Since Jan. 1, more than 465 Electro-Motive Diesel workers have been locked out of their London, Ont. plant by U.S.-based, heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar. The dispute began when the locomotive producer’s union, the Canadian Auto Workers, refused a contract offer put forth by Caterpillar of a 50 per cent slash to wages and benefits. Though the CAW has been rattling their rustic chains over this ongoing matter, Caterpillar has remained silent.

It is understood that a person has the right to remain silent, but we’re not talking about a person – we’re talking about a corporation. That distinction should be made; however, legally, it is not. Corporate personhood allows corporations to have some of the same legal rights as an individual, such as the right to remain silent.

Caterpillar has not said a word on this matter, not even doling out a public statement defending their multi-billion dollar position, and the Harper government states that since the matter involves a private company, they cannot interfere.

The approach could be construed as hands off even though the government was implicated in the initial stage of this matter when they allowed Caterpillar to purchase Electro-Motive under the Investment Canada Act in 2010. The Act, originally put through by the Mulroney government in 1985, is meant to block foreign takeovers that may not benefit Canadians. It’s safe to assume that this deal is in violation of the Act and the CAW has been trying to get the Harper government to disclose the details of the agreement between Caterpillar and Electro-Motive.

On Jan. 26, Caterpillar was not quiet about announcing record-setting, fourth quarter profits of US$4.9 billion US for 2011, yet was refusing to budge on the C$30 million that they have offered the workers. If it’s not a financial issue, some labour relations experts are proposing that the lockout is a show for the company’s investors. One could argue that the situation is also an arrogant display of power.

The Toronto Star reported that Caterpillar could be moving their locomotive production to a new production facility in Muncie, Indiana. In fact, the Muncie plant is currently undergoing a hiring blitz. Is this related? Perhaps the scores of laid-off workers from Caterpillar who were cut loose in 2009, are considering relocating?

The reason given by Caterpillar when the abysmal contract offer was tabled was for the company to remain competitive. But, with government regulations for train emissions pending, Caterpillar will continually see a boom in their locomotive side, which currently makes up four per cent of their profits, whereas providing heavy equipment for mining resources such as oil, is their main source of revenue.

Nonetheless, a coordinated strategy is in place here.

The London workers are left with few choices: wait it out, leave, or take the cut. Either way, they suffer.

One thing for sure is that this will not end well, but hopefully it doesn’t end quietly. Corporations and governments must give their workers the respect of answering to them, in order to rebuild tenuous labour-management relations.

Whichever outcome awaits the workers, the fallout will affect the London community. When poverty is up, a host of other crippling issues such crime and health problems will ensue ad nauseum. This is certainly not good for Canadians.

When big business and government remain tight-lipped it’s usually because they are up to no good. When the public doesn’t speak out or doesn’t feel empowered enough to do so, then our silence is consent. It perpetuates our problems. Allowing this to continue will inevitably contribute to the plummeting standard of living in Canada as well as rob workers of their basic human dignity.

While professional athletes deserve to be honoured for their accomplishments, all-star games serve little purpose anymore – especially since the advent of the wildly popular skills competitions featuring such events as home run derbies and slam dunk contests.

As for the games, these glorified scrimmages could be cancelled and replaced with something else without much resistance from fans, and it is something leagues should pursue.

This past weekend both the NHL and NFL celebrated their most exceptional players by holding fan-friendly games with player rotation to make sure everyone invited got involved. The NBA will follow suit at the end of the month.

The NFL, which drew significantly more viewers than the NHL game due to football’s popularity over hockey south of the border, faced an eight per cent drop in television ratings this year. The draw is not the game but rather the precursor skills contests.

A home run derby or slam dunk challenge may only be one element of a sport, but it’s these more thrilling elements of the sport that are highlighted for fan enjoyment.

There is no mistaking why Saturday night is reserved for the skills contests while the games themselves are played on Sundays.

Hockey has one of the better contests, showcasing fastest skater races, penalty shot challenges, and the highly popular hardest shot competition, where Zdeno Chara holds the record with a blistering 108.8 MPH slap shot.

It is these awe-inspiring feats that create indelible moments. It’s the blistering slap shots, the no-look dunks, and the fifth-deck home runs that keep the fans standing. These are all categories that celebrate the strength and skills that have helped these athletes rise above their peers.

The games themselves, however, are simply high-profile pickup matches, with many of the best players in the league showing off. And when they do show off, it is taken so far out of context the feats lose their appeal. That amazingly impressive drive for a 360-between-the legs-blindfold-dunk as a player drives through the paint means little when the other team is walking up the court and lets every player have his moment.

The teams mail in their efforts, as the first serious injury a star player sustains at an all-star game would likely lead to the immediate end of the event altogether. Imagine the reaction had Sidney Crosby suffered his concussion while participating in an all-star game.

While these games lack most of the anticipation and excitement of true competitive sport, there are also misguided attempts to make the outcome worth something.

Major league baseball did in fact give their all-star game a meaning, the winning side earning their league the right to home field advantage during the World Series. It makes the game more interesting, but the fact that something so arbitrary results in a significant factor in the championship series is also somewhat ridiculous.

Fan voting has also made a mockery of starting line-ups across every sport and decreased the games’ value. If it wasn’t Yao Ming getting voted in as a starter for the NBA all star game every year, regardless of injury, it was fan bases fighting over who could garner the most online votes to have half their team starting, as seen between Toronto and Ottawa fans in the NHL this year, or the occasional campaign to have a bench player voted in as a joke.

The failed attempt to add importance to the game in the instance of baseball’s home field advantage, just further suggests the game should be ditched for the skills contest alone. It’s what the fans enjoy joy and, therefore, it’s what gets the ratings.

Every all star deserves his moment in the sun; the game just isn’t necessary.

To the assertion that, “people need lattes and frappuccinos,” singer Carole Pope responded, “And men need ho’s! That’s the way it is. It’s a business.”

That’s the closing of a Globe and Mail interview conducted with Pope last September. Apparently, buying sex is as normal, natural and legitimate as our daily Tim Horton’s run.

Of course, becoming a prostitute might be a little different than, say, becoming a barista.  There’s danger involved with angry pimps and vicious johns. That, many Canadians like Pope say, is the very reason why the courts should push ahead in removing Canada’s ‘archaic’ laws on the sex trade.

An online poll from the CBC shows that 77 per cent of the roughly 1,950 people surveyed support legalizing the activities surrounding prostitution.

It helps to know what’s actually being debated here: prostitution itself is not illegal in Canada, but the law intentionally attempts to thwart the practise by prohibiting soliciting sex for money, keeping a bawdy house and living off the profits of prostitution.  The CBC reports that a Vancouver-based group of sex-trade workers is challenging the law in Supreme Court on the grounds that such laws actually endanger prostitutes by driving their activities underground. They are pushing for total decriminalization.

Pope supports another model – the legalization of prostitution – where, in Pope’s words, the government becomes “the pimp” by regulating the practice and collecting taxes.

The moral facet of the discussion is huge and deeply divides opinion.  But until a recent presentation, I was blissfully ignorant, thinking prostitutes are willing “careerists.” Not so. You see, there’s a second moral element every Canadian should know and care about: those willingly in the sex trade are the minority.

A study cited by California psychologist Melissa Farley, creator of the Prostitituion Research and Education website, showed 91 per cent of prostitutes have been physically assaulted.  Three-quarters say they have been raped. Eighty-six per cent of surveyed workers currently face or have faced homelessness.

Farley’s study shows that 84 per cent of Canadian prostitutes were sexually abused as children and more than half entered the industry at less than 18 years of age.  While sex workers appear to have chosen prostitution as a career, a closer look often reveals it was the only road left open to girls addicted to drugs and deeply in debt.

Farley’s studies show 95 per cent of surveyed Canadian prostitutes say they want to leave the trade. Yet they stay, limited by homelessness, lack of education, addiction and other nearly insurmountable challenges.

Canada is viewed as a safe haven for many refugees.  Yet when Timea Nagy, the teenage Hungarian and aspiring reporter, flew into Toronto for a  job in 1998, she was seized from the airport and imprisoned as a sex slave. Her story is hardly unique. A 2006 government report estimates 600 women per year are trafficked into Canada as sex slaves.  How does one distinguish sex slaves from sex workers?  It’s nearly almost impossible to answer, especially because much of this exploitation happens within organized brothels, as a RCMP report pointed out in 2010.

These are the “actors” in the play: they are coerced, oppressed, wanting to escape but with nowhere to turn, so we return to the question of decriminalization or legalization.

A Dutch study found that five years after the Netherlands began regulating prostitution, the number of child prostitutes had increased 300 per cent. Inversely, Sweden recognized the need to protect victims while punishing aggressors.  In 1999, they toughened their policies on johns. Within five years, the trade had dropped by 67 per cent.

So, triple the number of children taken as sex slaves or the enabling of sex workers to find a new job: which path will Canada follow?

In a league that seems to have concussion-centric tunnel vision, the National Hockey League Players Association safety board seems to be ignoring all other types of head injury, meaning players have to start taking safety into their own hands.

The NHLPA has become overly obsessed with concussions, which is leading to other safety issues not being scrutinized enough, specifically the argument that visors and helmets should be worn on the ice at all times – including warm-ups.

A lot of players still don’t wear visors. It takes a dramatic event, like what happened to Tampa Bay Lightning forward Martin St. Louis, to show them the benefits. In December, St. Louis suffered facial and nasal fractures after taking the shot of a teammate in the face during practice. It could have ended his career.

It shouldn’t have to come to this. If the league made visors mandatory, this injury never would’ve happened.

More recently, Edmonton Oilers forward Taylor Hall became the poster boy for helmet safety. During a pre-game skate last week, Hall slipped on the ice and collided with a teammate, cutting his head on a skate in the process.

An injury like this one could have ended Hall’s career at only 20 years of age. It could have been avoided. Like St. Louis, Hall dodged a bullet.

Helmets are never questioned when it comes to goalies. To play goal, you must be wearing a helmet and full face mask at all times. If a goalie mask gets knocked off during a game, play is immediately stopped. Why is it not the same for the skaters?

Sure, goalies are there specifically to block 100mph slap shots. It’s a no-brainer that the mask is essential. But think of how many shots make it to the net in the first place. Consider that not only do players block shots to take the pressure off of the goalie, they do it often enough to merit ‘Blocked Shots’ as a recorded statistic. It’s even coached. During Saturday night’s Leafs/Habs game, Luke Schenn did an intermission piece with children about how to block shots.

If blocking shots is expected as much as it is for the goalie to make a save, why are the helmet rules different? If the puck is in play and a helmet comes off any player, the whistle should be deafening.

The bright side is that it seems the players are realizing the necessity for proper headgear more and more. While Brendan Shanahan prefers to spend his time making home videos about the concussed, it’s the players doing what they can to protect themselves from the dangers of errant pucks.

The Oilers have said that players will wear helmets during warm-ups at all times. The Colorado Avalanche also mandated that their skaters wear helmets in the pre-game skate. The Saturday night game had the Toronto Maple Leafs skating their pre-game warm-up clad in helmets.

In Saturday’s edition of the Toronto Star, director and well-documented hockey fanatic Kevin Smith spoke about NHL safety and said it bluntly: “I love hockey as much as anybody. But no game is worth dying over.”

Make the wearing of this equipment mandatory.

If a Forum Research poll released last Tuesday is to be believed, 66 per cent of Canadians now support legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana.

For members of the Liberal Party of Canada, that number must be seen as a boon. At their most recent convention, 77 per cent of the party’s delegates voted to support the legalization of the drug.

“Let’s face up to it, Canada,” interim party leader Bob Rae said in a speech at the convention, “the war on drugs has been a complete bust.”

For some, Rae’s comment might be a bitter pill to swallow. But he’s not wrong. According to the Treasury Board, Canada spent almost $70 million on combating the illicit drug trade in 2008. Even that amount is considerably less than in some previous years with their surge of anti-drug initiatives.

In spite of that considerable investment, very little is actually being achieved and drug-related offenses have continued to climb. According to Statistics Canada, they reached a 30-year high in 2007 – and are resulting in, at best, a 50 per cent rate of actual convictions.

Given the numbers, Rae clearly has a point. The government continues to spend large sums of taxpayer money to fight a largely ineffectual war on drugs.

But the issue isn’t with Rae’s reasoning as much as with the reason itself.

It hardly seems appropriate to eliminate a law simply because it’s ineffectual or unpopular. If that were the case, the better half of the Criminal Code would have to be thrown out.

A far better pitch to sell Canadians on the reform of cannabis law would be to approach the issue from an economic perspective.

Consider the numbers: according to the United Nations, approximately 13 per cent of Canadians – over four million people – used marijuana in 2009. At the going rate for marijuana – around $10 a gram – the government could stand to collect millions without even charging a so-called sin tax.

Some of those proceeds would need to be applied to the operating expenses of whatever oversight organization is put in place, but the remainder would become an asset for a government that has consistently run deficits and currently holds over $500 billion in debt.

This isn’t the first time changes to marijuana legislation have been proposed, and it’s not a major shift in Liberal Party policy.

In 2002, a motion was tabled in Parliament by the Chretien administration to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. It also aimed to make the growth of fewer than seven plants a summary offense. That motion died when parliament prorogued.

A second motion, identical to the first, was tabled in 2004 by the Paul Martin Liberals. It died when the government was dissolved by a non-confidence vote.

This proposal is likely to face a similar fate, especially given the hard line drawn on the issue by the Conservatives.

But there’s an old adage about third times, and if the government sees the green behind the proposal, the pipe dream just may become a reality.

In Humber Et Cetera’s last issue before the holiday break, a colleague of mine opined that Canada is not a friend to its Aboriginal peoples based on the sorry state of its reserves.

I must disagree.

Canada is a good friend to its Aboriginal community and has long afforded them rights and privileges not accorded to other Canadian citizens. In fact, a 1996 RCMP study estimated government expenditure per Aboriginal to be 57 per cent greater than that for all other Canadians. This includes the subsidization of land, cultural and political organizations, as well as education, employment and social welfare programs exclusive to Aboriginals.

The 623,780 Aboriginals registered under the Indian Act are exempt from property, inheritance, estate and even income tax, provided their income is made on a reserve. Aboriginals are given favourable consideration for post-secondary enrollment, grants, scholarships, bursaries, social assistance and federal employment. To help preserve Aboriginal culture, Ottawa provides funding for the Aboriginal People’s Television Network, CBC Radio North and other Aboriginal-language broadcasting.  Aboriginal art is also featured and celebrated in virtually all the national iconography from the currency to sports jerseys.

Perhaps most importantly, recent decades have seen a slew of court decisions – including the landmark Delgamuukw v British Columbia (1997) case – acknowledging Aboriginal rights to lands they have traditionally occupied as well as fishing and hunting privileges in keeping with their historic ways of life.  These rights are further permanently codified in sections 25 and 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982.

The ruinous state of Canada’s reserves is not the fault of the Canadian government, but rather Aboriginal leaders themselves who stubbornly and voluntarily cling to a reserve system that is racially segregating and economically unviable.

In 1969, the Trudeau Government attempted to reform native policy and asked Aboriginals to come off the reserves, abandon their differentiating rights and status under the Indian Act and become full and functioning members of Canada’s new multicultural society. Aboriginal leaders were warned that separate status on the reserves was “a blind alley” that could only result in their ultimate social and economic marginalization in a growing and developing nation.

The Aboriginal response was a vehement “no.” They did not want to be part of the new Canada and preferred to live removed and isolated from mainstream society utterly dependent on federal subsidy. It is 40 years later and exactly what Trudeau predicted has happened – the country has progressed without its Aboriginal peoples.

While Aboriginal leaders like Shawn Atleo and Theresa Spence remain convinced that more money is the answer, it is absurd to expect our government, in these trying economic times, to invest more tax dollars in communities like Attawapiskat that generate no industry, service sector or tax revenue.

If Aboriginal leaders want to improve their lot they must relinquish the Indian Act, accept privatization of their land, corporate investment in their resources, send their kids to provincial schools and embrace a complete social and economic assimilation into Canadian society. They must also abandon their victim mentality, the absurd notion that this country’s land is theirs any more than it is everyone else’s or that their historical suffering is unique relative to that of all the other races, religions and cultures that make up this country.

My grandparents were Polish peasants born in conditions similar to those at Attawapiskat.  During the Second World War my great-grandfather was tortured to death at Auschwitz, my grandfather almost starved to death in a Russian prison camp and my grandmother was taken as slave labour to Germany.  There she was beaten so badly she was left for dead.

Like millions of other immigrants, they came to this country, worked the worst jobs, endured systemic discrimination and yet remained to the end of their days grateful for the lives they were able to make for themselves and their children. And they did it without tax exemptions, land rights, social assistance or other privileges afforded to them on the basis of their race.

If they can succeed in this country, then Aboriginal Canadians, who already have the added benefit of understanding the national languages and culture, can as well.

If Aboriginal Canadians want to avoid anymore Attawapiskats then they must stop asking what Canada can do for them and start asking what they can do for Canada.

In my 21 years of life, I have seen Canadians make efforts to accommodate the many different ways of life in our multicultural society. I agree that buildings should be accessible to people with disabilities, that people of different religions should have a place to worship, and that gay people rightly have access to the institution of marriage.

But there are a few things that I have seen that I disagree with, mostly when Christian customs are taken removed so as to not offend other cultures.

I am not a religious person. But I have been uncomfortable seeing The Lord’s Prayer taken out of schools because not everyone was represented by that religion.

This year, a school in New Brunswick removed the daily singing of our national anthem because of unspecified complaints from a couple of parents, possibly because of the reference to God in O Canada.

But neither issue has raised as much discussion, fighting and controversy as the topic of substituting “Happy Holidays” for “Merry Christmas”.

Which one should be said?

This is a topic about which I have had many conversations, and with the holidays right around the corner, it seems to be everywhere. I stand fully on the side of “Merry Christmas”. I sat back and watched many things be taken away from me, from toys to boys, and never once did I stand up to fight for what is right.

But now I am. It should be Merry Christmas — not Happy Holidays.

It is called a Christmas tree. They are called Christmas Lights and Christmas presents.  It’s just the way it has been, and for good reason.

In Canada, there are many different religions, all with their own traditions and sacred occasions. Those adherents have the right to use their own greetings during their own seasonal observances. Why can’t Christians?

The religious foundation of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. In Canada, we honor every other religion. We do not change the name of holidays in other religions -  so why is it okay to change those of Christianity? Christmas was named after Christ himself. When we name things after Christ, we are showing devotion and respect for Him. Why remove it?

The greeting “Merry Christmas” in the media and public places wasn’t an issue when I was younger. But within the last few years the controversy has grown to epidemic proportions, and honestly I do not see why. We respect everyone else’s holiday greetings, so why are we completely changing ours?

I can understand the views from other cultures which do not necessarily celebrate the same holiday or celebrate it to the same extent that other Canadians do. When people come to Canada they could easily be overwhelmed with the amount of advertising and sheer promotion of our culture, especially around Christmas time.

But everyone needs to understand that Christmas is among the long-held customs that many Canadians do hold dear. And in the end, as we respect other customs, ours in return should be respected as well.

In the long run, if we change Merry Christmas into just Happy Holidays, it takes away from the event. Could we even go as far as saying it wouldn’t really matter anymore? We are changing everything that we associate with Christmas out of a misguided sense of political correctness.

Because of Christmas, we have Toy Mountain and Toys for Tots, where everyone comes together to help raise and donate gifts, money and clothing for children of families who are less fortunate. And this is just one example of how Christmas can bring people together to do good.

In the end, Merry Christmas should still be allowed to be said. If the person who you are saying it to responds with Happy Hanukah or Happy something else, that is up to them, and I for one shall not be offended. I would, however, be offended if we change Merry Christmas to Happy Holidays.

Everyone has a choice of course, but in the end, it is only fair for those of us who observe Christmas to be able to name it.

And with that I say — Merry Christmas!

As the season of Christmas feasts approaches – when nearly half of the 10.2 million turkeys purchased annually in this country are eaten (according to the Turkey Farmers of Canada) – I’m reminded of my first experience with wildfowl that wasn’t lying on a festively decorated table.

It was my first summer spent living outdoors in Northern Ontario, in the area surrounding Kapuskasing.

With long hours working alone in the bush, the threat of wildlife was always present.

However, concerns of a violent attack by a sharp-toothed and sharp-clawed bear weighing up to 350 kg was rapidly overthrown by another.

The bush chicken.

Commonly known as a grouse, these 6 kg winged and beaked monsters imposed a fear like I’d never felt before.
The tiny titans camouflage so effectively with their surroundings that you can get within a metre of one, unaware of its presence until it’s violently flapping, squawking, taking a wild dive at you, and going straight for your throat.

Veterans’ tales of the grouse’s propensity to attack were illustrated when one man carried a winged carcass back to our camp after beating it to death in self-defense.

That was one wild bird I did not want to piss off.

And now, as we approach the time of year when galliformes, or gamebirds, take the spotlight on our dinner table, this is a chance to pay some respect to the birds that are a lot tougher than we think, at least in their wild forms.

Galliformes are a heavy-bodied order that includes commonly known birds like partridge, chicken, quail, ptarmigan and the aforementioned grouse and turkey.

There are upwards of 250 species of galliformes that can be found in virtually every continent around the world, with the exception of areas made up solely of icy tundra.

The turkey is the heaviest of birds in this category and they have recently been spotted away from their rural habitat in urban parks, in some cases being accused of attacks on bikers and pedestrians.

It may seem comedic.

Perhaps the fear of being run down by a large bird in Trinity-Bellwoods never got your boots shaking.

But, if you hear the glottal call of a tom (male turkey) around mating season, you better hope he isn’t looking at you.

They may seem innocent in that compromising position surrounded by garlands, but don’t be fooled.

That is one bad-ass bird.

Your walls are made of plywood. No bricks, no insulation. Or, you’re living in a tent.

Either way, you’re definitely not protected from the -40 C weather outside and don’t have any running water inside.

You urinate and evacuate in a bucket.

You suffer all this in front of and with your family. Parents, grandparents, and children – all crammed into housing better suited for dogs.

You’d do better for them if you could, but you’re living in a remote, fly-in only community where it’s tough to get much of anything – a job, materials or food.

It’s a tough life you’ve chosen to live because this has been the setting of your ancestors for centuries.

Because you were assured that when it was too tough, a friend would be there to make it better – to ensure your safety and livelihood.

Only thing is, you’re living in Attawapiskat, Ont., where that friend of yours – the Canadian government – has only helped put your community in a state of emergency and only showed up to help four weeks after it was declared – not to mention after the Red Cross responded.

You’re an aboriginal Canadian, and you’re wondering why, following all this humiliation, your friend and guardian – the Canadian government responsible for your well being – is now sending a third-party manager to investigate how funding for you and your community was used.

Seems sort of backwards, and insulting.

Shouldn’t the government already know how its funds are being used, especially since it already had its own manager handling it?

Instead of worrying about accounting, shouldn’t the government be sending help first and asking these types of questions later?

Thankfully, that’s probably what your chief was thinking on Monday when she kicked the third-party manager off the reserve on arrival.

“We should focus on the crisis, not on other things,” Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence told CBC soon after she asked Jacques Marion, of the accounting and consulting firm BDO Canada, to leave.

Spence called the move “very shameful.”

The government said it gave around $90 million to Attawapiskat, including $4.3 million for on-reserve housing.

So it wants an audit of the reserve’s finances and you’re left wondering why, since all of your community’s finances have been published annually online since 2005.

You’re left wondering why because those statements show how the housing shortage came to be – how that $90 million is deceiving and asking where it went is a slap in the face.

The cited $90 million refers to federal funding since 2006, the average being roughly $18 million per year.

That $18 million can’t all be devoted to building new homes.

It takes care of education, health care and infrastructure costs, social programs and governance.

It takes care of each of the 1,800 residents in Attawapiskat.

Meaning, once done doling it out, only $2 million went towards housing in 2010-2011 and when that $18 million is broken down per person, it’s only $10,000 per year.

You’re left wondering why, as you shiver in your doghouse, the government can’t just accept that the $90 million put you in this situation because it was never going to be enough to build the hundreds of homes needed to properly shelter your community.

“It is not always evident whether the federal government is committed to providing services on reserves of the same range and quality as those provided to other communities across Canada.”

That’s a quote from Sheila Fraser, former Auditor General of Canada, in her June report on how Canada is failing its First Nation communities across Canada, which followed and unfortunately echoed her similar 2006 report.

Attawapiskat is not alone in its suffering.

A federal evaluation in February revealed a severe housing shortage on reserves across Canada, concluding 20,000 to 35,000 units needed (and still need) to be built.

What kind of friend knows of, is even publically warned of the imminent danger faced by its First Nation communities by its auditor general, and does nothing?

Not any friend of native peoples.

Last week, Gonzo the Great was announced the winner of the Muppets popularity contest run by the National Post, narrowly edging out Kermit the Frog for the lead, wreaking havoc on the Muppets dynamics.

The tournament began on Nov. 16 and ran for six days in a single elimination event that garnered a lot of interest in the social media sphere. The final round, Gonzo versus Kermit, was a tight race with over 25,000 votes cast. Gonzo was voted the favourite with 50.4% of the vote.

“Kermit may be the hub, but he’s never hogged (sorry Miss Piggy) the spotlight,” wrote National Post reporter Chris Knight, who represented Kermit for a concession speech.

“Kermit doesn’t take top billing (sorry Dr. Teeth) and wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I think though Knight makes a valid point that Kermit does not require the spotlight, the fact is he is the centre of the Muppets.  His calm, collected nature holds the crew together.

Kermit’s resume includes hosting the Muppets show, playing a role on Sesame Street, appearing on the Studio DC; almost live specials on the Disney Channel, singing duets and solos on the Muppets, an honorary doctorate of Amphibious Letters from Southampton College and a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Kermit has worked hard since the ’50s, and his adorable green face has not aged. He has earned those 12,569 votes due to his perseverance and determination.

But why the 12,794 votes for Gonzo?

Gonzo’s list of accomplishments includes being on the Muppets and playing the final trumpet note in the opening theme song.  This is not nearly as impressive as Kermit, who also gave a commencement speech to the Southampton College graduating class of 1996.

Gonzo may be unique, and proud of it, and I’m happy that individuality is being celebrated. But his victory came at the cost of hurting a kind, hardworking frog.

It was a classic Rocky-style case of wanting the underdog to take the win. But, in this case the top frog – an Apollo Creed in green – is great.

Kermit once sang: “It’s not easy being green, It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things, and people tend to pass you over ‘cause you’re not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water or stars in the sky.”

In this case, he wasn’t wrong.

He got passed over by Gonzo, who is as flashy as they come. He occasionally wears caps, shirts with red peppers, bowties, and he has “great” is in his name. It’s fortunate that Kermit accepted that though being green can be hard, that is what he wants to be.

On Twitter, the #muppetbattle hash tag started by the National Post is still receiving tweets with people showing their displeasure or their congratulatory remarks. I think tweeter user @Dunstanb summed it up perfectly: “Gonzo over Kermit for best Muppet? Have these people even seen a Muppet show or Movie? Gonzo’s great but Kermit’s the man.”

Even Jason Segal, who stars in this year’s The Muppets movie, voted for Kermit in the tournament. His vote should not count in the same way as everyone else because he has a personal relationship with the gang. I think his vote should be worth about 226 votes, which coincidentally would give Kermit the win.

Leading into the final vote, Steve Murray, a National Post graphic columnist, defended Gonzo by writing: “What is Kermit? What are his traits? He’s the blank canvas narrator. He’s Nick in the Great Gatsby. He’s air. He’s utterly and completely boring, by design.”

Though, Kermit is not in the least bit boring, he is air. Air is something we can’t live without, and I think that is the essence of Kermit.

Maybe Kermit lost because the polling system was flawed. The “readers choice: pick your favourite Muppet” contest that the National Post ran on Nov. 22 gave Kermit a second chance. Out of all the 16 Muppets characters, Kermit won with almost 17 per cent of the vote.  A small victory, but Team Kermit will take it.