Harper to Tour Flood Zones
May 2, 2008 by John
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in New Brunswick this afternoon, touring areas affected by the extensive flooding of the St. John River.
“The flooding in downtown Fredericton reaffirms a long-held belief I’ve held about Atlantic Canada,” said the Prime Minister in a statement released on Friday to selected media outlets that the PMO currently abides.
“The St. John River, like much in this region, suffers from a defeatist and “can’t do” attitude. Instead of flowing in a productive, efficient way through the province and into Saint John’s harbour, the bloated, ineffectual river has chosen to overflow its banks, causing damage to private property and expecting the taxpayer to spend his hard-earned money to clean up its mess. It could have pulled itself up by its own bullrushes and flowed as other rivers in the rest of the country flow. Instead, the river simply gave up.”
“There will be no federal money given to the clean-up effort. It is time the St. John River learn to stand on its own feet,” he concluded. “Or, in this case, its own silt.”
The Prime Minister then called New Brunswickers “gross” for eating fiddleheads because they grow in dirty ditches, pushed a child to the ground and stole her balloon, got on his government plane and headed back to Ottawa.
John
So I was on the CBC website reading an article and this guy in Ontario had posted a comment: “They should have used sandbags before coming to me for a handout” (that’s the gist). I saw red.
As though the people in Fredericton haven’t been doing whatever they can to protect their homes and livelihoods. But the floodwater was really frickin’ high. The water comes inland pretty far - Kirk took some pictures up in F’ton on Facebook and it turns out there’s water covering the road in front of my old apt building on University avenue. That’s pretty wild.
Anyway, thanks for letting me rant. I will continue going back to wondering if I will be going to DramaFest this week or no.