charlesadler.com

Enough is Enough?

Watch Charles Adler and James Bissett discuss Canada's immigration policy and whether or not we're doing too much.

Click HERE

Voting with Conviction

Last election saw a major increase in voter turnout for...convicts.

Watch Charles Adler's monologue HERE

Dear Jack...

listen to Charles read the letter here:

290811.cadler.part1

Dear Jack,

We've been friends for a long time and friends really ought to tell friends the truth. So since nobody else has told you, I think it's time for me to step up and get it done. Those were the same first words I used to to talk back to the rhetoric you were using a few years ago when Canadian democracy wasn't working quite the way you wanted it to do and you tried cooking up some sort of coalition omelette with the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois. It wasn't your ideal coalition. Ideally, you'd be the Prime Minister, driving the bus, and the Libs and the Separatists would just be your tail pipe. Anyway, it didn't work out because the team which got the most votes and did form government was not going to fold their tent just because you and Bob Rae and some professors were going around the country lecturing Canadians about how the coalition was the way to go because this is the kind of thing that Europeans favoured. It was the standard line from the Progressives. Since this is something the Europeans do and the Europeans are so superior to us, having elected socialists often and enthusiastically, Canadians ought to get with with the program. And riding shotgun in that coach of course is the unspoken but heartfelt feeling by progressives everywhere which goes something like this. Since the Americans, excuse me, let me say it little smugly, a little more NDP. Since the Ammeri-kans would never consider a coalition in the executive branch of government. Only one president at one time. No three headed Presidents in the Oval Office. Since the Americans would never do something so sophisicated, and nuanced....Since the Americans can't even spell coalition, it must be a very progressive idea and a Canadian ideal, something the social conscience of Canada, the NDP should be pushing. Remember the fall of 2008 Jack, when you launched the attempt at Coalition, you kept making the case that the Harper Conservatives didn't really command the support of the country because they got less than 40% of the votes. More than sixty percent went to the other parties. And then I chose to count the votes in your own riding of Danforth, and as it turned out you got less than 40% of the votes and so I thought well maybe, by your own standards you weren't legit either. The Liberals and Tories combined got more votes than you did. Why were you picking up the six figured paycheck and the seven figured money for travel expenses every year and all the other perks associated with working the system so close to the throne, so close to the vault you can practically smell the free money. So I'd say based on the reaction of Canadians to my simple arithmetic, it was clear to them that your own fish hook ended up getting in your own eye or to use the language you prerfer among your academic Beaujolais drinking buddies, you got hoisted by your petard. A little French goes a long way in a progressive discussion. Speaking of French I don't suppose the Orange Crush you pulled off recently in Quebec could have happened if all those winning NDP candidates would have had to clear the 50% plus hurdle in their ridings. I did another one of those nasty arithmetic jobs. And it seems the Conservatives, Liberals and the Bloc did score better than 60% and I can't recall anyone of my buds on the right saying Jack had nothing to crow about because more than 60% of the voters voted against Jack Layton's NDP. No they'd be laughed at. When you and Thomas Mulcair and other members of the left were saying more than 60% voted against the Conservatives, we were told not to laugh at this line because the social conscience of Canada was saying so. If a right of centre person says something it must always be in the interests of some greedy corporation, but if a left winger spouts like a whale it's in the interests of the Canadian people, especially those at the bottom of the social ladder. Bottom of ladder has higher moral authority. You might be at the bottom, because you haven't worked a day in your life and your life consists of working the system to make sure you get free housing, free food, free crack pipes, and free heroin needles. But hey if you're at the bottom, you have far more social conscience free flyer points than some sap in a suit trying to feed his family by working for the man.

 

 

Jack, I'm not going to spend much time dwelling on the acolades offered to you in death. I actually think everyone's entitled to have their friends and followers put a little fertilizer on the bun after someone they care for passes. I don't want to get into that. You and I had some great chats over the years. And one of our little rules of the road was you didn't bore me to death with the NDP talking points and I didn't spend any of our private time knocking them down. You knew that I was a working class kid, son of a couple of heart and soulers who worked on the factory floor to pay the rent. You knew that I would never buy into how you saw the working class from your vantage point in the upscale tony neighborhood you grew up in far far removed from the blood, and sweat and fears on our side of the tracks. You knew that our path to middle class was saving some dough, buying a little store and working our tail bones off so we could buy our own house and eventually maybe another one to rent out and save some up some dough. That's what we hard working immigrants did. And over the years I saw people from various parts of the world coming to our country doing it the same way. Work hard, buy a little property and then maybe another, get your kids to apply a strong work ethic to school and becoming professionals at something. Anyway you knew enough about my life, to know I wasn't buying what your party was selling about surviving in Canada only through social assistance, or unions, or government jobs, all areas that were feeding troughs for your organizers, your activists, your fund raisers. In our private conversations, you never tried to push the progressive package at me. I wasn't a motivated customer. My family did the middle class the old fashioned way. We didn't work the system. We worked our tailbone.

 

 

And so Jack when we had a couple of pops and some good chat, we'd talk just like guys do, just like old friends do, a little sports, a little business, a little family. It was warm and friendly and I considered you a friend. But once again friends tell friends the truth and there's just one thing I want to say about what's happened since you passed, that really bugs the hell out of me.

 

 

And it's not about your passing being turned into a huge political fundraiser. I told my buds who knew we liked each other and they were asking me about this last week. I told them Jack was always a ham, but I never thought of him as a pig. And the pigging out on public dollars to be sent directly to the NDP in lieu of flowers or in lieu donations which might have been made for cancer research or any of the many causes that you supported, soup kitchens just to name one...nope if people wanted to send some coin to honour your memory they were instructed to send it to the Broadbent think tank which only exists on a cocktail napkin and even if it ever gets built it’s simply a wholly owned NDP collection plate. But that's not what I waned to bring up Jack. It's that line in the eulogy Stephen Lewis offered up and it's that same old, same old pitch that professional moochers have always used, and you know what I think of moochers Jack. Every family has one. Someone who just keeps working you for more, more, more and it's never enough and on top of all the take, take, take they do, they then add insult to injury by carping about how you haven't been generous enough with them, You owe them more. They're entitled to more. I can't stand Moochers Jack. You know that. And so there's Stephen Lewis, who needs no gps to find government grant money. And there he is delivering your eulogy, singing your praises, calling the deathbed letter you and Olivia and Brian put together, a social manifesto etc etc. All the violins have been cued. The crowd is giving up more precipitation than Hurricane Irene and then he says these words ..."He wanted, in the simplest and most visceral terms a more generous Canada.”

 

 

Jack he was speaking for you. Now in all the chats we have had, you never gave me the impression that this country wasn't generous. It was certainly generous to you and your buds. The best example in a long list of examples is what went down on Saturday. This country, Jack, threw your party a multi-million dollar funeral. A state funeral Jack. That's a lot of glue. A lot of people were flown in. Lots of well dressed cops including those Mounties in their telegenic scarlet. A whole fleet of carbon spewing Cadillacs. Not just the hearse you rode in Jack. But the one Cadillac the eulogy giver rode in on as well and many others. Your colleagues were treated like royalty, Jack. I know you were up there smilin' that great Jack smile. And you didn't have to wave that great cane around like a prop. I figure that cane was worth at least fifty seats in Quebec. That was your sugar cane and I give you full marks for using the full tool kit. But about the generosity business. Jack, do you think if I introduced the eulogy giver to a family of Canadians who were once known as boat people from Vietnam, people who were tortured, and butchered and left for dead by their own people, people who got what little they had on a boat hoping that someone would pick 'em up and our country very generously did exactly that. Do you think the eulogy giver could look a mother who rescued her children on a boat and were eventually rescued by the most generous country in the world, Canada, do you think the eulogy giver could look her in the eye and complain to her about Canada not being a generous country? There are millions of people who have been taken in by this country and out of the millions there have been thousands who have ripped this country off and have been allowed to stay here, working the system accessing lawyers paid for by the generous people of this country. How come Omar Khadr's mother is in Canada instead of Pakistan? It's not because she's a Canadian patriot, Jack. She came here for the free health care and much of it was needed for her son who was part of a family dedicated to killing as many of our American neighbors as possible. The Khadr family is here precisely because the country is generous. The eulogy giver wants the country to be more generous. I want the country to be less generous to the moocher and less expensive for the honest hard working folks who the moochers have been enjoying a one-sided parasitic relationship with. Since the eulogy giver used the terms simple and visceral, and since those are the neighborhoods I play in let me put it in simple visceral terms. We are sick and tired of being generous with people who don't even like our country. We are sick and tired of being told by the professional not-for-profit moochers that this country isn't good enough. We are sick and tired of delivering free food, free housing, free cab rides, free motel rooms, free crack pipes, free heroin needles and free cadillac rides to free riders and freeloaders and moochers. Now Jack I can't make it any simpler or more visceral than that. I don't claim to speak for every working man and woman in Canada the way the eulogy giver does. But I am on solid freshly zambonied ice telling you I speak for most.

 

 

Thanks for giving me the opportunity Jack to vent a little bit. It was a tough week. I felt sad to see you go so soon, and as you can tell I felt sad for my fellow Canadians to see your memory being turned into a fundraiser for NDP sugar daddies and a condescending, ungrateful, ungenerous portrayal of the country that you and I both love.

 

 

Happy Trails Jack. I'll be seeing you some day and we'll be having some more pops and more laughs.

 

 

Rest in Peace my old friend.

 

 

Al Gore Compares Climate Change Skeptics to Racists

 Click HERE to watch

Reporter covered in "sea foam" from Hurricane Irene

 

Correcting a long-standing royal pain

By Charles Adler,QMI Agency

First posted: Thursday, August 18, 2011 8:55:27 EDT PM

They say you can never put the toothpaste back in the tube. Sometimes they are wrong. And thankfully for those who appreciate Canadian history and heritage, this was one of those weeks.

Four decades ago, a Liberal government headed by “St. Lester” Pearson decided to crush the identity of our armed forces. The Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Army were “unified.”

They would all wear the same uniform and they would be called the Canadian Forces.

When the military leadership complained, Paul Hellyer, the defence minister, dissed the brass by saying they should stop focusing on “buttons and bows.”

This issue isn’t about boats, bombs and bullets. It’s about Canadian culture. Let’s sharpen the bayonet. After more than four decades of having the “Official Multiculturalism” boot on the Canadian throat, many Canadians are thrilled that some of the most important symbols of Canadian culture are being resurrected.

The Pearson/Pierre Trudeau crowd wanted to rewrite Canadian history, wanted to reinvent Canada. Official multiculturalism, official bilingualism and the plundering of our military were three of the major steps taken to create the new Canada. Some individuals and special interest groups have loved the 1960’s Liberal legacy, getting government jobs and government funding. But the silent majority did not benefit from the Pearson/Trudeau agenda. They quietly grumbled to themselves, while a minority of downtown elites from Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, continued to impose their reality on the new Canada. The new reality cost Canadians a great deal, not just in terms of national pride and national unity. It cost big bucks to transfer billions of dollars from average Canadians to those whose jobs and funding were created in post-1967 Canada.

Isn’t it interesting that our Centennnial year turned quickly from celebrating the past to burying it? The architect of the new Canada was Trudeau, a man who was bored to death by Economics. It’s a subject that can be awfully dull when you’re a child of enormous wealth like Trudeau, never having to worry about putting a roof over your head or food on the table. The traditional Canadian virtues like frugality, self-reliance and personal responsibility were for him, not cool. They were old Canada, too bland, boring and Protestant. So he beefed up the Prime Minister’s Office with academics who shared his view. Does anyone doubt that Trudeau’s Canada has turned out to be much more expensive than the Dominion of Canada.

If you do have even a shred of doubt, find someone who was alive when our Royal Canadian military was rescuing the world in the 1940s. Ask them what tax rate they were paying. They will have a hard time remembering. It won’t be because of dementia. It’s because most people were getting to keep more than four out of every five dollars they earned. People tend to feel far more free when they don’t have to surrender more than half of what they earn to Trudeau’s Canada.

CBC may continue to tell you that he was the greatest PM ever. For the CBC, he certainly was.

But for most Canadians, Trudeau has turned out to be a huge pain in the Royal Canadian.

Money drain

Although he bailed before his tenure even started, the CBC's decision to hire Gilles Duceppe is another reason it doesn't deserve your tax dollars. Watch Brian Lilley's monologue HERE.

(Latest update: Duceppe and the CBC have decided to part ways.)

What's in a name?

Charles Adler looks at how the government is recognizing history by returning the word 'royal' to the names of our military branches.

Click HERE

Honouring the Past

David Menzies looks at how the reinclusion of the word 'royal' in the armed forces names is honouring a rich Canadian history.

Click HERE

A Salute to a Brave and Modest Nation

Reprinted here is a remarkable tribute written by Irishman Kevin Myers about Canada's record of quiet valour in wartime. This article appeared in the April 21, 2002 edition of the Sunday Telegraph, one of Britain's largest circulation newspapers and in Canada's National Post on April 26, 2002.

Until the deaths last week of four Canadian soldiers accidentally killed by a U.S. warplane in Afghanistan, probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops were deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will now bury its dead, just as the rest of the world as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.

It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.

That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States, and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved.

Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.
Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, its unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular memory as somehow or other the work of the "British." The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack.

More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth-largest air force in the world.

The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated -- a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality -- unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British. It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves -- and are unheard by anyone else -- that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth -- in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.

Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular non-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace -- a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.

So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan?

Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun.

It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost.

This week, four more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.