Photo Credit: blog.nz-online.de

Am I the only Canadian that wishes Barack Obama could be my leader? Politics aside, the man can speak. When he gives a speech, people listen. When Stephen Harper gives a speech, people fall asleep, or at least I do. From the moment Obama took office and said that he would “unclench his fist and extend an open hand,” I was hooked on the man and stopped really listening to whatever it is Stephen Harper says. I paid a hell of a lot more attention to Obama’s most recent State of the Union address than I did to Harpers speech at the World Economic Forum. As I said earlier, I fall asleep staring at his grey head of hair.
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Photo Credit: mirror.co.uk

It is unfortunate that it takes a natural disaster like the earthquake in Haiti for the international community to come together. Perhaps if there were more natural disasters caused by global warming there would have been more accomplished in Copenhagen at the most recent summit on climate change. It seems a growing trend in international politics is to only react when there is a disaster. There seems to be no thought invested in preventing the disaster. Not that an earthquake can be prevented, but global warming can be. And although I am using a horrible tragedy to shamelessly discuss global warming, the prospect of global warming happening could wipe out most of the northern hemisphere. Is there a plan in place to deal with that kind of tragedy? Is there a plan in place to deal with the billions of displaced people suddenly clamoring into the South? I doubt it. We will be just that, clamoring on in, busting over the Rio Grande.
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Photo Credit: Canadian Fermentation

As I’ve arrived home from my Christmas holiday, I like many other Canadians, am feeling the wave of depression at the prospect of going back to work. It is that time, and it is a painful time. Unfortunately, I have a full-time job like so many of you, I get paid every two weeks like so many of you, and like so many of you, I have to actually show up to work to receive my paycheque. But I can dream, and that dream is to work for the Canadian government. If I did, I wouldn’t be returning to work until March with the blessings of my boss and my paycheques still in hand. What a generous guy that Stephen Harper is when it comes to our tax dollars paying his MP’s salaries. Call me a slave driver, but I would expect my employees to actually earn their wage, particularly if the Canadian public is paying their salaries. I mean a four month holiday from Parliament seems a little excessive, doesn’t it?
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Once upon a time, many years ago, Canada was a leader when it came to human rights. We helped create the UN, the Geneva Accords, and even adapted many of those accords into our own legislation. We took pride in being the protector, the one who stood up for the little guy, damning the consequences. However, this recent torture debacle involving our military has my recent suspicions that Canada is in a bit of an image crisis confirmed. Like a teenager that has emerged from puberty a little different, Canada is not the peace-loving, torture-hating nation we all thought it was. Between the adjusting of our voice and the ridding of our pimples, we changed.

Torture has always been a no-no. But we all know it happens. It happens in Guantanamo, it happens in Iraq and it sure as hell happens in Afghanistan. At the very least, our job is to not take part in it, and certainly not solicit and most definitely not condone it. Handing over a detainee when one knows he/she will be tortured is not doing our job correctly. Now I know that in the atrocities of war, worse things have happened. However, this begs the question: is this the only time something like this has happened? Because chances are, it isn’t. War makes many people do things they would not do under normal circumstances, no one is questioning or berating that. We have been putting our military on such a pedestal from past peacekeeping accomplishments we thought our soldiers were immune to such cruel behavioural traits, but clearly they are not. They are after all, only human.
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Just as I was starting to panic and think that I would have nothing to write about for my next blog, Mr. Harper came through for me in his most recent decision to attend the Copenhagen climate change meeting. Not that I think he shouldn’t attend it, I do – but the fact that he wasn’t going to attend until Obama decided to reminds me of high school, or maybe even junior high. Now I understand that rubbing elbows with Obama is probably a big thrill, one I would enjoy too, but seeing as Alberta alone emits more pollution than some small countries, I think Mr. Harper should have been attending regardless of what his US counterpart was doing that day – because it is the right thing to do, not the popular thing.

Like many of us years ago, I watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. However, unlike many of you, I made the mistake of watching The Day After Tomorrow right after it. The combination of the two scared the hell out of me. If you’ve seen the two films you understand what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, basically The Day After Tomorrow is like if An Inconvenient Truth was a movie and not a documentary: the world goes into another ice age because the North Atlantic current shuts down from melting ice caps and Canada gets wiped out by snow and ice; only the Southern hemisphere is unaffected. Now I know it’s just a movie and everything, but the science is basically true, and to me, that’s freakin’ scary. We’re talking doomsday stuff here, and need I remind anyone that 2012 is right around the corner. I’m not suggesting we base federal policy on the Mayan calendar, nor am I preaching a doomsday is imminent, but if we continue on this path, we will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sure it sells big bucks in the theatres, but I’d like theatres to be around in the next few decades and maybe more after that, I mean, I do have nieces and nephews.
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Now seeing as Remembrance Day has come and gone, it seems appropriate to discuss our beleaguered military and the misguided government who directs it. Now I am sure I am not the only poppy-wearing Canadian getting sick of our soldiers coming home in body bags, I’m sure our government is too – but seeing as the most significant thing they’ve done in regards to our armed forces is extend our one minute of silence to two on November 11th, I question the level of their concern. Perhaps we should be more invested in our soldiers while they are alive rather than remembering them after they are gone. Although considering the steady stream of body bags coming home, perhaps the government is on to something.

I have never been a fan of war. If I was alive during the ‘60s I would have felt right at home. But I am willing to accept that there are those in this world that just do not excel at co-existing with others. People like Hitler, Stalin, and my favourite character on Team America, Kim Jong-Il. Adding to this list, you got your crazed, blood thirsty revolutionaries which are too numerous to name but dot the international map in mass quantities and can be found in tragedies like Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. No one pretends that our world is a perfect place, in fact, it is pretty messed up. And it is for these unfortunate circumstances that we have our military, and thank goodness we do.
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There are few topics that get my blood boiling more than health care – my beloved Montreal Canadiens is one of them. What once was a trademark of Canada and a symbol of Canadian goodwill has become a shadow of its former self, run down by too many people, not enough money and inefficient practices. Something I was once very proud of, I am now very ashamed of. Oddly, my feelings on healthcare seem to mirror my feelings on Les Canadiens. But my focus here is not on hockey, or on what I’m sure is the top quality health care the members of the Canadiens receive, but the health care we receive, specifically we Albertans, since that is where I am speaking from.

Growing up under the realm of King Ralph, i watched health care fall on Alberta’s priority list. Our hospitals became crowded and seeing people sleeping in hallways became common to the point where they were simply a reality, just like filling up on gas. Small town doctors became fewer and further between, MRI’s became harder to get and hospital triage areas became backlogged and neglected. Slowly but surely, and right before our eyes, our system became based on dealing with emergencies rather then preventing them. And if you had the money, privatization was introduced as an answer to all of your problems; all of this when ironically our province was doing the best it had been doing since health care was introduced. And now, under Steady Eddy, it seems the only thing that is steady is the poor decision making streaming out of the Legislative building, beginning with the LPN vs RN debacle.
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