I love getting emails begging me to speak my mind about stuff. Maybe begging is a strong word. Still, I love getting emails, which you can send to radiounderdog@gmail.com, by the way. Emails remind me that I have people who are interested in the same things as me. They also remind me that I have a gmail account… which you can use anytime you like by sending me an email there. radiounderdog@gmail.com. Did I say that yet? I did? Right. I remember now. On to the email!!!

Hey Roger!

I’ve been thinking about your thoughts on Canadian Amateur athletes – give them the money to hire the best coaches. Great idea, and im wondering why Brian Orser has been coaching that Korean girl for the last 3 years… and not a Canadian skater?

Enjoy the game tonight, but please leave the Slovak jersey at home where it belongs, would ya?

M. House

PS Id like to see some blogging about the drinks the women’s hockey team enjoyed at center ice.

Thanks for that email, Manitoba House.

I firmly believe that the single greatest thing we can do for our athletes is enable them to control their own destinies. The current model is laden with bureaucracy and administrators who wet their beaks before the athletes even see a penny. Those athletes with endorsement deals (think Catriona Lemay Doan + Cheerios) have more financial freedom to do as they please and train as they please with whom they please, if you please.

It does seem treasonous to see Canadian figure skating legend Brian Orser training the Korean skater who goes on to win gold on Canadian soil. While I admittedly don’t know the ins and outs of how this arrangement came to be or how Orser is not training a Canadian athlete, I do know that Kim Yu-Na is the highest paid athlete in Korea at the moment and chose Brian Orser to train her.

It seem money can buy results. The US programs are well funded by private and corporate donors. If money can buy results, then let those who would pay for the result control the money.

As with everything in Canada, we don’t have confidence enough in the user. We need parental organizations to make all the decisions for us. When we finally step out of this limiting way of thinking… who knows. Maybe we will own a podium or two. We might be on our way to solving some of Canada’s other problems as well.

As for the Canadian women celebrating with beers and cigars on the ice… maybe not the classiest celebration of all time, but certainly not worth the national over-reaction. It’s refreshing to see our athletes basking in the glory of their accomplishments; something we wrongly regard as taboo. Good on ya, ladies! Now… if the Canadian men don’t win… and they lose to the USA in the gold medal game… then I fully expect to see the Americans celebrate in the exact same way as our women did… and we won’t be able to say boo about it because, well, the precedent has been set. (I hope it doesn’t come to that, ladies. He who laughs last, laughs loudest… at the very end of a party we’ve been looking forward to for 7 years.)

My grandpappy/an old-timer/a wise man once said: “If you wanna win the race, you gotta have the best horse in the race.” Granted, I don’t actually have anybody to attribute this quote to, but I’m going to try to make sense of it by the end of this post.

You had to enjoy the massive turn out to this weekend’s proroguement protests. Conservative estimates put the crowds in the neighbourhood of 27,000 nationwide. Liberal estimates say it was 25,000 on Parliament Hill alone. Either way, the numbers are laughable. We’ve been hearing about how angry Canadians are with Stephen Harper and his dictatorship. We’ve been hearing that there’s a grassroots fury building via Facebook group. Then, when it came time, about 10% of that Facebook group turned out for the protests. Rather, a crowd representing about 10% did.

Can you blame our Prime Minister for his semi-mocking tone and patronizing comment that he feels inspired seeing Canadians getting involved in politics? The protests were a joke. They deserve to be joked about. A fraction of the people most upset by Harper’s actions came out to say so. Iggy and Jack lambasted Harper, but you’ll remember they refused to kick him out when they had the chance. This weekend was nothing but grandstanding, and the stand wasn’t very grand.

I don’t blame people for not showing up, though. Even if I were as outraged as the throngs claimed to be, I wouldn’t turn up to a fruitless advertising venture like these rallies. Instead, try getting to work grilling your party leaders for some lasting change. Admit it, the opposition has been hammering on the Afghan detainee issue, a total non-starter with the electorate, solely to make the Harper government look bad. This issue is older than the Tory minorities anyway, but not much is made of that. The Liberals care about the treatment of Taliban prisoners about as much as they did back when they were in power.

The reality is that if an election were held today, the balance of power wouldn’t change. Granted, the Tories have lost most of their edge in popularity polls, but the Liberals are a long way from laughing. If we voted now the turnout would be lower than ever because, despite all the outrage we witnessed last Saturday, the prevailing sentiment in Canada is disenchantment or disinterest. Also, and it’s worth saying, the Liberals don’t even like their leader that much, so why would they rush to the ballot boxes?

For the record, I’m not thrilled about Harper putting off Parliament for two months. I’m not going to take a side in this fight because I know that the Liberals have done it many times as well and that counts for something in this discussion. But I’m not about to call for his head on a platter like the left will because they have yet to put a better horse in the race.

Eureka!

For all the bitching and moaning coming from the socialist half of this country, they have yet to put up a leader with a basket of inspiring ideas. Instead, we have an opposition that shamed the PM into leading Canada into deficit with stimulus measures and is trying the same tactic on issues the country isn’t into talking about. Couldn’t the Harvard prof have brought us some great ideas by now? Ideas worth voting for?

Here’s my advice for those of you who want Harper’s head to roll: put a better horse in the race and then sound the bugle. Liberals want somebody better than Iggy to vote for. Find him/her, make him/her your leader, spring an election. That’s how to get things done. Enough with the paltry protests. Change government from within, not without.