Roxanne Tellier – What Price Freedom and for Whom?

“The “Freedom Convoy” that converged in Ottawa on Jan. 28 began in response to the federal government’s move to require Canadian truck drivers crossing the U.S. border be fully vaccinated to avoid testing and quarantine requirements, but has evolved into a protest of all public health measures aimed at fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers say they will not end their protest until all measures are dropped.”  Ottawa Citizen, Feb 13, 2022

Roxanne Tellier – The Long Strange Trip Continues

If you had told me, twenty years ago, that this last decade would be one of the most terrifying/interesting/instructive/growth inducing periods of my entire life to date, I’d have laughed uproariously, and then kicked you out of the room. 

Roxanne Tellier – CERBing the Beat

COVID-19 hit Canada hard somewhere around the second week of March, 2020. I remember it well, because the shutdowns began in earnest just days before my husband’s birthday, and right about the time that Mirvish Theatre sent me an email advising me that I’d be receiving a refund for the tickets I’d purchased for a show that week. The theatre had gone dark, as had most of the city’s offices, stores, services, and restaurants. 

Roxanne Tellier – What a Difference a Year Makes

On January 25^th, 2020, a Toronto man returning from Wuhan, China was the first presumptive COVID-19 case in Canada. By March, with the disease raging across Canada, the World Health Organization had declared COVID a pandemic, the NBA, NHL and most other sport leagues had suspended their seasons, while the Olympics were officially postponed to 2021, the Juno Awards were cancelled, Parliament went on break, and schools began to close from coast to coast. 

Roxanne Tellier – Freebies and Freecycles

The hardest part of starting something – is starting something.

In 2003, Deron Beal was 39 years old, and working in Tucson, Arizona for a non-profit group that combined recycling with job training. Beal couldn’t stand to see good, usable items in his neighbourhood being thrown away on garbage day, and he began rescuing things that would have otherwise only added to the mass in the ever-growing city dumps and landfills.

Roxanne Tellier – What Do You Miss the Most?

A couple of weeks into the start of the COVID pandemic, I asked Shawn if he’d have done anything differently before we entered lockdown, now that we had a little experience with this way of life. We kicked around a few thoughts, but it all being so new, he couldn’t really think of much he could have done to prepare.

We’re pretty low maintenance. We’re retired, have a very small place stuffed with the goods of a lifetime of (my) conspicuous consumption, and really don’t need much to get by. But need is not want, and want is what drives our capitalistic society, which we are all a part of, whether we want to be or not. 

Roxanne Tellier – Denial Is Not Just a River in Egypt

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.” 

Pat Blythe – 365 Days …and Music!

When this column posts it will be exactly 365 days to the date the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. It’s been 365 days since the entire planet turned upside down, essentially transforming life as we knew it. There have been massive upsides and downsides, upheavals and confusion, disruptions and adjustments. As much as I have an intense dislike for the phrase “new normal”, that’s what we’re experiencing and there is no turning back. So, whether we like it or not, here we are.

Roxanne Tellier – My Fellow Americans

It is believed that the first president to use the term “my fellow Americans” was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his Inaugural Address of 1933.

Roxanne Tellier – Doomed to Repeat

When I was a kid in Montreal, most of the dads (and some of the moms) were veterans of the World War II, and the Korean War, which had ended just a few short months before I was born.