Situation Normal -- All Fucked Up

So the government has finally admitted, what the rest of the world already knew: we are in a recession. What's more, it's affecting everyone. That's particularly evident in Hamilton, where one of our steel mills has shut down for the possibly first time ever. They say that it's only temporary, but strictly speaking that can mean anything from just a week, to over a year. We are definitely in the worst financial shape, since the Great Depression, and what is our government doing about it? Sweet fuck all.

Locally, we still have councillors, citizens, and special interest groups griping about the new stadium that now we pretty much have to build. Now look, here are the facts: the stadium we have right now, is falling to pieces. So unless Hamilton wants to have no outdoor sports at all, we need to build a new one. It has to go somewhere, and no matter where we put it, someone's going to be pissed. That's a fact of life, that you have to live with. More importantly, though, in case no one's noticed, this whole city is going to be a slum very damn quickly, if we don't give the steel mills some kind of business. What better, than to build a stadium in their home town? Oh right, I forgot, Hamilton doesn't believe in taking pride in itself.

Provincially, things aren't much better. At least Premier Dalton McGuinty is trying to invest in an infrastructure, but for some bizzare reason the construction work is being farmed out to places OUTSIDE of Ontario! What the fuck are these guys thinking? We have an auto industry that is bleeding to death, and McGuinty wants our buses to be built in Europe?! AGH!

Then of course, we have the cold-hearted, soulless assholes in Ottawa, otherwise known as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative party. After needing to have their arms twisting into doing anything at all about the economy, they've decided to spend most of their time and taxpayers' money, financing a slush fund that has no strings attached at all -- which probably means it's going to mainly go out to Conservative interest groups. Oh, and making ads that attack the opposition -- outside of an election -- accusing them of not being up to the job. That's a little like an emo putting down a schizophrenic, isn't it?

Anyway... when the Stelco plants shut down in Ontario, this was the time for the Harper government to show Canada some leadership. Instead, we have an Industry Minister, who never has any idea what our industries are doing, and a Human Resources Minister who doesn't believe in putting anyone on unemployment insurance. She says that the people ought to be finding work, but what Marie Antoinette doesn't seem to understand is that there is no work. Interestingly enough, the Minister, the Dishonourable Diane Finley, is the Member of Parliament for one of the towns that will be hurt by the steel shut downs. It would be verrry interesting to see what she says now.

It's at times like this, that it's very frustrating to be a Canadian. Every other week, we hear about leaders in third-world countries being overthrown for exact this kind of incompetence and indifference, yet in this country most people can't even be bothered to vote. When are we, as a people, going to find the balls to stand up for ourselves? If we just keep trusting these idiots and lunatics to run things themselves, the Canadian people will die a very slow death. That's it for me.

Hamilton Sucks!

So the City of Hamilton has reluctantly decided that it will build and partially own a new stadium. Officially, this is to assist Toronto's bid to host the 2015 Pan Am games, but the fact that our existing stadium is falling to pieces as I speak probably has a lot more to do with it. In any case, there are, as usual a ton of detractors to the very idea of doing anything to invest in this city. I can't help but ask, are these people suicidal, or just plain stupid?

There's a reason why I've previously said, that the City of Hamilton has some kind of allergy to doing anything to really make things better for its people. For years, our local government has insisted on chasing away the handful of businesses that want to build some sort of mini industry here. That is, of course, after they have the patience to wade through an arcane bundle of red tape that no other big city in Ontario has even dreamt of. This is truly insane; our officials sit endlessly on their thumbs when historic downtown buildings collapse in the middle of the street, and crooked house builders violate stop work orders, but as soon as a large company wants to make life better for us, they can't shoot it down fast enough.

Consider if you will, the fact that not too long ago, Maple Leaf wanted to build a processing plant on the outskirts of town. This would have given the community a lot of badly needed jobs. You would think that this would be an easy thing for Hamilton City Hall to approve, but no, they said that we didn't want those sort of jobs here. I'm completely serious. Excuse me, but speaking as someone who HAS been unemployed, in a city with one of the largest unemployment rates in Canada, ANY job is one that's wanted! I don't recall ever giving some faceless bureaucrat the right to decide my destiny for me, so piss off.

Then there's the fact that every time we badly need to build something in this city -- a new city hall, new sewers, a new stadium, whatever -- our local councillors constantly ignore it until the press uncovers some disaster; such as, the outside walls of city hall falling down, or the Lister Block, Tivoli theatre, and several other downtown buildings partially collapsing, or lightstands falling off of Ivor Wynne stadium, or our sewers bursting whenever someone coughs near them. Once again, here's a newsflash: considering that the economy not only in Hamilton, but much of Ontario, is based on manufacturing and construction, doesn't it seem smart to... oh, I don't know... give them something to build???

Hamilton is a very weird town; we're the size of a big city, but we very much have a small town mentality. What I mean by that is that we're very scared of -- even angered by -- changing things, until well after they've walked up and bitten us all on the ass. There are people who say that I should get into local politics, but this is a big reason why I'm not sure if I want to: I believe in doing the smart thing; I believe in standing up for the people who are trying to survive in this town. That's simply not the way we do things, here. That's it for me.