she can to secure Martin’s release.

This week it was shown just how much the “Parliamentary Paris Hilton” has been doing (or not) for Martin.

While the Ontario woman has been sitting in jail for a couple years without charge, Guergis came without 20 kilometres of the prison Martin has been held in. But alas, Helena got sidetracked by a cocktail party and never made a promised appointed with the incarcerated Canadian.

Due to her lack of success, and a long held notion that she is in over her head, Guergis has since been taken off the case.

Brenda Martin probably hasn’t noticed the difference.



China Syndrome

Talk has begun about boycotting this summer Olympic games in Beijing. The problem is that none of the talk seems to be coming from the people that matter.

The heads of state.

Yesterday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the UK will be there. French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he wants to hear from other European leaders before he makes a decision. Poland and the Czech Republic have said their political leaders will boycott the Opening Ceremony, but I am not sure what that will accomplish. I have watched an Olympic event of two and as I recall most of the attention is on the field, not the stands.

Canada has said nothing and, maybe not coincidentally, the United States has not issued a position on the subject.

Over 100 dead in Tibet, 700 more in prison and most of country under martial law, says that Canada shouldn’t participate.

I recall something American high jumper Dwight Stones said in support of the boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980:

“There's something about somebody having a party in their front yard and beating up somebody in their back yard that just doesn't wash with me.”



Roy’s Up

The one of the most publicized acts of parental induced violence since the heyday of the Barker Gang, Québec Remparts goalie Jonathan Roy, the son of hockey hall-of-famer Patrick Roy skated the length of the ice in a Major Junior Hockey League playoff game with the Chicoutimi Sagueneens and attacked, without any provocation, Sag’s netminder Bobby Nadeau.

For his part Roy, Jr. was suspended for 7 games by the QMJHL. Roy, Sr., who is also the coach and owner of the Québec Remparts, was suspended for 5. Part of St. Patrick’s punishment may have because he may have gestured to his son to skate the length of the ice and pummel Nadeau, who wanted no part of the scrap and did nothing but cover up.

This might not be the end of this as the police are investigating the incident.

I am not a fan of fighting in hockey. There are those who say fighting is a part of the game, but some of those same people say hockey needs to clamp down on “stickwork”.

That makes no sense.

Stickwork (slashing, hooking, cross checking, etc...) will get you a two minute penalty. Fighting gets you five minutes in the penalty box. Even the game doesn’t think its part of the game.

Also, there is a legal doctrine by the name of 'volenti non fit injuria’. It is a latin term that means "to a willing person, no injury is done". It’s the legal equivalent of “you mess with the bull, you get the horn”.

There is no way Nadeau could be considered a willing person.



Unwanted Advice

The Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, made history by telling a Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, on the eve of a provincial budget, what he expects the province to do with it’s money.

Duncan replied by doing almost nothing Flaherty had asked him to do.

This has been a game of political chicken as most observers feel that this is the Harper government’s strategy to lay the blame for a forecast economic downturn on Dalton McGuinty and Liberal government of Ontario.

The fiscal three ring circus was just the latest chapter in a long running feud between the federal government and the province of Ontario. A feud that had Flaherty, an Ontario MP, calling his home province “the last place in Canada to start a business” which led Duncan to muse that it was time for Flaherty to “stop this partisan nonsense and start acting like a real finance minister.”

After Flaherty’s unsolicited advice was delivered, Duncan delivered his own economic blue print and then delivered what may be eventually seen as the knockout blow.

Following the budget recitation at Queen’s Park, Dwight Duncan suggested that Flaherty is taking on the role of unofficial leader of the provincial Opposition. It was a jab at Flaherty and more importantly, a jab at John Tory. The actual leader of the opposition (despite the fact he still have a spot in the legislature).

Was it Tory, who has suffered collateral damage as a result of this “uncivil war”, who asked the Harper Gang to dial it down a notch or was it that the federal Conservative strategy has not worked in Ontario and is also not playing well in the rest of the country. Politicians, and ordinary voters, from coast-to-coast have started to wonder, “If the Conservatives will do it to them, will they do it to us, too?”

In the end, Stephen Harper may have blinked, and yesterday sent a $706-million olive branch to Ontario for community development programs, public transit projects and to recruit more police across the province.

…and the beat goes on.