Rose's Cantina

Every day, my mother Vera took the bus downtown to the factory where she spent eight grueling hours manipulating the heavy machines that were used to make fine sweaters for people who could afford them. In the summer, sometimes, the temperatures soared into the thirties and the heat made her swoon, but she was forced to carry on for what anyone would consider a laughable salary. On those steamy days, she boarded the bus home in sweat-soaked and cheap polyester clothes she bought at KMart.  I was 16 and in high school when my mom took that job. Because she worked shift work, she left a freezer full of Swanson concoctions for me to make for dinner. I came to detest frozen food, particularly the processed mystery meat that was lauded as "real" beef and turkey and slathered with gravy full of salt and sugar. Vera took that job after my grandparents died and we were forced to move into an apartment in city.  It was a long way from the farm where I spent my...

About two years ago, the doctors told Viggo Kanstrup he had inoperable liver cancer, and had a few months to live, tops. Viggo took it in stride. He'd been ill for a while, felled by a stroke, and then pneumonia while living in B.C. He was eeking out his days in a hotel, like some sort of Steinbeck character, playing a few jazz gigs, and spending his days in the library. Viggo had no expectation of forgiveness from his family. He had been involved in a couple of scandals over the years, and simply expected to "fade away," as he told me later. But the trajectory of his senior life changed, suddenly, when his son Erik arrived to scoop him up and bring him back to Ottawa. All had been forgiven, and he was welcomed home by his kids and second wife, Francoise, who adopted him like a stray pup. Like a lot of musicians I've known, Viggo took the "papa was a rolling stone" lyrics to heart. But now in his sunset, he was planted, and loving it. Viggo was...

Those young whipper snappers who run with Justin Trudeau might think that they invented the politics of joy in Canada. They would be wrong. We did. Yesterday, I met up with my former colleagues from the Trudeau Liberal era. I haven't seen these bad actors for 30 years, and I haven't laughed so long and hard as I did last night in all that time. We all worked together for a few years for the Liberal Party of Canada at a time when you were never quite sure your paycheque would be honored. These were ugly times in the early 80s after Pierre was resurrected, and before his walk in the snow. These were the days of endless wrangling over the patriation of the Constitution, Trudeau's quest for peace, and the boneheadedness of the National Energy Program. My job was to write the propaganda that was sent out to the Liberal "militants' in the form of the badly monikered ad Lib newspaper. I would write lies, half-truths, nosestretchers, anything tha...

View image | gettyimages.com I nearly wept this morning reading Robin Sears' scathing analysis of the current state of politics in Ottawa and Ontario. Sears used two examples to demonstrate why voters, old and young, are so cynical. Example A: Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne's chief of staff is fingered by the province's Chief Electoral Officer for trying to bribe a hard working Liberal to stop him from running against the preferred candidate. (Criminal charges pending.) Example B: The well-coiffed son of a former revered prime minister accepts sloppy seconds from the Prime Minister. Mucho gusto! As a voter, I'm loving it. I find day-to-day politics exceedingly boring, and I frankly don't care where John Baird hangs his hat. I'm here for the dirty stuff. Ontario never, ever, disappoints. And we have David Peterson to thank for all of it. Peterson is the Canadian version of Kevin Bacon. All the shenanigans -- and people -- can be all tied bac...

View image | gettyimages.com Former Conservative pop tart Eve Adams is working closely with her arm candy, Dimitri Soudas, on a plan that will prove to Oakville Liberals that she is indeed "Oakworthy". We have learned here, exclusively, that the love birds, who are now being called DimEve by affectionate Liberals, are in talks to put a strip shopping mall on the very site of Dalton McGuinty's failed gas plants as an olive branch to the well-heeled folk whose mansions buffer the stink fest that is Lake Ontario. The mall will be aptly called All About Eve and will include many exclusive boutiques where Oakvillians can get their hair and makeup done at ridiculous prices and have their cars lovingly washed and detailed using Argon oil and sea sponges while they wait. It's not just for the ladies; there is also a Hair Club for Men! Eve's campaign headquarters will be run in a prominent piece of real estate in the centre of the mall, proving once again...

View image | gettyimages.com As a woman, and as a sometime Liberal, Justin Trudeau has just stepped on my last nerve. By embracing Stephen Harper's sloppy seconds, Eve Adams and Dimitri Soudas, and bringing them into the Liberal fold, he has created a party that is both undemocratic and a laughing stock. Libs are well known for parachuting in tainted meat as a cynical means to an end. (Who can forget Jim Coutts?) It seems to be the inherent right of the leader to step on and over people who have worked hard to get a nomination. But this. This is beyond anything I've ever seen before. It's not like Eve Adams was a prized catch. She and her little henchman were turfed from the party they claimed to dearly love for electioneering regularities. Plus, her Diva behavior, disrupting the lives of little people who just want a bit of gas cause her car wasn't clean enough, I mean...imagine what she would be like as a CABINET MINISTER! Justin, I need a bigger c...

#463047935 / gettyimages.com Watching W5 on Saturday, and its fawning hour-long profile of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, I was brought back to a time in the 1980s when Tom Hayden was running for state legislature in California. Hayden was a famous 60s radical, then married to Jane Fonda, who was trying to rehabilitate his image, to make himself seem more palatable to voters. Getting him elected wouldn't be easy -- Tom was a bad guy in his youth -- so a gaggle of Democratic political consultants were enlisted to undertake a renovation of sorts, putting putty in the cracks of the foundation, giving him a new high gloss coat of paint. The media campaign included television ads, and a glossy brochure entitled Tom Hayden, Growing Up in America. The brochure featured sad images of racism, segregation, shootings of presidents and preachers. It was meant to explain how Tom Hayden and his politics had been shaped by events in America. Not his fault...

#137675083 / gettyimages.com I grew up under the care and tutilege of a single mother. We lived on mother's allowance, a more gentle term for welfare, until I was 16 when my mom went to back to work in a sweltering factory making sweaters for rich people. This is not a sob story. I never felt poor, not really, because I lived in a country that took care of its own. I knew Canada could give me a better future, a better life than my mom had. I just knew it. I didn't need any government advertising to tell me it was so. Because I lived in Canada, and I was poor, I qualified for student loans and grants, lots of them. I also got a bursary from the Royal Canadian Legion in the name of my father Russell who served his country with distinction before PTSD took his life in 1957. My brothers Bob and Gary got those loans and bursaries, too. Bob went on to a successful career as a financial manager and motivational speaker. Gary became a public school principal and, ...

Years ago, in a land far, far, away, the scribes from Parliament Hill used to take off for a long, liquid lunch on Friday afternoons at the Bel Air which was on Queen Street near the Sparks Street Mall. The Bel Air disguised itself as a pizza parlour, but it also had a swanky restaurant on top where the under-paid, over-refreshed set could put molar to some nice steak and seafood. One long afternoon, one of our notable scribes finished his lunch, then slyly dipped his paws into the lobster tank and set off onto the Sparks Street Mall to "set free" the lobsters. Yesterday, I had a flashback to that day. Trudeau, the younger, just dipped his well-manicured hand into the Senate tank of sharks and jellies to set free the lobsters. Who knows if they will make it to the Ottawa River before their oxygen runs out. This is a masterstroke worthy of Jerry Yanover, the Cheshire Cat who brought down the Joe Clark government while holding hands with Queen of Hearts, Allan...

  Watching Justin Trudeau's performance over the past few weeks, I kept thinking that he reminded me of somebody. After watching Question Period this morning, it came to me. Justin Trudeau is our Sarah Palin. How else to explain his weird answer at a babe's night out this week about what country he most admires. After he made this gaffe, his handlers must have gone ape shit. Maybe he knows where China is, surely dad took him on a visit there as a wee tot. But surely, he knows something about China -- that great defender of human rights and master of environmental stewardship? Dude, these people grow food in their own waste! It's the home of bird flu! So far, we only see Justin when he's scripted. Quite obviously, his eggheads know that he can't be trusted to talk about the issues. He's already been caught telling fellow Canadians that Quebeckers are better than the rest of us. (The Tories reminded us of this with a clip of Justin in one ...

      I heard recently that my old friend Jean-Marc Carisse and his wife Pat had opened a new photo studio, photo gallery and café on Elgin Street . The old one used to be in the prime real estate on Sussex Drive, which now looks like more like Damascus than a leafy street in the nation's capital.   We can thank Fortress America for turning the once picturesque Sussex Drive into a hot mess. So it's just as well the Carisses headed down to the Sens Mile.   If you haven't visited Carisse Café, and you're interested in a walk down memory lane, you must go there and scarf a Panini and chase it down with some lovely cappuccino. Jean-Marc has filled the place to the brim with memorabilia from his 40 odd years chasing after prime ministers and MPs on Parliament Hill.   There are also lots of photos of celebrities. Jean-Marc nearly got in bed with John and Yoko during their time in Montreal, and he's got lots of cool ...

Dear Justin Trudeau: We know that you are a little light in the loafers when it comes to policy, and given I am one of the editors of the original Red Book (true story!), I have a policy idea for you. It will save Canadians money once a year, and it will make everyone's life a lot simpler. This weekend, many Canadians will be gathering up their tax files and installing Turbo Tax, then e-filing their taxes. Wait. Let's rewind. This time of year, everyone will be scrambling to get themselves to a big box store and get the cheapest version there is of Turbo Tax (80-140 bucks). Alternatively, they will be getting themselves to a tax preparer (accountant, Money Mart, H&R Block) and handing over boxes of receipts. Then somebody will e-file it for them, and give them a juicy refund right on the spot. Or in Nick's case, they will cheerfully announce that the government is taking their refund for pay off back debt. That will be fifty bucks! Sigh. I believe that t...

His locks flying, the Prince did a little two-step with the missus just before his final speech to the Party faithful and the yawning media. The Prince was home, where he belonged. It's been forty years since the King received his Crown, nearly twenty-odd since the King set down his golden chalice and sped off into the sunset leaving his kingdom fractured and in disarray. That day, the subjects remember well. Half the country was mourning, the other half rejoicing. "The King is dead," said the detractors. "Long live the King," said his supporters. For ten years, the land has been sleeping under the strong arm of the dastardly Sheriff of Calgary who rode into town to take advantage of the vaccuum and play the odd tune on the piano. It's time, the people said, yesterday. It's His Time. And so the nation waits with breath bated until the Prince can muster his forces and vanquish the Sheriff. There is much work to be done. Must gas to be spill...

Upon hearing the news that Marc Garneau blasted off from the Liberal leadership race, I glumly posted the following tweet. "Great, now who are we supposed to vote for? I've never even heard of Joyce Murray." Faster than you can say space poop, I received a tweet from Murray's campaign asking me to read her platform and consider supporting her.  I thanked them for their pitch, then pressed delete. Does this make me a bad person? As a long-time lapsed Liberal, a person who once gazed starrily into the aura of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, I don't have the interest, heart or energy to brush up on all things Joyce Murray. Fact is, the woman is seven percent in the polls, compared to Justie who has already scooped up two-thirds of the registered Liberal votes. Like Marc Garneau, I can read the tea leaves. I could easily jump on the Justie bandwagon, but I won't. I'm not voting for him. He doesn't need my vote. He's already driving top-down throu...

  I'm looking on Wikipedia to find evidence that Martha Hall Findlay has more understanding of what it's like to be middle-class than Justin Trudeau. Let's see: she grew up at the base of a ski hill in Blue Mountain, became a Canadian ski champeen, and graduated high school at 15. She went to "Toronto French School". She went to the University of Toronto where she studied law while also owning two stores. Since then she's practised international and high tech law. I don't see too much middle class about that. It says, though, that she had to work her way through law school as a waitress. Justin Trudeau was a bouncer, so they have that in common. Which brings me to my point. Martha Hall Findlay should shut her gob about being more middle class than Justin Trudeau. She isn't middle class. She's a lawyer married to rich guy. So don't call Justin Trudeau out for not being middle class. That's like calling him out because he's no...

Well, isn't it interesting that Justin Trudeau's image was plastered on the cover of the Globe and Mail today while other newspapers spilled much ink on why the Liberals should resist a coronation. It's the passive-agressive nature of Canada's media to look for prophets and visionaries hoist them up on a pedestal only to later claw them down and serve their livers with nice wine and a salad. Funny, it happens more in Canada than in many other places. Led by an often immature and shallow media we here in Canada are quick to tire of our leaders and want to toss them out of office before they can get their shoes shined and their locks shorn by the Parliamentary barbers. Part of the problem is that our leaders, of late, have been alienating figures. Stephen Harper is hard to love and doesn't even try to appear nice. Tom Mulcair is brooding and has the looks of a Heathcliffe on the moor. And Bob Rae is just, well, kind of weird. Enter Justin Trudeau with his g...

Joyce Fairbairn was a legend in the Parliamentary Press Gallery even before she went to work for Pierre Trudeau. She was one of the few women who inhabited the storied hot room in the 60s, a feisty reporter from the Mad Men era who was admired more for her "great legs" than her native intelligence. Joyce always reminded me of Shirley Maclaine, with the short no nonsense blonde hair cut, the twinkling eyes, the sharp sense of humor. Joyce would have had no trouble hanging with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack -- she would have eaten them for breakfast and they would have served her caviar and champagne. Frank was the musical hero of her husband, the late Mike Gillan, who had befriended me in the early 80s when I left my fledgling journalism career for the comfort of a Hill job. I met Mike through Jerry Yanover and the two of them had charmed me into thinking I would be welcomed into the fold. The Liberals were like that back in the 80s. Unlike the other partie...

Back in 1984, I was working as a junior writer in the Prime Minister's Office when Pierre took the walk. We were all stunned, and many scattered to this candidate and that, betting their careers on who would become the next anointed leader. Me, I was happy to ride out the leadership in Trudeau's PMO. I loved walking into the Langevin Building and sitting my pretty little ass down in the West Wing every morning right beside the RCMP detail. I had a good view of the changing of the guard and a few little fun projects to work on. When John Turner decided to run for the leadership, I was excited. He seemed very handsome and charismatic -- what did I know, I was 25? -- until he approached the podium for the first time and I thought to myself: "Who is this old guy and why is he wearing old man pants?" By old man pants, I mean the ones that button above the belly button. Also, JNT had sort of rheumy eyes, the kind you see on guys at the Martini Ranch who've h...

Bob Rae thinks the argument that he's too old to lead the Liberals is "bullshit". And I agree. That old bastard Chretien was kickin' it as PM well past his first Old Age Security cheque. So was Pierre Trudeau. Bob Rae's age is not a factor, yet it is. The problem with being Rae's age is that a person accumulates a lot of baggage along the way. Like making an ass of himself as Premier of Ontario. People our age don't forget that. Oh, and being a turncoat. And if he did decide to run, even though the Liberal executive wanted him to sign a paper saying he wouldn't, he would be a liar and a cheat. It has nothing at all to do with his age. It has to do with what he's done during his 60 odd years on the planet. That's why Bob Rae can't run. It's simple as pie. Some people think Justin Trudeau is too young to run, too inexperienced, a mile wide and an inch deep. But that is why it's the perfect time for him to run. Someb...

There is a sidebar to the gruesome case of the dismembered unfortunate which has official Ottawa all a-twitter. Do political parties receive such ghastly gifts on a regular basis? Newspapers today are reporting that a number of MPs have received -- let's call it what it is -- shit in the mail -- as well as interesting artifacts and lube cream apparently made from what's inside what people need lube for. Back in the 1980s, I worked at Liberal Party headquarters when Pierre Trudeau was still king. I was a writer and opener of fundraising letters. We always got great, great mail. That's because Canadians take great care in responding to political fundraising letters, spending hours crafting them and getting them just right. My favorite was a letter from a disgruntled fellow who sent us a picture of his lower torso and erect penis spraying his male seed all over himself. "Thanks for the letter," he wrote. "Here's my contribution." The sec...