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Apr. 11th, 2014 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dewlineI can neither praise nor mourn Jim Flaherty, our former finance minister.
That his passing leaves many - family, friends, and respected adversaries - doing so is something I acknowledge. But I cannot feel as they do about the man. He's done too much.
The top of the fold of today's Toronto Star depicts the reasons why much better than I can say...the passing of the man himself, and the consequences of his actions whilst in office, side by side.
Thomas Walkom also says as much in his column on the subjects and how they are linked together.
Humans are indeed complicated, Mr. Walkom.
But harm has been caused to something dear to me as a citizen, as a student of popular culture and history...and that something dear is not alone in suffering that harm. CBC has lost its orchestra, its radio drama arm, its music album-publishing arm, so much programming on radio and TV that I dare not hope to list everything...and more recently control over the Hockey Night in Canada brand that helped define CBC in so many minds for over 60 years. A brand they built starting before my birth...but will no longer be allowed to continue past my eventual death, it seems.
And this front page shows us some of the further fallout from that loss.
We of Canada will be a long time recovering from the consequences of the beliefs and actions of Mr. Flaherty and his allies.
And so I can neither praise nor mourn him, though I respect that others must and will.
I mourn the consequences of his deeds.
That his passing leaves many - family, friends, and respected adversaries - doing so is something I acknowledge. But I cannot feel as they do about the man. He's done too much.
The top of the fold of today's Toronto Star depicts the reasons why much better than I can say...the passing of the man himself, and the consequences of his actions whilst in office, side by side.
Thomas Walkom also says as much in his column on the subjects and how they are linked together.
Humans are indeed complicated, Mr. Walkom.
But harm has been caused to something dear to me as a citizen, as a student of popular culture and history...and that something dear is not alone in suffering that harm. CBC has lost its orchestra, its radio drama arm, its music album-publishing arm, so much programming on radio and TV that I dare not hope to list everything...and more recently control over the Hockey Night in Canada brand that helped define CBC in so many minds for over 60 years. A brand they built starting before my birth...but will no longer be allowed to continue past my eventual death, it seems.
And this front page shows us some of the further fallout from that loss.
We of Canada will be a long time recovering from the consequences of the beliefs and actions of Mr. Flaherty and his allies.
And so I can neither praise nor mourn him, though I respect that others must and will.
I mourn the consequences of his deeds.