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Has anybody else had enough of LeRoy
Peach?
If the Port Morien denizen isn’t spouting
tired cliches during his regular bits on Information
Morning (spring must be here,
the Leafs are out — ed.), he’s nattering on
about nothing in his weekly Cape Breton
Post column.
I nearly flipped my lid when I spotted a
letter to the editor to the Post the other
week, during which he, for some unknown
reason, felt the need to enlighten readers
about a conversation he had with his
nephew about something or other.
The guy’s an old woman’s arse, there
ain’t no two ways about it.
CBRM residents interested in the
upcoming Utility and Review Board public
meeting dealing with the future size of
Council would be wise to get their hands
on a board consultant’s report which recommends
that it be reduced by four seats
before the next election.
The report says municipal democracy
will not be seriously altered by a change
from 16 to 12 councillors. A smaller council,
it argues, will not lead to the loss of
localized identities, but can help place
greater emphasis on the larger regional
identity.
The document is also highly critical of
the way council went about gathering public
input on the issue. The consultant says
public meeting minutes reflected not what
was said by citizens, but the supposed
“accomplishments” of the gatherings. It
also blasts council’s blind refusal to listen
to its own consultant, who likewise recommended
culling the herd.
The truth is this decision should have
been made years ago, but a cabal of backward-thinking
councillors were able to
stem the tide of change. It won’t work again.
The meeting is scheduled for May 30.
John Morgan, aka the prophet of gloom
and doom, is spreading his message of
despair again, this time to the local Chamber
of Commerce.
The CBRM mayor was singing his same
tired tunes — out-migration, lack of cash
from the other levels of government, etc.
— at the Chamber’s meeting at the North
Star Motel in North Sydney last month.
I’m ashamed to say that not one member
of the business community asked for the
mayor’s solution to the problem. Three
softball questions and he was off the hook.
Disgraceful.
“You tell me why kids do the things they
do,” thundered Cape Breton University
athletics department communications
honcho Doug MacKenzie when I asked for
LeRoy Peach, shown here prior to boring a pair of lobsters to death.
a comment to explain the alleged behaviour
of former varsity basketball star Phillip
Nkrumah.
As you’ve likely heard, the Brampton
native is set to appear in Provincial Court
on May 19 to enter a plea on charges including
assaulting a police officer, resisting
and obstructing an officer, and causing
a disturbance as a result of an incident
at the Capri Club on Charlotte Street
in late February.
At presstime, I was still waiting for CBU
Community Studies professor Jane
Connell — or anyone from the knowledge
box, for that matter — to answer a fresh
allegation that she, like Sociology professor
Joe Parish (Frank 609), missed an
inordinate amount of classes this school
year. I’m sure Jane, the wiferoo of CBU
vice-president external Keith Brown, will
get to me sooner or later.
Could the “erosion of staff morale” at the
Cape Breton Regional Hospital, recently
referred to by departing thoracic surgeon
Dr. Russ Gowan (Frank 608, 610), have
anything to do with this individual’s heartless
comment?
An acquaintance tells me that an elderly
patient ended up with severe chafing after
soiling herself and being forced to sit in it
all night. When she complained to a nurse
the next morning, the nurse commented
that, “This is a hospital, not a nursing
home.”
Nice.
More than a decade after court action
began, a medical malpractice trial addressing
the plight of a severely paralyzed
Louisbourg woman begins on May 24 in
Sydney.
Victoria Renata Anderson, 37, has been
a prisoner in her own body, only able to
move her eyelids, for 14 years, following a
1997 visit to the VG Hospital for treatment
of her recurrent inflammatory bowel disease.
The plaintiffs, Victoria and her parents,
Mildred and Victor Anderson (Ray
Wagner and Michael Dull, Wagner & Associates),
are accusing the defendants,
the Queen Elizabeth Health Sciences
Centre, Dr. S. Wagner and Dr. S.A. Gee
(Dan Campbell, Cox & Palmer) of botching
attempts to insert a catheter into one
of Victoria’s central veins, causing a stroke
which led to her condition.
The court has set aside an astounding
49 days to hear the evidence.
Gotta love the spanking-new Cape
Breton tourism slogan: No Wrong Turn.
Anybody familiar with Marketing 101
knows you never use a negative when
seeking a positive response. But the geniuses
at Destination Cape Breton and the
Extreme Group managed to cram two
negative words into a three-word slogan.
Nice work.
Of course, this Herculean effort is at least
partially financed by your friends at Enterprise
Cape Breton Corporation. Destination
C.B. has received $1,267,743 from the
corporate welfare specialists since 2007.
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MAY 24, 2011 FRANK MAGAZINE 11