Rose's Cantina

In a parking lot exactly two blocks from my house, a beautiful young woman sat holding hands with her loving boyfriend. It was 2 a.m. and the pair had been tooling around Ottawa, enjoying its wonderful gifts and they stopped for just a moment to steal a kiss. In their final hours of life, there was joy, love and happiness. Their future plans were shattered forever when the girl's brother drove up and shot them both dead as part of a family-sanctioned honor killing. Like an old-fashioned western, a common theme was played out: the boy was no good for the sister. A wrong had to be made right. Two lives were wasted because of some kind of misguided patriarchal principle. Women come to this country to escape this kind of barbarism. They pack up, leave everything and start up with new dreams for their daughters. Unfortunately, for many women, there is no escaping their native culture and values. Within their families, as we saw during the Shafia trial, they are abused, to...

It's the old "I can learn French in a year" trick, aye? That's the rabbit our new Auditor-General of Canada, Michael Ferguson, is pulling out of his hat. Interesting. While he was A-G in New Brunswick, the guy never did manage to "parlez". We heard the same thing here in Ottawa from our fire chief, John de Hooge, who promised he'd learn French between putting out fires on the 'hood and at city hall. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty, pretty sure that John is still an ever-loving Anglo. Graham Fraser must be ready to throw himself into the Ottawa River. Bwah hah hah. Despite the fact that bilingualism is a prerequisite for most jobs in Ottawa, the Prime Minister seems to like to throw that principle by the way side whenever it suits. Like when he feels like appointing an Anglo to the highest bench or, heaven for fend, appointing a director of communications who can order spaghetti in Italian at Mamma Teresa but can't get his po...