Trudeau’s First Report Card and Why Reporters are Bottom-Feeding Scum
It’s been a few months with our new Prime Minister Trudeau; the honeymoon is over so I think it’s time I check up on him. Let the post-honeymoon nagging begin. See how’s he’s doing, you know?
During the marathon election campaign in 2015, Trudeau and the Liberals made 214 promises ranging from the Syrian refugee crisis to reducing our deficit; I couldn’t really see myself making 214 promises in my entire lifetime, but I guess I have a little less on the go. So far he’s only broken 2 of them, but taking the wheel of a country from the Conservatives was no easy task and there were probably a few deals on the go that were penned by Harper and left on the desk for Trudeau to deal with. Like the deal where Canada provides Saudi Arabia with weapons.
I’m sorry, what? “Ahhhh we just sold them a couple jeeps.” Were they Barbie jeeps? Or were they the jeeps with bulletproof tires, machine gun turrets and surface-to-air missiles? I’m not too sure I’d be handing over boom-boom war equipment to a country that still beheads its own citizens and celebrates town square beatings for women that don’t cover their faces in public. But hey what do I know? While we’re beefing up Saudi Arabia’s military, Trudeau promised to pull Canadian fighter jets out of Iraq and Syria. What were those jets doing there? Probably blowing stuff up. Canada will be replacing the fighter jets with humanitarian aid… like hey, sorry for blowing you up for the last few years, here’s some crackers.
Meanwhile, scientists estimate that 13% of the world’s untapped oil and 30% of the world’s natural gas reserves are located in the Arctic. The day after Trudeau was elected into office, Russian president Vladimir Putin welcomed Trudeau into his new digs with the message that he will be setting up a military base at the North Pole and claimed that the oil and natural gas is his. Possession is 9/10ths of the law I guess, and since we didn’t do much about Russia invading the Ukraine (an ally of ours) it’s not likely that Canada is going to do much about the Russians poking around in our attic. In his defence, Trudeau did say in the final days of his election campaign that he would “stare down” Putin over the Arctic oil dispute. I’m no expert on Canada/Russia political relations but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that “Blue Steel” from our art teacher Prime Minister is not going to command a grizzly bear to stand down.
Yes, this post does eventually touch on sledding. Promise!
Here’s what I would do instead. Let’s send 1000s of heavily modified tanks to the North Pole. Budget somewhere around $950 million to install seats and pedals that accommodate the traditionally shorter stature of Santa’s elves. Assault rifles will have to be modified as well because the elves’ smaller fingers would not fit properly around the trigger. Santa’s sleigh should be fitted with bulletproof armour as well as a cloaking device that borrows technology from the Klingons. Santa’s reindeer can also receive self-defence training from the Canadian military in the event that they are attacked while delivering toys. If Christmas is ruined because the North Pole was blown up, blame Trudeau.
One thing we can’t blame on anyone is the incredible winter that’s been going down so far. It seems as though the sport is getting pushed further this year with the amount of creativity that is going into the riding and the web edits that have dropped. Not to mention that our machines are allowing us to do more than ever with better suspension designs and more reliable motors. What a time to be alive.
What a year it’s been!
My sincerest condolences to the victims of the avalanches this year. Unfortunately the media has a tendency to misrepresent the actual facts in an effort to sensationalize a tragedy to boost ratings and increase viewership. The actual facts are available at www.avalanche.ca and are based on data and information collected by avalanche professionals. Avalanche professionals spend years training and gaining experience to gather and present accurate scientific data used to make decisions in-bounds on ski hills, within mechanized skiing tenures, highway closures, and many other instances.
One of the other instances is the localized reports designed to help recreational backcountry users make decisions on what terrain they want to be in for the day; it is up to us to read those reports and apply that information along with our own observations to make educated terrain choices. We can never completely remove the risk of avalanche unless we stay home every day, but we can lower the chances of triggering one.
I would like to personally invite the members of mainstream media to have a visit to www.avalanche.ca, perhaps it will help you understand that avalanches do not strike as if they are a weather pattern or that all sledders are beer guzzling, redneck meat heads with a death wish. The sledder stereotype parallels the uninformed, soulless, bottom feeding, ambulance chasing news reporters that swarm sledding area parking lots looking to cash in on a tragedy to get that promotion to 5 o’clock news anchor. Maybe next time instead of watching reruns of ‘The Newsroom’ or dressing up like Barbara Walters with all your other news reporter buddies, sit down and do a little research on what you are reporting on so you have a little credibility in the snowmobiling community.
In the meantime, here’s a list of other things to report on:
– Every year, on average, more than two dozen large ships sink, or otherwise go missing, taking their crews along with them. Two dozen means 24 in case news reporters didn’t have to do math in reporter school.
– Pica is an eating disorder typically defined as the persistent ingestion of non-nutritive substances for at least 1 month at an age for which this behavior is developmentally inappropriate. It may be benign or may have life-threatening consequences. I wonder how many news reporters can’t help eating cardboard.
– Here’s an interesting thesis discussing news reporter credibility and how they gain the trust of their viewers based primarily on how they look.
https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0087718
– Colin