Billy Talent: Canadian “Red Flag”; ‘Billy Talent 2′ (2006)
Stephen Lewis woke a lot of people up, but people don’t like to wake up. We like to be asleep for as long as we can and we will actively resist any alarm, going so far as to beat the alarm into little pieces even when we know that listening to it will save our lives.
Stephen was that alarm clock and he got beaten up by governments around the world for trying to wake us up to the African AIDS epidemic. But Lewis fought back, hard. For five years. Not too long ago the United Nations had no concrete policy to fight AIDS. Now it does. So do a lot of other Non-Government Organizations. So do a lot of the worlds governments. In between then and now was Stephen Lewis.
In 2005 Time Magazine named Stephen one of the “100 Most Influential People In The World” in the same category as The Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela for his work as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. As Special Envoy from 2001 until last year, it was his job to be the person who screamed in your ear to wake the fuck up and recognize the desperate situation in Africa, to recognize the HIV/AIDS crisis and to convince leaders and the public that they had/continue to have a responsibility to respond.
Pretty much every AIDS initiative dealing with AIDS in Africa today came from his work. But because he had to scream aboot it so people would understand and listen to him, he also alienated a lot of people. He was constantly telling governments that they weren’t doing enough, but he’d do it in public. While the leader was beside him on the podium. And the government’s would be embarrassed into action. But they’d remember. And Stephen, eventually, stepped on too many toes and the UN shut him down. But the world’s richest countries now contribute billions of dollars that they weren’t before. And the Foundations, like Bill & Melinda Gates, are pushing money into Africa and the African nations themselves have stopped treating the disease like it was mystical and could be treated by witches.
Stephen made AIDS personal for the world by teaching world leaders and the rest of us aboot stories of Africa’s grandmothers, who have taken on the responsibility of caring for their dying children and raising their soon orphaned grandchildren. An estimated 24.5 million adults and children were living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 2005. During that year, an estimated 2 million people died from AIDS. Africa now has an estimated 13 million AIDS orphans, and in some countries up to 60% are looked after by grandmothers. An entire generation has been scooped out of Africa by AIDS leaving children to care for their brothers and sisters, and elderly grandmothers left to care for handfuls of orphans. Think of the education that’s missing, all of that knowledge not being passed from mother to daughter or father to son. Most of the population in most African countries are dying from AIDS or HIV, and unlike every other disease it is the middle of the population structure that is being killed off. AIDS in Africa is a Generation Killer and will forever alter every African generation to come. Stephen once referred to the worlds response to Africa’s tragedy as “mass murder”.
When Stephen was finally replaced by the United Nations he immediately created “The Stephen Lewis Foundation” so he could make the grandmother’s struggle known to the world and try to bring grandmothers together to fight for the lives of their grandchildren. The Foundation recently held its first international Grandmothers’ Gathering, where one hundred African grandmothers from eleven countries met in Toronto with 200 Canadian grandmothers. The Gathering provided a forum for African grandmothers to set the agenda for support and to establish networks and plan ways of moving forward to help.
The biggest, in my opinion, effect Stephen had during his time with the United Nations was in convincing and educating the African governments themselves into believing that AIDS was real and — more importantly than that — the disease could be, and needed to be, managed.
Stephen is an emotional and effective speaker and one of the most decent people you could ever hope to meet, and he spent the better part of his life fighting, hard, to make the lives of strangers better. If you have a chance to see one of his speeches on YouTube, take it. In fact I’ll leave one here. In the 1960s and 1970s, Stephen Lewis was an elected representative to the Ontario Legislature, and served as leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party. From 1984 through 1988, he was Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations. From 1995 to 1999, Lewis was Deputy Director of UNICEF. Lewis is also the recipient of The Pearson Peace Medal for his outstanding achievements in the field of international service and understanding.
Stephen was born in Ottawa, Ontario on November 11, 1937. He is married to Michele Landsberg, and they have three children.
Now… watch a person of conviction stun the audience at the 2006 AIDS Conference in Toronto:
Stephen Lewis: Canadian “Keynote Address:” ‘The 16th International Conference On AIDS’
— Toronto, Ontario, Canada: August, 2006
1) Second Tory Budget: Canada’s government announced its new budget toady. We don’t have a financial deficit anymore. Your country still does. In fact Canada hasn’t had one for over a decade now and that makes this country pretty frigging unique. Mostly this has occurred because our federal government downloaded debt and responsibilities to the provinces without supplying any new funding. Then there was the twelve years or so where our government stopped funding the military. And taxes barely even went up… which was important. I mean, sending our overburdened and under funded soldiers into Bosnia and Somalia without the proper equipment, that makes sense. But raising taxes a few more points while maintaining military preparedness, that’s just crazy talk.
Anyway. Canada has had a conservative government for two years now which in the Canadian political spectrum is like saying we’re driving in the Left Lane, just a little closer to the yellow line. Our conservative party is known as the Conservative Party (it saves time) and they’ve been reaping some of the benefits of having Surpluses — that’s right, annual fiscal Surpluses — so today they can spend on things like $3.2B on Provincial Social Programs, tax cuts and incentives for the working poor, $1200 rebates on fuel efficient cars with $4000 levies on fuel hog SUVs… yes, this is Conservatism in Canada. There will be no general tax increase and another $2B in tax “relief” for “average” Canadians. The standard of living in this country, on a GDP per capita basis, has been going up consistantly over the past ten-plus years, which also makes us pretty freaking unique in the world. I’m sure this has nothing to do with Canada being a safe place for immigrants who are sick of being hassled by European Nationalists.
Canada’s GDP has passed the US$1.12T (T!) mark. That’s for a county of 32M people. For comparison the United Kingdom is at US$1.9T with 60.6M, Australia’s got US$650B with 20.2M and America’s still on top with $12.98T for a population of 298.4M (America could purchase countries 2-10 and still have enough left over to buy Microsoft and Google and some nice shoes. Think aboot that the next time someone tells you China’s taking over). Surprisingly most of this “newly discovered” Canadian wealth has very little to do with Canada’s rapidly expanding oil fields (we have more natural gas than anyone and as much oil as Saudi Arabia). That money will start to seriously pump into the system in aboot five years or so. We still haven’t even built the freaking pipelines yet. Canada: you can smoke The Weed here, there are gays getting married on every street corner, free lung transplants, Die Mannequin got a record contract… okay, daycare’s till a problem, but the handfuls of Lithium are free. And we’ve still got room.
2) Quebec Premier Reacts To Budget: The largest chunk of this budget’s money allocated to our ten Province’s goes to Quebec. The premier, Jean Charest, is in the middle of an election so this budget makes him look like a freaking Quebecois Warrior For Quebec… yeah, he’s okay with the budget. Charest leads the “Liberal Party” which, in Quebec, is the most conservative political party, and the only fully Federalist one. The number two party, the Parti Quebecois, wants to take Quebec out of Canada, while the number three party — the Action Democratique de Quebec (ADQ) — is a mix of the other two and just really wants to be liked. They’d also wait a few months before renegotiating Quebec’s place in Canada. Charest and our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, are pretty good friends. For politicians. Some of this budget was Harper doing a favour for Charest… which, if you like Canada with Quebec in it, makes a lot of sense.
3) Mario Dumont Reacts To Budget: This is the leader of the ADQ. He liked the budget as well. This election should be a breakthrough for the ADQ. Oh yeah… Canada also generates more hydroelectric power than any other country and the budget will allow for more East & West hydro sharing in this country. Basically this means Manitoba and Quebec can sell more electricity to Ontario. Tell me why — any random Lefty — Iran can have nuclear reactors but we can’t have new ones in Ontario?
Bonus — Quebec Is For Le Quebecois: Quebec has spent fifty years trying to redefine itself. For 350 years it was either a colony of France, a strange out of place attachment to the British Empire, or a fiefdom for the Catholic Church. I’ve written aboot this before somewhere in this blog but if you were Francophone and living in Quebec in the 1960’s you made 97 per cent less than an Anglophone. So “The Quiet Revolution” of Quebec, which started in the mid-1950’s and was led by the university aged children of French-Canadian veterans, swept away the Church and the influences of America and English-Canada and French-Quebecers were allowed to be French again. Only without the sneering. Around the mid-1970’s Quebec started taking in large groups of French speaking immigrants. Mostly from the Middle East, Haiti, Jamaica and North West Africa. It was a slightly cynical attempt to create a French Nation, as most Quebecers identified Culture as being “Language-First”. But the thing aboot being a Nationalist is the ultimate definition of a country becomes “Those Who Were Here Before You”. So now, with a growing immigrant population, Quebecers are stepping back and saying “this is not what we wanted. We wanted immigrants, just not their culture or religion.”
Over the weekend a large group of Muslim families and friends held a semi-private function at a “Sugar Shack” in rural Quebec. They needed a place to pray, the owner said use the dance floor. A photo of the men praying appeared in a city paper and people are going nuts… “they have to learn to accept the Quebec way.” That was the (paraphrased) reaction from the Premier. Other reactions included “it’s unreasonable to pray in Sugar Shacks.”; “I don’t mind if they don’t eat pork, but they shouldn’t pray…” [the owner of the Sugar Shack prepared a special Quebec Pea Soup for the Muslim families which didn’t include the usual massive glob of pork fat]. The owner said next time he’d supply a more private prayer space.
It isn’t just Islam. Conservative Jews have also been involved in conflicts with local governments, activists and institutions for decades. Quebecers, like Europeans, gave up on religion a long time ago. Unlike Europe’s reasoning — we’re old and tired and we just don’t care anymore — Quebec did away with their religion more out of disgust than anything else. And now they can’t figure out why people get insulted when governments limit religious freedoms.
1) “War Without End”: Not the best headline I’ve ever seen. There is such a thing as “polite editing” where you know/think you’ve got a great/funny headline but maybe you modify it slightly so the families of 120,000 American soldiers serving in the Middle East and the relatives of another 60,000 dead Iraqi’s don’t turn on the TV and get confronted by your cute but totally erroneous attempt to make the newsroom laugh and/or appreciate your razor sharp wit.
Year Five of The Iraq War starts today. The report’s basic conclusion was that Years One and Two went pretty well, Year Three was a tie while Year Four was a complete Cluster Fuck. Which sounds aboot right to me. 3218 American soldiers have died with another 24,000 injured while — admittedly they made a guesstimate — 60,000 Iraqi’s have died. In a speech GW Bush said “It can be won… if we have the courage to see it through.” Then he said something aboot a big comeback in the fifth quarter… sorry. I hate Bush jokes, but I couldn’t resist.
It was the fucking looting. That was the turning point. After the looting the Iraqi people got scared, who the fuck was ‘In Charge’? The Americans couldn’t stop the looters so the local guys did. The Sadr-type guys. The people turned to the local “strongmen” because they understood that the Americans were not prepared to seriously govern and that was the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning. Then Bremmer disbands the army… sweet motherfuck. Read “Imperial Life In The Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. You’ll weep at the incompetence.
2) Car Bombs In Iraq: Fifty-five Iraqi’s killed… ever get the feeling that it’ll take decades before we can say “Iraqi” without adding the “killed”? Fifty per cent of American soldiers in Iraq are on their second tour. Weirdly enough this has created a downturn in the number of American soldiers killed because the ones coming back into the theatre of operations are more experienced at urban Baghdad warfare.
3) In Studio Interview: NBC’s Iraq Chief Reporter was in New York for a few days so he stood across from Brian and entertained some previously selected questions. Basically the answers boiled down to: “This surge could work depending on the definition”, “America is still not putting enough into diplomatic solutions”, and “the surge will take at least a year or more to take effect”. If I had a seven-year old child they could have memorized the same talking points and would have been just as earnest, but for a fraction of the cost.
1) Invasion Anniversary: Jim was off for the evening, Gwen was filling in. The Iraq War was still going on regardless… as if it didn’t care aboot Jim or Gwen. Fucking war. 30,000 new American troops are moving into the region. They didn’t specify Iraq so some of them may be in Tehran right now, milling around in shops and drinking dark, thick coffee while partaking in the local sights and sites. President Bush was quoted as saying “our most important mission is protecting the Iraqi capital.” There were protests and marches in several American cities marking the anniversary. Cindy Sheehan even managed to tear herself away from Hugo Chavez for some face time on American television.
2) American Soldiers Killed: Eight more American soldiers were killed over the weekend.
3) More Iraqi Citizens Killed: There’s that “Iraqi’s Killed” thing again. The war in Iraq has now been going on longer than America’s involvement in WWOne, WWTwo and Korea. For whatever that’s worth. Does this mean the vets from those three wars get moved down on some list somewhere? It was the fucking looting… if they had just had some fucking soldiers in there to provide security. Oh well… next time.
1) Big Spending Budget: Canada is still getting used to having a conservative political party again. Until the early 90’s our conservative party, the Progressive Conservatives — who had been around since Confederation in 1867, were responsible for the largest majority governments in Canadian political history. But then they imploded in a way rarely, if ever, seen in a Democracy. They went from super-majority to two seats in the House of Commons. That’s like today’s Democrats not only taking a complete majority in the Senate, but also taking a 100 seat majority in Congress and Hillary taking the Presidency. The Conservative Party in Britain almost went through something similar when John Major was finally knocked out. It made no sense when it happened here, and it makes little sense now. Mostly it was based on four factors: 1) Canadians were tired of the PC Government, which had been in power for eight years; 2) the Liberal Party of Canada’s disinformation tactics in smearing the PC Party as liars, cheats and thieves; 3) the willingness for the “media” (re: the CBC and the Toronto Star) to repeat everything the Liberal Party fed them, and; 4) this weird belief among “Western Democracies” that the Fall Of The Wall meant “The Left” had won a victory so Conservative governments around the world were unceremoniously booted out. So here we are with a Conservative government for the first time in twelve-or-so years and no one, specifically in the “media” (re: the CBC and the Toronto Star) knew what to expect from their latest budget. Well, here it is (all figures CDN$): Total Projected Revenues: $236.7B Projected Economic Growth: 2.3 per cent and 2.9 per cent in 2008-09 Total Spending: $233.4B, up $10B from the current year Total Projected Surplus: $3.3B Program Spending: $199.6B, up 7.9 per cent from $188.9B spent in 2007-08 Total Canadian Debt: $472.3 billion, before a $9B payment over the next three years
Along with $6B in tax cuts there were $14B in new programs announced, including a new $310/child annual tax credit for parents.
2) Green Budget: In Canada, and — I think — most other Parliamentary Democracies a vote on the Budget is considered a “Confidence Vote”, which means if the Government loses the vote we get an election. The Conservative finance minister had barely started his announcement when the leader of the Bloq Quebecois — a regional federalist party whose goal is supposed to be getting Quebec out of federation — stepped in front of a pack of cameras and said “oui, I support this budget”. This means there will be no snap election (we’re in a minority government right now) and the other two opposition parties — the left wing NDP and the barely left of the Conservative Party, the Liberals — get to be… well, they get to freely oppose the budget. The problem is both the NDP and the Liberals have been chirping for months aboot how their plans are so much more Environmentally Friendly than the Conservatives plans… and now the Conservatives have laid out the most “Green” Budget in a generation so the NDP and Liberals are being forced to ask questions like “aren’t the Conservatives just taking your sole position away from you?” The problem with only having one public policy (re: environment) is you become irrelevant when that postion is adopted or put into place by the opposition.
Anyway. The budget (FINALLY) is giving Canadians a (up to) $2000 rebate when we buy a fuel efficient car. The big gas sucking SUV’s will now (FINALLY) cost up to $4000 more because of a levy on vehicles with mileage worse than 13Litres per 100km. There’s another $2B being injected into biofuel research, and tax credits for industries like the Alberta Oil Sands Project will be phased out by 2015, and there’s also another $4.8B for environmental programs.
3) Election Budget: The CBC is convinced we’re heading to a spring election because they consider this to be a “feel good” budget. Everybody gets something. The problem with that theory (there are several) is that every budget during the Fat Years is a “feel good” budget. Paul Wells, a columnist for MacLean’s Magazine (kind of a Time-Lite) had a post on his blog aboot this very issue a few days ago: [here]. I met Paul a few times when I was reporting in Ottawa. The last time was in a bar in the Byward Market which got really awkward because — when I introduced Paul as “one of Parliament Hill’s best columnists” to my very drunk brother and his buddy — they thought Paul was Andrew Coyne. Oh yeah, the government is going to fund that cervical cancer vaccine.
1) Iraq Anniversary: Iraqi’s Killed. Some BBC reporter got a tour of Sadr City hosted by some of Sadr’s Army. It was like a freaking travelogue. “Everything’s just great wherever the Sadr Army is in control… we never saw an American soldier… Americans have horns and hooves and talk with Jewish accents”. Fuck. Off. Fox News sucks giant elephant ass, fine. But sometimes — maybe more than that — the BBC is just as bad going the other way. Don’t even get me started on CBC’s Neil “The President Has Horns And A Tiny Penis” MacDonald.
2) Saddam’s VP Executed: Saddam’s long time VP — the guy who sent Iraqi citizens into Iranian bullets as cannon fodder, the guy who was considered to be the most brutal member of Saddam’s regime since Saddam took over, the guy convicted of having 150 innocents shot in the head — was executed today. His last words were “God knows I didn’t do anything wrong. God will condemn everyone who oppressed me.” God then laughed and pulled the switch.
3) Russian Coal Mine Explosion: At least 80 miners were killed in an explosion that occurred while the mine’s management were testing a new safety system. The mine is/was considered one of Russia’s most modern.
Canada is the fastest growing country in the G8, and soon we’ll become the first country where people can take their time to safely fuck humanity back together.
According to a Statistics Canada national census we have the fastest growing population of any G8 country. And two thirds of our population growth of 5.4 per cent over the past five years is through immigration.
Canada, with a population of just under 33 million, is currently admitting over 250,000 immigrants every year, mainly under something called the “Federal Skilled Worker Program” which selects candidates from around the world based on their education, training, and work experience.
Among the G-8 countries, only the United States, at 5.0 percent, approached Canada’s growth. According to an Associated Press story, France and Italy grew 3.1 percent and Britain 1.9 percent, while growth for Japan and Germany was near zero and Russia’s population actually shrank 2.4 percent.
It takes takes a birthrate of 2.1 children per woman to keep a positive population growth. Other than America no Western country has anywhere near this number. Canada may be growing faster than any other G8 nation but our birthrate is aboot average at 1.5. With a dwindling national birthrate and baby boomers nearing the end of their life spans towards 2030, Canada will soon be completely dependent on immigration to maintain population and economic growth.
Here’s the thing… humans all used to be one colour. We were all black back in the beginning. The first humans left Africa, travelled through the Middle East to Southern India and down into Australia. Then the second tribe of humans left Africa and turned North in India into Kazakhstan and Afghanistan where our colour started to fade. Then we went out through China and across into North and South America. Finally Europe opened and we populated the final continent available to us. By then we were different colours and we used those colours to define “race” because we were ignorant and mostly stupid. There is One Race. There are many cultures. We come from the same tribe.
But now, thanks to the jet engine, the phone, the Internet, armed conflicts and the ability to move somewhere better, more people are moving further than ever before in our history. We are coming back together. We are learning and adapting to each others cultures. We are marrying each other, we are having babies together. And Canada — the safest G8 country to live in, with one of the highest standards of living in the world — is becoming the main meeting place for the world. And even with all of that growth, crime — which has never been a major problem — is going down in this country and we have aboot as low an unemployment level as you can have in a democracy. In fact every problem or difficulty given by the European Union for not increasing immigration or even allowing immigrants to become citizens has been disproven here in Canada.
There are problems, of course. Nearly a third of the population of Canada now lives within an hour of Toronto, fully half of the population of the Province of Quebec lives within an hour of Montreal, and half of the population of British Columbia lives near Vancouver. But what happens when this incredible assortment of religions and cultures move to the suburbs of this massive country? Their kids grow up with a Canadian accent eating Beavertails, thumbing their Blackberry and watching hockey.
So far the only serious backlash is coming from Quebec. Which makes sense when you consider how long Quebecers have fought to be recognized as being a Nation within a Nation. Nationalists are Absolutists. When you’re defining a Nation the first thing you do is define the People of that Nation. And Quebec, they’ve decided, is made up of people who distrust religion, speak French and are, with few exceptions, white.
The Irony, of course, is all of this immigration and having sex is possible because of Canada’s lack of an entrenched history. The only historical battle fields in Canada anyone really cares aboot are in Quebec (never tell a Quebecer they were conquered). There are no Orange Parades anymore, and when there were they were small and insignificant. There are no massive statues in our harbour, there are no Custers, we barely know the Official Lyrics to our national anthem, and no one can quote any of our Fathers Of Confederation. I can remember a high school history class where, collectively, we had to come up with twelve things that made us Canadian. Hockey had two spots and “hot dogs” was close to the top.
Why should you, a non-Canadian, care? Because by the year 2030 your country will have had a negative population growth rate for ten years and our country will have the smartest grandchildren of peoples from all over the world trying to figure out new ways of exploiting your country’s fading wealth.
The more industrialized a country becomes, the lower the birth rate falls. It was common in Quebec for families to have 12 or more children. The same for Ireland, England, Scotland and Russia. If you wanted to retire you needed enough kids to take care of you. If you wanted the farm to expand, you needed sons. But Europe and Russia and Canada and Australia have become so rich, so industrialized, that fewer kids makes sense. And government “fixes”, like offering a national day care plan or tax incentives, have been proven to do very little to encourage Western women to have more babies. So everyone in your country is getting older, and there are no kids being born and no immigrants to fill the jobs and universities.
There are two things every old person around the world have in common 1) there will soon be more of them than at any time in Human History, and; 2) soon after that they’ll all be dead. And right now there are more aging Baby Aged Boomers in Europe, North America and Australia than any other demographic. And all of the other demographics are shrinking. Except in Canada and America. We’re the only ones getting younger.
Canadians, of every colour, will be growing up together, watching hockey together, playing hockey together and — most importantly — having sexual relations with each other while watching hockey, drinking maple syrup and listening to Leonard Cohen. We will have a shared history through Canada. It’s an inevitability. We, as a species, started as one colour and now we’re going back to being one colour. Canada’s just going there first.
1) Passenger Train Derailment: Trains have had a habit of coming off their tracks in Canada. This one involved 32 cars of a 142-car freight train jumping the tracks just outside Kingston’s VIA Rail (commuter) train station. The wreck left the busiest commuter line in Canada, which connects one of the most populated regions in North America — Quebec City, Quebec to Windsor, Ontario — closed for at least twenty hours. There were no injuries, there usually aren’t in Canadian train derailments. Canada’s transportation infrastructure is a mess. While our previous government (the Liberal Party of Canada) were telling anyone who would listen that we had not only signed the Kyoto Accords but had started the process to get them into existence, they were busy selling off the land rights to our rail networks and tearing up the track beds so we could have a “TransCanada Walking Trail”. Fewer trains = more trucks on the roads. Now we have a patchwork, at best, of railway lines that don’t serve our major cities. Our only commuter train, which is a Government agency, is grossly under-utilized mostly because the stations are so fucking impossible to find. Then the new owners of CN Rail (freight) even, in a cost saving measure, replaced their Mountain Engines with Flat-Ground train engines without changing the braking systems. Weeee… bam.
2) Air Quality Concerns In Sports Arenas: Apparently it’s not a good idea to run combustion engines inside an enclosed area where athletes are training. Asthma levels among winter athletes who train in an arena are higher than those who train outside… away from direct exhaust. There are thousands and thousands of ice arena’s in Canada. Saskatchewan*, with a population of 950,000, has over 700 hockey rinks (some are outdoors) with more than 24,000 registered minor hockey league players (those are just the kids). Each of these rinks has to be “cleaned” six, eight sometimes ten times per day depending on how heavy the use. The CBC did a small sample study recently and found that “ultrafine particles” — particles so small they can easily deposit deeply into the lungs, agitating asthma and some cardiovascular illnesses — levels were so high the kids might as well be playing in traffic during rush hour.
“We found the ice-rink athletes, all the skating athletes, the figure skaters, the short track speed skaters and the hockey players had a higher prevalence of exercise induced asthma … and their lung function was chronically low,” said Kenneth Rundell, who runs the human performance lab at Marywood University in Scranton, PA. There are no rules or laws regulating these kind of pollutants in Canada. But, hey, we signed Kyoto.
Keeping in mind most of these rinks are in small communities where hockey and figure skating is a volunteer-run enterprise, and that most of these rinks have little or no serious air filtration systems and the “ice resurfacing machines” (Zamboni is the most popular brand name), which use natural gas or propane as fuel, can cost in the six figure range to replace or upgrade to an electrical engine, the chances of anything changing anytime soon is nil and none.
(*The Province of Saskatchewan (251,865 sq-miles) is roughly 2.6 times larger than the United Kingdom (93,788), which has a population of 60,000,000 funny sounding people.)
3) Minor League Hockey Brawl: Some hockey players in the Quebec Junior Hockey League (17 to 19-years old) got into a tussle and the coaches yelled at each other. Some of the fans thought it’d be a good idea to start throwing stuff and swearing. This was news because the two teams, the Quebec Remparts and the Chicoutimi Sagueneens, do this aboot every time they meet on the ice. Sometimes after the games as well. Also, the owner and coach for the Remparts is Patrick Roy. Patrick is/was/will always be the greatest goaltender in National Hockey League history. Until Martin Brodeur retires anyway. There were some fines. No suspensions. There will be lots of suspensions if this happens again though.
1) Gas Prices Jump: There are such a thing as “Calendar Stories”. These are news stories that you can plan you coverage for months, even years in advance. Like stories aboot consumerism versus Christmas, aboot how cold it can get in Canada or Buffalo in the winter, or American elections, or aboot gas prices going up before a holiday or when a season changes. Taa-daaa: it’s spring.
2) Walter Reed Fallout: When people finally take notice of the shit conditions you’re supplying to wounded soldiers returning from an unpopular war it is best, from a public relations view, to just bow your head and agree with everything everyone says aboot your character. The last thing you do is say things like “Yeah, but…” or “This isn’t a catastrophic disaster”, both of which were said by Lt. General Kevin Kiley (MD), the Numb Brain Fuck Nut who was, until today, in charge of the Walter Reed Hospital. This Iraq/Afghanistan Adventure was only supposed to last three weeks. The worst injury Walter Reed was expecting was a sprained foot and some random VD. SURPRISE!! The Veterans Administration is now reviewing all 1400 of its hospitals in America.
3) Mentally Wounded Soldiers: From 2001 to 2005, 31 per cent of American soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have got, and will continue to have for a very long time, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Which means they’ve been exposed to enough loud noise and traumatic experiences that they will periodically relive their experiences for the rest of their lives. But, doctors and researchers say, the numbers should be much higher. Most soldiers, they say, are being misdiagnosed or just aren’t talking aboot their symptoms. Fifteen per cent of veterans of the Vietnam war, the report said, still show symptoms of PTSD. Again, the American military health care system is overwhelmed and ill-equipped to deal with such high numbers of mentally ill veterans.
1) Another Walter Reed Official Resigns: More aboot the forced resignation of Lt. General Kevin Kiley. He’s the third general to be fired over the Walter Reed issue… because of the number and frequency and type of injuries returning soldiers have experienced, several new “barracks” had to be bought or reopened to house these men and women. Some of these buildings should have stayed condemned. The recovering soldiers were forced to cohabitate with rats, mould and roaches. The entire system will be under review for a few more months.
2) Iraqi’s Bury Their Dead: The people who were blown up over the weekend during religious “festivities” were laid to rest today. American soldiers, acting on tips, found three “car-bomb making factories” and were expecting to find a lot more over the next few days.
3) Who Loves The Troops More: American Congressional Democrats are trying to prove they love and care aboot American soldiers more than Republicans, the Republicans gave Democrats the finger. Has anyone noticed that politically — so far — the New Democrat “Majority” have been outflanked and beaten by the Republican “Minority” on almost every issue since the “earth shattering” election of just a few months ago? And now, surprise, the Democrats are going to give President Bush another blank cheque… or at least another US$100B to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Does anyone remember Nancy Pelosi?
1) CDN Soldier Charged With Manslaughter: A Canadian soldier was charged with Manslaughter today in the accidental shooting of another Canadian soldier. The incident happened eight months ago in Afghanistan while a vehicle of Canadian soldiers were on patrol when a single shot was discharged, killing Master Cpl. Jeffrey Walsh of the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry regiment, who was in the first weeks of his second deployment to Afghanistan. If convicted Master Cpl. Robbie Fraser, also from the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry regiment, could receive 12-years in a military prison. The two men were close friends and the widow of Jeff Walsh spoke out against the charges, saying “I’ve been irate at the fact that they’ve even considered manslaughter as one of the charges,” Julie Mason in a report on CBC.ca. “It’s painful enough when a soldier loses a brother, it’s even harder when you lose a friend and it’s your weapon that went off.”
2) Lost Detainees Stay Lost: Canada’s Defence Minister, Gordon O’Conner, and Canada’s Chief of The Defence Staff , General Rick Hillier, were both in Afghanistan trying to figure out what happens with “detainees” after Canadian Forces hand them off to Afghanistan officials. A few weeks ago there was a vague report of three… lets call them “Opposition Forces” who were handled roughly (scratches and bruises) by Canadian soldiers while they were “being detained”. When Canadian officials went to find out if Canadian soldiers had roughed them up unnecessarily, they had ‘disappeared’. The Afghans say they were either released or never existed. Now Canada is trying to get an NGO called “the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission” to monitor all detainees Canada drops off at the Afghan doorstep.
3) Canadian Mystery Man Arrested In Spain: Some Canadian dude was busted in Spain on fraud charges totaling over $20M. He is also suspected of helping to finance “al Qaeda-esque” training camps. This must have been a ‘Breaking Story’ because I just gave it more time than CBC did.
1) Zimbabwe Nearing Breaking Point: The BBC has been banned from Zimbabwe for a few years now, so the footage — I think — was from ITN. It looks like Zimbabwe is finally aboot to fall apart. Zimbabwe troops are now, on a daily basis, beating the shit out of anyone and everyone they can reach with those four-foot long clubs they carry. Political gatherings have been banned and, like Stalin and Castro before him, Zimbabweans can no longer gather in groups on the street without Official Permission. Robert Mugabe has had 27 years in power and has essentially crushed one of the very few African successes. Four out of five citizens are unemployed, inflation is running at 1700 per cent, which means last weeks Z$800 loaf of bread will cost Z$3000 this week. Three million Zimbabweans have fled the country. Mugabe plans on ruling until his 90th birthday. Which would be aboot another five years or so. Unless someone puts a bullet in his head before that. Just saying.
2) BBC Reporter Kidnapped: Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza, where he was working. The BBC seems to be, at least from here, being very muted aboot this story. Reporters are kidnapped often enough in Gaza that this isn’t a surprise. Sometimes there’s a ransom. Mostly Hamas or the PLO remind the kidnappers that keeping reporters somewhat neutral is best for The Cause.
3) Russia Not Supplying Uranium To Iran: Russia, who is building Iran’s nuclear facilities, has decided that it will withhold the actual uranium fuel for a little while. Just in case. They say Iran is behind in its payments. Iran says it’s because America Just. Won’t. Leave. Us. The. Fuck. Alone.
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I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
The pacemaker has saved millions of lives, including the man who invented it. Seriously, how weird is that? A guy invents a gadget that keeps a dying heart beating, which then saves the lives of millions of strangers over a couple of decades and then, forty years later, his invention saves his own life.
In 1949 two Canadian doctors, Dr. William Bigelow and Dr. John Callaghan, working at the Banting and Best Institute* laboratory in Toronto, were experimenting with extreme cold as a way to better conduct open heart surgery by slowing the human heart. Along the way they determined they needed a device to restart the heart when and if it stopped.
Canada has a pure research facility, a “blue sky lab” in Ottawa where scientists can work on anything they can get government funding for, it’s called the National Research Council. At the same time Bigelow and Callaghan were researching extreme cold and heart surgery in Toronto, Dr. John Hopps, an electrical engineer, was a researcher at the NRC working on using radio frequencies to restore body temperature in hypothermia victims. During this research he discovered that the heart could be artificially started using electricity.
The two physicians found Hopps and the three men worked together and found that by “applying a gentle electrical stimulus to the heart would not only duplicate the normal body nerve stimulation but it would also not cause any damage to the heart muscle. In addition, this technique would start a stopped heart and increase or decrease the heart rate, as required.”
The first cardiac pacemaker was fully developed by 1950, and basically took over the hearts electrical system, artificially pumping blood through the body. It was mostly an external device that operated similar to today’s internal pacemakers but weighed over three pounds and had to be plugged into the wall. It was not meant to be a permanent solution.
The first human to have one of these devices implanted was in 1958. It was the first electronic device to be implanted into the human body. Today’s pacemakers are about the size of a Toonie (a $2 Canadian coin) and, of course, fully implantable.
In 1999 the pacemaker was chosen as one of the five most significant Canadian engineering accomplishments of the 20th century by “National Engineering Week”. The other four were the Confederation Bridge, the Canadarm, the Transcontinental Railway Rogers Pass project (which my grandfather was a project manager for) and the IMAX motion picture system.
Hopps spent most of his engineering career as the head of the NRC’s Medical Engineering Section of the Division of Electrical Engineering. Under his leadership, this group produced a variety of inventions to help the blind, to assist people with muscular disabilities, and to advance the diagnostic uses of ultrasound. He and his colleagues also developed technologies that built upon his early cardiovascular research. In 1984 Hopps had a pacemaker implanted to regulate his own heartbeat. Hopps passed away on November 24, 1998.
*Banting & Best, Canadians, “invented” insulin.
Just a quick warning about the comment section… for some reason the entire population of Colombia took exception with this piece. Or at least some Trolls had some fun, but so did I. Enjoy.
Pierre Berton (1980): History repeats itself, over and over again. We repeat it because no one learns. We think we do, then we walk into the same wall we should have torn down years ago. And even when some of us do learn, it’s generally too late or the Newly Knowledgable is declared a Nut Job because no one else knows what the fuck they’re talking aboot. America’s first lesson in how not to fight wars outside its own borders was taught by Canada in what became known as “The War of 1812”. But making direct connections between the past and present is not what this book, “The Invasion Of Canada: 1812-1813,” is aboot. Pierre doesn’t make direct connections in his books. I, however, do make them on my blog.
When I was in grade ten my history teacher once made a point of telling us about Pierre. He extolled the virtues of learning everything aboot Canadian history we possibly could and Pierre could be our gateway. And I ate it up because I was a Teenage Nationalist. Pierre, my teacher said, had written aboot all of the major points of Canada’s history and as he spoke I was writing down names of Pierre‘s books which I planned on reading as soon as I found them. Until Mr. Clancy said that Pierre had a team of research assistants who helped him. And I, being a Teenage Absolutist, thought that meant Pierre cheated*. The fucker. Plus his books were huge and I, being a Teenage Teenager, really didn’t like hardcover books. And so it went. Until I found this one (in trade paperback).
There’s a weird history between America and Canada. Canadians are, basically, Americans and Americans are, basically, Canadians because we were all once, basically, British. Then there’s our French roots. Most of what became America was once owned by France, while a large chunk of Canada — Quebec — was once a colony of France. Quebec was then conquered by the British in 1759, and as payback France then helped British-Americans defeat the British during the 1776 American Revolution. Then Canadians — French-Canadians along with British-Canadians and Canadian ‘Indians’ — teamed up with the British-British to defeat the American invasion of Canada during the War of 1812, which was really an extension of Napoleons war against Everyone Not French In Europe… which France lost to Britain.
This is from the back of the book: “To America’s leaders in 1812, an invasion of Canada seemed to be “a mere matter of marching,” as Thomas Jefferson confidently predicted. How could a nation of 8 million fail to subdue a struggling colony of 300,000? Yet, when the campaign of 1812 ended, the only Americans left on Canadian soil were prisoners of war. Three American armies had been forced to surrender, and the British were in control of Michigan Territory and much of Indiana and Ohio.” We had also burnt the White House to the ground. Pierre asserts in “The Invasion Of Canada” that if there had been no War of 1812 most of Ontario would be American simply through being more British than not, and if Canada had lost the war the “America” of today would be, basically, North America. But there was, and we won, and here we are with free health care, hockey and edible Beavertails.
The British colonies of Canada (Upper Canada and Lower Canada) and America (the 13 colonies) had already started to grow apart even before the American Revolution, but finally became fully independent of each other after the War of 1812. Before, since and forever-after Canadians, according to Pierre, “valued ‘peace, order and good government’ rather than the more hedonistic ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.”
Pierre wrote this book, or at least it was published, in 1980. Way before Iraq Two, Afghanistan, Iraq One, Bosnia, Somalia, Lybia or Granada. But even if it had been published yesterday Pierre didn’t write to make points against current political policies. He wouldn’t draw parallels between the failed and humiliating invasion of Canada nearly 200 years ago and what’s happening in the world today. Although I would and, basically, I just did. Pierre wrote as an historian and as a (capital J) Journalist. He wrote to bring the events which formed Canada to people who currently call themselves “Canadian”. When I was in high school I was lucky to have two teachers who were able to teach aboot Canada. Most people my age didn’t have any. I was telling a friend recently that the first time I decided I was going to write a book aboot Canadian history (as opposed to an Elmore Leonard-inspired Pulp novel) was aboot fifteen-years ago… I was in a Chapters (a national bookstore chain) looking for a book on Canadian politics and I found four. Four books on Canada in a Canadian bookstore surrounded by rows and rows and rows of British and American history. It has gotten better recently, there has actually been a revival, a renewed interest in Canada by Canadians. But all of those authors will use Pierre Berton as their first source, because Pierre was always there first.
Pierre was born in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, in 1920. His first jobs were working in Klondike mining camps. He started his career reporting for the Vancouver Sun in 1945. By the age of 84, he had written 50 books on Canada. Pierre was made a companion of the Order of Canada in 1986, over his career he also received three Governor General Awards for Creative Non-fiction for ‘The Mysterious North’, ‘The Last Spike’ and ‘Klondike’; two National Newspaper Awards, and; two ACTRA Awards for broadcasting. In 2004, on a national television program’s “Celebrity Tip” segment Pierre — introduced as a “marijuana connoisseur” — taught viewers how to properly roll a joint (he had smoked regularly since the 1950’s). He passed away in 2004. Adrienne Clarkson, then Governor General of Canada, said Pierre “was the most remarkable writer of Canadian historical events in the last 50 years. So much of our nationhood and our collective identity as Canadians were created by him.”
Pierre wrote another book aboot the War of 1812 a year later called “Flames Across the Border: The Canadian-American Tragedy: 1813-1814”.
Excerpt One: (page 19) “The Invasion of Canada, which began in the early summer of 1812 and petered out in the late fall of 1814, was part of a larger conflict that has come to be known in North America as the War of 1812. The war was the by-product of a larger struggle, which saw Napoleonic France pitted for almost a decade against most of Europe. It is this complexity, a war within a war within a war, like a nest of Chinese boxes, that has caused so much confusion. The watershed date “1812” has different connotations for different people. And, as in Alice’s famous caucus race, everybody seems to have won something, though there were no prizes. The Russians, for instance, began to win their own War of 1812 against Napoleon in the very week in which the British and Canadians were repulsing the invading Americans at Queenston Heights. The Americans won the last battle of their War of 1812 in the first week of 1815 — a victory diminished by the fact that peace had been negotiated fifteen days before. The British, who beat Napoleon, could also boast that they “won” the North American was because the Treaty of Ghent, which settled the matter, had nothing to say about the points at issue and merely maintained the status quo.” [all italics are the authors emphasis]
Excerpt Two: (page 129-131) “‘A PROCLAMATION: INHABITANTS OF CANADA! After thirty years of Peace and prosperity, the United States have been driven to Arms. The injuries and aggressions, the insults and indignities of Great Britain have once more left them no alternative but manly resistance or unconditional submission. The army under my Command has invaded your Country and the standard of the United States waves on the territory of Canada. To the peaceful, unoffending inhabitant, It brings neither danger nor difficulty I come to find enemies not to make them, I come to protect you not to injure you.
[…]If the barbarous and Savage policy of Great Britain be pursued, and the savages are let loose to murder our Citizens and butcher our women and children, this war, will be a war of extermination. …No white man found fighting by the Side of an Indian will be taken prisoner Instant destruction will be his Lot… . — WM Hull [William Hull, American Governor of Michigan Territory, Commander of the Army of the Northeast]’ Yet Hull has overstated his case. These are farmers he is addressing, not revolutionaries. The colonial authoritarianism touches very few. They do not feel like slaves; they already have enough peace, liberty, and security to satisfy them. This tax-free province [Canada] is not America at the time of the Boston Tea Party. Why is Hull asking them to free themselves from tyranny? In the words of one, if they had been under real tyranny, “they could at any time have crossed the line to the States.” …No Daniel Boones stalk the Canadian forests, ready to knock off an Injun with a Kentucky rifle or do battle over an imagined slight. The Methodist circuit riders keep the people law abiding and temperate; prosperity keeps them content. …There is little theft, less violence.”
Excerpt Three: (page 309) “It was not the war that the Americans, inspired and goaded by the eloquence of Henry Clay and his colleagues, had set out to fight and certainly not the glamorous adventure that Harrison’s volunteers expected. The post-Revolutionary euphoria, which envisaged the citizen soldiers of a democratic nation marching off to sure victory over a handful of robot-like mercenaries and enslaved farmers, had dissipated. America had learned the lessons that most nations relearn at the start of every war — that valour is ephemeral, that the heroes of one war are the scapegoats of the next, that command is for the young, the vigorous, the imaginative, the professional. Nor does enthusiasm and patriotism alone win battles: untrained volunteers, no matter how fervent, cannot stand up to seasoned regulars, drilled to stand fast in moments of panic and to follow orders without question. It was time for the United States to drop its amateur standing now that it intended to do what its founding fathers had not prepared for — aggressive warfare.”
Excerpt Four: (page 312) “The Indians scattered that spring for their hunting grounds. Tecumseh was still in the south, pursuing his proposal to weld the tribes into a new confederacy. The British saw eye to eye with his plan for an Indian state north of the Ohio [River]; it would act as a buffer between the two English-speaking nations on the North American continent and make future wars unattractive. The idea had long been at the core of British Indian policy.
But the Indians were soon ignored. In the official dispatches they got short shrift. The names of white officers who acted with conspicuous gallantry were invariably recorded, those of the Indian chieftains never. Even the name of Tecumseh, after [British General] Brock’s initial report, vanishes from the record. Yet these painted tribesmen helped save Canada’s hide in 1812.”
Excerpt Five (From The Conclusion): (page 313-314) “Thus the key words in Upper Canada were “loyalty” and “patriotism” — loyalty to the British way of life as opposed to American “radical” democracy and republicanism. Brock — the man who wanted to establish martial law and abandon habeas corpus — represented these virtues. Canonized by the same caste that organized the Loyal and Patriotic Society, he came to represent Canadian order as opposed to American anarchy — the “peace, order and good government” rather than the more hedonistic “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Had not Upper Canada been saved from the invader by appointed leaders who ruled autocratically? In America, the politicians became generals; in British North America, the opposite held true.
This attitude — that the British way is preferable to the American; that certain sensitive positions are better filled by appointment than by election; that order imposed from above has advantages over grassroots democracy (for which read “licence” or “anarchy”); that a ruling elite often knows better than the body politic — flourished as a result of an invasion repelled. Out of it, shaped by an emerging nationalism and tempered by rebellion, grew that special form of a state paternalism that makes the Canadian way of life significantly different from the more individualistic American way. Thus, in a psychological as well as a political sense, we are Canadians and not Americans because of a foolish war that scarcely anyone wanted or needed, but which, once launched, none knew how to stop.”
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I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
cultural sn:afu 