Rod McQueen's Blog, page 18

The road less travelled

By now, everyone in the world must have viewed that TikTok video of the man roller-boarding on a roadway, lip-synching a snippet of “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac, and drinking juice from a jug. He’s just an ordinary guy, living in an RV outside his brother’s house, on his way to work as a labourer in a potato factory. Yet his carefree mood, the music, and the movement created magic for so many. I guess the explanation must be nostalgia as we recall the easy freedoms of pre-pandemic times.

Covid-19 has drastically changed the way we communicate. A businessman told me he was recently deposed for a long-running dispute about a deal. In the past, he’d fly to the U.S. state in which the lawsuit was filed. So would the other parties plus lawyers for all sides. Instead, the seven-hour session was done on Zoom. No flights, no hotel overnights, no taxis to and from airports. Similarly, my partner spoke at and helped organize two online panels last week hosted by the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. She was the only speaker in Toronto. The other six presenters appeared via Zoom from various European venues.The 200-member online audience was much larger than a sit-down session would have been and follow-up commentary was more voluminous than usual.

To be sure, not everyone participates in such thoughtful exercises. More than one-quarter of Canadians live alone and many are lonely at the moment. This past Thanksgiving was the first in my lifetime where I did not celebrate with family. And, while online buying has mushroomed, it doesn’t always work well. How many times have you been told that something is either unavailable or delivery has been delayed because of Covid. When retailers tell you that, there is nothing you can say, even if you are suspicious they’re just using Covid as an excuse.

Covid has altered us in ways both good and bad. We are far more watchful of people nearby but on the other hand more trusting that proper steps are being taken. That makes us both more in tune with society yet less comfortable. It’s a gentle balance that calls for a roller-board and a song.

 

Fit to print

Earlier this week, the Globe and Mail ran an ad promoting a new member of staff at the newspaper, Tanya Talaga. She certainly has a high-achiever’s background: nominated five times for the Michener Award for public service journalism and twice a contributor to stories that won National Newspaper Awards. As an Ojibwe, Talaga brings a particular perspective, said the ad, “to give voice to those who were not being heard.” Moreover, she will set “the record straight on Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences.”

This is all very commendable, but is this the right job for a newspaper? Can such a role as an advocate be properly carried out with the necessary objectivity and lack of bias that readers deserve? Will her pieces appear as bylined news stories or will they be labelled “Opinion” or “Insight” to set them apart as a point-of-view presentation rather than something based on straightforward research and fact-gathering.

To be sure, there is already advocacy in some journalistic areas, such as sports. Sports writers and broadcasters are referred to as “homers” because they rarely criticize, usually taking the side of the local team. In the Jays’ first playoff game, star pitcher Matt Shoemaker was pulled after only three innings. I was listening to the radio broadcast where those calling the play-by-play quickly embraced the party line that this decision was not made by manager Charlie Montoyo acting alone. Upper management was involved, they said, so don’t make Montoyo into a scapegoat. The Globe followed suit on Friday with an equally palsy piece under the headline “Early exit stings, but Jays exude confidence.” And here I thought the team barely made the playoffs after a disappointing year.

When does that kind of mollycoddling become advocacy? Business reporters shouldn’t take it upon themselves to explain away poor performance by floundering corporate executives. Political writers can’t promote a party’s propaganda. Journalism should always be fair, balanced and accurate. Advocacy is for lobbyists and the like, not the pages of my morning paper.

From the shelf

The fastest-growing activity during the pandemic must surely be reading. A neighbour recently told me that he’d read sixty books. I’m behind that at about two dozen. Among them are some re-reads such as Gentlemen, Players and Politicians by Dalton Camp, still the best ever Canadian political memoir. I’ve also read books I’ve always meant to but never did such as Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, written fifty years ago.

The best I’ve read so far is Radical Wordsworth by Jonathan Bate, telling how William Wordsworth changed poetry forever in the late eighteenth century by writing about nature, imagination and feelings, a long way from the stultifying verse that had previously existed. Wordsworth, in combination with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, launched the English Romantic movement. Their impact reached to the New World, too, infusing the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau.

One of the many fascinating aspects of Wordsworth’s poetic life is that he had done all of his best work by the time he was forty. Much of the reason for those good years was his friendship with Coleridge. The two made each other better. After forty, Wordsworth wrote about three memorable poems but it was mostly all dull and downward until his death at eighty. By then, his work was selling well, but he also had a patron who helped keep him afloat.

My poetry is limited to poems to my grandchildren; writing books has been my metier. Nor have I tried songwriting, to my mind an almost mystical process. Arlo Guthrie has said, “Songs are like fish. You just gotta have your line in the water. And it’s a bad idea to fish downstream from Bob Dylan.” In his memoir, Testimony, Robbie Robertson seems to be saying that he wrote everything The Band performed but never tells how he did it. According to the reviews, in her new book about The Band’s drummer, Levon Helm, Sandra B. Tooze declares that there may have been more collaboration involved among the group than Robertson has admitted. And that’s what sends you to the next book. Always in search of good research and good writing that makes you think.

What’s past is prologue

The advertising sign on the bus shelter was like a punch in the nose. “A name to match our history,” said the line at the top. In the middle was a bottle of Coors beer and, at the bottom, a line saying “Now called Original.” Imagine the hours of Zoom meetings it took for some ad agency to come up with that brilliant, new moniker – “Original.”

But that wasn’t what bothered me. Was the word “our” about the history of Canada, the history of Coors, or a presumptive both? And what was an American beer doing there anyway? Of course, all the major Canadian breweries have long since become foreign-dominated. Labatt was bought by Belgium’s InBev, Molson merged with Coors, even little Sleeman was taken over by Sapporo. Similar hollowing-out has occurred in Canadian mining (Inco and Falconbridge), steel (Dofasco and Stelco), and hotels (Fairmont and Four Seasons).

In some cases, the reason was globalization, in others, poor management. In his excellent new book on Labatt, Brewed in the North, Matthew J. Bellamy points out that none of the Canadian brewers developed a popular international brand (such as Heineken, Corona, or Stella). Instead, they all just buckled under to entreaties by outsiders.

In this era when Canadian history is being vilified, with statues of Sir John A. Macdonald a particular target, how long will it take before other great figures from our past fall to equal mindlessness. Parliament Hill is dotted with statues about whom the rabble-rousers could probably find some complaint. Statues in Montreal, Halifax and Vancouver have already come under fire. Who’s next? The Champlain monument in Québec City? Louis Riel in Winnipeg? Evangeline in Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia?

Besmirch them with paint or pull them down with ropes and soon we’ll be left with nothing connoting “our history” except for tag lines from foreign firms. What sort of a future can you possibly have without a past upon which to build?

Machine politics

The sound you heard over the weekend at the Conservative Party leadership convention was not only machines mutilating ballots but also the last gasp of the Red Tory wing of the party. There was a time when Red Tories dominated under leaders Robert Stanfield, Joe Clark, and Brian Mulroney. With the defeat of Peter MacKay they’re no longer even a wing, barely a prayer.

What exactly is a Red Tory? Well, someone who is pro-choice, favours intrusion by the state, and might even lean towards a guaranteed annual income. She is a caring person, not someone who thinks everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. First of all, as Hugh Segal said in his most recent book, you have to have boots to begin with. Segal’s a Red Tory but was OK with the name change of the party from Progressive Conservative to Conservative.

I was not happy with the new name although Progressive Conservative is an unusual combination of words. When I worked for The Financial Post in Washington D.C. the only thing harder to explain to Americans than Progressive Conservative was Leader of the Opposition. As close as I could come to describe the latter was to draw a parallel with the minority leader in the Senate. I got about as far with that as claiming the cold air coming from Canada actually had its beginnings in Alaska and we did our best to warm it up on the way through.

Just as there used to be Red Tories, there were also Blue Liberals, those who were sufficiently right-wing they were not part of the mainstream. These days, with a deficit of $363 billion no one in that party can claim to be Blue anymore. There’s too much government activism for that.

In 2015, I voted for Justin Trudeau. I hadn’t voted Liberal since I cast my ballot for his father in 1968. When the next election is called, I don’t know where I’ll go. I can’t vote for the prime minister, he has no idea how to run a cabinet or where the line is when it comes to ethical behaviour. My former party has disappeared but I’ll keep a close eye on the new Conservative leader and see how much he kow-tows to the social conservatives who put him in the job. Failing that, maybe I’ll mail in my ballot and hope it gets destroyed by some machine.

 

The world within

Six months into the pandemic, where do we stand? In Canada, 9,000 are dead; in the U.S. it’s 170,000. Did anyone really think it would hit this hard and last this long? Worse, no one knows how much more is to come. A friend remarked recently that we will be dealing with Covid-19 for the rest of our lives. It was a jarring thought.

I worry about students returning to school. Too many will be taught virtually. Anybody who suffered through online lectures during the spring term knows that method doesn’t work very well. Moreover, there isn’t the same socializing with friends, no school teams or choirs or after class dance lessons, language or heritage study. Personal growth will be stunted as a result. Business also suffers with huge organizations operating from thousands of individual homes. Many staffers like it; their day is their own. But what about productivity or maintaining a corporate culture?

Hundreds of retailers and restaurants are already gone, never to return. Bankruptcies grow apace. Government debt will hobble the economy for years to come. The one positive spot is real estate. With five-year mortgage rates available in the range of 2.5 percent, there is housing for those who can afford it. But, for retirees who don’t want the excitement of the stock market, the other investment choices offer pathetically weak returns.

None of us sees as many friends as we once did. Families are reduced to fewer visits with furtive hugs. Those with relatives in the U.S. or abroad can’t get together even under such constraints. We won’t be going to New York this fall to see opera at the Met, as we usually do. Maybe we’ll never fly again.

But through all the miasma, there is a bright side. Let’s use this extra time to understand ourselves better. Most people used to have whirlwind existences and made no effort to look within, to see who they really are, and what they ought to be doing with their lives. So, ask yourself: What can I do to contribute? Who can I help? The most important pursuit should be self knowledge: just exactly who am I?

Roots and wings

My daughter Alison and I recently spent a day visiting Guelph, my home town. We began on Wyndham Street, walking from the train station to the cenotaph and back. The main street still includes a few restored architectural gems such as the Petrie building with its unusual metal facade but all the retailers from my youth are long gone. No more Treanon, Vorvis or Peacock restaurants. No more Ryan’s or Budd’s department stores. No Marshall’s or Stewart’s drugs. Only the Big Five Banks still do business there, a sure sign of their eternal life.

Two places where I worked summers as a teenager, the Parkview Motel and the College Motor Inn, still exist, although the latter has a different name and is currently being demolished. At the Parkview, I started as a dishwasher and parfait maker, graduating to busboy. At the College Motor Inn I was gardener, waiter and night desk clerk, checking in ball players from the local team with that night’s after-game popsies. Of my two public schools, only King George remains, in a rebuilt state. A picnic lunch beside the Speed River in Riverside Park offered familiar surroundings.

But there is one important place that mattered most: St. George’s Park. As an only child, the park was crucial to my growing up. No matter the time of day or the season, from our home where I lived from birth to fourteen, I could walk out the door, cross Metcalfe street, plunge into the park and find something to do and someone to do it with. In winter, there was the rink where I learned to skate. In the other seasons the swings, baseball diamond and city-run summer program with its art projects and group games. I learned to co-exist with kids from all walks of life: the rich and the poor, the capable and the disabled. All were equal in my eyes.

As a youth I walked every inch of the park that covers an area three blocks by two blocks. Trees still stand today where they did when I was a boy. I owe my parents, whose grave we visited at Woodlawn Cemetery, my life. But St. George’s Park is also hallowed ground. Those environs made me a better man than I would otherwise have become.

 

 

Reads and re-reads

Like everyone these days, I’ve had more time to read than usual. I normally stick to nonfiction, but I did read a few fiction books, reread some old favourites, and enjoyed several new titles. Here’s part of my list, with brief comments.

Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens, is well told, full of twists and turns and the “marsh girl” is a compelling central character. Why are so many of the best fiction writers all from the Deep South? Another good read was one I should have already read long ago: In the Skin of a Lion. Michael Ondaatje spins a glorious tale that only disappoints at the very end.

Second, some re-readings of books I read twenty-five years ago. Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon, lived up to my recollections as he tours America for a year taking the roads less travelled, the secondary ones that show up blue on maps. His descriptions, exchanges with people, and voyage of self-discovery is a triumph. The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux was less so. Theroux leaves Boston to travel only by train to the tip of South America. Trouble is, the trains are grotty and the cities decrepit. He seems to be going to places just to leave them. I gave up when he was in Ecuador. I can’t imagine why I previously liked this book.

Who-dun-its belong on every list and I’ve read two excellent tales: Bad Blood by John Carreyrou and The Billionaire Murders, by Kevin Donovan. The first is about a Silicon Valley scam that fooled even the high and mighty; the second details the still-unsolved killing in 2017 of Torontonians Barry and Honey Sherman. Another investigative work that kept my attention was Blood in the Water by Shirley Anne Thompson about the 1971 uprising at Attica prison.

Two other rereads stood the the test of time. First, is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. To my mind, Meany is simply the best fictional character ever created. And Gentlemen, Players and Politicians by Dalton Camp, covering his career to 1957, remains the best Canadian political memoir. In conclusion, two quick recommendations: Ronald Reagan by Bob Spitz, and The Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power, a foreign journalist in the former Yugoslavia who worked in the Obama White House and became U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.

My kingdom for a horse

I love equestrian statues. There, the secret’s out. Just about any equestrian statue will do, but I have a few favourites. In New York’s Grand Army Plaza, there’s the gilded bronze of William Tecumseh Sherman. Another gilded bronze is Joan of Arc in New Orleans and the Place des Pyramides in Paris. In fact, it you visit the cities and towns of France it’s amazing how many of them have a copy. Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a united Italy, is on a horse in the centre of Ancient Rome. I don’t know if it’s the tallest equestrian statue in the world, but at 40 feet high plus pedestal, it must rank right up there.

In London, I admire the Duke of Wellington, on the north side of Hyde Park Corner. In Washington, D.C., Andrew Jackson rides a rearing horse in Lafayette Square. In 2015, when we were conducting research, we lived nearby. Most days, I’d spend a few minutes on a bench and pay my regards to Jackson, just a few feet away, with the Obama White House rising resolute beyond. When I go for walks in downtown Toronto, I often circle Edward VII in the middle of Queen’s Park, resplendent on horseback in an area that has just been refurbished with new paving stones.

These days, many such monuments are fending off or falling to protesters. Andrew Jackson is a particular target because he forced the relocation of 60,000 Indigenous people in what came to be called The Trail of Tears. Jackson has been roped by those who would pull him down, but I saw on the news two nights ago, that he still stands. While much of the ire is focused on Confederate icons, how long will it take for someone to target Sherman, the Union general who burned Atlanta and devastated a swath of Georgia?

A version in Mumbai of Toronto’s Edward VII was recently moved to the local zoo. Will my pal get shunted to Canada’s Wonderland on the grounds of colonialism? We need a national strategy to handle the newly viewed past. In Budapest, statues and plaques from the Communist era have been assembled in Memento Park, an open-air museum where you can go see Marx, Engels, Lenin and various Hungarian Communist leaders. We need something similar rather than one-off solutions from various citizens with grudges no matter how pertinent.

 

The China Shock

Sometimes you read newspaper articles, complete with studies and statistics, that seem far from reality. Such a commentary written by Andrew Sharpe and Myeongwan Kim ran yesterday in the Financial Post, (you can read it here) based on a study conducted by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS).  The study sought to discover the impact on consumer prices in Canada and on inflation caused by an increase in goods imported from China, an effect known as “China Shock.”

First, the bad news. An earlier study by the CSLS estimated that Canada lost 113,500 manufacturing jobs in the period 2001 and 2011. These were good jobs that disappeared, paying an average of $58,464 in today’s dollars. But this new study claims to have found good news. As imports from China grew during the same period from 5 percent of all the goods in the Consumer Price Index to 14 percent a decade later, these imports dampened the rise of inflation. The average annual inflation for the total CPI was 2.1 percent from 2001 to 2011. Without the China Shock it would have been 2.2 percent. You read that right. The big impact amounted to an annual reduction of 0.1 percent. (You can read the full CSLS study here.)

While the study stuck to the 2001-2011 decade in order to be able to make a comparison to the early findings by CSLS about jobs, this latest study does offer some newer stats. For example, the Chinese share in total imports in Canada rose from 3.2 percent in 2000 to 12.6 percent in 2017. Does this relatively low number jibe with your own shopping experience? Walk into Canadian Tire or Dollarama and all you can smell is the plastic used to make goods in China.

There was a time in the 1950s when the designation “Made in Japan” meant shoddy items that didn’t last long. But within twenty years, Japan’s output in automotive and electronics was best-in-class. The Big Three American automakers had to make serious changes to their own design and manufacturing to stay abreast. I look forward to signs that China’s quality will improve in a similar manner, but I have my doubts. Meanwhile, the so-called positive result on inflation of the China Shock feels more like a shiver.