Apparently the Canadian government is pretty good at it, too:
Ottawa may have paid tens of thousands of dollars more than it should have for golf balls and other souvenirs to promote Canadian unity, during visits that a witness at the Gomery inquiry described as a “garage sale.”
Inquiry co-counsel Guy Cournoyea read from an advertising company invoice the government paid in 1997. The invoice was for books on Rideau Hall, Christmas tree ornaments and 1,200 golf balls, costing more than $100,000.
Another invoice for more knick-knacks topped $600,000.
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Ya think??? I am dyed in the wool true blue die for my country Canuck and it saddens me to know my government sucks with money, and dirty deals, sloppy bookeeping, patronage etc etc etc. No offence but it’s not a lot different than the US. But we feel our boys in Ottawa should be above the bullshit and dirty deals. Heard about our submarine fiasco…?
Canada has submarines? They have a Navy? 😉
Actually, no I haven’t heard about the submarine fiasco. Please do share.
Does Canada have a navy? Is a ducks ass watertight?
We have a fine naval tradition including heroic, desparate measures in the North Atlantic escorting convoys to Britain during the 2nd world war.
The current fiasco is that ‘they’ thought we needed new subs as our old Oberon class diesels had been mothballed in 2000.
Being peny wise but pound folish, they shopped and found the Brits were willing to sell us 4 hunks of junk they had cast aside as they moved to nucvlear.
We were told, in spite of the superiority of aircraft to perform these duties, that subs are a strong deterrent against smugglers, terrorists and poachers looking to raid Canadas fishing stocks as well as valuable assets to protect our sovereignty in tghe far north…despite the fact these subs were not designed to operate under the ice.
Meanwhile, the ‘new’ subs have been an ambarassment and black holes for huge sums of taxpayers money. Plauged by rust, breakdowns, gear not working properly or not at all, springing leaks and on and on.
Latest fiasco is that while on a journey from Britain to Canada after a refit, a terrible fire broke out resulting in one tragic death and 7 injuries. The subs have since been pulled while ‘they’ have another inquiry.
And the dumb f***s in Ottawa are still defending their purchase saying it was a good deal.
It figures…
The word “inevitable” comes to mind. I had a discussin about this sort of thing this evening 🙂
Running large operations (governments, media, etc) straight is kind of like keeping square foundations over an area large enough to be preturbed by the curvature of the earth. It simply can’t happen. You have to make your foundation crooked.. or curved, or bastardized somehow. So it doesn’t help to blame the architechts anymore. Blame the Earth 🙂