The year that was and the year ahead

(December 29) - When this year started, I made a commitment. I would lose weight and get into better shape. I end the year on the same note.

Twelve months ago, Tiger Woods had one thing in common with people everywhere. He’s a better golfer than I am. By the end of the year, I had one thing in common with thousands of others. I’m a better person than he is.

It has been an interesting and memorable year. My granddaughter had her second birthday, my father had his last. Lynne and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary. Of people who used to be children, my oldest turned 40 and my youngest reached her quarter century.

My older brother turned 65. My younger brother celebrated his 61st birthday by going on a 122-mile bicycle ride. Sixty-one miles out, 61 miles back –in one day. I didn’t match that, but I did get my first set of hearing aids. That’s something neither he nor Tiger has.

But 2009 wasn’t all about me, was it?

It was a lot about political brinkmanship in Ottawa. At the start, we almost had a coalition government of the Liberals and the NDP. It failed because the leaders of the two parties counted their chickens before they hatched. They didn’t anticipate how the prime minister would respond to what ended up as amateur hour on the opposition benches. Like a pair of inept chess players, Stéphane Dion and Jack Layton thought they had Stephen Harper in checkmate. They didn’t realize he had one decisive move available, and he used it to checkmate them.

By year’s end, the Conservative government had put itself in contempt of Parliament. A vote was passed requiring the government to release certain documents related to the treatment of prisoners of war in Afghanistan. The government flatly and boldly refuses. What can the opposition do? They spent the last year propping up Harper’s government. If they find a way to do something, Harper will repeat his coup de grace. He’ll end this session of Parliament and go away until spring.

When the year began, Stéphane Dion was on his way to becoming only the second Liberal leader who didn’t become prime minister. At the close, Michael Ignatieff seems set to become the third.

At the provincial level, the roles are almost reversed. It is the Liberals who are mired in ongoing scandals such as eHealth and the Lottery Commission. They are floundering, stubbornly clinging to power while showing little imagination or vision. They now float the idea of selling the LCBO, even though it is the biggest money maker they have outside income taxes.

The provincial Conservatives are equally adrift. They sound foolish when they criticize the Liberals for doing the very things they have long advocated themselves. The NDP’s Andrea Horvath is leading a focused and credible fight against the Harmonized Sales Tax and other symbols of Liberal mismanagement.

In the municipal arena, it has been another year of achievements and disappointments. In total, the former outnumber the latter. They opened the new city hall. They also opened Norfolk and Wyndham streets. The sewer pipes they found were a sight to behold. There are more streets to fix next year, so get your shock absorbers tuned up.

We will have a municipal election in 2010. We might have a federal one. We won’t have a provincial. Beginning next week, candidates for city hall can declare themselves, start campaigning and raising money.

Of all the things we’ll do next year, the most important will be to sift through all the noise and focus on the facts.