Welcome to Canada - Sorry it Took So Long

 For the last week or so, Canadian media have flooded the market with wonderful pictures and stories of refugees being greeted by dignitaries including the Prime Minister, in Ontario, by the Premier and a host of well meaning individuals who are doing their bit to help. There are lots of stories being circulated about how wonderful the Canadian public are in their almost overwhelming generosity. According the latest polls, it would appear that even those who just a few weeks ago were at best lukewarm about Syrian refugees coming to Canada have gotten if not on the bandwagon - at least they are no longer trying to stop it. Some politicians who before the election were questioning whether or not it was wise to allow refugees in, are now expressing concern that the process is taking too long or that it is not well organized.

How sad. If this out pouring of support and generosity had happened 18 -24 months ago when a few people including me started to write about the almost non-response of the Canadian government to the crisis, it would have been rather exciting. Canadians could have, with some justification, patted themselves on their collective backs. We could have been proud that we were doing something that only a few countries were doing. But we didn't do anything in spite of the daily news of the refugee crisis in the Middle East and in Europe. . And while it is convenient to blame the previous government for not doing more (or in fact doing anything), that is a cop-out. We didn't demand that they do anything. It was far too easy for us to sit back and muse about the dangers of terrorism in some other part of the world. It was easier to watch our soup operas, reality shows or hockey or baseball games than it was to do anything about help those who were suffering. We were happy to believe what the government said.

While I am delighted that the present government wants to be proactive in all kinds of international issues, I am some concern about how easy it is for us to be led. If a different party had been elected in November, and if they had had a different view of refugees, would we have gone along with it? If Mr. Harper had eked out another majority government (if one looks at the popular votes numbers he was not that far away from doing so), would we have continued to blithely accept his view that Muslims were potentially too dangerous to be allowed to come to Canada in any numbers? As we pat ourselves on the back for being such nice people (and isn't it grand that other countries now like us), it would be perhaps useful to remind ourselves that not that long ago we were patting ourselves because of how pragmatic we were.

Yesterday afternoon while doing some banking at the largest shopping mall in Peterborough, I noticed a  lady talking to two women wearing the

Refugees

 For the last week or so, Canadian media have flooded the market with wonderful pictures and stories of refugees being greeted by dignitaries including the Prime Minister, in Ontario, by the Premier and a host of well meaning individuals who are doing their bit to help. There are lots of stories being circulated about how wonderful the Canadian public are in their almost overwhelming generosity. According the latest polls, it would appear that even those who just a few weeks ago were at best lukewarm about Syrian refugees coming to Canada have gotten if not on the bandwagon - at least they are no longer trying to stop it. Some politicians who before the election were questioning whether or not it was wise to allow refugees in, are now expressing concern that the process is taking too long or that it is not well organized.

How sad. If this out pouring of support and generosity had happened 18 -24 months ago when a few people including me started to write about the almost non-response of the Canadian government to the crisis, it would have been rather exciting. Canadians could have, with some justification, patted themselves on their collective backs. We could have been proud that we were doing something that only a few countries were doing. But we didn't do anything in spite of the daily news of the refugee crisis in the Middle East and in Europe. . And while it is convenient to blame the previous government for not doing more (or in fact doing anything), that is a cop-out. We didn't demand that they do anything. It was far too easy for us to sit back and muse about the dangers of terrorism in some other part of the world. It was easier to watch our soup operas, reality shows or hockey or baseball games than it was to do anything about help those who were suffering. We were happy to believe what the government said.

While I am delighted that the present government wants to be proactive in all kinds of international issues, I am some concern about how easy it is for us to be led. If a different party had been elected in November, and if they had had a different view of refugees, would we have gone along with it? If Mr. Harper had eked out another majority government (if one looks at the popular votes numbers he was not that far away from doing so), would we have continued to blithely accept his view that Muslims were potentially too dangerous to be allowed to come to Canada in any numbers? As we pat ourselves on the back for being such nice people (and isn't it grand that other countries now like us), it would be perhaps useful to remind ourselves that not that long ago we were patting ourselves because of how pragmatic we were.

Yesterday afternoon while doing some banking at the largest shopping mall in Peterborough, I noticed a lady talking to two women wearing a hijab and a man. They had clearly been shopping as both of the women were carrying shopping bags. The woman doing the talking stopped for a minute to allow the man to translate what she had said to the other women. While they could have been from anywhere, and one should not assume that because they did not speak English and were wearing a hijab that they were refugees - I did wonder. I also wondered if I should say something to them - like "welcome".

I didn't do that -in part because what I really wanted to say was "I am sorry. I am sorry it took us so long to act like human beings who share the planet with you. I am sorry that it took so long to get off our collective rear ends to invite you to share what we have."

Inviting 25,000 refugees is a good start. But the larger issue needs to be not forgotten. It is well past time that Canadians, outside of the House of Commons, start to impose our values upon politicians - not the other way around.

 

Bah -Humbug

I don't know why, but every year I seem to need to be reminded as to how much I dislike Christmas. I dislike the commercialization of what was in Victorian times, a relatively small event, to now something that last for what feels like months. I dislike the pressure to buy, the need to spend money to prove how much one cares about another, the raised expectations of children (and even adults who should know better) and above all else that assumption that everything will work out for everyone and that we will all be together and happy on the 25th of December. But most of all I dislike the mindless pap that are the Christmas movies that fill up the time slots of all of the television networks for the month of December.

The endless variations of Dickens's Christmas Story are some sort of perverse tribute to both the capacity of producers and writers to re-work a story that did not need re-working and the empty headedness of those who watch all of the variations. It boggles the mind that anyone believes that one can make money telling the same old story over and over again - except of course that they do. There as well appears to be an ever expanding repertoire of made for television movies that create alternative realities where families come together in joyful harmony; where single people (sometimes with children) find someone of the opposite sex (I don't remember ever seeing a movie about a same sex couple finding love at Christmas?) to not only give and get presents from on Christmas morning but presumably for the rest of their  lives.

I suspect that the writers, directors and producers who "create" these movies and the people who negotiate their release to the networks have little or no understanding of what life is like for so many people. For those who live alone and have long since stopped believing that a handsome or beautiful stranger will magically fall in love with them on Christmas Eve; for those who have no choice but do without the "magic of giving" because they just don't have the money; for all of those for whom Christmas is not a time for celebration but a time to morn or to feel guilt or to be reminded how empty their lives are - those movies are just one more crushing reminder of what could have been and if one believes the movies - what should have been.

I understand that the world needs rituals and celebrations. I am sure it is true that for many people Christmas morning is a magical time; that perhaps for even a majority of people there are parts of the month long Christmas extravaganza that are looked forward to with great anticipation.  For those people, if watching these movies are part of that process of celebration - that is wonderful. But the rest of us should have a choice. It is not that I need to find any more reasons to be depressed or that I want to watch movies that always reflect the sadness in life but how come there are not movies made about the week after Christmas where people need to go back to their jobs as clerks in big box stores dealing with dissatisfied customers,  or where people sink into deep despair as they look at their credit card bill or where the superficial happiness that may have been there for a brief time on Christmas morning has evaporated into the thin air of a cold January morning.

I understand why no one wants to make such movies or to air them. But do we have to keep on showing movies that promise what for so many people are visions of dreams long lost in the tragedy of their lives.  

Moving #5 - Feeling Sad

 I went up to Sudbury this past week for my grandson's birthday, to watch him at a basketball practice and then two days later at a game as well as a whole day of watching my granddaughter play in a volleyball tournament. While most of my trips are not as busy as that, I have gladly made the five hour drive at least four or five times a year for the past seven or so years. One of the joys of the trip (quite frankly there are relatively few on the drive up and back) is looking at the various rock cuts that have been carved out of the pre-Cambrian Shield to create the highway. There are a few sections where the thin white or pink granite lines buried in the darker rock are almost vertical suggesting massive geological upheavals in the past. As I was driving by the rock cuts on Friday, I reminded myself that the next time I drove south and it was a sunny day, I should stop and take a picture of these remarkable reminders of the earth's long distant and turbulent history. Then I remembered that I in all likelihood will never drive that highway again. I will go up one more time on my way west, but never again drive south.

While, especially because the state of my apartment, I am constantly reminded that I am moving - I sometimes forget that moving means that I won't be coming back here again. That every time I drive down a street, it might be the last time that I do so. Every time I think about that, I grieve a little bit. Every time I realize that there are so many people or places that I will never see again, I want to cry. I have lived almost my entire adult life in the counties of Haliburton, Victoria or Peterborough. There are literally hundreds of highways, streets and back roads that I have travelled on. There are almost secret waterfalls, meadows in the middle of nowhere and dark cold lakes and rivers that I can see so clearly in my mind but that I will never see again in reality. I think of getting a good car and going for a four or five day drive to re-visit those places one more time, But I suspect some of those places such as the Eddy on Coleman Lake Road or the Fur Farm where my son and I spent so many hours fishing are probably over built and almost disappeared. Perhaps it is better that I remember it the way I want to, rather than the way it is now. But I will miss those spots and a hundred others. I will never drive by or at least think about driving by all of the homes that I built, all of the places where I worked or any of the places where I hung out and made friends while arguing about politics, values or the way the world could be.

A week ago I needed to contact someone in a local organization. I had tried but it felt as if my e-mail had probably gotten lost in the over-whelming number of emails that flood most of our mail servers. So I contacted a friend who works part time for that organization and asked who I should contact. Within a few hours I had a response to my question. When I emailed my friend to thank her for her help I said "...... one of the harder things about thinking about moving is the realization that I am moving to a place where I sort of know some people, but I am going to have to make new relationships with people who know how things work." That quite frankly scares the living crap out of me. I am not a particularly social person. Quite often the social niceties that are required to make those connections are beyond me.

I am moving to a place that while I know the geography a little bit and I know a few people - I am starting over. I have no history in the place, I (outside of my son and his family) only know a few people and I perhaps will never understand how the social system works. I am going from someone who knows a lot of people, including some who make the system work, and as someone who has in a few small sectors created part of that system to someone who will always be someone who just moved in later in life.

I am not too sure if I am looking forward to

Grandsons and Giving

As we go through life, it is always difficult to know whether or not we have made a difference in how the people close to us think or react to the chaos that is our world. Certainly as parents or grandparents I suspect that most of us are never really sure as to the impact that we have on our children or grandchildren. There is, of course, the long standing "nature or  nurture" argument that at its core is really about whether or not parents are useful. As a someone trained to think as a sociologist, I am committed to the  belief that we are shaped by our experiences, including those our parents give us. But at times it is difficult to ignore the other reality that sometimes kids act and think in profoundly different ways than do their parents.

When one reads of the newly hatched terrorists who appear to have come from reasonably stable homes; who were raised by families and in communities where radicalism was neither preached nor tolerate and who almost overnight (relatively speaking) become people who believe that the only solution is to kill as many people as they can while killing themselves, one has to wonder what role families or communities have in shaping anyone. It can be almost disheartening. It would seem to me that while the world in the short term needs to deal with methods of apprehension, incarceration and prevention of terrorism, in the long term we need to apply the best brains available in considering what we as a world society are dong that shapes young people into terrorists.

Then there are the goods days. Those days when it is clear that what you have done has had a least a little bit of an impact upon a child or grandchild. Because of the amount of time that I spend in my grandchildren's homes, I suspect I am more fortunate than most in being able to observe this at least minimal impact. Both of my children, in their unique ways, demonstrate an honesty about what is important and a passionate commitment to their children that at least in part is related to their upbringing.  It is a joy to watch. However this past week, my eldest grandson passed any bar that I could have ever imagined.

I, for the past few years, have not bought my two older grandchildren Christmas presents. They have so much stuff - it has always been difficult to imagine what I could buy that they would both need and treasure. Instead I have donated money in their name to various organizations. We initially chose through World Vision what kind of animal their money would buy for a family in the developing world. For the past two years they have donated money directly to an individual through an organization called Kiva. They have always participated in this process with grace and thoughtful consideration as to what they wanted to donate money to. Not once did I have the smallest hint that they would have preferred to get something tangible for themselves. But as they  never talked about it very much outside of Christmas, I had no sense of whether or not the decision not to buy Christmas presents had an impact on their lives. At least not until this past week.

My grandson, whose birthday is approaching soon,  sent me an e-mail asking if I would consider donating his birthday money to the school's food bank drive. One could argue that as I have generally given the grandchildren a gift card from Chapters so that they can chose their own books and he does not like reading, that it was not a big deal. But it is. One ten year old kid giving his birthday money to help others who are struggling is not going to change the world - unless other kids do it too, Perhaps his act will be a model for a couple of other kids in his school, and then a few more students will learn from those and then who knows how far it could go.

My grandson goes to a great school that actively encourages raising money for various worthwhile charities, he has a mom that works full time at being an active member of both of her children's schools and he lives in a neighbourhood where people talk to their neighbours. All of these experiences have shaped who my grandson is becoming. I cannot take much if any of the credit for his generosity or of his awareness that others both around the world and in his home town need his help. But on those darks days where I despair of where the world may be headed - it is good to know that there are a whole bunch of young folks out there who have learnt something positive from the adults around them.

It is good to know that I might have been part of that learning experience.

Moving #4 - What a mess - Still

I am exhausted.

It would be so much easier to either take all of my stuff, just dump it into boxes - and lie to myself that I will decide what I need when I got out west, or I could just dump it all into garbage bags and buy new stuff when I get out there. Either possibility would mean that packing would be quick with little or no thought involved.

But in my attempt to be responsible and organized, I have decided that I will take neither of those two simple paths but instead will look at every single item and decide what to do with it before I pack it into a box. Nothing is ever simple. For example I decided that I don't need a turntable or a VCR. The local St. Vincent de Paul thrift store tells me that they can't sell them so I can't leave them there. I take the VCR to the electronics dump and try to give away the turntable. A week later it is still sitting on my dining room table. I think someone is coming tomorrow to look at it. If they don't want it, I don't know what I will do. I hate the thought of throwing away something that works just fine.

Similarly I no longer need my queen size futon. I am almost giving it away - please just come and get it. After countless e-mails and two postings on Kijiji - I think someone is coming in an hour to look at it. It would be so much easier if I packed up my car and left everything else behind. If I did that I would not have to waste my time thinking about how many pairs of dress pants or long sleeve, button collar cotton shirts do I really need or do I need to bring the heavy crowbars with me and if so, do I need three different sizes?

There are a few obvious problems in going through stuff so methodically. One is that it takes more time and therefore I have stuff already packed in sealed taped boxes. In this process of sorting and packing I have discovered a fundamental rule of nature that within one hour of sealing a box with a mile or so of tape, there is something in that box that is needed. There are also boxes scattered around the apartment. It is getting hard to navigate. I suspect that when the truck is almost loaded, I will find stuff that I did not pack because I did not see it. Sorting stuff means that I have to look at stuff and then make a decision. I have not used the electric blanket since selling the farm (although I have lent it out to two different people), I clearly do not need it so it should be an easy decision to dispose of it but there is that little niggling voice at the back of my head- what if it gets really cold? My mind is exhausted having these conversations with itself.

But the worse part of this process is coming across stuff that I forgot I had. Pictures of trips, me building the canoe, the kids, etc. Do I really need them? Will anyone else? But some of that stuff I just can't throw away - some things that the kids or grandkids have made for me are going west as are far too many keep sakes or knick knacks that have been given to me over the years and some family items such as my Dad's christening cup and my grandmother's button hook. The long and short of it is that I have more boxes of stuff than I thought I would which if nothing else means that I will need to build more shelves when I get out there.

And I am not even close to being finished yet. Don't get me started on having to roll $540 worth of coins,  taking apart the loom or in the midst of this chaos both washing five fleeces and getting ready for a one day show a week before I leave. I never said I was very bright.