Some days the Sun Just Does Not Shine

There have been a few days in my life when I have thought about being a politician. Fortunately, these minor twinges/urges for fame have quickly evaporated as I thought about how much work it would be, how fragile my ego can be and most importantly how poorly I suffer fools. Even less often, I feel sorry for those folks who have made the decision to be a politician. I admire many of them, if not for their wisdom and ability to see the world through a critical lens, at least because they have made a commitment to do something. I frequently disagree with most of them, but I do appreciate the fact that the majority of our elected representatives are probably doing the best they can, most of the time. However, right now, I am feeling just a little bit sorry for Justin Trudeau. I think for the next two or so years (or however long his government lasts) he will never please even half of the people half of the time.

The Conservatives across the country are setting up a situation where the new federal government can not meet their expectations. If Trudeau did attempt to meet their demands:

1) there would be no carbon tax and in fact, no clear plan to halt what appears to be the world's slide into permanent weather crisis

2) somehow pipelines would be built across the country - even when the people living there do not want them

3) corporations, especially those who are in the business of exploiting our natural resources will continue to get tax breaks with no expectations of investing their profits to Canada

At the same time, 60% of Canadians who voted for a party that had, at least on paper, a commitment to dealing with climate change would be ignored.

The other alternative would be for the government to pursue its' climate change agenda (as poor as it is) including imposing a carbon tax on those provinces that refuse to do anything and not being any more supportive than it already is to resource extraction companies. That might marginally satisfy some of the people in Canada.

So either the new government will be blamed for lost jobs in the resource sector regardless of why - thereby proving that the Liberals do not care about the west or they will do what the Conservative leadership is demanding of them and prove to everyone else that the government does not care about our children and grandchildren. If I were Trudeau, I think I might consider going back to teaching in a private boy's school.

There is, of course, a third alternative. Trudeau could accept the fact that he was not going to get elected again. He could do some things that might displease some people much of the time. He could deliver on his implied promise of four years ago. With the support of the NDP, there is so much that we could do including creating, in the west, whole industries devoted to producing alternative technologies or we could develop and implement a health care system that would reach all Canadians and that would ensure adequate access to medications; we provide accessible and affordable homes to people who need them and we could finally get out from the continuing burden of paying for extensive legal battles with the First Nations by just doing what is right immediately.

I may be being naive, but I think that if Trudeau (and his party) could have the courage to do what was needed, without worrying about being elected next time - people might be a lot happier with him than he would have thought.

Another Remembrance Day - No Change in the Number of Wars Happening Today

I was up early this morning - had breakfast, brushed my teeth, made my bed and by just before 8:00 AM, I turned on my computer and watched CBC's coverage of the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ottawa. It is always strange watching the ceremony so early in the morning. However, it feels somehow more significant that I do that than wander down to watch to a local ceremony in my now hometown of Duncan.

I have participated and watched a lot of such services. As a cub and then as a scout I marched in parades and church services honouring the soldiers who had gone overseas to fight for their country (which was Britain for the most part) in both the first and second world wars. My mother's father had been in France and may have suffered lung damage from gas attacks, there was a great aunt who my mother said was deaf from being too close to the artillery guns (she was a nurse in the front lines of WW1) and my father, who we all believed suffered his terrible migraine attacks at least in part because of a war caused head injury, had spent four years overseas during WW2. The depression and then the war (which separated my not-yet-married parents for those years) was part of the subtext of almost all of our dining room table conversations. It was not surprising that for most of my young life, probably well into my late teens - Remembrance Day was a significant day.

It is less so now and I suspect for the generations behind me - any significance will be manufactured by groups and institutions that have a vested interested in maintaining it. There are, of course, no remaining survivors of WW1 and relatively few from WW2. Canada was less involved in the Korean war and while the country has maintained some sort of presence in other conflicts, the number of Canadian soldiers who have actually participated outside of Canada is relatively few. In fact, almost as many Newfoundlanders were killed within a few months of each other in WW1 as have been killed in all of the conflicts since 1946.

I got a ride from a veteran this past summer. He spent a portion of our time together talking about veteran's rights, the poor care the government has offered them and some of his work volunteering with agencies that support veterans. He was, of course, absolutely right - Canada had not done all that it could have done to help soldiers re-adjust to civilian life. It never has. I am sure that my family was unique as we, on occasion, (in hindsight) experienced some of the consequences of my father's PSTD. But then my driver said that he had served all of his time in Germany and that he had had a good time. There is a whole generation of ex-soldiers whose experiences in the Canadian Armed service were radically different than my grandfather's, my father's or those who served in places such as Afghanistan. I am not sure if those peacetime soldiers will ever be able to generate the powerful emotions that seeing veterans from WW1 or WW2 did.

And I am not sure if we need to have those emotions artificially generated. War is a terrible thing. It destroys people's lives, it can destroy a whole generation's worth of dreams and aspirations. But all of the parades and ceremonies, all of the trips to old battlefields and tours of cemeteries overseas have not stopped one death from a gun, have not prevented one child from losing a parent due to a conflict that was never needed. A conflict that could have been prevented if the politicians and the people had wanted to stop it. Yes, we will remember. But I would much rather remember the stupidity and the ignorance that caused those wars, that caused those deaths, those lost dreams. I would much rather spend our collective energies stopping it from happening again and again.