What is Next on the Agenda We Wonder?

There is a lot of speculation about all this

I noticed that the union and Air Canada reached a deal today. Well, considering that Harper and his bunch showed their hand over the disputes at both Air Canada and Canada Post it is no wonder. Any smart negotiator knows you can probably get a better deal at the table than you can from a legislated settlement.

Why wait to see what the Blue Meanies think is fair?

The Postal Workers are a bit more stubborn so it is anyone's guess what happens there but I would be surprised if they wait to see what Lisa Raitt thinks is a fair compromise..

Who knows what might be next. There seem to be two schools of thought in Canada.

• Those who think the world as we know it will never be the same and; 
• others who are reasonably certain that this new "majority" government, after dealing with a few grass roots issues like the gun registry will settle down and take a more moderate path.

I for one, find it tough to think they won't take advantage of their new position to put their right wing stamp on our country. We will survive though. This isn't the first government with a get tough agenda. We lived through Brian Mulroney and I have spent most of my life fighting cuts to programs by the Liberals.

Never the less, they have a full agenda and as much as the graphic at the top right is a joke, it isn't all that far from reality.

This in no time to be complacent.

Right to Strike Means nothing to the Blue Meanies

We are starting to get a taste of how this new Blue Meanies "majority" will play out. Not well if this is a harbinger of things to come.

Despite media reports that the strike by agents at Air Canada really isn't having much affect on the travelling public, the Labour Minister today said they will promptly legislate the employees back to work and may table legislation to do that as nearly as Thursday.

That is pretty amazing. They haven't even been out 24 hours yet.

More interesting perhaps is the Postal Workers' dispute. They have been carrying on rotating strikes across the country. Pretty responsible I thought, not wanting to shut down  Canada Post all together. The mail was getting through albeit a bit slower that usual.

Canada Post then decided to go on the attack and locked the workers out to see if they could bring things to a head. The Labour Minister once again jumped into the breach and threatened back to work legislation.

I admit I don't know but, I suspect the conversations between Canada Post and the minister's senior people went something like this.

Canada Post: "Come on. You have to do something. We're losing money with damn rotating strikes. It is all a royal pain in the ass. You can't let those guys push us around.


Labour Canada: "I'm not sure we are prepared to bring in legislation to stop a rotating strike but...Let's see...What could we do?... Well, if no one was at working at all that would be another matter." Wink, wink, nod, nod.


Canada Post: "Oh yeah. Good point.

Canada Post locked everyone out this morning. No mail, whatsoever is being delivered from coast to coast to coast. Someone call Lisa Raitt.

If the minister had a lick of sense she would have simply told Canada Post, a Crown Corporation, to quit playing silly bugger, to pull the lock out notice and get people back to work. Some mail must be better that no mail. But no. She didn't see it quite that way.

With a total shut down she figured it was time to teach those Posties a lesson. I can just hear her saying, "Picketing Post Offices? Not on my watch"

Lisa says, the legislation will be ready in the morning. It will be back to work for those scoundrels.

Months of hard bargaining down the drain and just the way this government likes it. Yhe employers will get what they want. The Posties get screwed.

You can depend on this government.

Asbestos is Back in the News

Blue Meanie Headquarters

Asbestos is back in the news with a United Nations resolution, attempting to ban the substance, coming up next week. One time asbestos was widely used in Canada but, it's use has been outlawed in this country for years after it was recognized that it causes lung cancer. Asbestos has killed millions of people world wide.

Canadians overwhelmingly support the ban, but to our shame, our government is the only developed country trying to block an agreement that will save lives. 

 
Stephen Harper knows that he is isolated, at home and abroad, and he with his new majority his Blue Meanies can get away with blocking the deal quietly. Fat chance.

I blogged about this issue in early 2010 and wrote to my MP, Tom "do nothing" Lukiwski asking for a ban. The response I got was laughable. We need a major public outcry to make sure our government knows that Canadians are watching.

In an attempt to convince Little Stevie of the error of his ways a campaign website has been set up and I urge you to visit and join over 4500 Canadians who have already sent messages to our PM.

A Shift in Values?

I've been in Ottawa these last few days so my blog posts are a bit behind.

I walked a lot while I was there, re-connecting with a city  I really quite like.

Just along where the the Rideau River runs into the Ottawa we came across a bit of sculpture. The plaque says the  "Monument  honours Canadians' commitment to International Development and Humanitarian Assistance and pays tribute to all Canadians who gave their lives in pursuit of theses values."

I said when I read the inscription, "This is what I think of when I contemplate  our country and this is what I think we stand for as a people. I don't want us to be the new tough guy on the international scene. We are, or at least we were, a country that cares."

We walked on another hundred metres or so to what used to be the Canada and the World Pavilion. A sign outside said that the pavilion's purpose was "..to share Canadians' international contributions with" us. The pavilion  and the exhibit are now permanently closed.

For me, that sign pretty much summed up the values of our current government.

Another thing I noticed was the number of people around the city in uniform. It wasn't so long ago that military personnel were instructed to wear civilian clothes to work. The government didn't want people to be conscious of how many military people actually worked in in the city. When you did see someone they were in dress uniform.

There days all the members of the army walk around the city in full camouflage which makes no sense at all except that this government wants to send a much different image to Canadians who see military personnel in the street. Harper's people see these camo outfits projecting a tough, rough and ready image. It might be practical to wear camo if you were crawling around in the bush trying not to be seen but on a city street?

I know that Defense Minister Peter McKay like to dress up in army gear every chance he gets, kind of like George Bush,  but in truth, the only practical camouflage for most of these people would something that would let them blend into offices and filing cabinets.

I just don't like where we seem to be going.

Bubble Headed Bleached Blonde Falls Flat on her Face

Out here, in the nether reaches of Saskatchewan  to be exact, we don't get Sun News Network, also called, FOX North or as the Tories like to refer to it The Harper News Network.

It turns out it is just as well.

I think you will find the link to the below video interesting. Basically the Sun News "interviewer", to be generous, a Jersey Shore reject, tries to interview well known dancer and choreographer, Margie Gillis and falls flat on her face.

The Blue Meanies fought hard to get Sun News their broadcasting licence, overturning the CRTC. With the Sun News Network on air the Tories now feel that journalism in Canada is much more balanced than it once was.

I think it is an opportunity to look deep into the Conservative soul, just in case we 60 percenters weren't sure why we didn't vote for them.

Have a look at the interview here

I am sorry you have to sit through the commercial at the head but persevere.

And, just as a reminder about journalistic integrity take a few moments and listen to Don Henley

Here is a Question for you Jack

So here we are. The election is over, Ottawa has a new, but not necessarily better look to it and many of the 60% or so of Canadians who didn’t vote for the Blue Man Group are wondering what happened. More and more are asking themselves, “Isn’t it time we took a hard look at our electoral system.” The first-past-the post system just doesn’t cut it.

All that considered I think that Fair Vote Canada has a great suggestion for Jack Layton’s first Question in the new Parliament. They are nudging the new Leader of the Opposition to ask:

Mr. Speaker, in 1996, when the right was divided and we seemed to be faced with the prospect of “Liberal government forever”, the current prime minister, who was then out of elected office, co-authored and published with Tom Flanagan a remarkable article entitled “Our Benign Dictatorship”. In this thoughtful and well researched article, they decried the way that our first-past-the-post voting system creates one-party rule “beset by the factionalism, regionalism and cronyism that accompany any such system.” They said, and I quote, “For Canadian democracy to mature, Canadian citizens must face these facts, as citizens in other countries have, and update our political structures to reflect the diverse political aspirations of our diverse communities.”

They went on to decry the hugely distorted election results in the 1993 election, in which the Reform party won 52 seats with 19% of the votes, but the Progressive Conservatives, with 16% of the votes, won only two seats, while the Bloc Quebecois, with only 14% of the votes, won 54 seats and formed Her Majesty's “Loyal” Opposition.

“Imposing a first-past-the-post voting system upon a society with deep ethno linguistic and regional cleavages,” they said, “inevitably fragments Canadian conservatism,” adding that, ”Our system has similarly fragmented social democrats.”

They encouraged the Reform and Progressive Conservative parties to advocate electoral reform, and suggested the NDP would vote for it too.

“No one who cares seriously about ideas,” they said, “whether conservative, liberal or socialist, should be happy with the thought of prolonged one-party rule,” because, they pointed out, it leads to cronyism, corruption, cynicism and chaos.” The absence of effective competition,” they said, “is just as bad in politics as it is in economics.”

“Voters on the left,” they pointed out, “are as much entitled as voters on the right to effective representation.”

They went on to point out that, “In today’s democratic societies, organizations share power. Corporations, churches, universities, hospitals, even public sector bureaucracies make decisions through consultation, committees and consensus-building techniques. Only in politics do we still entrust power to a single faction expected to prevail every time over the opposition by sheer force of numbers. Even more anachronistically, we persist in structuring the governing team like a military regiment under a single commander with almost total power to appoint, discipline and expel subordinates.”

They conclude by saying, “Many of Canada’s problems stem from a winner-take-all style of politics that allows governments in Ottawa to impose measures abhorred by large areas of the country,” and “Modernizing Canadian politics would not only be good for conservatism, it might be the key to Canada’s survival as a nation.”

Mr Speaker, we on this side of the House couldn’t agree more with all of that, so my question to the Prime Minister is this: Now that you have won a majority government on the basis of having received less than forty percent of the votes cast in the election, do you still believe in proportional representation?

Then Fair Vote suggests that Jack follow up with the following supplementary.

Mr. Speaker, historically, up to 80% of votes cast for the NDP federally have been wasted votes—they did not help to elect anyone, and our party has always had about half as many seats in this place as we should have won based on the number of votes we received. That has changed, Mr. Speaker, and today, the New Democratic Party is actually slightly over-represented in this House.

But Mr. Speaker, we are willing to put the interests of the country ahead of the interests of our party, and we call on the governing party to do the same.

We do still support proportional representation, Mr. Speaker, and my supplementary question to the Prime Minister is this: When will his government put forward amendments to the Canada Elections Act to give Canadians a modern, fair, proportional voting system, so that every Canadian can have a vote that makes a difference? When they do, Mr. Speaker, we will vote for it.

I don't know if Jack reads what Fair Vote writes about the issue but I hope he does. That question would get people's attention. Let him know this is a great idea.

The Harper Economic Record

Jim Flaherty would have Canadian’s believe that the retread budget and the fiscal policy he intends to inflict on us Canadians will save us from another recession and bring prosperity back to the country. The only way to do that he says is through cutting fat in Ottawa. When he talks about bloated Ottawa administrations somehow I don’t think he is talking about the PMO. Don’t expect cuts there.

Flaherty expects Canadians to believe that the Blue Meanies alone can save us all from financial oblivion. I think he expects us to believe that if it wasn’t for him, Harper and the rest of the Blue Man group we would have gone the way of Ireland long ago.

Now he boasts that the Conservative policies will bring us out of deficit spending by 2015. A year earlier that expected. No one actually believes he will but, it gets good media coverage and Canadians are a forgiving lot. After all this government has the new and daunting task of keeping the spendthrift socialists away from the door of the Bank of Canada vault.

What Flaherty forgets is that without the unnecessary reduction he made to the GST, we wouldn’t need to make the cuts he is now suggesting are crucial.

The other thing that Harper and Flaherty don’t ever want Canadians to look closely at is what the Conservative financial record really is.

Brian Mulroney in 1993 had run up a $38 billion deficit. Canadians were shocked. 

Under Liberal leadership, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin had beaten the deficient and by 2006 when he lost the election the Government was running a $16 Billion surplus.

Under the Harper/Flaherty regime the deficit is up over $55 Billion.

And these guys ran on their economic record. We must be really stupid.

I'll Always Have Time for Those Who Protest

I was surprised by some of the reaction to Brigitte DePape brief protest in the Senate chamber last week. Not by the overwhelming on-line support, but by some of the politicians’ responses.

She has become a folk hero in cyberspace but, even politicians who we might expect to be a bit more tolerant of her actions pretty much trashed her protest.

It was expected that the Jason Kenny’s of the world would wade, outraged but I was a bit disappointed when Jack Layton gave us all a little lecture saying “We have been pushing for decorum in the House of Commons. You don’t have decorum if people are standing up holding up signs in the middle of debates and solemn moment. We encourage protests; it is part of a great long tradition of democracy. But it should be happening at the proper place and at the proper time.”

I have heard that kind of response from the “left” before. There is seldom is a "proper place and proper time" if it is inconvenient. Protest is great but just don’t do anything that might draw attention away from Jack.

Implying DePape used the wrong venue to stage her protest, even Elizabeth May waded in saying “Essentially, in theory, we’re in the presence of Her Majesty, that is the sovereign, That isn’t Stephen Harper’s room. That’s somebody else’s room.”

Oh Pleeese. In the presence of her Majesty?

It took 20 seconds out of Harper’s big day. No one was hurt. It wasn’t even noisy. Stephen Harper looked pissed off. So what?

She lost her job as a page but, I can’t imagine that paid very well anyway, knowing how the government is usually eager to exploit our youth. At least now she has a few better opportunities to choose from.

American documentary film maker Michel Moore offered her a job and issued a statement saying “For a young person to do that and to do it peacefully, and quietly and with grace, I thought it was a very powerful moment. Every now and then there is an iconic moment where an individual takes action, and it inspires others to think about, you know, what else we would be doing.”

The Public Service Alliance stepped up and said they would hire her if she wanted to work for the union, and the Council of Canadians offered her a job in their organization. Not bad for someone who just graduated.

I agree with DePape when she says, “Contrary to Harper’s rhetoric, Conservative values are not in fact Canadian values. How could they be when three out of four eligible voters didn’t even give their support to the Conservatives?”

Is a Harper Majority fair? Not in your life.

Is it legitimate? You bet.

The Blue Meanies did manage to gain a majority with less that 40% of Canadians supporting them but, they did it using the rules in place. Our first-past-the-post electoral system isn't fair but, Harper didn’t do anything the Liberals haven’t done before him.

And, we let them do it. 

It takes guts to stand up and do what that young woman did. She gets my vote, hands down.

Time to Bring in Electoral Reform

Hi there from the Speaker's chair

As one of the sixty percenters, those people who didn’t vote for the blue meanies, I couldn’t help to notice that while the big parties have been quick to defend our undemocratic first past the post electoral system when it comes to General Elections, they recognize how flawed the system is when the time comes to elect the Speaker of the House.

It took six ballots before Andrew Scheer got the keys to that lovely old residence in the Gatineau’s. If the House of Commons used the system, which they think is good enough for the rest of us; the Speaker would most likely be a New Democrat.

It is well past time for this country to talk about serious electoral reform and to join the majority of world democracies in embracing proportional representation.

Regina Leader Post's New Coat of Paint

To much self-congratulation the Regina Leader Post unveiled their new format to readers this week.

Rob McLaughlin, the editor in chief of the Leader-Post tells us it is “...a thrilling opportunity to try new things, to meet new people and to go new places. Redesigned and refreshed from front to back, the new look of the Leader-Post is the first of many steps we're taking to better represent a city and a province in the middle of a significant transformation.


Brighter, bolder and easier to navigate from section to section, it's the first major overhaul of the paper in just under a decade. Our new look starts with a revised masthead on page one and extends through the paper with cleaner page tops, improved readability and better spacing of our columns and lines of type. And while we're preserving many of the existing features you've come to expect, we've also added a few new elements.


We hope it better reflects how we now connect with each other to express our opinions and debate the challenges facing our communities.”

Well, I’d say, it will take more than a fresh coat of paint to fix the old LP and based on the comments I’ve seen so far most readers agree with me. They find it disjointed and confusing and the new format uses too many conflicting fonts. The most common refrain is “Go back, go back.”

Format, shormat, I judge a paper by its content, the weight it gives to stories, its political biases and what it puts on the front page.

Anderson Clipping

Yesterday the northern Saskatchewan community of Wollaston Lake was served with an evacuation order because of threatening forest fires. There is no summer road in and out. Using small planes the town’s people were being airlifted out until smoke closed the airport. Now the only hope is that the still frozen lake has enough open water along the shore to boat the folks out.

Pretty dramatic front page news if you ask me but the editors stuck the story on the bottom of page two and it appears the LP couldn't even bother to send in a photographer. If Wollaston goes the way of Slave Lake perhaps the Leader Post can buy something from Reuters later.

This morning the Leader Post front page featured a large, poorly printed colour photograph of U2’s Bono and The Edge along with a story about a Regina woman who plans to attend eleven U2 concerts while they are on this tour. I have to ask why anyone might be interested in anyone who is dumb enough to do that and who at 34 should know better.

Next there is a story about the fact that veteran football player Chris Szarka has been cut by the Riders. Whoop de do. Why should I care? Szarka has already moved on and last year was elected to Regina’s City Council.

Next there is a story about a hockey player being charged as a result of a fatal accident outside Calgary.

So here are a couple of hints for publisher Marty Kline. Start with hiring some more reporters, assign more reporters to beats, so news isn’t reported by journalists who start each day with a blank slate, use less wire copy and if you have to use it at all rewrite it to give it a local slant and use a few op-ed pieces from people who actually know how to write.

If the LP wants to become relevant, it needs more than a new coat of paint

Blue Man Group Ready to Shake up Canada

The Blue Man Group with Governor General David Johnston

I guess for a lot of us are waiting to see how our new Parliament will function as it starts the spring session June 2nd the next while should be interesting. There have been some changes since it last sat.

New opposition Leader Jack Layton says he will push for a new level of decorum insisting that the NDP will not heckle the blue meanies on the other side of the house. The new Conservative MPs in the running to be Speaker of the House all claim they want to put steps in to improve things, to make it more civil. It will be tough though considering the quality of the people lined up for the job. Andrew Scheer? Spare me.

The head of the blue man group has no love for the socialists and considering what Harper once said about the New Democrats, I don't think any new approach will last long.

A few years ago Harper told a U.S right wing think tank, "Let’s take the New Democratic Party, the NDP The NDP could be described as basically a party of liberal Democrats, but it’s actually worse than that, I have to say. And forgive me jesting again, but the NDP is kind of proof that the Devil lives and interferes in the affairs of men.

This party believes not just in large government and in massive redistributive programs, it’s explicitly socialist. On social value issues, it believes the opposite on just about everything that anybody in this room believes. I think that’s a pretty safe bet on all social-value kinds of questions.

Some people point out that there is a small element of clergy in the NDP. Yes, this is true. But these are clergy who, while very committed to the church, believe that it made a historic error in adopting Christian theology.

The NDP is also explicitly a branch of the Canadian Labour Congress, which is by far our largest labour group, and explicitly radical. "

Considering that June 2nd the NDP will be trying out their new role as the Official Opposition. Pushing their new found weight around. The Liberals, in their new role as also rans, will be working hard to punch above their weight. Harper will have to get used to the fact that he has be civil to them from time to time. It will be tough for him.

Potentially this next session will be a spectator sport like we've never seen before. So, hold on to your hats Canada. 

Brad Should Think About the Kids

Sorry Brad. Wrong again

I am getting a little fed up at the Regina Leader Post's editorial view of the teachers job action. This "Teachers should be thinking about the kids" attitude is puzzling. What ever happened to "The Government should be thinking of the kids"?

The Wall government has themselves in a bit of a jam these days. They have only themselves to blame.

First, Wall thought he was pretty smart when he had his people sidle up to the nurses in 2008 and slip them a 35% increase in wages. The move by Brad and the nurses threw a wrench into the works and undermined any efforts to build real collective action against the Government's hold the line bargaining. He out smarted most of the union side negotiators who thought they could wrestle something close to the same money for their members. They couldn't but, by the time they realized that, all the wind went out of the common front's sails.

Labour might not have won that round but, to their credit they have long memories.

The second thing that undermined Wall's bargaining position was his own love of the spotlight and his unchecked boosterism.

Wall is a born salesman. He should be selling vinyl siding. He even convinced the Globe & Mail that he was Prime Ministerial material.

Brad Wall has spent the last year telling all of us here in flat city and beyond, that now that the evil, job killing, small business hating, socialist leaning NDP have been dispatched, Saskatchewan is booming.

• Things have never been better. 
• People are flocking back from Alberta. 
• We are encouraging immigrants from Ontario
• Jobs, Jobs Jobs
• Saskatchewan is the place to be

The Sask Party is running the show so, Sis Saskaboom bitta bah, let the good times roll.

Not so fast Brad.

During the tough times Saskatchewan workers, particularly Saskatchewan government workers were pressed to take less. The government, a generally labour friendly government, convinced workers to take less that they deserved because "the money just isn't there." Labour grudgingly took one for the team to try and keep things on an even keel.

The assumption was always, "Ok, we'll take the hit when times are tough on the expectation that employers will be fair when times are good."

Sorry folks. Duped again.

So now the consummate showman is in a jam. How can he continue to say;

• You are asking for too much 
• We can't afford it.
• That teachers and health care workers don't deserve even half of what his government gave to nurses.

after he and his cronies have made so much out of the Saskaboom?

I for one am happy to sit this one out and watch Brad squirm.

And in the News Today

Well the rapture has come and gone and I haven't noticed anyone missing in action from the Harper crew.

Living with Conservative Economics

We heard a lot of good news about our economy from the Blue Meanies during the election. We were told, things are good, all thanks to Stephen Harper’s fiscal policies apparently, but flying in the face of that optimistic vision, a new Salvation Army report found that a surprising amount of Canadians have first-hand knowledge of being homeless or in need of outside help to stay afloat. Almost 25 per cent of Canadians have had to depend on services such as food banks and/or other charitable groups during their lives. Seven per cent of Canadians reported they had to sleep on the street or in a homeless shelter due to unavailable housing.

The report entitled Canada Speaks, found there was a clear division in the attitudes toward Canada's homeless population, with more than half of those polled feeling that any money given directly to those on the street would do more harm than good. Despite what the new data shows, about 40 per cent of people cited in the report believe Canada's homeless population choose to live on the street or in shelters,

Curiously, that figure just about matches the percentage of people who voted Conservative in the last election. Humm....

Harper not so Tough on White Collar crime

Stephen Harper may talk about his “tough on crime” agenda on the campaign trail, vowing to lock up criminals and throw away the key. He never has much to say about fighting the root cause of much of the low end criminality - poverty.

At the other end of the criminal spectrum Harper seems to have taken a hand off approach.

In an international report that points the finger at Prime Minister Stephen Harper's lack of commitment Canada has been singled out for failing to enforce anti-bribery rules abroad. The watchdog group Transparency International said this week "Canada is the only G7 country in the little or no enforcement category, and has been in this category since the first edition of this report in 2005.” The agency groups Canada with other laggards such as Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece and Slovenia.

In the past decade, only a single Canadian company has ever been convicted of foreign bribery and the $25,000 fine issued by the court was less than the bribe involved.

Canada is also one of a handful of nine countries that explicitly permits so-called “facilitation payments” to foreign officials for acts of a “routine nature” that may be part of their jobs.

Fraser's Good Work Noticed

Most of us political watchers eagerly await any report put together by Auditor General Shelia Fraser and her crew. She has a nose for screw ups and stuffed shirts like Tony Clement just hate her. She may not be a favourite with the Harper gang but thanks to WikiLeaks, we know that the United States government is was paying attention and was impressed with her work. Leaked, confidential diplomatic cables tell us that the U.S. nominated Fraser as their choice to run the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services, but she declined.

Apparently there is still a awful lot of work yet to do here in Canada.

The Gall of Some People

After a stinging rebuke following the U.S. President’s urging that Israel return to something that at least resembles the 1967 borders in an effort to get real progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, told the United States Congress this week that the Jewish state does not need America’s military help to protect his country. The PM says Israel can protect itself.

What he didn’t say was that Israel would foot the bill for that protection themselves.

His speech to the U.S. Congress was designed to build support for President Obama's request for further $3 billion in military aid to Israel in the 2011 budget. Obama made the request despite Netanyahu’s rejection of his new road map for peace in the Middle East.

While he U.S Government gives the Palestinian Authority less than $500 million per year.On average the American people send Israel nearly $2 billion per year, most of it in military aid. Since 2008, the annual amount of U.S. financial support to Israel has increased to more than $3 billion per year.

Apparently, He who pays the piper calls the tune is not a popular saying in Israel.

Is the End Nigh?

Cancel the Saturday Restaurant Reservation

We usually go for a couple of beer after floor hockey Friday nights so, tonight should be no different except that according to a group of American, and we have to assume some Canadian Evangelical Christians, there will be a lot fewer of us around, Saturday morning.

Eighty eight year old Harold Camping says he has developed a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden within the Bible. He says with certainty, “The world will end May 21, 2011. These dates can be trusted entirely because they come right out of the Bible. “

Thousands believe Camping and are confident that early Saturday believers will, suddenly without warning, disappear from Earth in the "twinkling of an eye."

That creates some interesting situations;

What about those people’s pets? Surely the good people who are going to leave the rest of us and go directly to heaven, wouldn’t leave their poor cats, dogs, hamsters, pot bellied pigs and snakes starve? Of course not.

Someone has set up Eternal Earth-Bound Pets USA.. The company guarantees that when the Rapture comes, for the small fee of $135.00, in advance of course, the owner or one of his 44 contractors in 26 states will drive to your home within 24 hours, collect your dog, cat, bird, rabbit or small caged mammal, and adopt it. He has carefully screened all the rescuers. The contractors have to love animals, of course, but just as important is that they don't love Jesus. So for obvious reasons, they're all atheists.

Would it be ok I if, tonight after our customary visit to The Buskwakker we cruised through “good” neighbourhoods looking for signs that residents had been spirited away, so to speak? Could we just move in to their houses make ourselves a snack or help ourselves to their big screen television sets?  I wonder.

Assuming I guess that restaurant chefs were among those who were going to be called to heaven on Saturday Elizabeth Gunnison writing for Esquire magazine asked some notable American chefs “Of all the dishes that you've made in your lifetime, what's the one that you want to be remembered for? They came up with some interesting and eclectic choices. Everything from fish and chips, shrimp alhinho made with olive oil, garlic, coriander and pimenton — complete with the pressed jus from the shrimp heads, Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes, and bone marrow and oxtail marmalade. You can read the whole list here.

I don’t know. It has become a pretty weird world. The one thing I am pretty confident about is that next week there should still be enough of us left to have a good sized group at floor hockey.

Our two Favorite Roadsigns

In North Dakota they get it. Fairly flat, good, straight roads why dawdle along.

That is miles per hour

Makes sense to me

Don't Text and Drive

Welcome to the United States of America

A bit of an Oxymoron

We decided that we just couldn't face another drive across the north of Lake Superior so thought why not cross into the USA at Sault Ste Marie and drive to Regina on an alternate route.

Now I confess that I haven't traveled to the States very often since 9/11 and I did know that these was a building sense of paranoia at border crossings but I am not sure I realized how nasty these people had become.

Most of our experience crossing borders in the last few years has been in Europe where it is pretty painless.

We got a fairly good start, drove onto the bridge, across to US Customs, looking forward to our visit. The Welcome to the United States sign seemed like a good omen but, that was before we met Dudley Doright.

We handed over our passports and were ready to answer the expected few questions about the purpose of our visit, were we bringing any alcohol or food stuffs in, how long did we expect to be in the states. Our good mood didn't last long.

The "Why are you travelling to the United States" question got fairly aggressive off the top as the border thug, who clearly had a poor understanding of geography, tried to understand why, in his view, we had gone so out of our way to cross the border where we did. "Because it is the quickest route", didn't seem to register with him.

We then got into extensive questioning about why Chris might have snapped a few photos while crossing the bridge. Apparently the bridge is a strategic bit of infrastructure and vulnerable to terrorists so, we had to scroll through all the photographs on the camera so he could make sure we were not plotting to blow it up.

Then he moved on to what Chris was studying at University. What did I do for a living before I retired? Trade union rep was not an answer he liked to hear. Have we ever been arrested?

Then we got into the drug issues. Did we have drugs or drug paraphernalia. We said no. He then pressed Chris. "You were about to say something" Were we sure we weren't carrying drugs?

We then moved on to "Open the trunk" He moved stuff around then said, is there anything here you wouldn't want me to find? "No" I answered. "What if we called the dogs out? Would they find anything?"

Finally, unable to find that big bag of cocaine or traces of THC in my shaving kit and reasonably satisfied that we might only be a minor threat to the stability of the United States and therefore acceptable, we were allowed to move on.

Welcome to the United States Indeed.

If I was a paranoid person I might think that Homeland Security reads this blog.

Trilliums

One of the things that surprises visitors to Eastern Canadian forests in early May are the trilliums.  About this time of year these flowers carpet forest floors in Ontario and Quebec and into New England. They are mostly white but in Quebec we used to find areas where most of the flowers were a deep purple with only a few white flowers and a very few pink ones. It is quite an impressive show

They are so prevalent that the white trillium has become Ontario's Provincial Flower

To be honest I had forgotten about them but as we drove by Hudson and into Ontario on our way to Ottawa the forest floor was covered in those white flowers.

I had Chris pull over so I could take a few pictures.

Boules in Pointe St Charles

We were sitting on my brother's front deck, having a glass of wine when the cars started arriving. First one then a few more, then they filled up most of the available parking spots on the usually quiet street. In no time there were 50 or so men and women, most in their 60's filling the area around the boule courts in the park across the street.

Sandy said this was the second time this week that had happened. They milled around for 15 or 20 minutes, seeking out friends, shaking hands, renewing aquaintences and then someone with a clipboard kind of took charge and before you know it they had teamed up and six games were underway.  An urban boules league. Who knew?

Boules is one of those games played with steel balls. Kind of like lawn bowling but, played on a dirt court and without the dorky clothes and the Pimms. You can almost guarantee that on any given evening in the south of France, a group of, mostly older men, will be playing boule. Its like Bocce or Pétanque but I don't remember it being popular in Quebec.

It was chilly but we sat out, watched for quite a while and marveled at the sense of community that obviously exists. Not quite all what we expected in Pointe St Charles.

The Simon Fraser House

Simon Fraser House
Ste Anne de Bellevue, QC

I was just back to Montreal to visit my mother and to share driving duties as my son Christopher drove home for the summer.

When I was around 12 my mother enrolled in Education at MacDonald College and we moved to Ste Anne de Bellevue on the west end of the Island of Montreal. She still lives there.

The village was full of history and I was particularly taken by the Simon Fraser House, an old stone building built in 1778 located across from the Ste Anne locks.

I had a fascination with the Frasers. On my Mother’s side our ancestors fought with Wolfe as Fraser Highlanders. They were given land grants and stayed in Quebec.

I was disappointed to learn that the house was never owned by any distant relation of mine, nor did it belong to the explorer Simon Fraser.

This Simon Fraser was a relative new comer to Canada. He was businessman. One of the principles in the North West Company.

Aside from being a lovely old stone historical property, local scholars claim that Thomas Moore wrote the Canadian Boat Song while he was staying at the house as Fraser’s guest.

Not many years before Moore’s visit, Ste Anne was pretty much the edge of the “civilized world”

A chapel had been erected on the site in 1703 and the trappers and traders heading upstream on the Ottawa River would stop, give alms and pray for safe passage.

Many of them didn’t make it back.

Local historians claim that it was during his visit; Moore put the words to that piece.

We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.

In 1804 when the Boat Song was written, the village was a fur trading post. The rapids at Ste Anne meant the voyageurs had to portage.

The North West Company and the Hudson Bay Company both figured they would get a better deal if they did business there saving the voyageurs work of unloading the re-loading their cargo in Ste Anne. Something they would have to do again when the got to Lachine.

So, they bought furs from voyageurs heading south at the lowest price.

When those same voyageurs headed back into the wilderness to their trap lines, they would save two portages and a day’s paddling if they bought their supplies in Ste Anne de Bellevue. Of course the merchants by saving the voyageurs an extra day’s work could sell supplies to at inflated prices.

The merchants profited both ways.

Some things never change

Mesquite Smoked Paprika Chicken

Is it any wonder that Spanish cooks love to use paprika? I am becoming addicted to its smoky flavour.

For supper this evening I picked up a small whole chicken, about $8.00 or $9.00 worth and cut out the backbone and laid it open and flat. I then rubbed about 4 tablespoons of hot smoked paprika into the chicken, added a bit of olive oil and put it into a plastic bag for 4 or 5 hours.

I soaked some large mesquite wood chips in water for a couple of house and when I was ready to go I lit the gas barbecue. When it was hot I threw on the wood chips. Then laid the chicken skin side up on one side of the grill, turned off the heat below it and let it cook for an hour or so.

It was a windy day so it was hard to keep the heat up so, after an hour or so I turned the oven up to 450 degrees and put the chicken in a roasting pan with about 3/4 of an inch of water in the bottom and popped it in.

When the chicken was done, I took the pan juices, added a bit of chicken stock and thickened it into a gravy.

I served the chicken with Caribbean style rice and peas, yellow beans an of course, the gravy.

It had a pungent smoky, slightly hot flavour and the mesquite really complemented the smokiness of the paprika. I don't like to boast but, it was delicious.

If you don't like things hot, use a sweet paprika instead. Be sure to buy the Spanish stuff too. My favorite come in a distinctive red can, La Chinata. They have hot, sweet and bitter.

If all you have is Hungarian paprika, either go out and get some of the good stuff or wait until you have it on hand. It is simply not an adequate substitution.