Conservative Theory that Trudeau is Going for the Stoner Vote

I began to read this opinion piece online from the "Star Phoenix", and before the first paragraph was done, I was already getting that "right wing nutjob" vibe from the author, Les MacPherson.

I didn't know this until I checked the internet, but yes, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix is owned by the same group as the right wing National Post.  So there is a good chance this is purposeful conservative propaganda.

Breaking down the article to its basic arguments and assumptions:

- Justin Trudeau (Liberal Leader) is promising to legalize pot in order to capture the all important stoner vote.

- Stoners will hate legalization, (if it happens) as government meddling will make pot more expensive and less appealing.

- Dealers will hate legalization, as they will be put out of business by excessive government regulation and taxing.

- Trudeau will not legalize marijuana anyway, he is only lying.  Hypocritical liberal governments do more marijuana busts than conservative governments.

- Conclusion: Trudeau should wait until the US legalizes marijuana before doing anything.

- Recommendation (implied): Don't vote for Trudeau, as he is a hypocrite and a Socialist, (if that is not too redundant)


Seems like an inoffensive article, but there are some underlying right-wing assumptions that I do not accept.

- The negative stereotyping and use of the pejorative name stoner.  Why are conservatives always stereotyping people????  OOOPS now I'm stereotyping.  Anyway, it's true.

- The assumption that all the people who want marijuana legalized are stoners, and only stoners want marijuana legalized.  That is not true, as many "non-stoners" believe that decriminalizing marijuana will boost our economy.  (a non-stoner is the opposite of what a stoner is supposed to be in this article, I have no other definition for it).

- The assumption that if the government gets involved in the marijuana business, things will fall apart.  This is dumb, even from a conservative free market point of view.  OK, we need a short lesson in right wing free enterprise.  ILLEGAL activities are not free enterprise.  LEGAL activities are not automatically "government run". By Les MacPherson's logic, black market gasoline would be cheaper and more potent than legal pump gas. I don't think so.

- Les's conclusion is typical of your basic Canadian Conservative:  Wait until the US does it, on the assumption that, except for Obama, the US is always right.

Were Humans Used in Nutritional Experiments in the1940's?

On the CBC news this morning, I heard a newscaster make some disturbing allegations.  Apparently, nutritional researchers withheld food from hungry aboriginal children in residential schools in Canada, in order to study the effects of malnutrition.

I had already heard about the previous scandal, an experiment where researchers apparently gave vitamin and mineral supplements to some, but not all aboriginal schoolchildren.  To me, that did not seem as bad as withholding food from starving children.

I am not trying to make excuses for things that were done a long time ago.  I understand there was a lot more racism back then, in fact there is still a lot today, but at least it is not as overt.  There was also a different attitude towards corporal punishment of children.  We don't have the death penalty in Canada today, but we did then.  Experiments used to be performed on human beings, not just aboriginals either.  Check out Donald Ewen Cameron on Wikipedia, doing experiments with shock therapy and drugs, resulting in death of human test subjects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ewen_Cameron

So it seems the ethical aspect of human experiments has come a long way since the fifties, in that we are much more careful about obtaining "Consent" of the subjects, and when we finally do the experiments, it is done with proper procedures and documentation, ensuring that we actually get some scientific benefit from the experiment.

Here is what the "Idle No More" (an Aboriginal activist) website posted about the situation, as quoted from the Canadian Press, under the title "HUNGRY ABORIGINAL PEOPLE USED IN BUREAUCRATS' EXPERIMENTS".  This title appears also on the CBC website, and many others.

http://www.idlenomore.ca/hungry_aboriginal_people_used_in_bureaucrats_experiments

If they withheld food from half of a group of starving children do see if they would die faster than a control group that got the regular rations, then that was evil by any standard.

If they gave minerals and vitamin supplements unknowingly to half the group, to see if there were any benefits to their health or mental states, without cutting back in any way on the food they were getting already, then the bureacrats and researchers were not evil, they were simply not acting according to modern standards on human research.

From the article above:

"The first experiment began in 1942 on 300 Norway House Cree. Of that group, 125 were selected to receive vitamin supplements which were withheld from the rest.
At the time, researchers calculated the local people were living on less than 1,500 calories a day. Normal, healthy adults generally require at least 2,000."

According to this, all the natives in some communities were basically going hungry, not just the children in residential schools. Instead of providing more food to the communities, the researchers gave selected people vitamin supplements.  If all the natives were hungry, that brings up many other questions about how they were fed, who was responsible for feeding them, and why were they not hunting/fishing/gathering berries, or otherwise using traditional sources of food?  None of that was mentioned in the article, although it seems familiar, just from Canadian and US history, and movies.

Here is another quote:

"One school deliberately held milk rations for two years to less than half the recommended amount to get a 'baseline' reading for when the allowance was increased."

If true, it would surely be a criminal act, even by the loose standards of 1947. But, I notice it does not say the rations were "cut", only "held".  Does that mean it was already normal practice to give half the recommended amount of milk?  Why?  Who set the recommended amount in the first place?

"At another, children were divided into one group that received vitamin, iron and iodine supplements and one that didn't."

Sounds reasonable for 1947.

"One school depressed levels of vitamin B1 to create another baseline before levels were boosted."

Did people know what vitamin B1 was in 1947?  If so how was the level depressed, by withholding food?  Was it in pill form?

"A special enriched flour that couldn't legally be sold elsewhere in Canada under food adulteration laws was used on children at another school."

This actually doesn't sound too evil, as I think we now basically use enriched flour everywhere and think nothing of it. It is your basic white  "Wonder Bread".  Of course if the illegal enriched flour had proven fatal, that would have been a bad thing.

"Many dental services were withdrawn from participating schools during that time. Gum health was an important measuring tool for scientists and they didn't want treatments on children's teeth distorting results."

If true, that is a crime, unless the treatments that were being withheld were also experimental.  In which case it's the opposite of a crime.  The actual treatments that were withheld are not specified.

"They knew from the beginning that the real problem and the cause of malnutrition was underfunding. That was established before the studies even started and when the studies were completed that was still the problem."

Studies in nutrition are not simple, because even when people have enough money and access to food, they can still be malnourished.  You need to have a healthy balanced diet, and not all people understand what a healthy diet is, or want to eat it.  You can be obese and still  suffer from nutritional deficiencies.  You cannot drink Coke and eat potato chips your whole life without serious side effects, not that I am suggesting anyone in 1947 would do that.  But you also cannot easily force people to eat a healthy diet.

Biker's Guide to Cobourg, Ontario

Yesterday Mary Ann and I visited Cobourg Ontario. Cobourg is a small town on Lake Ontario.  It has a spectacular old town hall, and a historic district with several buildings that look like they were put up in the 1800's.  It is also on the beach, and even has a campground right on the beach. With all the outdoor cafes, it is my favourite kind of town to visit.  We both went on my Kawasaki Vulcan 900.

In theory, we live only two hours away from Cobourg, but we had never been there before.  That's because Cobourg is on the other (east) side of Toronto.  There is no easy way to get through Toronto, so if I want to just go for a drive and visit some random town, it will be one that is west of Toronto.  After living in Kitchener for 33 years, I know south western Ontario quite well, but south eastern Ontario is unexplored territory. The only way to cross Toronto is either the 401 or the 407. The 401 is up to 12 lanes of insane drivers stuck in senseless traffic jams that go on for miles.  The 407 is a less frantic alternative, but it is toll road, and oddly ends nowhere.

We chose to visit Cobourg because we went to see some people who live there. We also got to see a beach volleyball tournament, and the annual Great Pine Ridge classic car show.  I was amazed by the number of restored cars I had not seen before.  Our hosts had an old Commer camper van entered in the show.  Here is a link to the show, and an entry on Wikipedia for Commer in case you have never heard of this old British manufacturer.

http://acccc.ca/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=66

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commer

I didn't have my camera, but there are a lot of great pictures of Cobourg here
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=205642

The weather forecast for the entire day was 50% chance of precipitation, in isolated thunderstorms.  So I brought along my good luck charm against thunderstorms, the smartphone with weather radar on it.  Despite all the wet weather we have had this year, so far I have not driven into a heavy rain storm.  The drive to Cobourg in the morning had no traffic jams, and no rain.  Apparently about half the vintage cars skipped the show because of the threat of rain.  It didn't matter to me, as approximately one hundred cars did show up.  With Mary Ann, who can take or leave old cars, (mostly leave actually), and other things to do like beach volleyball, visiting the marina, and reading historical plaques in downtown Cobourg, the extra cars were not missed.

We left at 8 PM for the ride back to Kitchener.  There were three problems.  It was getting dark, there were isolated rain storms around, and the traffic would be much worse.  In Toronto, we got stuck in a half hour long traffic jam when some rain started.  But we still were reasonably dry, even without putting on our rain outfits.  I guess with the windshield, the clothes I was wearing were kind of water resistant.  When we finally got out of Toronto, I wanted to stop and check the weather radar, but I missed our first opportunity, which is Milton. The next place to check the radar would be Morriston, but before Morriston my luck ran out and went through the middle of a heavy rainstorm.  It is bad to get a lot of rain at night, on a freeway, riding a motorcycle, without proper rain gear on. We were doing all those things. By the time we reached Morriston my boots were filled with water and I was leaving a trail of wet footprints wherever I walked.  The rest of me wasn't too wet, even though I forgot to close the vents on my jacket.  It was cold in Tim Hortons, but warm enough outside on the road.  When I finally checked the radar, the rain had passed, so I zipped up my vents, put on the wet gloves, and was home by midnight.  The gear is still drying out.

It will probably be quite a while before we visit the unknown side of Ontario again. South Eastern Ontario is a great place to go motorcycling, probably a great place to live, but Toronto remains a formidable barrier for us western people.

Picture: A CL16 sailing in front of Cobourg marina.  I saw lots of CL16s at the sailing club. I got the picture here:
http://lucparent.wordpress.com/page/2/

I Do Not Know Brian Mulroney, But I Voted For Him

Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada from 1983 to 1993, was born in Baie Comeau, Quebec.  Coincidentally so was I, but I was never Prime Minister of Canada.

I have said in my blog that I voted Conservative twice, both of those were for Brian Mulroney. (not in the same election, of course)  I used to be a lot more conservative back then, than I appear to be today.  Partly because I have changed a little, but more because of the extremism on the right in the USA, which spills over into Canada.

Although Brian Mulroney was elected democratically twice, by the time his last term was finished, Canadians hated the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada so much that the party no longer exists today. When I took a vacation in Saint Lucia in 1992, Mulroney's reputation had sunk very low.  A local street vendor approached me to buy some coconuts, and somehow it slipped out that I was Canadian.  He offered me his condolences, because we had such a horrible Prime Minister.

St Lucia was not the first time I had problems with Brian Mulroney's reputation.  When I was teaching in Sept-Iles QC, in 1973-75, Brian Mulroney was the CEO of the Iron Ore Company of Canada, and Sept Iles was a one-company town built by IOC.  The teachers on staff knew that both of us were from Baie Comeau, which was located not very far away.  Brian was in the process of shutting down the IOC's biggest iron mine, which did not sit well with the townspeople.  So I got several comments associating me with Brian, which was not true, as I never knew him or even attended the same school with him.  And anyway, he was ten years older than me.

When Brian became Prime Minister, all of a sudden Baie Comeau went from being a quiet unknown backwater town to being a well known town nationally.  Before this, if someone asked where I was from, I could say Baie Comeau, and generally receive blank stares in response.  When  Brian campaigned for prime minister, he made a very big deal being a "boy from Baie Comeau".  So after that successful campaign, whenever it came out where I was from, I was always asked if I knew Brian Mulroney.  And as time went on, and Brian became more and more hated, I felt a greater need to distance myself from him, pointing out that I always lived on Laval St. while Brian lived on Champlain St. The notoriety has died down a lot, but today I occasionally have this same reaction from people who find out where I live.  Canadians apparently have long memories.

Compared to today's conservatives, I think he was a good prime minister.  But there was the GST tax, that I suppose most people still blame him for.  I don't feel the GST was a bad tax, as it replaced a hidden tax. But many Canadians think differently.  On the other hand, he initiated the Acid Rain pact with the USA, that effectively put a stop to the acid rain pollution in the eighties.  Brian also spoke out against South Africa in the international campaign to stop apartheid.  Brian also brought in the Free Trade pact between Canada and the USA, which has given us prosperity even up to today.  Yes, I know Canadians love to complain about how poor we are, but that's because Canadians don't get out much, and half our brains, and all our asses are frozen in winter.  That's the simple excuse for our stupidity.

Long after Brian Mulroney left office, we found out that he had accepted bribes from an aircraft manufacturer to buy their merchandise.

Back when Brian was debating Liberal John Turner in the first election, it was all about appointing political friends to the senate (as it is again today).  During the debate, Brian pointed out all the recent dubious Liberal appointees to the senate (made by the previous leader Trudeau) and asked why John Turner did not cancel them.  Turner Replied that he had no option.

Brian replied

"You had an option, sir. You could have said, 'I am not going to do it. This is wrong for Canada, and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price.' You had an option, sir--to say 'no' — and you chose to say 'yes' to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Mulroney#Party_leader

Picture:  http://historyofthegreatwhitenorth.blogspot.ca/2011/05/brian-mulroney-boy-from-baie-comeau.html

Mike Duffy Discussion on CBC

On the CBC last night I watched Power & Politics with Evan Solomon.  They had a panel discussing the Mike Duffy affair.  In this case, Senator Mike Duffy accepted a gift of $90,000 from the Conservative Prime Minister's Chief of Staff.

In the panel discussion, I thought there was a lot of unwarranted support for Mike Duffy. Maybe they were even handed because the CBC is afraid of losing its government funding.  But in my mind, and the mind of 97% of Canadians, this gift was against the law, which clearly says senators cannot accept gifts.

I do not accept the excuses given.

1.  That the gift came out of the personal pocket of the Chief of Staff makes no difference to the law.

2.  A second argument was that the gift was simply to cover the money that Mike Duffy was forced to repay the government from a previous scandal involving expenses.  This is a red herring.

3.  That Mike Duffy is sick, (possibly dying??) and is trying to protect his estate from a huge debt load.  While of course I have some human sympathy on this, it really should not enter the debate, as Evan Solomon mentioned last night.

4. The rules are confusing.

There is a reason why Senators are not allowed to accept gifts, and that is to protect our government from corruption in office.  I know people try to get around this law all the time, but that makes it even more important to protect this principal of our political system.  Why are we even debating it?  Might as well just end this farce of democracy right now, if that's what we really think.  Luckily, most Canadians are not yet stupid enough to let it go.

Mike Duffy has a questionable history, too.  He was once a journalist, who helped the conservatives get elected a few years ago.  He aired a show that made Liberal leader Stephan Dion look foolish, days before the election.  After Dion lost the election, Duffy was awarded the position of Senator by the Conservative leader Stephen Harper (who won the election).

It seems that Mike Duffy's ethics and principles are just as weak as a senator as they were as a journalist. He never really seemed to understand that this political position was not just a reward for underhanded political hacksterism. A senator in the federal government has certain responsibilities, and is actually governed by a code of ethics, even though I suppose many people treat it as a joke in Canada, where senators are not elected.  But Mike Duffy seems to understand very little of the requirements of his post.  And I believe some of the blame goes back to Stephen Harper, who once promised to eliminate the Senate, but now pads it with ignorant sycophants.


Picture: http://www.leaderpost.com/news/Auditor+general+take+over+senate+probe/7962385/story.html

A Day in Toronto

Our nephew, Andrew Moir, had a film he made called "Just as I Remember" showing at the "Hot Docs" film festival in Toronto.  Hot Docs is a festival for documentary films, and although it is smaller than the Toronto International Film Festival (or TIFF), it is still quite a big deal by our standards, showing about 250 documentary films.  A link to the IMDB synopsis of Andrew's film is here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2212234/

Since December 2011, there has been a commuter train, called the GO train, that runs from Kitchener to Toronto.  We both like rail travel, even though we rarely travel that way in North America. So we decided to try it out.  There are only two trains a day from Kitchener running into Toronto, the last one being 7:07 AM.  Convenient for commuters, not so good for tourists going to a 4:00 PM movie, but .. oh well.  At least we can walk to the train station from our house.  And the train is a double decker, so I imagined the view from the top would be pretty good.  Actually, the upper deck is not really that high, as the lower deck is near the ground.  Also, the tracks do not often run at ground level, so I never got much of a feeling of being up high except when we were next to the station.  But it was fun seeing the back yards of all these houses and businesses on the way in to Toronto.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchener_line

Paying for the train was a learning experience.  As it is a commuter train, apparently they do not have a person selling tickets at the train station. (machines are no good, because we need to ask dumb questions)  So a few days earlier, we went to the Kitchener bus station, where we ended up buying a "Presto Card" pass.  This card is loaded with a certain amount of money, and each time you make a trip, you touch the card to a reader to get on, and then touch it again to get off.  If you forget to touch it getting on, you can be fined, if they catch you.  If you forget to touch getting off, your card will continue to pay for the train that you are no longer on, until the card is worthless.  OK, a little bit scary, but we can handle it.  We loaded up our two cards with exactly the amount of money for a return trip to Toronto.  When we got to the train station, we found out, by watching other people, where the Presto card tapping post was (not on the train, but on the platform!). Then we walked to the place where the front car would be, thinking we would get a good view.  This was a long walk, because the train has ten double decker cars, but because it also has two separate locomotive engines, we could not see to the front, and we couldn't even give the driver advice.

The complications continue.  We needed to return abut 9 PM, but the last train would have already left.  But GO Busses keep running, so the last bus back to Kitchener would be around 11 PM, although we would need a transfer at Mississauga.  Although this setup seemed complicated, we went ahead with the plan.  But then we met another nephew at the film, who offered us a ride home, so our Presto Passes are still left with about $15 each unused on them.  But that money can be used at a later date if we want to go to Toronto again.  (and we probably do.)

It was a misty day in Toronto on April 29, but we never got caught in any rain.  We arrived at Union Station about 9:00 and immediately compromised our health by going to Cinnebon for coffee and one of those things that cinnebon sells.  (I just call it a cinnebon, but I'm sure it has a name).  I always go there on my way to the December motorcycle show, it's a hard habit to break when you smell the cinnebons baking.  Then Mary Ann wanted to see the Skywalk, going from Union Station to the Convention Centre.  Across from the Convention Centre, is the Roundhouse Park.  It is an outdoor museum of trains, and in the actual roundhouse is the Steamwhistle Brewery, with free beer and $10 brewery tours.  Unfortunately they did not open until 12:00, and we had other things to see.  It only took about 20 minutes walking from Union Station to the Entertainment District, where the film was playing later at the TIFF Lightbox Theatre. So to kill more time, we walked about 20 minutes further to see the Kensington Market. Mary Ann likes markets, so this was a good walk, as we also passed through Chinatown on the way to Kensington.

The Kensington Market is not one big market building, it is an area covering several blocks around Kensington Avenue, where there are lots of little businesses. As you turn the corner from Dundas onto Kensington, you are instantly struck by the funkiness of it all.  And actually Dundas is quite funky, too, but in a different way, as it is still Chinatown.  Kensington has graffiti, narrow streets, motorcycles, bicycles and scooters parked everywhere. Many people look like they are either from the fifties, or possible from some alternate post apocalyptic universe.  And this is still early Monday morning.

In the afternoon, we met up with some of Mary Ann's family who had come to see the film.  The theatre was normal size, I don't know why I expected it to be a small screening room.  And surprisingly (to me) it looked about 3/4 full, or maybe more.  Not just family members either.  They mostly went to the Saturday showing, which was sold out.  That's why we had to go Monday. Andrew's film was under 20 minutes, but was being shown together with a longer documentary, so it felt like watching a normal length movie.

So now we are home again, and with our partly used Presto cards, we will find it much easier to plan our next outing to Toronto.

Trudeau vs. Harper About Bombers

Canada's Federal Liberal Party has a new leader, Justin Trudeau, son of the famous Pierre Trudeau who was Prime minister of Canada during the seventies.

Already, it looks like there is a battle between the present Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and Justin Trudeau.

The opening salvo, fired by the Conservatives, was a round of attack ads, taking Justin's words, quoting him as saying "Quebecers are better than the rest of Canadians."*  And the ads continue on to say "Trudeau is in over his head."

Now back to real life, and hours after the bombing of the Boston Marathon, Justin says in a CBC interview, (in part) "we have to look at the root causes".

Was Justin's comment an attack on the Prime Minister?  Whether it was an attack or not, it did draw return fire from the Prime Minister. A few hours later, then Stephen made a statement that people should not be sitting around rationalizing or making excuses for bombers.  All we should do is make sure we have harsh punishments.

And now the ball was in Justin's court.  He could back down and apologise to the Prime Minister. Or he could ignore the jibe.  Or, I guess he could tell the Prime Minister to shut up and mind his own business.  What did Justin do?

Justin said [something like] the Prime Minister should rethink how far he wants to go in politicizing tragedies.

This really got the Conservatives fired up, and there were counter-counter attacks on the CBC program "Power Politics with Evan Solomon".  On that show, the NDP (Now Canada's official opposition party) jumped in on the side of the Conservatives, saying an apology from Justin Trudeau to Stephen Harper would be nice.

This is not over yet.

There is obviously some kind of school yard fight going on.  The new guy has shown his face in the playground, and words get exchanged with Stephen, the kid with the biggest entourage.  Some might call him the bully. So the way you view this altercation will depend on your view of Stephen Harper.  I personally am leaning toward cheering on Justin.  He has certainly shown willingness to stand up for himself.  But can he also be disciplined and in control of his emotions?  In my opinion, the worst he could do would be to apologise for that simple statement.  Because it is actually true that we need to look at what might be motivating these psychopaths.  Yes, you heard that right.  Even psychopaths have some kind of motivation.  And it is possible to know what it is, and we need need to know what it is. Harsh punishments cannot be the only answer.  A Liberal must not apologise for supporting a scientific approach.


* P.S. Is it true that A. Quebecers are better than the rest of Canadians? B. Justin really said that?

As I was born in Quebec I am inclined to agree with A. although it may not be a good thing for a politician to say publicly.  But it seems that for B. the answer is no, that is not what Justin said.  The conservatives edited a sentence in order to isolate those words.  I think that tells you a lot more about the tactics of Conservatives than it does about Justin Trudeau.

Picture: Photoshop job by "The Lost Motorcyclist"

The Royal Bank Foreign Worker Project Goes Too Far

There is a story creating some concern in Canada, about our biggest bank, the Royal Bank of Canada, hiring foreign workers to replace Canadian workers.  All by itself, this would not be enough to cause outrage, as we have been doing this for years. But now there is a combination of circumstances that could make this "the straw that broke the camel's back".

- Canadians are aware that good jobs have been shipped overseas for many years: Computer jobs, phone answering jobs, manufacturing jobs. I don't know how many jobs have gone overseas, but I am aware of many local industries and offices that have simply closed down.  I think it is widespread enough to harm our economy, if not now, sometime in the future.  We know jobs pay a lot lower wages overseas than in Canada, and I guess we understand why.

- Canadians may not be aware that many jobs even in Canada are filled by foreign workers on temporary visas.  Over 100,000 in 2001 growing to over 300,000 in 2012.  It used to make sense, because these are mostly jobs we don't care for such as fruit picking.  They are supposed to pay Canadian wages, though really it's not, because Canadians apparently cannot afford to work for those wages any more.

- There are also high tech jobs, or skilled jobs that not enough Canadians are trained for.  I personally know at least one person who was recruited overseas to work in Canada in such a job.  I think there is a need for a limited amount of this type of recruiting.  These jobs are also supposed to pay Canadian wages.

But this is just too much: Unskilled foreign workers on temporary visas, replacing Canadian workers, at a lower salary, in Canada, recruited to do a job that some Canadians have invested their own time and money at University and college to qualify for.  I don't care if it's a mistake, or a loophole, or an accident, or any other excuse. If this continues, even the CEO's job may be outsourced.  After all, it would improve the corporation profits by $10,000,000 per year (the CEO salary, minus whatever we have to pay the replacement on a temporary CEO work visa).  The resulting executive decisions couldn't be any more short sighted.

I am somewhat at fault myself, as a shareholder in the Royal Bank.  And so the only decent thing to do is begin divesting shares in favour of some company that does not outsource its jobs, if there are any left.

Already, we have a case in Canada going before the court, where Chinese temporary workers were hired by a Chinese mining company to work in a mine in Canada.  Once again, it was a combination of circumstances.  As I understand it, the Chinese company bought mining rights in Canada.  The Canadian government assumed that there would be jobs for Canadians in the deal.  The Chinese company put out help wanted ads, but no Canadian miners qualified, so they were forced to bring in Chinese workers on "temporary" work visas.  Is appears that one of the requirements listed for the job was fluency in speaking Mandarin.

I looked up some of the facts in the Globe and Mail article here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/ottawa-pushes-for-answers-as-uproar-over-rbc-outsourcing-gains-volume/article10870961/

Picture: From a foreign worker application support website
http://www.routleylaw.com/immigration-legal-services-overview/

Even More Stuff You Can't Say in Canada

While Googling "Seven things that you can't say in Canada" I stumbled across this one by Joel Johannesen.

http://boldcolors.net/things_you_cant_say_in_canada_but_i_do_all_the_time_and_so_should_you/#comments

He lists the seven by Margaret Wente, then adds 16 of his own.  If you didn't know Joel already, you might be forgiven for thinking he was American, as the banner at the top of the blog is an American flag, and the title "Bold Colors" is spelled in the American way.  But he has another blog with the Canadian maple leaf, called "PTBC" or "Proud to be Canadian".  I was wondering if that really should read "PTBAPTBC" or "proud to be American pretending to be Canadian", just because the 16 things Joel says make him sound like he is American.

I am not trying to bash Americans here, but as a Canadian, I do feel that there are some slight differences between Canadians and Americans.  Subtle differences in speech patterns, in some political beliefs, in the sense of humour.  Slight differences, enough to be of interest to Canadians, at least. So I was wondering if I could analyse one of these statements to figure out if Joel was really an American who (possibly) had recently moved to Canada, or a born Canadian who had moved to Alabama when he was three but still claims Canadian status. Or just a American born again Christian with a fake Canadian identity in order to better push a right wing agenda.

According to one of Joel's websites, http://joeljohannesen.com/about-joel-johannesen/ in 1978 he was working for the Trudeau Liberals, and shows a picture, presumably of him wearing a moustache standing almost next to Pierre Trudeau.  Joel does not actually say where he was born, but he claims to currently reside near Vancouver B.C. So if that's true, his liberal beliefs have undergone a fairly major change. It can happen. I know someone who worked for the NDP in the seventies and now has many of the same beliefs as Joel - but not all - and more importantly, my friend does not vote Conservative, and did not become a Born Again Christian (yet).  Also, I have a sister who became a Born Again Christian and holds most of the same beliefs as Joel, but even she would not say hockey sucks.  And neither would any Canadian who knows when Henderson scored that goal.  So Joel's case of brainwashing is extreme, if he has actually lived all or most of his life in Canada.

Let me take one thing Joel says, and see if it can be analysed to discover whether he is Canadian or not Canadian .  He says:

“Whereas Canada is founded upon the principles that recognize the supremacy of God” is the first line in our Constitution.

Does this sound like something a Canadian would ever say?  Frankly I had no idea that this was the first line of the constitution, in fact I was not really sure Canada had a constitution, even though I went to a Canadian high school and was a history teacher. But as a Canadian, I would be willing to at least look it  up on Wikipedia.  First, the Canadian constitution was not yet written when I went to high school, and not even when I was teaching history. Also, that is not really the first line of the constitution, unless "and the rule of law" doesn't count.  I'm glad the writers of our constitution (whoever they may be) saw fit to include "the rule of law".  And that later on, these people also included a bit about Canadians being free to have any God they want. Also, the reason that we include the words  "recognize the supremacy of God" is  because of a campaign by American-backed Evangelicals when the Canadian constitution was written.  Canadians are the sort of people who make compromises and let everybody put in their own ideas, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. Also, as of 2013, not all the provinces of Canada have ratified the Constitution, which also apparently doesn't bother Canadians too much.

But Joel's statement is not something I would ever expect to hear out of the mouth of a Canadian. It implies that Canadians have a near-religious respect for our constitution.  That is one a major difference between Canadians and Americans. Americans have a constitution which they worship, and is drummed into them in school. Canadians do not do that.  Secondly, Joel's statement is not even correct, as he cut off the last part of the sentence, which is the only part that all Canadians would actually agree on - I mean recognizing the supremacy of rule of law.  As Pierre Trudeau said "I don't think God cares if He is in the Canadian constitution."  And if that's how God feels, I'm with Him.

Picture:  I propose a simple test to separate Canadians from Americans.  Answer the question "who is in this picture?"
A. Mike Duffy, senator from Prince Edward Island
B. Svend Robinson, Canada's first openly gap Member of Parliament
C. Maurice Richard, hockey player
D. The "God" mentioned in the first line of Canada's constitution.
E. The correct answer is C and D

(Correction that should read "gay")

Anne of Green Gables Goes Blonde, Press goes Wild

Controversial cover

Tess Benger

Yesterday I was looking up places to visit in PEI, because Mary Ann and I would like to go there by motorcycle one day, and her sister has a cottage on the island.  So I started by looking up Mike Duffy's** address, and I thought we could pop in and say hello.  And since he lives in Cavendish, just a stone's throw from "Green Gables", where Anne of Green Gables lived, I put a pushpin on that location too.

But then, later that night a story broke (actually two stories), one about Mike Duffy not actually living in PEI, and the other about Anne of Green Gables being turned into a trollop.

I believe there may be something to the Mike Duffy Story, but a minimum amount of Googling indicates to me that the Anne of Green Gables story is the usual bu**sh** that comes through in the news all the time without any fact checking.

This is how Anne's story was presented in the press.  A new edition of the book Anne of Green Gables" is coming out, but the girl on the cover looks like a blonde sexpot instead of our impish red-haired, skinny and pigtailed 10-year old Anne.  As one commenter put it "The book is Anne of Green Gables, not Anne Does Green Gables".  And there were thousands of other similar comments.

Megan Follows as Anne

But here is what I found out.  The book is published in "Createspace", a website where all you need is an email ID to create a book.  Usually, these books are made with your own writing, not the writings of others, but these days, who writes their own stuff any more?  (Well, I do, and I'm The Lost Motorcyclist, and if you are reading this in another blog, it means my work has been stolen.  Once again.)  But I digress, let's get back to Anne of Green Gables.  The book Anne of Green Gables has been in the public domain for many years, and so apparently anybody can copy all the words off the internet, then paste them into their "own" book, slap on a cover page using the free graphic tools provided by Createspace.  Then wait for somebody to buy a copy.

So, there is no "Publishing Company" involved in the traditional sense.  More likely one person.  And there is no run of books to be printed, as it is all "print on demand".  There are no up front royalties paid, no advances, no expense accounts.

The only worry is that the image of Anne and Green Gables still belongs to the heirs of the author.

But who is the girl on the new cover?  Was she Googled and copied from some farm girl porn site?  I think she actually looks a lot like the actress playing Anne in the latest production of Anne of Green Gables, Tess Benger.  To me they look about the same.  So really the only heinous crime involved was not putting on Tess Benger's fake red wig with pigtails, and the possibly sexy pose.  Or maybe people should get worked up about choosing Tess Benger for the role in the first place.

Pictures: One is Megan Follows, one of the most well known actresses to play Anne Shirley.  Another is Tess Benger.  And the third is the "new edition" of the book with the controversial cover, that I think might be Tess Benger.

** Mike Duffy: Famous Canadian news commentator turned senator, currently mired in a controversy about whether or not he lives in P.E.I., the province he is supposed to represent.  He is not related to me in any way.

Technology Could Make Canada as Liveable as Arizona

We have just had a really cold few days in Canada. Actually, it was almost like what we used to call "winter". It's time for the "Lost Motorcyclist" (i.e. me) to reflect on how the winter affects us in Canada.

With effective interior heating, Canada has become a much more comfortable country to live in.  At least, I imagine it is, because I have never lived in a house without central heat in the winter - although we did have a coal fired furnace when I was young, it was still "central" heating, with a square heat duct coming up from the basement furnace room to a massive grate in the living room hallway.  But after it belched flames into our home a few times, my mother insisted on replacing with an oil burner.

The next step in fighting cold in the winter after houses, was making heated cars almost universal and clearing and salting all the roads. Back in the early fifties, apparently the province of Quebec did not bother clearing roads between towns.  I say apparently, because we didn't have any provincial roads coming into town anyway.  Or a car. Now, in the winter time most people either stay inside, or sit in their cars, or shop in indoor malls, and you hardly ever feel cold.  Except when shovelling snow - even then some snowblowers have heated cabins.  It is to the point where some people don't even throw on a coat or hat to get in the car and drive to Sarnia, which is why it was so dangerous a few years ago when the 402 was shut down by a blizzard and cars were stuck overnight.

But regardless of all this comfortable heat we surround ourselves with, Canadians still have a tremendous desire to get out of Canada in the winter.  I don't need to say we "go south", because logically, any direction out of Canada is south.  That's because Canada is where the north pole is located.  Yes, I know we go north to get into Detroit, but that's just a geographic anomaly.  But I digress.  Canadians like to go someplace warm in the winter, like Florida, Arizona or Mexico.  Actually any other country on Earth is warmer than Canada, I just don't have time to list them all.

Why do Canadians want to go someplace else in the winter, even though we are so comfortable in our houses, cars, and malls?  Because we miss the outdoors is why.  We like to stand (or more likely, sit) out in the sun, without literally freezing our asses off.  I often go south in the winter because I miss being able to ride my motorcycle here. From November to March, sometimes weeks go by without me getting out for a ride.

Which brings me to the news that technology is being developed which might make Canada's outdoors as warm as Florida in the winter, and I'm not talking about global warming. I'm talking about heated clothing. Just as houses and cars with internal thermostatically controlled heat have made Canada more comfortable in the winter, now your outdoor clothing can have its own heater and thermostat.  The temperature inside a garment (coat, gloves, socks) can be set to regulate itself. And some of the latest heated garments have wireless remote thermostat controls.  They can be located more conveniently than fumbling around inside your pants at 40 below zero.  Also, the controls can, if desired, regulate the heat on separate knobs for vest, gloves, pants, or socks.

http://www.powerlet.com/product/dual-wireless-temperature-controller/471

Heated clothing no longer needs a wire tethered to a motorcycle battery.  More efficient heating elements and rechargeable lithium batteries have made it possible to have heated clothing with portable battery packs. Although to be honest I have not tried this cordless battery operated setup yet.  Check out this jacket at Mark's.

http://www.marks.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/en/marks-marksdefaultsalescatalog/thermalectric-rechargeable-heated-fleece-jacket-21047

It's just one more technological step in making Canada a livable place in the winter, and not just a playgound for polar bears.

Picture: You don't need another picture of me in my electric vest.  Much better is a cat out for a walk in the winter, taken from this website.
http://xaxor.com/funny-pics/29220-funny-cats-playing-in-the-snow-part-3.html

Ezra Levant Mentioned in MacLean's Magazine

The only reason I read MacLean's is to distract me from the pain of a dentist visit.  So I was at the dentist .. again .. and the latest MacLean's was there, with an article about Ezra Levant. The perfect anesthetic before going to the dentist chair.

"Ezra Levant: Love him or hate him, he keeps winning" A profile of the right-wing gadfly who loves to offend by Jonathon Gatehouse on Saturday, January 12

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/01/12/going-on-the-offensive/


I found one quote in the article particularly relevant, where Ezra Levant blamed the Jews for Canada's human rights laws and here it is:

"The people to blame for the “illiberal and un-Canadian” human rights laws and tribunals he’s been crusading against for the past seven years are well-represented in the theatre. 'It came from us. I mean the Jews, my friends.'"

Well well, apparently Ezra was asleep during History class, which is especially annoying to me, as an ex-History teacher.  So now I have to fill him in on what he missed.  Here goes.

It was just after WW2, when the Allies found concentration camps full of dead and starving Jews.  In the final tally, about 6 million Jews had been killed in what we called the "Holocaust".  The horrified allies tried to analyse what happened to result in this tragic outcome, and concluded at the time that it was years of anti-Jewish propaganda that had built to a fever pitch in the war, and had precipitated this great tragedy, and made it possible for it to happen.  I don't have the time or space to go into every cultural and sociological factor here, but that's what people in Canada, and the other allied countries generally thought back in the fifties.  So, because nobody wanted another world war, many things were done to try and avert the recurrence of such a situation.  Things like the establishment of the UN, the generous financial aid provided to the losers (Germany and Japan specifically), and the prevention of any further campaigns of propaganda against helpless minorities.  And this means not just Jews, but any minorities.  We did not want this to happen ever again, to anyone.  So every country tried to pass some kind of legislation to protect minorities from genocide, including Canada.  That's why we have the Canadian Human Rights Act.

So in a way, Ezra was right. It was because of the Jews that we have the Human Rights Act in Canada.  Ironically, he finds that it is very restrictive in his campaign to demonize Arabs in the way that Hitler demonized the Jews.  Well, sorry for your bad luck Ezra, but anyone who was awake during history class already knows that the Human rights stuff came about because of the Jews who died in the Holocaust, and was also supported after the war by Canadian Jews.

By the way, recent Right wing emails have tried to persuade us that it was not propaganda that enabled the holocaust.  The two main right wing theories regarding the origin of the holocaust are currently

It was gun control.  If the Jews had guns the holocaust would never have happened.  (FYI, France had guns, they surrendered.  Russia had guns, they lost 8 million people fighting the Nazi invasion, Britain had guns, they retreated to their island and got heavily bombed. The Jews in Warsaw had guns, but the Nazis simply leveled their ghetto with artillery and tanks.  I don't think this argument stands up to much scrutiny.)

It was Darwin's Theory of Evolution.  Apparently Hitler decided that Darwin's theory of evolution meant that he had to kill all the Jews before they became a new species or something.  Maybe I misunderstood that argument.  Anyhow it's quite weak, compared to the many hundreds of years of anti-Jewish religious hatred in Europe.  Here is a quote from Martin Luther, the German who started the protestant reformation. (not the black guy who was killed in the Civil Rights movement).

From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism#On_the_Jews_and_Their_Lies

In 1543 Luther published On the Jews and Their Lies in which he says that the Jews are a "base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth."[13] They are full of the "devil's feces ... which they wallow in like swine."[14] The synagogue was a "defiled bride, yes, an incorrigible whore and an evil slut ..."[15] He argues that their synagogues and schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscated. They should be shown no mercy or kindness,[16] afforded no legal protection,[17] and these "poisonous envenomed worms" should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time.[18] He also seems to advocate their murder, writing "[w]e are at fault in not slaying them".[19]

I don't think Charles Darwin said anything as bad as that.  Actually, some people think Darwin was a Jew.  That mistake has never been made with Luther. Or Hitler.

What I Didn't Know About Being Canadian

Readers Digest put out an article "13 Things You Didn't Know About Being Canadian" (or should I say aboot?)  Anyway, I took this as a challenge, because as a Canadian, I guess I should know almost as much about Canada as I do about the USA.

http://www.readersdigest.ca/home-garden/13-things-you-didnt-know/13-things-you-didnt-know-about-being-canadian


1. Our Parliament Has a Sanctuary for Stray Cats

At first I read this as "Our parliament is a sanctuary for stray cats", which would explain why the conservative Members of Parliament are so fat.  But seriously, I saw that sanctuary a few years back when I visited Ottawa and wandered around the parliament buildings and talked to one of the unpaid volunteers who was feeding the cats. If this was coming out of the taxpayers pockets, though, you can bet all Canadians would know about it.

2. One of Our Prime Ministers Used a Crystal Ball

That would be William Lyon MacKenzie King, a native of the city where I live, Kitchener, Ontario.  I knew this, I think its taught in history class.  It was taught in my classes anyway.  Funny coincidence, the previous town I lived (Baie Comeau, QC) in was also a home to a Prime Minister, also had a middle name of "Lyon"

3. We Launched a Secret Project To Build an Aircraft Carrier Made From Ice

OK I did not know that.  My excuse is that it was a secret, and it never was built.  But it makes sense.  It would never rust, and we have the know-how to build that Ice Hotel in Quebec City.


4. Our Beavers Built a Dam Visible From Outer Space

Actually I knew that, I think it was on the news a few years ago.  So I went to Google Maps to see if it was visible from way up, which it is because there is water on one side, and green on the other.  Actually way more visible than the Great Wall of China that is reputed to be the only man made thing visible from space (which I doubt).

See this 2010 report, stating that the dam is 2800 feet long.  I guess it shrunk in the last two years, or was that a rounding error because Canadian beavers use metric units?
http://news.discovery.com/animals/beaver-dam-canada-space.html


5. Our Cities Have Some of the Freshest Air in the World

I did not know that.  One example given is Kitimat, a town similar to my home town of Baie Comeau, because it has an aluminum smelter and a paper mill, and is far from other cities.  As I recall during the sixties, the aluminum plant air pollution killed all the coniferous trees for about 20 miles around, while the paper mill air pollution was killing all the deciduous trees.  Finally, people started getting serious about air pollution when the acid in the air started etching the car windows.  Today it is pretty much cleaned up, but I don't know how they did it.  However, I would bet that the the air sampling centre in Kitimat is upwind of the paper mill and aluminum plant.

And finally, Googling Kitimat CLean Air, I came across this site, asking "Please don't burn garbage".  In Kitchener we are more serious about clean air, I believe there is a law against burning garbage.
http://www.rdks.bc.ca/content/air-quality


6. Have a Taste of Home When You Travel

I knew we grew mustard seed in Canada, but did not know they use our seeds in France to make Dijon mustard.


7. Iceberg Vodka? How about Iceberg Wine?

I did not know that Newfies make wine with iceberg water, but also I have never been to Newfoundland.  I do know that in Ontario we make wine with grapes that got frozen on the vine, and furthermore we charge a premium for that type of wine.  We are clever people.

8. Leave Your Door Unlocked in Churchill Manitoba...or Else!

I have never seen a polar bear in the wild, but I did see a documentary on Churchill's polar bears.  In the documentary they were interviewing this old native grandmother who got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and encountered a polar bear in the hallway and shot him.  The interviewer was shocked and disgusted that she would kill so magnificent an animal.  The old lady did not understand, she said "Well, I had to go to the bathroom"

9. You Can Drink a Toe Cocktail in Dawson City, Yukon

Yes I knew that, even though I have never been to the Yukon. I believe it is common knowledge to Canadians, and the main reason I have never been to the Yukon.

10. One of Our Cities Aims To Be the World's Greenest by 2020

I did not know this.  Go for it, Vancouver.

11. We Have the World's Most Dark Sky Preserves

Another thing I didn't know, although I did know that we have got dark sky preserves near Southern Ontario .

12. We've Minted Many of the World's Coins

Another interesting fact I didn't know.

13. Just Think, Being Canadian Means You Could Be From...

I pass through Punkeydoodles Corners, Ontario on the way to visiting my Mother most of the time.  Newfoundland has the best place names. If Ontarians weren't so uptight, Punkeydoodles would have been Punk Ass Corners.  Now what Canadian has not heard of Dildo, Newfoundland?  Mary Ann camped there one night a few years back, but she didn't take a picture.

OK, then I didn't do too badly on this quiz.  I have come up with a fourteenth thing I didn't know about being a Canadian, although technically, Newfoundland was not part of Canada at the time, but: The ferry from Sydney NS to Port Aux Basques NF was sunk by a german submarine in WW2.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Caribou



Picture: Dildo Run Provincial Park sign from the

http://www.slowtrav.com/blog/andasamo/travel_thoughts/2009_july_family_trip/

Towards a Garbage-Free MacLean's Magazine

MacLean's magazine has a new article by Cynthia Reynolds titled "Why are schools brainwashing our children?"

http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/10/31/why-are-schools-brainwashing-our-children/

In this article Cynthia gives examples of situations where children in Canadian schools are being brainwashed into being tolerant and caring for the environment.

Let me take one example.

  "In Laval, Que., a six-year-old boy was disqualified from a teddy-bear contest because a Ziploc was found in his lunch".

Now if I may clarify this a little: It was not a Teddy Bear contest, it was a draw for a teddy bear in a garbage free lunch contest. Yes, the difference is important. What is a garbage free lunch?  It is a lunch that has no garbage in it.  What is garbage? Any throw-away one-use container.  Now, let's go into this a little bit more.  A drink box has garbage (the box and the straw.) An apple core is not counted as garbage.  A candy bar has garbage. (The wrapper).  Any garbage in your lunch means you don't have a garbage-free lunch. A tupperware container is not garbage because it can be re-used.  But if you throw the tupperware container away, it should count as garbage.  If you remove the wrapper from the candy bar at home and put the naked bar in a Tupperware container, the teacher has to make a call one way or the other.  A Ziplock bag is not necessarily garbage.  It can be taken home, cleaned and re-used.  But if it is thrown out after one use, it is garbage.  A fair teacher would accept the ziplock bag as long as it is taken home and re-used, but of course it's impossible to know the truth.  Obviously, garbage free lunch games are not that simple.

Now to explain a little bit about teaching. Teachers generally reward students learning with scores and marks, rarely with material goods.  That's because the school budget does not allow for it.  So who paid for the Teddy Bear prize?  I couldn't find out, but it might have been an old item that the teacher needed to get rid of, and if so, the teacher had found a good way to divert one more bit of garbage from the landfill. Very unlikely to be the taxpayers footing the Teddy Bear expense.

Now what about the ziplock bag scandal? I think a case could have been made for the ziplock bag in a garbage free lunch, but first you have to understand what is going on.  Sometimes six year old kids make mistakes. That's why we have teachers.

Now why do Conservatives (and their propaganda machines like MacLean's Magazine) hate it when children learn about garbage?  Probably the same reason they hate children to learn about tolerance.  Conservative propaganda has two main pillars: support for corporate profits, and hatred for "others".  It suits the conservative agenda to keep people as ignorant and easily-led consumers of throw-away trash.  The last thing conservatives want is for children to learn about the environment, because that might affect corporate profits.

Why would MacLean's sensationalize this simple story?  And does MacLean's do the same kind of one-sided misrepresentation when they are stirring up hate against minority groups?  The answer is yes.

MacLean's is a conservative, bigoted magazine.  I think the more appropriate question would be "Why is MacLean's Magazine Brainwashing Canadians", but I think we all know the answer. Because it pleases their rich owners, and stirring up hatred is the best way to brainwash people.

Next, the goal for MacLean's: Let's try to put out a garbage free newsmagazine.

Picture: Left garbage lunch, right garbage free.  from this website

  http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin406.shtml

Seven Things You Can't Say in Canada, Apparently.

Margaret Wente, a columnist for the Globe and Mail, wrote a piece for the Canadian Version of Reader's Digest titled "Seven Things You Can't Say in Canada".  To provide a bit of background, I consider the Reader's Digest to be an American propaganda voice, and the Canadian Edition to be a thinly disguised American propaganda outlet, forced to run "Canadian Content" similar to Time Magazine.  Margaret Wente moved to Canada in 1964 and became a Canadian citizen.

http://www.readersdigest.ca/magazine/7-things-you-can-t-say-canada-0

"Influential columnist Margaret Wente shares her controversial opinion on seven sacred Canadian cows most dare not criticize. Margaret Wente's background gives her a certain perspective on Canada's sacred cows."

There may be things you can't say in Canada, but in my opinion, these are not them.

1. Margaret Atwood's books are awful? Well at first I thought Wente might have a point there.  I hated "Stone Angel", at least the small part of it that I actually read.  Then I realized that "Stone Angel" is written by Margaret Lawrence.  Margaret Atwood wrote "The Handmaid's Tale", which I liked, or I should say I liked the movie, as I didn't read the book.  This barely qualifies as something you can't say in Canada.  If you said it in certain intellectual circles, you may get a lively debate going.  But I guarantee the secret police will not be at your door the next day
2. Recycling is a waste of time and money? I recycle stuff, and I find that overall I save time by recycling. I only have to put the garbage/recycling box out about once every six weeks instead of once a week. In exchange, I spend a bit of time sorting the trash into different boxes, and cleaning out empty cans and bottles. Because the blue box is right beside the garbage can, the extra time take making the decision where to throw stuff is negligible. The time I spend on recycling is done in a nice warm house.  The time I save carrying out the garbage is outdoors,  FMAO.  As for wasting money, I have been told that the recycling program is paid for by the bottling/canning companies, although I doubt it.  I can see the point though, that if a lot of people are spending time and paying taxes for a recycling program that some other people are ignoring, then it becomes an aggravation when somebody argues against it.  Kind of like somebody saying they save time by throwing their Tim Horton's cups on your lawn.  But news flash for Margaret Wente: Many populated parts of the USA have started recycling programs since you left in 1963.  When I was in Bismark North Dakota this summer, there was a discussion going on about starting up a blue box program even out there.  So the same taboo of criticizing recycling would apply in some parts of the USA.
3. Private enterprise saving health care?  Yes, you would get an argument from me about this.  I consider Canada's health care system to be an important part of living in Canada, and if we didn't have free health care I would probably move to the USA.  Here is why.  Without free health care I am obviously going to die sooner because I am a cheap bastard who doesn't want to pay for insurance or even life saving surgery.  So if I'm going to die sooner, I might as well go to the USA where I can at least ride my bike year round until I die from lack of health care.
4. David Suzuki is bad for the environment.  As Margaret says, "And our hugely expensive investment in the unworkable Kyoto treaty, which Mr. Suzuki tells us doesn’t go nearly far enough, will crowd out more practical measures to cut smog and clean up our waste sites." With recycling, Margaret was about 30 years behind the times, but with smog Margaret now appears to be  60 years behind the times. Killer smog was a big deal in London in 1952.  They took measures to eliminate smog, and so did the USA, particularly Los Angeles and the state of California. Smog has largely been dealt with now, and I'm guessing the expense was huge but probably worth it.  And as for more practical measures for cleaning up waste sites, didn't Margaret just finish arguing against recycling?  If she has something else in mind, now is the time to speak up.  Not even Americans (And I don't mean that in a bad way)  want the environment destroyed.
5. National day care programs: I don't care one way or the other at this point.  Let's skip to another topic that actually would annoy me.
6. Group of Seven paintings Overexposed?  I, like many other Canadians, do not buy art, but if we did it might be paintings of trees and rocks.  I suppose its possible that Canadian Art Critics may try to silence anyone who criticises the Group of Seven, as I have never met a Canadian Art Critic.  
7. The USA is the greatest force for good in the world.  Now we come to the climax, this is probably what Margaret Wente wanted to say all along, but had to pad it out with six other topics to make an entire column.  Canadians, of course feel this statement is bullsh*t, or we would have joined the USA long ago.  That way, we at least could vote in the US elections, and cross into Detroit without being sniffed up by salivating Rottweilers.  But she is right, Canadians do not believe that Americans are the master race come in the name of God to save the world.  The greatest force for good in the world may be science, or education, or a free press, or the Internet,  or consumerism, or democracy.  There are many choices, unfortunately all flawed in some way.

That brings us to the end of the seven things Margaret Wente thinks you can't say in Canada.

Now what about some of these that I came up with, that I didn't see on her list, but I think would be acceptable answers to the question "What things can't you say in Canada?"

1. Torture is a good way to extract confessions from criminals and terrorists.

2. Sometimes the law does not work, so lynchings are necessary.

3. Jesus is our only hope for salvation, and Pat Robertson is His one true prophet.

4. There was no holocaust.

5. Canada is the greatest force for good in the world.

Saying any of those 5 things in Canada would get you more of an argument than saying Margaret Atwood's books stink.

Picture: From Readers Digest, but I added the ironic wording on the box and on the shirt. Yes, ironic.

Did Canadian High Schools Fail Justin Bieber?

A story came out a few days ago that needs some comment.  Not so much because of what happened, but because of the reaction in the media.

vancouver sun

Story: Justin Bieber says "Sixteenth Chapel" instead of "Sistine Chapel" on Letterman show.  Letterman says  "Canadian High Schools", implying that they are no better than American high schools (I guess since David Letterman went to an American high school.)

Facts: While David Letterman did attend high school (Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis, USA), and describes himself as an average student, Justin Bieber does not go to high school at all due to his star status, show business, and travelling (mostly in the USA but also world wide and a few trips back to Canada).

Backup Stories: Two year ago, Justin Bieber got in another another spot of trouble in an interview where Bieber replied "I don't know what that means" in response to the question "Is Bieber German for Basketball, true or false?".  At that time there was another media storm of controversy, but not about Canadian High schools because it is a fairly well known fact that Bieber does not go to school, but has a tutor that follows him around on his travels.  Actually, if you saw the mobs that form wherever Bieber goes you would realize there is no chance for him to actually learn anything in a normal school setting.  Anyway, apparently it was another false media thrash, in that Bieber actually did know what "German" meant, and could prove it with previous video interviews and clips.  Not surprising, since Bieber's home town is near the most German part of Canada.  But an exceptionally stupid question has the potential to stump the interviewee, thus making a bigger story than the sensible questions.  That's why there are so many stupid questions in media interviews.

http://www.examiner.com/article/justin-bieber-goes-on-the-defensive-about-home-schooling-video

Speculation: Now I'm going to do some speculation of my own, since the media seems to not have that ability.  What could have caused Bieber to say Sixteenth Chapel?

- Loss of hearing.  Dave Letterman clearly said Sistine Chapel first, Justin was repeating what he said.  Maybe Bieber is going deaf.

- Making a Joke.  Bieber trying to be funny.

- Maybe Justin really does not know the name of the Sistine Chapel, but maybe it was because he was not listening, or asleep, when the subject was taught.  Not because the tutor or teacher taught "Sixteenth Chapel" by mistake.

- Maybe Justin's concentration was put off by the little wrestling match that had just finished between him and David Letterman.  The wrestling match was started by Dave, probably surprised Justin.  Makes me wonder more about David Letterman losing his marbles than it does about Justin's home schooling effort.

Now for my response to Dave.

I am not really trying to defend Justin Bieber, my interest is in defending education in general, and Canadian high schools in particular. I don't know about all high schools, but I'm guessing that art history in not "core curriculum" in most North American high schools. When I was a high school history teacher, I'm sure I could not tell you how many of my students knew the name of the Sistine Chapel.  And I could not tell you where I learned the name myself, but I have heard of it.  But one of my blogs has a photoshop of God on a motorcycle, and I used the face of God from a picture of the Sistine Chapel that I found online.  So I must have know about it by then.

And, this question is directed at you Dave: Where did you first learn about the Sistine Chapel?  Did you really learn about it in high school? Maybe they should have been concentrating on math, science and maybe media studies instead.

Is the entertainment business partly to blame for poor quality education, by taking youngsters out of school and making them role models and downplaying the need for education?

A good education is about the ability to think for yourself and ask questions.   It should not be all about memorizing names.

Dave was simply doing his job.  Asking stupid questions to try and get a reaction, (and when that does not work - physical assault).  And yes, it is a stupid question to ask Justin Bieber if he is going to get a tattoo of the Sistine Chapel.  Instead, do some research, find out he is home schooled, and ask him if he is getting a good quality education outside the school system.

Picture: Part of the Sistine Chapel art work. I think it's on the ceiling, but I'm not sure as I've never been there, and I was not taught about it in school.

Since When is Lying a Conservative Value?

For several years now I have wrestled with this interesting question. Who is telling the truth on TV and on the Internet? On one hand you have the Conservatives claiming to tell the truth. On the other you have the Liberals with exactly the same claim. In order to sort out the difference, I might have to fact-check every single statement made on TV or in the media. Even I, with my high speed Internet connection, and abundant free time, have been intimidated by this prospect. And as a result I have disengaged from some political debates that seem bogged down because of conflict source material. The fact is, most source material for political arguments does come from the media.


But now I think there is finally an issue that separates Conservative values from the Liberal values. This issue promises to put to rest the question about who is lying and who is telling the truth. It all comes down to one word: "Knowingly".

Last February, 2011, the CRTC applied to change a rule prohibiting the broadcasting of false and misleading information in Canada. According to their website the effective date of this rule change would be September 1, 2011. As of September 1, radio and TV stations are only prevented from "knowingly" broadcasting false and misleading information.

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-14.htm

Is the addition of the word "knowingly" that big of a deal? Well, for one thing, a TV network would do well to fire any fact-checkers and researchers that they currently employ. The less they know, the less their legal liability. There is no CRTC regulation forcing broadcasters to hire fact checkers or researchers - I guess that was implied in the regulation preventing the broadcasting of false and misleading information. So my legal advice would be to fire the researchers and real reporters.

To illustrate the legal case, what is the difference between "Speed Limit of 100 kph" and "Speed Limit of 100 kph* (* knowingly)". When you are pulled over for speeding, the first question is "Did you know what speed you were going?" The answer, "No sir, I was not watching my speed" is not a good defence. Wouldn't it be fun if the law was only to punish people who admitted that they know what speed they were going? I would love to answer, "No sir, I don't have a clue! My speedometer is busted/covered with mud/my eyes don't focus that close/I was busy texting". The officer then is forced to reply "Oh, I am sorry, I didn't realize that you were unknowingly doing 235 kph back there. Sorry for the delay and have a nice day!"

Now who is pushing this small, but disturbing change to TV regulation? First I do not think it is the Liberals or the left wing. Fact one: This change is being made under a conservative government. Fact two, a new conservative TV station, Sun News, coincidentally began broadcasting right wing propaganda in the springtime of 2011. I am not aware of any left wing propaganda stations starting up lately. I realize that this is just circumstantial evidence, there is no publicly stated policy from the conservatives on lying. But the evidence is still very strong, and has the implication that the Conservatives are in favour of spreading untruths and misinformation.

From now on, what is the point of debating "Global Warming" based on media sources? What's the point of debating war, labour unrest, religion, free markets, or any of the other hundreds of political hot buttons? We will no longer be able to have a common point of reference in the media, a reference that we have counted on for years.

In a final note, I have not been able to find final confirmation on the Internet of this CRTC rule change. Last I heard, the left wing groups were still fighting it. All my sources are from January-February this year. But even if the "knowingly" modification is thwarted, it still is a clear indication of which side is more willing to spread false propaganda.

http://www.petitiononline.com/stopcrtc/petition.html

Picture: The Lost Motorcyclist photoshopped this speed limit sign to add the word "knowingly".

Fire Don Cherry, Ban Bare Knuckle Fighting

With Spain considering a ban on bullfighting, is it time for Canada and the USA to ban ice hockey? (Because the NHL covers both countries)

Don Cherry had an outburst against people who are against fighting in hockey. This got me thinking. There is a movement in Canada that seems to be starting, to investigate the damage caused by fighting in hockey. Don Cherry, the commentator on CBC hockey games is one of the most unabashed promoters of fighting in hockey and he was visibly upset with the attitudes of some of the ex-players who had said something about fighting. Don Cherry called them "pukes and turncoats", as apparently these guys had been fighters themselves during their NHL careers.

Here is the situation. Bare knuckled boxing is against the law in Canada and the USA. But there is a demand for this type of brutality. Professional ice hockey has somehow developed a symbiotic relationship with bare knuckled fighting. We actually have two sports parasitically living on each other. Bare knuckled fighting uses "National Hockey League" ice hockey to gain legitimacy, as the fights take place during hockey games. Hockey uses bare knuckled fighting to attract "fans", and to make more money.

No other professional sport does this. This is what I believe. In the National Hockey League version of ice hockey, a certain number of players are recruited by each team to do the fighting. The coaches send the fighters out when they are ready for a session of bare knuckled boxing, and the hockey game is temporarily suspended while the fight is going on. These are not spontaneous fights between hockey players. These are planned fights between athletes hired for their fighting abilities (most of the time - occasionally some other player will be attacked.)

They say that "fighting is part of the game". It is not. I have seen plenty of games with no fights (e.g Olympic hockey). It's time for NHL hockey to ban fighting, it is a very easy thing to do. Just don't hire fighters, and give stiff penalties for fighting. And of course, fire Don Cherry, that loudmouth ignorant embarrassment. (I Googled "fire don cherry" and got 28,000 hits.) Hire a commentator who knows hockey. Let's get back to the sport of hockey, which is not a bad game without the fight fans screaming for blood.

Picture: I got it off this website. There is a video also, which I did not look at, but I assume proves my point, that the fights are a separate sport from hockey, and should be as illegal as bare knuckled boxing.
http://www.maniacworld.com/best-hockey-fight-ever.html

A Historical Question about the Waterloo Region, Ontario

Yesterday, "The Lost Motorcyclist" (me) had the opportunity to go on a historical walk around one of our local quaint villages, known as Blair, Ontario. Previously, my only knowledge of Blair was that it was a 50 kph s-bend with a few nice looking old buildings, and it was on the west side of the Grand River, opposite Cambridge. It also used to have a good bar for bikers, the Nicholson Tavern, which closed many years ago. But during the walk, I found out several things. Blair now has both a Krishna and a Hindu temple. (weird, but not really the subject of this story). And Blair was the first European settlement in Waterloo Region, with notably the first gravesite, cemetery and school. This discovery got me thinking, that today Waterloo region has three major cities: Waterloo, Kitchener, and Cambridge, all over 100,000 people. Blair is still practically a pioneer village, seeming to have hardly grown at all and the entire thing could almost be considered a living museum of the 1800's.

I decided to investigate on the Internet why Blair is so small, and why it has been overtaken in size by almost all the other settlements in Waterloo region. I suppose I could have asked the tour guide, but it's a complicated question, and it was kind of cold yesterday, and also a bit hard to hear the tour guide with all the traffic noise.

To follow the history, you need to know that community names have changed over the years. Kitchener used to be called Berlin until WW1. And when it was first settled, it was called Sand Hills. Cambridge city is made up of three previous towns of Galt, Hespeler, and Preston (of which Galt was the largest, and was originally called Shade's Mills). Blair was named Shingle Bridge, and Carlyle, before finally being named Blair.

So to begin with, Blair started off around 1809 as a Mennonite settlement for a few people coming up from the USA. Although it was the very first European settlement in Ontario that was not on the shore of the great lakes, its settlers had no grand vision of becoming anything more than a good place to live. The founders of Galt, about seven years later in 1816, had a big vision of bringing in many settlers from Scotland. They started with a very large tract of land, which they subdivided and then sold to settlers that they brought in from Scotland. They picked a site for a town to be the centre of all this activity, and in 1825 a post office was set up, which was called Galt. At the time the post office opened, Galt was the largest, and would remain the largest community in the Waterloo Area until about 1900. Blair would not get a post office for another 30 years after Galt's.

Then in about 1900, Galt was overtaken by Berlin in population and importance. The community of Sand Hills, which had taken the name Berlin in about 1833, had experienced an influx of immigrants from Germany between 1833 and 1900 that was big enough to overtake Galt. Why did so many Germans immigrate at that time, and why did they come to Berlin? The second question almost answers itself: Because it was named Berlin. But that's not the whole story. Most immigrants tend to go to the largest cities, but there was a problem with German immigrants going to Toronto that may have diverted the bulk of them to Berlin. In the 1800's Governor Simcoe attempted to get a large group of German immigrants to move to Markham, just north of Toronto. In this plan, he recruited William Berckzy whose biography is in the credits for this story. William Berczy brought in some Germans and began setting up the town of Markham, and extending Yonge Street from Toronto to Markham, but ran into some difficulties. I can't tell if it was because Torontonians were suspicious of Germans moving in so close, or just financial bad luck, but the deal fell through, and there was considerable ill will between Berczy and the establishment. Hence I assume Germans felt less welcome in Toronto than Berlin, Ontario. And the town of Waterloo, being next door to Berlin was equally welcoming to Germans. The name Waterloo, by the way, is not only named after the site of a great British victory over the French. We also sometimes forget that the Battle of Waterloo was a joint effort of Germans and British.

There were a lot of German immigrants to Canada because Germany is a very big country in Europe that did not really have it's own colonial destination for its people. So, many of the immigrants to Canada were Germans. Canada generally did not object to Germans because after all Queen Victoria was originally German. Also, many Germans had fought for England against the Americans in the revolution, so Germans were actually seen as being more loyal to Canada than Americans. (all that would change with the animosity of two world wars, but hopefully now is almost forgotten).

Picture: I found a picture postcard on the site below of one of the first power generating stations in the Waterloo area - it did not use electricity to transmit the power as we do today. We had a chance to walk around it yesterday in Blair on our historical tour.

Picture from: http://toughnut-street.blogspot.com/2010/07/blair-ontario-postcard.html

Historical material

William Berczy: http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=2261

German Immigration to Canada: http://www.whitepinepictures.com/seeds/i/9/history1.html

Blair history: http://www.cambridge.ca/city_clerk/city_archives/historical_information_evolution_of_blair

Galt history: http://www.cambridge.ca/city_clerk/city_archives/historical_information_evolution_of_galt