Pity the Powerless Press or Whose Country Is This, Anyway?

A few years back I attended a Maritime Print Journalism program. I applied for an internship with CBC Radio and was given the privilege of working alongside its broadcast reporters for the duration. Shortly into that experience, I started to realize how little reporters really know about things in our governments, at almost every level. I became so disenchanted and disillusioned about the subject I swore I would never work in that style of journalism again. True to my vow, I have kept as far away from political commentary as is possible.

But every once in a while I just hafta take off my self-righteous hat and get my hands dirty. This is one of those times.

Everyone has, no doubt, been reading or hearing all about how the Canadian government is planning to axe an old Canadian social programs standby – the old age pension, which has been given to anybody once they reach the age of qualification, whether they have earned wages in their lifetime or not. The powers that be have softened the blow by suggesting that only those who will retire in 15 to 20 years will be affected. Apparently, the researched projections predict the fund will be bankrupt at that time.

It’s a bloody shame, but not surprising at all.

Anyone with an ear to the ground has seen this one coming for some time. Stephen Harper’s government has been chafing at the bit to reduce outgoing monies such as the billions this pension represents, since they became a majority government in our last federal election. Knowing its tireless obsession with cutbacks to social programming in general, this has been just one more in a long list of major changes in anything that even slightly reeks of Trudeaumania.

As if that weren’t enough, I noticed over the last few days something that honestly made both my eyebrows and blood pressure rise.

GM in Canada, which received a gargantuan bailout of billions of our tax dollars just a couple of years ago, announced it had its best year of profit ever in 2011. They are, by their own count, roughly ahead a few billion more than what Stephen Harper’s Conservatives gave them. And they even had the audacity to publicize it, as if to rub in that the monies they received from us were without so much as an interest payment expected in return.

Does anyone else besides me see the idiotic hypocrisy of this situation?

Here, on the one hand, we have a government which seeks applause for its hard line approach to cutbacks in spending, aggressively and with no thought to those who have come to depend on social programs, making cutbacks in those selfsame programs. Then they turn around and give, not lend, but give a major corporation which isn’t even owned by Canadians, billions of our tax dollars so as to keep open its assembly plants in central Ontario where thousands of Canadians were employed. To boot, the one thing Stephen Harper did get out of the deal was a load of GM stock, which, reportedly isn’t even worth the paper upon which it is written. And I am pretty certain the workers didn’t see any life changing raises in the last year, despite the red letter year GM has had.

Essentially, the Canadian people have, once more, come up empty handed. On both counts.

Seems to me this government operates as the antithesis of Robin Hood, robbing the poor to pay the rich.

I haven’t seen too many reporters writing about this over the last few days and I really wonder why either they have missed it or don’t consider it important enough, if they did see it.

This is what I meant by the press not having any real clout in our society.

Besides, we are all so busy just trying to stay afloat, we don’t have the time to read this stuff, anyway. So I guess it’s a losing battle.

Too bad. But maybe there’s more than one way to skin a rabbit.

I wonder if I were to start a business, incorporate and hire a whole lot of workers, I could ask Stephen Harper to give me a big chunk of cash to pay them?

It’s worth a try.

Better still - why don’t we hire GM’s CEO to run the country?

Cultural Calamity John or Be Careful What You Tell Your Kids

About a dozen years ago or so, our family was uprooted while my husband sought work in our nation’s capital. He had just graduated from an IT course and felt his chances for a good position were best in Canada’s Silicon Valley. Because things were tight at first, we chose to rent an older style townhouse on the border of Ottawa and Nepean, in the middle of a large community of recent immigrants who came to our country from all over the world.  It proved to offer a literal smorgasbord of education for us all as we slowly got to know all of our new neighbours.

                Not too long after we moved in, our son, who was about three-and-a-half, started playing with a little boy who was the son of one of those new neighbours. They were from Turkey and the little boy, a smiling and giggling, happy little fellow, was their first and only child.

In the first few weeks after we moved in, our son had a few adjustment issues, including the odd nightmare. Like any good Christian mother would, I tried to nip it in the bud by explaining to him that each time he had a dream, he could exercise power over it. I said he could tell it to go away in Jesus’ name. Each night, as I helped him say his prayers, I would go over what I thought would both reassure him and eliminate the nightmares. He listened closely to every word, agreeing to do it if he had a one again.  Predictably, as he made friends and got busy with new adventures, the nightmares seemed to abate and I forgot all about what I had told him.

Have I mentioned that my husband’s father is Greek Canadian? And that would make our son one-fourth Greek? Just thought I might throw it in for good measure.

So, one day, the two boys were playing in the courtyard behind the townhouses while I watched closely from a lounge chair perched on the postage stamp bit of green that was our back lawn. I was largely pregnant with our second child and it was horrifically hot and humid.

I had learned very soon after our arrival that this kind of weather was typical of south-eastern Ontario. One morning previous to that, we had awoken to temperatures in the mid nineties Fahrenheit and there was actual fog until the midday sun had burned it off. Even our African immigrant friends, whose home countries knew mean temperatures of close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, said they found the National Capital Region beastly hot because of the humidity and continual lack of what would have been a merciful breeze.

So, you have to understand, unless I absolutely had to, there was no way I was going to get actively involved in the play activities of preschoolers. But I was making certain, at least, they were safe and happy.  At one point, they disappeared around a corner of one of the townhouses for just a moment, and as I started to raise my girth to get up and follow, as I did not want to leave them unsupervised, the air suddenly became riddled with the shouts of the two boys. I wasn’t sure what they were saying, but whatever it was, it sounded pretty intense. Just as suddenly, they whizzed back around the self same corner around which they had disappeared, flying like the wind, with our son chasing the little Turkish boy. They looked like a miniature Mutt and Jeff. Our son was very tall and slim for his age and his little friend was extremely short and stocky, his rapid but clumsy gait no doubt encumbered by a pull-up.

It was then I realized little boys really do listen to their mother’s instructions.

Because, see, as they both ran by me, our son waved a stick and I heard him yell at the top of his voice, “Go away in Jesus’ name! Go away in Jesus’ name!”

I thought to myself, How succinct – the Greek chasing the Turk while yelling holy invocations at him.

I tell ya, history really does repeat itself.