Rod McQueen's Blog, page 31

A word to the wise

Justin Trudeau will soon be meeting Donald Trump. Given the unpredictable proclivities of the new president, it is clear that the future of our nation is at stake. David Frum, the Canadian-born former speechwriter to Bush 44, has already offered his advice to Trudeau: flatter Trump to the point of nausea. That’s okay for the first few seconds, but the prime minister will need a more few “do’s” and “don’ts” for the rest of the time allotted.

Don’t mention your father setting out by canoe for Cuba. Don’t ask to see the Scotch tape holding his tie together at the back. Don’t ask why condo sales at the Trump tower in Toronto went so poorly. Don’t challenge him to a boxing match or show off your yoga peacock pose on The Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Don’t tell him that millions of Canadians are living in Florida without papers. Above all, don’t hug him.

Do tell him we already have a wall between our two countries: the 76 cent dollar. Do ask, as a fellow hair guy, how he does his. Do tell him he’s so popular in Canada that members of the judiciary are wearing his campaign hat and that some other TV guy with terrible ratings has stolen his best lines as well as his vainglorious behaviour in an attempt to become leader of the Conservative Party. And do tell him if he leaves NAFTA alone, we’ll stop sending cold weather his way.

If all else fails, lapse into French.

The media and the message

The Shattered Mirror, released yesterday by the Public Policy Forum, is a well-written paper, filled with thoughtful ideas about the future of Canadian media while all around us is in disarray. Typical is Maclean’s, now relegated to being a monthly again. When I joined the newsmagazine in 1978, it was about to go weekly, able to do so because federal legislation steered advertising dollars away from American publications to Canadian ones. So, I’m a long-time fan of government intervention.

This new document does not recommend that Ottawa either prop up or pay to run a failing media outlet, but there are reasonable suggestions about directing new tax revenue for digital innovation and civic-function journalism. We badly need both. Moreover, the revenue could bring about journalistic coverage of courts, city halls and legislatures.

The report also cites sad numbers. Since 2009, 236 newspapers have closed. The Report of the Special Senate Committee on Mass Media, the so-called Davey report published in 1970, talked about a total of 485 newspapers, radio and television stations in 103 communities. So, of that universe, more than half closed just in the past seven years.

Already there are pundits who are railing against the Forum’s words as if government control would surely follow. But there would be fewer Canadian singers without content rules on radio. And no Canadian films without tax relief. So, journalists, swallow your stinking pride before it’s too late. The future need not look like the recent past.

A nation unaware

Canadians have been clucking a lot lately about Donald Trump and the divided nation that is the United States. How did this happen, we worry? Isn’t it awful, we say? Will many Americans move here, we wonder? Meanwhile, I believe we have our own wide divides.

Some of those divides are caused by distance and small populations. A recent article about the seven provinces and territories that have signed health care deals with the federal government noted that the seven contain a grand total of 10 percent of Canada’s population. In my entire lifetime, I’ve only made a handful of visits to some among those seven jurisdictions. Stops in Saskatchewan, Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador were forty years ago. Trips to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are more recent, but I have no family and few friends in any of the seven so there is no regular contact.

Quebec I have visited more often, but I might as well have been arriving from New Orleans when I go to Montreal or Quebec City. I speak some French, and certainly know the political history, but as for much of that society I am pretty ignorant. When the names were revealed last fall of the six high-profile journalists whose phones had been monitored by police, I realized that I had never even heard of any of them before, let alone followed their work.

Such disconnectedness may well be what marks us most as Canadians. I can tell you about the Twentieth Amendment of the U.S. constitution, how many years it took to build Salisbury Cathedral and the best time to visit the Duomo in Florence. But I don’t read books written by the Giller winners. I’ve only been on one native Canadian reserve. I don’t even know the names of all the current premiers. More’s the pity for me. And for us.

 

One thumb up, one down

Two new television series debuted last night; one was disappointing, the other daunting. First, the disappointment, Victoria on PBS. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a dud on Masterpiece. Jenna Coleman does an OK job as the young 18-year-old inheriting the throne. And Lord Melbourne, played by Rufus Sewell, is excellent as her prime minister and special advisor. The rest of the cast is only middling. The goings-on below stairs are almost embarrassing in their silliness.

We’ve all come to expect computer-generated imagery to create special effects and Victoria certainly uses CGI for crowd scenes and cityscapes. However, the work is so bad it gets in the way of watching. Buildings seem the wrong colour; you find yourself trying to look at the crowd below the balcony to find the fakery. When a production loses your attention like that, it is a failure.

You know that The Young Pope on HBO is different right from the opening scene when the new pope crawls out from under what appears to be a pile of dead babies. Jude Law plays Pius XIII with grand arrogance and good humour. He has impure thoughts, dreams of a naked woman, and jokes about his belief in God. The rest of the casting is equally impeccable. Diane Keaton looks promising as Sister Mary, given a key position in the Vatican. The crowd in St. Peter’s Square registers as real, and the script is taut with tension. In Victoria, the players are left babbling the same thoughts over and over.

Politics and intrigue surround both Victoria and Pius XIII, courtiers and cardinals, all trying to gain favour, or power, or both. I assumed I’d like Victoria and was dubious about The Young Pope. Turns out I got it backwards. The Young Pope has promise amid its fictional content; Victoria barely has a premise even with its historical base.

 

Life of Brian

Dear Premier Pallister:

I’ve been reading about how you’ve pretty much pulled up stakes and moved from Winnipeg to Costa Rica for the next seven weeks. I don’t blame you. As assistant deputy minister in the Manitoba Department of Transportation, I can understand your desire to get away from the snow and the windchill. I’m sick of it all, too. I’ve been living with this weather since I was a boy in Dauphin and now that I’m in charge of snowplows for the province I’ve noticed that my life hasn’t changed that much since I was a tad.

Unlike you, I can’t afford a condo in a warmer clime, but I wonder if you’d mind if the wife and I took our RV to one of those places in Texas where Canadian snowbirds go for the winter. I’ve been online and spotted a nice-looking spot called Rattlesnake RV Park in Hardscrabble, Texas, that still has a few places that come complete with hookups.

Why I’d even be willing to stay in touch by email, which I notice you don’t want to do. That way, I’d have more time to be thoughtful about staff complaints. One problem I’ve never been able to solve, and maybe you have an answer, is how to stop people from putting their lunches in the staff fridge then never eating them. We’ve got curry and yoghurt and some unidentified green stuff that’s been in there for months.

But back to my main point. Being premier is all about leadership. And I think you’ve found just the right tone for the role: out of sight. No one expects answers from their politicians these days; promises and postponements are quite sufficient. That’s what we’ve become used to. In fact, maybe everybody in Manitoba could move south for the winter, leaving this sorry land to the indigenous peoples. After all, it was theirs in the first place.

Money for nothing

The gravy train that is Canada’s 150th birthday has left the station and I’m afraid I’m not on it. Ottawa is providing $500 million to celebrate the country’s sesquicentennial through parties, events and other frippery. Among the winners announced is The Red Couch tour where a sofa is hauled across the country so people can sit and say what Canada means to them.

There will also be a mobile trio of 20-foot shipping containers to act as studios for local artists and videographers. And La Grande Traverse, a 10-part television series about ten people who cross the Atlantic in conditions similar to their forbears. In the hopes I can catch some of this manna from heaven, even though the application deadline has long since passed, here are three concepts that surely are equal to those already chosen.

First, I’ll go to my home town of Guelph, set up a pup tent in St. George’s Square, and recollect with appropriate Motown background music how the Treanon Restaurant looked 50 years ago when Canada was only 100. I will have displays of table top formica and a grill to create the smell of those fries that needed cherry Cokes to wash the grease off the top of your mouth.

Second, I could release helium balloons bearing the Canada wordmark from my front lawn every day until I have sent 33 million aloft, one for every Canadian. If I start tomorrow, that’s about 92,000 balloons a day for the rest of the year. Any delay in approving this idea might make the whole thing unworkable.

Third, I am available to write titles for books to be published in 2017. I’ve done this in the past for Joey Slinger and could work on something for his new novel, to be published by Dundurn during the year in question. Any kind of retroactive award payment would certainly be welcomed by the both of us.

 

The coming year

Here are my top ten predictions for 2017.

The TSE will end the year up 7 percent.
The Raptors will make the playoffs but not win the NBA title.
The Jays will have a so-so year, win 78 games, but not make the playoffs.
WTI crude oil price will rise to US$75 per barrel.
Donald Trump will be a better president than many fear.
Vladimir Putin will expand his influence and Russia’s territory.
The C$ will sink to US68 cents.
Kevin O’Leary will be chosen leader of the Conservative Party.
Europe will continue to unravel.
We will survive. Somehow.

A seller’s market

Every night on the television news we see horrific footage of young people overdosing in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. They are being attended to in alleyways by firefighters, paramedics and volunteers. They are addicts, hooked on heroin, often laced with fentanyl, which is fatal spelled a new way. In the first ten months of this year, more than 600 people have died of illicit drug overdose in British Columbia.

Vancouver has long been home to the highest drug use in Canada. There are supervised injection sites, detox and treatment centres, even a mobile medical unit, all of them so stretched so thin by the problem that they cannot treat all those who seek help.

The federal government has taken action to change out-of-date customs rules that will allow broader powers to open and seize packages weighing less than 30 grams arriving from China, the main source of delivered death. More supervised sites are also coming.

I hear about activity – and see it on my TV screen – by everybody but the local police. These addicts don’t look like people who can travel very far to buy their next fix. Maybe a few blocks. Why aren’t there dozens of arrests made monthly to lower the ready availability of these illicit drugs? Surely a more focused police presence could spot sales that must be happening within plain view. This is such a simple idea there must be something wrong with it. I’d be happy to hear what.

The spirit of Christmas

The knock on my front door was so light I hardly heard it. But hear it I did. It was 8 p.m., and I don’t usually answer the door after dark, but I did. A young woman was standing there, reasonably well dressed, with a tentative smile. She was wearing a Santa hat.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,” she sang, then stopped and said, “I’m out carolling because I’m a single mom trying to collect money for toys for my children at Christmas. Anything I get I’ll give 20 percent to the Salvation Army.” From nowhere came my heartless voice, “Not tonight. But I wish you good luck.” And I closed the door on her crestfallen face, her Santa hat and her high hopes.

That was two night ago and I have regretted my actions ever since. Why not give her $5 or $10? Was it just a scam? Maybe she was indeed a single mom who got up the guts to go out and see how’d she do. I’m a regular donor to the homeless who panhandle on downtown streets. I even know Gary’s name on one street corner I regularly pass.

In the choice between my poor guilt and her possible guile, I chose my guilt. It may even have been the right choice but it doesn’t feel that way. Merry Christmas, single mom, wherever you are, whatever you were doing.

Shun Shen

Everywhere you turn these days, along with signs of Christmas, you see Shen Yun. If you don’t know the name, you will realize who they are when I tell you that it’s a Chinese dance company. They are inescapable: posters, car cards, broadcast ads, mailed brochures and people on street corners handing out pamphlets. The money behind the show must be amazing.

Shen Yun seems to come through southern Ontario more than once a year. They have thirteen performances scheduled between now and early March in Toronto, Kitchener, Hamilton and Mississauga. They are not from China. In fact, the group (there must be several on world tour) are associated with and promote Falun Gong, the same bunch that has been protesting outside the Chinese Embassy for years. Falun Gong is illegal in China where it is regarded as a cult.

I got two free tickets for the show a while back, and, Scotsman that I am, attended. What a mistake. The dancing is fine although I have no idea how realistically the troupe follows the ancient ways and legends. A lot of it just seemed like two sides fighting to me. Between scenes two people come on stage to read lengthy propaganda screeds.

I ended up paying anyway. Because I had freebies, at intermission I was accosted in my seat by a young Chinese woman with a microphone and a video camera who asked how I liked the show. Canadian that I am, I warbled some fine phrases that I did not mean. I later saw praise by a Member of Parliament quoted in the advertising; I can only assume he sang for his supper, too. My advice? Stay home for supper.