Abe's Take

I'm Abe Solomon, and I live just down the road.

Done Deal! Two Billion!

by Abe Solomon

Two billion dollars. Yes 'bye.

And my share will arrive in the mail next week you say? And there's lots of fish in Bonavist' Harbour?

Now really. Two billion isn't enough to put a bit of salt beef in every pot. And the gulls all have their eyes on it.

Have the buckets of money started to roll in? Even before Voisey's Bay? And the Lower Churchill? Let me see now. Was it in my lifetime that this was all promised? Or better still, will it be in my lifetime that we folks, living outside Ontario, will see any benefit from it? I'm no more "have" now than I was last week. Does "have" mean the people? The workers? The fishermen? The civil servants? Does being a "have" province mean anything to me?

Premier (call me "Danny") Williams, daddy millions, came back with what we were promised. Or so the spin has it. For eight years. Maybe sixteen, depending on whether or not there's another minority government, whether or not there are any Canadian flags left to pull down, whether or not all the Ontario MPs decide if we have more money than they. Well, not actually more money, just more than we should have.

Here's what Danny is going to do with the money:

	He's going to reduce taxes.
	He's going to take the taxes off gasoline. (Surely, he wouldn't be hypocritical enough to take taxes from the gasoline that WE own to give it right back to us and call it an income tax reduction.)
	He's going to remove the PST from the HST so we'll only have GST, like that other great oil producing province out west.
	All those frozen salaries and wage rollbacks to civil servants that the government has balanced its budget on for the past thirty years? He's going to give that back.
	He's going to raise the pensions of all those civil service pensioners whose pensions are based on the years of wage freezes and rollbacks.
	He's going to make sure we all have private hospital beds.
	He's going to pave every driveway in the province.

Now really. Don't expect to see a penny of that. Drug manufacturers and the makers of expensive hospital equipment will see some of it. Insurance companies will see some of it. There will be cabinet raises over the next several years. Most of it will be saved for the pork barrel.

When asked what he liked most about being Prime Minister of Canada, the most cynical of all politicians, Jean Cretien answered the innocent school girl: Winning elections. And that's the truth of it. I surely do wish I had an autographed golf ball. So, Danny, first of all, has to get re-elected. Learn from the little fella. Hence the pork barrel rather than the salt beef barrel.

Two billion dollars. A drop in the salt beef bucket. It will be at least 16 years before there's any flavour on our veggies, before there's any fat to skim off our pot.

I'm Abe Solomon, and I live just down the road.

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Golf Balls and Apathy

by Abe Solomon

You just gotta have balls to do that.

Folks like me would be on our third year of ten to fifteen by now. But the past Canadian Prime Minister makes a joke of millions of dollars he passed along to friends, for work they didn't do, for a cause that at best is beyond his control and at worse is of his own making.

Scandal after scandal racks Canadian governments. We do nothing. Our apathy is the greater crime. Canadians have always lacked an identify. I think we have one. We are the great white apathy, the country that doesn't argue, the people that don't complain, the most resource rich country in the world with the highest taxes.

There's a vortex in the middle of the country. It's difficult to describe what's getting sucked into that vortex. I'm sure there are great folks there. But money gets sucked there; power gets sucked there; bias gets sucked there. The edges of the country are just hanging on, by our fingernails, with our feet flying towards the centre. Everything around us is being sucked in though: our timber, our minerals, our hydro, our grain, our fish, our energy, and our pride. We're raped, and then told how ugly and useless we are. Occasionally there's a little money tossed on the bed.

So, the symbol of all that, the little fella from Shawinigan, shows us autographed golf balls, just to let us know how important he REALLY is. He pictures himself as the savior of Canadian confederation; the man who putted us through years of threats from his native province. (When the athletes paraded through opening ceremonies at the Canada Winter Games in Corner Brook, Quebec athletes made a point of completely ignoring the Prime Minister. Sixteen year olds.)

We make fun of our gun tottin' American friends, but not even they would have elected Jean; they wouldn't have elected Jean's government after he left; and CNN, the New York Times, CBS, etc., would have the entire government keel hauled several times over. One thing our neighbours to the south are NOT, is apathetic, even though they're pretty bush league in international affairs. They love nothing better than a good scandal. Jon Stewart would have a two hour show. Every day.

I'm done. Go back to your porridge. Talk about hockey, or the lack of it. TSN's Sports Centre runs five or six times consecutively, so you probably didn't miss much by reading this.

I'm Abe Solomon, and I live just down the road.