Goose Break games
Another plane takes off with another family heading for their spring goose break. The Twin Otter’s engines drone on and quickly fade away as the plane heads for the Northern Quebec interior.
The town is quiet. At the local store, I bump into a grumpy person, asking me not to write about this years’ goose hunt and I agree with him. There are plenty of stories all over Facebook, including one about a 10-car police raid on unsuspecting Crees hunting in cornfields near Ottawa. This raid caught my attention for a while, but since the police in that area were nervous about anyone using guns near the nation’s capital in the aftermath of last fall’s shooting on Parliament Hill that brought this country to its knees, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Mistakes happen.
The Ottawa Senators lost their battle against their longtime rivals, les Canadiens and I suspect some Ottawa senators who work on the Hill may suffer a similar defeat in the legal arena. Playing dirty is only fair game in hockey when the whole country watches your every move and penalties are doled out by the referees, satisfying fans and pacifying the need for retaliation. They should have referees in Parliament, handing out penalties to those who cheat in the game of democracy. I think, though, that rookie politicians should understand the rules of the game before they play the game. So much time wouldn’t be wasted on whistling down infractions, while and time could be spent on good sportsmanship and fair play.
The spring goose break is also the time when the annual audit is conducted in all the communities, when it is almost impossible to contact anyone for comment or verification. As a result, many questions go unanswered and are usually forgotten by the time the statements are ready for review by the communities’ members. The deadline is July and the pressure is on to get the statements approved so that future funding is not jeopardized. In the past, it was not uncommon for statements to be ready only the following year and funding was pretty well automatic. Not today. Perhaps this will one day be part of the training because we need referees to watch our every move when it comes to politics and money so that the game of community governance can be played fairly.
In our communities’ local governance, there are no referees to make sure that nasty players are fined or penalized. In fact, it is up to us to watch the game being played. In order to do that, you have to be tuned into that channel. Once you do, you may discover the WIIFM radio station to follow the play-by-play. No, it’s not the Nintendo network but rather the “What’s In It For Me” station.
Perhaps we should tune into the honest politician channel, which could be modeled after CPAC. This way, we will be able to see who’s actually at work and whose seats are consistently empty. It could be a good companion to regional radio broadcasts of the council board meetings that only let us hear what is going on but doesn’t allow us to verify if our representatives are actually there, representing us. I guess live streaming of these events is the only way to go. This way, we can be confident that our leaders and representatives are actually on the job.
As for my grumpy friend at the store who is tired of reading my stuff, perhaps he would be happier if there really was good coverage of what goes on during goose break when the auditors are doing their work. Then we could judge whether any penalties should be imposed on our political players.