Courage

There are a lot of posts in the Substack world these days and lots of debates. Are we in a crisis? When exactly does this kick in? Are we there yet? Is there anything we can do? Is it too late? Are we all very very afraid?

Watching from the north - and needing to focus less on our own election, we appear to be less afraid, even though we have good reason to be. The unexpected attack on us from the south has created more unity than any local politician has done in a long time. The daffodils are up. Kids are out jumping puddles in their rubber boots. There is a certain childlike joy when trees hint of buds that take us back to our own early days.

My own first encounter with bullies came through hearing stories. I found one in an early book on my shelf that seems made for these days.

Bad Sir Brian Botany

 Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on.

He went among the villagers and blipped them on the head.

On Wednesday and on Saturday, but mostly on the latter day,

He called on all the cottages and this is what he said: 

                   "I am Sir Brian!" (ting-ling!)

                    "I am Sir Brian!" (rat-tat!)

                 "I am Sir Brian, As bold as a lion —

                     Take that, and that, and that!"

 Sir Brian had a pair of boots with great big spurs on;.

A fighting pair of which he was particularly fond.

On Tuesday and on Friday, just to make the street look tidy,

He'd collect the passing villagers and kick them in the pond.

                    "I am Sir Brian!" (sper-lash!)

                     "I am Sir Brian!" (sper-losh!)   

                   "I am Sir Brian, as bold as a Lion —

                       Is anyone else for a wash?"

 Sir Brian woke one morning and he couldn't find his battleaxe;

He walked into the village in his second pair of boots.

He had gone a hundred paces when the street was full of faces

And the villagers were round him with ironical salutes.

                 "You are Sir Brian? Indeed!

                    You are Sir Brian? Dear, Dear!

                "You are Sir Brian as bold as a lion?

                    Delighted to meet you here!"

 Sir Brian went a journey and he found a lot of duckweed.

They pulled him out and dried him and they blipped him on the head.

They took him by the breeches and they hurled him into ditches

And they pushed him under waterfalls and this is what they said:

                 "You are Sir Brian -- don't laugh,

                    You are Sir Brian -- don't cry;

                 You are Sir Brian as bold as a lion —

                    Sir Brian the Lion, goodbye!"

In the rest of the poem, Sir Brian went home and chopped up his battleaxe and threw his fighting boots in the fire. He then declares:

I am Sir Brian? Oh no!

I am Sir Brian? Who’s he?

I haven’t got any title. I’m Botany

Plain Mr. Botany (B).

That would be an ideal ending. Still - the streets are full of faces. You can only be a Knight - or a King - if other people let you be one. Maybe it’s time for a few more ironical salutes.

The poem: A.A. Milne, When We were Very Young, 2025.

Who knew?

In the midst of our own federal election in Canada, it’s easy to think back to the one in the USA in November. Now people apparently are getting “zippy”. The president’s definition may be somewhat different than that of standard dictionaries – but the “speed and energy” of the electorate has nothing to compare with the  merry-go-round of actions of the president himself. That is clearly depending on who is getting to him from moment to moment.

One of our own candidates here in Canada has some followers who like the American leader – which might explain why that campaign has gone sideways, partly in preference to a rookie politician, who nevertheless seems like an adult in the room.

Where were those American voters last November?

They chose someone who posed as a business expert in a reality TV show. In real life he had six bankruptcies and a father who bailed him out to the tune of millions.

They chose someone who was a convicted felon.

They chose someone who stiffed university students with a phony university.

They chose someone who dipped into his own foundation and had to pay a big fine after doing so.

They chose someone who said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and no one would care.

They chose someone who said the previous election was stolen – A big lie against all evidence to the contrary.

They chose someone who said he would wreak vengeance on his enemies.

They chose someone beloved by business leaders because he would be so great for the economy – until he isn’t

None of these things are actually secrets. They have been sitting there in plain sight for Canadians, because we read your newspapers and watch you TV. So does the rest of the world. What was actually going through the minds of American voters last November?  They are blaming everyone around the president now for their lack of good advice. It’s all those cabinet ministers and advisors and their fault not to be the guardrails. All human beings are flawed but there has always been lots of evidence well beyond the need for guardrails here.  Looking from the country to the north – What were those voters thinking?

Slogans

We’re about to have a federal election in Canada and we are going to hear a lot of them. “Governor” will no longer be around but the “51st State” has had recent attention both from Timothy Snyder and Thomas Homer Dixon – thoughtful writers and thinkers I am always eager to read. They take the threat seriously.

I was amused to have a flyer from my federal member of parliament come through the door with the slogan “Axe the Tax” on the very day that the Conservative party’sleader announced the cancellation of that same tax on carbon. Now we have a new slogan from Mr. Poilievre. It’s “More boots less suits,” referring to training of trade workers, as reported by CBC news. Such training is obviously a good thing - but should the slogan contain be “less” or “fewer”? Fewer might be more accurate but it has less zing.

I wonder about slogans. For starters, why do the idea folks that the Conservatives employ to develop their communication strategies like rhymes so much? Yes, they may be easier to remember. I wondered how long “axe” had been used as a verb and Merriam Webster says since 1674 – in the sense of “to shape, dress or trim” - so it isn’t as trendy as I thought. What is true though, is that cutting with an axe is somewhat violent. It’s much more charged that a word like “discontinue” – and I find the frequently implied violence concerning, along with the nicknames by the Conservative leader that are imitating someone else we know.. It’s a reminder of the amount of “slashing” going on to the south of us, celebrated with the image of a chain saw.

“More boots less suits” has a similar emotional charge. A re-elected premier and a new prime minister both appeared yesterday in suits – with sombre good reasons, since they were meeting to discuss the greatest challenge to our sovereignty in my life time. These were leaders dressed for the part. We do need both boots and suits to meet our current challenges. Neither of these has a franchise on either intelligence or experience.

And then there are the “Canada” slogans. “Canada Strong.” I find it straightforward, if not very catchy. It meets the moment as a reminder that we have to be both confident and disciplined. “Canada First” has cropped up again too. Anyone thinking that is a good slogan lacks knowledge of American history before the second world war – or the current situation of who wants to be first no matter what.

I’m not looking forward to violent language in the coming campaign. To hear it defended that it is used because it works, says more about all of us than we are prepared to admit. It’s easy to fall into violent thinking about others until it comes for us.

Oh, Canada?

 Pro and Con as a country to live in according to DigitalDefynd

PRO:

1. High Quality of Life

2.Multicultural Environment

3.Strong Economy

4.Work-Life Balance

5.Comprehensive Social Benefits

6.Progressive Labor Laws

7.Natural Beauty – Outdoor Activities

8.Career Growth Opportunities

9.Safety and Security

10.Access to Global Markets

CON

1.High cost of living – esp. in large cities

2.Harsh winters

3.High tax rates

4.Few Jobs in some sectors

5.Long time waits for health care

6.Language barriers

7.Job market competition

8.Limited public transit – some areas

9.High student debt

10.Bureaucracy and regulations

And from me having lived here for most of my 89 years:

PRO

· Our Canada Council and provincial arts councils have contributed greatly to our own culture – and have moved to greater understanding of our diversity and supported it.

·  While most of us live within 100 miles of the next country’s border, we value the whole environment and explore it.  Landing in Timmins on a flight to northern Ontario, I could only marvel that it was only half way up the province.

·   Our working lives allow for what Timothy Snyder views as the strength of unpredictability. Who would have thought that training as a teacher in 1960 would mean that I was later out of a job in 1980 when the post war babies grew out of adolescence and didn’t need so many teachers. About another forty years later I was in South Africa training a bunch of hotel and restaurant owners in business creativity – even though I never worked in such businesses. I was found online in 1999 by an intern of their association in working in Paris. When i first saw the invitation, I thought it must be a joke.

CON

·   All the cons are true enough – but it doesn’t mean we are not aware of them and trying to do something about them.

·   Currently the worst one is living next to a predatory leader who was elected by people we thought of as friends.

Several years ago during Canada’s 150th anniversary of its Confederation, Global News, one of Canada’s national services, did some interesting research asking Canadians themselves:

Best things about Canada:

·  Nature and the landscape

·  The people and their diversity

·   Their values

And their worst (somewhat surprisingly)

·   Their democracy and government – women and young people more predominantly

·   Their food – relating more to no national dish other than poutine.

·   Their cities – even though that’s where most people live

Best Progress

·       As a great place to live

·       Gender equality

·       Quality of life

Worst progress

·       Political leadership (probably a pair of them)

·       Opportunities for young people

·       Quality of healthcare

Defining our culture’s strengths

.Social services such as health care

·       Tolerance of people of other faiths and ethnicities

·       Multicultural diversity

Best country or area to live by Percent - according to Canadians

Canada: 67

Australia, New Zealand, South Pacific: 10

Europe: 8

Central America, Caribbean: 5

USA: 4

UK: 2

And for more fun in terms of stereotypes:

·   We like maple syrup and we share it; we are the world’s biggest exporter of it.

·   Three quarters of us watch the National Hockey League finals (not me often)

·   We do have cold winters. In 1947, the temperature in the Yukon was -81.4F  (I did start a car in the 1970s in Western Quebec at -40F

·   We say “sorry” more often – because we are polite and other people are not the enemy.

·   15% of Canadians visit the formerly Canadian Tim Horton’s every day. (I’m switching from Starbucks, but all Canadian Pilot is rather expensive)

·   When not drinking coffee, we’re more likely to be drinking beer. (personallyI prefer a good Canadian Reisling)

 SO – Blame Canada?

 I doubt that the US president has read any of our history books. (It occurs to me that I should value our historians more myself and do something about the deficit from my University days when the only history I studied was European, For that matter, it was not possible to study Canadian history I the late 1950s either.) More likely he got the idea of Canada not being a country from South Park here – not a real country. We might just start blaming . . . . And you can see my indebtedness to Timothy Snyder here as well.

 Here are a couple of other things that are real right now.

 ·   We’re not a major exporter of fentanyl. The US government says we sent 0.2% in a recent comparison- that is “zero point two percent.  Repeating it as the problem by both the president and the vice president is supposed to make it so. It’s a lie.

·   We do have a new Prime Minister – who is off meeting the pair of countries that established us as a modern one.  Like those of other countries they ignored and damaged people who had already been there for thousands of years. At least we know that now and very slowly are trying to do something about it.

·   We’re proudly Canadian and not interested in being annexed.  You wouldn’t like us anyway  - a second official language – or the fact that our provinces (think states) constantly have different opinions and argue both among themselves and with the federal government.  The joke is “Is –( whatever - you fill in the blank here) – A federal or a provincial problem?

·   We’re not enemies. But we do wonder what you are doing to yourselves.

·   Plans for annexation are not new – but they have never gone well.

Value(s)

Patriotism and Canadian are seldom viewed as synonyms. But here we are. Press us from outside and we realize that we are not American.  I lived and taught in New York City in the 1960s and loved being there. I find it hard to realize what a different country it is now.  I also grew up in an industrial city – Kitchener, Ontario, whose economy at the time was primarily manufacturing. Its twin city, Waterloo, was seen as less prosperous. The situation totally reversed in the digital revolution where its university and tech start ups made Waterloo a San Francisco of the north. But it didn’t produce any billionaires who decided to run the country.

What makes us different?  We have our own polarizations - -usually conflicts between federal and provincial powers.  We have several political parties, which means we often have minority governments that need at least one other party to support them. The US president has given us an unexpected gift of recognizing that more unites us than divides us. Tomorrow on Friday March 14, we will have a new prime minister and a new federal cabinet.

The new prime minister wrote about value and values during the pandemic. It might be worth noting what Mark Carney said about his own values in a book that explained economic understanding of monetary value but also human ones:

“Growing up, I learned from my family, neighbours, friends and our country the values of integrity, responsibility, solidarity and hard work. I gained an appreciation of our cultural mosaic and enjoyed opportunities to engage in my community and serve our country. Like others, I have drawn on Canadian strengths in public education and healthcare and I have been raised in an environment where leaders must force a consensus toward a common vision and then take principled disciplined action.

For those gifts I owe a great debt to our country”.

As do we all.

Notes:

Carney, Mark. Value(s) Building a Better World for all. Penguin, paperback edition, Random House Canada, 2022. Originally published by Signal, 2021.