HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2019-08-29, Page 5Other Views
Reflecting on tornadoes and toddlers
Don’t take democracy for granted
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
While I do bemoan a lot of what social
media has done to society, from
nonsensical abbreviations to the
self-focused, participation ribbon-winning
generation it’s creating, there are some good
things about it, like Facebook’s “Memories”.
The Memories feature, for those of you who
have evaded Facebook’s siren call, shows what
you posted the same day every year. So when
I looked back on Aug. 21, the day my daughter
was born three years ago, I saw all the birthday
comments and celebrations. Then I scrolled a
bit further and saw something else: the F3
tornado that tore through one of my
hometowns of Goderich, as well as its
surrounding communities and countryside.
Now, after discussing this column idea with
some coworkers, I came to the conclusion that
my best bet would be to say early on that I’m
not trying to diminish anything that anyone
experienced during that tornado. I know
people who were hurt, and I’m related to
people who lost a lot when that tornado rolled
through. I count my blessings all the time
regarding what could have been lost, but
wasn’t that day.
That said, I’ll admit that in my matter-of-
fact mind, the first thing that popped up was
that Mary Jane was born five years to the day
after that tornado rolled through Goderich and
I couldn’t help but draw some parallels.
Mary Jane is a wonderful child. She’s
typically happy, energetic, excited to be
outside and always ready to offer a hug. When
people ask when Ashleigh and I are going to
have a second, my routine response is that we
hit a homerun with Mary Jane, so why even go
back to bat again?
However whenever any child, no matter how
perfect, rolls into a home, they have a tornado-
like impact. You’re left wondering where your
stuff went, whose stuff replaced it, and how
much this is all going to cost you.
Don’t believe me? Just look at my media
room.
Oh wait, it no longer exists. Before Mary
Jane came along, the room that was hers had a
70-inch screen for my projector and a super
comfortable futon. It was perfect for cuddling
up and watching movies.
In place of it are dresses, a tickle trunk, a
bed filled with stuffed animals and fluffy,
forest animal-inspired decor.
It’s like something blew away everything
that and left someone else’s stuff there, kind of
like a tornado.
The same can be said for nearly every room
in our house.
The pantry, which used to be filled with
spices and seasonings, taco shells and all kinds
of unique ingredients for my culinary
experiments is now filled with Ritz crackers,
cookies and apple sauce pouches.
My workshop is now filled with boxes of
clothes and toys that Mary Jane has outgrown
and, instead of woodworking, I spend most of
my time in that part of the house fixing toys,
replacing batteries and mending books.
The mud room is now home to all manner of
bubble-producing apparatuses and at least one
stroller, the dining room has more bibs than
scotch glasses, and even our bedroom now has
a dedicated spot to hide gifts for future
birthdays or Christmases.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the
bathroom: rubber duckies, mermaid dolls,
oatmeal soaps, no-tangle hair spray, no-tangle
shampoo and a stepping stool that I constantly
stub my toe on when I’m half asleep.
There’s also the shed, which I swear I’ll be
finishing before the snow falls this year. It was
originally supposed to be a place to store and
work on my snowblower and lawn mower.
Now, it’s also home to all manner of outdoor
play equipment.
There’s also the finances to consider. Sure,
the tornado did hundreds of millions of dollars
in damages, which simply isn’t comparable to
any amount of money that we’re likely to
spend on Mary Jane in my lifetime, but that
doesn’t mean that children aren’t expensive.
There seems to be an agreed-upon average
cost of between $14,000 and $23,000 per year
to raise a child, depending on a family’s
activities. Plot that out for 21 years (because
who really moves out at 18 anymore) and a
parent is looking at, on average, between
$300,000 and $500,000 to raise a child to the
age of 21 and that is a good chunk of money.
And that’s not even taking into account
college, university or trade school!
Like I said, I’m not aiming to diminish
anyone’s experiences here: the tornado was a
very real and deadly natural disaster that rolled
through Huron County. My weird, bottom-line
mind, however, can’t help but notice that, five
years to the day after Goderich faced that
whirling dervish, Ashleigh and I had our own.
All of what I said above may seem like
griping, but in all honesty, anyone who has
seen me bring Mary Jane out to take a photo,
or run into us while walking the beautiful
streets of Blyth knows that each and every
trade-off I listed, plus millions more, are worth
it. I’d give up every ounce of personal space
in my house for the family I have and do
so with a smile on my face. That doesn’t
mean, however, I can’t see the comedy in
the coincidence of Mary Jane being born
Aug. 21.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019. PAGE 5.
Nothing to hide
Right now, Premier Doug Ford is using
taxpayer money to fund a lawsuit
aimed at keeping his dirty laundry
hidden. The province is going to court to fight
an order from its privacy commissioner, which
ordered the release of Ford’s mandate letters,
which should be public, to his ministers.
At least his promise to increase transparency
lasted for a solid week or two after he spent a
year setting up his friends with plush, six-
figure jobs – again, our tax dollars at work.
At the heart of this though (and really the
Fords in general – remember how Rob
definitely didn’t smoke crack?) is the age-old
question that wonders aloud why, if you have
nothing to hide, would you fear investigation?
It was disgraced U.S. President Richard
Nixon, when Watergate allegations began to
swirl, who said he welcomed scrutiny because
he had nothing hide. “I welcome this kind of
examination because people have got to know
whether or not their president is a crook. Well,
I’m not a crook.”
We would later find out that Nixon had a lot
to lose and that he was, indeed, a crook. In this
press conference, however, he said the right
things. He said he welcomed investigation by
ethics commissioners, the media and the
public because he’d done nothing wrong.
Ford, however, is fresh off of his pledge for
transparency and his arrogant, third-person
statement that “no one can buy Doug Ford”,
which, it appears, couldn’t be further from the
truth and now throws this in the pan. He’s
using our tax dollars to keep things from us.
If he has nothing to hide, he should be free
of worry, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is embroiled
in his own scandal. No doubt everyone has
heard that he acted inappropriately in working
to influence then-Attorney General Jody
Wilson-Raybould in the case of SNC-Lavalin.
Another age-old law enforcement saying is
that the cover-up is always worse than the
crime. Not only has Trudeau been dishonest
and not exactly forthcoming with the true story
of what happened between him, Wilson-
Raybould and SNC-Lavalin, but he is actively
working to suppress details.
The House of Commons ethics committee,
with a Liberal majority, has blocked an effort
to have Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion
testify to his report about Trudeau and the
SNC-Lavalin incident. Again, if Trudeau and
his government have nothing to hide, he
should welcome this opportunity to clear the
air, especially with a critical election looming.
I don’t have to tell you that U.S. President
Donald Trump has become the poster boy for
this behaviour. While he can repeat “no
collusion, no obstruction” as many times as
he’d like (and he has), his government has
bucked any attempt at transparency. And yet,
he assures supporters he has nothing to hide.
To mine some wisdom from the bottomless
wisdom barrel that is Judge Judy – for those of
us unoccupied during the day watching her
adjudicate countless asinine conflicts between
neighbours or roommates– if you tell the truth,
you don’t have to have a good memory.
Last week, The Economist published a piece
entitled “The global gag on free speech is
tightening” and while North Americans may
associate a lack of free speech with far-flung
dictatorships on the other side of the world,
ethics investigations are being shut down and
media access is being limited right here at
home. While it’s scary for a journalist,
everyone should be taking note and keeping
tabs on this very disturbing road map and
where exactly it might take us.
There have been times over the past few
weeks, as the TV news was full of video
of protests in Hong Kong, when I
wished people would just give it up and go
home. But then I realize what they’re fighting
to maintain.
Day after day, week after week, Hong Kong
residents have taken to the streets to fight back
against attempts by Chinese government
authorities to integrate the population of the
former British colony into mainland China,
shortcutting the guarantees it made to maintain
democracy and other liberties for 50 years
following the handover by Britain in 1997.
At times estimates have put the number of
protesters in the streets at two million people
out of a population of five million. They
protest, although they realize they might be
attacked by police and, if China gets its way
about Hong Kong citizens who are arrested
being sent to the mainland for “justice”, they
might suffer reprisals.
I have to ask myself, could you get 40 per
cent of the Canadian population risking their
safety in the streets to fight for democracy? I
suspect we couldn’t. Often we have only
slightly more than that number bothering to
make the effort to vote in our elections, let
alone march in the streets.
Elsewhere, people seem to care so little of
their rights to participate in a democracy that
they have elected leaders who are anti-
democratic. Enough Italians voted for Matteo
Salvini, a right-wing hardliner, that he became
Deputy Prime Minister in a coalition
government. He recently brought down the
coalition by withdrawing his party’s support
and some think he has designs on becoming
Prime Minister.
Elsewhere, people in Hungary have voted in
Victor Orban; people in Philippines elected
Rodrigo Roa Duterte as President; and
Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro. None of
these men could be described as democrats.
And then there’s Vladimir Putin in Russia, who
was elected in supposedly democratic elections
but has turned Russia into a virtual
dictatorship.
It’s perhaps understandable that Russians
and Hungarians, who grew up in Communist
dictatorships then had a few years of
democracy, might not appreciate the precious
gifts they were giving away when they turned
to strongmen to run their countries. They’d
been brainwashed for decades into thinking
that some leaders were just smarter than
ordinary citizens were and more entitled to
lead.
In countries like Canada, we take it for
granted that the natural progression toward
social justice is toward a point when the people
decide who will form the government, but such
a belief isn’t always so self-evident. Indeed, it
hasn’t always been a core belief even here.
Recently I’ve plunged myself into
researching the 1837 Rebellion here in
Ontario. That rebellion is often treated as a
farce, but what leaders like William Lyon
Mackenzie and Col. Anthony Van Egmond
were fighting against is a vision of a colony we
can hardly recognize. Questioned by
Mackenzie before a committee of the
Legislative Council of Upper Canada, (as
Ontario was then called), Bishop John
Strachan, unofficial leader of the “Family
Compact” of prominent families who felt they
should run the colony, ridiculed the idea of a
public vote. “Nobody,” he maintained, “would
ask for vote by ballot but from gross ignorance;
it is the most corrupt way of using the
franchise.”
The colony’s governor, Sir Francis Bond
Head, maintained that the idea he was
responsible to the people was unconstitutional.
He saw it as his mission to fight “low-bred,
antagonist(ic) democracy”.
He felt no obligation to take the advice of
the elected Assembly, seeing these people as
republicans and traitors.
It was only the open, failed rebellion of
Mackenzie and a few hundred volunteers,
along with another rebellion in Lower Canada
(Quebec, today) that got the attention of the
British government. Lord Durham’s report on
the rebellions’ causes set Canada on the road to
democracy.
Similar feelings as those expressed by
Strachan and Bond Head that the people are
too stupid to run the country, have led to the
growth of dictatorships today. Even in our
neighbours to the south, it’s hard to think that
President Donald Trump, who sees himself as
smarter than everyone else around him, really
believes that the people who elected him are
wise enough to control his future. It would be
interesting to see what would happen with his
base supporters if his true feelings became
public.
We have a federal election coming up in
October. You might be tempted to turn off your
radio and TV and stop reading newspapers to
escape politics. You might not even vote. Just
remember how hard people in Hong Kong are
fighting to maintain what you take for granted.
Keith
Roulston
From the
cluttered desk