My Canada

There's a story out of Ottawa about a "sheltered workplace" that's about to close, throwing 50 developmentally handicapped adults out of work.

Sheltered workplaces used to be quite common. They were a means to give an otherwise severely marginalized population some sense of normality. However, they don't fit into the prevailing ethos of efficiency and all that stuff, and they have been closing up all over the place.

Apparently they require "subsidies" to remain viable, and in these tough economic times, we just can't afford subsidies all over the place.

So it's more efficient to just let those folks rot...

But apparently we can still afford juicy subsidies to gratuitous exercises in flag-waving, like the gifting of a $30 million dollar parcel of prime Ottawa real estate to a group that wants to furnish Ottawa's downtown with a memorial to the victims of communism.

Frankly, I think it should be the countries who were victimized by "communism" who should be putting up monuments to the victims of communism. The Ottawa project smells like blatant vote-grubbing to me, aimed at the Canadian voters who are descendants of those immigrants from countries like Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine who suffered mightily under the heel of Stalinism.

In my Canada, we would let the memorials rise in Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine.

That $30 million could be put into sheltered workshops for Canadians who need the support.

Neglecting the future, celebrating an imaginary past; Canada goes koo-koo for monuments and memorials

The paint is barely dry in the brand-spankin'-new Canadian Museum for Human Rights, when the next memorial to the suffering of others is already creating a flap. Apparently victims of communism were not adequately represented in the Museum for Human Rights, and are therefore due to get their own memorial in Ottawa.

As the article points out, the architect community is somewhat divided re the merits of this monument to Canadian self-importance. Frankly, I'd like to see the tax-payer community get riled up about building politically motivated memorials all over the place.

And why a memorial in Canada for victims of communism? Yes, people suffered and died under communist regimes. People have suffered and died under many types of regimes, including our type. When is the memorial coming for the Vietnamese victims of America's war in Indo-China?

Anyway, after the victims of communism get their own memorial in Ottawa, it only stands to reason that the Chosen People get their own Holocaust memorial in Ottawa, and sure enough, that's coming too!  Nevermind that virtually the only connection between Canada and the holocaust was our denial of refugee status to Jews fleeing Hitler; we're all aboard the Holocaust Memorial bandwagon 75 years later! (approximately 250 Holocaust Memorials or Museums worldwide and counting...)

But wait! The Harper brain trust has fabricated a personage called "Mother Canada," who is scheduled to get her own 10 storey memorial in Cape Breton!

I can just see how this is gonna fly with the locals...  Lard tunderin Jeezus! The fuckers got a hundred million to piss away on a gawdam statue and meanwhile theys cuttin back me pogey check the gawdam fuckin bastards... fuck Ottawa anyways!

Canada PM Harper decries "communism's poisonous ideology"

Oh good grief!

Almost a quarter century after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Big Steve is still stuck speechifying like a Cold War stalwart?

Harper delivered a proper podium-thumper to the "Tribute to Liberty" annual dinner in Toronto yesterday. Thats a bunch of second generation east Europeans who never got over their parent's fears about the Bolsheviks.

History has moved on, folks.

How modest of Big Steve to claim his spot in history right up there with Mulroney, Reagan, and Thatcher...

It's always nice to know that your leader has his eye squarely on the future.

The Tribute to Liberty folks are all about building a monument to honour the victims of communism.

Personally, I think building a monument to the victims of communism is a great idea.

We could put it in a public square. "Freedom Square" we could call it. Or Liberty Square.

At the other side of the square we could, in the interest of truth, justice, and fair comment, erect a monument to the victims of capitalism.

Communism died an ignoble death in 1991.

Capitalism is still chewing up its victims today.