Rod McQueen's Blog, page 20

TV or not TV

I well remember our family’s first television set. I was twelve and returning from two weeks at the Guelph YMCA camp, Nagiwa. My father had picked me up at the bus and was driving me home when, just as our house hove into view, he pulled my cap down over my eyes. He didn’t want me to see the new television aerial decorating our house, preferring to unveil the surprise once I was inside.

Of course, I was excited by the RCA Victor black and white TV in a corner of the living room. “Can I turn it on?” I asked, the soul of good manners, then proceeded to watch anything that flickered for the next few days. The main entertainment came from the U.S. network stations in Buffalo, about 80 miles away as the signal flies. You probably could pick up CBC by sticking a finger out the window but, except for hockey, there wasn’t much on the public broadcaster for a young lad. Popular U.S. shows of that era included the Ed Sullivan Show, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World, I Love Lucy, and – Buffalo Bob Smith and Howdy Doody – airing just before supper. “Say kids, what time is it? It’s Howdy Doody time.”

Just as interesting was the American advertising that offered a better life than we knew in Canada. Among the mouth-watering delicacies unavailable here were Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks, Bosco syrup topping, and Beech-Nut gum. My father once went on business to Chicago and brought back a paper bag filled with packages of Beech-Nut. I was the star of the playground at King George Public School until my supply ran out.

Somewhere along the way, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) permitted Canadian stations that were running American shows to delete the U.S. ads and replace them with ones they’d sold. As revenue enhancement deals go, they don’t get any better. The audience was automatic; no effort was required. Canadians eventually rose up and demanded – not more Canadian shows – but to see the U.S. ads during the Super Bowl. And maybe that kind of thinking is what has always kept Canada back. We’ve had a few global successes, but for the most part, we’ve always been too eager to wallow in everything American rather than produce our own. Going against the grain is an old fight that’s always been worth fighting. May many more Canadians succeed at whatever homegrown ideas they can muster in 2020.

Our daily dread

Canadians are so nice, goes the myth, so courteous. Indeed, there are regular occasions when we do act in thoughtful ways. If you follow someone into a mall or through a workplace doorway, chances are that they held the door so it did not swing shut in your face. I’m of an age now where young people regularly offer me their seat on the subway. I always decline. I’m not over the hill yet, but their kindness is welcome.

However, put those same gracious Canadians behind the wheel and instantly they become irate road warriors. Pedestrians don’t get the right of way, horn honking replaces Christmas carols and road rage runs rampant. In Budapest, where we visited recently, it’s a different world. There’s a tangled intersection on the Buda side of the Chain Bridge where multiple roads and a tram line intertwine. There are no traffic lights. Everyone takes their turn, and it works smoothly. On other roads in Hungary, whenever you let a driver move ahead of you into your lane, once in place they switch on their hazard lights for a couple of blinks to say thank you. All I see in Toronto is the finger.

Toronto Mayor John Tory is threatening to raise property taxes to increase revenue. But there are other means:  first, a congestion fee like the one that has worked in central London would not only fill the till but also reduce downtown traffic that often comes to a standstill. Second, charge tolls on the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway. The previous provincial government rejected the idea; the current regime may be more amenable.

And, third, yes, hike property taxes, too. In his memoir, The Duke of Kent, the Hon. Darcy McKeough, former Ontario Treasurer, writes that the tax rate on his home in Chatham is double the tax rate on his condo in Toronto. His message to Toronto: “Quit bitching, stop asking Queen’s Park for more money, and bring your property tax rates up to the same level as other municipalities.” Take all three steps and road rage dwindles, the pace quickens, and there’s money to spend on important projects.

We don’t need no education

As someone proudly born in Guelph, every couple of months I read the online obituaries in what is now called the Guelph Mercury Tribune. While Guelph has more than quadrupled to 130,000 since I left long ago, I usually know someone among the deceased. This time, I knew two people who recently died, both of them high school teachers from my days at John F. Ross Collegiate: Bill Scott and Cathy Crack. The first thing I noticed is that Scott was just seven years older than I, Crack only five years older. At the time, they seemed far more mature.

Scott was a coach who later became a principal, then superintendent. I saw him maybe ten years ago and he greeted me like an old friend. Crack was important at the time because something I wrote in my weekly high school news column for the Guelph Mercury (as it was then called) had aroused the ire of Lorne Fox, school principal. From then on, Crack had to read my draft before I sent it to the paper for publication. She never made a single change and I have to say I liked her for that.

With today’s high school teachers threatening to strike, I got thinking about the importance of teachers in our lives in those days. Don Maudsley, my Latin teacher, lives nearby so I see him every couple of months. We catch up on news; I hear about his participation in the chorus of the Toronto City Opera. But Isobel Cowie remains my favourite. It was she who one day lugged in her record player so we could hear Dylan Thomas reading “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” That poem led me to a life of loving words. Because of her encouragement I won the London Free Press Editorial Award that meant work in the newsroom every summer I attended The University of Western Ontario. That hands-on editorial experience launched my career in journalism.

I’m glad I never became a teacher. Those fine people who taught me would not be revered today. Despite new rules, students spend too much of their time on screens doing personal things, rather than listening to the teacher’s knowledge. Respect, helpful counsel and life-long friendships are gone. No wonder teachers want to strike. Their lives have become about the money, not the kids, because the kids won’t let them do their jobs let alone send them to futures they wouldn’t otherwise have enjoyed.

From Torino to Toronto

Have you noticed how many everyday transactions used to involve people but no longer do? The first major self-serve was pumping your own gas. ATMs dispense cash and online sites accept bill payments as well as allow trades in your RRSP. Grocery and drug stores all have self-service checkouts. In Royal Bank Plaza and two other Toronto locations, new Cake Boss vending machines dispense slices or complete cakes.

Not so at Eataly, the eat, shop and learn emporium that opened this past week at Bay and Bloor Streets in Toronto. Even with the hordes that descended on the place, helpful staff was not only plentiful but also cheerful amid the chaos. The first Eataly opened in Torino in 2007 and I can’t tell you how many people over the years I’ve heard talk about their experience at an Eataly in New York, Florence, Sao Paulo, or elsewhere, and were looking forward to Toronto’s own Eataly.

I live a five-minute walk away so was able to reconnoiter wait times and plan a Friday visit accordingly. Until 5 p.m. there was no lineup standing on the sidewalk, you could walk right in. After that the chilly hopefuls waited an hour or more. (On the weekend, lineups started earlier.) Inside, you can register at the restaurant you have in mind and they text you when your table’s ready. Among the 50,000 sq ft, there’s plenty to look at while you wait: a brewery and pub on the lower level; a coffee bar on the second level; the third offers fresh fruit and vegetables in the food hall, separate lineups for pizza slices and gelato, shorter waits to buy cheeses, aged meat or fresh fish, and three restaurants. By registering before 5 p.m. at La Pizza e La Pasta, our wait for a table was 45 minutes; register at 7 p.m. and you can wait two hours. All was fresh and tasty. Prices were fine, too. There was one dish at $65 but there were also half a dozen pasta choices in the $12-$19 range.

Among the servers were some employees from established sites to help with the opening. One waiter who works in the U.S. said there was a discussion after closing on the first night. Everyone with experience in these matters thought they’d done less business than at a typical opening in the U.S. but it turned out to be the same. It just went more smoothly. “There was a nice vibe,” he said. “Americans complain all the time.” Welcome to Toronto, Eataly. Grazie mille.

The invisible man

The caucus of the Conservative Party of Canada has decided not to pass judgment on Andrew Scheer. That was kind of them; he might not have passed muster. Instead, he will go on a “listening tour” to find out what Canadians think about him, the campaign and his policies. First, what did he do right? Well, he increased the party’s share of the popular vote by 2.5 percentage points from 2015 and added 26 seats. But, with all Justin Trudeau’s shenanigans, the election was Scheer’s to win … and he didn’t.

What did he do wrong? The first television ads were symptomatic. Scheer was shown sitting in a room in front of a summery vista seen through a window. His message was making the campaign about “you” but part way into the ad, the camera stopped filming his direct eye contact and moved to an angle that showed him staring at some unknown point to the viewer’s left. His inability to establish a connection with voters would dog him throughout the campaign.

Scheer’s core advisory team was too small, insufficiently diverse, and apparently unable either to think of helpful things or get him to do them. He wasted far too many days fudging on abortion when all he had to do was say that his views were the same as Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper, i.e. he was personally pro-life but the law of thirty years would not be changed. When he did have an opportunity to reach more than a million voters, as in the one-on-one interview with CTV’s Lisa LaFlamme, just the biggest television newscast in the land, all he did was look evasive and repeat his mantra about “affordability” at least three times. He did only so-so in the debates, unable to think on his feet, and bring viewers his way.

Nor could he seem to impress in real life. Despite being an outsized 6’4″, he could not “take” the room at small gatherings and make his presence tangible to all. Instead, he became almost invisible. When I told my barber how tall Scheer was, he said, “On the radio, he sounds small.” Doesn’t that say it all? The party will likely turn thumbs down on Scheer in the vote next April. As CBC’s Larry Zolf used to say, the Conservatives stab each other in the front. So who’s next? Peter MacKay doesn’t have the royal jelly. Lisa Raitt will find losing her seat is a problematic launch pad. I don’t see any saviours on the horizon. At this juncture, it looks like Trudeau will regain his majority whenever the next election is called.

Counting on it

In the 1972 federal election, the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Party (as it was then known) were a couple of percentage points apart in the popular vote. So, too, in the number of seats won, 109-107, in favour of the Liberals. In this most recent election, the popular vote was even tighter. The Conservative Party of Canada (as it is now known) was one percentage point ahead of the Liberal Party and won 121 seats. The “loser” Liberals got 157 seats. A close-run thing on that earlier occasion resulted in a near tie in seats; an even closer result in the recent election yielded a 36-seat differential. Please explain to me how that happened without making my head hurt.

Now you know why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau never brought in proportional representation as he promised he would during the 2015 election. The current “first past the post” system works just fine as far as he’s concerned. In this most recent election, the NDP and the Green Party suffered most by following the traditional methodology. The NDP had 16 percent of the popular vote but ended up with only 7 percent of the seats. The Greens had 7 percent of the popular vote but got a slim-pickings 1 percent of the seats.

If there had been proportional representation, the election results would have looked something like this (with actual numbers in brackets): Conservatives 115 (121), Liberals 112 (157), NDP 54 (24), Bloc 27 (32), and Green 24 (3). Would proportional representation make running this minority parliament any easier? No, but what it might have done is help defuse such problems as Western alienation and Quebec nationalism by permitting MPs to represent ridings in Quebec and the West from parties otherwise not represented. As it is, we have returned to the same regional divisions as existed thirty years ago.

Most European countries have some form of proportional representation. The notable exceptions are the United Kingdom and France but no one would point to either as exemplary forms of government. Canada needs to change its ways so that all views are represented in the House of Commons at the same partisan strength as they are found across the country. Over to you, Mr. Prime Minister.

A life’s work

Hugh Segal has had his share of frustrations and elations. Growing up poor in Montréal taught him how tough life can be and turned him into caring Canadian. A visit to his school by the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker inspired him to believe that politics was a noble calling where change was possible. By the time he was in university, he was active with other students in the Progressive Conservative Party. In 1972, at twenty-two, he ran in Ottawa Centre, not a riding Tories usually won. He lost, but only by about 1,200 votes.

I was working for Robert Stanfield at the time as his press secretary. With a Liberal minority government under Pierre Trudeau, the next election could come at any time. Segal joined Stanfield’s staff as he awaited another chance and made an immediate contribution to the parliamentary effort as a legislative assistant. His life’s work also became apparent; he saw that Stanfield’s idea of a guaranteed annual income could have helped families like his. Segal’s new book, Boot Straps Need Boots: One Tory’s Lonely Flight to End Poverty in Canada, is part memoir and part polemic.

Segal is a wonderful writer. While he was in Stanfield’s office, he wrote the Christmas message one year, a brief greeting that went out on The Canadian Press wire and was recorded for use by Broadcast News. Next year, it was my turn. I handed Stanfield what I thought was a pretty good draft only to have him review it and say, “Let’s just use Hugh’s from last year.” No one was any the wiser that they were hearing about the same star in the east for the second time.

Segal has reached the heights as senior advisor to William Davis and chief of staff to Brian Mulroney. He’s been a senator, principal of Massey College, and a member of the nine-person Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group that proposed a variety of reforms to democracy and the rule of law. In a bipartisan effort, he helped Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne establish a three-city pilot project for his beloved guaranteed annual income, but the Doug Ford government killed the plan. The fight goes on. Hugh Segal is just the man to make it happen one day.

Chicken feed

Canada’s first Chick-fil-A, the number one chicken restaurant in the U.S., opened a block away from me in downtown Toronto a month ago. For the first week, there was chaos on the sidewalk outside because of protests by the LGBTQ community who believe Chick-fil-A’s founding family is homophobic. The rest of the world didn’t care. Whenever I happened to walk by, the lineup of slavering customers began inside, stretched outside across the front windows, wound around the corner of the shop and continued some distance down the side street.

After a week or so, the protesters disappeared but the lineups remained, so I patiently waited my best chance to eat chicken like it was for my first time. After all, Chick-fil-A, founded in 1964 in Atlanta, Georgia, now has more than 2,400 restaurants in forty-seven states – and one province. There are plans to open fifteen more outlets in Toronto over the next five years. They must be doing something right.

One day, with the lineup down to twenty people outside, I finally joined in. Ten minutes later I had a paper bag containing my first meal: the Chick-fil-A deluxe sandwich, waffle fries and a medium root beer, all for $12.42 including tax. The boneless chicken breast had been hand-breaded, cooked in peanut oil, and served on a butter bun with lettuce, tomato, and two of the smallest slices of dill pickle you ever saw. The latter is apparently a signature item.

I perched on a stool in the window to show the world my hard-fought purchase. Everything tasted pretty ordinary. The texture of the sandwich was smooshy. The waffle chips were a long way from frites. Only later when I checked Chick-fil-A’s website did I realize what I’d done to myself. Total calories in all my items were 1,220, about half my daily requirement. Total sodium was 2,135 mg. The American Heart Association urges no more than 2,000 mg a day and says 1,500 is better. Total fat was 57 g, mid-range on the 44-77 grams you should eat per day, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The only good news was 39 grams of protein of the 58 I need. Next time I walk by, I think I’ll start a new protest for a different cause: healthier food.

 

Time for them to go

Is the regular baseball season over? I can only hope so. I’ve been a member of two different Blue Jays subscriber groups since that first day at Exhibition Stadium in 1977 so I have seen some bad years, but none was as awful as the most recent. Fans cheered more heartily at a well-caught foul ball in the stands than anything that happened on the field.

Before the season began, there was a lot of hype about the impact rookies would have. Well the oldsters disappeared and the young-uns joined and we’d lose seven in a row, or twelve out of the last sixteen. We were stuck at .400 for most of the year. If there were moves to acquire major league talent, I somehow missed them. And what is this strategy about having the starting pitcher stay for only one inning? You use up a lot of arms, sometimes eight a game, leaving nobody for the following night.

You go to a game now, and the Jays shirts worn by the patrons all reflect glory days of the past: Alomar, Encarnacion, Donaldson, Halladay, Bautista. We’ll know the future’s finally arrived when more of the active players are represented as fan favorites. Of course, the whole game has changed since the Jays first arrived in town. Nobody hits for average any more. It’s all strikeouts and home runs. But no one seems able to hit those homers with their buddies on base.

Does it make a difference that the Blue Jays are the only team in the American League with corporate ownership? Rogers Communications must be wondering why they bother. They certainly aren’t putting big money into salaries; this year’s payroll was among the lowest in fifteen seasons. In all my years as a fan, I watched fewer televised games this year than ever before. There’s only one answer. The Jays have been doing poorly, with no apparent strategy, since President Mark Shapiro arrived from Cleveland and brought some of his henchmen with him. Time to fire Shapiro, general manager Ross Atkins, and coach Charlie Montoyo. Surely just about anybody else could do better.

 

The old face of society

When I was growing up in Guelph, Ont., there were no touring song or dance groups who came to town. Kitchener Auditorium, fifteen miles away, attracted the travelling rock and roll shows with the likes of The Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly but not every teenager in Guelph could afford to go. Instead, Guelphites made their own entertainment. The Guelph Light Opera Company would produce Gilbert and Sullivan or Brigadoon. And through the 1950s and into the 1960s the Guelph Kiwanis Club held an annual minstrel show.

The fund-raising event, in the auditorium of Guelph Collegiate and Vocational Institute, ran three or four nights and was always sold out. Maybe ten or a dozen men sat in a line on stage in full minstrel garb including white gloves and blackened faces. They gave themselves names like Rastus and Bones and cracked jokes. There was group singing and solos but the highlight was always Harry Kelly, who ran the local music shop and record store, singing Old Man River. At the time, I never thought I was going to hear a finer voice.

But as the civil rights movement grew in the American south during the 1960s, the Kiwanis Club stopped doing the show. Everybody understood their rationale. Which brings us to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-admitted member of the white privilege crowd, who performed in black face or brown face at least three times, as recently as 2001. He’s apologized profusely but the stain remains.

I voted for Trudeau in 2015 but had decided before these incidents came to light that I would not be voting Liberal this time. There has been too much disappointment behind the performance arts that he calls governing. But these recent revelations raise an even higher question beyond personal voting. In my mind, Trudeau now lacks the necessary moral authority, is no longer fit to represent Canada at home or abroad, and must resign. Only then, can he wash the brown off his face and the black off his character. Redemption involves resolve that he has yet to embrace.