Good-bye Greyhound

The last trans- Canada bus has made its final stop, discharged its last passenger - those buses will never again to be seen on those lonely stretches of highway across western Canada. All of the people who travelled by bus between small, sometimes remote communities or those who moved across the country to visit family or to look for a new life; all of the young people going somewhere to plant trees or moms with their young children going home have made their last journey by bus. They say that small companies are picking up the slack, that 85% of Greyhounds routes have some sort of coverage - but it will never be the same.

Whether you ever took a Greyhound bus or not, we should all take a moment today to say goodbye to a way of life, a way that allowed people to stay in touch with each other, a way that enabled people to make medical appointments, a way that allowed at least some Canadians - specifically those who did not have a lot of money or who lived in remote areas to see the country and to meet other Canadians. For so many of us it was simply a way to get home. With two or three exceptions, the bus ride was never fun, the seating was almost as cramped as the economy seating on Air Canada, sometimes it was noisy and the stops every few hours seemed to always be at strange little places that did not have the capacity to deal with 40 or more passengers all wanting to use the washroom and to get another coffee for the road. For those who made the three and a half day trip from Toronto to Vancouver, it was torture. At every stop they would stumbled off of the bus - stiff and cramped - jonesing for another hit of nicotine -to buy one more too-sweet donut - anything to mask the discomfort of those seats. But I did meet some interesting people on those trips. I had some great conversations and saw things that if I had been travelling any other way I would have missed. At least twice, when I was wet and cold, the bus picked me up in the middle of the night in what felt like the middle of nowhere and got me to a city where I could get dry, warm and ready to travel again.

Perhaps almost importantly of all - unlike VIA Rail and even Air Canada - the buses were almost on time.

To all of those bus drivers, most of whom were courteous, helpful and sometimes even fun - thank you for making what could have been a horrible time almost enjoyable, no matter how messy I looked, you treated me with respect ; to the ticket agents, the bus station cleaning staff and all of the folks who worked behind the lunch counters or cash registers - thank you for your grace under pressure and our demands for attention when I am sure you were as tired as we were. For my fellow passengers - I hope you will always get to where you need to be.

If I am lucky, I will never need to take an intercity bus again. The sad fact is that I may never be able to even if I need to. And that is a shame.

Strange Times

A few weeks ago I read a novel by D.W. Buffa called Necessity. It is billed as a thriller - it is not or at least I was never that excited by the plot nor did I really care about any of the book's characters. But the proposition that the story rested on was interesting. Without wanting to give away too much of the plot or the ending - a US Democratic senator who could be a contender for the presidency is alleged to have assassinated the president. The rational on the part of the alleged murderer for doing so was that it was necessary for the good of the country and therefore legal. I have no way (or quite frankly any interest) in trying to find out if the points of law were correct or just fabricated in the author's mind).But what was interesting and somewhat alarming is that the murdered president was portrayed as obnoxious, rude, not very bright, bombastic and someone who communicates through social media. In other words - he was virtually identical to Trump or at least our impression of him.

It seemed strange and slightly uncomfortable to me that a novel would not only lampoon a sitting president but also suggest that killing him might be legally defensible. I do not think that those south of the border need any more rationalizations for the violence that exist there.

At the end of last week, I was watching a series called Rake - a Australian television program in its fifth season. It is a comedy, a bit silly and normally not worthy of comment. The second episode of the season revolved around the US Secretary of Defence coming to Australia to negotiate some sort of peace treaty with China and other countries in the region. The Secretary (who later is revealed to be gay) occasionally reads out messages from the president. Again the president appears to be obnoxious, rude, not very bright, bombastic, someone who communicates through social media and a bully.

These two quite different types of entertainment (books and television are almost seen as being mutually exclusive), that were generated literally half a world away from each other - portrayed the sitting president as a buffoon, as someone that either one needs to be afraid of, or else as one who should be mocked. Neither the novel or the television episode referred to Trump by name nor did they feel the need to apologize or explain. It is obvious that that his "presidential style" is now part of the international cultural repertoire. Which is more than a bit bizarre and rather alarming. If I were a citizen of the US, I would be embarrassed, angry or both.

Perhaps other presidents were equally as mocked, certainly many of them have been lampooned in editorial cartoons, and made fun of on late night talk shows. But to the best of my knowledge, Trump is the first president whose total attitude and responses to the world around him have been incorporated into the mass media as a fact without critique.

It is almost as if people have accepted his existence on the political stage as part of the "new normal". How frightening!

Brexit - Leaving is Always Painful

There may be thousands and thousands of people who understand the complex negotiations that Britain is having with the EU as it tries to navigate itself out of the union. I am sure there are thousands and thousands of pages being written to both educate the masses and to explain the subtle nuances to economists. To be clear - I am not one of those who understand nor am I likely to ever understand.

The simplest explanation appears to be: Great Britain agreed to be part of a common market, that is - a collection of countries that allowed the free movement of people and goods across much of Europe with a minimal amount of red tape and cost. The less than bright politicians in London decided to hold a binding referendum on whether or not Britain should stay in the union, they lost control of the process, a small majority voted to leave the union and the government has spent the last 18 or so months trying to find a way to leave the union without losing all of its benefits.

To suggest that the negotiations have not gone as smoothly as some Britons thought they would is an understatement. It appears as if some believed that Britain go back to the way things were before the common market process was developed and at the same time, that they could keep all of the benefits of that partnership. That is - all of the challenging aspects such as having the free flow of people into Britain, having competing continental European products sold in Britain or having an European Parliament making decisions that affect Britain would go away but that British citizens would still be able to work and travel in other countries without difficulty, that British products could be easily and cheaply exported to other European countries and that Britain would have access to collective dispute resolution processes. In other words Britain still wanted to be a player - they just did not want to join the team.

It appears as if this fantasy of having one's cake and eating too is not shared by the negotiators or leaders of the other member countries. At least some of the British seemed to be surprised at this. They somehow assumed that while they wanted to have more control who lived and worked in Britain - they thought that other countries should be quite happy to have some Brits working there. They believed that all of the advantageous trades - that is trades that were advantageous to Britain would continue but they could control what products came into the country. "It ain't going to happen."

It is unfair to blame to suggest that there is a singularity of public opinion, that all of the British want to leave the EU. In fact, it is quite clear that there are many who do not. Even within the British Parliament there are numerous opinions as to what Britain should do - including having another referendum. It must make the negotiations even more difficult when amongst one own political party there are views, publically broadcasted, that are different than the leader's. This is a mess, none-the-less, of Britain's own making. It is based on the assumption that people deserve more, that one can leave partnerships and still maintain the same benefits, that one does not have to contribute to the common good if one wants to benefit from that common good.

The vote to leave the EU is emblematic of a culture that is inherently self-centred - of seeing itself as the centre of the universe and all others should be subservient to its needs. The vote reflected a people's inability to see past their own needs and to consider the greater public good. It demonstrated a shocking lack of concern about the upcoming generations and what the world will look like for them. Britons now have two options - one is to become humble and to beg for forgiveness from their fellow members of the EU - to say that they had a moment of insanity but it has passed or to accept that as with any separation between two partners - both sides lose a little and unfortunately one side may lose more than just a little.

A Coalescence of Ideas

One of the great advantages of having nothing to do and a brain that stores trivia in random and inconsistent ways is that I get to make connections between conversations that I have had, sometimes years apart, and things that I am reading now. As I have mentioned before, I am in constant awe of how things flow and connect within my limited internal universe.

For example: a number of years ago I was having a discussion with a very good friend. The general topic was unions and I was ranting on about how unfair it was that unionized employees got such great pay and benefits while the rest of the employed got, in comparison, so little. I further suggested that it was the unionized employees who voted for Mike Harris in Ontario in 1995 in an attempt to maintain their comfortable status quo. I don't think I was suggesting that we do away with unions but rather that they were taking more than their fair share. My friend did not agree with me reminding me that rather than reducing unionized workers down to the pay level of non-unionized workers, the task was to raise everyone else up to their level.

Just last Sunday I was having a hot chocolate after the Cedar Farmer's Market and somehow the three of us started to talk about education and how poorly and sometimes how discriminating our system was preparing some of our young people for the world that they would have to live in. I mentioned that the school system had always tried to "weed out" those it thought did not belong. I, and as it turned out, another participant in the conversation had both experienced the aggressive streaming of our school systems when we were younger. I, for example, was encouraged to leave school in grade nine as I was deemed "too stupid" to go to university.

In this month's Walrus (I am behind in my reading), there is an article about those students who are deemed to be "gifted" and therefore get to attend different classes and sometime even schools that cater to students who have the capacity to excel. The article suggests that students from middle and upper class white families are over represented in those enriched classes; that those students have an unfair advantage in getting into those classes.

My initial reaction to the article especially after my conversation on Sunday, was what else is new? Of course the system is discrimatory. School have always been a defender of and an advocate for the class system. There is no reason think that things will change anytime soon. The Walrus article in part seems to argue that we need to ensure that all students, regardless of their background, ethnicity or who their parents have the right to access such individualized and exceptional programming. The article does go on to point out that if more students leave the general classroom to participate in the gifted classes, then system will be even more dysfunctional (my words not the authors).

In that strange fashion that my brain functions.... the conversation from years ago, the one on Sunday and the Walrus article all coalesced into an almost seamless discussion within my mind. I am in favour of ensuring that children who have an exceptional talent in any area, are given the opportunity to develop that skill. I accept that it is incredibly difficult to teach a range of students in one classroom where some of the students are highly motivated and others are either bored or disinterested in the subject matter. It should surprise no one that in a classroom of 30 plus students there will be a wide range of interests and capacity to learn at any one time. If there is a strength to our democratic educational system it is our capacity to be encourage individuals to be different.

It struck me however, similar to my discussion with my friend, the proponent of unions, who argued that we need to raise everyone up to the highest level of pay and benefits, we should not be taking students out of the classroom to give them extra learning opportunities, but rather we need to find ways to raising everyone's educational experiences within that classroom. That the task is not to ensure that that we reduce all the classrooms to the lowest common denominator of educational expectations but rather that we raise it up to the highest level for everyone. To create a system that says all students are equal but some need (read deserve) more than others is just to perpetuate a class system.

We should be able, with all of our resources and skills, to develop a system that supports all students without leaving some behind.

Does the World Change Tomorrow? (part two)

If I were a diehard advocate of the inherent right to smoke or ingest any part of the cannabis plant, today I suspect, would feel somewhat anticlimactic. Yes, someone over the age of 18 is now allowed, in Canada, to be in possession of or smoke cannabis in public. Except of course if you live in BC. One is legally allowed to smoke in my fair province - but with the exception of one store in one small city - there is no where to buy the stuff unless you do it online. In other words if I had wanted to smoke up today - the only way that I could have done so would be to go to a private, illegal dealer. Other provinces appear to be better organized and access is easier, but it is somewhat ironic that the province that is best known for the quality and quantity of its marijuana has almost none available legally.

As mentioned in the previous blog, the reasoning as to why we needed to legalize marijuana may have not have been based in scientific reasoning or on an over whelming body of medical evidence. However, regardless of the logic why the use of cannabis has been made legal, it is clear that there will be winners and losers. The winners are those corporations who had enough sufficient capital to build large growing, and processing plants and the capacity to work their way through the complex procedures to get government approval. Those large corporations will make millions of dollars, successfully gobbling up small companies that cannot compete. Those corporate entities will fairly quickly dominate the market the way a few food store or drug store chains control their markets.

The losers are all of those small, illegal growers who may have lost most of their best customers. Not only will those growers be affected but all of the hydroponic stores, the sellers of topsoil and of course various hydro facilities will lose a portion of their income. Perhaps even more importantly, we may lose a portion of our vegetable producing greenhouses. Clearly producing four crops a year of cannabis is far more profitable than producing celery.

The next few years will be interesting (and rewarding) for some lawyers as the courts sort out what impairment means for those who ingest cannabis. There will be countless studies, some reporting diametrically opposite findings in terms of the harm or benefits. Maybe if we are lucky, more researchers will , using reliable research methods, examine whether or not the drug is medically beneficial consistently.

But for most Canadians not much else will change. We are not all bound for hell in a hand cart nor are we about to enter a new enlightened age.

Does the World Change Tomorrow? (part one)

Given the amount of space and time allocated to the fact that marijuana will be now legal to use starting tomorrow, one would think that something fundamental has changed in terms of who smokes pot and when. It is almost as if people believe that there will be an explosion of new users. While the paranoia that users in central Canada have lived with (as opposed to those on the west coast) will no longer exist, I suspect that those who smoked pot in the last week will continue to do so and those who did not, won't. Once people get over the urge to smoke in public because they can, the only thing that will change is how one buys it and who get rich selling it. While I think that the decriminalization of personal use cannabis is long overdue, I can't help but feel that it has all been a bit of a con; that the public have been manipulated once again.

I find it surprising the number of groups/agencies/communities who have said that they are not ready, that they need more time to prepare. Really? Canadians have known since the Liberals were elected three years ago that this was going to happen. Everyone has had more than enough time to figure out how they want to deal with it. I am unclear as to why people are all of a sudden confused or concerned.


For example, surely the Canadian armed forces have had sufficient time to decide what is acceptable or unacceptable behaviour. While some of the effects of alcohol are different than marijuana, one has to hope that people who are either given guns or are using very expensive machinery are not allowed to smoke up during their coffee breaks. If they are not allowed to have a beer then why would they expect to be allowed to inhale a joint? No matter how much we would all like our work places to be more relaxed, in some cases I want them alert and able to respond without hesitation. I really don't want the pilot of my Air Canada plane to be even a little bit stoned.


I suspect that part of the confusion, the sense of permissiveness or the sense that employers have limited control in terms of who smokes or when is the responsibility/fault of doctors. Because there is very little clear research as to the effectiveness of cannabis on a wide range of conditions, doctors have written prescriptions based on anecdotal evidence that it did some good for at least one person, or at the very least, it no harm. Because of the broad cultural acceptance of cannabis as a medically useful substance , it has become impossible for any employer to ban a substance that the doctor says someone must take.


It is not clear how or why this public perception has developed. While all of those small stores that have been popping up claiming that they are providing a medical service - Statistics Canada (https://www.statista.com/statistics/603356/canadian-medical-marijuana-clients-registered-by-quarter/) reports that in April-July 2017 (the last quarter statistics are available) there were less than a quarter of a million registered users. Clearly not everyone who uses the numerous store front operations has a legitimate prescription - in spite of what those stores say.


There will not be an explosion of new pot smokers. In the short term it may look that way because people will take some delight in smoking up in public. There will be in the upcoming months - arrests and then the appeals over driving while stoned, there will be charter challenges as people argue that they have the right to get stoned wherever. This time in two years - we will all think we were silly to spend so much time talking about it.

Unmet Commitments

In December, 2015 - just a month after he and the Liberal Party were elected, Justin Trudeau became the darling of the international community when he waxed poetic on all of the good things that Canada would do to slow the rate of climate change. I suspect that all but the most hardened conservatives felt at least a slight pull of pride at our Prime Minister standing up and telling the world that once again Canada was going to contribute. It certainly felt as if we were on the right path.

Fast forward three or so years and it feels as if not only will Canada not meet its commitments to the Paris Accord - but that the world is in far worse shape than some scientists predicted it would be. It is clear that whatever plans the Federal Liberals may have had to address the problems have run into some serious roadblocks as a number of the provinces have said that they will not participate in the proposed federal carbon pricing plan. Three of those provinces are asking the courts to rule on whether or not the federal government has the power to make them participate. The provinces are arguing that such a tax is within the jurisdiction of the provincial government and that the federal government should not try to impose a national plan.

I am not sure if I understand how a carbon tax will significantly affect our behaviour in terms of usage of carbon producing substances. In B.C. which has a carbon tax, and our gas prices are higher, I see no signs that anyone has reduced the amount of driving they do. There may be some subtle signs that individuals and companies are devising strategies to reduce the output, but if so, it is not obvious. Clearly I am missing something or not understanding some part of. This confusion is exacerbated by the fact that if one reads established/traditional news services, there is a wide range of conflicting views. These views are further complicated by political ideology and willingness or unwillingness to accept that climate change is a very real thing.

Those provinces who have indicated that they are not willing to participate in a federal plan have not been forthcoming as to what their alternatives are. The federal government appears to be quite content to allow BC to have its own plan. The feds just want there to be a consistent plan in every province that starts to address the problem. I can understand that some provinces are concerned that the federal government might be sticking its nose into areas it does not belong ( and that is a slippery path), I can also understand that some provinces are concerned that the economic playing field will not be level if some provinces do not participate in a carbon pricing plan. I, however, suspect that for the most part - because of a change in the provincial government, those new premiers just want to do everything they can to "stick it to" the Liberals in Ottawa.

I don't care who creates the plan, I don't care who collects the "carbon tax", I don't even particularly care what whoever does with the increased income - I just want all of the boys and girls (although there are a lot fewer females around the table than there was three years ago) to play together nicely. I just want them to think before they open their mouths, to stop worrying so much about pandering to their constituents, to stop trying to look like hardnosed people who are protecting "the little guy", to develop a strategy that will be effective and to start doing what is good for the country as a whole and the world.

Is that really too much to ask?