Society Has Forgotten to Take Responsiblity

I was reading the Ottawa Citizen last week where there was a great deal of debate about doing away with fighting in hockey. This discussion came up in regards to a recent news story about an player who recently died in a fight. I felt sorry for the fellow who fell and hit his head on the ice but at the same wondered why the big debate about fighting in the game. The game of hockey has always had fights and has always had the icing rule. People who play the game know the rules and risks associated with the game. They play the game partly because of the rules and the risks and rewards that go with playing any sport.

My concern is that our "new" risk adverse society is taking everything and making such a big deal out of it, that life as we know it has become a bore. If society wants to make a big deal out of something, then it should be the Internet and child porn. These people are really sick. Fighting in hockey has at least some honour attached to it. Two guys settling a score on skates with their bare hands, no knives, no gang, no guns, just two guys that have personal score to settle.

Child porn, gangs, knives, no honour here and in our society today we have grown to accept and continue to tolerate these things freely. This is where we should take more responsibility for the actions of the participants. We have taught youth that knives are OK. Knives kill people. We have put a little money into child porn protection but since its on the internet we accept it. It is something that we should put a greater focus on because they take advantage of defenseless children and abuse them. No honour there.

We now have the government making our choices for us on what is good and bad. We focus in on the little things because we can add more rules and regulations and leave the big things because its too hard to get any results.

Once you take the risk out over everything that happens in life then all of a sudden you have a result that does not mean anything to anyone, just another rule.

With that being said, the same holds true for public servants that steal from the taxpayer and get only a rap on the knuckles. A theft of $100,000 and someone is charged with stealing over $5000. They usually get some token sentence, their pension back and get to go back to their jobs. Ad scam is a perfect example. None of these theives spent any significant time in jail.

So what does this have to do about fighting in hockey, child porn and gangs? Well in my mind its just another way that society has forgotten to take responsibility for what's really important and it sure as hell ain't fighting in hockey.

Kensel Tracy

Who Wins in a Bus Strike?

Well, the 51 day bus strike in Ottawa came and is now over leaving a significant amount of garbage on the road after the fact. In fact the bus strike is another reason in my mind that shows how unions hold the public for ransom and do it without caring for others only themselves and their members. To have a union head ( a disliked and genrally public relations nightmare every time he opened his mouth) come to the final press conference in a limo is also appalling. What kind of man pulls this kind of stunt. Glad he's not working for me. He would be " so fired".

Well we are glad its over and I was wondering who won. Well er no one. The drivers lost money, the city lost money, business lost money, suppliers to OC Transpo lost money, the economy lost money and I lost money ( since I had to cancel meetings because of traffic around City Hall which was tied up by strikers).

So what would you do differently to ensure that it does not happen again? Well, we gave them money, we are now in arbitration and could give them scheduling and maybe the shirt off my back as well. To be serious though something has to change.

First off I would change the negotiation team. I would have a couple of moderates in the same room and perhaps they will get along better. I would have a better understanding ( and should now based on the research for a 51 day bus strike) of the economic impact both in costs to the city and to business and what the threshold of the union is. It looks like 8 weeks and the members get antzy. They lost $8000 by this time.

I would change the legislation that allows Ottawa to function like every other municipality and be able to legislate them back to work. I would make transit and essential service ( especially now that you have seen what's happened to seniors and those low income earners that depend on public transit) and I would try to sit down with the union and players involved an ensure it never happens again.

What was interesting is that, I was reading the Citizen and there was one comment in there posted by some guy who had been on strike a few times in his life. He had it all summed up even before this thing began.

I am going to say what he said. " Nobody wins a strike ".