{"id":20917,"date":"2018-06-14T00:07:54","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T04:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20917"},"modified":"2018-06-14T00:07:54","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T04:07:54","slug":"brocks-banter-the-game-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/brocks-banter-the-game-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"BROCK’S BANTER: The Game Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

If we\u2019re talking about \u201cspecial places in hell\u201d this week \u2013 and, sadly, we are, apparently \u2013 I think at least one of them is probably equipped with a changing room and an Interac machine.
\nLet\u2019s cut to the chase: I hate shopping.
\nI don\u2019t mind the actual transaction of shopping, don\u2019t get me wrong. Online shopping can be great. Before you log on, you usually have a general idea of what you\u2019re looking to buy and, through a few clicks and key strokes, you can have any number of varieties ready for you to look at, more often than not accompanied by a litany of online reviews which, if read carefully, can help you avoid buyer\u2019s remorse the next day.
\nTrudging out to the shops, however, is a completely different story. Unless I have a game plan written down of exactly what I have to buy and a route mapped out on how I can navigate the mall in question in the least amount of time, getting to my one specific destination, and then beating a swift retreat, the very idea fills me with dread.
\nUnless I\u2019m a tourist \u2013 either abroad or on a staycation and playing tourist in my own backyard \u2013 wandering aimlessly is not generally in my nature and, despite my overall disdain for the process, I am all too easily susceptible to cleverly designed advertising.
\n\u201cThe more you spend the more you save!\u201d read one sign which I found both somehow logical and nearly impossible to resist?
\n\u201cBOGO\u201d \u2013 well, sign me up \u2013 but count me out for your mailing list.
\nAt the end of the day, the process can be exhausting and what do you really have to show for it? Well, to illustrate my point, I\u2019ll just say the last time I went into a grocery store to get a salad I walked out of there with a 32 inch flat screen TV and no roughage to speak of.
\nWhether you like shopping or not, I suspect a great number of you felt a similar type of pain at some point on Thursday when you went to your polling station and produced the necessary pieces of ID to exercise your democratic duty and cast your vote.
\nThis time around, I have to say that I considered all my options very thoroughly before casting a vote and, unlike in previous years, my final decision was almost down to the wire and some of the people I spoke to both personally and professionally on election day itself and in the days immediately following had similar perspectives.
\nIn many of those cases, their final decision was made in the voting booth itself, voting with their heads, or voting with their hearts, voting for their local candidate regardless of who was leading the party they represented, holding their nose and voting for what they described as \u201cthe devil they know\u201d or simply flipping a coin.
\nIn these situations, it is always important, of course, to do your due diligence in researching what party and philosophy best aligns with your own \u2013 or, at the very least, is able to deliver the programs and services that are more or less reflective of your own worldview.
\nIn an ideal world, we can rest assured that everyone did just that and marked their ballot accordingly.
\nBut, as we all know, our world is hardly ideal.
\nAs I waited for the results to roll in at the campaign office of the-now MPP-elect Christine Elliott on Thursday night, I got a text from a friend in Hamilton.
\n\u201cIf declining one\u2019s ballot is voting, I voted,\u201d said my friend.
\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t. You didn\u2019t.\u201d I replied.
\n\u201cWell, I participated in the process. First time in my life I\u2019ve ever felt bereft of choice.\u201d
\nWell, if that\u2019s how they really felt, fair enough on the last point, but what was achieved by making the effort to go into the polling place and decline a ballot? Ford, Horwath and Wynne most certainly didn\u2019t spend the morning of June 8 looking at results poll by poll to see who was trying to stick it to \u2018em by refusing their ballot, and the good temporarily employees of Elections Ontario were most likely intent on keeping lines moving rather than considering the moral and philosophical ramifications of each spoiled ballot.
\nIt was duly noted, everyone moved on, and the vote continued.
\nI just hope my particular friend in the weeks ahead does not experience any particular buyer\u2019s remorse.
\nAlthough I have no regrets about my particular television purchase, I have, however fallen victim to more than one slogan in my day.
\nI just hope people of Ontario are content in their choice and do not experience any buyer\u2019s remorse.
\nIn the lead-up to the election, I was told if you vote with your heart you can never disappoint yourself and it seems \u2013 I hope \u2013 that\u2019s what many Ontarians did.
\nIf you voted for the Liberals or the NDP, hopefully it was for what Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath were offering the province over any fears of what Doug Ford might bring to Ontario.
\nOn the flipside, if you voted for Doug Ford and the PCs, I hope you did so not out of a simple anti-Wynne sentiment, but a firm conviction that what he and his candidates were offering was reflective of your own vision for Ontario. Well, as much as possible, as, outside from a few press releases and announcements made on the campaign trail, the absence of a full platform was very much like going out to the mall without a fully-mapped game plan.
\nBut, democracy has spoken \u2013 as have the people of Ontario.
\nNow, it is time to get down to business and move the Province forward.
\nWe don\u2019t know what \u201cefficiencies\u201d are going to be cut just yet, but I hope Mr. Ford heeds leadership rival Ms. Elliott\u2019s belief that what Ontario needs is a line by line review of every service the Province now provides to ensure value for money, rather than simply cutting on principle or to score political points.
\nA game plan is always good, and it\u2019s not too late.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir If we\u2019re talking about \u201cspecial places in hell\u201d this week \u2013 and, sadly, we are, apparently \u2013 I think at least one of them is probably equipped with a changing room and an Interac machine. Let\u2019s cut to the chase: I hate shopping. I don\u2019t mind the actual transaction of shopping, don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5rn","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 00:41:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}