News Year’s resolutions we’d like to see

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on January 2, 2019.

It’s that time of year, when the Star’s Editorial Board turns its attention to resolutions that public figures may want to adopt to make the coming year better for all of us, or at least more tolerable than the last 365 days.

No one may listen (BAD!), but that’s never stopped us before.

Here, then, our suggestions for a better world in 2019:

Stormy Daniels: Resolve to keep speaking truth to power — and emasculating U.S. President Donald Trump in the process by taking him down one tweet at a time. You go, girl.

Donald Trump: Resolve to stop tweeting. Your BAD, SAD messages are crashing the stock market, undermining the justice system, endangering the environment and propping up dictatorships. And that’s just the start. Besides, with Twitter friends like Vladimir Putin, Jair Bolsonaro, Kim Jong-un and Mohammed bin Salman, who needs enemies?

Julie Payette: Resolve to show up for work. Yes, we get that a viceregal role may not send you to the moon, but governors general are generally known for the work they do, not the work they don’t. Watch out, or you’ll be lost in space.

Adrienne Clarkson: Resolve to make your expenses under the generous Former Governors General Program public, as former GG David Johnston has willingly done. After all, access to $206,000 of taxpayer money annually — after you’ve stopped working — could be seen as excessive in the extreme. Prove to us that it’s not.

Peacocks: Resolve to remain proud as a — well, you know — no matter how demeaning your owner’s actions may be. While Dexter the Peacock may dream of flying, he probably wasn’t thinking of doing so aboard a United Airlines flight as an “emotional support peacock” for his owner. Happily, for his dignity, the bird was turned away by the airline for health and safety reasons. Besides, his tail feathers probably wouldn’t have fit on board if he got excited.

Facebook: Resolve to respect people’s privacy, if not for your customers’ good, than your own. Yes, we know that sounds counter-productive for a company that makes its money from tracking its users’ lives. But “improperly” sharing the data of more than 50 million users without their permission (including that of more than 600,000 Canadian users) with the now defunct Cambridge Analytica was just one of the scandals that had company shares down nearly 40 per cent from their peak at the end of November.

Al Carbone: Resolve to let someone else choose what your ice sculpture should depict. The normally affable owner of the Kit Kat restaurant erected a sculpture of a raised middle finger to protest the pilot project to improve streetcar service on King St. W. But it appeared some clients wanted to give it back to the restaurant. Besides, his protest seems to have been misdirected; studies indicate business is up on the route.

Tim Hortons: Resolve to be more generous with your staff. After reports that franchisees were reducing employee benefits and cutting back on paid breaks to offset Ontario’s jump in the minimum wage, a survey found the company dropped from fourth place to 50th on a ranking of 100 companies Canadians most admire. No word on how many customers decided to just buy their java elsewhere.

Justin Trudeau: Resolve not to visit India again. First, you must have misread the dress code — media outlets in India described your duds as “choreographed cuteness.” Then your wife Sophie made headlines by posing for a photograph with a Canadian Sikh, Jaspal Atwal, convicted in 1986 of trying to assassinate an Indian minister, even as you were trying to assure Indian leaders that Canada opposes Sikh separatism. Can you say failed diplomacy?

Vic Fedeli: Resolve to go back to school and take Math 101. Ontario’s chief financial accountability officer and the province’s former chief accountant both say you’re inflating the size of the provincial deficit. Yes, we know it’s tempting to take another whack at the Liberals. But resist!

Daylight Savings Time, redux: Yes, you starred in last year’s resolutions, but unbelievably no one listened (see above). So it bears repeating: Resolve to disappear. Another year promises another two time changes, which in turn promise yet more danger and misery — and for what? Messed-up sleep patterns, an increase risk of heart attack, stroke, depression and sleep disorders — not to mention the toll DST takes in lost productivity. Begone!

— Toronto Star

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