John and his daughter, Nicole St-Onge, saved up, planned the trip and made the three-hour drive [from Windsor to Toronto], only to be turned away at the door because of a rule, unbeknownst to them, that adults must be accompanied by a child in order to get in.Nothing they could do about it? What is it with corporations that act like their policies were handed down to them from the mountain on stone tablets? And these are the first guys who'll complain when a government bureaucrat doesn't give them a break.
"They wouldn't let us go in and so we asked to see a manager," Nicole said. "Five minutes later the employee came back and said the manager was too busy to see us, but that was their policy, they weren't allowed in without a child and there was nothing they could do about it."
As a result, they turned around and headed back to Windsor.
"I was crushed. My dad is 63 years old, he was devastated. The look on his face was like a child not getting the gift at Christmas that they want. He felt discriminated against because he's a senior citizen who also happens to like Lego," Nicole said.
Yeats's mother, Lori Yeats, said her son was caught off-guard when the truck suddenly went underwater. The windows wouldn't open, trapping him and his pet inside, and the windshield began to crack.
"He couldn't get out, so he had to smash out the back window with his elbow and, of course, the cat was trying to beat him out," she said.
Momo's plunge into the muddy flow moments later was to be expected, she said, noting the indoor cat has a longtime fascination with water.
"She will crawl in the tub with [Kevan] or crawl in the shower with him, so that was probably a good thing that she's been around water a little bit," she said.
There was no doubt her son would jump in after his beloved pet, she said.
"Kevan and that cat are tight. In fact, I was giving him heck for going back and rescuing his cat, he says 'Mom, it's like my baby, you know, I couldn't live with myself if something happened,"' she said....
Momo — who is believed to be part Maine Coon — may have developed a distinctive swimming style.
Lori Yeats said her son noticed his cat was "using her tail like an alligator does" during their watery escape.
"Their tail kind of wiggles back and forth when they're swimming and they use it as a rudder, and she was using her tail like that when he was swimming behind her. He said he couldn't keep up with her, she was doing so well swimming in the water," she said.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall had called on Trudeau on Friday to repay the money charged to the Literacy for Life conference, but a spokeswoman said the organization would not be asking for the money back.UPDATE: I was just indulging in speculation when I blamed the Prime Ministers Office for this debacle -- but it has turned out to be true.
“The conference met our objectives,” said Veronica Baker, a spokeswoman at Saskatoon Public Schools, which organized the event. “Mr. Trudeau was hired to speak as an education advocate, not as an MP.”
A spokesman for an Eastern Ontario Catholic school board that paid Trudeau $15,000 for a speech at a professional development conference in May 2010 also said it would not be asking for any money back.
“His speech was well received by those in attendance,” Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board director of education Jody DiRocco said in an email.
“Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board has not considered a request to be refunded for the speaking engagement.”
The news was greeted with cheers by a mostly Sikh crowd at a solidarity soccer game organized in a Montreal suburb, where people of all ages and skills charged onto the pitch wearing turbans.
“I’m excited and I’m proud as a Quebecer that the decision has come to allow the kids to get back on the field,” said Amar Magon, one of the organizers of the game.
Although there are no Sikh boys among the 18 [Broussard] team members, age 14 and under, Leheta asked them what they would do had one of them been excluded because of a turban.
“I told them you can either say: ‘It’s not my problem,’ or you could decide to do something to help out.”
With the enthusiastic support of his players and their parents, the coach headed off to the Sikh temple in LaSalle the next morning before the big match and borrowed 20 orange scarves that the boys then donned as turbans at their game in Brossard.
The referee didn’t object while doing an equipment check, until he spoke to the coach of the Granby team.
“The ref came back said we couldn’t play if we were going to wear the turbans, so I showed him the FIFA rules and he said OK,” Leheta said. “But as I shook hands with the Granby coach before the game, he said he thought what we were doing was stupid.”
The Brossard team lost 2-1 in the end, but learned an invaluable life lesson, the coach said.
“I was so proud of them,” Leheta said. “(They understood) that today it’s Sikhs (being banned) and tomorrow it’ll be someone else.”
I was going to make an NSA Twitter joke but they just called & told me they'd heard it already
— Thers (@Thers) June 7, 2013
#NSACalledToTellMe that I left my garage door open this morning but not to worry, they'll close it when they leave.
— Two Millimeters (@RebeccaAnn81) June 7, 2013
Wait, what?The government is spying on us?
— John Cole (@Johngcole) June 6, 2013
Isn't this delicious. Harper passes Bill 377 to allegedly have unions open the books and now we find out he has a secret slush fund. #Karma
— Sid Ryan (@SidRyan_OFL) June 6, 2013
.@canadiancynic the Harper Government could have saved money if they'd just signed up every MP with a complimentary Verizon phone. #NSA
— Saskboy K. (@saskboy) June 6, 2013
Candidate returns filed after an election typically contain a long, itemized list of payments made to suppliers for rent, advertising, salaries and other costs of running local campaigns.Isn't this just typical of the Harper Cons -- in spite of their much-vaunted "private sector" street cred, they cannot be bothered to keep decent records of expenses, leading to the speculation they have cooked their books to be under the spending limits. Then they bluster and whine and feel persecuted and run off to court when someone calls them on it.
But Glover’s return includes only nine payments, including two made to her riding association that represent the vast majority of her campaign spending. The entries, dated election day, say that Glover’s campaign paid $73,139 to the St. Boniface Conservative Association, with no indication of who ultimately received the money.
That line-item had entries of $34,777 under “other advertising” – possibly a calculation of the signage under dispute – $18,257 for “surveys,” $1,333 for rent, another $9,226 for other office expenses, and $9,545 described as “miscellaneous expenses.”
Bezan’s return shows a series of payments to 10 individuals, and $53,254 in payments to his riding association, including $17,253.31 labelled “other,” and $26,221.30 labelled “amounts not included in election expenses.”
The Elections Act requires every campaign to show where all the money it spends during a campaign goes, and auditors spend months working with campaigns from all parties across the country, trying to make sure their returns follow the rules.
“I can’t be continuously defending against outlandish claims as if they were representative of a modern RCMP when they’re not.”Ah, yes, Paulson testified to a Senate committee today to the effect that the REAL bullies are those disgruntled pro-union agitators who are being so mean to all those innocent RCMP managers and coworkers. Poor babies, they have it so tough when they are just "busting their hump" to serve the public.
Mitchell later told reporters it was “revealing” to hear Paulson single individuals out for “ridicule and criticize them so aggressively in public,” saying it actually had the effect of underlining the message that “things are probably as bad” as some believe.I wonder if Paulson realizes that his testimony effectively endorsed behaviour which might well turn out to be indefensible?
“I don’t think you can change culture in the RCMP if you don’t acknowledge” the issue and the courage of people who have brought it forward, Mitchell said.
