'Chain Gang' Tim Hudak - All Lost - Already!

Tyrants are rarely 'true navigators'.
David Held, Models Of Democracy, Third Edition, p. 24

There he was on the Oracle of Ottawa's Sony big screen, dressed up like a burger flipping Temporary Foreign Worker, the Oracle of Ottawa laughed so hard he damn near hurt himself. Then there was that awkward Global Television interview, where 'Chain Gang' Tim just walked off the stage with his doomed lot of spin doctors and fart catchers, all soon to be unemployed. The Oracle of Ottawa won't say that 'Chain Gang' Tim is nervous already, but did you check out the cement bags under his eyes Dear Reader? It appears to the Oracle of Ottawa that something is keeping little Tim up late into the night. What ever do you suppose that could be Dear Reader? And where are the throngs of excited supporters?

'Chain Gang' Tim Hudak - Farewell Tour...

Early into the campaign the laughs are coming a ton a minute. The next clip on the Oracles local supper time news was of Andrea Horwath, complete with the doomed deer in the head light stare. It appears to the Oracle of Ottawa  that some people just don't campaign very well at all. Perhaps her feet are still hurting from that self inflicted gunshot wound of bailing out of budget that appeared to the Oracle of Ottawa that was written by the NDP. Some people can't handle the pressure very well. And the Oracle was mortified when the lost Andrea was appearing in a empty staged event at a Tim Horton's, which appeared to the Oracle of Ottawa to be completely staffed by little TFW people from the Philippines all four feet nine inches each. That will work really good with the union vote!

Then we got to the good stuff. The Oracle of Ottawa is very impressed by the showing of Kathleen Wynne. Damn, she is a natural campaigner. She is like a pink battery bunny with a bass drum. There were no bags under her eyes or any trace of fear. She is on a mission and she even seems to be enjoying it, unlike her two opposites.A lot of people are so called change voters. But not the Oracle of Ottawa. The Oracle picks quality and sticks with it for ever. Ontario has finally got it's own Hurricane Hazel!

It has come to the Oracle of Ottawa's attention that the 2014 Ontario Election has stirred up some very, very large and powerful forces. The Oracle of Ottawa has included a video purpose made from one of the most powerful union leaders in the United States! Leo Gerard from the United Steel Workers of America! The largest all industrial union in America. Only about 860,294 members the last time they counted in 2009. He speaks about one of 'Chain Gang' Tim Hudak's promises of making Ontario a Right to Work province, just like an American right to work state. Doctor Gerard passes on some some chilling information, which you would be very wise to give a listen to...

Canadian Tradesman And The 'Productivity Gap'

A generous person will be enriched, and one who gives water will get water.
Proverbs, 11:25, NRSV

Once a upon a time in Canada it was a really good roll to be a tradesman. This period was the best from about 1950 up to about 1980. The Oracle of Ottawa remembers, for example, how good it was to be a truck driver way back then. Just someone with a Teamsters card driving someone elses gear, was just outstandingly awesome. A lot of guys that the Oracle of Ottawa knew of made more than most lawyers at the time!

Someday soon Comrade!

 Then starting around the 1980's it all took a shit and steep power dive. The big rig union drivers and a lot of other serious well paid trades came in for "Union discipline", and the Oracle of Ottawa has to admit now that it has all been a success. But it is not the success that the upcoming period of  "Management discipline" that is soon going to happen, and will never again stop, will be.

The Oracle of Ottawa snorts in utter contempt, when he sees stories on the old vulgar media, going on about the worsening shortage of tradesman in Canada. Why it is all so bad, that some monster corporations my have to fold up and just go out of business! Well, bring it on! The Oracle of Ottawa will certainly enjoy watching that happen. If the whole god damned greed driven employee fucking edifice collapsed in front of my very eyes, the Oracle of Ottawa would come in his pants, and heartily enjoy it.

Now the Oracle of Ottawa keeps hearing a lot about the 50 billion dollar 'productivity gap'. The one that goes on the most about this is Amanda Lang, which left the Oracle of Ottawa in much distress. The back room Bilderberg Group bastards finally got to her. The strange thing is that if you enter the term 'productivity gap' at Wikipedia nothing comes up! It is not a recognized or notable idea in the field of economics! But what does come up is the well recognized and very cited concept of the Productivity paradox. This concept basically states that with all the bull shit technology, and networking, and interconectedness we should be producing our arses off! But the reality is that as more and more of this useless gadget "innovation" becomes available, the average productivity of the Canadian worker continues to fall! Now the Oracle of Ottawa loves such ignorant economics.

The reality is that no one will come out for trades because there is nothing in it for them. Save and except a crummy job that just might pay, someday, above minimum wage. When, and until,  the situation returns to full union and worker power, it looks like the managers (manglers?) will soon be building all those tar sand structures and pipelines by themselves. You can't unblock a shitter with a laptop and C++, and you can't drive a big rig with an I-Phone. We don't need any more useless innovation, like a soccer ball that generates electricity(?), or the yappings of the likes of the eternally scummy Kevin O'Leary...the "entre-pren-whore". 
 

City Of Ottawa - Free Market Fail?

The most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest. 
Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Buch I, Author's prefaces to the First Edition

When the Oracle of Ottawa first heard of the story on the local vulgar media about the City of Ottawa all but contracting out parking ticket placement on private lots to some company, the Oracle of Ottawa was appalled. The first picture that went through my mind was that often covered story of Ottawa's biggest slumlord, you know the one, that has the appalling third world conditions right here in Ottawa, that not even a City work order can get repaired...I somehow immediately pictured those guys with a City of Ottawa parking ticket hand held! While their tenants were living in water soaked squalor, with the roaches fighting for the kids dinner, there would be a minimum wage minion of a real estate scum lord out ticketing their cars! Who ever in their wildest dreams thought it would all come to this?

The City of whored out souls?

This is all the result of "reinventing government". For all of us taxpayers of a certain age, that are now referred as "old school", traffic tickets and parking tickets were deterrents, now they are part of an ever increasing tax base! One of the end results of this is that all future "developments" are going to be designed on purpose as parking lot hells just to keep the revenue flowing, not to the City, but to the "contractor"! Who ever thought that the Next Big Thing in Ottawa was going to be owning a Bill Collection agency! I am just thinking about that bit that was in the Sun about Ken Hughes and the young lad with the dozen traffic tickets that added up to $117,000. (See earlier postings) Wouldn't it be most prudent and ethical for an entity as large as the City of Ottawa to collect its own bills? You know like it was in the old days, before "amalgamation"?

There is only one thing to call this present situation; market failure! Rest assured dear reader, you will start to hear of ever increasing horror stories in the days ahead. As sure as market failure is inefficient, once the concept of "countervailing power" is ditched it is all third world from now on. It is all but bad enough to have a Mayor with the nickname "Gentleman Jim", the only worse nickname is "One Termer Jim."

Of course it cost the City "nothing" of 2.5 million dollars? We have many public housing units that could use serious renovation. And that rub of a corporate entity, that can park itself right on the doorstep of the Municipal Government power, leaves me feeling very uneasy indeed. But I guess, that is the subliminal message of the present "burgers" of Ottawa to the world, we have our price, and it is not very high....

Ottawa IKEA Monster Store Opening - Total Fail

The essence and composition of external bodies are so obscure, that we must necessarily, in our reasonings, or rather conjectures concerning them, involves ourselves in contradictions and absurdities.
David Hume, A Treatise Of Human Nature, Book II, Part II, Section VI, p. 366

The guys in marketing are scratching their heads in amazement and shock. They did everything right. They made sure that the new store was grossly over size and a definite blight on the neighborhood where it was built. They made sure that the color scheme was offensive to the locals. They threw their weight around with the City of Ottawa by strong arming in a monster digital bill board just to make sure that every one, even those that couldn't care less, knew that the big bad IKEA was in Ottawa.

Never got touched...

Then the lads at marketing really turned the screws and made sure that the opening of just another monster blight box store became "news" in all the local Ottawa media markets. You know the ploy. Planting advertising in local news casts as news instead of as advertising. With the present situation of the arrival of the 'Harper Government' and the attending horseman of the New World Order, the people in Ottawa totally rebelled and totally rejected the tactics. As they worry for the future and the fact that they may have to become skidmark IKEA shoppers themselves...

An underwhelmed OPP traffic cruiser at IKEA opening...

 It was in the local vulgar media, starting at lunchtime, firstly on the local CTV lunch time news cast. It was a laughably sheepish talking head, that for the life of her, could not find one good thing to say about the total fail. The expectations were for thousands and thousands of customers panting and foaming at the mouth to grab the least scummy third world produced detritus. The only people that slept out over night (!) for a good place in line seem to be the planted marketing types to get all the latest intelligence from the proles, that failed to show up! The Oracle of Ottawa just loved it! There were installed lines of pylons to marshal the rabble, that never showed up. Acres of empty parking. Valuable Police resources were on hand from the Ottawa Police Department and the Ontario Provincial Police standing by on the Highway 417 to control the access ramps that were surely to be backed up, standing around like vagrants ditched by the Conservative Party of Canada with their collective thumbs up their bum's! It was along lonely day...

A total doodle of a day, like it never happened!!

The train wreck continued on the all the local evening hour broadcasts. The thousands predicted became a modest five hundred people. The Oracle of Ottawa can reassure the good readers that this figure was totally wrong! The actual figure was more like 175 - 250, including all the called in employee families and spouses. The sound of the logo'd plastic clappers was slightly louder than one hand clapping.

OPP code 3 response to boredom in progress at Ottawa IKEA opening. Well actually, it was the Timmy's run of coffee and donuts for the lads so they wouldn't fall asleep from the non-event.....

Jim Watson's Burgher Summit

In society the values of freedom and democracy are accepted as the norm. In contrast, the relationship between employers and employees is based on the subordination of the employee, and this is the source of conflict.
Larry Suffield, Labour Relations, Second Edition, 2008, p. 9

If the buses stop rolling, Gentleman Jim's political career is over. If you don't believe that last statement is true, just call up Larry O'Brien and ask him! So when the Oracle of Ottawa got the first word that the Mayor of
Ottawa called the interested parties to lunch to hammer out the recent kinks at OC Transpo, the Oracle of Ottawa figured that His Worship would come to his senses and employ some of the perquisites that comes with his office. And let the Oracle of Ottawa tell you dear reader the mayor of Ottawa has a very nice office! I can say that, because quite simply, I have seen it! Ensuite shower, lots of room(s), and there are several very nice conference rooms nearby that would provide a most congenial setting for the breaking of bread in a most collegial atmosphere. Considering what was at stake, if the Oracle of Ottawa was holding this event, it would have been somewhat understated epicurean! I mean considering the money at stake, what is the pocket change for the services of a decent executive caterer?

Some management styles don't work very well...

But alas no, the squeaking little man opted out for burgers at Wendy's? The party included His Worship, Diane Deans, present transit chairwoman, union boss Gary Queale and aide, and that vertically challenged acting mangler of OC Transpo, one Alain Mercier. Later in the day the press conference appeared on the local vulgar media. The Oracle of Ottawa caught the CBC local version. One can learn a lot from not only listening but from watching. The real leader in the group is Gary Queale, when he stepped up and took over the mayors lectern with both hands, (!) all the players watching now knew who was really wearing the pants, so to speak. The shocked look on the Mayors face was priceless. It was brilliant proof that Mr. Queale was not from CUPE 503! Then came that little insect manager, who realizing he is hanging by a thread, was doing the French bullshit hand ballet...the Oracle of Ottawa immediately concluded that he is toast. That guy looked like some one from history, I just can't place who, but it is really creepy...

Adrien Arcand looks a lot like....

This is the same manager that was caught dead to rights texting / talking and driving a short while back. End result nothing! Catch a union card carrying bus driver on video talking on a cell phone dead heading an empty bus and you would think the guy was Adolf Eichmann! The person hurt the most by all this is Diane Deans. There will be no more approaches by any political party for anything. All the hands at the City know that many many longer serving people have been ditched "under the bus" so to speak for so much less than what some of these pathetic alleged "managers" get away with...Credibility once lost at that level is all but unrecoverable.

One ponders the mystery of the destruction of once promising careers by the unfounded faith in a little pathetic skid mark that is more suited to running a wall mart in Mexico... I will leave that to you the readers and the hapless taxpayers...

We used to have every reason in the world to be proud of our bus system, is this string of events a neo-liberal case of starve, kill and privatize?

A Street Car Named Desire - Ottawa Style

It was sex, violence, crime, craziness and filth - all in one package.
Hunter S. Thompson, Hell's Angels, p. 23

Every wally, trot, skidmark and prep in the City of Ottawa with a camera phone thinks he and / or she or "it"  is freaking Cecil B. DeMille! But this story has nothing to do with that. This story is about one of the most blatant and basest "labour consultant" hatchet jobs that the Oracle of Ottawa has ever had the pleasure to witness. The said video of the incident has been attached below. Take a moment now to peruse it. All you can see is some pathetic skanky geek whispering into the "alleged" bus drivers ear. You hear a voice of a very annoyed person, sight unseen, giving the said pretty geek the verbal lashing of a lifetime, no doubt from this viewers position, very well deserved. Another day in the big city. You got a problem with that?

Now just another shit job...

You can see the blatant foreign American consultant influence in the said video. It is all engineered to help the pathetic come to a easy, snap, confident decision of smug guilt of the "alleged" bus driver. This came about no doubt from the recent utter trashing the City took at the bargaining table recently. Did you see Jim "Alcibiades" Watson in the local vulgar media announcing the contract? The Oracle of Ottawa watched very closely. One has to admire Gentleman Jim's greatest talent as a small market politician; that of being able to speak coherently while grinding his teeth! I started to count the days before the face saving incident would come to light. The Oracle of Ottawa was not to be disappointed.

An OC Transpo driver familiar with the "alleged victim" told the Oracle of Ottawa by phone, that the said driver in the video, that was unseen in the video, was constantly being harassed by the pretty "alleged victim" attempting to get the said "alleged" driver to provide the main musical instrument for a skin flute concerto that the young pretty thing was dying to perform for the pleasure of all involved. It appears that the "alleged" driver did not have the said and desired instrument available, clearly and in no uncertain terms. Good man!!

Alcibiades and"friend"...

According to the brilliance of the Oracle of Ottawa the only "crime" here is that of the pretty "alleged victim" harassing the operator of a commercial vehicle. See the Highway Traffic Act!! The driver was protecting the safety of his vehicle and his passenger. So? Do you have a problem with that? Didn't think so...

What I am really disappointed about is the reaction of the Mayor of Ottawa. It appeared to the Oracle of Ottawa that the said "alleged" mayor came to a very fast and certain decision of guilt in his twitter message. Perhaps someone in the "alleged" mayors office should gently persuade the said "alleged" mayor that people as intelligent as he is should not "twitter". Only twits twitter. Lets face it people. The present "alleged" mayor of Ottawa has been a dismal fail. The only good thing to come out of this is that there is not recall legislation on the books! The Oracle of Ottawa is now going to make it official. Gentle Jim is but a one termer or less.

And the Oracle of Ottawa will tell you who could possibly be the next Mayor of Ottawa. Ottawa needs some royalty, from Ottawa, not some altar boy hick from the boonies! Someone from a legendary Ottawa family, yet someone that has grown out and alone from his famous fathers shadow. The Oracle of Ottawa really likes the thought of Ryan Keon as the mayor of Ottawa. The Oracle of Ottawa like many citizens of this once fine City is tired of being embarrassed by out of town hay seed hicks.

A great set up job! One of the best I have ever seen....

Air Canada Strike - Really Starting to Smell

There is arguably something wrong with a method of persuasion that cannot pass the test of publicity.
Randal Marlin, Propaganda & The Ethics of Persuasion, p. 166

Once upon a time in this country, for a Minister of Labour to refer to the Canada Industrial Relations Board was a last resort. It was only invoked by the Minister when everything else had failed and the situation was on the verge of escaping control that would have an adverse affect on the security and economy of the nation. This happened in the past on things such as rail unions and longshoreman unions that could really shut down the whole country! Clearly with this recent Air Canada pending strike this is not the case! For a Minister of Labour to go to the CIRB for any other matter was and is tantamount to screaming out loud "I am a Shit Poor excuse for a Minister of Labour!" "I am in so over my head, that I just don't have a clue where to begin or end!" And it is clear that is the case with the present Minister of Labour Lisa Raitt!

Lisa Raitt - Much thinner now....

You would think that someone who articled in the freak'in Middle Temple in London England, the veritable seat of the Common Law as we know it and claims to have specialized in arbitration, no less, would be able to call the two parties to her office and settle this in 20 minutes! Air Canada no longer has a monopoly over air transport in Canada. Canada is an "open skies" area. The right wing interpretation of economics states that the "invisible hand" will make everything all right. The claim that a strike at Air Canada will bring down the Canadian economy is a barefaced lie! There are a multitude of choices to be had.

Again it is another demonstration of the 'Harper Government' interpretation of the invisible hand and the philosophy of a hands off economy. You see, they interpret it differently. The invisible hand is only for the pigs in suits i.e. the managers, if a bunch of working people collude together in a legal trade union, the 'Harper Government' blue suited fat pigs will cut your hands off!! This is the demonstrated interpretation of the 'Harper Government' hands off economy!

With Lisa Raitt as Labour Minister - Wait for it!!

The Oracle of Ottawa is old enough to remember when being a stewardess for Air Canada was the poshest job in the whole wide world! Many of these women forsake married life, children, true love and so much more to serve the brand. When I saw those pictures on the CBC National of Air Canada stewardesses collapsed in a coma in an airport, like abandoned dregs of some Chinese people smuggler, I was enraged! They had probably been up for over thirty hours and are still trying to get the overtime hours and the expense money that they will never see.

I put this down to one Duncan Dee, the creeping Jesus, that is one generation out of a rice paddie and an honours  graduate of the Peoples Republic of China Politburo School of Management! And that story of the "gunman" that drove to his Ottawa house, showing a private security guard a hand gun!! What a crock of shit! The rumour is that guy came from the Peoples Republic of China Embassy employee compound! They were backing up one of their own, must not lose face in front of the world! Plus it was another easy chit on the 'Harper Government' to be cashed for future consideration at some future date... Globalization, ain't it grand?

Sid Ryan - Actually knows what he is talking about! This is so on.....

(Why is Sid Ryans Wikipedia article over twice as big as Lisa Raitts??, Oh My, Out classed by a blue collar type!!)

'Harper Government' Feeding Occupy Wall Street ?

In modern times sound policy-making must often come to grips with numbers.
Randal Marlin, Propaganda & The Ethics of Persuasion, p. 118

Once Charlie Rose talks about it, you know that it is "on". As the lowlife right wing neo-con media in Canada and the United States tries to whistle past the graveyard over the impact of Occupy Wall Street, all it takes is someone of the stature of Charlie Rose and guests like Paul Krugman  to disavow the neo-cons of that notion. And earlier this evening in Canada the "state broadcaster" the CBC has all but rolled out the carpet on the coming wave. This will be another wrench in the "Harper Government" gear box! With hopefully many more bigger and annoying ones to come.

more wrench's in the gear box....

Meanwhile, earlier today, Lisa "The Hapless" Raitt in an utter move of desperation has referred the Air Canada strikers to the CIRB! ( Canada Industrial Relations Board ) ,in a desperate attempt to prevent the collapse of the Canadian economy! ( Oh Please....) This action is highly irregular, and hasn't been attempted in my living memory. But that is the way with neo-con babes, they always go for the gun too quickly! Meanwhile Canada Post has filed a constitutional court challenge over the 'Harper Government' back to work legislation back in the summer. As you can plainly see the swamp is quickly filling with some very hungry and pissed crocodiles!

Why do the fat conservatives taste like little boys??

Meanwhile, amid all the union busting, as per Bilderberg Group directives, the forward scouts for Occupy Wall Street are arriving in Canada and scoping out the best locations for the coming inexerable wave of future troubles and embarrassments. And in the hapless Tory way of shit fortune, it will all boil up at the same time, and all but ruin the great mans last term as Prime Minister. It all should be very interesting to watch unfold.

Meanwhile, all the labour union lads are arranging for their strikes and last talks to take place during Parliaments very long summer recess!! Those crafty lefty bastards! Methinks the 'Harper Government' is going to be very tired by the time of the next election. No justice, no peace?

Coming Soon!! To a City Near You!!

Democracy Needs A Salary Cap

Paradox is the sharpest scalpel in the satchel of science. Nothing concentrates the mind as effectively, regardless of whether it pits two competing theories against each other, or theory against observation, or a compelling mathematical deduction against ordinary common sense. 
Hans Christian von Baeyer,  Information, The New Language of Science, p. 204

Some journalist I am! I couldn't even cover CPAC on television! Why the debate was so hypnotic that I just dropped the pen and closed the notebook and enjoyed. I will never be the Great Doctor. He could start the day with a six-pack, washed down with a 26 of Wild Turkey, three joints of hash, four amyls, six hits of acid,  a full breakfast and somehow could remember every word he ever said and the full conversations of every interview he ever conducted! But alas, at the end he couldn't read his own work, when invited to by Charlie Rose...

What is the new factor Comrade?

Earlier this week when the Canadian Minister of Labour tabled bill C-6 and mentioned the words " final offer arbitration " I damn near puked! I had heard these words before. This was an American thing and you don't hear too many people lining up to have a go with it! And later in the week, during the Great Debate that lasted 58 hours(!), The New Democrat Party made sure that everyone in Canada knew the origin and history of this process of doom! The NDP back bench is very deep in labour law and trade union history!

There was no way that any civil servant advising Lisa Raitt would have suggested such an incendiary process to deal with a labour dispute! So where the hell did this disaster of a game plan originate? After much thought and a few calls the Oracle of Ottawa has discovered the answer! Why the brilliant mind of Steve Harper! The avid hockey fan! They have final arbitration in the National Hockey League here in Canada and the United States! Now that certainly sheds the light of a class I super-nova on the whole matter.

We need an industry salary cap!

There was a litany of hand wringing by the most seasoned and experienced labour lawyers and union officials throughout Canada, all concluding that a major and most dangerous precedent had been set! And they have no idea how correct they are in that conclusion! But, the precedent has been set in the favor of labour! Yes indeed Dear Reader! Every dark cloud does have a silver lining! If the precedent has been set of using sports law in the field of labour law, I would like to be the first in print to remind the Honorable Minister of Labour
that sports law set the precedent of the SALARY CAP!

Jack Layton will get it done Comrade!

Now consider each major industrial group in Canada as an individual league... We will start at the top and work down just like the Conservative Party does... You will have the Crown Corporation League, consisting of all the Crown Corporations. Then you will have the Rail and Transport League, Then the Federal Civil Service League, The Provincial Civil Service League, The Power Utility's League... Do you see where this is going? Yes even the Banking and Financial Services League, The Major Manufacturing League...With a little unofficial "final arbitration" union style, we will set THE FACTOR. or the salary cap for the whole industry! Just like a sports team! No problem! The precedent has been set! The greatest gift to labour since the 40 hour five day work week!  Thank you Steve Harper and thank you Lisa Raitt!

Every country has its National Sport. In Canada we have ice hockey. The Americans have Major League Baseball. The United Kingdom has cricket... For example in Canada we will simply take the averaged difference of all the lowest paid NHL players and then divide that into the averaged difference of the highest paid NHL players! Ipso presto! You have your factor. We will do this at the end or beginning of each playing season! (Sure would make opening day more exciting wouldn't it?)  Say the factor is twenty. That simply means from now on no CEO of any industry in Canada can make more than twenty times the salary of his/her lowest paid player! (i.e. worker...) Is this brilliant or what? Why the implementation of sports law into labour law will allow everyone to further enjoy their respective National Games.

Dear God; Please send the NDP and The Oracle of Ottawa!!

Now all the data already exists in government labour departments and in labour organizations. Along with NDP labour legislation when they form the next government, and the proverbial army of actuary's all the details will be quickly and finally ironed out. Why, we will wonder, didn't any one ever think of this before? 

Look upon this as an analogy... The Canadian goalie is the NDP and the Canadian Worker... The other goalie represents the stupid Conservatives!!

CPAC: "I just couldn't stop watching.."!

Universal labour is all scientific labour, all discovery and all invention.
Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Volume III,  Chapter V, p. 104

It is not often that the Oracle of Ottawa finds his local beer store empty on a Friday afternoon, at 4:00pm! I think that only happened twice before. The Great Ice Storm of 1998 and the Summit Hockey Series in 1972! But no one was watching the great debate on CPAC! Well that is what everybody said... But I would die to find out what CPAC's ratings were for the last couple of days! It was the greatest filibuster in Canadian history! Fifty eight hours straight on. The last minute wilder than the first minute! This great debate was also a landmark in Canadian history. For the first time in history anywhere in the world all the people watching the debate either on television or streaming feed on the inter-net could contact their favorite or un-favorite member in the House of Commons in real time! There were constant E-mails and Twitters of encouragement to all members in real time. The Oracle of Ottawa couldn't help remembering that night back in 1969 sitting in front of a black and white TV in Pembroke, Ontario a twelve year old kid watching in awe as a man walked on the moon for the first time! This great debate to me was as important and as historic!

The Conservatives got their fat lard arsed butts kicked and good! I am sure that the Labour Minister Lisa Raitt was warned by her civil servants that the original bill as written would start a firestorm. But, alas, to benefit from your Civil Servants, you must listen to them! Playing in the "big's" in Ottawa is a lot different than politics in the smoke of a Legion Branch somewhere in Cape Breton! The Oracle of Ottawa expects that she will be shuffled out of cabinet at the first opportunity...with the set up to be left under the bus, Conservative style!     

Lisa Raitt, Shaky, Scorched and Incompetent

Little Lisa thought that the NDP were a bunch of pink pussy's that would fold in an hour! Besides every one wants to go home right? The Conservatives all wanted to get their lard arses home. But the NDP caucus was full of labour lawyers, union bosses, social activists and other assorted "misfits" that have been dreaming of breaking the House of Commons debate record all their lives! I swear dear reader that each one of them, prayed to his/her God every night for years, nay decades, that they would be the one like Jimmy Stewart, in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, that would pass out while having the floor! It was a grand event that the Oracle of Ottawa had the honor to witness!

All of the rural and ignorant hicks of the  Conservative Party have just been through the most intense three day seminar of Labour Law and History in modern times! Why by the end of it on Saturday evening Lisa Raitt was more withered and scorched then Elizabeth May! Who by the way, got in some mighty fine jabs and deadly one-liners! The people in Saanich - Gulf Islands have great reason to be proud of their member! A party of one who took it all the way! You Go Girl!!

Elizabeth May, A Moving and Noble Performance..

The most memorable performance, that will stay with the Oracle of Ottawa for ever was that of Yvon Godin!
This is the passion and commitment that the Oracle of Ottawa dreams of in his member of parliament! He flamed the Minister of Labour! He owned her! He schooled her, like she has never been schooled before! It was the finest most impassioned political oratory that the Oracle of Ottawa has ever witnessed! It was moving and correct! Mr. Godin is the veteran of 37 negotiated contracts! Damn! Fifty eight hours in the House of Commons is a piss in the park! Isn't anyone in the PMO's office doing their homework??

All in all it was a fine performance by the whole NDP caucus. They had the Tory's enraged, reeling and rocking backwards on their heels! Contrary to the Liberals, it is not hard to see where the real juice is!

Yvon "Jimmy" Godin, what the Oracle of Ottawa dreams of! The Tory's cringe in fear!

Kellie Who? And Canada Post

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. ... This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not before. 
Rahm Emanuel, Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2008

Brand is a terrible thing to waste.And we are all watching the demise of the Canada Post brand. There are very few organizations that go back to 1867 with a continuous unbroken history.This is a classic example of the failure of management. The classic example of a once great Crown Corporation being sacrificed to build a legacy of ashes, in the pursuit of an impossible goal of a failed Conservative political ideology. Four more years over takes for the greater good.

Now that's Brand!

The hopelessness of it all could have witnessed by anyone watching Question Period on CPAC today. You can see that this labour dispute is being exploited to advantage by the Torys in an attempt to demonstrate to their corporate and Bilderberg Group friends how tough they are going to be. It is totally unclear to me how this course of action will be to any ones benefit at the end of the day...

Now all this next bit is really confusing... The Minister of Labour is one Kellie Leitch who happens to be a orthopaedic pediatric surgeon!? This of course begs the question, who the hell is the Minister of Health and Welfare? Well that would be one Leona Aglukkaq, and she must be brilliant as hell since she seems never to have gone to school anywhere! I can find no academic trail any where... Such is Canada it the present dismal moment!    

Soon to be sold to UPS?

Now you would think that a Minister of Labour that is a professional in a healing profession, would be a pretty good starting point. But alas no, not when they have M.B.A. stuck into their resume and the real tell that you are deep in trouble here is that if they won a spot recently in that Top 40 under 40 marketing contest that was popular a while back. As far as I can tell it is a Rah Rah entrepreneur thing. In my recent personal experience, trust me, a nickel grasping profit driven soul in the healing and helping professions is not a good thing! We had this all out in Canada at the beginning of Medicare....But the upside here is that you got the warning and she isn't a proctologist! 

It could all be as great again....

So what is to be done with Canada Post? Well, do I have a solution? Funny you should ask! Of course I do with links no less! Canada Post is a Conservative bankrupt management fuck-up. The Oracle of Ottawa recommends the German solution, or if you will the Deutsche Post solution. You know them in Canada as the DHL! They started out in only 1995! They now employ over 421,000 people all over the world! They are bigger than UPS! They are the worlds largest logistics group on Earth! The Oracle of Ottawas pride does not preclude cloning a really good idea or model. If the German people can do it, and still retain financial control,
Canadians can do it, with a greater then 50-50 chance of doing it better. And yes they have all powerful labour unions in Germany...

 Why can't Canada Post copy this business model?? Are we not "German" enough? Or have we become too "Chinese??