Veganism is Not a Religion!

Every once in a while, as I peruse the various new sites while munching away on my breakfast of brown rice, I read an article that leaves me gobsmacked. That is, I am left speechless in absolute amazement as to how weird our world is and, at least in my opinion, how misdirected some people are about what is important.

At some point this week I read a story about an Ontario forest fire fighter who is going to " the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario against his employer, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, over his treatment and subsequent suspension while fighting a fire near William's Lake, B.C., in 2017" (CBC). The individuals says that he is a vegan for ethical reasons which makes his veganism a creed. His employer, therefore, is obligated to cater to his dietary needs. He argues that because there was no food suitable for him to eat, he was forced to work without sufficient proteins which led him to act irrationally and to be suspended because of his behaviour. For what it is worth, while he may have not had the opportunity to eat plant-based protein, I suspect what firefighters need is lots of high-calorie foods to maintain their energy.

At some point early in 1973, I decided to not eat meat. I have not knowingly eaten meat since. There are a number of reasons why I made that decision, but over the years choosing to not eat meat on a daily basis has been an integral part of my life. It has shaped many of my values and my personal belief system. It has not always been easy. There have been times when I have been travelling where my choices have been very limited. I have been to numerous training weeks or conferences where all that there was for me to eat was the salad made up of iceberg lettuce and a sliced up radish. I can remember one dinner where I somehow ended up just below the head table when the Lieutenant - Governor of Ontario was sitting. I can remember her looking at me with a strange, partially amused expression as I traded the roast beef on my plate for mashed potatoes and carrots. One does what one has to do to survive - even if it is at a semi-formal dinner. While I have seldom missed the opportunity to remind people that a more expansive menu would be appreciated, I have never once considered it my right to have my diet served to me.

Veganism is not a creed - it is lifestyle choice. The individual was not forced into that job, he did not have to go to BC - he chose to. It is not up to the state to support those choices when it would cause undue hardship or chaos for them to do so. They were fighting a bloody forest fire in what some would refer to as the middle of nowhere, People were losing their life's possessions, people's lives were at risk - no one had time to cook a separate meal for someone who had decided he wanted to follow a different diet.

There are millions of people starving every day. Countless numbers of children go to bed hungry every single night of their lives - and this guy wants to have his diet been deemed a creed to he can get his job back? Really - we should all have more important things to worry about.

High Level Alberta - and Fire

In the West, we are now in forest fire season. Every year the fires seem to get started just a little bit earlier and they seem to be just a little bit more damaging. If one does not live in an area where forest fires are likely, or if one does not have family or friends living in such an area, I suspect that it all seems a little bit hum-drum. Perhaps if it is a spectacular fire such as the one at Fort McMurray a few years back, we might donate money to the Red Cross, but for so many Canadians, forest fires are just another natural disaster that someone else has to live through.

I am not any better than anyone else. Hearing about the constant litany of disasters both in Canada and around the world can get exhausting. There are times when I am a little bit envious of my grandparents who frequently would not have known about natural disasters until months after the event. They would never have had to worry about how the people affected by the disaster were managing. However, every once in a while something happens in a small corner of Canada that I happened to have visited and then I worry about the people that I met there and hope they are okay.

A few years ago, I spent a night in High Level, Alberta. I was on the way to Yellowknife, taking a slight detour on my way from Sudbury to Duncan, B.C. In that part of Canada, on the July 1st weekend, the sun barely sets. I suppose I could have hitchhiked all night but I was tired and needed a shower. High Level was just a small town, in the middle of nowhere about halfway between Edmonton and Yellowknife. Like so many of the small towns I pass through on my trips, I didn't get to see much of it, but as I watched the highway and the buildings along either side, I saw lots of people going into the indoor pool, people riding their ATVs along the trailsand people coming into town to do shopping. It looked like a nice town, a town where kids and parents played together.

There were two hotels/motels to choose from, one looking significantly newer than the other. I chose the older looking one. It was of an older "pan-a-bode" ( pre-fab log building) design that had clearly had seen better days. While it was dwarfed by the more modern looking and larger motel around it, the name got my attention..... "Sweet Dreams Motel". Who could resist staying in a place that had such a charming name? It was almost 9:30 and in spite of the fact that the sign said that the office was open until 11:00 there was no immediate response to the doorbell. In fact, I was about to turn away when I saw, through the office door window an older woman wrapped in a bathrobe approaching the door. For a moment I thought that perhaps the building had been turned into a residence and I had awoken a permanent resident. I apologize for disturbing her but her response was somewhat reassuring " Its O.K., that is what I am here for.”

She was not very empathetic about my slow rate of travel. When I mentioned that I was hitchhiking to Yellowknife she suggested that I was either travelling in the wrong direction or at the wrong time as many northerners were be heading towards urban areas (south) for the long weekend. But she had a friendly smile and it was fun to trade quips with here. I don't think she knew how to give a straight answer, for example when she gave me my room key, I asked her where it was. She just said, "go out the door and follow the numbers until you find it"!

The building looked run down. Whatever colour the milled, fabricated logs had been - they were now a dirty brown. There was at least one vehicle in the parking lot that looked abandoned. Its back end was jacked up and the tires and rims were off. It had last year's plates on it. Inside the room was interesting. It was rather dark and while everything was clean, it all certainly looked like it had been well used. But the bathroom was fine (if noisy as the family next door could be heard quite clearly), either of the two beds were comfortable and the curtains were double lined so that sunlight could not get through them. I had had a great night’s sleep and woke up feeling refreshed.

As usual, I could have stayed in bed an extra hour, had a leisurely breakfast, slowly wandered over to my particular stretch of highway and still have had time to get a bit bored. But then if I had stayed in bed I would have missed watching the town get ready for the Canada Day parade. All of the town fire trucks, the town maintenance vehicles as well as a few trucks pulling floats went by me, heading I assumed, to the start of the parade. Of course, there would be no fireworks...what is the point if it does not get dark.

And now the entire town has been evacuated because the forest fire just south of High Level is putting the town at risk. I hope the few people I met including the woman in her dressing gown who made me feel welcome are safe, and that the Sweet Dreams Motel, as run down as it was, remains standing to serve the traveller just passing through.

The forest fire in High Level is not just a place where another disaster is happening - it is a town with moms and dads and children. it is a placed that offered me shelter for a night. If my good thoughts and wishes were worth anything - everything will be okay.

Abortion - Still a Discussion in 2019???

In some parts of the USA, the act of abortion has been or is about to be made illegal. No one, in the late 1970s could ever have dreamed of a world where Canada, in a few years time, maybe the last country in North America to allow women to make the choice as to what is best for them and their bodies (the law in Mexico is a bit murky but it appears as if more and more states within that country are leaning towards restricting abortion). It is beyond difficult for me to even consider the possibility that at least some Canadian politicians are dreaming about limiting/preventing access to abortion in Canada. It is a conversation that I thought was long ago finished.

It is clear that in the USA the discussion has become so polarized that the time for any attempt to have an informed, rational and constructive dialogue has long passed. On one side of the debate (interestingly mainly led by men), there are those who say that they believe that life starts at conception and that all life is sacred. To destroy the life of a fetus is therefore equivalent of murder and as in the case of Alabama's new law - those who perform an abortion could go to jail for a maximum of 99 years. On the other side of this ongoing debate are those (generally women) who argue that what happens to a woman and her body should be decided by that woman. There is no place for a compromise between those two diametrically points of view.

However, some of the facts that anti-abortionists use to support their case are wrong. And those points need to be discussed so that the fallacies of their conclusions can be driven home. The anti-choice people argue that abortion is not needed because young girls and their families are no longer embarrassed if a pregnancy occurs and secondly because there are lots of services available to support single moms and their child. While it may be true that that young girls who become pregnant are less likely to be stigmatised by their community, I have no doubt that there are many in that community who do see un-wed pregnancy as something shameful and proof of some sinful activity. However, it is the argument that there are sufficient services to support sole support mothers that is dangerously misleading.

It needs to be clearly understood that all of the data from statistical collection agencies such as Statistics Canada clearly indicate that children in single-parent families:
1) are more likely to have difficulty in school
2) are more likely to experience trouble with the law
3) are less likely to finish high school
4) are less likely to enter post-secondary education
5) are less likely to finish post-secondary education

By any measurement, children who are only supported by one parent have a more difficult time than do children living in two-parent families. Less researched is how successful or more likely how unsuccessful are the mothers as their education is interrupted, as they are forced to live in substandard housing and to work in low paying jobs. The cost of living with the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy for 18-20 years has not been adequately measured.

If the anti-choice people are truly serious about all life being sacred then I would suggest that those people start developing programs that would guarantee that all families have access to safe and affordable housing, that sole support moms are given a guaranteed income to allow for a reasonable standard of living, that there be ample opportunity for government-paid access to post-secondary education, that there be safe and affordable daycare for everyone who needs/wants it and that sole support families have available specialize support programs to ensure that children and their moms remain connected to their communities.

Of course, if all of that support was made available - people would say that young women were lazy and were getting pregnant so that they could live off of the government payments. Just like they do now when some of those same people question if some moms should be eligible for food stamps or welfare payments.