ONE MINUTE MOORE RANDALL MOORE
Big man Kulkster is even bigger now An Ottawa cop spots a Cadillac cruising
through one of the city’s high crime areas. The officer becomes suspicious when the occupants of the car avoid eye contact. He pulls them over. Good hunch. Inside the car are13 grams of marijuana, five grams of crack cocaine and a drug scale. Two young black men are charged. But the charges are dropped. Why? A judge
rules the two young men are victims of racial profiling. It gets better. The two men are suing the Ottawa Police
Services Board and three officers for $95,000 each. One says he was falsely imprisoned and that his charter rights were breached. The other says he no longer feels safe in the presence of police officers. So you still want to be a cop? Wouldn’t an
officer now think about who they pull over? Guess what. Some already do. I don’t buy these allegations of racial profiling
one bit. Good police work involves acting on what is perceived to be suspicious activity, regardless of ethnicity.
*** Staff at three liquor stores in Toronto were
roundly criticized for not asking to see the face of a Burqa-wearing customer. Turns out the “customer” was a 14-year-old boy, sent into the LCBO as a stunt orchestrated by a SUN TV news host. In each incident, the cashier rang up the booze without asking for ID. Like I said, the boy was 14 and liquor store cashiers are instructed to ask for the IDs of anyone who appears to look younger than 25.
Can you blame the LCBO staff for not
demanding Burqa-clad customers show their face? I mean, who wants to be called a racist? Who needs the grief? But it certainly undermines what could be a
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major problem: How do we know who’s under those Burqas? A legitimate concern, is it not? The Burqa can be used as a disguise and has been in the
past. That and the fact that this is Canada. We don’t ask very much of newcomers to this country. Is it too much to ask that they try to blend in just a bit? ***
Know my biggest concern when I fly? No,
make that my ONLY concern. It’s reaching my destination ALIVE! Not to suggest flying isn’t safe, because it is. I’m just saying. Anyhow, the little stuff I don’t sweat anymore. Late planes, long lineups, annoying security checks are the least of my concerns. They’re right up there with getting service in both official languages. Welcome to Canada. Language spies are being introduced into our airports to make sure services are delivered in both French and English. And they will be spying not only on already stressed-out airline agents, but also on the minimum-wage employees at coffee shops, bookstores and souvenir shops. A judge ordered Air Canada to pay Michel
and Lynda Thibodeau $12,000 and apologize for not serving them in French during a trip between Ottawa and the United States. It’s like a bad dream. Surely to God we have more important things to worry about. Besides, airport staff are already very good at offering services in both languages. Better, I might add, than what an Anglophone faces on the Quebec side. I mean, try navigating a busy highway when you can’t read the signs. ***
I remember, as if it were yesterday, the big
lineman jogging onto the field at Lansdowne Park. He was a monster, a crowd favourite: Glenn Kulka, the Kulkster! I also remember sitting in the newsroom of the
old CKBY radio station when the early morning call came in about a member of the Rough Riders being busted by police. We knew right away. It was Glenn Kulka, who had also become a bit of a monster off the field. Cocaine, weed, booze, steroids − Glenn was using and abusing: full-blown and self-destructing. Glenn first started drinking when he was 13.
Kept at it while playing Junior A hockey. Even had a shot in the minor pros and feels, to this day, that he would have made the NHL, had it not been for his demons off the ice.
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BOUNDER MAGAZINE 67
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