Rod McQueen's Blog, page 30

Bury my heart on bended knee

Don’t you find it passing strange that every company, government, think tank and farm boy is trying to convince U.S. President Donald Trump just how important we are to them and how no changes should be made to free trade? Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been suitably deferential, dispatching cabinet ministers, and even inveigling former PM Brian Mulroney to come out of retirement to pour maple syrup into the ears of anyone in Washington who will listen.

In addition, onetime civil servants such as Derek Burney as well as provincial premiers like Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall have either volunteered or been dragooned to the cause. The message has been so well and warmly received that White House spokesman Sean Spicer refers to our leader as Joe Trudeau.

Time was when huge stretches of Canada were against free trade. The Rt. Hon. John Turner made voting “no” the centrepiece of his 1988 election campaign with that memorable TV ad showing American and Canadian negotiators at the table. Says the American: “Since we’re talking about the free trade deal, there’s one line I’d like to change.” The next scene shows a map with a hand rubbing out the border between our two countries.

It would appear we’ve reached that point again. The first thing the Trump administration did was approve Keystone so our oil sands can be pumped to the U.S. for refining and upgrading. Doesn’t this sound like our traditional role as hewers of wood and drawers of water? All the while tugging on our forelocks in suitable deference to the new lord of the manor.

The two solitudes encore une fois

I freely admit to having a brain cramp about the debate surrounding Andrew Potter, the former director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. Potter wrote a feisty column in Maclean’s about the “social malaise” of Québec, calling it a “pathologically alienated and low-trust society.” The outrage was immediate and he quickly resigned his post. Was he pushed or did he jump? We do not know.

Part of me says, “Well, what if his observations were accurate?” At least, in his experience. No less an individual than Québec Premier Jacques Parizeau blamed losing the 1995 referendum on “money and the ethnic vote,” another occasion when a personal opinion caused outrage in Québec. Did it help that Parizeau was a Francophone? Potter is bilingual, but he is an Anglophone, so maybe he wasn’t blessed with the same forgiveness factor when he spoke about Quebeckers.

Moreover, Potter did make factual mistakes and his research was mostly anecdotal, so that has to be held against him. But he apologized profusely; yet that was not enough. Nor was Potter protected by the much ballyhooed free speech of an academic. Potter was not tenured so could not cling to that garment so rarely worn in Canada because most of our academics are mealy-mouthed.

It all seemed to come down to the fact that if you offend certain groups in society, then you pay the price. But should just claiming offence be sufficient? It shouldn’t be, but it seemingly is. That is the conundrum with which I have been wrestling.

 

Beauty and the beast

Adversity is a tough foe, but it can be your friend, according to Amanda Lang’s new book, The Beauty of Discomfort. Lang’s thesis is that successful people don’t just tolerate discomfort, they seek it out. Again and again. Among the individuals featured in the book is Linda Hasenfratz, who took over from her father Frank as CEO of Linamar Corp. but not before spending nine years working her way up from the factory floor. Throughout her apprenticeship Hazenfratz suffered charges of nepotism, bouts of hostility, and sexism. Her advice is simple: Ignore negativity, don’t make the same mistake twice, and don’t expect people to adjust to you, adjust to them. During Hazenfratz’s time as CEO, sales have grown from $1 billion to more than $5 billion.

Lang, the producer and anchor of Bloomberg North on Bloomberg TV Canada, has known adversity since her birth. She and her twin, Adrian, now head of business management at Bank of Montreal, were due to arrive in October 1970, the month when the War Measures Act was declared. Their father, Otto Lang, was Minister of Manpower and Immigration so their Ottawa house was guarded by soldiers in case the FLQ came calling.

Their mother, Adrian, was ready to give birth so headed to the car only to be stopped by a guard who said, “My orders are to go with you.” Adrian, already the mother of five, knew there was no time to waste. “You are not accompanying me, and if you continue to argue with me, you may have to deliver the babies here.” The soldier beat a hasty retreat; the twins arrived safely at Ottawa Civic Hospital.

Among the more than one hundred attendees at the book launch last night were former Ontario Premier David Peterson, Manulife CEO Donald Guloien, Dick O’Hagan and his daughter Anne, an author in her own right, Phil Lind of Rogers Communications, Jan Innes, a director of PortsToronto, and Conrad Black, also a writer of renown.

Lang, like every author at this point in the publishing cycle when a book is just out, says she’s never going to write another book. But she will; that’s the beauty of discomfort at work.

Bye bye miss American pie

In the past ten days, I’ve read two lengthy articles – both in U.S. publications – about immigration to Canada. The first, in The New Yorker, described a place called Vive in Buffalo, N.Y., where since 1984 volunteers have helped 100,000 refugees, most of whom continued on to Canada. The second was a New York Times story about a family of Syrian refugees living in Toronto that opened on page one and ran three full pages inside.

Both articles were fascinating, well-researched and timely. Why am I not reading equally thoughtful pieces in any Canadian publications? Could it be because management has got rid of hundreds of journalists through firings and buyouts? Where, for example, are the good reads on what’s happening with refugees walking into this country? Are they detained? Do they jump the queue? Are they given free housing and hospital care? How many are there? Who knows?

Canada’s corporations have for too long been reliant on U.S. investment capital and takeovers. We have sent too many of our best young people to American universities only to see them remain in the U.S. after graduation. We have watched American movies, danced to American songs and embraced American retailers. Now that we are depending upon Americans to tell us about ourselves the takeover is complete.

If it’s money that’s lacking, I have an idea where to find some savings. The next round of firings should be foreign correspondents. Do I really learn anything new when CTV’s Tom Walters in Los Angeles does a voiceover with footage of events in Washington, D.C.? And do I really care as much as the Globe thinks I do about Woody Harrelson’s pursuit of happiness? There was a time when I counted on Canadian journalists for world news, but now I have ready access to dozens of sources. Let’s serve up Canadian stories, not warmed-over American pie.

 

Let there be lightning

Maybe it’s the writer in me, but I’m fascinated by words and their usage, even grammar. Take the tale about the missing comma in a contract that could mean millions of dollars. An Oxford comma, no less, a comma that goes before the word “and” in a series such as “a bear, a girl, and a bowl of porridge.” You usually see the Oxford comma only in books, not in newspapers or magazines.

To be sure (there’s a phrase you only find in magazines), along with still, both used to create the sense of a transition between one paragraph and the next. Ask an editor for a synonym for “still” and s.he is likely to say “still.” Did you note the politically correct usage of s.he, rather than “he or she”? Just another recent update in our language.

Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” The right meanings are important, too. I spent my life so far thinking that “peruse” meant scan something without looking too closely. I only recently learned the correct meaning is just the opposite: to look at something thoroughly.

And then there is the fashionable word. My favourite current example is “famously.” In yesterday’s New York Times it appeared in at least five different stories. Here’s one of the usages: “Travis Kalanick, the famously combative chief executive of Uber ….” Is his combative nature really all that well known? Could you have even told me who’s the boss at Uber? I think what happens in these situations is that writers try to lord over us lowlifes their supposed insider knowledge that could only come from being part of the cognoscenti. I, famously, would never do that.

Monsters in our midst

Plenty of attention has been paid to soaring house prices in Toronto but teardowns that turn into monster homes are somehow below the radar. In my neighbourhood there’s been at least one teardown in each of the last half dozen years. Let me tell you the bad news up front: developers and individuals almost always get want they want, despite neighbours’ objections.

The first step for approval is the Committee of Adjustment. Plans are shared with neighbours who can appear before the three-person board but might as well stay home. I’ve been to two such hearings. At one of them, the chair actually said: “We’re here to give relief from the rules.” That means builders’ plans for new houses that are as much as one-third larger than the density allowed are called “minor variances.” Invariably, they get waved through.

The one area to which the committee pays heed is tree protection. In practice, however, trees are in peril. At a site two doors from me, equipment was parked beside a Norway maple, the front lawn was raised (sure death for a mature tree) and the trench dug for a new fence destabilized a 100-year-old apple tree that now has to be removed.

Has the builder or owner suffered as a result of these tree calamities? We don’t know. The file remains closed because there’s been no response to an “order to comply” sent last August. Can the city do anything? Even they’re not sure. We neighbours were told, “The Contravention Bylaws came into effect in June 2015 and staff are uncertain as to what this permits them to do legally and practically.”

As for the fence, the concrete and wood structure on all four sides of the property is not only taller than allowed, the front portion is on the city’s right-of-way. Although the fence was not in the original plan, we’re told that it may be retroactively approved.

Councillor Justin Di Ciano invited half a dozen neighbours to meet with him and three city officials last November to hear our longstanding complaints. To date, nothing helpful has happened. Future developers will almost assuredly continue to flout the rules. The entire oversight apparatus of the City of Toronto might just as well be dismantled for all the good that it does.

Books as portable magic

Last night was the 2016 Speaker’s Book Award, held at the Ontario Legislature, and hosted by Speaker Dave Levac. Begun in 2012, the award honour works by Ontario authors. I was there as the “with” in Darcy McKeough’s memoirs, The Duke of Kent, one of the finalists. Ghosting is a wonderful pastime. First, you have to like the individual with whom you’re collaborating. Second, you have to get inside his head so the book sounds like him. Like acting, being a ghost is not about you, it’s about the character, in this case, McKeough.

The award winner was The Red Kelly Story, by the NHL player and coach who, as was said in the introduction, once enjoyed “a two-year period when he won two Stanley Cups, two elections as a Member of Parliament and fathered two children.” In his acceptance speech, Leonard Patrick “Red” Kelly – who is eighty-nine – was suitably self-deprecating saying that he’d come to wish all the authors well with no thought that he’d win himself. He told how as a boy how he shook Red Horner’s hand at the Simcoe County Fair and didn’t wash that hand for a week, such was his awe over the Maple Leafs defenceman.

Other finalists included Steve Paikin’s book on Bill Davis, Dalton McGuinty’s autobiography (he was described using the words of Tennyson as “wearing the white flower of a blameless life,” a tagline with which not everyone might agree); and Seasons of Hope, the memoirs of James Bartleman, Ontario’s first aboriginal Lieutenant Governor.

The best part of the evening was the presentation by Speaker Levac to the top writers from elementary and secondary schools. All but one were young women. They will be winners in life as well.

A world without borders

The eyes of Canada are suddenly on two places that none of us had ever heard of before: Emerson, Manitoba, and Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec. Both have become border crossings for refugees on foot from Somali, Turkey and elsewhere. Because of various laws and treaties nothing can be done to halt the flow. Refugees are detained, will eventually be vetted, and may or may not be allowed to stay.

There was much national tongue-clucking in Canada last year about how some countries in Europe bridled at the flow of Syrian migrants. Even though more than a million were involved – compared with our paltry few hundred – our true mettle is now being tested. Already there are calls for changing the rules so we can turn away these strangers in our midst.

I hope that does not happen. After all, on March 5, 1910, no one in Canada was expecting my father, then three years old, when he got off the Empress of Britain at Saint John, N.B. with his parents and five siblings. As the years passed, my father forgot about the fact that he was born in England and focussed instead on his Scottish roots. Last summer my partner and I, and other members of family, walked the land where in 1820 my great-great-grandfather was a tenant farmer near Newton Stewart, in southwest Scotland.

Yes, my father played sentimental Harry Lauder songs and dragged me as a lad to the Fergus Highland Games, but he always said that the best thing that ever happened to him was coming to Canada. Years from now I trust the progeny of those folks struggling through snow-filled fields will say the same.

Spring trillings

The handbill that came through my letterbox today was from a gardener looking for work. “Spring is just around the corner,” said the top line. I knew that. Yesterday I heard the Northern Cardinal singing his heart out. After a winter of being mute, at this time of year the male cardinal notices the lengthening days and feels his gonads grow. If he doesn’t have a mate, this song is meant to attract one. If he does have a mate, his notes will let her know he’s ready for breeding. The song is also territorial, telling other male cardinals to stay away.

Except for one dump of snow a week ago and three in December, Toronto has pretty much had an open winter. My grandmother’s sayings ring in my ears. “A green Christmas means a full graveyard.” “Spring can’t come ’til the snow’s gone from the woods.”

Other regions have had tougher times. New Brunswick suffered an ice storm that knocked out power for thousands. I spoke recently with someone in Moncton where six inches of snow fell overnight. A few days later it was Dartmouth on the line. A nor’easter had just gone through and deposited a foot of snow. In Toronto, either event would have been declared a disaster requiring help from the armed forces. In a conversation with Victoria earlier this month, I was told that the daffodils were up. On the west coast, they sure do love to boast.

All Canadians love to talk about the weather. Even if the winter is snowless in Toronto, brief in Victoria, and hazardous in Atlantic Canada, these are the ties that bind. We survive. We congratulate each other. And we listen with rapture to a birdsong.

 

 

Two feet in the door

Last night I met Lisa Raitt, candidate for leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Raitt is impressive, down-to-earth, and good on her feet. The event was a reception at the home of my son Mark and his wife Andrea. Mark has been political since he was accredited as an observer at age ten to the 1976 convention that selected Joe Clark. At Western University he was president of the 600-member Progressive Conservative Club, the largest on any campus in the country. He worked in the PMO during the Brian Mulroney era.

About 40 guests heard Raitt speak; she has an excellent narrative. Raised in Sydney, Nova Scotia, by her grandparents, there was so little money she worked at the Dairy Queen at eleven and learned early the importance of customer service, a useful part of a listening/serving political life. Justin Trudeau, she said, doesn’t understand the middle class like she does.

On life’s path Raitt was offered opportunities and seized them. Hired by the Toronto Port Authority as an administrative assistant, she was CEO five years later at thirty-three. In the Stephen Harper cabinet Raitt was handed tough roles: Natural Resources when an atomic reactor broke down; Labour through five national strikes; and Transport during the Lac Megantic derailment.

The questions were vigorous. One man wanted to know if she intended to punch Justin Trudeau in the face. Raitt said she’d be tough but stopped short of promising fisticuffs. Good ideas included: Part of the money going to infrastructure projects should provide jobs for under-thirties to help launch careers. Civil service roles should be moved out of Ottawa into smaller communities that needed a boost. Most important, Raitt is a woman comfortable in her own skin. After the last question was asked and answered, she took off her Ron White All Day Heels. Just like she was sitting at the kitchen table in Sydney.