Tag: expressing opinions

America Triggered the Ukraine War?

June 23, 2022

I thought I could get a balanced view of news by listening to TV anchors and reading columnists from both the left and the right. I wrote a blog on this a few months ago. That was my thinking until I received an article from my cousin Tamas, who is in Vienna. He sent me an article presenting a scholarly view of the origin of the Ukraine war. The argument floored me.

You thought Russia started the war, right? Russia was massing its military for months on the Ukraine border before attacking. And remember, Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, so this war was a continuation of their aim to gain more territory. But no. Hungarian economist Karoly Lorant explains in an article in the conservative Hungarian daily Magyar Hirlap, that the war started way back in 1998 when the Americans passed a resolution to expand NATO, which President Clinton called a major foreign policy victory.

Going further back, Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev that if Germany as a whole could be a member of NATO, “NATO forces would not be extended as much as an inch to the east.” This was at a meeting at the Kremlin on February 9, 1990.

The world situation changed entirely when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, and fifteen independent states emerged. According to Lorant, one result was the Americans had begun to support the expansion of NATO and talked about a unipolar world, with the US being the global force.

Lorant cites events supporting the expansion of NATO via the “Partnership for Peace Program” to cooperate with and encourage the democratization of Eastern European countries (many belonged to the former Soviet Union).

National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote a book “The Gand Chessboard” (1997) in which he explained that Belorussia and Ukraine were an important part of Russia, without which Russia was a weak country. Lorant’s thesis is that, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has lost its power, particularly considering the loss of Belorussia and Ukraine. While the Russians were losing ground, the Americans were intent on expanding NATO.

According to Lorant, the Russians have been pushed back since the 1990s and, from their point of view, the situation had become untenable. No surprise that in January 2022, in Geneva, the Russians wanted the Americans to guarantee that Ukraine does not become a member of NATO. The Americans refused the request. So Lorant concludes that the continuous squeezing of Russia since the 1990s has created the condition for the war and the primary culprit is the US.

Although the facts may be true, I do not buy for a minute the conclusions Lorant draws from them. Russia is the transgressor in the Ukraine war; it is an unprovoked war (even Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the right-wing leader of Hungary called Russia the aggressor in his speech on May 16, 2022). Ukraine did not invite the Russians to come in to help, unlike in the Cuban missile crisis (which, some people think, is comparable to the Ukraine situation), when Fidel Castro invited the Russians. Zelenski, the President of Ukraine, was elected democratically, and he did not invite the Russians to come into the country.

Second, the concept of territorial influence, that Russia has influence by right over Ukraine, or that historically Ukraine belongs to Russia, is not convincing today. That doctrine may have held water in the past, but now independent countries have the right to self-determination. In contrast to the Russian aim to recover lost territories, European countries have not gone back to their colonies trying to recover their lost territories.

Third, I think influence shows through technology and industrialization today and less via military action. The last time we visited Hungary, I expressed my surprise to Tamas at the high level of foreign ownership of grocery stores and banks. He explained foreign countries took over Hungary without a single life being lost by taking ownership of industry after Hungary declared independence in 1989 and the Soviets left the country in 1991.

For example, the spread of the iconic iPhone and Facebook has probably created more sustainable influence in countries where they are used than military action could ever provide. That is why brute military might with tanks appears old-fashioned to me and a losing idea in the long run. I thought that by using their natural resources and closer cooperation with the old Soviet satellite states, Russia could have established a successful industrial block. But, no; instead, they invaded a country with brute force.

And now I gather from Mr. Lorant’s scholarship that it was the US that triggered the war after continuous attempts to promote NATO and squeeze Russia until Russia saw no option but to invade Ukraine to regain its former territory.

So I learned that besides reading the full spectrum of left-to-right opinions in the west, which I thought would give me a balanced view, I should also read pro-Russian views, such as Lorant’s article, (based on excellent scholarship), that may substantially differ from our western view. That does not mean that Mr. Lorant changed my mind; he outlined a historical context that is interesting but irrelevant today. Just my opinion.

Are Public Consultations Useful?

June 11, 2022

Are Public Consultations Useful?

Responding to an ad in the local community newsletter, I registered for a virtual meeting to discuss the future of Confederation Heights, an Ottawa employment hub for the federal government. The ad caught my attention, having been a city planner. Reading the ad, I realized this was the second meeting on this, aimed at getting public feedback.

The Canada Lands Company (CLC) was the lead on this project and hired consultants to carry out the work.

Before joining the second meeting, I read a detailed report: the consultants prepared a summary of the discussion at the first zoom meeting entitled “Realize the potential”. I describe the “key themes” gleaned from the meeting further down.

I looked forward to the zoom meeting with interest: they built Confederation Heights in the 1950s and it is time to reevaluate the aging buildings and sprawling parklands with an eye for improvements and future development (the Greber plan of 1949 recommended the idea of an employment hub). Several of the original buildings, built in the 1950s, have received heritage designations, on this 640-acre site.

The site today includes two extensive parks managed by the National Capital Commission, a recreation complex run by federal employees, the Headquarters for Canada Post, and several federal office buildings, some empty. Three four-lane thoroughfares cross the site, as well as a CN railway line.

The meeting started with the speaker acknowledging the Algonquin Anishinabe people, for having lived in the area for a millennium, and for their cultural and other contributions to the Ottawa area. I’ll have to do some research to find out what these contributions are. I am not aware of any.

Government agencies in Ottawa start public meetings with this introduction. I have experienced this in the past few months. In my opinion, it is a cruel hoax that raises expectations but is unlikely to result in anything material for the natives. But the artificiality of this hollow gesture pains me.

Since this was a presentation by federal government officials, the meeting had to be bilingual. I knew that from my previous work in the federal bureaucracy. But the interpretation services failed occasionally, and we had to listen to the English and then to the French speeches covering the same subjects.

The consultants began by describing the multi-year process to develop a plan for the next thirty years. I have trouble with long-range plans, which seldom produce the results desired. Many unanticipated events may interfere. Long-range plans should provide broad options, adaptable to future changes. I look forward to seeing the final product in a year.

The consultants also explained the site has many uses that will not change. The parks will stay and the RA Center and its playing fields are likely to stay along with the designated heritage buildings, which may be renovated for new uses.

Major city roads occupying extensive areas, crisscrossing the site with many access ramps, will have to remain. They will also preserve woodlots. Potential new buildings will have to blend into the roadwork, the woodlots, and the heritage buildings, a creative challenge for architects.

So what were the “key themes” derived from the first public engagement exercise that will guide the future development? The first theme was “mix of use, i.e.., shopping, housing, open spaces/parks, community amenities”. But is not mixed-use what you have in all cities, excluding suburbs? This is the reality of most large-scale urban development today.

The second highest priority theme was “sustainability”. What does that mean? Is it related to the woodlots that may house wildlife? Is there more to “sustainability”?

The next theme was “housing affordability and active mobility”. Would you define housing affordability? My interpretation of affordability is that housing prices are too high for the average income earner. But I am not sure urban planning is as suitable to deal with housing affordability, whatever it is, as government subsidy programs. And active mobility refers to bicycle and walking paths; most communities wish to have those.

The next two “themes” were “making public transit a priority” and “high-quality urban design”. Are these unique objectives or are these, really, objectives that should be taken for granted? Some people with cars may not consider public transit a priority. And others may not have an esthetic eye for urban design. But if you asked people and were given the choice, who would want poor public transit and low-quality urban design?

Are these “themes” anything more than motherhood statements? The same ideas propped up at the second meeting in which I took part, hoping to learn more useful information. Instead, I heard more jargon about “vibrant and diverse” communities with “tree-lined streets”, walking/cycling paths, and underground shopping malls to deal with winters in Ottawa (similar to what is in Montreal).

I wondered about the usefulness of these consultations. Have the consultants learned anything that would be useful in their design of the land beyond dreamy visions? But, perhaps, that was the purpose of these public engagements: to hear the public out on their dreams for the development of this site. The concepts which emerged from the public feedback could apply to any large-scale urban development in any city in North America. I cannot recall any comments that specifically relate to Confederation Heights.

The future of this property will depend on economic and population trends, and the resulting demand for commercial and residential properties. Nobody can foresee these trends with any clarity thirty years ahead.

I think the consultants will identify usable development parcels on the site and propose land uses and building envelopes by zoning regulations (highrise, lowrise, commercial, etc.). When economic conditions are ripe, developers will bid on parcels of developable land at Confederation Heights to do what they do best: propose workable projects with public appeal. Was this exercise anything more than checking the box on: “public engagement”? Just my opinion.

A New Divide: People Who Work From Home vs. Others. Wonking Out

May, 10, 2022

The pandemic has accelerated the trend in “teleworking”, or what is called today “work from home”. Governments and companies encouraged workers who could work from home to do so to reduce potential infections in the office. But who are these workers and what impacts has this movement had on our daily life?

According to Statistics Canada, over thirty percent of workers worked from home, between April 2020 and June 2021. In 2016, only 4 percent of people did so. A massive change in the work environment, mostly triggered by Covid, I think.

The composition of this home-based workforce is interesting. According to Statistics Canada, seventy percent of people who worked from home were in the “professional, scientific and technical services” industry category.

By income, eight percent of people in the bottom ten percent and over sixty percent of people in the top ten percent of wage earners worked from home.

So better educated and higher-income people seem to have been given a greater opportunity to work from home than others (education and income are usually positively related).

But, there are other consequences resulting from this trend. A recent article by a city planner in Vancouver envisioned that the work-from-home movement could result in larger homes because of the need for a home office. And larger homes need vacant terrain to be subdivided, gobbling up choice agricultural lands around major cities in Canada. The article also envisioned a home with more outdoor space than the norm today, considering people will avoid public spaces and parks for fear of infection.

The article surprised me since current city plans, including Ottawa’s, strongly encourage “densification”, to save on infrastructure and minimize carbon emissions by reducing the daily commute. Perhaps the need to build larger homes for work at home will decrease in time, paralleling the elimination of Covid, if that is possible. Not a likely event in the short term.

I provide all of this context to introduce the nub of a potential issue: people love working from home and the trend toward it may create a new divide. The lucky ones may continue the work-from-home routine while others may never get to enjoy it. Now I have not done a professional survey but have anecdotal evidence from talking with many people who love to work at home and never want to go back to the office.

People I talked with gave me many reasons why working from home is advantageous: you can choose your hours of work; you save time by not having to dress up to go to work; you save money by not buying coffee or lunch and commuting (save on gas, parking or transit costs); and you can take care of daily activities like shopping, taking children to school; or go on a bike ride or run when times are nice.

But, there may be downsides as well. You may miss the watercooler talks catching up on what is going on in the office; miss meetings in person where you may find out more about projects through the body language of others (zoom meetings provide less communication than in-person meetings). You may miss opportunities to show your skills and knowledge to your boss in ad hoc situations that could lead to promotions. Recruits may find it difficult to learn the culture of the organization being away from the office. And some people may find it intrusive that some bosses may call you on a 24/7 basis.

Another unanticipated consequence of working from home may be that office buildings stay empty, taking away the livelihood of many businesses serving office workers. But, of course, companies and governments save money on reduced office space demand.

I remember people blamed the recent convoy in Ottawa for destroying the restaurant industry downtown. But have you considered that the government in Ottawa, ordering employees to work from home for the last two years, may have been a key factor that killed the restaurants downtown?

It may take a few years before we see the light on whether the work-from-home trend will continue. But, to date, this movement has created a divide between those who can avail themselves of this attractive way of working versus others who just cannot do it. And it has created incentives toward low-density urban development conflicting with current city planning objectives to densify to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save good agricultural lands. Just my opinion.

Free Bus Passes for Refugees in Ottawa

May 4, 2022

Ukrainian refugees arriving in Ottawa provided moving stories in the local newspaper, and discussions with friends centered on the ongoing war in Ukraine.

These discussions moved on from the war and focussed on how to help the refugees arriving in Ottawa. It was encouraging to learn the City councillor from Kanata suggested that free transit passes be provided to the refugees for six months upon arrival. Another Councillor expanded the motion to include all refugees, to be fair. The City Council passed the motion.

A friend of mine suggested that with the free passes, the refugees may get to know the city. I asked, “are you saying that they should sight-see?” And I immediately followed up by: “come on! Refugees try to establish themselves and their lives in a new country and new city, and sightseeing is the last thing they are interested in.”

I was a refugee and my first task, beyond feeding myself and finding a place to sleep, was to learn the English language. Being a refugee is a traumatic experience and just getting used to the local scene compared to the old country: the architecture, the people, the way people dress, the food, and the smell of the ocean gave me more than enough to absorb. Sightseeing was a concept perhaps in my dreams in the long run, but certainly not in my first few months upon arrival.

Here is my story: my hostess, a nurse, who had an old, big house in the Kitsilano area of Vancouver, found out that volunteers gave English lessons to Hungarians at the YMCA in downtown Vancouver. My brother and I hustled down there to learn the language a few days after our arrival. Our host gave us some bus tickets to get to the YMCA. We learned English during the day and practiced grammar at night. We did not take or have time to sightsee. It took us a few months to converse in English sufficiently well to give us the confidence to look for a job, which was our next priority.

A few blocks from where we lived was Dueck on Broadway, a large car dealership, and cars intrigued my brother, coming from Hungary where there were few. He approached Dueck and offered to wash cars. They said that would be fine, but he also had to jockey the cars for the wash. So my brother walked to the licensing bureau and in forty-eight hours got his driver’s license. He was happy with his first job in Canada and felt like he was on top of the world.

I followed the job ads in the local paper, the Vancouver Sun, every day. In a week, I found a job with a furrier dragging animal skins to show buyers for their appraisal, hundreds of skins each day. My first huge cultural learning curve was when the appraiser gave me a huge cash tip at the end of his work, which I refused to accept, saying I was just doing my job.

In Hungary, there was no tipping, all people worked for the government (under the communist system), and there was no incentive to work hard for the possibility of additional income. The appraiser looked at me with a questioning eye, but perhaps figured me out by listening to my strange accent and probably improper English. I thought I just did what they hired me for. And this experience was an initial step in my acculturation in Canada.

I worked there until it was time to think about going back to further my education. My brother did the same and eight months after arriving in Canada, we both enrolled at the University of British Columbia.

I remembered my refugee experience when talking with my friend, and it shocked me people have so little understanding of, or empathy for, what refugees go through when they arrive in a country new to them. But why should they? It is totally outside their frame of reference.

Even if sightseeing is an option with free bus tickets, where would you go in Ottawa on a bus? Would you go to the east or west of the city, get off, and walk around? The endpoints of bus routes are not tourist spots. And the bus stops in Ottawa are not within reasonable walking distance of many homes. It could be a tough slog in the middle of a cold winter to walk to a bus stop for people arriving from tropical climates.

And the local people who host refugees have cars and take the refugees to get their health and social insurance cards and take them to medical facilities if needed. Would the refugees ever use the free bus passes?

The provision of free bus passes to recent refugee arrivals made a nice headline in the newspaper and surely, some refugees would use them. But the priority for recent refugee arrivals is to find a place to live; learn the language; get a job and gain a career via schooling or retraining.

Perhaps free bus passes for all the poor would be a better option?

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?