No Further Questions, M'Lud

That's what the police are apparently saying about Member of Parliament and first-class whack job Gurmant Grewal.

Let's quietly review where Mr. Grewal has been playing, shall we? Bear in mind, the Liberals--he says--are apparently out to get him. Not that he needs the help.

In 1995, Grewal accused the BC Liberal Party (of which he was at the time a member) of trying to buy him out of the nomination race for his riding with the offer of a deputy minister's position in the the government.

In 2000, Grewal, having transferred his loyalties to the fractured Alliance Party, claimed that he'd been offered a job in the Chretien federal government if he re-converted to the Liberal Party of Canada.

Then came 2004-5, and Grewal apparently started to spin out of control.

First, he was caught accepting deposits" from people who wanted their friends and relations to be allowed to visit them in Canada. He was, amazingly, cleared of conflict-of-interest charges, but cautioned against minor errors such as, for example, doing end-runs around Canadian immigration laws.

Then he released secret tapes of discussions with Federal Cabinet Ministers and friends. He alleged that the tapes proved (are you ready for this?) that the Liberals were trying to buy his vote! They apparently wanted he and/or his wife Nina to abstain from voting on the budget bill which could have sunk the government.

Not that that would have looked suspicious, considering the stakes. I mean, what with cancer-ridden, dying MPs flying in just to vote on the bill and all--why shouldn't the Grewals have taken the vote off? The government was only saved by one vote anyway.

And the careful purchase of what Belinda Stronach likes to think of as her soul. If everyone has her price, you may look for her in the dollar store. Not that I object, she saved us from a fate almost as nasty as that suffered by the US in its last two elections, but the transparency of it is a little nausea-inducing.

Tory experts held the tapes up as genuine, but it seems fairly clear they'd been doctored. These are the tapes that the RCMP seem to think are okay. Presumably the idea of privacy isn't a big issue to them. Personally I think otherwise.

Next for Grewal was his famed airport incident, in which he frantically ran up and down an airport lineup trying to persuade passengers to take a parcel onto an aircraft. What's to say? Perhaps we should consider deporting him to Syria?

Now he's been cleared of the tape thing, the deposit thing, and the airport thing, there's just the financial things to take care of. . .

Still, it must be nice to know that amusingly off-beat characters such as Stephen Harper are backing you up.

So Long, Smokey

Canada's last Victoria Cross winner has died (it is the Victoria Cross. CBC seems to have an editing problem). Ernest Smith's funeral is going on today in Vancouver, to huge public fanfare. Why are we only paying attention to the last one?

Yet, despite the grotesque media circus over the extinction of the last of the safely-distant genuine war heroes, the city hums on, doing its thing uninterrupted except for some traffic diversions along the parade route.

And, if you could have asked him, I think that's the way Mr. Smith would have wanted it, back when he was still Sergeant Smith.