If you attended any of the curling draws Yorkton hosted last week, you know you got to witness the best the sport has to offer. I’m not a big fan of the sport. I like it and will watch from time to time but I’m not engaged enough to tell you who the top ten teams are in both men’s and women’s divisions. I had never heard of Alina Kovaleva or John Epping prior to last week. However, I can tell you that Saturday’s women’s quarter-final draw was fantastic with Jennifer Jones losing to Kovaleva in a close match after battling back from a 5-1 deficit only to lose 9-7. Min Ji Kim beat Kerri Einarson 5-4 in an extra end and on a measurement to boot. I’m not sure what the final attendance figures will be and whether or not organizers are satisfied but I felt based on my limited experience with it, the crowds were good. It’s all day every day from Tuesday to Saturday and then the finals were on Sunday so if you can draw 1,000 or so for each draw, I would say that’s a very good number as far as attracting fans each day and having them brave -40 temperatures. From the looks of things, the corporate community stepped up in a big way and I hope this event returns, if not next year, but the year after.
Speaking of -40 temperatures, is there any more proof needed that this carbon tax is a fraud? When you look across the country and see the bitter cold in Saskatchewan and the massive snowstorm in Newfoundland, is there any amount of money paid that could curb the use of fossil fuels to make life comfortable for us? How are we expected to stay warm if we are to consider the environmental damage we are causing by turning up the thermostat? What are the alternatives? And, for some people, perhaps that extra little bit of money on the power bill is a hardship and people just end up cold in their own homes. In Newfoundland, are people expected to use shovels to dig out from snow that is over six feet tall? If you can’t snow blow and if the city isn’t allowed to use ploughs to restore the roads then what are the options? The reality is government knows fossil fuels need to be used and there is no getting around it so it’s guaranteed money into their coffers, all the while they get to fear monger about the planet self destructing in a few years.
When I went to school, I was scared to death we’d all fry by the time I was an adult because the education system was telling us the ozone layer was being depleted and the sun would scorch us like bacon in a frying pan. You don’t seem to hear much about that anymore.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced an aid package of $25,000 per person that will go to the families of those whose lives were lost in the tragic plane crash in Iran earlier this month. Governments at all levels do a great job wasting the money I give them, so I am not going to quibble about this. There are far worse things tax money could go to. I will only qualify it by saying I find it interesting this wasn’t thought of before, such as when the Humboldt tragedy occurred or a couple weeks later when someone mowed down pedestrians in Toronto with a van.
I’ve never been more convinced WestJet and AirCanada are actually the same company and they just use two different names. I’m looking into a trip to New Brunswick later this year and went on the WestJet website and it came back as $548. I did the same thing with AirCanada and it came back as $548. I can’t speak for every industry, but I know things don’t work this way at the grocery store and things don’t work this way in the promotional world I am employed in either.
A former Thompson RCMP officer has been given three years probation for criminal negligence causing bodily harm in relation to an incident a few years ago in which he pursued a suspect driving a vehicle and he ended up firing gun shots into the vehicle, killing the driver and hurting his passenger. Think about that. A conscious decision was made to engage someone in a violent confrontation and the punishment is probation. Yet, the truck driver in the Humboldt tragedy got 8 years for missing a stop sign that killed many however there was no intent to have a confrontation of any kind. There’s even more to this story and the fact the former cop didn’t receive any jail time is, frankly, appalling and another black eye on the Canadian justice system.
I’m interested to see if 3ICE gets off the ground. It’s a 3-on-3 hockey league that has secured a broadcasting deal with TSN and will begin play in June 2021. The games will be short, just two 8-minute halves and there will be no video reviews. There will be no penalties either, just penalty shots. I have no idea who the players will be or where the teams will be located. I guess we need to stay tuned for that.
Nice person mentions this week: Kelsey Jones, Cam Mehling, Kevin Kaminski, Chris Bruce, and Claudine Oliver.
