A spring lament for our country's soul.

• Author: Atkins, Michael
• Position: PRESIDENT'S NOTE

Next month I'm going to drink beer, ride my bike, watch my daughter play baseball, read books, take a beginners course in gardening from my wife if she buys me knee pads, (it's never too late), sail, and consider adopting a religion. This may strike you as somewhat of an ambitious summer programming, but it really isn't. What it is, is a desperate attempt to avert my gaze from this rapidly shrinking nation.

Look, I know, there is always a lot of nonsense, greed, stupidity, competitiveness, incompetence, naivete and avarice in how we live our lives and as a newspaper man, I wouldn't have it any other way. What could be more boring than perfection? It is drama that is the spice of life. But there are limits. If you are going to bear witness to this stuff there needs to be some saving grace, somewhere, and it is hard to find.

Our national parliament has been overrun by Lilliputians. These are people of modest vision, less purpose and bad manners. The Tories have a new handbook for the chairs of our parliamentary committees. It includes procedures to stack meetings with friendly witnesses, helpful hints on how to work with witnesses so they get the right answers and instructions on how to facilitate filibusters to destroy a meeting going in a direction you don't like. Finally, it also includes how to close everything down by walking out in a fake rage, having carefully avoided appointing a deputy chairman, which ensures the committee is finished.

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I'm not kidding. This is true.

Then there is our recently resigned RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli and one of his Deputy Commissioners Barbara George, who stand accused of covering up an investigation into RCMP pension and insurance fraud.

Who can forget the brief unity of our MP's who stopped screaming at one another long enough to drag Shane Doan, the captain of Canada's World Cup Hockey team, through the mud on a preposterous witch hunt about something he didn't say in the heat of a hockey game two years ago.

Jeff Monaghan received his 15 minutes of fame from these idiots by being handcuffed and carted away by the aforementioned RCMP for apparently leaking the Environment Minister's (environmental) plan a day before it was to become public. He was fired for good measure a day before his contract was up and his charges are pending. He should be charged with drawing undue...