The Citizen, 2004-07-08, Page 5Final Thought
There are two educations. One should teach
us how to make a living and the other how
to live.
— John Adams
THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2004. PAGE 5.
Other Views
Canada:guilty as charged
glaciers.
About 6,000 B.C. there must' have been
one helluva loud rumble because the ice
wall collapsed and a wall of water
cascaded across the landscape towards Hudson
Bay.
How high a wall? Pretty high. Geologists
estimate 160,000 cubic kilometers of water
was displaced.
That's equivalent to having 13 Lake
Superiors dumped on your head at once.
The result was a massive, world-wide tidal
wave, followed by a precipitous rise in ocean
levels everywhere — including the low-lying
flood plain of the Sumerian basin, where Noah
hung out.
Pure myth and legend you say? Maybe,
maybe not.
For sure something big and damp happened
'way back when, and the Bible isn't the only
book that tells us so. Most middle-eastern
cultures contain similar accounts of a
devastating, world-transforming, pre-historical
deluge.
Just who is laying the blame on Canada
for unleashing the cataclysm -- some scientist
with a hate-on for the Great North West?
Nope.
The theory springs from the mind of a
geologist by the name of James Teller. He's
with the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg —
which would have been at the bottom of Lake
Agassiz back in 6,000 BC.
So there you have it, Canada, one more
guilty burden to add to the bagful of boners we
haul around as Canucks. We caused the Great
Flood.
What can we say to the rest of the world, but:
Geez. Sorry about that, eh?
/
s Ontario ready for a premier of Italian
origin or for that matter any premier who
does not have Britain somewhere in his
background?
Liberal Finance Minister Greg Sorbara has
revealed he thought of running for party leader
when Dalton McGuinty, now premier, won in
1996. but friends and advisers warned him the
province was not ready for an Italian-Canadian
premier.
Sorbara is McGuinty's undisputed number
two, so powerful opposition parties constantly
call him "the real premier" hoping to make
other top Liberals jealous. Yet, still, he is not
premier.
Sorbara had run for leader in 1992 and
finished third to Lyn McLeod, who had one of
those. solid Scots names almost part of the
equipment of Ontario party leaders. She was
the choice of Liberal brass for reasons
including being a woman.
Sorbara .says some Liberals said then they
would not risk choosing a leader of Italian
3rigin whose family was in the property
ievelopment business, like Sorbara's,
particularly at a time when there was distrust
pf another developer of Italian heritage.
Another Italian-Ontarian, Joe Cordiano, ran
igainst McGuinty, and came third.
Italians are the fourth biggest ethnic group in
he province, after the British, French and
3ermans, and more politically active than
nost. They have protested before that they do
lot get the public, posts their numbers warrant.
Sorbara complained a year ago that
)rogressive Conservative premier Ernie Eves,
vhom McGuinty later defeated, was not
ippointing enough Italian-Ontarians to his
:abinet. because he had only one, Tina
dolinari in a junior post.
Eves's Tory predecessor. Mike Harris, had
Park. Their satirical song, 'Blame Canada' (see
sample lyrics above) brought down the house
at the Oscar Awards show a couple of years
ago.
But even the mothers of Carl, Cartman,
Kenny and Stan couldn't trump the latest
international charge to be laid at our mukluks.
Now they're saying that Canada is responsible
for The Great Flood.
You know the one — the 40 days and nights
of rain? Civilization wiped out with the
exception of Noah and his floating zoo?
Yeah, well we caused it, apparently.
It worked like this: several millennia
ago, there was no Regina, Winnipeg,
Toronto or Montreal — no federal Liberal party,
even.
What there was, was a truly colossal lake
that stretched from Saskatchewan all the way
to the Laurentians in Quebec. -
Geologists call this long-vanished wonder
Lake Agassiz. They say it was formed by
glaciers melting after the last ice age.
Lake Agassiz was so vast it actually
contained 30 per cent more fresh water than is
currently on the planet.
And all that was holding it back from the rest
of North America — indeed, the world — was an
ice wall.
An ice wall that was melting along with the
the better-known former car dealer, Al (your
pal) Palladini, who had more colour than a
1950s gas guzzler, in a senior cabinet role, and
he reminded that Italians mattered.
A decade ago New Democrat premier Bob
Rae stormed out of an Italian-Canadian
business association's dinner after listening to
it complain he was not appointing enough
Italian-Ontarians to public posts of various
sorts, muttering he would not take any more of
"this crap."
McGuinty has satisfied the Italian
constituency more by having four ministers of
Italian ancestry, Sorbara, Cordiano, who is in
economic development and trade, Sandra
Pupatello in community and social services
and Rick Bartolucci in northern development
and mines.
But no Italian-Ontarian has been premier or
even led an opposition party. The list of
premiers since Confederation is a long recital
of names as British as sausage and mash,
starting with John S. Macdonald and including
Blake, Hardy, Ross, Drew. Frost, Davis,
Miller, Peterson, Rae, Harris and now
McGuinty.
Eves's mother's parents hoivever were hard-
working Ukrainian immigrants and he liked to
mention it because it helped soften his image
as a slickly-dressed lawyer and financial
manager, and Rae had a Jewish grandfather
who immigrated from eastern Europe.
The vast majority of opposition party
leaders also have been of British ancestry,
including Bob Nixon and Andrew Thompson
of the Liberals, although their party was led by
John Wintermeyer in an election in 1963.
NDP leaders also have been overwhelmingly
of British origin, including the current leader,
Howard Hampton, Michael Cassidy and
Donald C. MacDonald.
Parties once were reluctant to choose Jews
as leaders because they feared some might be
less inclined to vote for them, but this barrier
was broken in 1970, when the New Democrats
picked Stephen Lewis, whose Jewish father
emigrated from eastern Europe.
The Liberals in opposition chose Stuart
Smith, also descended from immigrant Jews
from that area, in 1976 and the Tories followed
with Larry Grossman, in 1985.
All three were above the average of, party
leaders in sheer intellect and none became
premier, but this was due more to the fact they
led in tough times for their parties than
antipathy toward Jews.
Other provinces also have elected premiers
with names like Romanow, Klein, Schreyer
and Ghiz and Ontario may be missing
something when it gives its top post only to
those with names that sound like they came out
of Coronation Street.
Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
A state of worry
4 M
ou worry too much,' the vole," said
over the telephone. And yes that
was me he was talking about.
I'm pretty sure I was born worrying. I fret
over deadlines. I panic over arriving late. I
concern myself way too much with what other
people think. And becoming a parent has pretty .
much kept me in a constant state of anxiety.
It's not a condition I'm always happy about.
Over the years I've even tried to change it a bit.
But there's nothing to be done. Once a worrier,
always a worrier it would seem.
What I can't help but snap back, however, is
that there are those walking among us who
could stand to worry just a little bit more than
they do. As a matter of fact, some of my
greatest fretting has been a result of the
insouciant attitude of others. Those people who
sail along in life without thinking ahead,
assuming all will take care of itself.
I live to plan. I organize my organizing.
Throw into this mix someone who likes to fly
by the seat of their pants and I'm baffled. They
scoff at my rigidity, a trait which I will admit
can put me into a bit of a quandry when things
don't go according to plan. But, while they're
scoffing, their world has generally become
chaos and the organized ironically must step in
to fix it.
All the while worrying.
I am equally nonplussed by the tardy, the
folks whom I have been told, are harbouring a
self-conscious desire to control. I'll admit I like.
control but I also need to be on time. I detest
arriving at the last minute, feeling like an
extroverted scene-stealer intent on making the
grand entrance. I am most relaxed knowing
that I can subtly slink in and strategically
situate myself to be seen, not standout.
Travelling alone, it's a given this will be
accomplished. In the company of the
perpetually late on the other hand, I am at their
mercy. Waiting and worrying.
But it is not these things that I have tried to
change. I don't see such aspects of my
personality as weaknesses. They are not taken
to the extreme, but are rather to me more about
common sense. It is sensible to strategize and
polite to be prompt. If everyone felt the same
way I wouldn't have nearly as much to worry
about.
No, what I wish I could change is the
worrying caused by the things out of my
control. As a parent many, many nights were
spent pacing, not over any real concern, but
over what might be. Imagination can be a
wonderful thing, but not, I have discovered in
the dead of a night with a child running a little
tardy (there's that problem again).
There are plenty of things we can worry
about if we let ourselves. What is always
important to remember is that it's often a waste
of time and energy. We won't, by worrying,
change the outcome of an election. Fussing
over an exam isn't going to make the examgo
away. Stewing over what will be won't make
anything any different. Troubling ourselves
over something that can and may happen in the
future is an odd way to live, when what is
really important is the here and now.
So, the problem with me as I see it, is not that
1 worry too much. There can never been too
much concern when it comes to punctuality
and orderliness. The real problem is that I
worry too often before there is a worry.
Should we blame the government?
Should we blame society?
Should we blame the images on TV?
No! Blame Canada! Blame Canada!
We Canadians area sorry lot — and I
don't mean sorry as in
`bedraggled'. I mean sorry as in
apologetic. We constantly inform the rest of
the world how remorseful we are.
As a matter of fact, the classic definition of a
Canadian is a person who tells you he's sorry
when YOU step on HIS toes.
But it's small wonder we keep bowing and
scraping, doffing our caps and tugging our
forelocks to the rest of the world. After all, we
do keep getting blamed for things.
The Brits tut tut- because we talk like
Am-ericans; the Yanks are on our case for the
bad weather we send them. The French rag on
us for refusing to let little Quebec come out
and play; the Russians still haven't forgiven us
for Paul Henderson's goal. And Denmark may
never speak to us again, thanks to our foisting
Chretien bagman Alfonso Gagliano on them as
Canadian Ambassador.
Witchfinder General John Ashcroft is
convinced Canada is a festering cesspool of
Osama Bin Laden agents; Scotland's
shaking its fist at us because our Canada
geese are taking over ' their waterways.
Portugal's in a huff because we won't let
them take any more cod off the Grand
Banks.
Is there anybody we Canucks haven't ticked
off?
Not according to the singing group Mothers
Against Canada. The `mothers'- are cartoon
characters on the potty-mouth TV show South
Anglos hog premier's role