Dr. Evil for PM??

Is it just me, or is anyone else totally disillusioned with the Federal Election this year? Normally, I follow the election coverage, watch the debates etc., in order to vote with an informed opinion. Of course, I always voted for Jay Hill, but it pays to be informed, stay abreast of the issues, keep current. This election, just seems like a total waste of time.

Maybe its the whole fourth election in 7 years thing? Or maybe its because Harper is doing an okay job, and the alternative of Michael Ignatieff is not really appealing. I read somewhere, that he is considered quite charismatic, especially to the ladies . . . this lady just finds him arrogant and creepy. Seriously, he looks evil. And who wants Dr. Evil for a Prime Minister. Although, if it was Austin Powers version of Dr. Evil, Canadians might really have an interesting time of it.

So disillusioned am I, with this whole election business, that for once I didn't even bother to watch the English debate the other day. Of course, I also refused to watch it on principle. They had four party leaders debating, but only three national parties were represented. The Green Party, our fourth legitimate national party, was not allowed to participate. 

Why? Because they have no elected members. Yet the Bloc Quebecois, which is neither a national party, nor a party which has the best interests of Canada and Canadians at its core, was allowed to take part.

The Bloc has always been the party of separatism. And separatists wish to destroy Canada as we know it. Vive le Quebec, they cry . . . not Oh Canada! The people responsible for organising the leaders' debate either don't know, or don't care what the Bloc is all about.

This election is about Canada, and the Bloc is not and never has been, about Canada.

It's not that I begrudge Quebec the right to have a voice in parliament, that wouldn't be democratic of me, now would it? What I object to, is a province or group of people who advocate the destruction of our country as we know it, being two-faced about it. Electing members to parliament, the body which governs Canada as a whole, and has the needs of the entire country at its core, when said group of people doesn't really care about Canada, the country (only Quebec, the imaginary country).

Now that I've got my anti-separatism rant out of the way, I'd just like to add that I wish Ignatieff hadn't orchestrated the whole non-confidence motion last month. It's really too soon for another election - we're supposed to have one every 3 or 4 years, not 4 in 7 years!

If you think about it, what could Ignatieff, the history professor, really bring to the table, that Harper, with his degree in economics, hasn't? It wasn't knowledge of medieval history which got our country through the world economic crisis. It wasn't the lessons learned from the Revolutionary War which got us through it, kept our heads above water, when other countries, most notably our neighbour to the south, were sinking into an abyss of debt, unemployment and looming financial collapse.

No, it was knowledge of economies and aversion to large debt loads that saved us. Not Michael Ignatieff.

CBC, CTV . . . you suck!!

Why do they suck, you ask? It's simple - they're an insenstive bunch of jerks.

When the 7.1 earthquake struck Haiti last year, these news agencies were "on the ground", as they put it, for weeks and we got reports hourly for weeks on end of how the recovery effort was going, how many people died and generally how tragic it was.

And certainly it was tragic. It's still tragic that there are so many people still living in tents and unsanitary conditions. The news media have not allowed us to forget the people of Haiti.

Christchurch, New Zealand, however, seems to be a whole different kettle of fish.

Last Tuesday's earthquake, the second huge quake in less than six months, has received next to no coverage from the Canadian news media. They certainly don't have anyone "on the ground" there. Is it because New Zealand is a civilized Western nation, and thus deemed perfectly capable of helping themselves? Or was all the Haiti coverage simply a result of the fact that our then-Governor General, happened to be a Haitian refugee?

NZ's former Prime Minister, Helen Clark was reported as saying that Christchurch's tragedy was on a par with Haiti's. If that's the case, where is Christchurch's coverage? Where is Christchurch's world aid. Why are Cantabrians treated as yesterday's news?

It does seem as though it's yesterday's news. There has been no coverage since Saturday, six days after the quake. I had to watch CTVNewsnet for an hour yesterday, before I finally saw a blurb on the ticker, about the death toll. Otherwise, nada.

Yes, okay, Lybia is big thing right now. A huge thing. But the tragedy is Christchurch is no less a tragedy, just because that lunatic Gadhafi is running around inciting civil war. But honestly, the past couple of days, you wouldn't think anything had happened in New Zealand a week ago.

Except this morning. When I woke up, the MooseFM news at 6 a.m., and a brief mention of the earthquake and the death toll. Stands at 148, he said. But perhaps, it was only mentioned because a couple from Grande Prairie, AB had narrowly escaped being crushed by the falling Cathedral spire? I'm glad they escaped. At least 20 other people were not so lucky.

Reading the NZ Herald website (www.nzherald.co.nz), there are a million stories of bravery, self-sacrifice, and of Kiwis banding together to help the people of Christchurch. Yes, there are also more stories of tragedy, of family members missing or killed by the quake. But overall, Cantabrians are getting on with the task of rescue, clean-up and putting their beloved city back together.

Does the world news media care? I think not. Except, perhaps, for the BBC.

Take the University of Canterbury (my alma mater) - for example. The students put up a website, looking for a few volunteers to help clean up the liquefaction . . . the UC Student Army, now has 18,000 students throughout the city, cleaning up the mess. 

Does this not warrant recognition? They'd probably say they're just doing what needs to be done - but I think it's fabulous.

Come on Canada, pull your head out of your ass and take a look at the things that are going on in Christchurch. The tragic and the positive. Surely a fellow Commonwealth country deserves news coverage just as much as a raving Lybian lunatic does? 

If you take a look on the NZ Herald website, there are links for international donations to help the victims of the quake, as well as a plethora of stories about the quake.

And at 4:51 p.m. MST, I urge my fellow Canadians and Kiwis abroad to take 2 mins, to stand in silence, to remember the victims of Tuesday's earthquake in Christchurch.

Adendum to We'll Soldier On

Looking back at my earlier post today, I have to just add this:

I'm such a fake - I was trying to be all upbeat and positive about the future of Christchurch after the quake on Tuesday (and all the aftershocks which followed), but you know what?? I'm not really feeling upbeat at all.

Don't get me wrong - it is awesome that the clean-up has started already, and that the people of Christchurch are banding together. My aunt told me that her boss asked for a few volunteers to help clean up their factory (she works for Independent Fisheries in Woolston), and he got 120. Amazing. I've seen the photos of the Canterbury University students out there, digging up the liquefaction . . . totally amazing. And such a contrast from Haiti's tragedy a year ago (don't take offense, this is my PERSONAL opinion, okay), where they had help pouring in from all over the world, yet a year later, it hardly looks any different.

But still, in spite of all this progress towards cleaning up and soldiering on, I am totally bummed. Obviously, not on the scale of those who live in Christchurch and experienced the quake first hand, but I am truly devastated by the destruction of my most favourite city in the world. Technically, many might think I have no right to grieve, my family and friends are all alive and well. Houses can be replaced, yards can be cleaned up. But people cannot be replaced, and I haven't lost anybody.

Yet everytime I see the pictures on the news, the wasteland of what was Columbo Street, for example, I just want to cry. I can talk about it now, without my voice breaking, but holy crap, what a bloody disaster! I've only seen pictures and video, but I lived there for 8 years and I know what it's supposed to look like. For the rest of the world, yeah, its tragic and the destruction is horrible, but for me, and for others who call Christchurch home, it is just devastating.

And it breaks my heart.

I love Fort St. John too, in its own way, its a pretty special city - and my husband and children are here, but somehow, Christchurch - in spite of my reluctance to move there in 1985 - is closer to my heart. It is where my family is from, where my grandparents and mother are buried, it is full of beautiful gardens, architecture, steeped in history, and I have wished every day since this happened that it was all just a bad dream.

Unfortunately, its not a dream, and I'm hanging out here on the outer edge of this nightmare, wishing I could do something, grieving and feeling a bit like a doofus for doing so. After-all, I'm safe, my family and friends are all alive and uninjured . . . but I'm sitting up here, in the Frozen North, blubbering every time I see pictures of the rubble.

I'm totally bummed, but she'll be right. Eventually.

Christchurch: We'll soldier on

My beloved ancestral home is in ruins this week, following Tuesday's 6.3 magnitude earthquake. The 7.1 in September was bad enough - it ruined a lot of homes and caused much stress for family and friends. But this one, although smaller in magnitude was literally a kick in the teeth to Christchurch, which was still picking up the pieces from September's quake.

I say ancestral home, because although I don't live there now, much of my family does and my mother traced our history back to the First Four Ships, which landed in Lytellton Harbour in 1850. My ancestor, Charles Bourn, came over on the Randolph. There's a plaque in Cathedral Square with the names of the passengers on it - no doubt covered in rubble now. For 160 years, Christchurch has grown and endured everything that Mother Nature has thrown at it, including several other strong earthquakes. It's architecture, beautiful gardens and temperate climate have beckoned people from around the world, to visit, and to settle in the Garden City.

I've spent many an afternoon, walking in the Botantic Gardens, surveying the city from the balconies atop the Cathedral's spire; many evenings with friends, just hanging out in various spots around the city, never thinking for a moment, that in February 2011, it would be in ruins.

Today, the spire of the Cathedral lies in the square. A pile of 130-year old bricks. Underneath, the bodies of visitors to the Cathedral wait to be recovered. It is nothing less than a resounding kick in the teeth to the people of Christchurch and Canterbury. Homes and other historic buildings throughout the city are ruined. Liquefaction oozing out of foundations, up from sinkholes in the roads, and in the middle of school playing fields. The Central Business District (CBD) is an utter shambles.Many are still without water or power, on this, the fourth day following the quake.

But in spite of this devastation, in spite of the 113 confirmed dead, and the 200 people still missing, Christchurch is not sitting on it's laurels, bemoaning what they have lost. Not even close. In the words of my aunt, "We'll soldier on." In the minds of Cantabrians, there's no other course of action. They pick up the pieces and carry on. Houses can be rebuilt. Yes, families have been tragically shattered, there's no bringing them back, but like the living, the dead would no doubt be saying, We'll soldier on.

Much of the CBD will have to be torn down and rebuilt. Christchurch will never look the same. But it like it's people will soldier on. They will rebuild - in fact, I read in the NZ Herald yesterday that they are already planning to rebuild the Cathedral, and the NZ Historic Places Trust is looking at repairing many of the damaged historic buildings in the city.

All is not lost. It's a kick in the teeth, to be sure. And I, like many, many others, am grieving for all that has been destroyed this week. One day, a day that will come much sooner than anyone thinks perhaps, I believe that Christchurch residents will no longer say We'll soldier on - they won't need to, because Christchurch will rise again from its ruins. We'll be able to look at the progress we've made and say, She'll be right, mate.

And she will.

Good-bye Gordo

With the resignation of BC Premier Gordon Campbell earlier this week, many British Columbians have been heard to say, “About time,” and “Good riddance.” But is it really?

Think about it. Think about the government which preceded the Liberals in BC. Think about what went on. Think about how unstable our province was, politically and economically. Think about how much we all wished we lived in Alberta instead.

Do we really want to return our beloved province to those days? I think not.

Carole James seems to be heralding Campbell’s resignation as a sign that the NDP will soon regain control of the province. Oh really? Only if the voters of BC conveniently manage to forget BingoGate . . . and what about the 6 NDP Premiers we had in 10 years?

Do we really want to return to that kind of political instability? Not to mention the embarrassment of fiascos like BingoGate. I certainly don’t.

When I first interviewed Gordon Campbell, way back when he was still fairly new to the provincial political scene, something he said then stuck in my mind. He based his economic policies on the things his mother taught him. And the most important thing she taught him (please forgive me, if I can’t remember the exact quote, it’s been awhile), was that you can’t spend money you don’t have. Under the NDP, there was a lot of unwise spending going on – the ferries come to mind.

You know what? That’s exactly what Gordon Campbell and the Liberals did. They tried not to spend money they didn’t have. They pulled our provincial economy out of the toilet.

Yes, they made some bad decisions. Like the whole thing with closing the care homes, so that our elderly don’t have enough places to go, to receive proper care. That’s up there on my list of Gordo’s big mistakes.

The HST is another bad decision. When an overwhelming number of voters in the province sign petitions against something, it’s a clear sign that we don’t want it. We live in a democracy. In a democracy, the people are supposed to have a say. Looks like Gordo has finally realized that . . . too bad he didn’t clue in when Blair Lekstrom resigned his cabinet post and handed back his Liberal Party membership. It might have saved him a lot of grief.

I really hope the BC Liberals manage to elect someone good, to replace Campbell as leader. Someone with good economic sense, someone with tough moral fibre, someone who’s not going to lead BC down paths we really don’t want, or need to travel again.

Good-bye Gordon . . . it’s been real.

Today's word is: Remediation

Remediation. That’s a word which has been thrown around quite a bit lately, in the media. It kind of reminds me of synergy and synergies, the buzz words of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The two words, synergy and remediation are nothing alike, obviously, but it is the frequency with which the words have been used, that is familiar to me.

Synergy: increased effectiveness, achievement etc., produced by combined action, co-operation etc. (from the Canadian Oxford Dictionary pp 1471, 1998 edition)

Yet I cannot find an actual definition of remediation in this same dictionary. I’ve got remedy, and remedial . . . but no remediation. The definition which seems to best meet the most frequent use of the word is this: means of counteracting or removing anything undesirable.

One can see, given the state of the world’s economies, governments, etc., why remediation seems to becoming this decade’s newest buzzword.

I hate buzzwords, with a passion. Every time a new one surfaces, you know there is always a better, simpler, less convoluted word, or words, which can be used in it’s place.

Take for example, the site where the Fort Hotel once stood. Following the fire which destroyed the building, it became an even greater eyesore, than when it was simply an old, dilapidated building. Did the owners care? No. As all Fort St. John residents know, he merely slapped up a butt-ugly fence in a token gesture to public safety, and called it good. The City forked over a sizeable chunk of money to put up a better fence. I’ve heard figures between $10,000 and $40,000 for this fence. It’s a very pretty fence. But it doesn’t change the fact, that what lies behind it, is a disgrace.

So, the owner fails to clean up the property. He refuses to pay his property taxes, and claimed to be “donating” the property to the City. What a big-hearted, community-minded individual he is. Horseshit. The Fort has been nothing but a farce since the day that guy bought and said he was going to turn it into a pub and sushi bar.

Now that it belongs to the City, the property is going to be remediated to the tune of $200,000+. Really. They are going to “counteract or remove anything undesirable”?

Don’t they really mean, clean it up? Hey, yeah! Why don’t they do that?? Just clean it up! I bet it costs taxpayers a heck of a lot less than remediation. After-all, I seem to remember that using synergies cost us a lot of money.

Just say what you mean. It’s not like it’s gonna kill you.

That’s it for today. Thanks, as always, for reading. I’m going to go remediate the lunch dishes now, and perhaps remediate the laundry pile as well, before the kids come home from school. Then I’ll get them to put some synergies to work to remediate their bedrooms . . . after they’ve done their homework.

Mums CAN do sport

Our son thinks his mother can't do sport. Not sure where he gets this idea. Okay, generally speaking, I am the baking, sewing, knitting, photo-taking, scrapbooking, gardening kind of Mum. And I'm not ashamed of that. However, I'm not some stick-in-the-mud who doesn't know which end of a hockey stick to hold.

He knows, intellectually anyhow, that I have played sports. He's gone for a run with me, we've gone for bike rides, and I taught him some of the finer points of cross-country skiing. And, of course, I've been taking all the kids swimming since they were babies. But, he has it in his head that I can't play hockey.


Okay, okay. Not on ice. I have never, ever played ice hockey. But I can skate fairly well. I can even do spins - on purpose. But I haven't played ice hockey, so he thinks I can't play hockey. Period.

Silly, silly boy. Your lack of faith will seal your doom on the driveway, and in the yard. Trust me. As I demonstrated yesterday afternoon.


Now that we actually have somewhere safe to play driveway hockey, I thought it was about time we had some equipment. So, after school, we went to Ernie's and bought some sticks, day-glo orange balls, and a couple of cones to use as a goal, in the event that our soccer net blows away during the course of the game. It turns out, that our son is just like his father . . . he may be right-handed, but he handles the stick like a lefty! 


Once we got home, with our small collection of sticks and balls, our son gets his out, and starts taunting me. Me. His mother. She who gave him life. He won't be doing that again. No way. Without cheating, with no under-handed moves, illegal checking/tripping, or anything else unsportsman-like, I got that ball away from him (he said I couldn't). I kept it away from both him and the dog. Jake, the dog, has no qualms about trying to knock people over or push them out of the way to get the ball. He is, after-all, a dog, and he just wants to play.

When we were done, I said, "See?" Our son said nothing. Our daughters were cheering me on, though. "By the way, didn't I mention that I played Field Hockey at university?" Jaw drops slightly. He nods. "That was field hockey, son."


I gave the stick to our oldest daughter, and the ball back to our son. "I want to play hockey as good as you, Mum," said the 7-year old girl. Awwwww, warm fuzzies. Thanks sweetie.

Now, don't tell my Dad . . . but the move to New Zealand has proved useful after-all. The game I learned to play in the 5th Form has served me well as a mother. Who would've thunk it??


Oh yeah, and I can play hockey in a skirt. Like to see Wayne Gretzky or Sidney Crosby do that!!