Lessons from Covid (1) - Being Prepared

Ian Barrett

As memories of Covid continue to fade into history, it’s worth asking what will happen when (and not if) the next pandemic strikes.

Luc Boileau, the director of public health policy for Québec, recently gave an interview to the CBC where he praised the province’s performance during the Covid pandemic, and stated that Québec is ready to face future health emergencies.  He cited a comprehensive plan for viral pandemics that will be published in the near future, as well as far better stocks of N95 masks and surgical gloves.  He also pointed to improved autonomy for the province in manufacturing key medical equipment, something that should avoid shortages like those seen in 2020 and 2021.

Although this is all good news, there haven’t been major independent studies done on the effectiveness of many of the approaches governments took during the pandemic.  A number of policies differed substantially across provinces, meaning that mistakes were made, since an approach either works or it doesn’t.  This is notably the case with curfews and vaccine passports, as well as approaches to school closures.

The latter is particularly critical.  A study has recently been released in the U.S. by Monitoring the Future and the Pew Research Centre, showing attitudes of those now in their early twenties towards government, the media, and life in general.  The results are extremely worrying.  Over a third of respondents said they had hardly any confidence in government, and even more shockingly, over half said they had hardly any confidence in traditional media.  This does not bode well for traditional media’s financial future.  They’re also far more likely than Millennials at the same age to say that it’s hard to have hope for the world or to see a purpose to life.  

This was of course the generation that was hit with lockdowns just as they were getting ready to enter adulthood and build their lives.  We’re only starting to get an idea of the long term psychological and economic burdens they’ll have to bear for years to come.  Was there a more efficient way to reduce these impacts?  How effective were school closures at reducing death rates caused by Covid?  If we notice that a particular group such as those with pre-existing health conditions are far more at risk during future pandemics, could we target our efforts more towards those people?  Would we have had better outcomes in 2020 and 2021if we had put more resources into creating secure environments for the elderly, the group that was by far the hardest hit by Covid?

Mr. Boileau’s accolades for the performance of Québec during the pandemic should be somewhat tempered.  Despite tremendous efforts by those on the front lines, Québec’s mortality rate from Covid was almost twice that of Ontario and of Canada as a whole.  The province’s handling of nursing homes was particularly questionable.  Learning from history in addition to focusing on what went right would show we’re positioning ourselves as best we can for the uncertainties of the future.

Döppelganger!

Editorials are rarely given over to praising a book; usually these essays are specific to a particular problem, solution, movement, or political issue.  But this book is itself a long editorial or collection of editorials blended into one masterpiece of analysis and recommendation for looking at some of today's most pressing problems and political thunderstorms. The book is Naomi Klein's Döppelganger. 

One friend started it on a winter vacation, reading it through in two days; another, who originally loaned it to me, said it was the best she's read in the last two - three years.  I've purchased three copies, all for gifts.  Klein is a veteran Canadian writer and film-maker, an anti-globalization activist, living on BC's coast with her husband, also an activist film-maker. She's written several best-sellers -- No Logo; Shock Doctrine, the Rise of Disaster Capitalism; Fences and Windows; and This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate --  and now Döppelganger, subtitled A Trip into the Mirror World.

Doppelganger begins literally, with the public's common confusion of her with another Naomi, Naomi Wolff, originally one of the leaders of the US feminist movement.  Wolff's book The Beauty Myth, How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women, has been essential reading for early feminists (plus her 2012 book, Vagina).  However, in recent times Wolff has descended into one of our culture's infamous "rabbit holes" --  anti-vaxxers and other anarchist causes.  This confusion leads Klein to compare the two Naomis, and, bang! we're off to the races!

Klein is a superb writer, one of modern times' best.  Like Joan Didion, she can write a sentence that captures a paragraph-full of others' thoughts.  Her analysis of the aims, effects and dangers of Wolff's anarchist-Right causes and comrades, "some of the most dangerous men on the planet", is the very best I've read.  Klein dissects today's "doppenganger culture" where the words and notions used in today's anti-woke crusades reflect only what each "warrior" intends, often contrary to common usage. This is where bullhorn cries of "Freedom!" mean "away with all means of protecting our freedoms!"  Hence our mirror world, where society is divided with each side using similar language and catch-words, yet yielding quite opposite (often dangerous) results.  Look Klein up on Wikipedia for more detail than I can present here.

Her conclusions point to the value and power of us clarifying our social goals and working in unison, not in contradiction. She's intensely optimistic and helpful. Her anti-"woke" targets range from international wars to municipal taxation, from "energy from waste" projects to the preservation of our great pine forests between West Quebec's Black and Coulonge rivers. 

All my words come down to, "please read this book" -- for our future in West Quebec and in the modern world.    

Gaza: One man's sacrifice, Canada's "pfft"

Fred Ryan

On February 26, an active-duty US Air Force serviceman, in military fatigues, set himself afire at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC.  Aaron Bushnell shouted that he "could no longer be complicit in genocide", a charge against Israel that has been supported by the World Court in the Hague.  In December a woman did the same at the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, Georgia.  What drove them to such acts was their own country's support for and actual arming of the Israeli military.

Very little beyond platitudes about "negotiations" has been uttered by official US sources, including President Biden, who has refused to criticize Israeli's assault, and in fact is promoting further US military spending for this aggressor.

Very little is said in Canadian officialdom, although Canada, too, is funding and supporting this proto-genocide of the Palestinian people.  Our Prime Minister has refused to even condemn Israel's actions -- despite hundreds of protests across Canada.

Even our "national broadcaster", CBC, appears to have ceased referring to the assault, and now calls it "Israel's military activities".  In itself, that's a troubling story, but more troubling is the similarity to Putin's claim that Russia's assault on Ukraine is merely a "military action", not a war, invasion, or assault.  Our country condemns Putin for this bit of propaganda, while we ourselves engage in it over Israel's invasion of part of a sovereign nation.

Israel's right-wing leadership is also echoing Putin's plan to empty the conquered space of its residents and re-populate it with "settlers". Israel's prime minister has intimated that he wants to push the Palestinians "into the sea" and repopulate their land with Israeli settlers, an armed segment of Israel's population which has already terrorized many Palestinians, driving them from their farms and land which they then seize as "vacant".

With Aaron Bushnell in mind, his supreme sacrifice on behalf of decency and morality, don't we in Canada have to ask why we all are complicit in this genocide, despite patting ourselves in the back so often for condemning genocide in other parts of the world?  Why is Bob Rae, our man at the UN, refusing to even use the term genocide, let alone clearly condemn this outrage?  Wasn't Mr Rae the hero for so many when he valiantly carried the left-liberal banner in Canadian politics?  Isn't this another example of why politicians are seen in such cynical lights?  Where is our own MP, Mme Chatel,  in this debate, apart from dead silent?

Yes, everything is much more complex in our world than it seems at first, but some things, some actions are not.  The genocide in Rwanda mobilized the entire world,  so why is Israel (and Putin) out of reach in our moral universe?  Isn't our silence akin to agreement? That's how Israel takes it. How do you feel?  What have you done -- or will do?  Surely we can't vote in an even more crass politician as Mr Poilievre?   Aaron Bushnell must have been terrified, yet determined to do what's right.  Are we Canadians neither terrified, nor determined?  Looks like it ... doesn't it? 

Would Mme Chatel, Mr Rae, or the Prime Minister care to explain?

(Note: although an Anti-Zionist, I am compelled to say I am not anti-Semitic.  My deceased wife and our three children are Jews: we celebrate their cultural heritage with pleasure.)

Oil-stupid?

Fred Ryan

We hear many climate-change arguments for "getting off oil".  We also see as many arguments the other way, "oil is reliable ... steady ... has a distribution network in place".

Or even that an oil-cousin, LNG, gas is somehow non-polluting and the solution to, what, to the pocketbooks of petro-investors like our banks?  The big pro-oil's big claim is that it supports jobs in Canada; the anti-oil, the unbeatable argument is that oil is destroying our climate, and hence, destroying us.  We won't live within the changes we clearly see heading our way, given our present life-styles.  And so far "technology" has not given us actual solutions -- carbon capture, hydrogen conversion, etc -- these remain ideas, absolutely unproven within our current budgets.

And it's today's news that presents another reason to back off oil, a very big reason.  In late January, the Baltic states, along Russia's northwest border, revealed a massive build-up of the Russian military. About one-third of Russia's national budget is now going to modernize and expand their already-massive military.

This is not just bad news for the Ukraine -- that war'll be over by the time we actually see Russia flex its expanded muscle.  But Russia has other targets: Canada.  "Our" big piece of the Arctic.  Russia already claims substantial areas there, especially its sea-floor, rich with oil and minerals.  Here it stands nose-to-nose with Canada.

Yes, we have NORAD, our northern military alliance with the USA.  That'll provide some breathing room, no doubt, but when we consider how easily the US has dropped its supposed allies -- think of the Kurds who sacrificed thousands to repel Saddam Hussein. When this became uncomfortable for the Yanks; when their alliance was no longer facing a tin-pot dictator, but oil-rich Iran, backed by Russia and China, the Kurds were dropped at the curb.

Where is this essay going?  Answer: right to our top-of-the-world front door (for the Russians).  Our few troops on their brand-new skidoos aren't going to cut it.  We're still mulling over new fighter jets -- the Yanks have a sale on a model which doesn't operate well in Arctic conditions.  The (Unprogressive) Conservatives think they're fine.

So let me put it to you, you with your hand on the self-serve gas pump, you still committed to oil in your automobile and heating, especially, but also you who still flies across the continent, or cruises up the Alaskan coast, you, madam/sir, this oil you are buying enriches -- Russia.  Russia's military buildup begins at our gas pumps. 

Some of our oil does enrich the corporations operating in Alberta, but in terms of the world market in oil, it is Russia which is counting our dollars. And Iran, Saudi Arabia, the 'stans -- dictatorships everywhere. That is what oil does, where its profits flow.

Yes, climate change is a massive challenge. But Russia's military (already on our northern border) --  plus the world's most corrupt regimes everywhere -- this is massive, too.  Look, you and I have got to stop being so stupid.  Oil-stupid.

Our cultural yo-yo?

Fred Ryan

Start by looking at our USA-led culture's fascination with dystopian pictures of the future -- all disturbingly negative, amoral. This Culture canonized Blade Runner, and a galaxy of AI-generated automatons, all without morality, justice and compassion. Even Kubrick's masterpiece, 2001 A Space Odyssey, despite its stimulating message, has the sentient super-computer, HAL, as our future.  A.I. will have its own agenda, where humanity's needs are but icing and the cake we're gobbling says the future, by definition, will be dystopian.

Why? Why were such awful stories so popular?  Because their wrapping, the movies themselves, are so exciting?  Of course. Entertainment today in all its forms is about excitement. Credit card, please..

That was then.  The fear-mongers, with the Right to Make Profits as our culture's fundamental "right",  still tell us to talk and think about war and military-like "solutions".  However, today's blockbusters include big roles for LGBTQ-etc folks.  Shifting genders offers very different options to the young. Instead of motorcycle gangs,  today we go to Gay Pride marches and picnics.  Not exactly smooching with each other, but gone are the chains, brass knuckles and knives. Not gone is that piece of our mind which pays for 'admission'.

Even female players, say The Virgin of Guadalupe (or The Blessed Virgin), starring in old visions of society, came to us as female Terminators.  "Oh, Terminating Virgin" -- tough, male or female (plus the techno-variant).  However, as generations flip over, there's a growing part of society which would still choose female impersonators.  They make us laugh!  "Hail Mary, Queen of Suckers ...", patron saint of the day.

While Our Culture seems to roll over every few generations, the underlying support structure, the Holy Profit Motive sails on.  My generation grew up, accompanying Shirley, the Tin Man, etc. on the Yellow Brick Road ... and down the road were coming the next generation's motorcycle gangs and Marlon Brando, but after surviving on Dostoevsky's ruined souls, the generational wave brought us Benfey's Kim, incredibly capable, sexy, and intuitive (in Intuition) -- sacrificed, religiously so.

  Today we're facing an American political wave complaining -- exactly! -- of female impersonators or women insisting on abortions.  No inclusionary novels in school libraries!, no exploring the deep continents of our feelings! Just complaints that the latest generation "isn't tough enough". Ignore kids questioning old gender-assignments, and certainly not assist them -- via novels and movies, anyway. 

This new old wave is spreading up here from our cultural Mecca. Is it possible not to bite?  Don't we have the imagination and intelligence to break with these constant rollovers of our culture's models and messages?  The way car models used to flip?  It's profit that doesn't change, it's "the old is something new" -- so buy your ticket, your copy, buy, buy -- and grow indignant all over again! 

Time to pick federal election candidates

Fred Ryan

"Final hearings" on a proposal to build a radioactive mega-dump along the Ottawa River are long over.  Individual Canadians, several Indigenous communities, and other groups questioned this dangerous project.  We might think that opposition downstream should be evident, given that the Fukushima nuclear disaster just mourned it's tenth anniversary. Twenty-three thousand people have died there, so far.  A near majority were seniors -- often trapped where they live.

Chalk River's mega-dump and Fukushima are certainly not the same, but when all is considered,  anything nuclear-dodgy presents a tremendous threat to nearby people: the Pontiac and all of West Quebec.  Fukushima and its tsunami initiated months of meltdown, explosions, and toxic gas releases, all still going on 10 years later.  Much of that devastated zone still remains out-of bounds to humans -- or any living creatures.  Will we have a candidate in the coming federal election who will pledge to fight this disaster-in-waiting?

In comparison with Covid,  Fukushima, ten years later, is still burning, still emitting toxic pollution; and radioactive debris has now spread to Canada's West coast, multiplying its ill effects.  Six hundred square kilometers of Japan remain toxic, homes unusable, schools empty and factories moved elsewhere.  Nothing positive in the slightest.  

Some claim the Chalk River/CNL project is so different it ought never be compared to any huge radioactivity disasters.   It's hard to follow such "reasoning".  Fukushima is terribly relevant.  Fukushima was a man-made disaster. We built those nuclear reactors and their infrastructure.  And today we are doing it all over again -- this time in our own back yard, in our own future.

The Chalk River labs above Pembroke are planning a first-in-the-world sized nuclear dump, seven football fields of radioactive waste, upstream from Ottawa, Gatineau, the Outaouais, Montreal, and beyond.  

A toxic dump is bad enough, but these same actors want to expand operations. They want to build more working reactors at this same site -- smaller, but still huge, mini-reactors which can be spread across the north or sold anywhere in the world.  The federal government will again gift this to the private sector -- with a massive, annual subsidy.  Why are governments of the two immediate provinces not up in arms?  What's the pay-off been?

Let's think of Fukushima on its tenth anniversary, as we pick our candidates.  Forget, please, the party labels: who will fight this disaster?  We mustn't let ourselves be distracted by more trivial issues.  

It, with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, may be the real harbingers of humanity's future.  We have children and grand-children, neighbours, friends and co-workers living within the shadow of any disaster at Chalk River.  They will live with its effects.  But will this even be a headline election issue?  So far, every candidate has sidestepped this radioactive dump plan. Why have the parties, all of them and their candidates, so far not raised this threat sitting at our back door? Shouldn't Chalk River's radioactive mega-dump be at the top of our election concerns?

Won't you forget party labels just this once and vote for the candidate promising to fight the biggest radioactive dump in the world in our back yard?  

Is there any other issue of equal importance to the Pontiac and West Quebec?

Our generation's opportunity: AI

Fred Ryan

When was the last time you heard or read anyone speaking positively of Artificial Intelligence (AI)?  Ever?  And don't most discussions of this subject start with the blanket presumption that AI is a terrible threat to all humanity?   Don't we get lists of all the dangerous results coming from AI, week after week?

So, first,  how do we control AI, and how do we make use of it -- rather than fleeing in horror?  This list might be easier to take: very ancient languages (which we've been unable to decipher over centuries) might open up to AI.   One example I've seen referenced is the lost language of Easter Island, and that's another puzzle in itself.  What happened to the Easter Islanders, who have vanished from the Earth, leaving only an untranslatable language in their stead?  

Our archaeology is full of lost languages, representing histories that are mysteries to us -- here's a helpful, positive use of AI.  Our oldest libraries hold many such languages or linguistic keys, all mysteries to us today.

Of course today's most common speculations are using AI to solve the greatest scientific problems and astronomical puzzles.   Room-temperature fusion, is the classic one, but there are still so many similar puzzles, few of which seem amenable to human brain-power. Non-commercial, public-utility AI facilities could be used to solve our greatest puzzles and point us towards our greatest opportunities. Science and technology will produce an unending supply of such questions needing the sophistication of Artificial Intelligence.

That's just for starters: new energies and new knowledge via the conduits AI can make into every sort of problem -- I'm thinking of classical problems in Ethics and Epistemology. How we know anything?  AI will  lay down or carve out new routes to our goals: those goals will expand tremendously with public-owned and public-directed AI facilities. But in corporate control, we're lost, our nightmares can become real.

Once people begin asking questions who knows where those questions may lead.   AI + questions = ??

And can AI solve our human-caused problems within government?  Obviously we humans cannot.  

It often seems that it's the worst of humanity that rises to social and economic influence.   How would these people agree to accepting and even giving some social, political, and economic power to even the idea of AI, let alone real money to design, build and govern such facilities?   Why do we assume AI is so dangerous?  Why do so few even mention the good possibilities such a tool presents us?  No, it's always robotic and exploitive.

This speculation is relevant today to all ages.  Every nation.

It's relevant today because all our old forms of government are under question.  It's shocking that our fellow-citizens are considering supporting authoritarian governments or fascist leaders.  Why?  As a solution to what seems to be daily mis-management.  Wouldn't AI provide us with more useful answers than any of today's mini- demagogues?

Could AI even be programmed to govern us -- in a fair and balanced way?  This is Ethics.  AI could transcend human weaknesses --  our emotions, especially greed, jealousy and selfishness which wreaks so much of modern governments and governing.  Add self-righteousness.

Within government, AI could create programs that bring empathy and compassion, equality and intelligence, prudence and responsibility into governing.  Gone might be today's corrosion by money, corporate advantage and promotion.  

AI could engineer its own self-policing -- a skill out of reach for humans.   It could be made and locked to guarantee in some form the best government possible.  And it could be possible, couldn't it, to make all such programs unhackable -- by using AI to make itself unhackable!  

But let's' first do some thinking for ourselves on this -- using neither AI nor plain human prejudice and fear. There are many dangers, many bad examples, yet there are so many remarkable positives with AI -- so many! -- but only if we apply a bit more human intelligence to attaining our own goals in life!  There are likely more positives than negatives here, if we wish to think positively and carefully.

Finally, couldn't AI be used to de-weaponize AI?  We'd have to  insist on it!

"The phone's ringing!"

Fred Ryan

I've had two telephone calls in the last week ...  real, live conversations, me standing in my night-coat with a coffee in one hand and in the second with a call out of the blue from someone I hadn't seen for a few months.  The point is -- the  telephone.  Using old technology? Is there a better example of it than the land-line telephone?
And is there a better -- the only-- way to converse, using our mouths and ears, not a keyboard?   Yet this is "old tech"?

We suppose that all human progress is like that. There are costs, as well as benefits, we're told.  (and insurance companies sure seem to funnel many of those benefits their way, don't you think?)   So, after "costs" and "administration" are taken out, we're left struggling to find many of those "benefits"  of new tech.  

But new tech seems to have a momentum of its our, unstoppable (if one did wish to stop progress) although it can be directed and altered, shared early with some, perhaps, but who knows?  And thanks to technological advances we're on the way to a glorious future -- as we have been for the last several hundred years.  So, new tech is here, always here and always altering how we live, some ways good, others not so good. Therefore any rant about the terrible changes underway -- usually by our teens, probably scientists, too -- most rants, like mine, can be enjoyed, perhaps, and then dismissed ... tossed into the trash of the on-going tsunami of new tech changes.  

A lot of new tech, with all its benefits, carries hidden costs. Perhaps costs yet to be discovered, perhaps some hidden. And rants very often focus on some of these cost-generating features of new tech, so they are worth reading.

My two phone conversations are memorable, in part because I could actually hear my friends' emotions, their emotional response to our conversation, and its several points. Her laughter was real, I could tell from her voice. I could hear another voice, her husband leaving for his morning's schedule (they are farmers, keep horses as a hobby and often ride around their farm together.)  

I am sure we both hung up with smiles on our faces. The emotions in that call will help us both through the day, I'm sure. Yet ... well, somehow the keyboard and screen, especially today's tiny, mini-phones with mini-keyboards, these are specialized tools ---- but without genuine voices.

New Tech will assist us all relate more to each other, in the long run.  But pay attention to what various experts are saying, whenever they address us. Become more an expert, yourself.  Let others do the ranting about the forces of change at work. You become the expert.

War and peace

Didier Périès

This year is a special one. Two armed conflicts seem to affect Canadians in particular, even though no Canadian soldier is involved. Perhaps that explains the enthusiasm for the ceremonies on 11 November last Saturday to commemorate the armistice of the First World War, the war that was supposed to be "the war to end all wars". Unfortunately, it's always like that: we leave with flowers in the air and come back in a coffin, but that doesn't stop other conflicts from being sparked off.

Since the Second World War, which followed on from the first, Canadian soldiers have been involved in many armed conflicts, from Korea to Afghanistan, including the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In the latter, however, they were peacekeepers with UN peacekeeping forces, which is a very different thing. 

And, of course, there have been other confrontations, some of them ongoing, such as the one between the Ukrainians and the Russians or the one between the Israelis and Hamas, not to mention Africa... And given what continues to happen all around our planet, with consequences for us in terms of social relations (anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, hatred and division), wars are not about to stop! On the contrary, as university studies show: our era is characterised by fewer large-scale wars, which cause more military deaths, and more civil, inter-ethnic or religious wars, which cause more civilian deaths.

By an unforeseen coincidence in my Grade 10 class, we are finishing a unit of work on the theme of the "horrified gaze", trying to answer the question: can human beings coexist peacefully with their neighbours? To do this, we studied Joseph Joffo's autobiographical novel, A Bag of Marbles, which tells the story of a Jewish family, and in particular its two youngest boys, fleeing deportation and almost certain death during the Second World War. The question seems more relevant than ever.

Among our young people, opinions on war in general, and especially on 'our' wars in the global North, can vary; between cadets steeped in militarism and patriotism, who plan to enlist or join the reserves and respect the uniform, and academics trained in the social sciences, who note that wars have often been a means of reinforcing a certain colonialism, or even that these same interferences are the causes of current conflicts, there is a world between these two positions.

What is certain is that any war is a defeat of thought, that if an armed conflict takes place, each of us must try to "keep our heads", to understand the nuances. For example, that Israel is fighting a terrorist organisation whose aim is to destroy it, and has proved this in the worst possible way; that standing up to Hamas is not anti-Palestinian, still less Islamophobic; or that we can hope for humanitarian corridors and a reconsideration of the policy of illegal occupation by Israeli "settlers" on the West Bank without being anti-Semitic. Unfortunately, twenty-first century human beings are still incapable of avoiding fighting with their neighbours over a piece of land in the name of peace.

Complaints about service in health care

Reuel S. Amdur               

We are going to get this backwards.  Locally, there are real problems with not upholding rights which we have related to the CISSSO (Centre intégré de santé et des services sociaux de l’Outaouais).  The CISSSO is the central body for hospitals, CLSCs, CHSLDs (long-term care facilities), rehabilitation centres, ambulances, and youth centres, among other problems.

We have certain rights in using these services, but before we get to these rights, we will consider how to appeal in case rights are violated.  Backwards, as noted.

On September 26, Connexions arranged a presentation at St. Mark’s Catholic Church by Colette Paré, a complaints counselor with CAAP (Centre d’assistance et d’accompagnement  aux plaintes).  CAAP serves to help people make appeals regarding treatment in any body under CISSSO, and also in private seniors’ homes. She outlined who may complain. 

Anyone 18 years of age or older “in a situation of vulnerability” or a legal representative may complain.  Anyone at all can report “a problematic situation related to abuse.”  Health and social service providers and professionals as defined by law are required to report suspected maltreatment.  Their avenue of reporting is somewhat different from other complaints.

Other complaints go to the Commisionaire aux plaintes et la qualité des services.  If the complainant is not satisfied, the next step is to the provincial Protecteur du citoyen (Ombudsman).  The exception is in the case of a complaint against a physician, dentist, or pharmacist.  That complaint goes to the Médecin examinateur.  The next step is the Comitè de revision.  That complaint might at any stage go as well for discipline to the Conseil des médecins, dentistes et pharmaciens.

So what are the rights in regard to services? There are the obvious matters of personal integrity—violence, abuse, lack of respect, etc.  There is also the matter of confidentiality.  People also have a right to care in English.  Someone can also complain about food, sanitary conditions, and safety.

Then there are other rights, for example, to adequate services and care required by the person’s condition.  Aye, there’s the rub.  The obvious example of the violation of this right is the unavailability of a family physician.  CLSCs are not set up to provide a meaningful alternative.

Physicians are not the only health care professionals in this situation.  Take the case of someone hospitalized with a mental health condition.  On release, it is problematic if there will be a social work visit, even if requested.  And in the case of knee or hip replacement, it would not be unreasonable to expect a contact from a physiotherapist.  But one might not be had even after the patient is returned to the hospital because of mobility issues.  Such services are prioritized and are not necessarily given a serviceable priority.

The underlying problem is a lack of staff.  The right to adequate services and care required by the person’s condition are rights that are illusory.  Les lendemains qui chantant. 

To contact CAAP, call 819-770-3637, extension 3, or 1-877-767-2227.

"Governing by Promising" 

Fred Ryan

When the CAQ  became Quebec's ruling party many of us wondered what changes may be in store for us here in West Quebec, long ignored  by Quebec's older political parties.  Many suspected that the CAQ is aggressively francophone, no matter the constitutional guarantees given the Anglophone minority.  
   

And, true enough, times have been tough for English-speakers across the province. Various adjustments made by the CAQ have made life more difficult ... perhaps a bit like the difficulties that francophones themselves suffered when the governments, federal and provincial, seemed 100% anglophone.  So today are we dealing with a little revenge legislation?  Or is there actually an improvment  in Quebec's government when the largest minority gets hit with a stick over and over by this 'new' government?  I have heard neighbours insisting this is correct ... while also insisting Quebec's CAQ has no plan or agenda to topple the once-widespread  used of English.  Hmm?  
   

And do you, dear reader,  see any value in these linguistic battles?  
    

Forget for a moment, please, any old battles or insistences that one language deserves more widespread use -- and how do we show the CAQ leadership that we are not a tiny minority, with no allegiance to our province?  To any province?
   

Instead of a government, fair-minded and equally-applied to everyone,  instead of real  language use, it might interest all Quebecers to learn that many French-speakers are also excluded
from the rewards of good government.  What have we gotten from the CAQ so far? 
   

Seems to many that the CAQ  is "governing by promises" - promises made to everyone . Hasn't the CAQ promises a new municipal pool in Hull?  Not to mention other promises: a new regional police headquarters, also in Hull, and, most important, Route 50's  expansion, doubling up its lanes linking us to Quebec's big metropolitan zone.  What else? Which other promises ... more schools, of course, including expansion to UQO?      352
   

"Governing by promising" is not a new thing, given that politicians seem to believe that a promise is equal to an action ... and we all know it isn't!  
   

While I am pessimistic in looking at the CAQ's record here, and its likely options for the future,  we must not give up on the CAQ!  It can become a democratic party (besides being elected, which is the foundation for good government.) -- it can if we can.  The CAQ can become genuinely democratic -- think of Quebec's minorities! -- but we must, too.  We can become more democratic ourselves by staying engaged with the political process ... and by insisting  that our governing members take the democratic principles of government to heart. 
   

When we look at the tragic actions today in Israel or the Ukraine, we realize we must insist of ourselves and our neighbours: we are engaged and struggling to make our ambitions real for a genuine life around us.  Our goal is to reach everyone politically ... everyone.

The next federal election campaign is underway!

Here's a problem:  a lot of people these days are worried about the "deep state".  Myself, I am more concerned about the shallow state. That is a place where citizens get bad information and act on it without reflection or agreement. That is a place where politicians operate in bad faith across the board and call their power-mongering and blind ambition “opposition.” That is a place where debates eschew reason for passionate partisanship ... and everyone loses. 

Hopefully, Pierre Poilievre has not quite taken us that far. As Thomas Paine  observed, “ To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason … is like administering medicine to the dead."   Maybe a better name would be "the dead state", except it isn't dead at all; the state apparatus is busier than usual although much of that activity is in dealing with citizens who are unhappy with their dealing with the day's multiple problems.

Citizens today, it appears, are engaged as much (or as little) as anyone, but they want genuine choices, clearly stated, and with honest answers.  When politicians want to set their own priorities as part of the nation's agenda, we'll need geniuses for our political class. And this is not what we have, in any party. 

The best way to get good candidates is to have as many citizens as possible engaged, especially when we are all starting to talk about the next federal election.  Not only do we have a bigger pool from which to draw our candidates, but we'd have a smarter pool (if we're fortunate)! 

Our last federal election saw a completely unknown candidate here (Pontiac riding), one who has never held any positions in our riding (hers, too) and so a candidate who knows virtually no one and certainly none of the burning issues (like "Energy from Waste" proposals -- a real burner!) of our days -- and she won!  This tells us more about public perceptions and about the strength of party organizations and their networks.  How did we perceive the other candidates, the other parties, and the issues facing our riding.  I doubt many voters actually think much about which candidate and platform would be best for us, for our problems and our futures.  The election -- almost -- had nothing to do with the candidates or with each parties' platforms and promises.   

However, Ms Chatel has done a fine job so far. And by "fine job" we mean she didn't pee in a cup on camera.  There's a dangerous, radioactive dump planned for her riding (just next door).  Energy from waste ... another. Ms Chatel assures us the radioactive dump, in particular, will be done "very carefully".  That's reassuring.

All to say, this situation is almost insulated from "deep state" concerns given how inconsequential we've allowed our election process to become. 

All to say, too, is this situation is of our own making.  Are we paying attention at this distance from an election?  Are we considering any of the candidates so far?   Yet the next election is already underway. Are we on board or even thinking about its issues?  Shouldn't we be?   Or is complaining enough? 

Energy-from-waste, ready for it? 

Fred Ryan

As warm as it is, the summer is heating up seven more -- with the latest proposal by the Warden of Pontiac-MRC, Jane Toller.  She has proposed launching a massive energy-from-waste project -- in the Pontiac's "industrial park",  but designed to serve the waste disposal problems faced by all municipalities in West Quebec.  Her vision requires a sign-on by the City of Ottawa (and urbanized municipalities), city of Gatineau, and the rest of the Outaouais to ship all of their waste to this one location, almost adjoining the provincial border near Portage-du-Fort.  For the efficiencies of something this grandiose and expensive to build, all the waste from this region is necessary. 

One of many unanswered question is what will be the emergency source of biomass if the region doesn't provide enough mass.  Almost 500,000 tonnes per year, in fact. There is a real bomb hidden here, because if the facility requires more that the region can or will provide, what will be its back-up source?  Don't respond, "Our forests"!  Several of Europe's private-operated EFW projects  do rely on and actually use forests to top up their biomass volume. Europe right now is pelletizing the pine forests of the southern USA,  an option we must refuse to accept.

Unless we wish to live in a vast deforested zone.

In her two terms so far, Warden Toller has proposed several initiatives to stimulate the local economy, but none have really progressed.  They rely on the nation's economy, and that is far from the hands of West Quebec!  She has encouraged a re-opening of Pontiac's once-vigourous forest industry .... but the demand for lumber and paper relies far beyond our region's ability to produce wood.  Two of Pontiac's local forestry re-launches  are going in the opposite direction, with one mill, recently reopened, now selling off its machinery, while the old once-massive Davidson mill and planer may be converted to entirely different uses (residential ones). 

Ms Toller will push hard to get at least one of her proposals off the ground before the next  MRC election, but that's her problem; we must not be rushed -- stampeded -- into agreeing to something as awful as pelletizing our forests.  Calling this "utilizing waste" is deliberately deceptive.   Our great hardwood and pine forests are not just "biomass"; they are living things which affect our individual lives, incredibly.  Forests are not garbage.

The word "garbage" should not even be used -- "garbage" includes food wastes, building supplies, broken machinery, old clothing ... none of which can be burned safely.  Opponents deliberately use the word garbage to alarm citizens who would picture, vast piles of stinking, fly-ridden, rotting "garbage". 

The opponents to this proposal are busy.  They have packed one of two public meetings so far.   And that meeting was truncated because the opponents actually shouted the Warden down -- and a councillor from Thorne municipality who toured an operating EFW facility in Ontario's Durham region.

We who live here might consider that EFW is a viable operation, but one requiring great care and preparation.  The details! Many of us feel we are living as close to paradise here as we can -- forests, clean air and water,  cooperative populations.  Doing nothing is not an option, since our head in the sand leaves our lower extremities much too exposed!  And as lovely as our environment is, we are still members of the human race and share the responsibility to create a stainable and nourishing future for this vast, complex community which sustains us, you and I.  Are you ready?

--30--

"Rare Earths": Each call we make, children die ...

As many times as we think of ourselves as intelligent and sensitive people, we just as often betray that self-image.  Our fascination with technology, and our lack of concern with all the harm that technology does to so many people, and to this Earth, are less the signs of intelligent people as signs of a self-absorbed culture. "Whatever we want from our world, we'll just take it" -- that's how it looks -- and we'll use every cliché and self-justification we can cook up.  Sure, that's how it looks.

So if, right up-front, if we say clearly we want to protect our planet and atmosphere, it may sound right, but not wise, to just throw out old methods and old energies by relying (or hoping to rely) upon new technologies and materials.   We hear plenty about switching from petroleum vehicles to electrical, as if all that's needed is to throw a switch (or sign a cheque) -- and off we go in another direction.

Most talk (in the news) about switching to electrical power seems very short in estimating the amount of new materials we'll need, and our ability to source them. Cobalt, lithium, copper, all sorts of  "rare earths", they all seem technically feasible alternatives to refining tar sands for oil, diesel and gasoline.  But are these "rare" materials really available in the quantities the world will require?  And how will they be accessed?

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the world's best sources of many of these ores -- yet the absolute poverty there, akin to modern slavery -- the lack of functioning government, the number and power of armed militias and criminal gangs  -- many linked to criminal regimes (and militaries) in other countries -- plus rampant illegal mining is destroying much of that region's environment (and their future growth possibilities).  Human rights, sexual exploitation, bribery and corruption are all part of the "development" modern technology is offering these poor people.   

So far, our use of phones and new automotive technologies rely heavily on these minerals and on these places, many with corrupt, criminal governments.  Bolivia is a big source of lithium -- and the ongoing political upheaval there is connected to these vast resources, their strings controlled by world powers.

For analysts to tell us that all we have to do is switch from dirty oil to rare earths is not convincing in the bigger picture. We will trade the wasteland of the tar sands for a new wasteland of human rights and environmental destruction elsewhere?   

Such a "switch"  to electricity is deceptively simpleminded.  Read up a bit on today's scramble in the Congo (without using your phone!).

Smells like Canada - the real New World Order

Fred Ryan

As global warming sneaks up on us, or as it used to sneak up, our collective reactions have been rather disappointing.  No doubt there are all sorts of reasons why we needn't get too concerned, right now anyway, because, sure, weather patterns fluctuate over the eons, and, for sure, our superb technology has solved so many problems before this, but the vision of burning forests and real-life air we must breathe from our beautiful nation up in flames ... isn't it getting difficult to smile and stick with business-as-usual? 

Remember when Australia was in flames a few years ago? We all watched in shock at the TV footage of forest and grassland in flames, charred animals, homes in ashes ... but at least that was down there, we told ourselves, and we went back to the important things.  Not so much any more.  Now we look at footage of our smoke blanketing New York City, queen city of the world's great cities, and we think, "that's our smoke".  From Canada, once the wilderness of the world, we've become, to keep it light, the butt of cartoonists.  One US piece showed a BBQ party gone amiss with too much smoke, "Smells like Canada!" one lady exclaims. 

What might visitors from another galaxy conclude?  That we're waiting for the situation to become so bad that there's no chance we could do anything effective -- and so we can keep doing, living, as we always did, without taking any personal responsibility for this world around us?  Too cynical?  Well, how much have you, dear reader, altered your life's habits since all this became too smoky to ignore?   Still driving two cars per household?  Still driving with petroleum?  Flying south or west or wherever we wish to go?  Demanding foods and fruits from distant places?  Big, heavily-windowed homes?  Bags and bags of garbage at the curb?  There are a million things we could consider.

Some people are taking climate change seriously:  kids, students and artists,  mostly.  Earlier this year the media did  touch on the problem (no, not that the Ukrainians need cluster bombs, nor that Canada must send more money to the States for armaments): no!  In Montana, a group of kids are suing their state government for "failing to protect their futures".   Like Greta, I suppose, these kids are taking the lead away from us self-satisfied adults. 

Kids, one suspects, are much less likely to take their opinions from politicians and certainly not from political parties.  Only adults, the kids tell me, follow politicians in forming their own opinions and social goals.  But our tsk-tsking of  idiotic opinions is almost as bad as our refusal of real climate remedies, allowing most of us to pat ourselves on the back -- for literally doing nothing.

The grain of truth here: we each don't need to present a fully worked out explanation of climate change and what might save human civilization. We have to elect leaders who will  face up to the world burning around us, not deny it,  and work together for solutions ... forget all the objections that 'the science is not entirely in', "more facts are needed",  and, anyway,  'jobs and the economy are more important" than our futures. 

Don't you and I literally have to clean up our own acts, our own lives?  Isn't wasting anything unacceptable?  Isn't "conspicuous consumption" disgusting?  Must we (still you and me) rely only on land-fills for our waste "management"?

We all do know the problem and threat here.  Hear that alarm clock? 

--30--

Artificial intelligence?  Been here before?

Fred Ryan

Don't we so easily get distracted (blinded, really) by the positives or negatives  of most social "inventions"?  Social Media is today's prime example.  With the positives it offers, who would even bother looking for any negatives down the road?  Who could even imagine any of the gamut of misuse it would unleash, especially in democratic societies?

Atomic energy is another example -- how easy to blow off any worries about radioactive residue lasting infinitely long (in human terms)!   Chernobyl, Three Mile Island ... even electing a strongman to sort out social problems ... what is a cautionary tale, if not all these?

Yet, here we go again with Artificial Intelligence.

Not that AI hasn't made incredible strides, with all the benefits humanity could reap from the growing AI revolution. We also hear cautionary voices here,  but these voices, like those over the last century, are drowned out by AI's wow-gee-whiz promises.

Wow-factors leave caution in the dust.  Nothing diabolical here, no Brave New World scenarios nor global conspiracies.

Yet, from the 1950s I recall hearing speculation about what we'll soon be doing with all our spare time and new affluence: more leisure, more golf or travel, more opportunities for study and self-improvement, more time for creative expression, etc., etc.

We prepared ourselves for more university enrolment, more research,  writing,  painting and music-making; we expected more health innovations and cures, longer lives, various implants, healthier foods.  A shorter work week means learning new languages, participating in citizen science, and, best of all, we'd find solutions to the planet's pressing problems -- from global warming, acid rain and ozone holes to nuclear war, even to ending war itself.  What optimists, to let ourselves be hypnotised by great promises!

Seventy years later, we're working harder, with fewer vacations, earning no more or even less, fewer college enrolments and with all innovations patented to the gills so that only the largest corporate employers reap any benefit.  Working people have become disposable in our new economies. The Earth has become a resource warehouse, with no thought to the future.

Most surprisingly, many of the internet's great promises have yielded not better communication and more understanding between peoples and nations but more tribalism and division between the haves and have-nots -- of everything.  Sharing more? More cooperation?  Be real. We have populations fractured into divisions and groupings.  Our religions have not brought us closer to each other but are used to justify more divisions and even more cruelty than in the past.  Fake and false news,  disinformation, cyber attacks, rumours and fear-mongering are much too common.  CBC calls this "the New World Disorder". 

What was it we missed? Where were the dark clouds in those early forecasts and predictions?  Where are the flying autos, interplanetary travel and widespread leisure it promised?

Has it been simple human greed, where anyone who could capitalize on an innovation grabbed it and ran, turning the rest of us into victims (or customers)?  Why has our faith in democracy and wise government faded?

One answer is that, for any of these questions, there have been persons and institutions (and corporations) willing to discard all principle and go for self-benefit, no matter the cost to the rest of us.  So, yes, greed ... in part.  But why also do we fall for these great stories about increased leisure time, more AI-assisted labour benefitting all humanity, or at least the Free World's one percent of humanity? 

Minimally, isn't more caution demanded of our AI work, given our past and present disappointments?  There are already legal constraints on new CRISPER gene-altering technology.

And how is caution enforced?

-- 30 --

Wars ... and their deep reach

Fred Ryan

Answers to the simplest questions can often be the most elusive.  "Why does anything exist?" -- deceptively simple, yet near-unanswerable.  Factual questions can be both simple and difficult.  "What was the longest war in history?"   That should be simple, but ... well, try it.

First, merely defining "war" and "how long?" make the question much more complex than we'd expect.  "War" has so many definitions -- from "gas-price wars" in any city to "star wars" which covers ... everything! 

So we adopt our own definition, of, say, "war", and go from there. We take "war" as a military operation(s), no matter what Putin may say.  People die, are wounded, cities ruined, landscapes modified ... even history can be changed by a war.

So which military war has been the longest, say, in Western history?  That's straightforward.  But ask that question of a military historian and the answer will not be straightforward.  There's the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) -- thirty years of war! Sounds more like Hell ... but it's not even the longest. There's the Hundred Year War (1337-1453) which surely outlived anyone born at its beginning.  Long enough?

Broadening our definition of "war" gives us the Colonization of the Americas -- the colonial powers of Spain, Britain and France, mainly, against the indigenous cultures. The Spanish theatre, launched in 1493, lasted 350 years.  That's a long war, and inexcusable by any metric. It, too, was a religious as well as an imperialist one. Monks and bishops played active roles in enslaving and sacrificing indigenous people, north and south.  The monks were fighting "devil worshipping" natives; the soldiers were scooping up the gold (plus slaves).

In this category we have also "La Reconquista" in Europe, lasting no less than 781 years.  Did the victors even remember what they were fighting for!  The Christian  kingdoms of Europe drove the Moors from the Iberian peninsula, from all parts of Europe. Religion at work! 

However, before we're lost in details, let's focus on (a) modern times and (b) on wars that still affect us today.

These include the two "World Wars", which introduced us to atomic weapons.  Modern wars range from Korea and Vietnam to Kosovo, Congo and Ukraine. 

Undeclared wars pepper the world. Some are mis-labelled as "events", say, the Nakbah in Palestine, launched in 1948 by Zionists to drive Arabic peoples out of a territory given to both by "God". Religion again.  Almost 80 years of low-level warfare, and still going strong today.

Another long-running war is the United States' war on Cuba, known as their blockade or boycott. Our neighbours do not consider this a real war, but it involves the military, warships, missiles, aircraft; it results in refugees, real deaths, thousands likely, of children and adults killed by the withholding of medicines, food and other essentials.  The UN has declared it an illegal act of war for each of the last thirty years.

Why bring this up? Because of its unique goal to kill an ideology more than a nation.  This is used by our US allies elsewhere -- Vietnam, remember?   Popular belief is that the Americans lost the Vietnam War, but consider that they managed to almost bomb Vietnam/Cambodia "back to the Stone Age", as an American general famously remarked.  Vietnam was left a crippled nation, but -- here's the US aim -- it also became an advertisement for the consequences of anyone crossing the leaders of the Free World.  Vietnam's ruins and long struggle to rebuild are used as an argument against "communism".

So too for the Cuban people today. The stranglehold blockade, enforced militarily,  is destroying Cuba's families, economy and society. This is the goal: Cuba also becomes an argument against crossing the West.  "Socialism is destroying Cuba!"

Curious.  Don't the warships and aircraft still enforcing the 60-70 year blockade fly the Stars & Stripes, not the Red Star?   Isn't it the blockade that is destroying this tiny, courageous nation, not a cabal of commies?   Curious, yes, isn't it ... the stuff we are willing to believe.

--30--

They shall not pass ....

Fred Ryan

We rarely hear the Spanish Civil War mentioned these days, despite the world's political-military conflicts, but last week when, in a local used book store, I came across a reprint of  "Spain, Take This Cup From Me" by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. Vallejo had been in that civil war, which followed the Spanish military's rebellion against the country's elected government.  The Spanish Civil War was a cause célèbre, attracting volunteers from around the world who came to defend the Republic from the Spanish fascists, openly aided by the Nazis and by Mussolini. 

Canada and other Western powers held back, "abstained", thereby allowing the German-Italian  military machine to overwhelm the Republic and the International Brigades who had answered their call.  Many Canadians volunteered, evading the West's blockade, and formed the Mackenzie-Papineau brigade, or "Mac-Paps", as they became known around the world.

Finally, assured by the new weapons and terror tactics against civilians, the German and Italian governments launched what became World War II.  That cataclysm obscured the Spanish Civil War, and today's historians leave it covered in dust. Too political, is their refrain.

Vallejo was one of those many who joined the effort, and who created great works of art out of the courage and valour, and the horrors, they had witnessed. Picasso and Salvador Dali did so, too.

What we don't know is how closely history may repeat itself -- say, how closely today's warfare in Ukraine mirrors Spain in the '30s.  Certainly China as well as neo-capitalist Russia, and other pnations, are studying the effectiveness of American guided rockets, drones, and new tactics for a war with a front which is not exactly a line, but an area, a big zone. International volunteers are again sneaking into the conflict, many this time from the fascist side -- neo-Nazis and paramilitaries who have trained for this for years, many in rural America, others groomed in Russia.     

Vallejo's wartime poetry reminds us of other similarities, too -- the incredible importance of the media in setting and colouring each act of the war, by all sides.  The thousands of foreign fighters who  have volunteered today, defending what may be world-wide fake news with their lives.

Today we're shocked by attacks on populated centres, from  the Maryople steelworks sheltering hundreds of families to sabotage of civilian infrastructure -- we are appalled at this state terrorism against non-combatant populations.

The question is how similar is this to Spain:  is there any possibility of a wider conflagration, another world conflict?  There are certainly tinder boxes and simmering conflicts which could explode.  Is this the beginning of a wider war against Russia and its sphere? Are we preparing a war against China -- or vice versa?  Will India and Pakistan settle old scores, or India and China?  Could the Ukraine be the pretext for a "world war" against those fighting the American Empire -- targeting Cuba and the new progressive governments elected in Latin America, or a slap-down of China's aggressive attempts to buy its way into the Third World?

Could the Ukraine conflict be a diversion from seriously fighting climate change?

Such speculation is tinged with paranoia.  But doesn't the Ukraine war seem a harbinger of all that we, ordinary citizens, do not want in our futures?  If there's any possibility that Ukraine conflict is a step toward worse things, we Canadians, have to speak up, reject our media's tiresome war-and-conflict-fascination. Most of us recognize that our challenge is in dangers facing our planet's climate. No more 'our-side/their-side' rigidities in our public discussions?  Climate change is something we cannot put aside for other, more emotional, goals ... like a war.

Canadians should consider all these voices carefully, not only to our media's  banging the drums of war with each mention of Russia or China.  The voice of reason,  where do we hear it today, ever so faintly?

--30--

Before adding our voices to the drums of war ....

Fred Ryan

The invasion of the Ukraine seems a signpost in the whole world's slow slide towards international hostilities; with that insult to humanity, that invasion, leading the way, the world today seems more than ever divided into hostile camps, breakdowns in communication and even in trade. More than one person has commented that the world feels more like the years leading up to World War I than to any other model.  What happened to the old vision of humanity working together to explore the cosmos -- or even defeat the threats that so many people feel today from new diseases and from this very strange world of self-immolation ...  but the vision might be more from the post-WWII era of hostilities between the two major blocs.

 
Especially in terms of setting up a system of mutually-assured destruction.  And that's no longer merely the nuclear threat.  "Mutually-guaranteed" is better, the threats are so varied.

Both (or all) sides will be devastated and left in flames -- not just from the nuclear arsenal, updated and made super-sonic,  but today's complexities of warfare mean it is now next to impossible to isolate regional conflicts and to prevent a spill-over hostilities.  For example, all sides are preparing for cyber-warfare: the targets are each nation's electrical and tele-communication grids, supply chains for everything, sabotage strikes, plus  the use of unconventional warfare.   The world-wide disinformation campaigns, false news, and outright propaganda will bring chaos to the streets as citizens react to no electricity, water or sewage, no cell towers and digital communications -- our phones will be dead in our hands, useful only to throw at someone!   Food supplies will be crippled and government and policing "on the ground" will be almost impossible. Not only under attack from outside, every nation will suffer the upheaval of their own citizens, aroused by well-planned disinformation campaigns. Both sides are already plotting attacks on satellites and other crucial targets.  We want to go there?

Obviously we've proven incapable of backing down from the biggest national threats imaginable -- nuclear war, on the agenda for over 60 years.  We must assume that once we've built a weapon, we won't give it up, no matter what.  There are hawks, or wolves, in every camp and they have the levers of power on their side -- so to turn humanity's future into a good-news story we need to go back, before the new weapons are created and tested. We have to reject the ranting and whining of the gang of war-hyenas who pressed the world into the Iraq invasion.  They still populate every American administration, and their funding is showing new sprouts outside American borders.  Ditto for the world's other heavy-sluggers.  Where, for example, is the beneficial effects of the world's religions, stressing (so they claim) peace and cooperation?  Unfortunately religion is like the flag -- no one is allowed to question its goals and its main actors, despite their clear implication in supporting the aggressors of the day.  Where are those religions which once empowered the downtrodden?

Our only option is to stop this slide into further hostilities.  We can argue about blame and responsibility for all sorts of mischief, but unless we're willing NOT to form up into "camps" with hostile retations.  We cannot go on seeing everything the other side does as hostile snd dastardly. At least, if we want to get off any slide into hell.

 
We were alarmed by the early-April ice storm which cut off power for thousands of households and industries -- it lasted little more than a week.  The complaining was universal.  But imagine an "ice storm" that lasts forever, that has no hydro crews capable of restoring services, that ends food deliveries from the south.  Yes, we have to get off this slide, and this slide is to blame "the other guys" (or "the bad guys") for every issue can can imagine.  In WWI, the conditions built up, with all sides gearing up their arsenals, until all it took as a single incident to touch off the world's worst wars, I & II.  

Are we incapable of learning from past mistakes?  Can we not negotiate, even cooperate, with our competitors?

If we can't ... get ready for the ice storm to dwarf all ice storms.  And we'll have walked right into it with our eyes wide open, our mouths, too, blaming "the other guys".  Humanity can do better. 

The Age of Empire is still going strong

Fred Ryan

When President Biden made his whistle-stop in Ottawa this spring, we heard a lot in the news about our famous "unmilitarized" border (it's no longer kosher in the US to refer to any of their borders as "undefended").  In fact we hear so much about cooperation and mutual defense in the news ... we could assume that alliances blanket the world.  

"Our" alliances are defensive and are designed, we're told, to hold the peace and to keep would-be aggressors in their own back yards.  We're also told that the Russians, Putin himself, want to rebuild the old Czarist empire -- starting with the Ukraine.  The Chinese, we're instructed, want to build their own brand-new empire.  And, as always, it's up to the Free World to hold the line here, stop these empire-building madmen before they destroy the world, etc., etc.

But isn't it also true that there are no longer empires, except for the evil ones lurking in the corners?  Although Canada's foreign and economic policies are in lock-step with the US,  this is a result of our clear-thinking, and not a result of us being just one corner of a modern American Empire?  Canada's policies always seem to follow the US lead ... except for  well-worn examples such as our refusal to join the US invasion of Iraq.  

However, in this context, consider that the US national debt now stands at, roughly, $31, 460,317,663, 203.  That's right, four commas: 31 trillion dollars.  That amounts to about $94,210 owed by "every single person" in the USA.   Our conservative friends will argue that this is proof that "governments" wastes money and must be cut back. But the issue here is simpler, and that is that this amount of "debt" is so large, that it will never be paid back, especially as we watch the US congress arguing about raising its borrowing ceiling again.

Equally strange is the fact that China, one of the US' favourite targets, holds the second highest amount of this debt.  China holds about $870 billion in US debt, whereas Japan tops the list with just over a trillion.   If China were to try to liquidate its holdings,  the world's semi-integrated economies would all shudder (and many implode).  World economies are so integrated that major chaos in one can shake the whole edifice.  Meanwhile the entire USA economy earns roughly $4.89 trillion annually -- and then spends $6.27 trillion.  Such sums are not minor, and seem unsustainable.

So, what's happening? 

Back when the world was divided up into empires -- take your pick of eras -- it was characteristic to see tribute flowing into (or brought into)  each empire's capital.  Even on a small scale, armies arrived home with the loot -- "tribute" -- they had received or seized to send home to the empire's centre.  From Rome's to the British empire.

Is this what's happening today?

All this money which we call "debt", is it not really a form of tribute -- since there's no way it will ever be repaid (as "debt" has to be repaid)?  And if this rings true, then we have to concede that we are still in an era of empire.  There really is such a thing as The American Empire in the world today - and not just as a movie title.    

It's more understandable that there are other empires, too -- Putin's, etc.  If it is immoral that we still keep empires alive today, then we all share that immorality. Apart from the movies, empires have no place in modern times, when we pay  lip-service to democracy and the freedom to vote out leaders who fail us. 

And doesn't it also mean - a smaller question -- that our own country is also part of one empire, today's big one?  Has the world really evolved as much as we claim?

And would it help at all if we began to refer not to "American debt" but to "tribute paid to America"?  Canadian investors might play with these amounts, but we'll never get them back. That's what "tribute" means, and why it's important to distinguish them both.  Even among allies.

Extra money won't fix health care, Premiers now say

Fred Ryan

Having just returned from a three-week break in the sun, and, ever a journalist, here's a memory-maker: as we were ploughing through a massive wall of people of all ages and sizes, everyone crying for a cab, others there to pick up clients, resort-rental shills, you name it, I couldn't help but think that this massive "desmadre", as the Mexicans call it, this "dis-mother" -- is the purest form of free enterprise, "freedom and individualism" that I'll ever see.  My wife, ever the practical one, was searching for our car rental guy, and wanted to know what I found so funny in this chaos.

I don't know what manner of organizing our world would be a better alternative to the one we are using, but with all of today's chaos in the markets, big personal investment losses over the last two years, bank runs, inflationary pricing making even celery reach $5, plus today's anti-union forces, all that today's chaos is telling us is the old ways are no longer working.  They are no longer providing a progressive and adaptive way to keep a society going.  Especially with the strains of too many people needing to breathe, eat and work.   Massive corporate capitalism (not your mom & pop) plus corporate funding of politics and politicians is crashing all around us.  Capitalism is no longer supportive.

My daughter's objection (speaking as an authority!) is that an unregulated "free enterprise" society seems to need to commodify absolutely everything -- from our labour to our creative pursuits, to our most intimate interests and pursuits which now have resorts, guest speakers, hot tubs.  She sees this "market" social organization making everything "sell-able", every single thing.

Health must be for sale .... education ... probably even kindness, inter-human connection -- put on a price tag!  If there's no price to pay, we aren't getting the best deal -- that's the brainwash slooshing around us.

But, clearly, things and ideas and medicines don't have to be for sale. There's nothing that says this is the only way to develop and distribute our planet's resources.  Look, at minimum we have to admit the possibility -- just a possibility! -- that everything is not for sale or not sell-able.  Without that possibility of fairness so much in our society will cease to mean anything -- religion, sports, even pleasures and fun.  Humans have to be able to dream, really dream.

Just as obvious, there are alternative ways to organize a society, and more than just the Big Two, the "Either/Or" cartoons of the last 100 years.  New ideas need to be stimulated, tested, and, certainly, some will create societal problems and drawbacks.  If these problems are anticipated, we side-step or break away from them.  History is not absolutely blind, and we shouldn't be either.  Looking at today's problems, every corner of the human race is clamouring for some form or another of justice. 

They deserve a social response. And while coming down hard with the police may clear the streets, this is exactly where Stalinism took its baby steps. More industry?  We need more of the older, proven industries?  But aren't they a direct highway to bigger problems: intensified climate change.  Simple solutions are guaranteed to miss the mark -- because isn't every problem complex, not simple? -- simple ones may seem "logical" at first and are the first in the mind, but, hey, a little thought first, isn't that wiser?

We Canadians value ingenuity, brainstorms, and old-fashioned brain power above almost anything else; it's a lesson we take from evolution's step-by-step creation process growing all around us.  Our society has become a leader in so many innovations and improvements, so can't we really try to figure out a better re-organization of this place we love ... this Canada?

 "Quality of life"?

Fred Ryan

A well-respected dentist in West Quebec retired recently and recounted the difficulties he faced in finding someone to take over his practice.  He did, eventually, and the new dentist is getting good reviews, so everyone is happy.  But I was stunned to hear from him that professionals feared losing their "quality of life"  if they moved to the rural areas ... 

Why this is stunning is because it was in the 1970s-80s (and earlier) that West Quebec attracted so many young doctors, nurses, and other health professionals -- because, in their words,  West Quebec offered such a stimulating and beautiful "quality of life".   Doctors staffed the smaller Wakefield and Pontiac hospitals with enthusiasm, and certainly with skill.  The quality of life they found attractive here was the natural beauty and the outdoors activities available--often right outside your back door, especially for cross-country skiers.  These new professionals found the company here stimulating, so some reported; apparently they had not anticipated the number of other new, well-educated residents. 

Coming from cities and suburbs, West Quebec's bigger-than-life environment made for the best job offer ever.  The Outaouais' Boreal forest & farmland interface, lush with so many species, fed their spirits in a way no urban, professional pay-cheque could. A month in Switzerland once a  year can't compare.

For our part, here in West Quebec, today facing shortages of most health services, and supporting an older population, that era now sounds a little idlic.  That wave of professionals created plenty of ripples, too -- so many of these new-comers joined local associations (or formed them) and got involved in the  small communities of our area.

They contributed in many ways ... and had their involvement returned to them in many ways.

One big question today is another cycle of health-professional shortages (this time compounded by a misguided program of urban-driven centralization and top-down management).  There have been some attempts to recruit professionals, to ease their transition here, but how much actual recruiting is being done, based on this very crucial matter of "quality of life"?

Is West Quebec, the Outaouais, selling its quality of life to the graduates of urban medical schools and universities?   Trying to compete on urban terms is foolish.  We have our own world to offer -- still as fulfilling as in the 70s -- but this recruitment effort can't be done by people who do not believe in their message, can it?  Functionaries have a way of being ineffectual, on a human scale.  So, if we are concerned with our own health and with the futures of our next generations, we can't leave recruiting, in any sense of that term, up to the bureaucrats and politicians who have created the present situation.

But we do have our MRC governments with budgets to cover some of this help for our region.  These are the leaders who are closest to our communities. Our MRCs and municipal governments have access to grants and assistance, but most of all they have to offer the sheer persuasiveness of our region, our lakes and rivers, a photographic paradise,  an outdoors paradise, a Taoist paradise.  This "quality of life" does not come via the internet!

It would be a magnificent accomplishment of a local government to point to new physicians, dentists, physiologists and therapists of all sorts, counsellors -- all the human services every community requires.  There is no better or quicker way for local leaders to win the hearts and support of our communities than to assist in building a healthy and nurturing region. 

Extra money won't fix health care, Premiers now say

Fred Ryan

News of  the recent premiers/prime minister meeting on health funding, summed  it up thus, "New federal funding welcomed, but most (premiers) agree innovation also required."

"Innovation" is needed.  This comes as a revelation?

Can we really accept such a lame conclusion, after years of our premiers complaining that the feds will not meet with them on health funding?  So now the feds do meet, do offer less but still prodigiously large sums (spread over too many years), even soften their demands for provincial accountability on all this spending -- but, no, now the premiers say that's not enough, either.  Not only do they want more money, and all of it unaccounted for (because health care is a provincial matter), but they also want more  "innovation".  How innovative is that conclusion?

Isn't innovation always needed, everywhere, in every field? 

So what exactly are the premiers thinking of as "innovation"?  Some innovations aren't helpful at all -- think of the Tech World's many mis-fires!  Some are harmful, even retrograde.  Our corporate-friendly premiers seem to pretend that any change is innovation -- just because it's change!  And, wow!, we  taxpayers are going to buy this?  Do the corporate and political worlds (with their media) really believe Canadians are this gullible?

Doug Ford's "innovation"  does mean change -- going backwards, "changing" back to the oldest scam: privatisation. Privatisation is a one-word definition for corporate raiding of public assets.

This is such a blatant reach by the giant health-insurance and hospital corporations (most American) to grab more markets.  Ford wants us to be "innovative", by going backwards.

Corporate ambitions already define so many public goals -- control of tobacco and alcohol, opiates, on-line gambling, plus the green-washing of gas & oil -- plus nuclear! -- to the old scams of privatising every gov't service which could make them money (if squeezed hard enough).  Nothing about better care, really -- and when these "innovations" don't bring in a profit?  Privatized care crashed our health system years ago (remember Tommy Douglas' long fight with private interests to launch Canada's public health system?)   

A real innovation would be to turn our system into a national network, not a patchwork of provincial jurisdictions.  Or nation-wide accreditation for doctors, nurses and specialists?  Or health cards that are accepted in other provinces?  Or, especially, a cut the system's massive bureaucracy?

And so years later we'll have to pick up the pieces and re-build a publicly-funded and -run health system. And at what cost in time, health, morale, and public finances?  Privatization is not "innovation", not in the slightest. It's a money grab.  And it's failed government.

A thank-you to Covid-19!

Fred Ryan

News of a suicide within our community last year, while crushing to all who knew him, points to a social problem usually out of sight.  This pandemic put a spotlight on the weaknesses of our public mental-health services and institutions. 

Mental stresses build up within most situations, but the lockdown and other limitations have turned up the pressure cookers everywhere.  We're seeing the start of a flood of mental stresses and breakdowns. Things are already tense south of the border, where the pandemic was less-well managed:  daily mass shootings.  These results may prove more destructive to our communities and personal lives than the pandemic itself.  Effects can go on forever and affect every economic field, occupation and education level, every income level, age, background.   

One of  many reasons the world struggled so much with Covid is because we had let our health systems decline, losing many people at almost every stage (except on managerial levels!).    Nations all have cut health funding (in real dollars), thanks to the old Reagan-Thatcher-Harper ideology of strangling government, tax breaks for the wealthy, and cutting social services.  

Ours is a big, dispersed population to serve, with health risks coming from all directions --plus we all feel entitled to the best, everywhere, at all times!  

The social costs of mental illness today illustrate the dangers of old-fashioned and self-contradictory ideologies of government cutbacks, centralizations, and privatizations.  

And around the next corner?  Today's stresses and breakdowns illuminate an awful future.  Talk abut anti-social behaviour  (and their costs).  Addictions, petty crime, violence, enslavements, poverty and poor education are all intertwined with mental illnesses.  Jailing is an emergency response only; it won't help the down-and-out.  And this says nothing about the physical costs to lives, buildings, cooperation and trust.

Perhaps we should appreciate Covid-19!  It is showing us what should be crystal clear already: our modern complex, fast-paced, unequal societies are generating stresses, expectations and demands which many people cannot handle.  So,  in the short-term, each of us should exercise as much kindness and tolerance as possible.  Constant anger and irritability are warning signs.

It's heartless and poor governance to require people in mental crisis to wait months -- months! -- merely to see a counsellor or other source of help.  There's an honest message from Covid.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business recently made a big deal over what should be called the "Get Rid of Red Tape Week".  Not really a celebration, it was a campaign to remind business owners to keep the pressure on all levels of government to streamline their bureaucracy, to reduce as much as possible the red tape and bureaucratic reporting required of businesses, groups, and plain citizens.  This is an old issue.           

One trouble with red tape: it's necessary.           

I hate writing that!  Having been a business-owner for years -- as well as a plain citizen who must follow the reporting rules on so many seemingly insignificant things -- and now well-aged, I can see how much red tape there is in all areas of civic life, in every corner of society and of our lives (it seems), but also why so much of it is necessary.  All those younger years of dealing with it have given me the suspicion that red tape is in actuality a form of fire-wall, of protection, even if poorly designed.  Protection of what?  Government red tape protects massive resources -- public money -- in the common interest.           

Simply put, because we have created a society that has given its government(s) huge mandates and which has also given us, citizens, such high expectations, governments have become gate-keepers for and distributors of very large amounts of money (plus all the very valuable contracts, leases and permits). Money, anywhere, seems to attract flies (thieves and 'promoters' of all sorts) and the more money there is,  means a lot of supervision and oversight is required. Look at the astronomical price tags on the American fighter jets Canada has ordered, or the ice breakers contracted -- and this list could go on for pages and pages, literally!           

Just as we'd expect, all this money and these permits attract scam artists as well as legitimate citizens and businesspeople. Constantly, day after day after day, someone is coming up with new plans to get their hands on public treasure. This means no alternative but plenty of day-to-day supervision, alertness, fact-checking and back-checking : red tape!           

Canadians might look at it this way: we can hate to spray our heads or even our hats with bug dope in the spring. But we do it, and put up with the stink and ill effects on our lungs, because we hate giving black flies a free meal. We feel, just there are billions of black flies out there, just waiting for us -- waiting for opportunity,  well, there are billions of schemes and legitimate plans and projects  that require government funding.  Whenever there's a concentration of money, it has to be protected from very inventive, principle-less operators.  That's where red tape actually has a purpose.           

All those reports and forms, dates, sums, references, directives, credits and debts -- everything we call "red tape" -- build up or create a body of reference to defend government decisions, to ensure proper fulfilment of social needs, and to meet the standards we've come to expect.  Building codes are a common example; Quebec is often accused of killing the building trades because of its rules and training requirements -- yet we just watched almost 40,000 people suffer deadly earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, most of these deaths said to be due to lax building standards.  So?           

Wherever there's big money out in the open, there will have to be multiple checks and balances so we can be satisfied we are getting good value for our tax dollars and that our governments are actually getting the goods and services they require -- to fulfil our expectations. We insist on a lot from modern government, and the rules of bureaucracy tell us the price tags for these goods and services will be high. Without all the checking, the red tape, we'd be over-run by, basically, highwaymen. That seems to be human nature. Sorry.

But, look, we're Canadian. Just look at red tape as bug spray.                                                           

F.Ryan

21 Feb '23

A year ago Ottawa was besieged by the self-named Freedom Convoy, with all its nonstop noise and traffic snarls we easily recall. A threatened re-run this winter did not take off.  But what if we took a more positive approach to this struggle?  No longer accusing them as loonies and rightwing semi-fascists, what if we took their complaints at face value?  After all, we're a democracy, where everyone's opinion should matter, even if any democracy has a standard means to put proposals into action,  rather than just "take it to the streets!"   There's a positive proposal to offer those folks and the sizeable number of citizens who share many of their concerns about big government and creeping corporatization and surveillance of our daily and social lives.  Let me explain.           

This movement grew from historical cultures of extreme individualism and the campaign to give individual rights to corporations.  These folks fear big government with its tentacles into every part of modern life, personal to community.  Too many taxes, too much surveillance, too many undercover police, and too much legal cover for measures to kill individual effort and private initiatives.             

What they want is less government, far fewer taxes, regulations, restrictions, rules and permits. No Covid  restrictions -- none!             

So let's give it to them.  They can show us the correctness of their view of modern life. Maybe they can demonstrate how to run a society without all this heavy-handedness, police, and secretive machinations against innocent individuals.           

There's a big undeveloped swath of near-northern Ontario -- the clay belt, stretching west and north from the New Liskeard & Timmins region. The soil is excellent, much of it cleared for farming but also much still wooded with Canada's magnificent Boreal forest, our country's backbone. It is surprisingly untouched, compared to the rest of the world. "Untouched" means only lightly regulated and patrolled, lightly policed, and not blocking the way of the mega-projects which make Canada so valuable.  Lightly regulated, only modestly developed, off the beaten Trans-Canada path, and distant from the big feedlots we call cities. The perfect place!           

We grant these pioneering sociopaths just what they say they can't find in modern Canada: unpoliced, unregulated, untaxed, and out of the spotlight of corporate profit centres.  We give them their own "territory" to arrange and build along the lines they say are missing in Canada's democracy.  They govern themselves, tax themselves, plan and build -- and protect -- what they say is now out of their reach. (Sort of what the Indigenous peoples have been asking for -- without truck convoys).  Education, old-age pensions ... but only what they themselves want to pay for.  That's what "Freedom!" means,  shouted in your face.           

Imagine, each Libertarian starting with a plot of land, a minor bankroll to get started -- and the rest in their hands. They build the roads, bridges and schools, farms and sawmills, all that they deem necessary. Schooling, food inspection, hospitals, roads, communications -- all that they want! And they fund all this  themselves with their own taxes -- how, and how much, that's for they themselves to impose upon themselves, according to their standards of a Free Life.           

Finally, we (the Rest of Canada) would get their point. We'd see how a country should be run, as they build their genuinely free and liberated society.  Yes, the winters there are long. These folks are tough, resilient.  "Freedom!" here showcased to the whole world.  While the rest of us get on with living our lives.

F.Ryan

During my lifetime, there have been monumental changes in societal norms. When was the last time, if ever, that you heard: “Spare the rod and spoil the child”?

From the King James Version of the Bible, Book of Proverbs 13:24: “He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” Of lovers when they lose their wits? Then spare the rod and spoil the child.

The part not in quotation marks that mentions “spoil”, which is not in the Bible, more likely came from Samuel Butler’s 17^th century poem Hudibras, a love affair:  

What medicine else can cure the fits

Of lovers when they lose their wits

Love is a boy by poets styled

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.

Until the dawn of the computer age, change moved more at a snail’s pace. The rod became the strap and it wasn’t until between 1989-1997 that the governments of Nova Scotia, Yukon, Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, Newfoundland and Quebec amended acts to prohibit corporal punishment. Up until 2004, some schools in Alberta used the strap.

I retired from teaching in 1997. The strap was a method of putting fear into the minds of children who overstepped boundaries when all else failed. The rationale was to maintain order and discipline through the child’s association of pain with persistent disobedience to authority and the regulations imposed by them. I well remember the dialogue within the walls of staff rooms, indeed throughout the community, about the consequences of stopping the practice. The majority of teachers at that time were in favour of abolishing corporal punishment.

Other practices that were taking us ‘to hell in a handbasket’ were discontinuing the use of certain phrases. Examples: “Where were your brains when you did (said) that?”

“If he had a brain, he wouldn’t know it.”

“He (she) has been sitting on his (her) brains since he (she) entered the door this morning.”

“Go stand in the corner and think about the dumb thing that you did. Your brains must be what you’re sitting upon.”

When you (he, she) stood in that corner what were your thoughts, your feelings? Was it revenge, anger, resentment, self-pity? Might it have been: “If I stand on my head maybe gravity will transfer my brains to where they ought to be? I’m a bad person, am I not?”

What was left of your self-esteem was withering away. Statements such as the above were slowly becoming yesterday’s language and practices.

Remember also physical methods reminiscent of what occurred in taverns. Knocking some sense into another’s head was not commonly practised within a school environment.

“That one deserves a good whack on the back of the head to smarten him up.”

Bone on bone might accomplish the same: “A good clout on the jaw’ll knock some sense into him.”

Similar results might be achieved with a good kick in the ass.

There was a time when children were to be seen but not to be heard. There was a time when others in our society who did not conform to imposed standards were ridiculed and abused. Witness the present day hate messages on social media and/or scrawling graffiti on windows and walls.

We have come a long way from where we once were. Psychology and human rights legislation have accomplished some of this. We still have a long way to go.

For the record: Canada’s last hanging took place on December 11, 1962. It was the first year of my teaching career that Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin were hanged in Toronto’s Don Jail.

And for the record, personal disclosure: Although I never administered the strap, I was once called upon to witness it. I certainly knew how the chastised person felt. I was once the recipient of the strapping myself, bad little tyke that I was.

Has forestry become today's new "tourism"?  Not that we expect tourists to tour our moth-balled sawmills, but that "increased tourism" could become the New Promise by our politicians to save rural Quebec.  It sounds possible -- but only if "tourism" is a code word for rejuvenation, not an evasion.           

Today, promising "tourism" itself is futile, because every jurisdiction across Canada is proposing to  "increase tourism".  How could that be possible?  If we first magically increased the number of tourists, there might be enough bodies -- no matter that some regions have tourist attractions, many don't, and few have the tourism infrastructure (hotels & restaurants) to handle any increase. West Quebec falls in that category -- lack of infrastructure -- so it is dishonest for any political candidate to propose to revive our region by promising to "stimulate tourism". Although most other politicians are promising the same to their regions! This promise is a scam, really.           

However, West Quebec has plenty of forest, many types of forest, especially in the unorganized northern territories.  So what's the tourist attraction?  There isn't one; we aren't proposing canoe-bus tours of the Dumoine River!           

But, we recall, there was a huge conference on climate change just past -- the COPS meetings.  No question climate change is serious and existentially dangerous. We must increase our carbon traps, as well as cut emissions -- that has been a consistent call in all COPS conferences. More trees. More forest. People can built hotels, but are unlikely to replant whole forests.           

West Quebec already has forests, but they require protection more than exploitation, (under this COPS agenda). And that, simply, is where our region's economic future could rest.  We need huge support to plant more trees and to protect those we already have working for us as carbon sinks.  If every tree counts, there are plenty of jobs here, managing, thinning, planting, pruning, as well as utilizing wood.            

Similar to some African nations, West Quebec could propose the same national and international funding that protects Africa's famous big game to protect our famous forests (Didn't we supply the British & French navies? Didn't our white pines give Wellington his edge to beat Napoleon?).  If the world will pay some nations to keep and nurture their wildlife, why won't it pay West Quebec (and elsewhere) to keep and nurture our forests, for the benefit of the planet and the human race?  Here are the jobs to replace logging.          

Let's hear our municipal, provincial, and federal candidates commit to bringing more funding to our region for this huge COPS task. Protect and open up our forests.  Let's get the feds to step on board, instead of organizing more meetings and talking.  Let's find out if West Quebec does have a connection to Quebec -- in cold, hard cash to support the planet's continued existence.  Let's get the MRCs and municipalities on board.  This is a boat we're sharing with every other human being. We can make West Quebec a big Ark, among the many humanity requires; we need funding for our trees, not more meetings. Let's pay West Quebec from a central fund to keep and expand our incredible forest -- for everyone's benefit, including our own.

F.Ryan

That's the three-word message to us from the globe's participation in last month's COPS15 conference in Montreal: we agree on protecting the natural world, and we commit to instituting these protective measures at home.  That's a unusual order for West Quebec -- "nature" we're not short of!  The natural world is in our face every day, almost everywhere; which isn't true for those delegates from the world's big cities.  They are looking for nature; we look at nature. That's our first advantage, every day's, in conserving Earth's biodiversity.

We start well ahead of the pack.           

And can't we walk this walk, take the necessary steps?  Show some of the self-respect that a flourishing environment indicates?  Plus, we have a second advantage. Our country is in the middle of fulfilling the Indigenous Truth & Reconciliation Commission's recommendations.  How about launching a "Reconciliation with the Natural World"?  We have a format ready to follow.           

It's not hard to picture this second Commission -- a formal process of examining past attitudes, practices, and approaches to "Nature", with proposals for remedies and re-enforcements of Canadian self-respect.  Remember that, national self respect?  Commercial media and the advertising world lead us away; their profits are with ... plastics? consumerism?  After generations of humanity exploiting, using and misusing, mining, cutting, draining, damming and re-directing, butchering, netting and poisoning the globe itself -- plus all its inhabitants, whether they be "just like us" or beings of very different natures.  The Commission would examine how we finally "won" the battle to conquer the natural world (treating it, and them, as all "resources" - anything for our own use).   The sheer vanity of calling this a "victory" is embarrassing: we are claiming to know better than the very cosmos (however defined) from which all this has evolved?   COPS 15 was, first, a joint effort of Canada and China. In Montreal the whole world stepped up.  In itself, that's a model of cooperation beyond cross-border threats; finally, away from the usual  threat of conflicts and self-harm.           

This is hardly a place to try outlining our relationships with the natural world -- COPS 15 may have launched that.   The COPS process could even devise a Nuremberg Trials process. With a reconciliation process chaired by experienced Indigenous leadership ... ?  We have the first steps!           

The best West Quebec can do is to get on board, cut our rationalizations, stake our claim to being inhabitants of this planet with all the other beings who make it work as a functioning whole.  We can import COPS recommendations into our municipalities and daily lives.  We can make this topic fundamental in every election. And if there are folks who still feel we humans have a right to own and use "everything" -- because we need oil to drive to work, trees for construction, metals, beasts to eat -- that's their problem, if they insist. We need a solutions process.  Ethics and morality are human creations.  And this Earth is more than human; it needs more than black & white answers. Its, and our, survivals require compromise. Compromise with what we each want, because it comes down to self-preservation; it's our personal survival that's under threat ... so can today be the time we start being more than the smart-but-blind, hungry hominids we've been for so many generations?

F.Ryan

So, as we near the year's end (and the next one's promise of something, maybe everything, different), let's put aside the who-did-what-to-whom!, damn their souls, and have a 'think' or two over a warm cup of seasonal brew.  How about  the question burning into everyone's brow: what happens to each of our sense of self-consciousness when we die?            

Is it buried/burned with us? Does it escape like the old-fashioned ether into the nether regions of our cosmos? Or does it just blow away with any leaves still flying across the snow?           

Is that what a self-consciousness is -- an electrical charge, a gas of some sort that sprays out into everything?  Send us all your thoughts on the matter, a letter to the editor, perhaps.           

If it is buried with us (or turned to ash) ... and where else could it go?  Does it escape up an industrial chimney? What does happen to our sense of our self as our body joins the elements?  Our arms and feet can join the Earth's roots and blossoms ... but our self-consciousness can't decay; it's not decaying material.           

If it escapes into the earth (or by ash into the sea), and could it be that as those consciousnesses all collect within Mother Earth, do they all give the Earth itself a consciousness? Could all of the parts of humanity, which we today represent, give the Earth its own consciousness?           

But when?  We've been seeding the Earth for millions of years with our self-consciousnesses. Earth's ecosystems often seem conscious or appear to have a goal or an aim; could our buried individual consciousnesses communicate and relate to each other -- as they do every day as we live?           

And, if so, do all the immaterial self-consciousnesses eventually get together (maybe shake hands, however they'd manage that) and chat with each other?  Being awareness, pure awareness, do they look around inside the Earth (or as parts of it) and acknowledge  all the things which grow from this gigantic sort of being?            

Yes ... answer that before you go to bed tonight.  Does the Earth itself, with all of its selves working together as a sort of individually-detached consciousness, does this become or add to the self-consciousness of our living, evolving Earth?  And of all that grows from this fertile globe?     

Does this Earth around us, plus all that grows from it, grow in consciousness, generation after generation,  however we define the boundaries of "Earth"?  Is this really where all our poetry comes from?

Post script, a poem

Living is the cracked thing,

our lovely Earth, our chamber

of tortures

            -- because it ends.

            And ends,

            and ends again,

            almost daily.

Each year ends like this:  train-wreaked,

scattered leaves, a stiff breeze

from one direction, then another.

The brightest leaves, maybe children,

maybe stars and their tiny lights,

sharp as pin-points,

the year ends, its scattered lights

all of this -- and ending just as lights

would be enough.

Fred Ryan

It’s unacceptable and reprehensible

If you think Quebec’s Bill 96 threatens the future of the English-speaking community in this province, wait until you see what is coming down the pike as the federal government moves forward with its updates to the Official Languages Act.

The proposed legislation, known as Bill C-13, could fundamentally change the nature of Canada, stripping it of the distinction as an officially bilingual country.

As it is proposed now, the bill will no longer require the federal government to protect minority language rights in Quebec. It would, essentially, as one analyst put it, eliminate more than 50 years of official language policy as we know it. It will drive a stake into the heart of the notion that Canada has two official languages from coast to coast to coast.

So if you had consoled yourself that the provincial government’s move to limit the use of English in the past year will be tempered somehow by the federal government’s protection, let this be a wake-up call. The federal cavalry is poised to abandon its post in the fight for minority linguistic rights in this province.

Too alarmist, you say?

Recently, the Quebec Community Networks Group, the umbrella organization that includes just about every English-language organization in the province – from the Townshippers’ Association to the Quebec Farmers’ Association, the Quebec Community Newspapers Association to the Quebec Federation of Home and School Associations – issued a call demanding the federal government withdraw the bill.

In a statement, QCGN said Bill C-13 “dramatically alters the Official Languages Act in ways that would profoundly damage the vitality of English-speaking Quebec.”

The bill is deeply flawed in its intent.

At its heart, Bill C-13 would specifically recognize Quebec’s Charter of the French Language within the framework of the Official Languages Act. This means that Quebec’s Charter of the French Language, which was amended this year by the CAQ’s Bill 96 that makes French the only language of Quebec, would be incorporated into the federal legislative framework.

If this sounds like a lot of legislative gobble-dee-gook, it is. But it represents a fundamental and profound shift in Canada’s commitment to bilingualism. It will eliminate the federal government’s obligation to promote minority language rights in this province.

The bottom line is that this would be a first. No longer would Quebec’s language laws govern what falls simply under provincial jurisdiction, it would also dictate language provisions for all things that fall under federal jurisdiction in Quebec as well. That includes banks, the post office and federally chartered companies.

In essence, if this bill becomes law without amendments, forget about receiving information in English in Quebec from Canada Post. But in other provinces, the postal service would continue to provide services in both languages.

But that is not all. By doing this, the federal government would be saying that its Official Languages Act would be beyond the reach and protection of the Canadian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms because it officially looks to uphold Bill 96, which was passed in Quebec completely shielded by the notwithstanding clause of the charter.

That would be a first since Canada became an official bilingual country in 1969 and since the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteed the right of official-language minorities to instruction in their language. Essentially, what was envisioned by Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Trudeau would be swept away.

As QCGN pointed out, the federal government is proposing “by amending the Official Languages Act, to make the protection and promotion of only one of Canada’s official languages its fundamental purpose” in this province.

How can that be acceptable?

And doing it by side-stepping its own charter of rights, how is that not reprehensible?

As proposed, Bill C-13 cannot be allowed to move forward.

Brenda O’Farrell

Editor-in-chief

bofarrell@the1019report.ca 

Brenda O’Farrell is the editor-in-chief and co-owner of two newspapers, The 1019 Report in Vaudreuil-Soulanges and The 1510 West in the West Island; editor-in-chief of the QFA Advocate, and interim president of the Quebec Community Newspapers Association. She is also a former senior news editor of the Montreal Gazette.

Pullquote:

What was envisioned by Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Trudeau would be swept away.

Heading into the year's busiest shopping season, our gift lists and bank accounts both ready and a little nervous ... let's just push pause.  Can we put aside our gift lists for a moment?  This includes, of course, turning off of the screens.           

The idea is turn off (or pause) all our accounts for any sort of mail-order shopping  and consider this: by us spending our incomes and savings in businesses in other regions (digitally or by driving there), by doing our shopping in this way we are actually helping to starve our own neighbourhoods and nearby towns. Some gift.            

Instead of walking down 'Main Street', looking in windows at real clothing or hardware or whatever, by opening doors and going in the real shops, being served by real people, with helpful explanations that we don't have to search on-line to find -- talk about virtual quicksands! -- by ordering our gifts and supplies  from outside, we are voluntarily using our own incomes and savings to help other towns and other regions.           

That sound  about right?  That's what we want to do, kill off the cores of our own communities, where our kids get summer jobs and local people are employed?           

No? ...  this doesn't sound right?  But how else to explain today's surprising absence of vitality in the hearts of some many towns that were once flourishing, even in our own times?  These are our main streets, and today they are largely empty shops and offices, closed doors, faded signs.  Isn't this is where any community's heart-beat begins -- its jobs, its social life, its community entertainment, sports, etc.?  We're losing our banks, showrooms, car dealers,  appliances, business supplies, men's clothing, even groceries:  "Too little business". That's what we have, and it's what we ourselves are creating by ordering on-line, by taking our shopping dollars to other towns and their malls.

We're creating a big economic dust-storm here,  call it on-line shopping.  I guess gas stations benefit, maybe the post office -- for a while, anyway.           

Government services have stayed, even expanded. Because there are people living here!  But it has been us, the neighbours, that didn't show up.           

We think of personal convenience, saving time, finding longer or more specific selections -- all good things -- but we find them only on-line.            

OK, we're all in a rush, even the retirees.  We want a bigger choice -- twenty-five sweaters, not five; thirteen CD players, not three.  Yet the question remains, aren't we ignoring the long-lasting harmful effects of taking our incomes and spending them elsewhere, and that these can be, literally, life and death decisions?  Life and death of our communities, life and death of services available in the Gatineau Hills' towns and villages.           

There are alternatives to "more stuff" : fewer, smaller, or group gifts, or just more greetings and visits, than just "stuff".  There are plenty of alternatives; suggestions are everywhere.  Keep your finger on the pause button!           

We can complain to our politicians that "the government" should provide more for us, but if we ourselves engage in actions that hinder the very thing we're demanding -- who's going to seriously listen to our complaints?   First, we have to help ourselves -- "walk the walk" -- and today's seasonal shopping sits at one of the most basic levels of helping ourselves.  Sorry, but we aren't "owed" shopping in our pajamas; we aren't "owed" choices of hundreds of products.  Don't we, that's us, owe it to ourselves to strengthen our own communities and our towns' economic hearts?  Don't we owe it to ourselves to slow down a bit, be creative and flexible in our choices of gifts?  Do we have to become e-shopping automatons?  It can actually be fun, and almost relaxing, to do as much shopping as we can right here.  With real people who live just down the road.     

Right?

F.Ryan

It's no small thing, late Fall and the coming of freeze-up and winter, given the generally negative mood these bring to so many people.  Add this to real-life conditions -- Covid's continuation, this wave of inflation, or back to office work, plus the feeling that the last years have been at dead bottom of our "I'd love to do that again" list; add the on-going news that world affairs still limp from mistake to mistake, miscalculation to over-reaction, to our plain blindness of really big, difficult-to-fathom threats like the climate disintegration we're already experiencing in its mildest form .... you add the rest to that list. 

Social media, plus our "modern" approach to politics (a step above Neanderthal problem-solving), with our general human skills at seeing the world only in them-vs-us terms .... these just spice up the stew we call modern life.  What else to call it?  This mood, stretching as an invisible fog from our most personal lives to our livelihoods and our societal habits and responsibilities (like voting) ... today's as modern as pre-World War I, if that period also savoured the eye-burning smog of blogs, posts, and continual on-line complaining ... OK, I'm over-playing this, but there is a point. 

It's simple: the point is we don't have to hold onto all this negativity, personal and public.  The Ukrainians have ample cause -- but even there, they seem to be on a roll, miraculously.  We don't need miracles here; we're the envy of much of the world, our Canadian (and Quebec) society.           

Although this is an editorial, I can't propose anything realistic for today's world problems. Who can get behind all the single-step "solutions" for avaricious corporations or bloated governments?  They'll likely always be with us, and, if so, why treat them as though they're waiting for us in the kitchen with a flame-thrower?  Today is today, and here is right here.            

So, starting here and now, it's strange to see so many people, friends, family, co-workers, and neighbours in apparent long-term depression.  And that's usually vented in anger. In blame.  Outrage and sarcasm.  Brusqueness and rudeness.  Hey! Aren't we trying to live well, as happily as possible?  That's a goal more valuable that filling every to-do or what's-owed-me-today list, isn't it?          

And we're going to receive what we project, reap what we sow.  So isn't it time to get off these mini soapboxes and start responding nicely to others, respectfully, even pleasantly?  Pleasant! When's the last time you've thought of yourself as acting "pleasantly"?   One key part of all this is that respect and pleasantness are present tense.  Victimhood and blaming are past tense, generally speaking.  Hence, they're inactive. What can we do about the past, except complain?  Perhaps this has its own unique verb tense, call it the "threatened-future tense".  If it happens, it can only happen in the future, it's never reached or resolved.  Victimhood is a sort of intentional emotional anorexia.            

Whoa ... yes, there are plenty of genuine victims in the world, and their plight deserves remedy. There are real villains and they deserve and require correction and punishment ("blame" is irrelevant).  But there's a question of scale here and we can't scale down Putin's assault on his neighbours in oder to compare Putin to Joe Blow across the street who won't clean up his eyesore yard.  All the rubbish we find on Faceplant screens does not belong in our kitchens, and certainly not in our bedrooms.            

Be civil. Civilized. That's today's big need. Be kind ... pleasant.  The people around us are our neighbours and our families, partners, friends and co-workers.  They are not hostile forces from Planet X.  And we are tripping ourselves up by mixing all these forces and events into our daily lives.  It may be natural, psychologically speaking, but it's self-destructive.  And so all this advice is founded on the need to treat ourselves better ... kinder, as the Buddhists say.            

We, you and me and your aunt, may have been letting jerks run and ruin our lives. Don't bother blaming them. Put them and their so-important crusades in the closet.  At least for today ...  for this evening ... for the rest of the month ... and get a good night's sleep, certainly that.  How we ourselves see the world is how the world will appear to us ... so get a good, restful sleep! Amazing what will result.

F.Ryan

15Nov '22

It's dangerous to comment on US' mid-term elections before they happen, especially when these comments will appear well after the election results are known.  The "danger" is to appear so wide off the mark that our readers will question our sanity. However,  this year's US elections  likely will not be quickly -- and cleanly -- decided; some results will be challenged and even re-played.           

The word, "danger", is a deliberate one, mainly because we've been flooded with predictions of social unrest, protests, and violence -- filling our media.  I'm  dismayed with my fellow journalists' appetite for drama and conflict, especially in reporting from nations where the noise of unrest has already boiled over into action.            

Certainly no one should downplay dangerous electoral situations -- via threats to intimidate certain voters, to overturn elections, or even "jail" certain politicians.  But  perspective is helpful. Very little of what goes on around the world comes out of thin air.  Violent acts, even invasions, may catch everyone off guard, but usually the surprise is followed by an admission that had we been paying attention nothing that occurs would actually be a surprise. The real surprise is that it's happening once again. Weren't we all surprised by Putin's invasion of the Ukraine,  even though he had been threatening it for a decade?  If Russia didn't get certain assurances about NATO's expansion, and other points, military action was coming, he assured us.  And we thought Europe was beyond aggressive wars between neighbour?              

Given Europe's long history of shifting alliances and conflicts, who believed there'd never be more wars on that blood-soaked continent?  Maybe in a post-Star Trek era, when war is outlawed (or humanity evolves an ability to understand the true costs and long reach of war).  This caution applies to today's upheavals  -- in the USA, Brazil, even Israel -- incredibly little comes right out of thin air.  Surprises come manly from inattention, especially inattention to history.           

And history tells us that the US has rarely been a nation at peace with itself.  The great wars did bring that huge and diverse society together, momentarily. But historically the US has been a boiling pot of conflict, threats and attacks -- upon itself.            

This is not to ignore the largesse of the United States, either. Which society has contributed as much to our world's scientific progress, from exploring the cosmos to researching new vaccines?            

Domestic violence?  Assassinations have been a constant of US history, and the use of violence to end strikes, or control minorities. The nation began largely with religious zealots in control, with slavery, with genocide agains first nations. This is a fact-based generalization about the history of the United States.           

So, much of today's fear-mongering about post-election violence comes from ignoring clear lessons of history.  We read opinion-pieces about the coming of fascism and the "end of democracy in the world's biggest democracy" -- the threat of a Rightwing takeover, led by Trump or his allies.  Do these editorialists not remember the fifties' "House Un-American Activities" persecutions, the KKK and John Birch Society?  Barry Goldwater and Governor George Wallace?  Their history is heavy with radical Abolitionists, Prohibitionists, Suffragettes, and President Polk's campaign of "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!",  and the assassinations of presidents Kennedy, Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, with attempts on Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan plus thwarted plots against thirteen sitting presidents, including FDR and Obama. Blame too many guns, or blame the society, this history of violence has a long tradition.           

It seems that apart from the big wars and the rebuilding periods afterwards, the US has consistently been a society at war with itself, alliances shifting with parties rising and falling. And the American Civil War -- that nation's bloodiest war was the one against itself!            

Why are so many today fearful that America is about to commit mass suicide?  Yes, this election will be a long-term tragedy if Trump and "fascist" forces gain more ground, but we should not be scaring ourselves silly.  It's important we don't let media's hyperbole discourage any of us from defending -- and using! -- the democracy we do have, however imperfect.

F.Ryan

The "new" Quebec Conservative Party, in the October 3 provincial election, proposed a two-tier health system for Quebec, private and public.  The PCQ candidate in the Pontiac told local media he favours privatising the Shawville hospital and, presumably, other small rural facilities, like Wakefield's.  He went from zero to third place in this riding, so privatisation is not an idle speculation. There are many voters who would accept, even welcome, a private alternative -- yes, from Quebec's very efficient public system, even as it suffers from terrible over-bureaucratization.            

Is this just frustration reaching out for any alternative, no matter how ill-advised. Plus pro-privatisation propaganda from Ontario and the US.           

Yes, our health care remains in crisis and eats a significant portion of our province's budget.  Plenty of problems, but we ought not ignore the positive reports and praise from those who've been served within our public system.  The privatisation argument is that if some can afford to pay for their own care, why not let them do so?            

If only life were so simple! "Letting them do it themselves" actually means dismantling what still remains of our world-admired health care delivery.  "Letting the wealthy buy their own" already exists -- anyone can fly to the USA for care at world-class prices.  Why not leave it at that, and just keep improving the system that serves all of us more-or-less well?  We'd prefer Mexico's healthcare, or Turkey's?  Brazil's?  Russia's?   No, overall, our system is working almost as well as anyone could expect.  Huge problems of bureaucracy impede it, while private facilities are already syphoning off our nurses and technicians.           

Health care is not the same as providing new cars. Or groceries. Healthcare deals with human beings, complex, full of complaints, fears, grandiose wishes and outrageous expectations.  Serving the public in such intimate, life-and-death ways is bound to be filled with problems and shortfalls.  Healthcare is not a one-time consumer purchase --  given the frailties of human beings, follow-up care is needed, there are new treatments and insights ....don't we expect that a hernia might be problematic than buying a car?  I have heard much more praise than complaint about our doctors, nurses and hospitals.  Improvements are always possible, shocking stumbles (like racism) often likely.            

There is a darker side to privatisation -- corporate insistence that big companies can deliver health outcomes better and faster than the public system (no cost comparisons).  There is profit to be made from health care. Just look south of the border. They insist we're denying capitalism (our unofficial religion) a very lucrative profit centre.           

Critics even within privatized systems point out that corporations actually fail in significant areas of care delivery. Research, for example. Research goes well, if Wall Street investors can make big profits from a remedy or treatment. But if they can't, those diseases remain untreated -- Big Pharma refuses to seriously research today's growing drug-resistance in antibiotics, for example. There's no money in it!  Privatisation condones this.           

Privatized health also creates whole zones of untreated diseases (poor people) and vast pools of infection which inevitably will evolve further and spread to "healthy" areas.           

The corporations also want us to fund the public system alongside their private cash-cow -- so we, the public, can research and pay for the problems the private system refuses to treat, leaving them only "profit centres".  Obviously, considering the public as stupid goes along with selling privatisation.           

Yet Canadians understand that our taxes go to help everyone and not just to provide an escape valve for the wealthy who can fly away for treatments.  And corporate profit is actually a form of taxation -- where do profits come from?  Our wallets.  We'd be paying tax twice with privatisation.           

Privatization also fractures a society, enlarges existing economic and geographical divisions, pitting groups, classes and regions against each other.  Rural areas, small towns, remote villages?  Sorry ... fly to Toronto.  Privatization rests entirely on a law-of-the-jungle mentality, re-enforcing corporate sanctification of "individualism" over family and community.  "Free enterprise" is not free at all, it rests on a "Buyer Beware" policy, and encourages corruption and bribery, preying on the unwell, the elderly and incapacitated.           

I dare add that all -- almost all -- corporate innovations and discoveries rest ultimately upon funding from the community, from tax breaks and incentives, government and foundations' aid.           

Many things can look good at a distance, but turn down the steady propaganda ... the so-called advantages of letting corporations make money off our health and well-being is a recipe for division, suffering, and increased poverty.  Why would we want any privatisation at all?

F.Ryan

During the election, with October 3 voting day,  I was surprised at how many folks told me they did not intend to vote or could see no reason to do so. "What good will it do?" was the common response, even if it took only fifteen minutes of their obviously very-busy day. Yes, it did take about 15 minutes, maybe less.  As my wife and I left, both women at the table encouraged us to get others out to vote. "Blow your horn to wake them up!" one shouted.  They had not been busy, "not at all", all day.           

Rather than harangue our neighbours and friends (most of whom did vote, it turned out) it occurred to me that maybe there should be some simple, clear way for the voters to be reassured that voting actually does accomplish something which will affect their daily lives.  Appealing to grand but vague "benefits of democracy" is obviously not enough.           

Could we pass that task on to the very people who directly benefit from our votes -- the winners?  Yes, some folks don't vote to show their displeasure at the unreality and vacuity of the promises of the various parties.  This is their political position, not laziness.  Otherwise, how about it, local victors?  The October 3, 2022, election may have given the CAQ a tremendous victory, a "super-majority", but it also leaves the ruling party with a tremendous responsibility -- to demonstrate through action that their win was deserved and was wise by the voters. Anyone holding their breath for this?            

But think about it, how about a "work sheet" every half-year by each MNA?  Every one, no matter the party.  Their accomplishments at the National Assembly in Quebec City don't have to be only in bills or laws passed -- those are the "super accomplishments".  There are also multitudes of appointments studied, made and confirmed, policies adopted and funded, hearings held and committee meetings attended.  MNAs are incredibly busy people, but how about filling us in before the next four years are up?  This is not about photo-op visits to daycares or seniors' centres, ribbons cut for a new bridge or parking lot.  And more than "householders" flyers in the mail,  please!  Those are ads, not reports.           

Why can't MNAs submit genuine work sheets to their electors?  We have a selection in West Quebec -- what did each actually do in the last six months?  Especially, what did each do that directly benefitted or impacting their riding?   Let's get these work-sheets submitted in every riding in Quebec -- there's honest, responsible democracy in action!           

This is how most citizens understand the need for and benefits of participating in our democracy.  Or do the winning parties expect us to be happy with a Belorussian form of democracy, for example?  Only no benefits for working or retired people don't require a work report! 

A performance report is not "about" what needs to be done -- not another "re-organization of the heath system", nor the need for high-speed communications "everywhere".  These constitute campaign literature; we want to know what actually happened this quarter in the National Assembly.   Scheduled performance reports would assist the MNAs, too.  They complain that voters are un-engaged, even ignorant of Quebec's needs.  So, over to you, MNAs!           

How about it, Mr Fortin, Mr Lacombe, Mr Bussières and the others?  Not handing a cheque to the old folks club in Otter Lake or another photo of grinning mayors -- what did you do for us (and for Quebec) last month?  No doubt the CAQ wants more of our votes next time.  The Liberals want to rebuild. Tell us what each of our National Assembly's seat-warmers have accomplished, month after month. 

MNAs say they want an informed electorate.  So inform us!

F.Ryan

It is worth asking our friends and co-workers who today are alarmed by the US decision to end women's rights to abortion, where were they during the debate here in Quebec over Bill 21, the law which limits the ability of religious people to proselytize their beliefs from positions of public trust and authority?            

At the time, so it seemed, these friends were outraged by Bill 21 and insisted that it was an attack on all religious beliefs, private or publicly stated.  Instead of the clear connection between both issues, they claim personal beliefs are the target.  That's a deliberate distortion of reality. Now the anti-21 campaign has become part of this year's Quebec election.          

Many in the US conservative and evangelical movements expanded their long-guarded involvement in social, educational and community issues (most of it over and above their purely religious mandates) to extend their reach into regional and national questions. They created and then expanded an incredible media machine -- especially mastering TV evangelism. It didn't take long for these "influencers" of their day to move into strictly political issues, some with religious implications, some not.  Surprised?  This was their goal!  Abortion rights of all women, poor as well as middle class, have been a historical target of the religious intolerant for generations.           

Bill 21, despite inflammatory interpretations, does not limit the strictly religious views of anyone; it limits proselytizing by all people in secular authority, period.  It is not targeting "poor Muslim women", as many have claimed.  It targets all religions' use of public positions of trust to advertise for their sects. They argue that God insists they wear a dagger, or skullcap, crucifix, beard or head-covering -- really?  Our clothing and facial hair is of concern to the Creator of the Universe?                

In the US, the evangelical movement patiently built up its influence in local and state levels all the way up to supporting presidential candidates who promised to implement at least some of their agenda.  Even Trump, who bragged to the media he could "grab" women's privates without objection, was supported by interfaith conferences and numerous Bible breakfast clubs.            

This movement first targeted the Supreme Court, which, although unelected, could dismantle any law made by democratically-elected legislators. Today they have achieved that goal. Woe to American women, but caution, at least, to us momentarily outside the full grasp of the US evangelical movement. Let any creed and its "spiritual demands" go unquestioned and soon their worst elements rise to the top and the entire nation is battling for it's founding principles.          

Shouldn't we be embracing Law 21, to help protect our democratic process from the grasp of the agents of patriarchy, illiberalism, and theocratic social control?  Isn't it more effective to prevent misdeeds than to try to correct them once -- or if -- they are entrenched?  Yet we have parties and candidates today promising to revoke Law 21.  Why are they proposing this step backward, and for whose benefit?

F.Ryan

The Canadian Automotive Association (CAA) is well-respected, non-partisan public-interest organization, with branches across Canada. The CAA conducts product tests and makes travel suggestions, some irrelevant, others not. But when the CAA's annual "Worst Roads" campaign reports in, it's relevant.            

Canadian winters, frost-heaving, heavy salt use, and variable geography make roads and highways a difficult public service to deliver consistently, everywhere.  Our enviable low ratio of people-to-space also means we have a long, long road network to maintain -- with a minimal tax base to support it.  Our windows of roadwork-opportunity are compressed.  And our cities spread out with urban sprawl, spreading these challenges. Comparisons with American and European highway-system design and maintenance are automatically inaccurate.           

All this being said, it remains uncomfortable to read the list of the CAA's "worst roads": across Quebec.  In the ten most-distressed roads, our region, West Quebec, has three. In fact, it's the city of Gatineau with the three.  Quebec City has two, our closest rival.  Gatineau's Boulevard de la Gappe is rated the single worst road in Quebec in 2022.         

Cook Road through north Aylmer/Chelsea is number 4, no surprise to its residents, and provincial highway Route 106 is number 10.  This list is the result of 8,500 reports.           

Rural residents of West Quebec probably don't expect much -- either rough or minimally-maintained streets and roads -- but how can a city of Gatineau's size, economy and importance suffer such poor and dangerous conditions?  Isn't Gatineau Quebec's fourth-largest city, our province's doorway to the nation's capital?  Each year's damages to automobiles, trucks and bicycles must amount to a staggering amount -- too bad no agency is adding that up.           

Pot holes, broken curbs, sinkholes, etc, are a public danger, and not only to those in vehicles and bikes. Again, no stats on loss of life & limb due to poor physical road conditions. No stats on dangers to ambulances, police and school buses, either.           

In the last few years, several Gatineau councillors (and even a mayor) appeared to say that the lack of maintenance is intentional, even a good thing.  Summary: bad roads will discourage automobile use, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which will assist us against catastrophic climate change.  There's a style of reasoning that every sinner and charlatan in history would be glad to use:  "It's for your own good!"           

Rather than "aiding the environment", this failure in road maintenance actually shifts the cost of road repair to individual taxpayers who must repair their own vehicles.  It increases insurance costs, since the insurers pay out more damage claims. That is not good city government.           

Municipal government is a different matter for West Quebec's vast rural road network. Even gravel roads require grading, maintenance, culverts and bridges,  snow clearing, etc.  All very expensive for each sparsely-populated municipality.  Besides doing better with its own highway network can't the province assist rural municipalities better?  This, from a province which sometimes aspires to full nationhood? A province already tight on funds.           

Is it our approach to maintaining the network, in terms of funding and spheres of responsibility, which must change?  Isn't there a better way to manage a road network?  Time to set aside the quarrelling about jurisdiction and funding-formulae?  How about a cooperative approach to political problem-solving?           

And, incidently, how far up the political and constitutional food chain could this need for cooperation, not jurisdiction-defense, push us?             

Can't our broken mufflers and tie-rods aid us in re-interpreting the value of the million-and-one constitutional sacred cows which themselves roadblock so much of Quebec's and Canada's progress?

F.Ryan

Leadership means decision-making based on principles, principles of right and wrong, honesty -- and on the value of keeping one's word. Leadership certainly is not pawning off difficult decisions to committees and agencies, to all the bureaucratic labyrinths that rarely yield a principled decision. They may yield expedient decisions but that is not principled leadership.

So at the "final" pubic hearings on the Chalk River radioactive mega-dump, held in Pembroke, Ontario, late May, when several indigenous delegations from nearby aboriginal communities referred to the United Nations UNDRIP treaty signed by Canada (to respect the desires of indigenous peoples) they were asking for a principled decision from the federal government, the final arbitrator on the nuclear industry in Canada.  They wished to exercise their right of refusal for such a dangerous proposal on their own land and near their own communities and natural areas.

A few days after the hearings our region's federal MP, Sophie Chatel, a Liberal, was speaking informally to a few folks at the opening of an art exhibition in Portage du Fort's Stone School Gallery, she said, about the Chalk River hearings, "Well, of course, the project (the radioactive dump) will go through, but it is my job to make sure they take our concerns into account ... "   I was there, and wrote down this statement as the unofficial gathering ended.

There seems a hole here, one large enough to swallow most of Hell, I'd say.  Certainly big enough to swallow the possible disaster waiting in this (and in most) nuclear projects. And given what we've seen at Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three-Mile Island and others, the linkage to Hell is apt.

Indigenous leaders have made their views known and stated their demand as clearly as humanly possible that this radioactive dump must not be constructed on Algonquin land, within a kilometre of the Ottawa River which supplies drinking water to Gatineau, Ottawa, and Montreal -- not to mention the hundreds of villages and hamlets along our great heritage river.  That is one clear condition for the UNDRIP agreement to be put into effect. The federal government, the Liberal Party, you and I, we should all know clearly what the indigenous population fears and what it insists (no toxic dump).  Yet here is our local rep of that Liberal government admitting that the project is going ahead, no matter what.

Is that what this government believes "reconciliation" means?  Isn't this the government and the party which has championed "reconciliation" -- as a principle, as an over-riding guide to government action?

I would not be so cynical to suggest that the Liberals must feel they can discard principles with no fear of electoral backlash -- as long as the competing parties remain in chaos or are struggling with a truck-convoy takeover (the leading leadership contender) or are committed to no non-confidence moves by the NDP, which itself seems stuck in the basement anyway (compared to their last leader's one-time ballot accomplishment).

Don't we want a government run on principles as well as on efficiency?  Don't we want a government that respects its own promises and commitments?

And so, why, in this era of Reconciliation, with all the revelations of church-school deaths still underway, are we getting the opposite? 

Back to you, Mme Chatel.

F.Ryan

Finally, a big break for the Anglos!

With all the anger over the CAQ's Bill 96 (now law), we've all pretty well heard the worst of the law's likely effects.  It is important for legislators to analyse all likelihood of unforeseen negatives within any legislation they consider.  Strange that in 2022 we have to remind ourselves to look at the cons as well as the pluses of each public action and decision!           

We've studied "96", especially its negative effects on Quebec's anglophones (and other minorities) -- and especially the negatives it threatened to Quebec's vision of itself as a tolerant and educated society.           

However, there is one surprising point which seems to have been missed (by those with no sense of humour). This big plus coming from "96" is a positive for the very sector of Quebec's population clearly targeted by this law.  There's a bonus, a gain, here for all discriminated communities, especially anglophones: a big tax cut.  Law 96 will generate a significant reduction in provincial income taxes -- for anglos!           

One estimation (my own) is that minority populations should see about a 21% reduction in their total provincial tax bill, and 20-21% is nothing to sneeze at!            

This is an estimation only, based on the lost government services suffered by Quebec's minorities -- those who certainly cannot be expected to pay for the very services and facilities now denied them.  Hence, 21% -- but it could  be higher, especially for those relying on, say, specialized health, psychological or physiological support services, and, in some cases, even education. All of this that is now denied them.           

Consider, too, that there are branches of government which investigate and prosecute those who inflate their bills or who charge others for services not provided. With Law 96, won't these government investigators soon be investigating branches and agencies of their own government?           

Was this eventuality something the supporters of Bill 96 took into account when the Assembly gave Bill 96 the 10 minutes deliberation it clearly received?           

There is a remedy to this ridiculous and, no doubt, never-ending argument about Law 96. One of the beauties of our democratic system is the complexity of negotiations, exemptions, qualifications and modifications, all the political decisions, and, certainly, of all public actions (should there be any) resulting from these discussions and political campaigning. Democracy's complexities give us the room to work out almost any conceivable compromise or cooperative venture.  That's wise, isn't it?           

And here's likely how these complex negotiations will play out: first, multiple ministries and agencies will reach an accurate calculation of the value of the services and facilities no longer offered to almost 20% of the province's population.  Computer networks can calculate the exact savings for the government. By denying to Quebec's minorities so many government services and facilities, the government saves money.  They can easily calculate the savings per minority household (which should no longer pay for services un-received).  But immediately the majority population will  ask why they themselves have to pay higher taxes than "the minorities"!  It may be difficult to keep their outrage within limits.  Imagine, giving immigrants tax breaks which are not given to pur laine quebecoises!  Complex?           

But here's the beauty of our system:  Premier Legault will wisely announce that the province, after all,  is magnanimously opening all those services and facilities once denied.            

And, of course, adding these "new" services would require more taxes!  More outrage.           

So, to keep things simple, and to march onward toward greater things, the premier will insist, let's just leave it as it was in the first place.

F.Ryan

We may assume that editorials are serious business, addressing social dangers and opportunities of the day, and delivered in a serious but most eye-catching language, in the most-catastrophized terms possible.  But is everything really a danger!, a threat!, an existential worry... and soon-to-be-upon-us?  A lot of mainstream media seems to have given up its values in pursuit of click-baiting us.  This gets tiring, after a while.  

Perhaps it's time to broaden our own interests. Are all readers and media-watchers political junkies?  It doesn't seem so at all, especially when voters explain why they are voting as they say they are ... perhaps, since we are not exactly in an election (ours in Quebec comes in four months or so).  How about this news tidbit: 2022 has been officially named "The Year of the Garden".  

You're smiling. Or rolling your eyes.  

First off, one of the West's most respected political thinkers, Voltaire, recommended in his satire, Candide, that we might do much better in life if we just tended to our own gardens... rather than try to solve all the world's problems ourselves, using our media as our reference point. So there's an Argument From Authority for gardens.

June 18 is this year's National Garden Day.  It comes with assurances that gardens and gardening are among the best treatments for so many personal and social ills. The Covid shut-downs seem to have hammered mental health, from school kids to retirees.  Many medical professionals recommend gardening as an antidote.  The sunlight, fresh air, birds, rustling of leaves -- all this restores our sense of equilibrium and our innate optimism that Mother Nature knows what she's doing, while we humans so often seem lost. The Japanese interest in nature has created a new alt-health therapy, "forest bathing". Otherwise known as taking a walk in the woods, which is akin to gardening in its effects.

Gardening has equally positive effects on our environment as we start to suffer the intensification of Climate Change. Gardens reduce the "heat island" effects of our cities; gardens are a tiny type of reforestation of our planet.

And community gardens seem to multiply these positive effects -- creating more inclusion, creating opportunities for newcomers to integrate, learn customs, and get to know their neighbours -- and visa versa. Immigrant gardeners may even introduce us to new vegetables and flowers, expanding our own horizons, as we pick up recipes and gardening practices from around the world.

Lastly, for this editorial, gardening, landscaping and horticulture in general are an important sector of our local economies -- look how busy the garden centres are these days! And isn't it curious that almost any sort of year-round business will launch their own garden centre each spring.  Perhaps growing our own food and flowers will harm the grocery-store industry -- but, again, there are benefits in this, as we demand fresher and "cleaner" food, without the usual pesticides and preservatives.  We can eat with confidence, if it comes from our own hands, our own gardens.

Maybe gardening merely distracts us from more important and pressing things -- I doubt this, but maybe.  Maybe we SHOULD be distracted from so much of the maliciousness and manipulation awash in our modern world.  Gardening is more an insulation than a distraction, I'd say. Letting more sun into our lives has got to be a good thing.

F.Ryan

"Final hearings" on a proposal to build a radioactive mega-dump along the Ottawa River have begun.  A line-up of individual Canadians and groups booked in to question and speak to this dangerous project.  We might think that opposition is evident, given that the Fukushima nuclear disaster just celebrated it's tenth anniversary. Twenty-three thousand people have died there, so far.  A near majority were seniors -- often stuck where they lived.

Chalk River's mega-dump and Fukushima are certainly not the same, but when all is considered, anything nuclear-dodgy presents a tremendous threat to nearby people.  That's us.  Fukushima and its tsunami initiated months of meltdown, explosions, and toxic gas releases, all still going on 10 years later.  Much of that devastated zone still remains out-of bounds to humans -- or any living creatures.  Covid here also resulted in about 23,000 deaths, but perhaps not with the long-term crippling of so many people in their homes, schools, farms, and workplaces.  The difference here is, nobody asked for Covid-19.

Comparing death and destruction is nasty business, but today's Covid situation is slightly positive -- vaccinations continue, now up to four jabs, and waves of Covid variants seem to be declining; this is all worth celebrating.  In comparison, Fukushima, ten years later, is still burning, still emitting toxic pollution; radioactive debris has now spread to Canada's West coast, multiplying its ill effects.  Six hundred square kilometers in Japan remain toxic, homes unusable, schools empty and factories moved elsewhere. Nothing positive in the slightest.  

Some claim the Chalk River/CNL project is so different it ought not to be compared to the huge radioactivity disasters of the recent past.

It's hard to follow such "reasoning".  To West Quebec, Fukushima is terribly relevant.  Fukushima was a man-made disaster. We built those nuclear reactors and their infrastructure.  And today we are doing it all over again -- in our own back yard, in our own future.

The Chalk River labs above Pembroke are planning a first-in-the-world sized nuclear dump, seven football fields of radioactive waste, upstream from Ottawa, Gatineau, the Outaouais, Montreal, and beyond.  Ottawa, understanding the expense of dealing with highly toxic wastes, privatized the job (under Harper) and then wrote the buying consortium a nuclear-explosion-sized cheque to pay for the work (and turn a profit for themselves).

A toxic dump is bad enough, but these same actors want to expand operations. They want to build more actual reactors at this same site -- smaller, mini-reactors which can be spread across the north or sold anywhere in the world.  The federal government will again gift this to the private sector -- plus a massive, annual subsidy.  The private sector here is led by SNC Lavalin, the Quebec corporation found guilty of bribery in foreign lands. (Remember Jody Wilson Raybould's dismissal?)  Here's SNC Lavalin which, for example, cannot deliver to Ottawa a reliable urban railroad -- yet the federal government wants to entrust them with disposing of football-fields of nuclear waste, and others to build a new breed of reactor to compete around the world with Russia which has a ten-year head-start on its own micro-reactor program. 

How can we not think about Fukushima on its tenth anniversary, as these hearings open?

It, with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, may be harbingers of humanity's future.  We have children and grand-children, neighbours, friends and co-workers living within the shadow of any disaster at Chalk River.  Why would we even take such a chance, gambling with such destructively high stakes?  Nuclear is not green!   There are many real green energy sources yet to explore, like geothermal.  So ... is this another plan to enrich SNC Lavalin?  

F.Ryan

Seat belts fastened?

With Covid fading from our alarm systems -- it's no longer the topic of most conversation -- and with the protesters having left Ottawa, we have one more distraction:  the war in the Ukraine.  What we know we do have to face ultimately, what's waiting outside, is huge: the climate crash. It's too big to compare to even war and pandemic.

The conspiracy-brains among us are preparing again to "pivot", and they will read conspiracy into even talk about our collapsing climate.   These modern-day Contras are already gearing up, sharpening and polishing their push-back -- and, of course, collecting money.  Big money, for such a big topic.  There will be plenty flowing from all the interests who would rather ignore or deny the climate threats and get back to business-as-usual.  Go ahead, list all the possible sources of support for questioning the reality or severity or time-frame of climate disintegration.  Start with the tar-sands and fossil fuels.

This coming contest is just shaping up its battle lines now, and the forces already on board with questioning climate change will easily multiply their efforts.  They have buckets of money to "convince" professional politicians, the media and celebrities in general. Elon Musk's capture of Twitter is one example.

But equally the environmentalists and the youth are mobilizing.  They'll be blamed for focussing only on the ill-effects of what we claim is our civilization. Watch the movement grow to cancel the radioactive dump on the Ottawa River, just upstream from most of us, as one example. The Friday protests of school kids will multiply; but so too will youth-attractive celebrities selling anything except climate collapse.  

Big money, yes, of course.  So many of the largest corporations and banks are inter-twined with fossil fuel industries, we can't expect an easy struggle to contain and even remake our changing world.  We've already heard plenty from the corporations.  Musk has already characterized any modification of society to avoid the worst as an assault on "personal freedom".  Freedom, to this bright light, is more valuable than mere existence. 

And include something else here: the cry, "we need to earn a living!"  Because someone can earn their living here, we are immoral to shut down or even restrict oil and gas, mining, clear-cutting forests, and, I suppose, chemical agriculture.  These employ millions around the world, and those millions all have families to feed, mortgages to pay, and debts to cover.  Again, being debt-free or being able to buy a new car, an ATV, buy groceries, go on a trip, even to space, is more important than to continue existing.  Pretty strange logic!

Sure, none of this is amusing.  We, on the sole planet in the universe which supports any form of consciousness (that we know of), will be asked to give even that up if it threatens the corporate fortunes of the already-wealthy. 

Will money flow to those think-tanks arguing that our existence is just an evolutionary accident, anyway, so why limit the happiness of many just so the majority can survive?

Will money flow to organizations, to organizers and leaders of back-to-the-1950s  movements?

Will money flow to social media, the famous stuff that makes people suicidal -- but free! -- and which will confuse the issues and smoke-screen the possibilities of improving and  innovating ourselves out of this future?

Must the four or five percent who own most of the world's resources keep control of those assets, even if it means a surprisingly quick end to humanity?

F. Ryan

If you're so smart, why aren't you ... rich? ... in politics? ... a crime lord? ... a PhD? ... there's no end to questions about what it takes, first, to be smart, and, second, to do something beneficial or helpful with all those brains.  But, frankly, if we wish to be at all realistic, shouldn't we be wondering not about smarts in general but about humanity's missing smart genes.  Why aren't we smarter than our actions say we are?

Yes, we can land on Mars, create new vaccines, or send an explosive to nudge an astroid. We can even figure out why our planet is cycling into chaos, at least its climate.  Doing something about it is a different story.  Really different, doing something, not merely telling others what they ought to be doing.  So much of what we sarcastically call "the news" today is pretty old stuff.  Didn't it require an intellect like Einstein's to formulate that profound physical corollary that if we keep doing the same thing, we're unlikely to get differing results?  Or at least we can hope to get different results ... was that Einstein's profound accomplishment?

Repeating the same political manoeuvres and hoping for better or just workable results, figuring out how to do that is worth a Nobel prize, isn't it?  Take this year's war in the Ukraine.  Didn't we just finish up a whooper of a success with the West's invasion  (er, liberation) of Iraq and Afghanistan?  "We" (that is, us, our side) went into Iraq guns blazing ... and look where that got us:  ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban.  Hard to argue with such successes, isn't it?

And this doesn't refer to actual warfare, to the West's allied troops on the ground ... but the reason why the West is known for its smarts, especially in military matters, refers to our flooding the theatre of war with weaponry, absolutely flooding it.  Every person still possessing both their arms in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan has more modern sophisticated weaponry than they can carry, thanks to all this smart thinking of the West.  We flood each of these war zones with millions of weapons, from personal arms to shoulder-held anti-tank missiles, just what any loyal citizen needs.  Yes, it creates difficulties for the invaders, but also for everyone else, later.

And there you have us -- we, the West, the Allies, the Rich & Famous, we seem to be artists at responding to one stupidity with a second stupidity.  Right now we are flooding the Ukraine with sophisticated and powerful weaponry. "Flooding" is correct, I understand.  Pretty soon, all these arms will slowly fan out from the Ukraine into every hot-spot in the world, including many that don't even seem hot at the moment. Like America's inner cities. Those weapons are sold or farmed out to like-minded (bloody-minded) groups elsewhere.

And to really succeed at this tactic the West is dumping weaponry today into the Mariupol battleground, where the fight is being led by the infamous Azov Battalion, reborn from it's Nazi past and "independently incorporated" into today's Ukrainian National Guard.  This is a battalion with its own colours (taken from the Nazi era) and its own leadership.  Weapons are flooding in, we're told, making the Russian advance a slog on the ground -- and conveniently arming extremist groups around the world.  Expect to soon find many of these arms on the shoulders of US alt-right militias (maybe Canada's, too).  Did any of the weapons seized from the truck convoy in Ottawa have their origins in Iraq or Libya? Or the weapons carried by parading American alt-right groups?

How smart is all this for the world's future?  And why is it surprising that so many ordinary people today have lost confidence in our government leaders, the people who make these hair-brained decisions, encouraged by such media icons as the New York Times and Washington Post? 

F.Ryan