A nation of smelt? – IOTW Report

A nation of smelt?

Canada Free Press: I think populism is as alive here in Canada as it is anywhere else, despite its bad rap by a smug, holier-than-everyone-else media and I think the Canadian election results will show a voter base that’s fed up.

Most ichthyologists will tell you, smelt are small, oily fish that travel in large schools seemingly without leadership and sometimes I am given to wonder whether Canada isn’t a nation of smelt.  As a not-so-proud citizen of Canada, I feel it necessary to apologize for the boorishness of the Government of Canada in general and Canadian voters in particular for kicking off an election on this day. As my friend Art Weinreb wrote in these pages, dropping the writ for a general election on the 18th anniversary of 9/11 amounts to a poke in the eye for Uncle Sam.

SNC Lavalin scandal

But then what would one expect, given the fact that Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, having been exposed as corrupt in a number of scandals, polls exactly the same as his arch-rival, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who hasn’t had scandal one. That’s saying a mouthful when one considers the scope of the corruption and incompetence for which the Liberals have become famous. I use the term ‘famous’ knowing that it should be infamous, but for some reason Canadian voters see nothing wrong with corruption and incompetence.

For starters, there’s the SNC Lavalin scandal that clearly saw the Prime Minister and his toadies attempting to interfere in a criminal prosecution of a Quebec company charged with corruption because if SNC Lavalin were convicted in a criminal matter it would mean job losses in Quebec. And Quebec is vital to the Liberals and particularly so for Trudeau because his home riding is in the same city as SNC Lavalin. more here

17 Comments on A nation of smelt?

  1. Love smelt. Used to catch them by the garbage cans full when we were younger. When the city did our river park, they cleaned up the shoreline and put in metal break wall all along the shoreline. Now all the smelt stay in the middle of the river down deep. No more smelt. They’re still there you just seldom catch any.

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  2. I used to buy frozen smelt at foodstores here in SoCal, but I haven’t seen them in many years. Dredged in egg, then flour or bread crumbs and then pan fried will give you some good eating. Dipping them in ketchchup or shrimp cocktail sauce makes them even better.

    No, they don’t smell, but have a freshwater smell, not the smellier ocean fish smell.

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  3. I live in “fly-over country” in Canada. I will be spoiling my ballot on October 18 by writing “Western Separation – UDI Now” on it. I am fed-up with ROC (the rest of Canada).

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  4. It’s not off topic if we use the word ‘smelt,’ is it? ‘Cause I fried up over a pound of fresh smelt a couple of weeks ago. There they were, in the fish case, a big pile of them sitting on ice, all glistening and beckoning. Haven’t seen them that early in years let alone freshly put out like that. Damn, they were good. No one else would eat them, so I ate ’em all.

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  5. No fishery on the Cowlitz this year due to poor returns. They are great fried or put a toothpick through the eye and hang them by the bushel baskets from the racks in a Little Chief smoker and they are the bomb. I don’t know how many lbs you can smoke in one batch in Little Chief that way, but it is a hell of a lot.

    A little trivia, the natives call them candle fish, they dried them and stood them on end and being full of oil they burned just great and produced good illumination… or so I heard from elders back in the days of my youth.

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  6. Fried smelt. YUM! There is a fast food chicken joint south of me that sells fried smelt. Will get an order a couple times a year and I usually finish the order before getting home. That chicken place has been there since the 70s and I hope it never dies!

    Wait. What was this post about again? Sorry, MJA! 😉

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