Category: Uncategorized

The Advent Worship in Clemmons, North Carolina

December 4, 2022

St. Judas Thaddeus Church in Sopron, Hungary

I have never been a church-going person except in my youth when my father, who went to a Jesuit school, made us go to church on holy days like Xmas and Easter.

My memory of going to the old baroque church in Sopron, Hungary – St. Judas Thaddeus, built by the Dominicans in 1715 – is not pleasant (see picture on left). The huge nave of the church was a forbidding, gloomy space for a small kid. It was cold inside with a stone floor.

Nobody received us at the entrance lobby; nobody led us inside. I stood for the service at the back of the church, listening to the sermon; that gave me a quick getaway if I got too cold or bored by the service.

The sermon and the entire mass were in Latin, which I could not understand. (The Catholic Church required that Mass be carried out in Latin until the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965, which permitted the use of the vernacular.)

And the priest dressed in ecclesiastical clothing for delivering the sermon, giving him – and it was always a “him” – a formal appearance, talking down to us from the pulpit ten feet above us.

And, of course, we had the confessionals in little cubicles on the side of the nave of the church, where it was dark and I had to kneel in front of a wire screen behind which was the priest listening to your sins which were related to disobeying your parents and swearing using religious imagery.

 The salvation for my “mortal” sins, prescribed by the priest, was always saying a prayer fifty times or more, depending on the gravity and length of the list of my sins. I always thought the confessional was a good bargain to repent your “mortal” sins; it never took longer than a half hour to get back on the good side of the Lord.

Once I repented my sins, I lined up for communion wafers, the “sacramental bread”, that tasted good. Then we were free to leave the church.

Clemmons First Baptist Church, Clemmons, North Carolina

I encountered a huge contrast to my experience with my baroque church when we visited our family at the end of November in Winston-Salem NC, and joined them for Sunday service at Clemmons First Baptist Church (see picture on left), on the last Sunday of the month, the beginning of Advent.

We entered the modern building with a red-brick façade, where smiling people welcomed us into the well-lighted and comfortable lobby and ushered us into the nave of the church to padded pews.

I felt like I was in a large living room entering the lobby and once we sat down, lively conversation filled the church until the service started. The Pastor welcomed the attending children, and the organist played hymns with the text shown on two gigantic video screens over the stage so that we did not have to pick up the hymn books to follow the songs.

All the people were informally dressed. The Pastor showed up in slacks and a sweater and gave a sermon from notes, speaking freely most of the time.

The Pastor addressed the meaning of Advent by asking us to look at our state in life to make sure we are ready for the second coming of Jesus. He illustrated his point by talking about himself getting old, although he said he is 44 years old; to me, he is a young man. But he said he feels his age when getting up “from a toilet seat”, eliciting laughter from the audience. He added that now one can install higher toilet seats to help with that. This type of informal sermonizing made me feel quite comfortable.

Then the Pastor, in a more serious vein, talked about embracing silence, meditation, and the healing power of nature. I felt quite at home by now: we just came from the New River National Park in West Virginia, where we spent a few days hiking and enjoying nature in silence.

He said there is no need to push yourself to get ready for the second coming by reading the scriptures. Instead, he said, wait until the desire to do so comes from within yourself. I liked his low-key approach to religion; embrace religion when you are ready for it. I was ready to join the church!

At the end of the worship, we followed the Pastor, who walked into the lobby to welcome the audience. I told him how much I enjoyed his sermon, shaking hands with him.

I noticed a board in the lobby with pictures of a dozen deacons (members of the church); I learned that all the families frequenting this church have a deacon who follows their well-being and provides help when needed. For example, should someone get sick and not be able to cook, the deacon would organize members of the church to bring over food. My brother-in-law is a deacon here. I thought the deacons performed an important and valuable role.

If we had had churches like the Clemmons First Baptist Church when I was growing up, I may have been a lifelong churchgoer.

My Questions for the Canadian Immigration Minister

November 5, 2022

The Minister announced yesterday that Canada will welcome 500,000 immigrants annually. He said the country needs to move up immigration targets because of the low fertility rate and a million vacant jobs in Canada. But, Mr. Minister, have you fully considered the costs of a sudden surge in immigration, and the impacts on healthcare and housing in Canada?

Canada used to welcome a quarter million immigrants annually, ramping up to 300,000 recently. The number jumped to over 400,000 in 2001 and is likely to approach 500,000 this year.

Immigration policy in Canada has evolved. Initially, immigrants were invited in the 18th century to colonize the west, coming mostly from the British Isles. Central Europeans came early in the 20th century. People coming to work in Canada created the “economic class” of immigrants, and their families followed them (called the “family reunification” class of people). The “refugee” class of people was created under Prime Minister Diefenbaker, who welcomed 37,500 Hungarian refugees escaping their country after the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Sixty percent of immigrants today fall into the “economic” class. India is the source of 32% of today’s immigrants, followed by China at 8%.

Besides economic development, demographics have become a new policy issue for Canada because of our low fertility rate of 1.5%, the replacement rate is 2.1%. So, the question comes to mind: have we tried to influence fertility rates? Many countries have tried it with limited success (Russia, and France, for example). Changing behavior is difficult, so let’s bring more people into the country to boost our population.

But the devil is in the details. Of the two major sources of immigrants to Canada today, India’s fertility rate was 2.1% in 2021 and China’s 1.7%. If immigrants from these two countries continue to follow their culture, they may not help with Canadian fertility rates. But would this flow of immigrants help with the economy?

A target group for the Minister is the science, technology, engineering, and math people (STEM). Yes, we have a million vacant jobs, but most are in the service industries, the hospitality and retail industries, and not in STEM. So this group of immigrants may not help fill the vacant jobs we have in Canada, especially when technology people are being laid off these days (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Twitter).

A related question I have for the Minister is: what do we do with the one million unemployed people in Canada and another half million people who stopped looking for work? We have one and one-half million people who could be employed. Retraining may make them employable. It may not be in the Immigration Minister’s mandate to solve labor shortages via retraining, but it begs the question: should we look at the unemployed and the stay-at-home people for filling vacant positions in Canada before filling these jobs with immigrants?

And the Minister has not talked about the cost of immigration, except for the benefits to the GDP and the income taxes immigrants will pay. But clearly, immigrants need services like healthcare and housing, provided by lower levels of government. We, the taxpayers, pay all government taxes – federal, provincial and local – so perhaps it is time to reflect on the costs of immigration.

At a time when healthcare is already breaking at the seams with doctors’ shortages and nurses retiring, an increase in immigration will put an additional load on the system. (Six million people in Canada do not have a family doctor. Some emergency rooms have closed due to a lack of nursing staff). You say that, of course, we should target doctors and nurses in the immigration program. Makes sense. But do you realize that both professions require certification by relevant authorities and the reality in Canada is that foreign doctors and nurses must qualify before they can practice?

For example, I had a technician perform an ”ultrasound” procedure on me and I found out that she was a medical doctor from Belarus and took all the Canadian exams to become a doctor but failed to get residency in a hospital required for certification and was forced to take a technician’s job.

Yes, Mr. Minister, we have a supply problem: we need more doctors and nurses and immigration will not provide a quick fix because of certification barriers.

And immigrants need housing. On average, 200,000 housing units are built in Canada annually. The half million immigrants coming to Canada each year could use a few hundred thousand units and drive-up housing prices, especially given the present housing shortage (for example, the Premier of Ontario recently announced a sweeping housing plan to ease the shortage of housing).

Preserving and increasing the value of current homeowners’ units may be good for the homeowners, but difficult for young Canadians who would like to get into the housing market. Has the Minister thought through how the half million immigrants coming into the country each year impact housing markets?

And my questions to the Minister would not be complete without asking about “absorption rates” for immigrants in Canada. Absorption refers to the ease with which immigrants assimilate or integrate into Canadian society: get a job, acquire housing, have their children in school, and become a part of their local community.

Ethnic groups like to settle near each other for comfort. When a large group of immigrants settles in an area – that often happens – ghettos may result and integration into Canadian society may take the back seat. Has the Minister studied how many immigrants can Canada absorb annually?

There are costly impacts on education and social services at the local level when immigrants arrive. Teaching the official languages of Canada to immigrants is a significant cost for school boards. For example, Quebec has 23% of Canada’s population and could take up to 117,000 of the 500,000 immigrants, but the Premier said their capacity to teach the French language is limited to 50,000 people annually. Has the Minister discussed how many immigrants each province would take?

I am for immigration; I was an immigrant myself and found my journey to assimilate into Canadian society has been challenging but tremendously satisfying (it never stops). But I ask the Minister whether he has thought about the impact immigrants will have on our healthcare system, our housing situation today, and our experience with integrating immigrants successfully into our society when suddenly we’ll receive a half million newcomers each year.

Residential Schools for Canadian Indigenous People; the Controversy

Octrober 27, 2022

Today is a venting day, triggered by a conversation with friends. I expressed my view that when the residential school system for indigenous people started in Canada in the late 19th century; it was the accepted philosophy to assimilate indigenous people into the Canadian way of life. And the residential school system was going to do that.  

Adolphus Ryerson, a respected educator, and head of the school system in Ontario in the late 19th century, designed the residential school system. Who was going to challenge him? And the U.S. and Australia were doing the same; trying to assimilate their natives via residential schooling.

Current opinion holds that the Canadian government was cruel in “kidnapping” children from their homes against the wishes of their parents and relocating them into “residential schools” to teach them Canada’s official languages and provide them with education to enter Canadian society. Some people believe now it was cultural genocide.

My friends argued we were cruel to the natives and that we owe them huge reparations for the injustice that we did to them. The “we” included me sitting at the table. That was the trigger point. I said I have never done a thing against Canadian natives, including first nations, the Inuit, and Metis, and I, personally, owe them nothing.

I have never worked in a residential school as a teacher or staff. I have never lived up north where many reserves are. I have never had commercial or other transactions with any of these schools. I have never known anyone who worked at these schools.

I arrived in Canada when I was sixteen years old with absolutely no knowledge of the indigenous people here. My knowledge of them, that I had, came from reading the German author, Karl May’s books popular in Europe, in which he wrote detailed adventure stories of the young chief, Winnetou, and his white friend, “Old Shatterhand”. Although May had never visited North America, he had done meticulous research on the Apache’s life and wrote vivid stories of their wars against the “pale-faced” whites taking over their land.

My impressions of North American natives were formed by May’s glowing descriptions of the courage and leadership of Winnetou. (May sold over 200,000,000 books, translated into thirty languages, and is the most prolific German author).

I was in my thirties when I met indigenous people for the first time. I discovered the poor and often drunk natives on the streets of Saskatoon, Regina, and Winnipeg. That discovery did not jive at all with my impressions of the proud natives I gleaned from May’s books.

Then I worked for the federal Indian Affairs Department, where I visited reserves and met and worked with indigenous people.

I learned why the situation of indigenous people is dire: many live in remote locations with harsh climates in small bands of not more than a few hundred people; they do not speak Canada’s official languages and there are few employment opportunities. But the incentive to leave the reserves is low since they find comfort in living in their communities, speaking their language, living together with their families, and following their traditional lifestyle.

Democracy in Action

October 23, 2022

On August 24, municipal election signs sprouted in Ottawa faster than flowers in the spring. Like overnight. They set the election for October 24. The candidates heavily sprinkled all major street intersections with signs in assorted colors. And there were a few humongous signs, noticeable from a distance; the candidate probably thought a few large signs are as good as numerous small ones.

I have followed the candidate debates in the media and in person, and I attended a meeting with the local ward candidates organized by my community association. My local candidates avoided arguing with each other at the request of the moderator, making it less of an interesting meeting except for a few eruptions when one candidate threw mud on another one.

Then I attended a larger, ward-wide meeting with all the local candidates, which attracted up to a hundred interested, and polite residents. I could almost read the attendee’s priorities from their comments – they were homeowners wishing for no property tax increases. As well, they expressed concern over densification via high-rise development and attendant construction with all the mess that comes with it. So the key issue to these attendees was to conserve the single-family residential character of our ward by preserving the R1 zone.

Although lip service was paid to affordable housing, the attendees had only a passing interest in the subject. They were homeowners.

Judging by the age of the participants – many retired, with a car at home – better bus service, or the construction of the light-rail transit (LRT), serving downtown were of mild concern. Especially considering that direct access to the LRT will be very limited for most residents of Ward 9.

Most candidates seemed to echo the attendees’ sentiments, hoping to garner support.

But these local objectives within wardscreate hard choices for the mayoral candidates who must deal with housing and transportation issues. For example, ridership pays for only forty-five percent of the city’s transportation budget. Should fees be raised? One candidate proposes to provide free transport for all people under seventeen years of age; that would create additional costs for the city’s transportation budget.

The two leading candidates have published detailed plans for housing, transportation, the environment, the economy, and the growth of Ottawa. With few exceptions, I found a large overlap between the two candidates’ proposals. For example, there is talk about net-zero buildings, electric buses, and the LRT in the campaign literature of both candidates. The differences are in the way the proposals would be implemented.  

The leading mayoral candidate in this very close race is a two-time councilor who calls herself “they”, and proposes to increase the city’s budget by ten percent, which includes a plan for a 250-million dollar build-out of a bicycle system for Ottawa. Considering that Ottawa is not a bicycling town for six months of the year, this is a questionable proposal at best.

The other leading candidate has never been a publicly elected official, comes from a business and media background, and promises to keep the property tax to the two to two and a half percent annual increase. And he proposes a “balanced” transportation budget, improving streets and addressing the inadequate bus system.

I believe the choice between the two leading candidates comes down to additional spending versus fiscal discipline. And I think your voting preference most likely wouldfollow your stage in life. If you are young and live in an apartment with limited resources and starting a family, then you would be interested in affordable housing and bicycle paths, and good urban transportation. If you already have a house and a backyard for your children, or are an empty-nester and maybe retired, then you would be interested in keeping property taxes at current levels.   

And again, there are the candidates ’personalities and backgrounds that may be important to voters. One is a Centretown activist whose platform reflects the values of downtown residents (either single, childless, and most likely apartment dwellers), who have also declared that they (she) would accept no donations from developers. The other leading candidateis a family man and marathon runner with a long history in the volunteer sector who has yet to disclose his donation list.

There is a real choice for Ottawans between two candidates in this election. One is a “progressive” leaning towards additional expenditures for city services while the other one is more to the middle, leaning towards fiscal discipline. I believe demographics and voter turnout may be decisive factors in who will win.  

Chance Encounter Triggers Memories of Life in Natuashish, Labrador, Canada

October 17, 2022

I walked into Costco wondering how long it would take to find “natural vanilla extract”. Kathy told me it costs upwards of $40 and is located with the spices. I searched all around the spices unsuccessfully and looked for someone working there to help me. I noticed a woman loading a flatbed trolley with boxes of goods and thought she may be a worker, but she proved to be a buyer for a grocery store in Iqaluit, near the arctic circle of Canada (Iqaluit is the capital of the Canadian Territory of Nunavut).

That encounter triggered my memory of the volunteer work I had done for the Innu tribe in Natuashish, at the north tip of Labrador and Newfoundland, in 2009.

After I retired from the government in 1995, I volunteered with the Canadian Executive Service Overseas (CESO). My first project was to assist the Mushuau Innu First Nation. We took a small single-engine Otter from Goose Bay, Labrador, to Natuashish, with two stops (a distance of 300 kilometers or 160 miles). The pilot opened the door for the half dozen passengers, including myself, to get in, and we took off. That is how my adventure began with the tribe.

The Mushuau Innu lived in Davis Inlet in Labrador until 2002, when they moved with government assistance ten miles away into Natuashish. In Davis Inlet, the tribe members abused drugs, and the children sniffed glue. This dire situation led to many requests for help, and when help was slow in coming, the tribe escalated their demands via protests to the United Nations. The resulting embarrassment for Canada led to moving the entire tribe into a newly designed community in Natuashish.

The new community was inland, with a population of under a thousand people, and there were no job opportunities except hunting and fishing in the surrounding lakes. The government built a few hundred houses and three miles of roadway. The only access year-round was by air, or by water, during the summer months. I, along with a small team of experts in different fields, would assist the tribal council with governing. My field was public works: roads, hydro, and water/sewer systems.

The tribe housed me in a trailer and advised me to lease a truck from one of the tribal councilors. They also told me to park it alongside the trailer in such a fashion that the gas-tank cap would be inches from the trailer wall so that nobody could siphon the gas out of the tank; either for their use or for sniffing, I thought.

They brought in all the food from the south; the climate and soil would not permit any agriculture. And we could eat at the central dining hall that typically provided prepackaged food. There were no vegetables, and even after one week, I found the food repetitious and boring.

The government built a repair garage and brought in qualified car mechanics to teach the Innu how to service the Ford 150s they brought in by ship during the summers. I helped them set up a financial system for charging for repairs so that the locals could earn some money. Trouble was that they spoke a local Innu language, and I needed a translator to develop simple forms in their language. Another problem was that they were not used to working in a nine-to-five Western economy depriving the garage of steady, continuous employment.

Each Innu received a mining royalty of CD$5000, in 2009, because they had ownership of the land on which the mining company was located. Besides, the Innu received free services from the RCMP (policing), Health and Welfare Canada (health provision), and the government also built a school (kindergarten to grade twelve). They recruited all the teachers from the South with an interpreter in every class. There was only one high school graduate in the entire community.

The motivation for work was low; why work when housing, schooling, healthcare, and policing are provided free and cash payments given to all residents by the mining company?

Alcoholism was still a problem (brought in by air) despite the council’s outlawing the use of alcohol in the community. I heard stories of men who used to beat the women who retaliated by beating the men when the latter were drunk.

And many Innu destroyed the houses that the government built for them by cutting down the walls for firewood. Nobody took pride in their homes, given freely to them; they wanted money from the government for cleaning up their yards.

 The Innu lived by straddling two cultures. One was their fishing and hunting way of life, and the other was a Western culture with snowmobiles, trucks, guns, and modern homes, not being in either of these cultures fully.

The experience in Natuashish firmed up my opinion that the government should take away the subsidies. I believe that the government should assist with their assimilation into western culture. Let them be entrepreneurs and let them move to cities where jobs are more available. Some of the native tribes have done well economically.

These memories of mine snapped back vividly, talking with the buyer for the grocery store in Iqaluit. And she knew exactly where the vanilla extract was.