I actually agree with Jack Layton on something?

I have complained quite bitterly in this forum on more than one occasion about the ridiculous profits the major banks are earning here in Canada. I have been infuriated by quaint little letters from the bank informing me that "in order to remain competitive" fees are being "restructured" - mainly because any time fees are "restructured" fees are being hiked. And not by mere percentage points.

The relatively small charitable organization I work for has seen its monthly bank fees virtually double since the "improvements" to business accounts were introduced last year. Complaining to my branch manager or corporate headquarters was useless as they refused to put me through to a Vice President of Customer Service (if such a position indeed even existed - I was not allowed to know... or the person on the phone said that such information could not be disclosed to me.)

Imagine my surprise late last week when Jack Layton decided to attack the banking industry by flogging them for the "convenience charge" one is assessed when attempting to withdraw money from a bank machine owned by another bank? Critics point out that lazy people should pay for the convenience of using someone else's machines... but letter writers in local newspapers point out that due to "convergence" (or mergers for us lay people), several rural communities have seen big banks closing local branches. What other choice do they have?

The bottom line is that "competition" amongst bank monoliths in Canada means who has the biggest quarterly earnings. They "compete" to satisfy shareholders, not customers.

Anything that can be done to make these corporate giants exercise some responsibility in their day to day operations is good by me. It's too bad it's a third party in our House of Commons that wants to "stick it to the man" but if given a chance, I'll line up with Jack and the NDP to support this project.

Each and every one of us, regardless of political affiliations, and lord knows I ain't no leftist!!!

Pressure from one person cancels local movie showing - outrageous!!

How much longer will the cotton picking politically correct movement wreak havoc on our society? According to local media today, a woman who claims to be a former university professor (though she seems to be better known for initiating or supporting radical leftist "causes" and nobody seems to know what institution of higher learning employed her) e-mailed Rainbow Cinemas to complain about a planned showing of a movie on "rising Islamic radicalism".

Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West will not be showed at the St. Laurent Shopping Centre's Rainbow Cinemas due squarely to the one e-mailed complaint from the alleged former university professor. The Conservative Film Society booked Rainbow for the showing in November and aims to "show provocative, conservative films" that otherwise don't get to see the light of day in traditional movie complexes.

Is the complainant really a "former university professor"? I doubt it. That she would be so flippantly and callously advocate censorship without even seeing the movie she demanded be pulled from the theatre seems to go against everything I have learned universities are about. I am told (and have observed) that universities are in part education centres that teach students how to think or institutions that stimulate deep discussions about everything under the sun. Check out some of the research grants awarded to see how broad a spectrum under which these university graduate students or tenured professors get all the time!

No real professor would so quickly and independently attempt to quash something without even knowing one single thing about it. Had she actually seen the movie, she would have at least had one leg to stand on. She hasn't and therefore should not have anything to say.

All that aside, the fact that one single complaint caused the theatre to cancel a booking that has been planned for over two months is a clear indication that political correctness is going way too far. What's next, professor, advocating that certain books be pulled off shelves and burned? We seem to be at the point that leftist propaganda is readily accepted as indisputable fact (see Al Gore's movie as an example) while anything from the "other perspective" is poppycock or is censored before it even sees the light of day.

I thought that being part of a democratic society meant that all points of view were valid and merited at least an opportunity to exist. It seems that this is becoming more and more of a fading memory. When will this stop?

Proud to be a member of the Royal Canadian Legion!

After more than a decade of fighting for veterans' rights and their general well-being, I am proud to have been asked to join the Legion. Just before Christmas a member of the Bells Corners branch (#593) approached me to see if I might consider joining. The stated reason was so I could try out for various sports teams - I came out of retirement from bowling last September - but it could/would mean much more for me.

My work for veterans could be taken to the next level. I have always felt that the men and women who fought for Canada deserved much more than they had received in the decades that followed their return to the homeland. Over and above that, several members of my family fought in various conflicts. My grandfather fought in World War I.

I have always been told to sit quietly and observe a little before speaking up or jumping when joining a new organization. Mere days after the general meeting that saw me initiated into branch #593 did someone come over and ask what I might be interested in doing. I had already volunteered to be one of six branch representatives at a Heart Institute telethon (many members of my family have been in and out of that facility) but it seems that I won't have to wait a few months before becoming active.

They are very nice people and I'm sure they're happy to see a pair of younger hands floating about. I hope to help out here and there and give a little something back. Who knows where this road will lead?!

Where are all the global warming worrywarts now?

So winter finally arrived last Thursday. Did you all really think it would never come? Was Ottawa on the verge of becoming the next Victoria?

Many people would seem to think so. Had I not been sick last week I would have been tempted to head out to a very soggy golf course to get eighteen holes in. I would have been able to brag to my future grandchildren that I, Michael Mason, played golf in Ottawa - the world's COLDEST capital city - in January! I guess I will have to live vicariously through some of my friends who did get manage to get out there.

But I have to ask... if Ottawa was on the verge of becoming another Victoria, what would there be to brag about? Would it not become commonplace to play golf in Ottawa in the middle of January? After all, with global warming having arrived, it's bound to become as common as an old Saturn with 208,000km on it that doesn't want to start on a -26 degree morning, right? OK, so I'm bitter because my wife's car didn't start today. Why? Oh yes - because it was minus twenty-six degrees outside this morning.

Look - over the millions of years this planet has whirled its way around the sun, climate change has been a phenomenon experienced by all living creatures. With some scientists and politicians trying to convince the masses that we're all going to burn up if we don't stop driving cars and using traditional light bulbs in our houses, hysteria was beginning to settle in.

Before January 11, 2007 came along, all people were talking about was global warming. When the cold and snow set in on the 12th, a day that North America tumbled into a week-long (and counting!) cold snap that starts in Texas and seems to trail all the way up through northern Quebec, the doomsday brigade all seemed to wither away into their hovels, presumably curled up in front of their fireplaces.

Odds are excellent that they won't be showing up on any open line radio programs or television special broadcasts any time soon. But as soon as the mercury hits one or two degrees above normal (which has happened on every single day of the year if you check out historical weather data - and records weren't all set in the last fifteen or fifty years either), they will be back out once again.

American "experts" claim polar bears are dying off. The agriculture minister in Nunavut disagrees. Alarmists claim that polar ice is disappearing at a speed never seen before in our history. Tangible data and historical information if read intelligently says otherwise.

Come on, people, I'd be shocked if we regularly saw +12 degree weather over a two week period between Christmas and mid-January again in the next half century. It might happen once or twice, but that won't mean that the sky is falling. It'll simply mean that weather patterns have temporarily shifted once again. Besides... do you think that people in Malibu are worried about buying snow shovels and street graders today because a half-inch of snow fell on the palm trees this morning?

I don't think so.