Harry Stemp was born in Uxbridge in 1934. He started his career with the Uxbridge Times-Journal as an apprentice typesetter at age 14. He soon began writing sports for the Times-Journal and eventually owned 10 community newspapers in central Ontario including the Times-Journal. He started writing his award-winning Stemp’s Stew in 1965. The column came to an end shortly after he sold his newspaper chain in 1989, but was rejuvenated in 2006 when Harry became a regular contributor to The Cosmos.
Discovering the world
My bucket list got a little smaller recently when I landed in Dubai after a 13-hour flight. Dubai is a country that I have always wanted to visit so when the opportunity came along I jumped at the chance. And flying on the very impressive Emirates Airline was certainly the way to start.
Over the years I have flown many airlines but I must say that Emirates is, without a doubt, tops in my mind. From the moment you enter the airport and are greeted at the Emirates desk you are pampered to no end. The flight on the humongous A380 – it carries 600 passengers on two levels – was smooth and, if you happen to be flying business class you get a pleasant surprise at the end of your trip to discover that your ticket price includes a free taxi ride to your hotel. A nice bonus.
On day 1 in any new city we buy a ticket for the ‘hop on, hop off’ bus tour. Instead of trying to discover everything on your own this gives you an overview of your surroundings and you can then map out the things you want to do later. And after taking in the sites of the amazing architecture, it was hard to imagine that this was once a sleepy little fishing village. The city is ultra-modern in every respect and grows larger each year as they continue to dredge the sand from the sea and behind break walls allowing them to increase the size of their small country. The Palm Islands are a classic example of this and the manmade palm tree stretching out into the sea attracts 20,000 visitors a day year-round. There are 90 manmade islands around Dubai and they are snapped up by billionaires around the world at prices ranging from a low of $10 million to a high of a $100 million.
It is a city of opulence and one gets the impression that the sheiks, who control all the oil revenue, continually try to outdo each other with one massive building after the other. The one that stands out is the Burj Khalifa – the world’s tallest building at 2,716.5’, close to 1000’ taller than the CN Tower which has been the tallest building in in the world since 1976. 12,000 people live and work in the building. It also boasts the highest occupied floor at 1800’ and the highest observation deck on the 124th floor. The building dominates the skyline and attracts thousands of visitors every day.
We stayed in the Pullman Hotel connected to Mall Of The Emirates, which boasts the only snow ski hill in this part of the world. With outside temperatures in the mid-90s it was difficult to imagine a ski hill. But there it was, and it holds about 6000 tonnes of snow and is the third largest indoor ski dome in the world. The ski run and snowboarding park is about 1200’ in length and there are five multi-directional slopes with different degrees of difficulty. It also includes a four-man chair lift for the upper and middle slopes and a moving sidewalk to the beginners slope. At certain times they bring the penguins out and everyone can enjoy a visit with these fun-loving animals.
Not to be outdone, the Dubai Mall boasts an Olympic-sized ice skating rink and it is every bit as busy as the ski hills at the Mall Of The Emirates. The Dubai Mall also has a five-storey high Aquarium and Underwater Zoo, with over 33,000 aquatic animals including sharks, rays and features the largest acrylic viewing panel in the world and a walk-through viewing tunnel. So it’s easy to get confused as to whether you are in Dubai or DisneyWorld.
Perhaps the thing that impressed me the most is the lack of graffiti throughout the city, and the fact that you see no homeless or beggars. According to one resident, the country has very strict laws covering these items and guilty parties would face severe sentences. How severe he would not reveal. He just said, “this is not tolerated”. And having loads of oil certainly has its benefits and not just the billions spent on infrastructure and reclaiming land from the sea. For example, gas costs 38c a litre. However, bottled water costs $1.35.
If you get the idea that Dubai is a city of opulence with untold oil riches, you are right. But it still has some of the quaint qualities that make it an interesting city to visit. The water taxis, and there is a ton of them, are still the simple flat bottom boats with a bench down the middle, and passengers sit side by side facing the nearby shorelines. Street vendors still abound and one can buy many of their native delicacies that have been popular for years.
So after a wonderful few days in Dubai, it’s on to Singapore as our discovery of this part of the world continues.
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For years it has been the belief of many that Quebec was a very corrupt province in which to do business. Rumours of kickbacks for obtaining government contracts were rampant, but many were pooh-poohed as just rumours by rabble-rousing Canadians. Despite this the belief continued. But intriguing testimony that has been given at the Quebec Charbonneau Commission by a Montreal construction boss has stunned Quebec about collusion and kickbacks in the awarding of municipal contracts. In that testimony Lino Zambito says the corruption extended to the highest levels of the previous Liberal provincial government and involved schemes to funnel taxpayer money into the party's coffers. Parts of his testimony suggest that a widespread system of graft went all the way to the offices of Quebec's one-time deputy premier and the former labour minister.
In one case, Zambito said, he was asked to contribute $50,000 in cash to the Liberals to help resolve a business issue. He said the request came from Christian Côté, a fundraiser for the then labour minister, David Whissell. Zambito said other schemes involved engineers tasked with overseeing Transport Ministry construction projects. The engineers would push the companies they were supervising to make political donations, including tens of thousands of dollars to the Liberal Party. In exchange, Zambito said, his company could bill for cost overruns on its contracts and the engineers would approve it — using money that came from the provincial treasury and, ultimately, taxpayers. The disturbing part is that his testimony revealed that much of this graft and corruption was orchestrated by members of the mob.
As Canadians, we should be pleased that Quebec has finally taken the bull by the horns and decided to do something about this tremendous waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars. Hopefully those guilty parties will have to face the courts and pay a high penalty for these deeds. The sad part is that when I discuss this with others I continually hear, “How do you know it’s only Quebec? I think it is going on all over Canada.”
That’s quite a statement, but one has to agree that many Canadians do not have a great deal of respect for their elected representatives. Is it deserved? What do you think?
