I admit that I am naturally always quite loud, often boisterous and sometimes emotional, and have always had a healthy distrust of authority. I have mellowed somewhat over the years but will never be soft spoken and complacent like people wish I was. We are who we are. These personality traits of mine have caused some grief for myself and the people around me at times. And it has lead me to have some interaction with our local police since I am not always as agreeable as some people would like.

For instance a couple of years ago I was working hard on bikes all day in a city park and had purposely left my van parked illegally, while I and my assistant were working across the street from it. An Ottawa by-law officer finally pulled up to my van and I immediately ran up to him to explain why I left it parked like that. He acted like he accepted my explanation so I ran across the street to grab my phone to show him proof of that explanation. But on arrival back at his car he was already writing the ticket. I told him that I have the proof and he said, "and then you will be able to show it to the court". I called him an asshole. He phoned the police. The cop that showed up was an even bigger asshole. Acting tough and rude as if I was a wanted criminal. Then two other officers showed up in two other police vehicles. I explained to the lady back-up officers that it is guys like this why they have such a bad reputation.

The by-law officer and his supervisor waited and watched this altercation hoping desperately that I would be led away in handcuffs, and then didn't even file the paperwork to let me fight the big parking infraction in court. What a waste of resources. Every time now that you make any call to 9-1-1 three cops show up in three cars. When I was young only one cop would show up and if needed would call for back-up. So they are using three times as many cops as they used to for each small call. And yet they tell us they need more cops.

When I was driving a taxi many years ago I would get pulled over for the smallest infraction and would see every day other cars pulled over for various driving infractions. Because of this police presence on the streets there was less speeding and agressive driving. Nowadays you hardly ever see any cop pull over any vehicle and as a result you constantly see drivers going way too fast and driving way too agressively. Maybe because all of the cops are attending small 9-1-1 calls three units at a time, or worse, are parked in parking lots sipping on their coffee.

And the idea that a regular beat cop was the second highest paid city employee last year at a whopping $400,000 is outrageous. And he is the cop that was aquitted for killing a man on duty. That means that he didn't even work much of last year. He was off on paid leave and all that overtime must have come from him attending his own trial. How perverse. How sick. How wasteful.

So I am fine with the speed and intersection cameras targeting infractions. Those machines aren't wasting their time on paid leave, attending small incidents that have a couple of machines already there, or sipping coffee in parking lots while their machine is illegally idling. Why our city council actually discussed and implemented a dumb, tighter idling by-law when I doubt they have ever enforced the previous one is another separate sickening thought.

A Cornwall OPP officer once asked me if it is true that Ottawa cops are all assholes. I laughed and said yes, pretty much. Their reputation precedes them. Yet they keep wanting more money...