I want to entitle this days blog "is Canada becoming a nation of the entourage?", If you can remember the events leading up to June 6th there was a huge cry that the government told those surviving veterans of the D-Day landing that if they wanted to visit Normandy it would be on their own dollar. Mind you the government was sending a large entourage of politicians, in fact both Jack Layton and Stephen Harper both told Paul Martin to give their seat on the plane to a vet.

Now I hear that those Canadian athletes who are in Athens had to get their on their own coin. Now again, I don't think a whole lot of them bought their own ticket, basically because the majority of Canadian athletes live below the poverty level. I read the the stipend for our athletes is 1100 a month. So in other words that guy stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart could be an Olympian. I know that a lot of them get sponsored by corporations such as McDonald's, the Royal Bank or their local community or athletic group make sure they have no more expenses then they already do. And you thought everyone going to a food bank was a welfare bum. I like what John Derringer of
q107 wrote in his column. His most telling remark was this: "Canada's elite athletes receive about $1,100 a month in funding, yet Toronto spends $30,000 per homeless person. Just try getting your head around that one. If a few homeless guys could run a sub-four-minute mile, at least we'd get a little something for our investment". If only. Yet I believe the COA is sending a full entourage of hacks, flacks and sycophants to Athens. Again, money for the posse, but none for the stars. At least Puff Daddy is the centre of his entourage, in Canada the real stars are pushed to the side and the jokers get all the perks.

Right now Canada has one bronze medal. Don't get me wrong, I would never slam our athletes, they are all great men and women who spend years of their live to practice their sport. They surrender a big chunk of their personal lives and potential earnings to wear the Maple Leaf. They want to support their nation, even though their government treats them worse then a bunch of terrorists claiming refugee status. That bronze medal ties us with Thailand by the way. While our athletes work hard, the Secretary of State for Sports Stan Keyes, the guy responsible for the mess tells us not to get fixated with medal counts, huh? Dude, that's why we have a medal count in the daily newspaper, we want to know how many medals we win. I know it's not we, it's a group of individuals and certainly a nation's self esteem is more then medals, but it really looks bad when a nation that is supposely as wealthy of Canada doesn't do anything in the area of sports.

Now it's not the athletes then who's to blame? Our society, I don't think so. Let's put the blame where it belongs on our beloved federal government. This bunch for the last ten years, actually eleven has been jerking our best athletes around. I suppose it could be argued they were treated no worse then everyone else during the last 11 years. Of course in Canada the best treated people are those who belong to that most exclusive of clubs "the Friends of the PM". Amateur athletics has been cut probably harder then any other program and yet while they are going to food banks and working at McDonald's, our politicians make sure their buddies are all on the gravy train. Recently Canada Post accepted the resignation of Andre Ouellett, the 2 million dollar man. The guy who had problems keeping receipts. He made 400000 a year, that would pay for 10 athletes a year @ 40000 a year. Or how about the Commissioner of the Official Languages, she sent a bill for 40000 for a trip to Sudbury. How she spent that much I don't know. Again Ottawa has an unlimited supply of cash for these dregs and none for our athletes. If you want further proof, just read this. Our beloved G-G, the Queen's Representative seems to love the Big Apple. Now let me say, I join with her on this sentiment, I too like New York, however it doesn't cost me $4800 to fly there. Multiply that by 10 and you see another example, no funds for athletes but for the parasites, the vault is open.

You may remember Dyane Adam, she's the idiot who 'investigated' Don Cherry for his comments about hockey players that wear visors. Again, another parasite on the body politic of Canada. We need less of her and more athletes who work very hard and want to represent their country on the nation stage.

Go Canada

Peace