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Dragons

Brian Fawcett — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 20:55:15 +0000

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s way of shamelessly pressing it’s lips to the hindquarters of the Zeitgeist, where cutthroat business dorks are the culture heroes the mass media offers up for envy and emulation. CBC television’s Dragon’s Den is a Japanese-born format now running in 18 countries. The Canadian version features super-aggressive meathead Kevin O’Leary as the beast, Arlene Dickinson as the motherly capitalist, and a changing cast of fungible successful dorks to mouth the in-between slogans, the least objectionable of which was Brett Wilson, who actually went out of his way to help some of the struggling business people who went on the show looking for help and capital.

So nobody misses what all this is about, the CBC has cut all its arts coverage from its mainframe network, and has replaced it with a tidal wave of Harper-friendly glorifications of corporate business and entrepreneurial aggression in what will likely prove a futile attempt the massive cuts to its budget Harper has been waiting for a majority government to perpetrate. Since the CBC is now barely distinguishable from the privately owned television and radio networks in the country, few of its natural supporters are now going to work very hard to prevent the axe from following. What were they thinking???

RIM

Brian Fawcett — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 15:47:04 +0000

Formerly the Waterloo, Ontario-based Research in Motion, which parlayed an innovative and speedy secure e-mail system into the Blackberry smartphone empire. Now that technology advances have passed the Blackberry, RIM is going to have to do something inspiring to keep the RIM acronym from meaning Retrograde Insolvent Moneyloser.

Raffi Cavoukian

Brian Fawcett — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 15:45:38 +0000

Canadian-based “Child honouring” children’s entertainer, platitude purveyor, and the author of the song “Baby Beluga”, which has the unique ability to turn otherwise caring parents against their own children after the 200^th repetition. Cavoukian twitters his deep thoughts 20 times a day even though he’s never had a deep thought.

Robert Pickton

Brian Fawcett — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 15:43:45 +0000

No one wants any more information about Robert Pickton, who got to murder as many as 49 women and dispose of their bodies in a wood-chipper before he was caught. His story is synonymous with police racism, police bungling, and pigs being omnivorou.

Hilary Weston

Brian Fawcett — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:56:29 +0000

Irish-born former fashion model and trophy wife of Canada’s second richest man, Galen Weston. Tall, patrician and elegant, she has served as Ontario’s Lieutenant-Governor with distinction—and without spending a whole lot of time in the country. She has also served on the boards of innumerable corporations and charities, recently making herself a major cultural force by funding the country’s most generous literary prize, the Hilary Weston Prize for Non-fiction. She’s the poster child for, ah, how many prizes, foundations, and charities beauty, money, and power can get your name on.

Justin Trudeau

Brian Fawcett — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:53:03 +0000

Eldest son (now reaching his 40s) of Pierre Trudeau, current Liberal MP for Montreal riding of Papineau, which happens to be the smallest federal riding in the country, with the lowest average family income. He has his father’s charisma and oratorical skills, along with some of his political instincts and courage. But it isn’t yet clear that he inherited his father’s intelligence. So far he has shown a knack for supporting good causes and crash-and-burn political figures. But if the federal Liberal party has a future, Justin Trudeau is going to be at its centre. For better or worse.

Andrea Horwath

Brian Fawcett — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:40:03 +0000

Hamilton born and raised MPP and current Ontario NDP leader. Horwath gained the leadership of the Ontario NDP by deploying the suicidal slogan of “We will not adapt!” She then parlayed her approachable personality and single-parent identity into serious gains in the 2011 Ontario provincial election, mainly because her opponents, Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty resembled a shifty-eyed grin-while-speaking car salesman and Conservative Tim Hudak, spent the campaign as Mr. Bean with the famous Christmas turkey poised above his head while he shouted less-than-brilliant slogans like “elect me!”

Lisa Raitt

Brian Fawcett — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:38:53 +0000

Harper Government’s loose-tongued Labour minister, former CEO of Toronto Port Authority and slayer of former Conservative loose cannon MP Garth Turner, who was defenestrated from the party for periodically telling the truth about Harper’s intentions. Aside from calling her cabinet colleagues morons and thinking that nuclear isotopes are “sexy” while an aide’s tape recorder was on, Raitt has publicly mused that the “economy” should be declared an essential service, thus removing the right to strike from everyone, and revealing that the smooth running of the national economy—however the Harper Government chooses to define it—is more important than the Labour Code, or, for that matter, the Charter of Rights

Tim Hudak

Brian Fawcett — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:37:33 +0000

Ontario Conservative Leader who blew a 15 percentage point lead in the 2011 Ontario provincial election by doing impersonations of Ronald Reagan over Green energy policy—the one plank in the incumbent Liberal platform the public was behind—and by doggedly staying on message throughout the campaign even though the only message his brain-trust could come up with was “elect me”. Purportedly a nice guy in private, Hudak, who physically resembles Mr. Bean more than Ronald Reagan, managed to look rigid and over-eager at the same time, and couldn’t quite hide the fact that he had much-loathed ex-premier Mike Harris in his back pocket.

Michael Ignatieff

Brian Fawcett — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 09:53:36 +0000

Late, constantly grimacing leader of the Federal Liberals who presided over the 2010 election defeat by the Harper Conservatives and the party’s replacement as official opposition by the late Jack Layton and his herd of not necessarily French-speaking Quebecois cats, most of whom were recruited while dead drunk in the Student Union building at Carleton University a few days before the election was called. Ignatieff is a world class intellectual with a first-rate brain, but like many intellectuals, has a tendency to freeze when asked stupid-but-loaded questions, and possesses all the personal warmth of a ten year old refrigerator. One suspects he wanted to be Canada’s next Trudeau, but a philosopher-king needs to have wit and charm along with intelligence, and can’t afford to listen to what his media handlers tell him about staying on message. Ignatieff’s inability to connect with Canadian voters led the party to its worst defeat in parliamentary history, and three days after the election he accepted a job doing what he should have been doing all along: lecturing in a university.