Tag: canada

From Real to Unreal in One Day

April 29, 2022

My car dealership does not have a van to take clients home when they leave their cars for the day. Instead, they call Uber. I left my car yesterday for maintenance at the dealership and they called Uber. My Uber driver was Syrian. He came to Canada as a refugee escaping Assad’s regime. He has a family and told me he works twelve-hour days. His Hyundai was spotless but explained to me that his next car will be an electric one to save on fuel. His biggest cost today is gas.

When I got home and opened my computer, there was an invitation for me to fill out a survey on “mobility justice”; a concept that transportation services should be equally available in all communities. This was a follow-up to a webinar that I signed up for previously.

The invite said: “We are continuing to explore what mobility justice means for community members on the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe People (so-called Ottawa)”. OK. So if people ask me where I am from, what do I say? Am I from Ottawa or am I from the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe People?

Come on now! Ottawa, Canada, is known around the world as the capital city of Canada. Who heard of the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe People?

Before completing the survey, I listened to the transcript of the webinar

The first speaker at the webinar spoke on behalf of the City for all Women Initiative, a volunteer group working with the City of Ottawa. She explained that “marginalized” communities, typically occupied by low-income and racialized people, lack sidewalks, cycling paths, and bus service. For example, the LRT (Light Rail Transit) in Ottawa does not serve the communities at Heron Gate, Dynes Road, Overbrook, Vanier, and Carlington, implying that these communities are low-income and racialized. She did not produce hard data to support her comments. The LRT serves a tiny portion of Ottawa: it is being built currently, so her comments apply to most of Ottawa.

In addition, she talked about other barriers affecting the ability of these communities to access public transit – the lack of safety on buses and bus shelters in need of cleaning. She said bus service should be frequent, affordable, and reliable in marginalized areas.

I agree with everything she said except that bus service should be available in all communities, not only in marginalized areas.

But what does “mobility justice” mean in practical terms? Could it be the same number of buses in each community regardless of population density? A bus stop within walking distance from all people in the community? And if so, with what frequency and cost? My head was spinning with questions on what is equal access to transportation or “mobility justice”.

The next speaker was a member of the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project (CPEP was established by professors and students at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa). The key message of CPEP is to change our minds about resolving social conflict by focusing on mutual help instead of criminalization and punishment. He made a pitch for defunding the police and using the money instead for community building. He introduced himself as a highly privileged, white, cisgender person; I am not sure what the point was in doing so. He said that he is not an expert on “mobility justice” and listening to his comments, I wondered why he was at the webinar.

He described one key objective of his group: “Challenge inequality, privilege and dominant social structures (e.g. capitalism, colonialism, racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and ableism) that have a particularly negative impact on marginalized persons and groups.”

By now my mind was going gradually numb with all this social jargon until another speaker spoke of looking at the Transportation Master Plan under preparation by the City of Ottawa through an “equity lens”. Aha! This may be the nub of mobility justice: look at transportation planning via an “equity lens”. But equity was not defined, and neither was the lens. I was not sure how to quantify the equity needed to correct the situation, discovered through the lens.

Before I could finish listening to the entire transcript of the webinar and respond to the survey, the car dealership called my car was ready, and sent an Uber taxi to pick me up. During our ride, the driver mentioned that he hardly makes ten dollars an hour with increased gas prices and needs to work two jobs to make a living wage. The reality of trying to make a living today brought me back to the genuine issues facing people.

I appreciate the work of all those people advocating for “mobility justice”, for low-income and racialized people, whatever that entails. But I wonder if we should talk about creating better-paying jobs for those people, instead of demolishing their homes for the right-of-way of the LRT?

Public Engagement Goes Off the Rails, My Rant for the Day

April 23, 2022

Four City Councillors, four staff members, and two councillor staff held a zoom meeting last night where eight people hooked up to discuss the preparation of the City of Ottawa’s Solid Waste Master Plan for the next thirty years. I was one of the eight people. I am sure that all the Councillors informed their voters of the upcoming consultation in their recent newsletters; that is how I learned about the meeting.

We spent a couple of hours listening to a presentation by city staff followed by an open discussion, but only eight people were interested enough to hook up in a city of a million people! That is a shame.

One reason for the lack of interest may be that the city has a habit of consulting but not listening. That is what most people think. Public reviews for proposed high-rise buildings in settled residential neighborhoods often trigger huge local opposition by area residents, but they have very limited success with their objections. The developers usually get what they want in terms of height limits and other requirements beyond what the zoning code allows. People had gotten frustrated and lost faith in the city’s consultation process.

Another reason could be the subject. You know people get riled up and show up in huge numbers to oppose a highway going thru their neighborhood arguing that it will destroy their property values and the cohesiveness of the neighborhood. Perhaps planning for solid waste management is not a subject people are concerned about. So was this high-level zoom meeting with councillors necessary?

Was city staff aware of the scant interest the public has in preparing the Solid Waste Master Plan? They had organized half a dozen zoom meetings (and planned for special target group meetings as well) about various aspects of the plan, such as technology, changing behavior to reduce solid waste, and so on.

I had signed up for some of these zoom meetings and had found participation low, with only dozens of people attending. City officials had reported on the status of the plan at these sessions. The public attendees asked for clarifications and often the response was that “it is a good question” or “working on this and get back to you”.

In response to my question at one of these meetings, the program manager said that the cost per family for solid waste removal is $150 in Ottawa while in other Canadian municipalities, the cost ranges up to hundreds of dollars. But she did not explain how the delivery of the services compares to having such a wide divergence in cost.

One consultation subject was to make high-rise buildings separate organic from other waste; there is typically one chute for high-rise residents to dump waste. I asked how come the City Council just considered that exact policy for approval when we are supposed to be debating the subject? The answer was that some elements of the plan that enjoy wide consensus will be approved during this consultation process. I asked myself: why are we here then?

Then I signed up for one of the focus group sessions to which immigrants and BIPOC people (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) were invited. City officials planned two zoom sessions, one for immigrants and another one for BIPOC people, only to merge the two groups the day before the planned date. Obviously, they did not generate enough interest from those target groups to have two sessions. And, as it turned out, I was the only one who signed on.

The coordinator addressed me when the meeting started via the zoom audio channel, asking if I wanted to carry on alone since I had heard the standard presentation a few times. I was interested in listening to what other people had to say about the plan and with me as the only participant; I declined to carry on with the meeting.

Maybe it is the wrong time to engage people at this early stage of the planning process. At a more advanced stage, there may be issues that impact people directly. Such as the cost of acquiring new technology. Or buying land to expand the Trail Road dumpsite. Such initiatives could call for additional debt to the city that the city would pass on to the residents. That would hit people’s pockets books and they might show up to express their displeasure or support such additional expenditures.

I think some people are tired of consultations, some are complacent and some may not be interested in solid waste management. For now, though, I would recommend the City save money on their professional public engagement bureaucracy, pay overtime for night work, and fancy presentations and fix potholes on our major roads. Just my opinion.

Head-Scratchers, or How to Get a Balanced View of World News

April 20

What paper or journal do you read and watch to make sure you get a balanced view of what is going on in this world? A friend posed this question to me: he said he was trying to advise his son on what to read/watch. By balanced, he meant views not only on the right but also on the left – he looked for views and opinions describing facts and behavior from the far right to the left liberal woke community, and all others in between.

I told him I get my information on current events from many sources: newspapers, online and paid subscriptions, as well as the internet and television, and radio. I read many newspapers across the political spectrum and could not single out one that is the best or that would provide a balanced viewpoint. But subscription cost is a factor, and I gave up on many first-rate Canadian newspapers charging up to forty dollars a month.

But most newspapers give you ten free articles to read a month, such as the Guardian or the Toronto Star. By accident I noticed an ad for the Washington Post, a liberal newspaper, for an annual subscription for nineteen dollars US and subscribed, not believing that it was a genuine offer. But it was, and I have been receiving the digital copy of the paper ever since at the originally advertised price. In contrast, reading the New York-based “Epoch Times” provides a conservative angle.

The internet and television are other excellent sources of news. Fox News has the reputation of being a right-wing propaganda channel, while CNN has more of a left-wing bias. So between the two, you may get a “balanced” view.

An overarching theme over the past several years has been “climate change”. Whether you believe IPCC reports or follow Steve Koonan’s contrary arguments, it is your choice. Koonin’s name to fame is that he was a scientific advisor to Obama (his book published in 2021, entitled “Unsettled” explains his views). But many people follow their prejudices and if they believe that climate change is a hoax, then Koonin provides support for their beliefs. There are volumes written on this subject and you can read up on both sides of the story, although the bulk of evidence in my readings supports that ‘climate change” is real.

The other major story over the last two years, of course, has been the pandemic. One source of disagreement focused on whether the virus came from China: several studies concluded it did, while others did not. Another controversial subject was whether the World Health Organization announced the pandemic in time or was late, with dire consequences. President Trump’s approach to downplay the virus, in the beginning, was also a source of controversy. And then his continuing approach to downplay the virus-caused catastrophe was further debated. You could listen to Fox News or CNN, to hear conflicting arguments.

And now the major news item is the war in Ukraine. Depending on which newspapers you read or TV channels you listen to, you get various arguments on whether the US is doing the right things. Although most news stories characterize the war as “unprovoked”, the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman quoted George Kennan (expert on Russia in the US) who commented that the expansion of NATO was a mistake when Russia was not a threat and that it triggered Putin’s war in Ukraine. So, who or what do you believe?

I told my friend that besides listening to all the different news sources, my interest is in “head-scratchers”: stories that make you scratch your head and ponder if the news makes sense based on the information provided and my built-up knowledge.

For example, to defend the Odessa region in Ukraine, a consortium of Canadian industry executives wrote to the Canadian Defense Minister that Canada send twenty-four anti-ship Harpoon missile systems to Ukraine: The Royal Canadian Navy has two hundred of them in storage. This recommendation follows Canada’s promise to Ukraine to send lethal weapons. But the Defense Department has yet to respond. What is the holdup? Are Harpoons not functional? Would Canada ever need these weapons to defend its coasts? If there are legitimate reasons for not sending these weapons, then some explanations would be in order. So, I scratch my head.

Another example. While the US, major European countries, and the EU expelled Russian diplomats as a symbol of outrage against the unprovoked war in Ukraine, Canada refused to do so. The Prime Minister said such diplomatic expulsions would lead to retaliation by the Russians that would lead to Canada losing its “eyes and ears” in Moscow. Is that true? Do the other countries not lose their “eyes and ears” as well, but do not consider it important? But is intelligence gathered only by people on the ground? Do we not have cyber intelligence? And why do we think that while all the other major countries of the Western alliance can do without people on the ground in Moscow, Canada cannot? The scenario makes little sense to me. So, I scratch my head.

What is also incomprehensible to me is that the Deputy Prime Minister and who is also the Finance Minister of Canada has Ukrainian ancestry and has been vocal about assisting the Ukrainians. Words have been flowing freely about supporting fully the Ukrainians, and the recent budget had money allocated to helping Ukraine. But instead of words, action is required now and not in a few months that budgetary processes take. In a few months, the war may be over. Another headscratcher.

As our Prime Minister Trudeau said in the 2015 election victory, “Canada is back”. According to John Ivison in a recent column in the National Post, Canada is more “at the back” of the countries providing meaningful and timely help to Ukraine. Canada is the ninth of twelve countries, providing financial and military aid to Ukraine, after Estonia. Are we experiencing bureaucratic malaise? We do not want to antagonize Russia by sending powerful weaponry to Ukraine? And if so, why not? Does that make sense?

My advice to the friend’s son would be to listen and read widely and try to understand events from all points of view. And the understanding will deepen with events that do not seem to make sense.

Rambling and Random Thoughts on Covid and Cannabis

April 14, 2022

The two-year pandemic took its toll on people. There were lockdowns. The Canada/US border was closed. Even the Ontario and Quebec border was closed for a while. My community center where I play cards and my gym was closed on and off. People got cabin fever. When our border opened and Covid mandates lifted, people felt like they gained the freedom to get back to life. And jumped for joy.

Joy for Kathy and me comprised taking a quick trip to see grandchildren in Durham, NC. Crossing the border into the US was a pleasure; as in the old days, the US border guard asked where we were going and for how long. That was it. There was no masking required and nobody asked for a vaccine passport.

And Durham was great with the grandson going to a UNC and Virginia Tech ball game where masks were scarce. And they sold beer and popcorn. Refreshing. In the grocery stores, many people wore masks, and nobody paid attention to unmasked people. It was up to you if you wanted to be more cautious and wear a mask.

When talking with people, I found the American attitude towards the virus relaxed. In contrast, my friends at home drop comments about having to be careful: “the current sixth wave is serious”. In the US, people believe they have to live with the virus and take responsibility for their actions.

Coming from Ottawa, the lack of cannabis stores in Durham was a total surprise. It is illegal to sell cannabis in NC. By the last count, there were one hundred and eight cannabis stores in Ottawa, with another forty being considered for licensing by the Ontario authorities. Along the “green mile” on Wellington Street in Ottawa, I heard there are nine cannabis stores. (We should compare this number to the thirty-six liquor stores in Ottawa).

Do we have too many cannabis stores in Ottawa? Will there be an amalgamation of ownership of these stores? I do not know. Are there disadvantages to having so many stores? Some of the BIAs claim cannabis stores on the street can negatively affect other stores coming to the area.

I have not visited cannabis stores, but perhaps, will. For now, I find their storefronts and fancy names outlandish, garish, and suggestive, like: “Dutch Love” and “Spiritleaf”. But obviously, there is a growing market for them.

Coming back to Canada reminded us that Canada still considers the virus a threat: we had to fill out an “arrivecan” form. My Samsung phone stored my data from previous returns to Canada and it took me literally two minutes to fill out the form. Kathy used her iPhone that brought up an outdated “arrivecan” form that demanded proof of an antigen test. She tried to get the most up-to-date form with no success. Do you think the government could get its IT group organized? After a while, I filled out the form for her on my Samsung phone that worked. At the border, the Canadian border official was pleasant, and we crossed the border in a couple of minutes, having our “arrivecan” approved in advance.

On the second day at home, I received an email from Public Health Canada reminding us to quarantine:

“IF YOU:

Were NOT randomly selected to complete COVID-19 molecular testing

THEN, YOU MUST:

for the 14 days after you entered Canada, monitor yourself for symptoms of COVID-19; and maintain a list of the names and contact information of every person you have come into close contact with during the 14 days AND all of the places you have been”.

It was not clear why this requirement exists: I thought with our three vaccinations we were safe, and quarantining was unnecessary. The email explained that people arriving from outside Canada need to quarantine, but it was blurry if coming back is from the US or elsewhere. I wish the government people could write clearly.

Thank You, University of British Columbia

March 14

The current Ukrainian war reminded me of escaping from Hungary in 1956 and the unlikely admission to UBC in the following year. I am immensely grateful for the understanding and opportunity the University of British Columbia afforded me.

When I came home from school on the last day of October 1956, my mother ordered me and my brother to walk to Vienna. She did not explain why we should leave until months later: she had heard that when The Hungarian Revolution broke out in Budapest, on October 23, soldiers guarding the “iron curtain” (the border between Hungary and Austria) stood aside while the refugees crossed the border.

My brother, 18, and I, 16 years old, left with a sandwich and a name on a piece of paper that my mother told us to call when arriving in Vienna. The name on the slip of paper turned out to be a Jesuit priest, a college mate of my uncle’s at the University of Vienna. The priest picked us up from the refugee camp and settled us in Vienna. Just before the border closed, when the Russian tanks returned to occupy Hungary, my parents and younger brother also left Hungary and joined us. They thought they may never see us again.

We ended up in Vancouver in January 1957. I was 17 years old and hated the thought of going back to high school; I felt suddenly mature beyond my age because of the uprooting from Hungary to Canada via Vienna and Manchester, England. They were going to put me back a year because of my poor English language skills. That was abhorrent to me. I thought of attending university instead. But I was only in grade 10 when we escaped from Hungary; how could I apply to university?

Unbeknownst to my parents, I looked up when registration took place at UBC in the Fall and took a bus there. The admissions officer’s first question was to ask for my high school diploma, which, of course, I did not have. Actually; I had no papers to even show that I had been in high school. In my tortuous English (which I had learned in Manchester and courses at the YMCA in Vancouver) I said that I had not finished high school, but I was confident that I could do the science courses. Like maths, physics, and chemistry. But she said that I needed to have the graduation papers. I responded I would take a chance and if I could not pass the courses, I would just fail. Well, the officer went to the back office to discuss my unique request and after a half-hour; she came back and said that it was my choice and my money if I failed, but they would let me take the chance.

Then, she told me the fee for the semester was $250. Feeling foolish and by now totally embarrassed, I said that I had no money. But I improvised and said that the government, I heard, was paying for the tuition of Hungarian refugees. That, of course, caused another long discussion in the back room. I waited nervously with bated breath. After a substantial time, the officer came back and said that UBC would accept me with no payment. I sighed and my heartbeat came down a few notches. Although I was uptight with my heart pounding, the entire negotiation occurred in a friendly and relaxed manner.

And I did UBC proud; I excelled in all the sciences. My weakest performance was in the mandatory English language courses. I was fortunate to have Professor Woodcock for my English course, who gave me a “P” or pass mark; he was aware of my background and valued the effort I put into learning the language.

So thank you UBC. You were gracious and understanding. And you can be proud, I finished UBC with an architecture degree. I followed it up with a couple of masters’ degrees in the States. And made my career in Canada since 1973.

Without your understanding and taking a chance on a 17-year-old refugee in 1957, I could not have made a successful career, grown a happy family in, and given back in services to, Canada. Thank you!