Hon. Doug Ford,
Queen’s Park,
Toronto, Ontario
My dear Premier Ford:
It’s me again, Sir, your faithful fan out here in the foothills of Ford Nation.
I’ve already written to you a couple of times, first to commend your efforts to return Ontario to the glories of the 1950s, and subsequently to endorse your invocation of the notwithstanding clause to subdue that twit, John Tory, the mayor of Toronto.
A new year is the time for new beginnings, isn’t it? A time to accept new challenges and seize new opportunities.
So, if anyone is interested in a really new beginning in 2019, here is a suggestion.
Why don’t you apply for a seat in the Senate of Canada?
Yes, you can! It is no longer your grandfather’s Senate: a refuge for defeated candidates and clapped-out cabinet ministers and a reward for generous donors to the party in power. But it’s still a good gig, with an annual salary of $150,600 plus expenses and a pension on mandatory retirement at 75.
The headline in Saturday’s Toronto Star made no bones about the newspaper’s verdict on the year that ends today:
“That’s enough, 2018. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
The Star was reflecting on the miseries experienced in 2018 in the Greater Toronto Area, but a similar verdict could be rendered just about anywhere. It was a year to be forgotten, a year when we were pounded day after day by bad, often alarming, news.
Christmas, as many of us were assured as children, is a special season, a time of kindness and generosity, of peace on earth and goodwill to all people everywhere.
That is one of the lessons we absorbed at our mother’s knee. Within a few years, we learned another lesson from teachers who taught us that the American system of government was a model democracy with its checks and balances among its executive, legislative and judicial branches. It is more perfect, we were instructed, than a monarchy or any other system of governance.
“Please don’t tell my mother I’m in politics. She thinks I’m still playing piano in a bordello.” – late Nova Scotia Senator Finlay MacDonald
Politicians, as a whole, do not rank high in the public’s esteem. Most polls bury them toward the bottom, perhaps a rung or two above bill collectors and telemarketers.
The chief rap against politicians is that they say one thing and do another, that they make promises and do not keep them.
