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.
1) Cop Killer Claims Self Defence: Last week Laval police officer, Det.-Sgt. Daniel Tessier, was shot in the head and killed while serving a search warrant. His partner was shot in the arm. They were part of a team of 30 officers carrying out search warrants in Brossard and the South Shore of Montreal to break up an alleged cocaine ring. A 41-year old man, Basile Parasiris, has been charged with first-degree murder. He’s also facing charges of ‘intent to wound’ and ‘intent to endanger a life’. During the raid Parasiris’ wife was also shot in the arm. There are some serious questions aboot how the police executed the warrants. It was 5am when Tessier and his partner, both in plain clothes, and their backup battered the door down. The defence is asserting that Parasiris thought it was a violent home invasion. The gun he used to shoot the plain clothed officers was legally owned and had been registered to that address, so if the police had used the Canadian Firearms Registry before entering they should have known that there were weapons in the house. Parasiris’ 15-year old son even called 911 to report the invasion as it was taking place. At the time of his death Tessier had been on the drug force for less than 10 days, he was a father of two and a 17-year veteran on the Laval force. The funeral, which will be attended by thousands of officers from around North America, will be held on Friday. Laval, Brossard and the South Shore are suburbs of Montreal.
2) Heritage Building Burns: I was kind of hoping that CBC Montreal would have some coverage of the rapidly upcoming Quebec Election, but it didn’t happen until way down in the editorial lineup and I couldn’t wait that long… Carl Johnson desperately needed my help. So there was a Five Alarm Fire in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood. A couple of heritage buildings were basically destroyed. When the damage is that extensive you might as well start over. Most of the damage was to one building which was over 100-years old — which, in Canada, is old. One eyewitness said “the building makes this area what it is, it’s a hallmark building.” There were no injuries. This isn’t the first time heritage buildings have been destroyed by fire in the area, back in 2001 aboot120 people left homeless after a fire broke in a building which was under construction. The fire quickly spread and destroyed six buildings. There’s actually a long history of Fire in the Plateau area. In 1999 a suspicious fire destroyed an historic fire station; in 2000 a fire bomb was set off in a coffee shop, and two more were found before detonating in two other coffee shops around the district; also in 2000 a series of suspicious explosions in the area shut down the subway system for 24 hours and, in 2002; “Police have arrested a man in connection with a fire that destroyed four buildings in the Plateau Mont Royal district of Montreal. The 36-year-old man lived at 4272 St.Dominique St. — the building where the fire started. He is expected to be charged with arson on Tuesday.” Fun place to hang out if you’re into weinie roasts.
3) Transit Workers Vote To Strike: There will be a strike by Montreal’s transit mechanics unless a deal can be worked out soon. 97 per cent of the union members who showed up at a secret ballot on Sunday voted in favour of walking out. There have been 18 meetings in four months between the union and the City in an effort to replace the previous collective agreement. The last time they walked out, back in 2003, Montreal was almost paralyzed. Millions of people who live, work and play in and around Montreal rely on transit to get them to and from the strippers and alcohol. Montreal is the most transit friendly city in Canada. The next meeting is scheduled for March 16. There was another meeting yesterday. This one was a gathering of Mayors from across Canada. They’re trying to get more cash for a lot of things out of the federal government. Cities are a Provincial responsibility and the Provinces have spent a decade downloading responsibilities to the Cities in an effort to balance Province budgets, but they haven’t been giving the Cities any extra cash to pay for any of the downloads. So now the Mayors are after the Prime Minister for $2B annually to pay for a “National Transit Strategy“… which would basically be guaranteed funding for trains, subways and buses. Apparently we’re the only G8 Country not to have one. Yes, Canada is a G8 country. The federal budget will be released in two weeks. There will be mucho bucks for environmental crap like buses… there is an election coming.
1) Iraqi Car Bomb: Initial reporting claimed 20 people were killed and 65 injured in a suicide attack. Despite this, NBC reported, relative peace seems to be breaking out in strange parts of Iraq. The cities of Hut and Ramadi are being pacified through a combination of large groups of US Marines and Iraqi soldiers with guns manning community outposts on almost every block, and cash handouts to community leaders and elders. A Colonel was quoted “the locals do not want us to leave. They’re not sure if we’re staying, but they want us to stay here and beat back the insurgents.”
2) Sadr City Pacification Program: Then there’s this wierdness. A large group consisting of the 82nd Airborne and Iraqi soldiers, walked into “Sadr City” — commonly referred to as “a Baghdad slum” — expecting to meet at least some resistance but found, instead, people outside enjoying their community as if it were Preston Street in downtown Toronto. Sadr City has aboot 2million residents, and until now they’ve all been in hiding. But Sadr has gone and taken his army and propaganda posters with him. There was even traffic. Cars on the street as people went to markets that hadn’t been open in months. A man, holding his three-year old daughter, even said he was happy to see the American troops because — in his words — it made him feel safer. What The Fuck Alternate Universe Is This?!? In December 254 murders were reported in Sadr City. In February it was 19. An Iraqi lieutenent said “they’re [Sadr’s Army] still here. They’re watching us.” An American soldier was then quoted saying something aboot if we can give these people some peace, maybe they’ll get used to it and want more. Which sounds pretty fucking logical to me.
3) Walter Reed Hospital: NBC chose this week to go back and report from Iraq. The problem with sending your A-Team off on assignment is that if something happens back home, you’re fucked. You lose. No one wants to watch someone else’s misery when their own is on TV. Plus, when you’re out in the field you don’t have the access to your editorial team you normally would and, basically, you become the distraction. So, to prove that it hadn’t gotten caught with no pants on at a pants on convention, NBC relegated the top story to third place. A little more than a month ago the Washington Post published some stories written by Dana Priest detailing some truly horrific conditions at America’s top military hospital, Walter Reed. At least one barracks housing soldiers recovering from wounds they received in Iraq and Afghanistan was infested with cockroaches, rats and mould. The story broke wide open when the television cameras got their own tour of the facility. Now generals have been fired, rehired, fired again.
If you’ve seen or read “All The President’s Men”, this could have been a replay. But only if the other side (re: politicians) hadn’t also seen or read “All The President’s Men” and learned the most important lesson the book / movie had to offer: blame the other guy, do it quickly, do it with authority, and do it as often as possible. Right now, and for the next few months, this scandal will have nothing to do with the soldiers. It has everything to do with deflection. Walter Reed Hospital didn’t fall apart last week, last month, last year or even ten years ago. Every single one of those fuckers elected to State or Federal Government is ultimately responsible for what’s going on at Walter Reed. The support network of the American Military has been — just like the Canadian, French, British and Australian militaries — neglected and falling apart since 1975. Which also happens to be the end of the Vietnam War. Ten years ago several hundred Canadian soldiers qualified for, and were receiving, welfare in order to support themselves and their families. While on active duty. The Americans, British and French have wonderful shiny weapons capable of doing awesome things but no western country has the ability, anymore, to care for thousands of returning injured and disabled veterans beyond the short term.
It will, and has already, come out that there has been a lot of incompetence bred into the health care support system in the American Military over the past two generations, simply because no one thought it would be needed over the long term on this scale. After Vietnam the system was proven to be broken, and there were cosmetic changes. For short term and even medium term use the system works and has worked. Soldiers get limbs replaced. They get their PTSD sorted out. But now, especially with long term head injuries, the system is being used the way it was intended to be used, as an actual War Time health care and rehabilitation treatment centre, and all of those years of neglect and misuse and abuse and… fuck. Fuck fuck fuckitty fuck fuck. Man, they really fucked up on this one. But the thing is, so has Canada, so has Australia, so has the UK, so has France, so have the Israeli’s, so have all the other Western nations who have let their militaries slide into complacency. It’s just that the rest of us haven’t had to deal with this shit on the scale of the Americans. Or we’ve been better at not letting reporters into sensitive areas… which seems more likely.
1) Walter Reed Officials Apologize: American VP Dick Cheney says it’ll all get fixed. Who am I to argue? Saying things like “American soldiers get the best care anywhere, period” is like saying “the average salary in the Canadian banking industry is $100,000 bucks.” Yeah, sure. Maybe. Probably. Okay. But my bank teller is not getting paid $100,000 so someone, somewhere is getting an awful lot more, and some American troops are getting the very best medical attention this planet has to offer. And some are living in roach infested shithole government barracks with no electricity. No one’s lying, and no one’s responsible. That’s how politics works. But there will be reforms. I’m sure some of this “broken medical infrastructure” bruhaha will get fixed in time for the invasion of Iran. Basically these are long term treatment centres that have had to be brought into the system in a hurry (the Army is either buying shitholes to make up for a lack of facilities, or they’re opening up previously condemned properties to handle the number of cases). There are a lot of people coming back walking and / or breathing from this war who, just five years ago, would have been dead under the worlds best private medical care.
2) Iraqi Violence Worsens: Just as the idea of Sadr City and Anbar Province being pacified was sinking into my skull… I was just aboot to smile when Jim stared at me and said the Iraqi car bomb reported in the NBC story as “hey, shit happens” was actually “the most violent attack in several days and followed the deployment of 1200 troops into Sadr City”. See, NBC reported the bomb as a “but”… as in “there was an explosion, BUT better things are happening”. PBS reported the bomb as an “AND”, as in cause and effect. The troops went into Sadr City AND as a result a suicide bomb went off. There was also a British led raid into a cop-shop in Basra where 30 Iraqi’s had been detained and tortured by Iraqi police.
3) Iraqi Cabinet Shakeup: Five of six supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr will be replaced as Iraqi PM Nouri al Maliki shuffles his cabinet. It’s part of a larger plan, which has always been the missing component to this FUBAR-ed mission. Fuck it. I’m falling to sleep.
1) Husband Confesses To Murder / Dismemberment: Some nut sack strangled his wife, took her body to the Tool & Die shop where he worked, sawed her into little bits, put the bits into Ziploc sandwich bags and dumped her all over a city park. Local 4 News spent twenty minutes on this story. They tracked down nannies, they filmed the children being moved from one family member to another, they spoke to some dude about how long it would take to strangle someone… apparently if you haven’t had a lot of practice it can take “several minutes”. Nut Sack, previously sane according to his neighbours, spent time getting evaluated in a mental facility. Now he’s in hospital being treated for hypothermia and frostbite from his, soon to be legendary, flight from the cops which involved a jogging-speed chase through the snow in a park. Nut Sack had been charged with 2nd Degree Murder but Nut Sack confessed today to two Detroit detectives in his hospital room and the charge was upgraded to 1st Degree Murder.
2) Night Cam Report — Fatal Shooting: NBC Detroit’s Local 4 News is a half hour broadcast. After 20 minutes on Nut Sack they only had ten left for the rest of Monday’s news, plus sports and weather. This was a, literally, 15 second bit on a “mentally challenged” guy getting smoked by a random dude with a shotgun blast to the chest while walking home from the corner store. The “reporter” sounded like an auctioneer at the apex of an eight-ball meth high.
3) Fire At A Restaurant: Some restaurant burned to the ground. That’s aboot as much time they gave it. The anchors at Local 4 are actually very professional and decent people who do a lot of community events. Thirty minutes is just not enough time to report on the insanity that is Detroit. It’s a million people living in a city with a burnt out core. There are parts of Detroit that resemble Bosnia pre-NATO. There is no centre to this city. It’s dying, dying, dying and almost dead. And thirty minutes a day of news — and even then it’s news aboot fucking crazy people doing fucking crazy things — is not enough to deal with the problems this city has. The CBS Detroit affiliate actually runs promo’s saying “No News Is Good News” because they’ve given up on having any newscast other than the national one at 6.30 with Katie Couric. Katie Couric is the only news many people get in Detroit. Katie. Couric. W. T. F.?!?
1) Chaotic Winter Accident: There was a 75-car accident on Highway 400 near Bradford, Ontario on Monday just north of Toronto. The 400 is one of the busiest highways in the world. Visibility in the area had been reduced to less than two feet due to a winter storm. People had to escape from a burning bus, a car had been crushed between two semi-trucks and a woman went into labour after crashing her car. The story quoted an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer “visibility was poor to none. I’ve had twenty years on and I’ve never seen one this bad.” One person had undefined “life threatening” injuries, but that was it for serious injuries.
2) Sheets Of Ice Fall On Toronto: We’ve had two major storms in Ontario — basically the East Coast of North America was hit twice in a week by some harsh winter weather — the one late last week left the CN Tower covered in sheets of ice. Until yesterday, when they started to fall off. So giant ice cubes started falling on downtown Toronto from 3000 feet in the air. Exciting day in The Big Smoke. Police closed off the major thouroughfare through the downtown, the Gardiner Expressway, and the financial district around Bay and King Streets. Some of the Ice Bombs were the size of cars. There was one panel still stuck up there during the broadcast that was estimated to be 200 feet high and forty to sixty feet wide. The CN Tower, by the way, remains the worlds tallest freestanding structure, and there’s a glass floor at the very tippy-top. And a rotating restaurant. Very nice menu. And the restaurant rotates.
3) Canadian ATM Fees: Canadians pay some of the highest banking fees in the world. There’s an election coming up, probably this year — we don’t have set dates or term limits yet, we will by 2009 though. Last year the five major Canadian banks had a combined profit of $19B, that’s the gross. The five CEO’s made a combined $56M. They also raked in $420M in bank machine profits. My accounts are with Scotiabank. If I only use Scotia bank machines to do my banking I only get charged my monthly fee. I think I get 50 free transactions per month. If I use a Royal Bank bank machine I’m charged a $1.50 service fee. There are also “White Boxes”, these are bank machines owned and operated by independents. They look like the real banks, but they’re just regular folks. If I use their machine they get to charge me $1.50 per transaction, but my bank also gets another $1.50. The thing is, the five major Canadian banks can be independent operators. So the incentive for them is to put an “independently owned” White Box into every 7-11 and Mac’s Milk in Canada and charge us $3 for every transaction, which, really, they also bill us for at the end of the month. So our Finance Minister, Joe Flaherty, is having a series of chats with the banks. No one really expects anything to change. If you’re an American none of this will make sense because you hardly pay any banking fees at all. Same if you’re European or British, but we pay aboot a buck for a litre of gas and you’re paying around $6/litre and you have to pay to drive downtown so fuck you, you smug Limey Frog bastards.
Bonus Track — Obesity Causing Premature Puberty In Girls: Great. Now I’ve got a cough. Fuck. People have been wondering for a while now what’s with girls hitting puberty at nine-years old? I think the first time it was written aboot in the mainstream press was a Time Magazine cover story back in… 1999? I know I still have it somewhere. I collect news magazines. Anyway. A study has come out linking early puberty to having a high Body Mass Index. Basically if a girl is heavier than she’s “supposed” to be she’ll get The Boobies real early. The reporter went on to hammer someone’s point home by saying “girls would develop their period, breast growth, increase their chances for breast cancer later on, as well as an increased chance for alcohol and drug abuse”. I can remember the Time article being really delicate aboot talking aboot young children becoming physically sexualized. Things haven’t changed. Anyway… it was a preliminary study. They still haven’t really looked into the actual food or chemical issues yet. Surely it can’t be the oceans of synthetic estrogen we’re swimming in… did you know that when plastics break down the chemicals can fool male frogs into developing ovaries? The frogs do.
If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
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I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
Die Mannequin: Canadian “Autumn Cannibalist”; ‘How To Kill’ [Digital EP] (2006)
Canadians think sporting events are so nice we like to watch them twice. And three times. And maybe four in a row. Then sixteen times from every conceivable angle. Okay nineteen is too much. Slowed down. In reverse. Frame by single frame.
And now, thanks to a Canadian named George Retzlaff, the whole world can enjoy Instant Replay. George invented Instant Replay back in 1955 while working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) “Hockey Night In Canada” (HNIC). George used a new “hot processor” technique to develop a kinescope (film) recording of a goal which was then rebroadcast within thirty seconds for “instant” replay.
Every sport played on this earth today — except maybe the “Afghanistan Professional Buzkashi League” — uses George’s Instant Replay in some form.
George was born in Kiel, Germany and moved to Saskatchewan when he was six. In 1953, at the tender age of 30 — and just a few months after CBC started broadcasting — he became head of CBC Sports and producer of HNIC.
He produced and directed HNIC for aboot 20 years and devised many of the techniques and camera angles still used in most televised sporting events around the world today. In 1973, George became the original recipient of hockey’s Foster Hewitt Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting. He retired from the CBC in 1984. George died August 5, 2003, survived by seven children from his two marriages, 20 grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
0_o
cultural sn:afu 