Remember when National Post‘s Chris Selley made a joke in defense of Edmonton that their mayor just couldn’t understand? Well, now it’s Maclean’s Colby Cosh… except he’s actually making fun of Edmonton, and her mayor:
A fine-dining competition between Edmonton and Calgary, if it extended beyond a few top eateries, would amount to McLovin vs. Muhammad Ali. Edmonton’s football and hockey teams, which were once among its greatest claims to general notice, have become literal laughingstocks. The city is only now attempting to bring its public transit above the level of acknowledged semi-disgrace. It enjoys a routine level of violent crime that would unleash panic in Toronto or Ottawa. I could go on, and at times I have.
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If the city of Edmonton does advertising business with Postmedia, presumably that is, or ought to have been, a consequence of some professional bureaucrat’s objective assessment that Postmedia delivers value for money. (My money.) The really shocking thing about Mandel’s meltdown is that it reveals the opposite: The city’s ad purchases turn out to be convenient hostages, existing to be threatened when the mayor senses some political enmity. No pudding for journalists Daddy doesn’t like.
Colby Cosh is the pundit Edmonton deserves.
