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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1996-12-18, Page 5Arthur Black International Scene By Raymond Canon THE CITIZEN. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1996 PAGE 5. A really Grand Idea for Canada It's been quite a while since Canada had a really Grand Idea. Mind you, we've had a few in our time. Confederation was a Grand Idea. So was the transcontinental railway and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Three Grand Canadian Ideas, all with a couple of things in common. Number one, they were all attempts to knit, staple, bind or weld this ramshackle country together. Number two, they are each presently in the process of being unraveled. The iron rails that once hemstitched this country from Vancouver to St. John's are rusting and weed-strewn. The CBC which once hooked up Canadians from the Queen Charlottes to Come By Chance, is being hacked to pieces by Federal Liberal bean counters, As for Confederation, Quebec wants a divorce, the West isn't speaking to the East, the Maritimes feel like they've been locked in the basement and the native people just wish we'd all shut up, pack our carpetbags and go back where we came from. Oh yes, and the Mounties, Canada's national police force, is being marketed by Walt Disney Corporation. So what exactly is there in this Great White North that could be expected to unit a Unions behind 8 ball Buzz Hargrove, the president of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), is getting a great deal of air time this fall, given that his union is in the process of renegotiating contracts with the North American automakers. He is not meeting with an unqualified success, but he at least brings into focus the problems that the unions everywhere are having as they try to come to grips with reality in the last years of the century. First of all, I should say that I have a lot of respect for Hargrove. He tends to spout outdated left-wing dogma at times, but he is not alone in this. I have had him talk to one of my economics classes at Western and the last time we met was on a TV program where we debated the merits of trade liberalization as it affects Canada. We were, of course, on opposite sides of the fence, but that is par for the course when talking to union leaders. It is interesting, however, to compare Hargrove's rhetoric with that put forth by the Labour Party in Great Britain, the country which is the cradle of our trade union movement. Tony Blair, the leader of the Labour Party, stated at a recent party conference, "We will be envied throughout the world, not just because of our palaces and glorious history, but because we gave Newfoundlander and an Albertan? A Vancouverite and a Haligonian? An Inuit and — dare I say it? — A Quebecois? Do we have any Grand Ideas left? Well... there is the trail. The Trans Canada Trail. When it's finished, it will be the longest trail in the world, starting in St. John's, Nfld. and meandering across the board belly of this nation all the way to Banff. There, the trail will split, one finger squiggling west through the Rockies to fetch up on the Pacific shore at Victoria. The other branch will arc northwards through Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Yellowknife, Whitehorse — all the way to Tuktoyaktuk. The Trans Canada Trail is not for planes, trains or automobiles. It is for citizens who actually want to experience the land as they pass over it — hikers, cyclists, equestrians and cross-country skiers. Best of all, the Trans Canada Trail is not just a. federal pipedream scotch-taped together by some Ottawa mandarin with visions of good PR. The Trans Canada Trail is an idea that's being cobbled together by volunteers from every part of this country. Those volunteers formed the non-profit Trans Canada Trail Foundation, which in turn formed Trail Councillors in each province and territory — again, staffed entirely by volunteers. Then they went out and buttonholed Canadians — everybody from banks and corporations to schools anA community groups. The foundation kept it nice and simple: give us some of your money, some of your time or some of your land, they said. So far more than a million hope back to the generations, we turned this country 'round by the will of the people in unity with the party of the people and we built the Age of Achievement in our lifetime... There should be a spirit of enterprise on the shop floor, in the office,... in the 16-year-old who starts as an office girl with a realistic chance of ending up as the office manager..." This is in a country which has neither minimum wage nor closed shop unions, yet in his speech there was nary a word about getting either of these two. The unions were defanged some years ago by Margaret Thatcher and she might be excused, after listening to Tony Blair, for believing that he was a member of the party she once led. In fact, Blair sounds as much Tory as John Major, the current prime minister, when he talks, not about union solidarity, but his intention to respect, to develop and encourage family life, enterprise and ambition. The French and the Germans have not got quite that far yet, but the former recently had a general strike that lasted the better part of a month. It made our one-day protests look like family reunions. They got precious little out of it all, only marginally more than OPSEU got in its walkout earlier this year. As German Chancellor Helmut Kohl starts to cut back on his country's expenditures, the unions will roar a great deal, but achieve little. Their problem is one that is shared by a lot of people, that is, that once you obtain individual Canadians have responded in the affirmative. The Trans Canada Trail is happening. You can already walk or bike bits of it, such as the Galloping Goose Trail out of Victoria, the Guysborough County Trail in Nova Scotia and Le Petit Temis Trail that runs between Cabano, Quebec and Edmundston, New Brunswick. It's a certifiably Grand Idea and it's materializing right before our eyes — but it's not going to be an easy birth. There are still thousands of kilometres to go and it all costs dough. But if you're looking for an unusual Christmas present, you could do worse than picking up the phone and dialing 1-800-265- 3636. That's the toll free number for the Trans Canada Trail Foundation. For a pledge of $36 you can have your name (or any name you like) enshrined in a trail pavilion in the province or territory of your choice. And your 36 bucks makes one more metre of the Trans Canada Trail a reality. I remember 'way back in the 60s talking to a railway conductor as our train rolled through the forests of northwestern Ontario outside of Sioux Lookout. "Know what I'd do if I was Prime Minister?" said the conductor. "I'd give every Canadian teenager a free coast-to- coast railway pass, so that they could, just once in their lives, see Canada from one side to the other. Be worth more'n any university degree." Another Grand Idea. Too late, alas, to be handing out railway passes. Not too late for the Trans Canada Trail, though. something, it must not be taken away from you even if you can no longer afford it. Union leaders also suffer from advanced cases of foot-in-mouth disease, Arthur Scargill, of the British Miners Union, used to harm the cause just about every time he opened his mouth. Today he and his union are only a shadow of their former selves. This disease has extended to this country. It was recently revealed that Bob White, the former leader of the CAW asserted that we should not hesitate to default on our bonds if our government got into financial difficulties. Such a move would make us a pariah on international financial markets and do irreparable harm to everybody, including workers, unionized or not. Arthur Scargill also demonstrated the fact that, for all the talk about union solidarity, the same organizations were imminently self-serving. He did not give a hoot for workers elsewhere as long as his union members got what they wanted. Far too often, if jobs are lost elsewhere as a result of a specific union's actions, so be it. All this detracts from the fact that unions are doing a great deal of fine work in improving working conditions, helping in social causes and raising wage levels in industries which, even in today's world, tend to be exploitive. I cannot imagine a society that would be without labour unions; they are an essential part. But they, like everybody else, have to learn to shed outdated practices and ideas. Constant confrontation is one of them. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Being creative, excellent therapy There is no greater therapy, I think, than creativity. Through writing, through music, through art, people can release frustration, express desires and search the nether regions of a blackened soul. Such therapeutic measures were revealed to me at an early age. Feeling misunderstood and confused by my inability to effectively communicate with anyone taller than me (a situation, I might add, that hasn't really improved with age) I shed my teenage angst on paper ... and paper ... and paper. Writing was my salvation. I could give silent voice to my thoughts, my feelings, without concern that pathos would be misinterpreted as an appeal for attention. Raised in a household of adults, who inadvertently conveyed the message that youthful conversation was babble, fluency flowed instead through the tip of my pen. It's not something everyone can understand, living as we do in a world of wondrous variety. Society is comprised of the methodical, the analytical, and the dreamers. There are those who cannot imagine what is not before them, while others create visual imagery. There are those who paint a picture through words, while others understand only numbers. Some express themselves through the music they play and sing, while craftspeople turn nothing into something. But, though music was my sanctuary, writing allowed me to be whomever I wanted to be. It was a companion when I was alone, a sounding board when I was angry. Obviously, therefore, I enjoy reading the creative energies of others. It was a special treat the past few weeks to peruse the works of several of our local secondary school students, entered in our Christmas writing contest. It was a highlight not just because of the quality of the stories, but also because it provided yet again insight into the minds of tomorrow. Writing is revealing. Compositions can tell a good deal about their author. A fascination for horror. sentimentality woven with a sordid thread or a sense of humour can offer perception into the artist who brings them to life on page. The teens, whose narrations I was privy to, displayed sensitivity and maturity. They were articulate, original and in some cases thoroughly amusing. One even had me laughing aloud. What I didn't discover, was any sense of despair. Though the future at times seems uncertain for this generation, I was impressed by the hopefulness and spirit evident in each of the entries. There will be an opportunity for our readers to enjoy some of the work in the Dec. 23 Season's Greetings issue of The Citizen, with the publication of the judges' top three. May you see the same strengths and find the same pleasure in them that I did. I can't say whether or not the young authors found the task therapeutic, but their efforts certainly had a positive effect on me.