CTV "unfair and unethical": Canadian Broadcast Standards Council

Lowell Green has to be running head first into his brick wall today.

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled that CTV was "unfair and unethical" when they aired that now infamous Stephane Dion interview. A Canwest News Service report states that the CBSC claims that "a poorly framed question that Dion didn't understand was confusing and that CTV was wrong to broadcast the outtakes after promising the Liberals not to do so."

I personally don't understand why CTV would have promised not to air the interview. Surely the promise came after some senior aide, knowing it would make the "leader" look like a second rate hack, begged to have the tape burned and tossed out.

The question that caused the former Liberal party leader to blunder so badly is the following: "If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper has not done?"

Would the CBSC kindly explain what exactly is confusing about this question? Sure, the grammar isn't spot on, but come on... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand it, does it?
It seems that all opposition parties do these days criticize, bringing little substance to the table. They yell as loud as they can about how bad the other side is... yet do little to show what they would do differently. Given this, how can Mr. Murphy's question be confusing? All he did was ask Dion if he were PM, what would be do that the other guy hasn't. Not once, not twice... you know the rest of it.

The fact that this national party leader was (supposedly) unable to understand the question IS news. I would argue that it was CTV's DUTY to air a story about it.

Anybody with a basic understanding of the English knowledge and with a basic understanding of the job description of an opposition party leader (at the least, the part of the job conducted in front of the media) should have been able to put two and two together and understand the question. "You're so smart, what would you have done?" That's what it boils down to. Some argue he didn't understand the so-called poorly framed question because English is his second language. Isn't it convenient? Accuse the big bad media guy of being anti-French and watch the knee-jerk reactions start.

That's the new Canadian way.

A good lawyer will never ask a question in open court to which he doesn't know the answer. Dion pounded Harper for weeks about how he dealt with the rapidly sinking economy. Was it such a stretch to expect someone to ask what he would do, he who is so critical of the other guy during an election campaign?

Apparently it was. CTV was "unfair". If Dion, the Liberals and small-l liberals in Canada can't take the heat, they shouldn't thrust themselves into the spotlight. Dion proved he couldn't handle it over and over again. Get over it, it's over. Let's see if the new guy is any better.

And let's let broadcasters and journalists do their jobs, shall we?

My thoughts - sent to a member of the Ontario Legislature

I couldn't hold back any longer. Here is an edited version of a letter I sent to an Ottawa MPP who I respect as an individual but have a hard time swallowing his or her being part of a government that has stepped back from its own ideals time and time again... to the detriment of each and every Ontarian.

Had I known that helping get you elected as a member of a majority government would result in what has come down over the years, I would never have agreed to support your nomination. You were (and remain) far too valuable an asset to the community to end up being a puppet who is forced to nod and shake your head on cue when the leader of your party speaks.

What this Liberal government has done to the health care continuum in Ontario is laudable in some respects – the cranes in the ground in the Ottawa area are definitely numerous – but is for the most part reprehensible. Despite repeated efforts to cut down wait times, the line keeps growing for MRI’s in Ottawa. Newspapers have documented over and over again that the time one has to wait for certain forms of “elective” surgery (as if someone “elects” to walk properly) keeps growing. What good comes from putting up buildings without putting dollars into the budgets to efficiently make use of those buildings never come? I’m not talking LHIN efficient, I’m talking let’s fund the use of that new MRI machine 24 hours a day… or let’s fund the use of the new operating rooms at the Queensway Carleton Hospital 24 hours a day – your waiting lists will soon disappear! Well that’s not what Dr. Cushman has accomplished in this part of the province!

The “new Liberal government” screwed up when it introduced the new “health premium” – denying it was a tax until the courts ruled that the government would have to cover its payment due to the language in many collective bargaining agreements across the province, forcing the Minister of Health to admit at one point that it was in fact a tax. At least the government conceded that it was wrong in that respect but the possible “temporary” tax as we know was not temporary and will live on in perpetuity. Had this tax been part of Dalton McGuinty’s election campaign, he might have seen the same fate as John Tory saw. Ever brilliant, Mr. McGuinty feigned surprise when he got to see the province’s books and used them as an excuse to making the implementation of a new tax one of his first acts as Premier.

My second bone of contention is the ridiculous “LHIN” concept. I’ve held my tongue on this one but the main reason why I am no longer part of the “long term care continuum” at the Olde Forge – I worked twelve years to climb that career ladder to help seniors only to suddenly jump off in January 2008 to join the Ottawa Police Service – but one of the dumbest and short-sighted irresponsible moves your government has made is the closing down of District Health Councils and replacing them with the Local Health Integration Network.

What really gets my goat is how Dalton McGuinty and his robots argued over and over again how irresponsible and stupid the Harris regime was for amalgamating municipalities, hospitals and school boards. It was argued that true savings were never achieved and taxpayers (or end-users) only lost in the end. Then what happened? Some bright person in the Ministry of Health (or the Premier’s office) decided that the best way to “improve” and “save costs” in the health care continuum was to “integrate” organizations into one another. Not wanting to use Harris-like language, amalgamation was a term never used, but it’s one and the same.

Sure, the government finally got us the van we so desperately needed – yet we could not get day program funding… getting money moved from the Ottawa Hospital to the Olde Forge “funded” the program – and put it under the knife as well… for strings were attached. We were told we had to speak with a neighbouring multi-million dollar organization about finding “administrative savings” and other “efficiencies” – completely losing sight that forcing organizations like Nepean Seniors Home Support (oh – that’s right – they changed their name eliminating seniors because the geniuses at the Champlain LHIN forced seniors home support agencies to provide services to “adults with physical disabilities” while never once increasing funding to offset the massive expenses that came up as a result! Where did you think we would get the volunteers and paid workers to provide service when we did not have enough for the seniors to begin with? All that and not one nickel to do so! But I went off on a tangent there – but how will Nepean seniors benefit from seeing their organization swallowed up by the monolith in Kanata ? How will your Ottawa seniors benefit when the Olde Forge is swallowed up by the PQ centre?

You guys once screamed to anyone that would listen that amalgamation never benefits the taxpayer, client, patient, etc., and yet that is precisely one of the next ideas put into motion once the health tax was put in place.

Finally, another stealth sneak attack hits Ontarians at the worst possible time – “integration” of the Ontario Sales Tax with the federal Goods and Services Tax. Sure – people complained about the impact that this move would have on feminine hygiene products, baby diapers and books… resulting in the “rumoured” plan being modified to exempt these items from an 8% tax hike McGuinty and his cohorts are about to impose on us today. What about services? The $400 plumber’s bill will go from $420 to $452 with this change. Will gas prices go up if the “GST” in Ontario goes up to 13%? All this to save some admin time to the small businesses? What about those that might go out of business when people cannot afford to buy their services when they go up 8% overnight? And will the PST office disappear? I doubt it - so who's going to win here? Why are you guys so hell-bent on compromising your past ideals and raising taxes again and again?

I’m shocked that you have silently stood by watching this Liberal government systematically destroy grass-roots organizations from one of the end of the province to the other. The Olde Forge is on borrowed time – you may not admit it today, but your government has that organization on rails that will inevitably lead it to its own demise – and it’s a shame. All the other community-based organizations are headed that way too – for those who are not forced to look at it today will be some day. And finally, those who somehow escape Dr. Cushman’s grip will eventually initiate the process themselves – I saw more than one Executive Director lose sight of the fact they came into the field to help people… only to resort to contemplating how taking over a neighbouring organization might end up seeing them lead a bigger one with a slightly bigger budget – meaning their paycheque might be bigger as a result. "Why worry about the seniors? I’ll be ok!" What they don’t know is that they may not survive the process. I didn’t… but am much better off where I am.

Why am I ranting like this? Why am I speaking to an MPP like this? Because I know that years ago you would never have stood for this kind of thing. Now it seems that you’re telling all of us that we have to like being given money in one hand but having it taken away from the other… (referring to this one-time $1,000 payoff being offered today) and then to support you again next election. Remember how Dalton asked us to “choose change” way back when? I think the time is coming that we do so again - this sort of change we can do without… yet it keeps coming.

Is the real you still there somewhere? Come on out so we can see you again! You're not just another McGuinty drone!!

Being a politician means you MUST say sorry?

Ottawa Sun columnist Susan Sherring wrote a ridiculous column yesterday opening with the following: "Apparently, being a city councillor means never being forced to say you're sorry."

We have, in the last decade or two, become a society where we must make sure that we offend nobody... to the last possible individual. Why? One person gets offended by someone else's opinion and therefore the offender must be tarred and feathered? Fired? Forced to resign? Here's a link to the column in question, followed by a letter to the editor I wrote immediately after reading it.

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/Columnists/Sherring_Susan/2009/03/25/8876116-sun.html

Susan Sherring comments that it seems that "being a city councillor means never being forced to say you're sorry". When did it become absolutely essential for politicians to bow down and crumble each and every time someone is "offended"? Why should we be shocked that Gord Hunter told a constituent "tough luck" upon receiving a complaint that someone told him to stop smoking marijuana outside a comedy club? Shouldn't we be shocked that someone would have the gall to write to a city councillor about this in the first place?! Gord Hunter should be applauded for telling this guy what to do with his complaint and he should be applauded for sticking to his story. Hold your ground, Councillor - you have just as much right to free speach as anyone does - city councillor or not.

It's time for the pendulum to swing back to the other side a bit. It was not so long ago telling someone to stuff it didn't result in cries demanding your resignation.

You can have your opinion... why can't I?

When will Liberal Party of Canada leaders smarten up?!

We've been told over and over again that Michael Ignatieff is some great intellectual, possibly one of the ten smartest people in the world. If that is the case, what could possibly have possessed him to utter this ridiculous statement:

"Bloc MPs are duly elected by Québec voters. They are not traitors, they are not the enemies of Canada."

This quote appeared in Le Devoir in Montreal today. Bloc MPs, their leader and any candidates or staffers are not "enemies of Canada"? Their sole reason to exist is to separate Quebec from Canada. To break Canada up. What part of that could possibly make them "friends" of Canada?

If you're not with me, you're against me. If you want to break up my country, you're a traitor.

Not according to His Saviour Michael Ignatieff, you aren't.

Why not just fold up the Liberal Party of Canada and put it to rest once and for all? Canadians laughed Stephane Dion out of a job due to his ineptness and Liberal MPs picked Ignatieff to lead because he was a big step up in the brain department.

Step up? Smarten up, Michael - you won't win the hearts of western or eastern Canada voters making idiotic statements like that. It wasn't too long ago people advocating to break up a country were accused of treason. Death was a popular penalty for committing that crime. The big and evil United States of America would not allow a political party like the Bloc Quebecois to exist - not with its self-proclaimed mandate.

Why do we? Oh yeah - we don't want to offend the poor Quebeckers. Well if they want to break up my country (the separatists, that is) they ARE traitors. Each and every one of them.

I'm sure that some people who were willing to lend their support to the Liberal party to get the "evil" or "scary" Stephen Harper out of office in the next election will have yet another reason to give it a second thought and walk... no run away from voting for an intellectual "leader" who clearly is completely clueless.

When will CANADIAN companies realize that shipping service overseas to India p***es people off?

Remember the good old days when you called customer service for one utility or another and you actually spoke with someone in your own country? Maybe even someone in your own city?

Understanding the petty nature of politics these days, I realize that what I'm about to write will likely end up being dug up by some other party's dirt diggers should I ever decide to put my own name on the ballot. Nobody can write (or say) anything that might offend anyone... and if they do, they'll be fired by party leadership or forced to resign by the mob-like media "covering" the elections.

I last wrote about my experience with Primus "Canada" on December 6, 2007. I wrote about how I got sucked into switching to Primus "Canada" from Bell... it seemed like a good idea at the time: "I figured that I'd take advantage of their offer to provide home phone service at a 25% discount. Better to have the money in my pocket rather than theirs." The ever so polite customer service representative wasted no time signing me up when I agreed to make the switch. I had been promised that the change would be virtually seamless. It was very, very painful. The "seamless" transition meant that my Bell service was disconnected sometime early on December 3rd. I would not hear a dial tone again until around dinner time on the 6th.

While I cannot complain about the service that I have since received (in other words, the phone and internet have worked without any problems, they have failed me yet again after a service request was made.

On August 28th I called to have my service transferred to a new address - I am moving on September 30th. After waiting on hold for almost 90 minutes (they gave me a BS message about "we're experiencing a higher volume of calls and you can expect to wait over 20 minutes... we're hiring new people to rectify the problem") I spoke with a bloke from India for over one hour and fifty minutes. At first he told me that I could not get phone service at my new address - turned out 30 minutes later he misunderstood my spelling out of my street name and address - 2-1-5 I told hom, not 215, figuring he'd mistake 250 for 215. Giving each individual digit still resulted in a misunderstanding. After going back and forth for another hour and discovering (horror of horrors!!) that I had two account numbers - one for home phone and one for my internet - I was told that this was a problem! EXCUSE ME?! Dear, oh dear. I was eventually promised that the changeover would take place on the 30th of September... but that they couldn't give me my existing phone number as Bell owned it. They would have to assign a new number... but they couldn't do that at that time. They'd get back to me.

Fast forward to today. I'm moving on Tuesday. Today is Friday. I got the same message "we're experiencing a higher volume of calls and you can expect to wait over 20 minutes... we're hiring new people to rectify the problem". Today I waited 45 minutes for another guy who turned out to be in India to come on the line. I guess Primus "Canada" doesn't have any employees in Canada anymore. Did it?

So buddy comes on the line and after confirming my information, he gives me little more than dead air. Silence. He put me on hold and came back a number of minutes later (forgot to count this time). When he finally came back on he informed me that an "error" occurred while processing my order and as a result, it would have to be re-processed and I could only get service in about 10 business days. Once again, Primus "Canada" gave me a case of apoplexy. After confirming that I actually did hear exactly what this guy was feeding me, I demanded to speak with a manager. He told me he'd get one.

Twenty-five painful minutes of hearing "thank you for your patience while on hold..." buddy came back with a message from a manager, stating that my order will be processed and service would be restored in 10 business days. This time I blew my top, speaking to the machine that is allegedly taping the call for quality assurance purposes, asking it if it is catching all of this. I then asked buddy if he would accept such ridiculous service after going through my experience with Primus "Canada" since day one. I again demanded a manager and told him that he had better not put me on hold again for twenty-five minutes. I'm about 10 minutes into it as I type.

Having checked the Better Business Bureau see that some Primus "Canada" entries at the BBB site have an unsatisfactory record or a satisfactory record with resolved issues. Had I see that before getting sucked in, I would have avoided them like the plague.

So... what's next? I'm sure buddy will come back on stating that no manager is working or a manager will come on and give me some useless platitudes. Yep, that's pretty much what happened. I went through my history with the manager and he told me the same thing buddy did. As the manager was as useless as buddy was, I asked if he could guarantee that if I switch to Bell due to their incompetent inability to actually provide service when service is requested from a customer, he answered in the affirmative. Not believing him - I mean, when I get a bill at my new address in six (or sixteen!?) weeks demanding some ridiculous cancellation fee (I agreed to combine my internet and phone service for a lower rate agreeing to a 12 month contract when making the address change - I should have run at that time) who would believe me?

Manager guy then told me he'd give me a reference number... and put me on hold! Then came back 3-4 minutes later telling me he'd be a bit longer generating that number and thanked me for my patience.

I'll probably get my confirmation number before 7pm eastern time and then I'll call Bell. I know Bell will likely tell me I can't get service right away as well, and I know I'll likely speak with someone from India again (I'll update if I get someone from anywhere within a couple thousand kilometres of Ottawa!), but I'll have stuck it to Primus "Canada" and will learn the time tested adage of:

"IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT"

I don't think I actually saved much by switching and I'm almost certain my life has been shortened by a few months as a result of my having to interact with them. I have no issue with people who live in or come from India - it just pisses me off that we have people longing for jobs in Canada and that there's no address in Canada that I can drop in to make a service request in person anymore.

All in the name of the almighty buck.

Come on, Canadian corporations, let's bring these operations home. Crappy service on the phone from India and poisonous food and toys from China... when will it stop?!

UPDATE: 22 minutes after starting to dial Bell Canada I spoke with a representative in Canada who transferred me to someone in New Activations who not only was in Canada, was right here in Ottawa. I'll have phone service from Bell on October 3rd. 22 minutes beginning to end. I'd have waited an hour before talking to anyone with Primus. When Primus comes calling, HANG UP AND RUN LIKE HELL! DO NOT BUY PHONE SERVICE FROM PRIMUS!

It's a bad, bad joke

So after doing a good deed last night I'm driving home, listening to CFRA as I usually do. John Counsell is bleating about the price of gas. I think to myself that finally, someone is complaining about the fact that oil market prices are at a what, six-month low, and prices at the pump have not followed. Sure, they came down a bit when the barrel fell below $145, but they have recently been a holding pattern of sorts despite a price free-fall on the international market.

After listening for a few minutes I realize that the so-called "price watchdog" Liberal MP actually warned us that the prices at the pumps would be going up an unprecedented 12.9 cents per litre overnight in most parts of the country. I'd love to know if prices went up 50 cents a gallon down south.

The ironic thing?

The big talking heads that run the mob here in Canada... I mean oil companies... are blaming incoming hurricane Ike and its effect on Texas oil refineries. OK, that "excuse" has proven to be an effective one in the past, causing the international oil market to spike the prices which in turn magically inflate the price of gasoline that has already been delivered to retailers.

Someone forgot to tell the international oil traders. The barrel has consistently fallen throughout the week, Ike be damned! In fact, after watching some of CBS' Early Show taped this morning on my PVR, I see that Ike is real and he's coming. Yet, at 11:42ET this morning, oil was trading upwards... but not up $38 to go back up over $131 a barrel, but up 38 cents.

Why is it, then, that the commodity itself has not zoomed upwards, yet the retailers hike pricing like they never have before? It seems that the speculators have finally moderated themselves on an international scale. I get it that production might and will fall as a result of this storm, likely resulting in price hikes some days or months down the road. What I do not get, however, is how these bozos have come up with yet a new way to stick it to each and every one of us and to such an unprecedented degree.

They can't blame it on the barrel - it's still trending downwards and traders are yawning as they watch Ike make landfall! Oh that's right, it doesn't matter why. They do it because THEY CAN. There's no collusion, there's nothing untoward or illegal going on. Maybe we should all vote for Jack Layton's NDP - he was heard on the radio today saying he'd take care of Canadians and stop all of this.

Riiiiiight. And Dion's Green Shift will be revenue neutral. Oh yeah, I believe everything politicians tell me - they wouldn't lie, would they?!

PS: As I clicked on PUBLISH an e-mail from CNN found its way to my mailbox. It was titled "Oil trades below $100 for first time in more than five months." Explain last night's move to me then, crooks who run Petro Canada, Esso, Shell et al. Just try reconciling the two.

Dreams of utopian nanny state have to go if Ottawa's to find fiscal sanity before we all die

Left wing members of Ottawa City Council (one in particular, but that councillor does have some support around the table most of the time) have been telling us to reduce, reuse and recycle for years, regardless of the cost to the City of Ottawa. Some of that plastic wasn't recyclable and had to be shipped to China, to go to landfills there, if memory serves.

They proclaimed that incandescent bulbs are evil, instructing city residents to use CFL bulbs, forgetting how much energy is spent manufacturing those bulbs and overlooking for a time the fact that these bulbs become hazardous waste when no longer in use. That costs money to dispose of them.

Further, they'll tell anyone who will listen that people should take public transportation instead of driving their own cars (regardless of the fact it can for some people significantly more time to get from A to B on the bus) because building roads is evil and costly. How much will the defunct light rail plan cost us? A quarter billion dollars, maybe?

Pesticides are soon going to be on their way out, smoking is illegal just about anywhere, and don't even think about letting your car idle...

Oh yes, and one member of the above-mentionned group's first item on the agenda (and if it wasn't, it was up there on his to-do list) after amalgamation was to try and get the traditional prayer erased from City Council meeting rituals.

It's almost been a decade since the provincial government forced area municipalities to amalgamate. One of the benefits to amalgamation was a cost savings to tax payers. Record tax hikes year after year after year have been the result. Sure, the city has grown - and we're told the City of Ottawa payroll has grown but at a lesser rate - but it hasn't been any cheaper to run.

A new mayoral candidate came around and promised 0% tax hikes. Maybe he can be excused for not really knowing what he was getting into, but much time has passed and the 2009 and 2010 budgets don't look good from the taxpayers' perspective.

Sure, I realize that nobody wants to pay higher taxes... and nobody wants service cut either. It's the conundrum faced by Council each year they debate each and every line that makes up the budget. Service for seniors? Growing population - cutting them would be irresponsible. Snow removal? Um, we saw what last year brought and can only pray it was an abnormal year (bring on global warming!) Make garbage pickups every two weeks. No, that idea stinks and nobody likes that one.

Here's a suggestion, to both the right-wing and left-wing members of Council - give up the freakin' need to head up a NANNY STATE. Govern, for pete's sake, and do your job. How many times have we heard we need to get back to "basics"? Few people can define what the "basics" are, but spending millions one one make work project after another rather than focusing on the big issues, none larger than our aging and decaying infrastructure, is bordering on being irresponsible.

Sure, some councillors believe that the City is some sort of board of health. It is if you make it be so... but who decided it must be so? Who says banning trans fats and handing out crack pipes and hypodermic needles to crack addicts is something a municipality MUST do? Shouldn't water mains and the sewer system take precedence?

I'm getting sick and tired of watching the same song and dance each year. Staff is given an objective. It comes back with some doom and gloom scenario that will cause all groups to come out of the woodwork and complain about the planned cuts to social services. The same scenario inevitably recommends closing a library branch (or six) and a fire station or two for good measure. Who would actually agree with that? Council can't vote for that, so they vote those cuts back into the budget and "settle" for some lame pre-determined number (remember that 2.9% or something along those lines, when councillors left the budget meeting with pre-printed signs held up for the media cameras) proclaiming some sort of victory.

It's all horse feathers. Get back to basics, stop making up things to spend money on when the real priority is making sure the 80-year old couple relying on Guaranteed Income Supplement (otherwise known as also being on a fixed income) can actually stay in the home they bought 55 years ago. Stop dreaming up utopian ideas and work on fixing things that have been allowed to decay despite staff reports desperately asking for dollars to replace sewers that are over 80-100 years old.

Sure, lots of this trouble really started in the early 1990's when a right-wing (of sorts) Mayor froze taxes for years and years. The bottom line is we were given an opportunity early on in this decade to make things right. Well, we're soon going to wrap the "new" decade and we're going to be worse off than we ever have been... with no light at the end of the tunnel.

It's simple folks... closing libraries and fire stations, cutting much-needed social services and slowing/stopping investment into infrastructure ("let's move money from the capital budget into operations") and thinking people are stupid enough to believe that a 2.9 or 3.9 or 4.5% tax increase is just that, all the while doubling and tripling user fees and hiking the water rate year after year (over and above the hikes targeted to go towards infrastructure this past year), hoping they don't realize this annual shell game is nothing but a scam.

Give up the nanny state utopian dream for a few years, Councillors Cullen and like-minded folk, and focus on fixing what is broken and arrive at a solution for once. Soon enough nobody with incomes under $100,000 will be able to afford to live in this city.

Is that what we want?

Time to fire CBC brass - or can the CBC altogether?

So let me get this straight... the CBC wouldn't pay an extra 15% to secure the song rights to the holder of the iconic theme song played before every Hockey Night in Canada show? A news report last week reported that the contract that recently expired saw the CBC pay a measly $500 per show and a new contract could easily have been signed had network brass agreed to a small 15% increase on cost.

This after the head honcho came out asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in additional subsidies from the federal government and its taxpayers.

If this wasn't enough to get your knickers in a knot when it comes to CBC in the news recently, how can one reconcile the two above stories with yet another bizarre CBC move? I was watching live television the other day (as opposed to watching taped shows on my PVR where I get to skip commercials) when an ad proudly announced that Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy were moving from their existing Canadian television homes.............

TO THE CBC!!!!

What in tarnation do American game shows do to further CBC's role in promoting Canadian culture? What does the addition of these programs do for the airing of Canadian content? It doesn't get more American than Wheel of Fortune at 7:00pm and Jeopardy at 7:30pm. How much is this going to cost Canadians who pay dearly for coast to coast Canadian broadcasting giant CBC?

And the genius who runs the joint couldn't come up with a few thousand dollars a year to keep the rights to what has to be one of the most well-known, and one of very few entities that so clearly reflect what is Canadian?

This doesn't make sense. And don't increase my federal tax deductions that I have to pay every two weeks to increase government contributions to this network's bottom line, Mr. Harper. Geez.

Well, this just in - CTV GlobeMedia, owner of TSN has snapped up the rights to the song. Yep, when hockey is on TSN next season, they'll be playing the song that we've been hearing on CBC for 39 years. What a way to usher in the 40th anniversary, eh?! Way to go, TSN - good to see there's someone over there with business sense, common sense and a good old fashioned horse sense - one that can see when one has (or can acquire) a good thing.

What's CBC thinking? Some stupid contest cannot come close to replacing a song that has inspired generations of hockey players and fans from coast to coast since the sixties.

Saturday night will never be the same again. Thanks a million, CBC. Maybe it's time for the Harper government to look into divesting itself of the so-called people's network. It ain't the people's network no more... at least, the Canadian people's that is. Let's all get ready to watch Vanna White in September... wow - I can't wait.