When I was a kid, growing up in Alberta, I encountered precisely two black families. One family, that ran a boarding house near my school, had a little girl about my age. When I went to L’Academie Assomption, which was a private girl’s school, the daughters of football player Rollie Miles were the only students of colour.
Continue reading
People are utterly fascinating, if you have the luxury of standing back and simply observing the way they think. Mesmerizing, but oftentimes, head-shakingly and misguidedly, arrogant. Best to avoid them in groups.
Take this week’s Supreme Court decision on carbon taxes; in his decision, Chief Justice Richard Wagner wrote that “Climate change is real. It is caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities, and it poses a grave threat to humanity’s future.”
He added, “The evidence clearly shows that establishing minimum national standards of GHG price stringency to reduce GHG emissions is of concern for Canada as a whole. This matter is critical to our response to an existential threat to human life.”
In 1965, Canada was well on its way to making inter-continental travel from sea-to-sea-to-sea a lot more enticing and convenient. The Trans-Canada Highway had linked the otherwise awkward and barely passable sections of Lake Superior in Ontario and the Rocky Mountains between Alberta and British Columbia. And so, my grandparents decided to take a little trek out of province to see that the world didn’t end in Port Arthur, Ontario (merely life as we know it).
May 1, 2020: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today announced a ban, effectively immediately, on some 1,500 makes and models of military-grade “assault-style” weapons in Canada, including the popular AR-15 rifle and the Ruger Mini-14 used to kill 14 women at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique in 1989.
While researching this column, I discovered some interesting information about Ned Ludd, the founder of the Luddite movement, whose adherents would smash machinery with hammers because they feared job loss from industrialisation. There is some dispute as to whether he, in fact, even existed. Also, at that time, “factories” as we know them today were very rare. Hence it was generally a case of a mob breaking into a private home to destroy the machinery. Undoubtedly this was a recipe for violence.
The Canadian relationship with winter and snow is a lot like marriage; some love it, and look forward to their time together. Others tolerate winter, but spend a lot of time apart during cold patches. Still others grumble, but it’s a loving martyrdom that takes the good (skiing) right along with the bad (shoveling.)
Somehow, at some point, without even realizing it, I’ve slipped into the “enjoy every sandwich” part of my life.
After five days of independent music and film showcases, along with three days of industry seminars, Indie Week wrapped last night. The event just keeps getting better every year. The bands and fans have a wonderful time, careening from venue to venue, sampling new and new to them music, while rubbing shoulders with like-minded people eager to see and be seen.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 