Come now, Mr. Williamson, are there no more pressing concerns for a Member of Parliament than declaring to the world on Facebook that Haagen Dazs “isn’t ice cream?”

What about other concerns in your modest-income N.B. Southwest riding: homelessness, addictions, poverty, the housing shortage, the cost of gasoline, and, for many people, most important of all, the price of groceries?

After a trip to the grocery store, MP Williamson wrote in a recent Facebook post: “No wonder the Haagen Dazs was on sale at Loblaws. This isn’t ice cream. This should be illegal. The large store sign read: Haagen Dazs Sale…

The CBC has many problems, just now.
 
 First among them is the CEO of the Corporation, Katherine Tait, who is brittle, and insensitive to the real problems the CBC is facing. Her appearance before a parliamentary committee in December, failing to understand the terrible optics of her announcing six hundred job cuts and two hundred vacancies left unfilled, at the same time as top CBC wage earners, including Tait herself, receive healthy end-of-year performance bonuses. Tait’s testimony prompted a torrent of virulent, on-line comments.
 
Tait is now a lightning rod, for those such as Conservative Leader, Pierre Poilievre, who is calling for defunding the CBC. Globe and Mail national columnist, Konrad Yakabuski, has referred to Tait’s tenure in the top job of the corporation as a “reign of terror.”  Yakabuski has noted that Tait, along with other failings, has not managed well the delicate balance between the English-language CBC and the francophone Radio-Canada.

Many of the old-time sayings in the English language hold a lot of truth. The Against the Flow blog has been saving up quite a few of them for your lighter springtime reading. We have divided them up into different categories, but many don’t want to be put in just one box.

Where possible, the origin of the saying is in brackets.

With thanks to Google for the research. Have a look!

This is an old saying believed to have originated in Turkey. Applied here, it means that the decline of any organization or political party begins at the top.

A seasoned reporter described the April 30th Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa as the nastiest he had ever witnessed. It all began when Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “wacko” for supporting British Columbia’s policy on decriminalization of the possession of hard drugs.

Despite suggestions by wise advisors that Mr. Trudeau not get down and dirty with Pierre Poilievre because mud would inevitably stick to him as Prime Minister, Trudeau responded in kind in the House, calling Poilievre “shameless” and “spineless.”

The Speaker of the House, Greg Fergus, kicked Poilievre out of the Commons after an unsuccessful attempt to have the Leader of the Opposition withdraw the remark. Members of the Conservative caucus walked out of the Commons in sympathy.