OPINION
The Highway 13 snowstorm debacle just keeps getting more and more unbelievable.
We found out this week that the SQ cop in charge of things that night was double-dipping.
Instead of working to protect us and the 300 stranded drivers, Captain Michel Lapointe was actually busy, very busy, closing a real estate deal.
You see he splits his time between serving and protecting and selling and purchasing.
He wasn’t even on the island of Montreal, instead spending his SQ time at a notary in Blainville.
Adding to this, La Presse reports that the captain was already written up in 2014 for using his SQ car and phone for real estate business.
There's something not quite right when a cop holds down a second job.
Is there not enough police work to keep them busy? Does being in a position of authority give them extra influence or sway when moonlighting? How is their cop time monitored?
These are legitimate questions and let’s face it, confidence in our police these days is rock bottom.
The Montreal department has been exposed as a nest of corruption.
We can’t even get cops to dress proudly in their uniforms.
Now the minister says he may introduce special legislation to force them to drop the clown pants.
My question is: what has taken so bloody long?
It is time to rein in the clowns. They are representatives and symbols of societal authority.
We give them guns and we expect them to wear the uniform.
The clown pant protest has been going on far too long.
In case you forgot the protest was over pension reform, pensions which you and I largely pay.
They never accepted the law and that in itself was troubling.
Remember how they acted in 2014 when they stood idly by as firefighters stormed and ransacked city hall?
Four of them were eventually suspended. Not the proudest moment in the force’s history.
As for our police real estate agent, he was suspended too. Suspended with pay. Sweet deal.
Most of us who acted in the same way would be shown the door and told never to come back.
Corporate welfare is Bombardier’s business
Whether it’s cops or big unions or big corporations, the sense of entitlement seems to be ingrained in this province.
Bombardier came to governments with cap in hand, crying for money for its jet program.
Quebec ponied up a billion US of your dollars.
Ottawa jumped in for a few hundred million in loans.
You would have thought Bombardier was in such dire shape that even the executives would be cutting back and brown-bagging it.
Thousands of workers were laid off.
But while the company makes a plea of poverty, the top brass at the company were awarding themselves raises of up to 50% -- US$32 million.
What utter nerve. Bob Dylan was right: money doesn’t talk, it swears.
Speaking of swearing about money
You will have a little more money in your pocket thanks to the Quebec budget this week.
Not much money, but if you listen to the finance minister he was heralding in a new era of chickens in every pot.
The relief measures are mostly symbolic.
Quebec remains a welfare state which is drowning in debt.
Quebec is still the highest taxed place in North America, not just with income tax but taxes on taxes and higher fees for almost everything.
Most job creation comes from government, not the private sector.
And just wait until next year’s budget a few months before the election.
You will get back even more of your money that you overpaid in the first place.
That’s politics and in politics, stupidity is not a handicap.
