Rod McQueen's Blog, page 39

Last chance saloon

Now that the first official photos of the new BlackBerry Priv have been released, there’s hope for us BlackBerry users and fans yet. Dimensions are not yet known, nor is the price, but it looks both thin and robust as well as equipped with a slide-out keyboard. And for those who care about apps, it’s an Android device.

CEO John Chen has finally shed the BlackBerry cloak of using only its own operating system while, he says, continuing to maintain security. He admitted that because of “logistic and financial reasons” he couldn’t put apps and the BlackBerry 10 together. “This is the best thing that we could do.” Such honesty is refreshing. Somehow the secure part will be separate from the Android part. Sounds perfect for a former U.S. Secretary of State.

BlackBerry certainly needs a boost. The Classic, released a year ago, was a bust. In the most recent three-month period BlackBerry sold 800,000 smartphones. During this past weekend alone, Apple’s newest model sold 13 million.

Priv, which stands for privacy and privilege, seems like an awful name to me. Like privy or outhouse. But I’ve had my Q10 since the launch in May 2013 and I’ve been happy with its performance. When I come to replace it, I’ll be looking at the Priv. If BlackBerry is still around.

Key to victory

In 2012 I attended the ceremonial sod-turning for the tunnel that recently opened to the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. Before the program began, my son Mark, who was then chairman of the Toronto Port Authority, pulled me out of the audience. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had just arrived, was in a nearby holding room, and would do a quick photo with Mark and his young family that would include me.

What was supposed to be a 30-second session must have lasted 15 minutes. Harper was effusive and friendly, far from the stiff father who shook hands with his own son as they said goodbye at the schoolyard. He talked about his rough flight in a small plane that morning saying it caused him to think about the time singers Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper crashed and died in 1959. He regaled us with anecdote after anecdote and was the kind of guy you’d want to have lunch with, not the controlling leader of his public image.

I told that airport story to someone recently who recounted an equally illuminating occasion when he was at a Toronto Maple Leafs game. It was during the time when Dalton McGuinty was premier of Ontario. Harper and McGuinty were sitting behind my friend. McGuinty apparently knew nothing about hockey. Harper, who has since written a book about the sport, spent the entire game giving knowledgable colour commentary about what was happening on the ice.

The polls say this election is a tight three-way race. All Stephen Harper has to do is throw away his “stay the course” strategy and talk instead about his family and hockey. He’d win in a landslide.

Sock it to me

When it comes to socks, I’m like Jack Nicholson in Heartburn where all too often he leaves the house claiming he has to go buy more socks when in fact he’s having an extramarital affair. I’m not having an affair, but I do seem to buy a lot of socks.

This particular expedition took me to The Bay at Queen and Yonge in Toronto where since the days of of Robert Simpson Co. in the 1970s, men’s basics have been lodged handily in the basement or on the main floor. No longer. Only brand-name perfume and high-margin emoluments are there now. Men’s is hell-and-gone up on the fifth floor with socks stashed in the furthest possible back corner.

As a result, I was able to parlay my visit into a lengthy tour of the mostly renovated store. There are a few elements yet undone and the escalators aren’t all running, but the two-year-long makeover seems almost complete. And what a change has been wrought. I kept reading that somehow The Bay was going to be in one part of the building and Saks Fifth Avenue in another, but the whole place looks like Saks to me. With the modern design and minimalist displays it couldn’t be further from Bay CEO George Kosich’s 1990s philosophy of “pile ’em high and watch ’em fly.”

Within the walls can also be found spiffy boutiques such as TopShop/TopMan, Coach and Burberry. Kleinfeld Bridal is on seven with young women carrying home the classy white garment bag containing the big day’s gown. More important than the changes – the store was busy – on a weekday.

I must admit I never thought these high-end American banners would come to Canada. In addition to Saks, Nordstrom now has two stores open, one in Calgary and another in Ottawa, with Vancouver launching this Friday. Nordstrom will add three outlets in Toronto over the next two years.

The only thing that hasn’t changed are the socks. They’ll likely still wear out after a year, so I’ll be back. Hope these big names make it on through or I’ll have to find a new excuse to leave the house.

A modern-day prophet

I was minding my own business on the subway when I suddenly realized someone was shouting at me. “You in the suit reading the financial paper, do you know what’s on pages 144 and 145 of the federal budget?” By the time the sentence was complete, I had spotted a man who had stood up from his seat about halfway down the car. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I called back, wondering why I had been singled out for this diatribe.

For the next two minutes he went on about something he called a “bail-in” that had already occurred in Cyprus where 60 per cent of the bank accounts of the population had mysteriously been cleaned out by forces unknown. Canada is next. The Harper government is complicit and we should withdraw all our money from the bank before it gets taken from us. “The politicians aren’t talking about it, the journalists aren’t writing about it, but the police know about it and they’re preparing for riots,” he said. Then, just as suddenly as the bellowing began, the prophet sat down and fell silent.

I got to thinking about this outbreak and realized it was part of a larger phenomenon. In all my time following federal elections, few campaigns have raised such a ruckus with the populace as this one. The last time I can recall such up-from-the-street vociferous views was in 1972 when an anti-government sentiment arose during the campaign that led to Pierre Trudeau’s squeaking minority.

Mike Duffy, the recession, a tin ear on refugees, the number of issues weighing down Stephen Harper is numerous. At this point, with a three-way race, the result is unpredictable but the likelihood of a new government is looming. The unease in the country is palpable.

After a few more stops, the subway prophet prepared to leave. But as he did, he went out of his way to walk by me and say, “Good luck, my friend, it looks like you’ve got more to lose than me.” He was more right than he knew. When I got off, I mistakenly left behind my umbrella. Monday, I’m closing my bank account and putting my cash under the mattress. Just in case he’s right about that, too.

War what is it good for?

You have to wonder what country Stephen Harper grew up in. It couldn’t have been the same Canada I know, the one where political leaders show the way in welcoming desperate refugees fleeing horrific circumstances around the world. Under the Harper government’s heartless rules, it’s almost impossible even to sponsor family members who are under the gun and could make a contribution here. He thinks our F-18s are the only answer in the Middle East. It’s not even clear that our puny effort, along with others, is making any progress by bombing ISIS.

Immigration Minister Chris Alexander suspended his re-election efforts yesterday and flew to Ottawa to be briefed. How silly was that? When 200,000 Hungarians fled their home country following the failed revolution of 1956, Immigration Minister Jack Pickersgill recommended to his fellow cabinet ministers in the St. Laurent government that Canada pay the passage of any freedom fighter who wanted to come to Canada. The idea was approved, Pickersgill visited the refugee camps in Austria to spread the word, and 37,000 Hungarians arrived with enthusiasm and skills. When John Diefenbaker took power soon after, he ordered a survey to see how well they were doing. Only a handful were on welfare; the rest were contributing mightily.

In 1972 when despot Ida Amin expelled thousands of Asians from Uganda, Canada again stepped up. Britain took about 27,000 but Canada was second in terms of numbers at 6,000 when more than half a dozen countries opened their doors. Immigration Minister Bryce Mackasey stood on the docks in Montreal to welcome the new arrivals. As was the case with the Hungarians, the Ugandan Asians worked hard and fitted in well.

In the mid-70s Canada began admitting Vietnamese boat people, a few at first, but then a flood. In 1979 two ministers in the Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark, Flora MacDonald and Ron Atkey, spearheaded the response and brought in more than 50,000 refugees.

We are all immigrants here. No one was expecting my father, who was then three years old, who came by boat to Canada in 1910 with his family. But those were the days, and they lasted a long time, when Canada had a heart and a place for all. Now we turn our backs on dead babies on a beach and say, “War is the answer.” No, war was the cause. We need to keep the peace.

Down the digital slope

Increasingly, movies are made with computer generated imagery (CGI). Robert Downey Jr. spends his studio life in front of a green-screen doing snappy one-liners while all the special effects are added later to Avengers and the like. Dialogue no longer matters; impossible action is all. As Hollywood’s best-paid actor he makes $US80 million a year. Next we’ll be watching Jimmy Stewart in the sequel to It’s a Wonderful Life made from a pastiche of his previous films using soupçons of CGI.

Music, once difficult to reproduce on stage because of studio tinkering, has gone fully robotic. No longer is it just Auto-Tune software correcting the off-key Michael Bublé. The latest Justin Bieber song, Where Are Ü Now?, takes the whole process to ridiculous heights. The song is a collaboration with two men who have only two names between them, Diplo and Skrillex. Some phrases by Bieber have been transformed into a language only a dolphin can understand. It went platinum in five months. So happy is Bieber with his comeback that he cried last night after singing a medley on the MTV VMAs.

Artists have also joined the digital revolution. Some fine arts students go for entire semesters without doing any actual drawing or painting. Their full output is created on a computer and looks for all the world like sculpture or wall art except it can only be viewed on iPads or as screensavers. Art supply stores wonder what happened to their former customers.

Computers long ago beat chess masters and won at Jeopardy. Next to come under the digital revolution will be writing. Stephen King will be able to increase his output from four books a year to four a week. Plots will be organized, verbs and adjectives selected, and characters created – all by software. Beta versions already exist. I did this blog post using WriteStuff. How do you like I so far?

Ars longa, vita brevis

My all-time favourite small show is currently at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The exhibit called Into the Woods consists of two works – The Jack Pine and The West Wind – both by Tom Thomson. These are paintings that can accurately be described using that overworked word, iconic. There’s a large seat where two people can sit and admire for hours on end what to my mind are the best canvases ever produced by a Canadian artist. I successfully avoided looking closely at Michael Belmore’s Breadth, his version of a roadkill fawn, that lies nearby.

Works of art can inspire and transport. They are mighty and meditative. There is no experience equal to looking at the real thing. Why people bother to take photos is beyond me. Why museums allow photos is an even bigger question.

The two Thomsons got me thinking about my favourite paintings so I made a list. Here’s my top ten from around the world.

1. The Peasant Wedding by Pieter Bruegel the Elder at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

2. Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-August Renoir, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

3. Les Nymphéas (The Waterlilies) by Claude Monet, L’Orangerie, Paris.

4. Deposition from the Cross by Jacopo Pontormo, Church of Santa Felicita, Florence.

5. The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

6. Irises by Vincent van Gogh, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

7. Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch by Sir Henry Raeburn, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.

8. Officer and Laughing Girl by Johannes Vermeer, The Frick Collection, New York.

9. Untitled 1952 by Jean Paul Riopelle, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

10. Madame X by John Singer Sargent, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

 

The pursuit of possibilities

Some people say success in life is about inheriting good genes, getting an education, finding the right partner or just plain hard work. While all of those contain kernels of truth, life is nothing without possibilities. I attended a 100th birthday celebration today for Helen Oldham. Her son, Peter, was my friend while we were both growing up in Guelph.

Helen and Bob Oldham’s home was always a warm and welcoming place for me where interesting and mind-expanding things happened. Bob operated a ham radio; I listened to him talk to people around the world. Today that’s a daily event; then it was dazzling and evanescent. Peter and I dug a basement under a playhouse in the back yard and created an imaginary world that had never before existed.

This week David Somerville died. Another Guelphite, he was the lead singer for The Diamonds and the opening falsetto voice on their 1957 hit Little Darlin’ – Yaaaaaaaa, ya-ya-ya-ya. Somerville’s cousin, Martha Wilson, was in my class. She suddenly became very popular.

At the time, my hopes, dreams and aspirations were limited. I desperately wanted some Beech-Nut Spearmint, a gum heavily advertised on American Bandstand. The brand was unavailable in Canada, but my father went to Chicago on a business trip and brought me a brown paper bag filled to the brim with Beech-Nut. For one day I was as popular as Martha Wilson as I shared my bounty with classmates.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that if a local boy like David Somerville could have a hit record, I stood a chance of achieving something impossible, too. I look back on my life and realize I did exactly that. I’m a lucky man. Even now, I look forward to more possibilities to come. Without such pursuits, life would fade like the flavour in Beech-Nut gum.

 

Flora MacDonald 1926-2015

There aren’t many people you can call pathfinders, but Flora MacDonald was certainly among them. Born in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, she worked her way up through the ranks of the Progressive Conservative Party in an era when women were not accepted as equals to men in political back rooms. Flora achieved great heights because she was smart, hard-working, principled and a consensus-builder. Of all the people in the party over the years, she’s one among a very small number who was known to everyone by her first name alone.

Hired to work as secretary in the national office of the party, Flora ran afoul of the then leader John Diefenbaker because she supported the views of Dalton Camp, the party president who launched an effort in 1966 to oust Dief. For that treachery, as he saw it, Dief fired her as a Camp follower, as he liked to call the supporters of his nemesis. As is often the case with such disruptions in an individual’s life, that event only propelled Flora forward.

In 1972 Flora was elected MP in the Ontario riding of Kingston and the Islands and was reelected four times. She also ran for leader of the PC Party in 1976 and had the best floor display in the run-up to her speech of any of the candidates. It was all for nought. Dozens of the delegates who wore her pin, and promised they would vote for her, did not. Undeterred, she carried on and served with distinction in the cabinets of Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney who were also candidates at that same convention.

The elegant obituary in today’s Globe by Patrick Martin is a fine piece of work but I would pick a bone with the statement that Diefenbaker “told her how proud he was of her campaign” for leader. Such praise was unlikely from Dief who neither forgot nor forgave any enemy. After all, Dief revelled in describing her as “one of the finest women ever to walk the streets of Kingston.”

Once Flora left politics she worked in international development, never seeking anything for herself, always working for others as was her wont. A friend of mine, Tom Hopkins, who treks where few would follow, was in northern Afghanistan five or six years ago. He was clambering up a narrow mountain path when who should he meet coming down but Flora MacDonald, riding on a donkey. She had been visiting elders in local villages, trying to convince them to allow young girls to attend school.

Not for Flora the high-profile fund-raising campaign nor the vanity of her name on some hospital wing. Flora MacDonald always preferred to be out on the working end of the pontoon bridge of history where one caring and passionate person can make a difference in the lives of many.

Slugging it out

With the PanAm games more than half over, what will be the legacy beyond a few new buildings and some additional housing on the waterfront? Why not take this opportunity to change forever the traffic patterns that have been clogging Toronto by making permanent the temporary HOV lanes?

Toronto must be one of the last major cities in North America without HOV lanes. Now that drivers have had to deal with them on the Don Valley Parkway, Gardiner and Queen Elizabeth Way, let’s continue HOV and press on with forced driver retraining. Otherwise, traffic woes will only get worse.

For me it doesn’t matter whether there’s HOV or not. I take the TTC nine times out of ten when I go downtown. But I pay a fare. Just because governments built the subway doesn’t mean I get to ride for free. Why should drivers travel for free on roads built with public money? Why not combine HOV and tolls? There’s at least one current private-sector proposal to build an HOV toll lane. During the Rob Ford administration another private-sector group floated a $5 billion offer to acquire the DVP and Gardiner and turn them into toll roads that the buying group would maintain. Imagine the infrastructure that could be built by the city with that kind of windfall.

HOV lanes demonstrably work because people want them. In Washington DC, for example, there are organized pickup points where a driver can collect two passengers so they can all travel the HOV lanes. The riders are called “slugs” and one such spot is on New York Avenue at 15th St. N.W., a block from the White House. There are two lines of people along the wall of the Sun Trust building looking for rides to the north Virginia suburbs. Starting about 4 p.m. and continuing to 5:30 p.m., drivers pull up to the curb where there’s one queue of people going to the drop-off point at Horner, another queue wanting to go to Old Hechinger’s. Two people climb in and away they go. No money changes hands. Everybody gets to their destination more quickly, twenty minutes instead of an hour in the non-HOV lanes. There are other slug pickup locations at the Pentagon, Commerce and L’Enfant Plaza.

We could use a little such up-from-the-streets imagination here.