Rose's Cantina

Embed from Getty Images I was teaching my puppy, Viggo, to pee outside yesterday when a man motioned to me to come to the fence. He introduced himself as the local Conservative candidate and asked if he could count on my vote. Wiping the pee from my hand, I extended it, and he handed me a pamphlet, my first in the run-up to next fall's federal election. Poor fellow. Who convinced him to run against the McGuinty Dynasty in Ottawa South? I felt sorry for him, so I decided to allot him five minutes of windbaggery. Clearly he hadn't realized to whom he was speaking. Fly meet spider. "What's your climate plan?" I asked. A smile spread on his Cheshire mug, and he began to extol the virtues of his party's plan to cut The Dreaded Carbon Tax. "I've been hearing from your neighbours that many people detest the Trudeau Tax," he began. Given the fact my house is surrounded by crackheads and cranky pensioners, I have no doubt. I also have no ...

Embed from Getty Images It's hard not to give up when you get old. Last week, I attended my own going away party, which was pretty much a preview of the wake I can expect when I'm dead. "Thanks Rose," one of the managers said. "We really enjoyed your stories." I looked around the room, and realized that I should have stopped showing pictures like this one to my coworkers. Here I am with an 80 plus year old with a nose that is actually drooping from the weight of old age. Jean Chretien and I go way back, I tell them. Then I realize half of them don't know who Jean Chretien is. That's because the entire federal government is now being run by millennials, little people with tiny little bodies and hair that would scare most combs. Most of them weren't even born when I worked in the Prime Minister's Office. I'd tried to explain the Constitution to a few of them over coffee once, but I couldn't be heard over the pings on the...