OK, OK, I know the title is a mixed metaphor, but somehow it defines the theme of this blog. The National Post is, as usual, a fund of information on how the public purse is being managed. In this case it reports the skinny on the fat cat bureaucracy which wastes our tax dollars.
Items mentioned all come from the National Post, Sept. 9th A-7. Francois Beaudoin, former president of The Business Development Bank of Canada, is suing the BDC to get back his pension of $200,000 a year; plus, mais oui, his $250,000 severance pay. You will remember the BDC as the trough where Chretien strong armed some BDC flunky into giving hefty loans to a couple of gangsters in Shawinigan.
Countering Beaudoin's claim are BDC lawyers who maintain that Beaudoin secretly set up a program to give senior directors a huge pension package--a platinum parachute if you will. The new directive would have increased his pension from $260,000 to $450,000. I realize that this might sound mean-spirited, but doesn't this seem obscenely generous?
Beaudoin's lawyer contends his client is the victim of a political vendetta, because he wanted to call in the $615,000 loan that Chretien had finagled for the owner of the Auberge Grand-mere.
It appears that Robert Ghiz, son of former PEI Premier Joe Ghiz, was given "special leave" to operate out of Ottawa and move to his home province – but he remained on the government payroll until mid-February, when he announced his run for the Premiership. Besides the irregular treatment afforded him, there is the question of his hospitality expenses that exceeded George Radwanski's--and we know what expensive tastes the former Privacy Commissioner had.
Ah the CBC looms as a target yet again. If the CBC were a bird, it would resemble the dodo. It simply cannot fly, nor even run fast enough, to avoid being thumped. Now the CBC is going to expand from its niche of showing goon hockey and left-wing agitprop to bringing us BLOCKBUSTER movies. Recent fare was Pretty Woman. This is a 1990 film that has been aired to death. Bud has learned that the bootylicous shots of Roberts were done by a body double--"Hi, I'm here for Julia's close-up butt shot." That kind of fraud fits right in with CBC's claim to be Canada's "public service" broadcaster.
With a near billion dollar budget the CBC should be doing shows that are Canadian. If they must show movies, let them be Canadian. At least we would see something for the taxpayer bucks that support them. Most Canadians have access to movie and sports channels; therefore, they do not need the CBC to give them more. Besides which CBC has no business competing in the commercial ad markets against the private TV companies.
The CBC can produce some good programs, such as North of 60, The Red Green Show, Witness, and Marketplace. All showcased some unique side of Canadiana. Paying for 13 year old movies just doesn't cut it.
