Columnists
Taming of the tangles
I remember the moment as clearly as if it had just happened. My then 15-year-old, daughter said to me, “Mom, your hair is kind of pinkish-brown.” I knew it was. I was hoping no one else would notice I’d made a terrible mistake in my “I can colour my own hair” escapade. She noticed. It made me angry because I’d made the mistake and I said to her, “As if you know anything about hair colouring.” I know, it was childish. I was really upset about the “pinkish-brown” and it was late on a Sunday evening—a rookie mistake. I had a long commute the next morning with no chance of a hair colour fix until the next weekend. Grrr. I hate being wrong. I wore a baseball hat at work for the rest of the week. Not one person mentioned my new style, probably because they took one look at my “go ahead and say something” face and opted not to. By the following Saturday the error was corrected.
We’ve all made mistakes. Some of mine have been a lot worse than deciding to colour my own hair. Not too many months ago, I sat back (like a lot of you did) and watched as the province went to the polling stations and begged Doug Ford to show Ontario the way back to prosperity and efficiency. I could have been more proactive in my quest to keep Dougie out of office, but I’m more inclined to do something to cause, and then rectify, a bad hairdo than put my neck on the line for a politician. We all watched with slack jaws as Ford began his term by avenging the plight of his late brother, and the ruling by the Integrity Commissioner, by tearing the daylights out of Toronto’s City Council. The fallout had barely dissipated when Dougie decided the eviscerate the health curriculum in public schools. Yep, kids could learn about sexual health the way he did, in Mom’s basement recreation room. Egads, there isn’t a long enough commute or a weekend fix that will make this mess all better. If you thought you were raised in the Dark Ages of sexual understanding, our children’s children won’t do any better with increased class sizes and decreased funding for special education programming.
Mr. Ford is an angry man with a bone to pick. From the health curriculum and classroom size to messing with cap-and-trade and carbon tax, then onto Hydro One—leaving the tax payers of Ontario with angry US regulators insisting that Ontario will owe multi-millions of dollars in termination fees. When Ford had promised us we’d see lower hydro bills we can look forward to a huge jump in rates. Ain’t no way to hide that tangled mess. But cheap beer is cheap and pot is available at a store near you. You may need the pot, or a cheap beer, because you might not get sedation for your colonoscopy. While Douglas is playing with fire, he has decided to take a slash at those pesky, low-income families by cancelling the basic income pilot project and replacing it with a Low Income Individuals and Families Tax Credit which just doesn’t do a body good since the minimum wage of $15 per hour has been clipped. And D.F. isn’t even close to being finished. If there’s a big mistake to be made he’s going to make it with healthcare. It’s on the block, and by Tuesday Bill 74 will be tabled (without credible input or discussion) as the “road map” to change the way health care is delivered in this province. This Bill effectively paves the way for a two-tiered healthcare system and destroys OHIP. I think this new kind of medicine will surely make the rest of our hair fall out. Yep, Bill 74 could be law by June of this year. And this is where I start thinking a ball cap can’t hide the mess we’re in.
Someone, maybe someone like me or you, is bound to notice a huge mistake has been made, and if we don’t do something, we’ll be stuck with that pompous buffoon, and his internal angst, until June of 2022. All y’all know there isn’t any amount of Clairol or conditioner going to cover and tame this tangle.
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