RICK HOWE
Halifax News Net

               What is Gerald Keddy thinking? The South Shore-St Margarets MP, with a habit of getting into hot water, is making headlines again for comments he's made. Keddy is defending the hiring of migrant workers, mostly Mexicans, by many of the province's Christmas tree growers, because they can't find enough local labour. He says Nova Scotians won't do it, suggesting they were " no-good bastards sitting on the sidewalk in Halifax". Oops!

                 Mayor Peter Kelly's not impressed with the MP's view of the unemployed and calls the comments extreme. Bernie Smith of the Spring Garden Road Merchants Association says you can't lump every unemployed person into the category of no-good bastards. Smith has helped many of the street's panhandlers find jobs and says no Christmas tree grower has come to him to ask if anyone might be available for work. Smith says he could likely find several who'd take on the job.

               Once again, Keddy speaks before he thinks. Will the prime minister rap his knuckles yet again?

                Calgary Dinos coach Blake Nill is apologetic after a disturbing nationally-televised incident involving his son over the weekend. It happened in the third quarter of the Saint Mary's Huskies-Dinos Uteck Bowl game Saturday in Halifax. As the young Nill left the field after a Calgary touchdown, he apparently made some kind of gesture toward the Huskies bench. In dad Blake's world, that's not something an athlete does when the other team is down. Coach Nill let the kid have it. He grabbed him by the shoulders and tore a big strip off the rookie wide receiver, all of it captured by the all-seeing television cameras. It wasn't pretty. The coach admits he over-reacted and has now both publicly and privately apologized. "I over-reacted and I regret it," says Nill. I've known Nill for several years, when he coached the Huskies. He is an intense man, but I believe he truly regrets it and is sincerely sorry.

                    Apology accepted!

                    Graffitti is an on-going problem in many cities including Halifax. This city has spent about a million dollars in the last two years cleaning graffitti from public property and now it wants the authority to clean up private property if necessary. Council tonight will tackle a staff recommendation to allow the city to send in crews to wipe out graffitti from homes and businesses if the owners drag their heels on cleaning it up themselves. The city would then put a lien on the property until the bill was paid up. But wouldn't it make more sense to get tougher on the graffitti culprits, not their victims? Why not ban the sale of spray paint to minors? Stiffer fines for those caught tagging would also help. And there also needs to be more arrests. There have been just 3 this year, the same as last. Not exactly what you'd consider a crackdown.

                      Have a great day. Get involved. And if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

                     Rick Howe