Tag: canada

The Flag Raising

October 25 2024

I had mixed feelings about going. It would evoke nostalgic memories—neither negative nor positive, just neutral emotions. I may meet people with my ethnic background. Ethnic individuals tend to display increasingly ethnic behavior as they age. I was not one of those people; I escaped Hungary because there was no future for me there, or at least, that is what my parents thought.

Upon learning about the flag-raising ceremony at Ottawa City Hall to commemorate the 68th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, I decided to go downtown and see what it was all about. Perhaps I’ll encounter elderly and weathered Hungarians, eavesdrop on Hungarian conversations, and cross paths with someone from Sopron, a small town close to the Austrian border where we lived and from where I walked to Vienna shortly after the October 23, 1956, Revolution.
At the base of a flagpole, I spotted the Hungarian flag and approached a clutch of people congregating. Speaking in English, I asked a bald and paunchy character if he was Hungarian. He said no, mentioning that he was part of a Member of Parliament’s staff from Wascana, Saskatchewan. He also informed me that the MP would speak briefly during the presentation. Ok. And then the Liberal MP from Wascana, seeing me talking to his staff, came over, shook hands, and explained that he was one-quarter Hungarian. I responded that I am 100 percent Hungarian. I inquired about his absence from the caucus meeting this morning, where numerous MPs were anticipated to call for the Prime Minister’s resignation as head of the Liberal Party. I cannot recall his answer, but he was a nice young fellow, and we exchanged a few words about the beauty of his province.

Turning around, a blonde woman in a business suit introduced herself as the Commercial Attaché for the Hungarian Embassy. We switched to speaking Hungarian, and suddenly, I noticed that all the people were well-dressed: the women wore business attire, and the men wore suits. I realized I was underdressed, I wore a red windbreaker, jeans, running shoes, and a baseball cap. If only I had shaved and dressed more formally this morning. Come to think of it, it is a major annual event to celebrate the Hungarian heroes who fought Russian tanks with handguns and risked their lives.

In just a few days and the weeks that followed the uprising in Budapest, the Russian tanks arrived and crushed the Revolution. Three thousand individuals perished, and 200,000 fled to foreign nations as refugees. Thirty-five thousand Hungarian refugees came to Canada after the Revolution.

We were greeted and addressed by the Deputy Mayor of Ottawa. As we sat down, I noticed at least fifty people had attended the event. I felt I was in a multicultural milieu already – Canadian and Hungarian –  especially after the Deputy Mayor started his speech by thanking the Anishinaabe people for using their unceded land, a standard introduction for public events in Canada recently. It is a small token for reconciling the injustices Canadians meted out to the Indigenous people in the past. I find this practice gratuitous, odious, and dishonest; I never heard that we Canadians would ever return the lands to the indigenous people. So, what is the purpose of this note of thanks? And, of course, it had nothing to do with the Hungarian Revolution half a world away, sixty-eight years ago.

The two MPs spoke next before the Hungarian Ambassador to Canada talked about the Revolution. She mentioned a few Hungarian Canadians who had become famous internationally, including Alanna Morrisette, whose grandfather came to Canada after the Revolution, and John Polanyi of the University of Toronto, a Nobel Prize winner who attended high school in Toronto in the early 1940s, when his parents sent him to Canada for safety during the rise of Nazi Germany.

The other curious thing was that the Ambassador spoke in English and French, Canada’s official languages, but not in Hungarian. I am sure there must be some protocol for speaking in public in Canada, but this was a Hungarian event celebrating a historical event, so I thought she could have given a trilingual presentation greeting us.

While listening to the anthems of Hungary and Canada, the Ambassador raised the flag, and that was it. I looked around for some kindred souls but saw mostly suited men and well-dressed women. If they were Hungarians, they were the second generation following the Revolution.  A clutch of embassy people spoke in Hungarian next to me when I noticed three scruffy looking, wizened old folks who turned out to be Hungarians. They all knew each other, and their facial expressions seemed to exude some impatience with all these well-dredded folks, all the officials present without direct experience of the Revolution.

The irony of this celebration did not escape me: Victor Orban, the current Prime Minister of Hungary, is friendly with Putin’s Russia, while here we are celebrating the freedom fight against the Russians sixty years ago.

I was in grade eleven in 1956, when the Uprising broke out. Our small town had no news except that trouble was brewing in Budapest. It was big trouble, it turned out, and my parents worried about my older brother Peter, a first-year medical student in Budapest. Not having cell phones, we had no news of Peter. It took three or four days, I cannot recall exactly, when Peter showed up at the apartment house where we lived, dirty and tired after walking from Budapest to Sopron, a distance of some two hundred kilometers (circa 120 miles).

As soon as Peter showed up, our mother prepared a couple of sandwiches and ordered us to walk to Vienna with the name of a Jesuit priest who had been a classmate of my uncle at the University of Vienna. We were obedient boys, and Peter and I started walking on the highway to Vienna, where we joined an exodus of wall-to-wall people escaping the country. It was a time when my brain did not seem to function with understanding; I felt like a robot, without thinking, a state of mind that saved my sanity. We had no idea where our journey would take us and what we would do when we arrived. So yes, the flag-raising event did stir up some memories, which had faded over time. The walk to Vienna was a significant event in my life and made me think about what could have happened if we had stayed back home in Hungary. I recall a film I saw once that tracked the lives of people who made a career decision and compared their lives to what could have happened if they had made another career decision. In real life, one cannot return and take another fork in the road. My immigrant story has been a challenging but highly satisfying experience. I would not have missed it if I had a choice.

What You Learn on a Bike Ride

September 9 2024

I put the bikes on the Thule rack to drive to one of the parking lots along the Ottawa River Parkway. Although we could have cycled from our house to get there, whenever possible I avoid riding on city streets with all the traffic on them.  But when we arrived at the Parkway, we found the two lanes with access to the parking lots closed to car traffic; they were reserved for cyclists on this Saturday. So, we decided to park on a vacant government parking lot nearby, hoping that there would be no monitoring of these lots on a Saturday (by the way, the remote work policy mandates the civil service to work two days per week in the office, so most parking lots for them are nearly empty).

Riding over to the Parkway, we noticed a giant sign indicating the Saturday cycling only sign on the “Kichi Zibi Mekan,” the new name for the Parkway. Let me provide a little history. We used to call this road the “Western Parkway” or the “Ottawa River Parkway”. Both names were geographically suggestive. But in 2012, the government renamed it “Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway” after the first Prime Minister of Canada, a historical name unrelated to geography. We used to call it the “SJAM,” an easy and short name. In 2023, the government renamed it in the Algonquin language, “Kichi Zibi Mekan,” in English: “Great Old River.”

I preferred the Ottawa River Parkway name; it seemed tied to and congruent with the Ottawa River when driving, walking, or riding. Renaming decisions were and are political, in my view. The Conservative government picked Sir John’s name. Sir John was a Conservative politician. When Sir John acquired a bad reputation for his policies towards First Nations, the Canadian public ostracized him. Remember when his monuments were destroyed? This reflects the changing attitudes towards historical figures in Canada.

Instead of returning to the original name, the government, in the spirit of the current ‘reconciliation’ with Indigenous people in Canada, named it in the Algonquin language that few people speak in Ottawa. This ‘reconciliation’ refers to the ongoing efforts to address the historical injustices and promote a better relationship between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada. The name seems divorced from the Ottawa River for English-speaking people; it is three words in the Algonquin language. It is unintelligible to me. However, it is a step towards recognizing and honoring Ottawa’s Indigenous history and culture.

Our bicycle ride took us across the old railroad bridge from Ottawa to Gatineau. I thought the bridge’s name was the Prince of Wales Bridge. The Quebec, Ontario, Ottawa, and Occidental Railway was built in 1880 and christened with a name that lasted over 124 years, although its function as a rail bridge had stopped years ago. However, the bridge went through a major rehabilitation the past couple of years, into a multi-use pathway spanning the Ottawa River; the Ottawa City Council reopened it as the Chief William Commanda bridge.

My curiosity led me to find out who Chief William Commanda was. Commanda was an Algonquin elder, spiritual leader, and chief of the Ashininabeg First Nation for 19 years. In 2008, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, an award for meritorious service in Canada. The rehabilitation of the bridge and its renaming as the Chief William Commanda Bridge not only honors his legacy but also provides a safe and scenic route for cyclists and pedestrians to cross the Ottawa River.

I cannot comment on how well-known Commanda was among the Algonquin people or on his accomplishments since this was the first I had heard of him before the Ottawa City Council announced the name of the rehabilitated bridge. But I wonder why we needed a new name and why the new geographic names in Ottawa appear to be acquiring Algonquin memes.

To understand the local politicians’ emphasis on the Algonquin Nation, it’s important to note that the Algonquins have occupied the Ottawa area for over a thousand years. Today, most of the 8,000 Algonquin people live on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River. Therefore, using Algonquin history in naming local streets, bridges, and venues is attractive from a historical perspective and a way to pay respect to the Indigenous people who have shaped the region’s history.

I am less impressed by the use of the Algonquin language in naming parts of Ottawa, like Kichi Zibi Mikan for the Ottawa River Parkway; the words in English mean “Great River Road.” Why not call it the latter? It is understandable in English and carries the historical Algonquin connotation. Members of the Algonquin nation may understand the name but form a minuscule percentage of the population of Ottawa, where over 36,000 people speak Arabic, 16,000 speak Spanish, and 14,000 speak Chinese, in contrast to the 1000 people who speak any indigenous language, including Algonquin (Ottawa’s population is one million).   Based on this precedent, should we see Ottawa venues named in Arabic, Spanish, and Chinese words?

The growth and diversity of Ottawa’s population make the city an exciting place for bike rides. Reflecting on our experiences during our bike rides, we often like to end our trips with a relaxing coffee. This time, the bike path returning from Gatineau across the William Commanda Bridge led us to the Art-Is-In Bakery close to downtown, where we had lunch. I was pleasantly surprised by the long lineup for service and the bustling crowd inside and on the outside patio, especially the vibrant presence of young people. It felt like a scene from the cafes in Marseille around the inner harbor, a delightful surprise in the heart of Ottawa.

There is no question that Ottawa is becoming a sophisticated metropolitan city, with elaborate bike paths sporting historical names and crowded cafes with outdoor patios. However, I prefer to keep street names and similar venues in their original toponymy and not subject them to political whims.

Rideau Canal’s Fresh Water Crisis: What Visitors Should Know

September 1, 2024

Our recent visit to the Davis Locks on the Rideau Canal, a Canadian UNESCO World Heritage Site, was marred by a frustrating experience. As we attempted to fill our water jugs with fresh, filtered water, a note pasted at the freshwater supply hose alerted us to a ‘boil water advisory’. This inconvenience, which surely affected other visitors as well, highlights the pressing need for a solution.

Fresh water is essential for the numerous boats, cruisers, and campers passing through. I have no idea how pleasure boaters and campers can continue their trips without it.

The Rideau Canal is not just a tourist attraction, it is a national treasure. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a National Historic Site, and the oldest operating lock system to move boats up and down along the Canal in North America, it holds a significant place in history. Its construction in 1832, at a huge human cost, is a testament to the perseverance of our ancestors. This rich history makes this site’s lack of potable water all the more disappointing, given its esteemed status.

I approached the workers and asked what was wrong with the water system. They said that some filters needed changing. At least, that is what I understood to be the problem. Officials had tested the filtered water quality and determined that some filters required replacement. It appeared to be a manageable problem.

The boil water advisory was there two weeks ago when we went to get fresh water. So, it has been at least a couple of weeks during the busy summer months when potable water has not been available at a UNESCO World Heritage Site! This situation is incongruous with what an average person thinks of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I am not an expert on water filtration systems, but I installed a simple store-bought one in our cottage. When looking at options, I came across better-quality ultraviolet light systems costing more and requiring more maintenance. As well, I read about reverse osmosis commercial systems. ZENON Environmental in Oakville, ON, developed membrane technology for water filtration in the 1980s, with products sold globally. So, the technology is readily available in Canada.

Therefore, the problem at Davis Locks is maintenance, supply, or perhaps budgetary issues—the government is not allocating funds for timely maintenance. In other words, it may be practicing breakdown maintenance. Whatever the problem is, it is inexcusable, in my opinion.

The lack of potable water at this location may appear to be a minor issue to many people. However, for visitors using the site, it is a significant problem that takes away from the attractiveness of this World Heritage Site. In the long run, it would reduce visitor traffic should it happen again. This is just one issue that takes away from the attractiveness of this site; reducing the hours when the locks are open, raising fees for boaters, and a strike by workers in the past have all reduced traffic. Compared to the high traffic volume in 1982, the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Canal, traffic diminished from 100,000 users to 56,000 in 2023.

As a concerned citizen, I am disappointed by our government’s lack of maintenance and promotion of this significant site. With its rich Canadian cultural and historical heritage, the Rideau Canal deserves to be showcased and celebrated, not overlooked.

Nostalgia

August 18,2024

Taking the Quyon ferry from Ontario to Quebec by car and then driving along Highway 128 to Norway Bay brought up fond memories. We used to visit our friend Zane, who had a cottage there. Zane passed away many years ago, and his wife sold the house after the family moved to Vancouver, so keeping the cottage was impractical. This time, we visited his wife, who rented two cottages to host the family and remind them of their good times there.

The surroundings along the road were familiar; I recognized the area’s city hall and fire station. Norway Bay was still a small village of cottages that seemed to camp in a pine forest. There was a feeling of friendliness and informality about this community. No fences existed, and people walked on the streets and along the beach for exercise. Many children rode bicycles. I almost wished we had a cottage there; there are always people around, which is kind of reassuring socially.

In contrast, our cottage is on an island with boat access only. We see boats and water life, but we rarely see people to talk to casually, as you can in Norway Bay.

Meeting Zane’s family, some of whom I have not seen in decades, brought back memories of when I met him. At a time, we both were undergoing French language training the government provided for all its managers. Government policy was that employees should be able to speak their native language at work, so all managers should speak French and English.

We all spoke some French; this was not a beginner’s class. As an introduction, the teacher asked us to describe what we do in our jobs. When it came to Zane, he talked about “emballage.” Wow! It sounded like “embalming,” and I scratched my head trying to figure out which government department embalms what and why.

But my confusion lasted briefly until I could ask him who or what was embalmed. It turned out that “emballage” is the French word for labeling. You know, the labels on the products for sale in stores, like cereals and chocolate bars. Zane explained that the government develops rules for the type of information that must appear on product boxes for sale (like the size of the letters) and enforces the legislation on labeling.

I found his work fascinating, and we became fast friends in a short time. His patrician demeanor attracted me. When listening to someone, he jutted his head forward to focus on the speaker and responded thoughtfully with a gravelly voice. But he enjoyed jokes and was fast at cracking a smile.

In subsequent conversations, he described how he came from Johannesburg to attend university in Winnipeg with a windbreaker on his back when the typical temperature was way below zero degrees in January. But he had help to adjust quickly to local conditions, and early in his university life, he met a local girl who became his wife.

We soon met Zane’s family of two boys and an adopted Canadian indigenous girl in Ottawa, and our families socialized. We also met his parents when Zane invited them to visit his family. It was interesting to notice cultural differences between South African and Canadian mores.

Zane had become Canadianized to such an extent that when his mother read the newspaper and his father just took it out of her hands because he wanted to read it at the same time, Zane told his dad off, saying that his mother had the paper first and was reading it and do not take it from her. Back home, the father rules the household, and the woman obeys him. In Canada, we have more gender equality.

Another time, the family was going on a car trip to Toronto, and Zane’s mother started fixing sandwiches. Zane asked why she was doing it; in Canada, everyone, regardless of color, can stop at any food facility to eat. That was an exciting episode for Zane’s parents, as traveling back home was challenging for colored people.

Zane’s mother would have liked to stay in Canada, especially when she was cured, freely, of TB, recognized by an X-ray. But his father decided to return to South Africa, not only because he had his friends there but also because he missed his culture.

All these memories returned to me when we drove into Norway Bay and met with Zane’s wife, one of his sons, and the son’s family. For me, it was an emotional moment. Although we talked with his wife over the years, it had been decades since I had seen his son and his family. Eric is a muscle-bound, heavy-set RCMP officer with over twenty years of service. He has had a varied career with the Mounties in British Columbia, serving on a swat team for a while. Although he was the easiest person to talk with, nobody would mess with him, just looking at his build.

It was also satisfying to remember that Eric had wanted to be a Mountie since high school. We wrote a letter of recommendation for him when he applied to join the RCMP, and I was glad to see that he has made a successful career with the force. 

While having coffee, some of Eric’s children decided to visit “Grandpa.” Somewhat confused, I asked Zane’s wife which Grandpa they would see. She explained that they would visit the cemetery where Zane is buried.

Climate Change in Fifty Years

August 2, 2024

While drilling a tooth in my mouth, the dentist asked me if I thought it was warmer in Ottawa now than a decade ago. Once he pulled out the drill from my mouth and my tongue got free to speak, I said yes. I said absolutely; this area is becoming a retirement community with a balmier climate that has superseded the cold winters. We now have longer, warmer summers and shorter, more tolerable winters.

The impact of climate change on winter sports is undeniable. The once long and enjoyable cross-country skiing season has been noticeably shortened. On the other hand, urban walking in winter has improved. With less snow, we can now stroll around town all winter, often with no snow on the ground.

But let me go back to the winter of 1974 when Ottawa’s average January temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit. In contrast, Ottawa’s average January temperature in 2024 was 21 degrees Fahrenheit. This is a significant upward move that has been gradual in my memory. The last few years have been mild and quite manageable, wearing light winter jackets.

Another example of the gradual warming is the number of days the Canal has been open for skating over the years. Dubbed the longest skating rink in the world, the Canal opened for skating in 1972 and was open for ninety days; the temperature was so cold that the ice on the Canal was three feet deep, the standard used for safe skating. It was open for twelve days in 2024 and never opened in 2023.

Leaving the dentist’s office, I met my friend, who explained that we have climate change, but he does not believe we have “global warming.” He agreed that climate change is real; this may be the hottest month in Ottawa, with daily temperatures in the nineties. He questions climate science and quotes periods when we have had warming and cooling over the last thousands of years.

He said Wade Davis’s chapter in his just-published book Beneath the Nature of Things provided the best and most balanced description of the climate issue he had ever read. Davis is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. In his essay, he provides a brief history of the climate change movement from its beginning in 1972 at the Copenhagen Conference.

Davis describes the cult-like followers of the climate crisis, including Greta Thunberg. He also mentions Steve Koonin (the science advisor to President Obama) and those who, although agreeing that the planet is in serious trouble embracing the carbon economy, believe technology will help solve the issue. There are also geopolitical issues: the South is asking for reparations; the North has had the time to create the problem while developing its economy and now asks the South to forego development based on the carbon economy. That does not seem fair. 

Davis intersperses his essay with fascinating facts, for example China approving the opening of 180 coal mines yearly and airline companies having 12,000 airplanes on order. These are examples of how these initiatives will increase rather than decrease the carbon economy. Also, 80 % of India has yet to fly, and sooner or later, all these people would want to experience flying, adding to the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.

The answer: Davis believes in setting action plans instead of target reduction plans; to date, the twenty-eight climate conferences have come up with watery plans, sometimes using misleading data, for example when the NATO countries came up with a target of 24% reduction when they had already achieved 12% of it by letting the ex-Soviet satellite countries join NATO.

Reading Davis’s essay made me wonder if I have ever done anything to reduce my carbon footprint. I belong to the group of people who do not feel the urgency of acting on a doomsday scenario that happens in decades. Polls show that although many believe in the danger of global warming, they are unwilling to act on it since it happens in the future.

Our new car is a hybrid EV. Did we get it because it is environmentally better than a carbon-fueled car? No, it was an economic decision: the mileage is much better than in a fully carbon-fueled car. We have not reduceed our travels to visit family and friends by air or automobile. And we have not downsized to save on heating fuel and AC. Should we?

Many factors influence the decisions to reduce our carbon footprint. The first one is to be convinced that the doomsday scenarios are real. But I have not had the experience that would convince me that we are on the threshold of a crisis.

If I travelled in an area with industrial pollution and massive car traffic resulting in hazy weather, I would put higher priority on solving air pollution resulting from the carbon economy. But that is not my recent experience.

Driving from Pittsburgh, PA, to Durham, NC, via West Virginia, we have seen vast expanses of beautiful open space with rolling hills. We have not seen any air pollution. We smelled fresh air. We also flew from Ottawa to Vancouver a few weeks ago and observed the vast lands underneath with no population. There is crowding with car pollution along parts of the East and West coasts, but most of the country in between is empty. So, I am not inclined to believe we have a climate problem based on my experience. I know there has been a gradual warming in the Ottawa area over the last fifty years. Beyond that, I have a minimal understanding of the future.