(This column was published in the North Shore News on Feb. 11, 2004)
Wrath at Grapes costs tax dollars
By Leo Knight
Oh Canada!
Man, what a week for the home and native land.
From the outset, Don Cherry, the mouth that roars in sartorial splendour every Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada - oddly enough, the only show on CBC that routinely gets above "hash marks" in the BBM ratings system - makes a seemingly innocuous comment about the wearing of visors in the NHL and within days the big bureaucratic censorship machine of the federal government creaks into action.
Cherry, the love 'em or hate 'em, bombastic hockey analyst, is again being pilloried by the oh-so-politically-correct national broadcaster for being, well, politically incorrect.
Now, Grapes getting called upon the carpet of CBC's head of sports programming, Nancy Lee, is nothing new. He was chastised last year for having the temerity to state publicly his support for the American efforts in ridding the Middle East of mass murderer Saddam Hussein. But his remarks drew the attention of something much more insidious. And this used to be a free country with the right to free speech. Evidently no longer.
The phrase that caused the furor when he was speaking about the wearing of visors was: "Most of the guys that wear them are European or French guys." Hardly earth shattering. But, into the fray jumped the commissioner of official languages, Dyane Adam. And with her, came the full weight and resources of her not unsubstantial office with its 30 full-time investigators.
A spokesperson for the good lady said, "The commissioner feels it is a serious enough issue that she will investigate." Serious enough for her and her 30 investigators. Get serious!
Did I mention that the commissioner of official languages has 30 investigators and was probing Don Cherry for suggesting the French hockey players lean towards wearing visors?
Now I read all of this in a variety of newspapers and even watched the story told with alarming seriousness on CBC TV news, so I'm pretty sure it's true. By all accounts, it would seem that John Cleese and Eric Idle had nothing to do with writing the storyline, although this ranks right up there with the skit for the Ministry of Silly Walks.
It's stunning that we have a federal commissioner of official languages. However, I had to get a spatula to scrape my jaw off the floor when I read she had a staff that included 30 investigators. That is twice the size of the general investigation section of the North Vancouver RCMP detachment that investigates actual crimes. It's twice the size of the sexual offence section of the Vancouver Police Department that actually investigates rapists, perverts and pedophiles.
But this is all pretty much small beer. I mean, how many taxpayer dollars could she waste every year? Three, four, five million dollars? More? Maybe as much as the $14-million budget of the Organized Crime Agency of British Columbia that targets actual gangsters.
It's a mere bag of shells really. Hardly anything for the really ambitious in our federal government.
Ah, but this blatant stupidity and frivolous waste of our money is nothing compared to things like the gun registry and the sponsorship scandal story just breaking in Ottawa on the weekend.
Speaking of the gun registry, a regular reader sent me a story published on May 14, 2002, in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix that just didn't get the national play it so richly deserved. It states: "It was funny when the gun-control geniuses in Ottawa registered a hair dryer as a firearm. It was funny when they registered an electric soldering gun as a firearm. It was not so funny when they registered three pump-action shotguns and a 9-mm pistol to Canada's most infamous gangster."
The story was talking about Quebec Hells Angels Nomad chapter member Maurice Mom Boucher. A billion dollars wasted to "keep Canadians safer" and these bureaucratic buttheads allow the most visible gangster in Quebec to register his weapons?
Well, if ever the bureaucrat who did that is held to account for that madness, he or she could always apply for a job in the office of the commissioner for official languages. The madness there continues unabated.
Oh Canada! We hold our wallets open for thee.
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