Category Archives: Culture

Jan 26 2016
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Culture, Democracy, Economy, Employment

The exodus conundrum

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As Canadians wring their hands and gnash their teeth over the arrival of as many as 25,000 refugees from strife-ridden Syria, the conversation inevitably turns to a sometimes irresponsible and xenophobic question of whether we want them.

To be clear and to our credit, most of us say we do. Our country is, after all, one of the world’s last remaining go-to places for people who are, through no fault of their own, in deep trouble.

Lately, though, the other shoe has fallen: Do Syrians want us?

A rather distressing, yet revealing, report in the Globe and Mail earlier this month suggests that more Syrians than we’d like to admit are saying “no” to the Great White North – fearing the effect of cultural and linguistic differences, the lack of good, durable employment opportunities, and even Canada’s rather parsimonious social policy regarding the disposition of foreign nationals in this country over the past decade.

According to the Globe piece by Sara Elizabeth Williams, reporting from Amman, the capital of Jordan, “Omayma al-Kasem. . .is one of a sizeable number of Syrians turning down the chance to become permanent residents of Canada. UN figures (show that) just three out of every 10 households contacted about resettlement in Canada go on to relocate.”

Although Ms. al-Kasem – a well-educated, 26-year-old, fourth-year law student – readily describes her life and that of her family, effectively hiding from harm’s way in Jordan, as “the lowest level of hell”, apparently that’s better than taking a chance on a cold, strange nation half-a-world-away from everything she knows and still cherishes.

She must, she says, “think like a mom.” In her case, she reveals, “In Jordan we are already separated from my two sisters who are in Syria. If we went to Canada we would have to leave my brother, his wife and their baby. I don’t want to separate my family any further. . .Even in the move from Syria to Jordan, we lost some connection to our religion. If we go to Canada, how can I raise my little sisters in a language and culture I don’t understand?”

Aoife McDonnell, an external relations officer at the UNHCR refugee agency in Jordan, provides the broader context: “Some families are still hoping to return home, others are concerned about their ability to integrate into another country.”

Still complicating matters is the recent transition in Canada’s federal government, from avowedly Conservative to Liberal, just since October. What are potential newcomers from every background to make of the molten lava of our national policy towards them?

For New Brunswick, which has agreed to welcome hundreds of Syrian refugees, the response must be something better than the national standard.

We have jobs that need filling, homes that need building, ideas that need spreading, and hopes that need fulfilling. We must craft the ways and means to assure the next wave of immigrants to this province that we understand – and are prepared to deliver – what they need to survive in the short term and thrive in the long one.

What, in fact, do we have to offer Syrians in New Brunswick? Winter coats and boots are fine. But what of the job and career opportunities? What of educational, linguistic and cultural assistance initiatives?

The single imperative on which all intelligent citizens in this province must concur is immigration. To achieve our commercial and fiscal goals, we simply need more people from around the world to find our friendly place economically efficacious. And we want them to stay.

The question is: How do we persuade them that we’re serious?

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Nov 29 2015
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Business, Culture, Economy, Society

How the jewel of the Gulf became a foodie’s paradise

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It was a flash of public relations brilliance, and a recipe for success among Prince Edward Island’s culinary contingent.

Take two of North America’s most-watched morning talk-show hosts, cook them slowly under a camera on low heat in front of Charlottetown Harbour, season them with local, gastronomic treats and watch the bread of international marketing rise naturally.

So it was in mid-July, 2010, when Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa planted their less-than-ample derrieres on chairs situated on a raised dais to sample everything from mussel hotdogs and oyster ice cream, to ham and clam sandwiches. Later, according to one report, “Kelly and family dined on lobster and she loved the homemade P.E.I. biscuits.”

As for the show’s spread, nearly 2.9 million viewers from Vancouver to New Orleans watched the hosts stuff their faces and, between bites, issue such reviews as, “magnificent”, unbelievable”, “superb” – all from the land of Anne of Green Gables.

“Yup,” says Jan Holmes, “We meant to do it that way. That was on purpose.”

Holmes, to be clear, is the Director of Food Tourism and Applied Research for the P.E.I. Culinary Alliance, an organization that only recently reinvented itself as the Food Island Partnership as a group that, according to its website, is “established to work closely with industry and government partners to support the growth of the P.E.I. food sector and position P.E.I. as Canada’s Food Island. The organization works in the following key areas to achieve its mandate: Supporting food company and product development; enabling applied research to support value chain integration; and leveraging and building the reputation of the Prince Edward Island food brand.”

All this is, of course, the bureaucratic bafflegab expected when a provincial government joins with a federal organization (in this case, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency) and private-industry operators.

Still, the bottom line is that Prince Edward Island, with all of 140,000 residents, is on an indisputable roll when it comes to food tourism. And it has been for years.

Says Holmes: “The Culinary Alliance, as a public-private consortium was formally founded in 2009, but long before that, various tourism interests on the Island were concentrating on the province’s food as a means to build tourism traffic. Overall, we’ve been quite successful.”

In fact, that’s an understatement. Flaring off from the Regis and Kelly weeklong event, tourism numbers on P.E.I. have spiked every year since 2011. The most recent statistics from the provincial government indicate that visitor traffic to the Island in the summer of 2015 was 37 per cent higher than the previous year. That followed tourism hikes in the high double-digits in 2014, 2013 and 2012.

What these results have to do with Island food, exactly, is an open question. Although P.E.I.’s government doesn’t publish visitor stats based on general draws from beaches, restaurants or heritage sites, it has credited food tourism with providing the biggest, reliable boost to the provincial economy during the hardest times of the last recession.

Indeed, at least one celebrity chef from Toronto believes that Prince Edward Island’s deliberate effort to remake itself as a foodie paradise is working, economically, for the province. “P.E.I. is like this fairy tale island,” says Toronto-based Mark McEwan. “The people there are easy and very relaxed. They are very passionate about the food business, the restaurant scene and the whole culture around food.”

McEwan knows something about this. He owns and operates a suite of restaurants and catering businesses in The Big Smoke. “It’s a combination of factors,” he says about P.E.I. “I think the (provincial) government looked at everything and they had a very good reaction to the food scene. I believe they focussed on it. Also, you now have a lot of expats living in P.E.I. – people from other cities, people who have brought a little bit of (their own tastes) down here. Then add to this the local charm, plus the national conversation about food. It comes at you from different angles. But, it all works. That’s what’s great on the Island. That’s a great focus.”

Naturally, Jan Holmes agrees. The biggest food-tourism event of the year on P.E.I. is Fall Flavours – a month-long extravaganza between early September and early October, involving chefs like McEwan, Michael Smith, Lynn Crawford, Susur Lee, Chuck Hughes, Anna Olson, and Vikram Vij – which typically generates more than $600,000 in direct tourism revenue, and more like $1.4 million in multiplier and indirect boons, for the province. “Yes,” she says, “this has been our biggest annual effort,” at least since Regis and Kelly left the Island playground some years ago.

Still, since the New York cameras and photogs departed, there’s been more to attract food tourists to P.E.I. There have been beef and pork festivals, lobster and shellfish celebrations, vegan and vegetarian extravaganzas – all carefully orchestrated and staged to delight and astonish visitors who assume that this part of Canada merely hauls fish for a living.

Thanks to an assiduous public relations campaign, perhaps, others now know better. Or, at least, so said a media report in 2012: “Who doesn’t love spuds and fresh lobster? Prince Edward Island’s food has been crowned the second best in the world by restaurant surveyor Zagat,” reported the Toronto Sun. Said Greg Donald, general manager of the Prince Edward Island Potato Board at that time, “we are thrilled that Prince Edward Island joins the ranks of other amazing culinary capitals. Having Zagat appreciate our island’s local fare is a huge honour.”

Jan Holmes laughs when she hears, again, about the “shocking” genius of food producers on the jewel of the Gulf. After all, they’ve always been here, and they always will.

The trick has only been to get the world to stop making assumptions about a small island in the middle of nowhere, to pay attention, and to bring itself to accept the plausible chance that a ham and clam sandwich, in the hands of a brilliant chef, might actually whet one’s appetite.

Naturally, just before the morning talk show begins.

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Nov 29 2015
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Culture, Economy, Society

Our four solitudes must come together

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When the rest of Canada reflects on its eastern shores (as it actually does, if only from time to time), it conjures the Atlantic Provinces as a tightly knit region of folksy, friendly people wise in the ways of the sea, perpetually determined to give the shirts off our backs, fiercely independent to a fault yet broadly willing to throw down a kitchen party.

The truth is more complicated and, frankly, disappointing.

This small collection of principalities – hosting all of 2.5 million souls at last count – remains one of the most economically divided, socially backward and culturally anxious of any in a nation that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific and up to the Arctic Circle.

Although we are the putative birthplace of Confederation, we consistently maintain the worst track record in the country for interprovincial free trade. In fact we make it virtually impossible, in this region, for university students to transfer their credits from one institution to another; for skilled tradesmen and women to find meaningful work if they choose to leave the jurisdiction in which they received their accreditations; for doctors, lawyers and veterinarians to move between provinces without first obtaining professional papers proving that the practices of law and medicine are, somehow, locally relevant and compliant.

Sometimes, we litigate those who challenge the status quo, even if they had no intention of doing so.

Consider the shameful case against one Gerard Comeau who – not realizing he was on the wrong end of the judicial system – was caught crossing the border from Quebec into New Brunswick with 14 cases of beer and three bottles of liquor in 2012. According to an antiquated Prohibition-era law, that’s still a criminal offense, punishable by fines and jail time.

This summer, Mr. Comeau was on trial for violating the New Brunswick Liquor Control Act, which states that individuals are permitted to bring one bottle of wine or liquor or 12 pints of beer into the province at any given time.

According to a CBC analysis of the historical context underlying the case, “The Canadian law regarding the shipping of alcohol was meant to thwart bootleggers, and led to a gradual devolution of federal responsibility to the provinces in matters relating to liquor. Each province established an agency that oversees the distribution, sale and consumption of wine, beer and spirits.”

According to more than one legal expert, the regulation is both anachronistic and absurd. Declared Mark Hicken, a Vancouver attorney who specializes in interpreting Canada’s quirky interprovincial trade regulations: “A lawyer down in California once said to me, ‘You can’t understand any North American liquor laws unless you trace them back to Prohibition.’ You look at any regulatory structure in North America and if it was examined in a global perspective, you’d look at it in stunned disbelief, like ‘What is going on here?’ It really does go back to the Prohibition mentality of control.”

This mentality of control extends far beyond regulated substances in Atlantic Canada. It has to do with energy agreements, food, real estate and river rights. In fact, it has to do with how we live and work each and every day in a region where ancient, restrictive provincial laws concerning commerce and labour mobility no longer apply but are still rigorously and ludicrously enforced.

Unless we break these structures down to the ground, we will always be, in this region of Canada, our own worst enemies.

We will never be able to be winners in our own backyards. We will never be able to sell to one another, to support our friends and neighbours with jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities, to become the fiercely independent, yet the friendly, folksy and integrated Atlantic Canadian community, we have managed to persuade the rest of the country that we are today.

Our four provincial solitudes must finally come together in common cause. We need each other’s passions, energies and ideas, if only to tightly knit the best of our reputations with the truth of them.

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Nov 29 2015
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Culture, Democracy, History, Society

One great heart, united

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It’s a truism that bears repeating: We all came from somewhere else. Canadians remember this to their credit as they prepare to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees this year and early next.

Of these, New Brunswick is on tap to resettle about 1,500 in Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton. In fact, all regions of this country are old hands at this form of humanitarian aid.

According to one federal government web site, “Our compassion and fairness are a source of great pride for Canadians. These values are at the core of our domestic refugee protection system and our Resettlement Assistance Program. Both programs have long been praised by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).”

The system works this way: “Refugees selected for resettlement to Canada have often fled their homes because of unimaginable hardships and have, in many cases, been forced to live in refugee camps for many years. When they arrive in Canada, they basically pick up the pieces of their lives and start over again.

“As a member of the international community, Canada helps find solutions to prolonged and emerging refugee situations and helps emerging democracies try to solve many of the problems that create refugee populations. To do this, Canada works closely with the UNHCR.”

Crucially, “Under our legislation, all resettlement cases must be carefully screened to ensure that there are no issues related to security, criminality or health. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) works with its security partners such as the Canada Border Services Agency to complete this work as quickly as possible.”

Meanwhile, “Private sponsors across the country also help resettle refugees to Canada. Some are organized to do so on an ongoing basis and have signed sponsorship agreements with the Government of Canada to help support refugees from abroad when they resettle in Canada. These organizations are known as Sponsorship Agreement Holders. They can sponsor refugees themselves or work with others in the community to sponsor refugees. Other sponsors, known as Groups of Five and Community Sponsors, are persons/groups in the community who are not involved on an ongoing basis but have come together to sponsor refugee(s).”

All of which is to say that despite the appearance of cultural homogeneity along the East Coast, the Maritimes remains one of the most diverse and hospitable places in one of the most welcoming nations in the world for people in trouble. Well, most of the time.

“Even before the attacks in Paris last week, some Canadians were already chattering about security risks and the threat of insurgents sneaking through,” notes Robert J. Talbot, a postdoctoral fellow in history at the University of New Brunswick, in a recent piece for iPolitics. “Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, in particular, made political hay out of the crisis.”

But, Mr. Talbot adds, “the British refugees of two hundred years ago wanted the same thing that the Syrian refugees seek today: to settle down to quiet, peaceful and productive lives, for themselves and for their families. . .The year 1783 is far removed from the here and now, but the fact remains that many of us and our ancestors – my own Loyalist ancestors included – came here as refugees. French Huguenots fleeing religious fundamentalism, Iroquoian First Nations fleeing American expansionism, British Loyalists fleeing radical republicanism, Irish Catholics fleeing famine, German Mennonites (perhaps some of Brad Wall’s ancestors) fleeing Russian nationalism, Europeans fleeing fascism, Vietnamese fleeing communism, Kosovars fleeing ethnic cleansing, and now, Syrians fleeing suicidal nihilism.”

At the centre of this nation is a great heart that understands implicitly that these truisms do, indeed, bear repeating.

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Sep 21 2015
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Business, Culture, Government, Politics

Becoming who we must be

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The general rap about New Brunswick is that it is a minor principality of Canada, possessing neither the breathtaking vistas of Cape Breton nor the urban sophistication of Halifax nor even the vital, village atmosphere of Newfoundland and Labrador.

As for comparisons with Prince Edward Island, “fuggedaboutit”, as the New Yorkers say. That province has received so much federal money since God created the East Coast, there’s just no point in competing with it for tourists or, as the case may be, aerospace money.

Still, there are a few things demonstrably good about the “picture province”.

We are, for example, good with potatoes. In the early 1950s, a couple of middle-class brothers from Florenceville invented a way to harvest, process, and sell frozen French fries. Within a couple of decades, Wallace and Harrison McCain had conquered the world for these tasty treats. Today, their descendants operate a $5-billion a year conglomerate, employing nearly 25,000 people on six continents. Not so bad for a boring stopover, a la New Brunswick, en route to somewhere more, we shall say, exotic.

We are also good at oil and gas refining, having mastered the craft through the diligent efforts of the Irving family in Saint John. In fact, that outfit in New Brunswick’s “Port City” is among the most sophisticated in the world. Recently, the company announced that it would, according to a CBC report, “spend $200-million and employ up to 3,000 workers over 60 days to upgrade existing processing units at the New Brunswick plant. The Saint John facility is Canada’s largest refinery.”

Beyond this, we’re preternaturally good at making technological infrastructure and producing entrepreneurial options to traditional resource industries. We are, and have been an early-stage incubator (mostly for Information Communications applications) for innovations that have been exported and implemented across North America and around the world.

Lamentably, what we have not always been good at is blowing up the silos that separate us from the rest of this country and, in fact, from ourselves – the ones that keep the rural north and the urban south apart; the ones that cultivate differences between the three, major urban centers of Fredericton, Saint John and Moncton; the ones that persist between First Nations and non-aboriginals; and (surprise, surprise) the ones between Anglophones and Francophones in the nation’s only, officially bilingual province.

Maybe the worst thing we do is to make a meal of systemic mistrust of our own political representatives and public institutions. Our inability to get together to solve our joint economic and social problems has been our biggest problem – the only intractable hurdle that has held us back for 100 years or more.

Still, New Brunswick has produced some of the smartest men and women in the global room. Many have actually understood their responsibilities to the their fellows; they have decided not to break the world they helped build.

One of them is Donald Savoie of the University of Moncton. Another is David Campbell, chief economist of New Brunswick.

Still others include: Louis Leger, Mario Theriault, Ben Champoux, Nancy Mathis, Aldea Landry, and Brian Murphy.

All have spent their productive lives pondering the productive question about this province, about their communities: How do we come together?

How do we blow up the silos that separate us and render us vulnerable to those who continue to retail the general rap about New Brunswick?

The questions are crucial. The answers are vital

Unless we know how to become, how will be ever know what we must be?

How do we become who we must be?

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Sep 20 2015
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Culture, Economy, Education, Society

How to enter the “thought-market”

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The vaunted academy is, let’s face it, not what it used to be – if it ever was.

I still remember college barkers gathering at my high school’s gymnasium in mid-1970s Halifax, pushing their various institutions’ alleged merits like so many army recruiters.

“If you want to be all you can be, then Saint Mary’s is the place for you, son. We’ll set you up for a real career in commerce, or applied basket weaving – whichever you prefer.”

Not so fast boyo, enthused the clean-faced man from Dalhousie’s development department (read: public relations):

“Have we got a deal for you. Take a full course load in business administration and you can be out and making money within 26 months – earlier if you opt for the co-op placement program.”

Row after row of pot-bellied, middle-aged men wearing bad suits and worse ties – refugees, I always imagined, from the advertising departments of local radio stations – would make the same pitch: A university education is only as valuable as the degree to which it advances your chances for material comfort later in life.

Do you want a good house, a fine car, a reliable job with a fat pension? Go to college.

Do you desire a thick retirement package, a gold watch at the end of your socially useful professional career, a rewarding set of hobbies you can afford to pursue? Well, then, by all means, sign on the dotted line, fork over a few hundred bucks, and you’re on your way.

I always likened these salesmen for academe to boatmen on the River Styxx, reaping young minds and sending them into their own, private Hades long before their time on this mortal coil was up.

The names of the barkers have changed, along with the body shapes and sartorial styles, but the message, alas, has remained largely the same: Higher education in this country, region, province is an economic imperative; not an intellectual one, certainly not a spiritual one.

In fact, it could be all three if governments, public and private school boards, and university administrators would agree to convene regularly to remind themselves that their true purpose is toproduce citizens who think critically, empathically and imaginatively about the world they inhabit and will, someday, lead.

Making kids “job-ready” in a marketplace where jobs change daily is a chump’s game. Making them “thought-ready”, on the other hand, is simply wise public policy. The fearless, innovative, cheerful and indefatigable will always change society ­– mostly, history demonstrates, for the better.

That means we must begin to remove the crypto-vocational aspects from the university system and return to courses and programs that build the intellectual muscle this planet needs to solve its direst problems – problems that a classical education in math, science, history, literature, and language directly address.

According to the recruiters at my high school, before the Internet made wiseacres of us all, I was a true disappointment. I chose a university course of study that mixed physical sciences with social ones (geology, biology, politics, philosophy, classics). I labored at it for years, failing, succeeding, failing again, and succeeding again.

When I was finally done, finally “job-ready”, I found that I was utterly unequipped to make the big salary, buy the big car, and live in the big house.

I was, however, “thought-ready”.

And the rewards have arrived apace, without force, as they have for my own children who cherish, above all, the notion that the critical knowing of things is the road to wisdom, even as the world does not always recognize the importance of either.

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Aug 29 2015
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Culture, Democracy, Government

Our ignorance is their bliss

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Knowing what we know today, is it likely we’ll forget it all by tomorrow?

Human nature inveighs against the better angels of our civilized character. Memory doesn’t so much serve us, as pester us.

Consider, for example, higher education in New Brunswick.

For decades, we assumed that a broad, liberal course of study – in the undergraduate years – would prepare students in this province to take their places in the productive working world. They might go on to specialize in any number of disciplines: law, medicine, business management, architecture, theatre, even (gasp!) journalism.

Now, we require them to choose their paths in society before they even know their own minds – to, in effect, forget their youthful passions in the service of actuarial accounts that determine who will be useful, and who will not, to the common weal. Memory is the sentimental enemy of the current political good; so get with the program, kids.

Similarly, we imagine that life for New Brunswickers aboard the good ship Stephen Harper has been either uniformly splendid, or utterly awful. Again, our capacity for accurate recollection fails us.

Once, not so very long ago, the prime minister toured these environs and declared, in so many words, that Atlantic Canada must fight its culture of “defeatism”. We screamed and cried, as we are wont to do. But was he entirely wrong in his sentiments? We said he was.

On the other hand, within scant years, Mr. Harper made it perfectly clear to New Brunswick that Ottawa would guarantee a culture of defeatism here by eviscerating social programs, capping health-care transfers and knee-capping local MPs in his own party if they dared speak truth to power. Was he entirely right? We said he was.

Does memory serve, or merely pester?

Why have we forgotten about the enormous potential of renewable energy technologies in this province? What happened to wind, tidal and biomass, fading into our collective memory of hope and grace? What about early childhood education, universally accessible to all in New Brunswick? Was it just a dream, a faint memory of a better future, idly conjured in the past?

All of which raises the question: If we know what we know today, is it inevitable that we’ll forget it all by tomorrow?

If human nature inveighs against the better angels of our civilized character, shouldn’t we conjure stronger angels to shepherd our finest instincts? If memory doesn’t so much serve us, as pester us, oughtn’t we banish the tyranny that accompanies habitually following those who desperately want to erase that which we would otherwise remember? (Spoiler alert: the babies we elect to high office).

In fact, I adore the memories that pester me. I love remembering when a boy or girl could expect a straight shot at a decent job for life, thanks to a tax-payer-funded training program.

I relish thinking about my own (non-tax-payer-funded) apprenticeships at Canadian Press, CFDR Radio in Dartmouth, and Atlantic Insight Magazine in Halifax. These are images from my life, lessons I have learned, cherished recollections of a society that – while not perfect, by any measure – embraced the ever-spinning wheel of history; past, present and future.

I grew up at a time when Tommy Douglas’ words still resonated: “Courage, my friends; ’tis not too late to build a better world.”

Indeed, we are made of sterner stuff than the current basket of expectations that Ottawa and Fredericton retails daily: Believe what we tell you, try not to think too much; your ignorance is our bliss.

Blow it to bits, friends; and never forget.

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Aug 29 2015
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Culture, Democracy, Politics

The one that got away

Even a cursory look at the numbers reveals the inarguable truth about the contribution that southeastern New Brunswick brings to the table of the province’s economy: This region, anchored by Greater Moncton, drives every other in measureable ways.

So why, then, does it merit only perfunctory recognition from the federal Conservative government, whose agents now, rather counter-intuitively, desire the undying support and approval of its residents mere weeks before the next general election?

Every major federal leader has done his or her pass through the southeast in recent weeks. Everyone, that is, except Stephen Harper, who, we are told, is getting around to it.

The prime minister’s persistent absence from the banks of the Petticodiac is conspicuous for several reasons, not the least of which is his filial connection to the area (one of his forbears actually hailed from here; there’s even a crumbling street in the east end of the city named for his family).

Another is that he has a fine lieutenant in the body of Tory MP Robert Goguen, who must, by now, feel like Little Orphan Annie pining for a Daddy Warbucks.

Mr. Goguen’s efforts to spin the federal government’s determination to divert regular infrastructure money (snow removal, road repairs, etc.) into a downtown events centre on the expectation that the completed facility will return enough to replenish municipal coffers was beyond brilliant. No one, to my knowledge, has made a better “robbing Peter to pay Paul” argument in the recent political history of this province.

Then again, no one outside this province really gives a darn about this province – least of all this part of the province, which boasts far too much commercial success to characterize as a basket case in need of federal support.

Again, look at the numbers, courtesy of Moncton’s official website: “In 2014, KMPG ranked Moncton as the lowest cost location for business in Canada; Moncton is known as the hub of the Maritimes with more than 1.3 million people living within a 2.5-hour drive; with a 9.7 per cent population growth between 2006 and 2011, Moncton is the fastest growing Canadian urban centre East of Saskatoon and the fifth-fastest growing CMA in Canada; Moncton (has) added more than 25,000 jobs to its workforce since 1990; home sales in 2011 reached the fourth highest level in history; there were twice as many houses sold in 2011 than (the) decade (before); with an average price of $166,476 in 2013, Moncton remain(ed) one of the most affordable housing markets in Canada; total value of building permits issued in 2011 reached $184 million, the second highest level in history; retail sales reached $2.1 billion in 2011.”

All of which suggests that Mr. Harper has nothing to gain by spending his political capital here – or, perhaps more accurately, no one to control, apart from his various factotums.

An affecting piece in the New York Times last week, written by veteran political journalist Stephen Marche, makes several compelling points:

“Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education. But the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government.

“(Mr. Harper’s) stance has been a know-nothing conservatism, applied broadly and effectively. He has consistently limited the capacity of the public to understand what its government is doing, cloaking himself and his Conservative Party in an entitled secrecy, and the country in ignorance.”

Under the circumstances, then, perhaps Mr. Harper’s ignorance of us is our bliss.

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Aug 29 2015
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Climate, Culture

Tripping up on climate change

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When it comes to the phrase, “the tipping point”, in all matters related to global warming, our cups now runneth over.

It is, perhaps, inevitable that a discipline as complex, as frustratingly imprecise, as climate change should attract oversimplifications to the point of cliché the way a garden invites dandelions.

Still, the use of this expression seems to have spiked recently as scientists struggle to explain why we’re not already stewing in our own juices.

According to a story in MarketWatch online last week, “In June, Pope Francis, in his encyclical on the environment, called upon humanity to take responsibility for the planet, including climate change. Yet millions of Americans just don’t trust scientists warning of a ’95 per cent certainty’ humans cause global warming.”

That figure was originally published in a MarketWatch story a year ago in which writer Paul B. Farrell noted, “But they do trust Big Oil, the GOP, God. They honestly believe climate science is a dangerous fear-mongering liberal conspiracy.”

That’s because most people can’t, or refuse to, observe the largely subtle changes that accumulate in their environment – and even those who can don’t automatically perceive them as evidence of manmade global warming.

Yet, anyone who spends any time at all lounging in his backyard this New Brunswick summer must surely notice the virtual absence of the little brown bat at dusk. This once-plentiful species filled the sky only five years ago. And then, seemingly overnight, it was gone, a victim of a virulent fungus, the proliferation of which, zoologists believe, is directly related to long-term warming weather trends along the northeast U.S.

That, dear reader, is what the experts call a tipping point. Everything proceeds apace – business as usual, move along, nothing to see here – and then, one day, boom! The new normal rears its frightful head and you don’t know what the dickens slammed into you.

All of which puts paid to the notion that we humans have plenty of time to consider our options. The tricky thing about tipping points is that you ever know when they’re going to occur. Noted environmentalist Bill McKibben alluded to this in an article he penned for Foreign Policy some years ago.

“Time might be the toughest part of the equation,” he wrote. “That melting Arctic ice is unsettling not only because it proves the planet is warming rapidly, but also because it will help speed up the warming. That old white ice reflected 80 per cent of incoming solar radiation back to space; the new blue water left behind absorbs 80 per cent of that sunshine. The process amps up.”

What’s more, he warned, “There are many other such feedback loops. Another occurs as northern permafrost thaws. Huge amounts of methane long trapped below the ice begin to escape into the atmosphere; methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.”

In fact, his piece is fairly dripping with tipping points. Indeed, can we ever tip in a way that not necessarily catastrophic?

That’s a question Andrew Simms asked in an editorial last April for The Guardian: “One of the great environmental stories is of how catastrophe can creep up and be noticed only when it is too late to act. Examples range from the sudden, inexplicable collapse of bee colonies, to ice cores revealing the potential for dramatic climatic upheavals that happen not in millennia or centuries, but the time it takes to pass through a coalition government or two.”

All of which suggests, sadly, that we may have already tipped beyond the point of no return

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Aug 13 2015
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Culture, Humour, Politics, Satire

A good end to a sad era

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He was, inarguably, the finest fake journalist the United States ever produced. That he was, by training and inclination, a comedian only sweetens the irony – almost as much as do the dozens of accolades dedicated to him and written, eulogy-like, in the past tense.

But Jon Stewart, host and producer of The Daily Show (until last week, that is) has not passed beyond the veil. He’s just moved on. As for his reasons for leaving the satirical TV program that has all but saved critical thinking in the mainstream media and, by extension, society at large, he said in April, “Honestly, it was a combination of the limitations of my brain and a format that is geared towards following an increasingly redundant process, which is our political process. . .Watching these channels all day is incredibly depressing.”

I’ve been a political junkie for years – long before the 50-something Mr. Stewart came down the pike. Still, this former MTV host made the ritual skewering of elected officials, bureaucrats and, frequently, members of my own profession utterly exhilarating to behold.

His 2004 exchange with the hosts of the CNN political program, Crossfire, may have been the apogee of his particular craft.

“I would love to see a debate show,” he told the hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson. “You’re doing theatre when you should be doing debate, which would be great. It’s not honest. What you do is not honest. What you are doing is partisan hackery. . .Stop hurting America.”

As the Globe and Mail correctly pointed out in its farewell to the man last week, “In his Crossfire rant, Mr. Stewart wasn’t trying to end a debate show; he was trying to provoke it into engaging in real debates – actual contests of ideas, an actual search for truth – rather than staged fights where professional self-promoters wearing colours of left and right, Republican and Democrat, put on the rhetorical equivalent of a professional wrestling match in the service of entertainment, not enlightenment.”

Of course, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart managed to be both. Recognizing this, even some its frequent targets managed managed good-natured goodbyes during the taping of the host’s final show last week.

“I’ll never forget you Jon, but I will be trying,” said New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Added presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton: “And just when I’m running for president, what a bummer.”

As for Canada, Mr. Stewart seemed to have a soft spot. In anticipation of his sign-off, the CBC recently pulled together a compendium of “7 memorable Canadian moments” from the show, the top one being coverage of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford

Reports the CBC: “Amid the first reports he’d (Mr. Ford) been caught on video smoking crack. . . .Stewart told his audience. . .’Hey, hey, don’t judge him. . .Maybe he’s cleaning up the city – by smoking all the crack in it.’ The May 21 episode featured Canadian-born correspondents Jason Jones and Samantha Bee. Bee downplayed the scandal, insisting that smoking crack is ‘one of Canada’s most cherished pastimes’ and that Canadians frequently trade sexual favours for the drug. Stewart revisited Ford’s troubles later that year as the scandal widened to include allegations of drunk driving, snorting cocaine and consorting with a suspected prostitute. ‘This. . .guy is a one-man episode of Cops,’ Stewart said, before setting up a clip in which Ford refuted an allegation that he’d sought oral sex with a female staff member with the comment that he was a ‘married man’.

Ah, yes, good times. Jonny, Canada salutes you.

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