2024 A Year of Challenge and Patience

June 4: Three days remain before Ontarians head to the polls to elect a new Provincial government. By all accounts, it will be a close race with the Conservatives and the New Democrats virtually tied in popular support; how this plays out in actual seats in the legislature remains unclear. It is clear that voters are faced with stark alternatives between the contenders, yet we have absolutely minimal information upon which to weight options and make an intelligent choice.

I am by nature and profession a bit of a “policy wonk”. I believe that words have meaning and that sound policy is what guides government activity. So it is shocking and alarming to me that Doug Ford can simply spout slogans and facile statements and claim that they are policy upon which he will govern. It’s very clear that he really doesn’t understand how government operates, and I doubt that he has any real interest in learning. His “fully-costed” platform turns out to be little more than dollar amounts against his campaign promises, with no information on the expenditure cuts or revenue changes that would be necessary to implement them.

The New Democratic Party is little better. Although they have greater policy depth and a leader who has experience in the legislature, their policy proposals amount to around $10 Billion in additional expenditure without an indication of how that additional expenditure will ultimately be paid off.

This brings me to an issue that gets almost no attention during the campaign yet has significant and dire implications for every person living in Ontario and Canada as a whole: government debt. In a research bulletin published in 2017, the Fraser Institute concluded that net Federal ($287.6 Billion) and Provincial ($317.9 Billion) debt totaled $605.5 Billion or roughly $43,300 per person in the province. Not only has there been no insightful discussion of different policy options and the cost of their implementation, there has been nothing said by any of the parties about the true cost of their platform, and how they will pay for it.

All three parties propose deficit budgets with some effort made to return to a balanced budget only later in the term. The Liberals in particular have an atrocious record of managing government spending, having turned the Provincial electricity sector into a boondoggle of monumental proportions – one that we and our children will be paying to cover for decades. None of the parties offers any indication of what they might do should the economy suddenly tank, an event made increasingly likely given the current tariff tussle – apparently it’s not a war yet – going on in Washington.

How is a sensible and thoughtful citizen expected to make a reasonable choice with such limited information ? Without real debate on policy options, and a full understanding of what they will cost, it seems very much like guess work on election day. It should not be so. But perhaps, given most people’s complete lack of understanding or interest in politics, we get what we deserve.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/cost-of-government-debt-in-canada-2017.pdf

May 21:

“When you boldly go where you haven’t been before, that’s when life becomes truly fulfilling.”

I’ve recently attended a number of events at the Hot Docs Cinema on Bloor Street. Before each film they show a short promotional film with clips from some of the features of the past, which includes a brief glimpse of George Takei uttering the above quote. Although I have now seen the clip many times, it still invokes an emotional reaction every time I see it.

I was raised in an environment where the future was often uncertain. I was not by nature an overly confident person, and that uncertainty caused me to believe that I had to anticipate the things that might happen, and protect myself by being ready to deal with whatever outcomes arose. I expected the worst and made plans. While that is still my nature to a certain extent, I am gradually getting better at understanding that I can not foresee events or control outcomes even with the best of plans. So Takei’s quote is a great reminder to simply “boldly go” and let life take care of itself.

The Hot Docs Festival featured a film on Bill Murray and his propensity for turning up in unexpected places: photobombing wedding pictures; doing dishes at a frat-house party; tending bar in South Carolina. During the film, there are many talking heads discussing why he would do it so often. There’s clearly no ego involved. He seems to simply facilitate others’ enjoyment of the event and then quietly disappear without a lot of fanfare. Toward the end the hypothesis is made that his training in stand-up improvisational comedy has taught him to cultivate the ability to say “yes” to a proposition and then follow along to see where it takes him.

By being open and then accepting the danger of being unable to fully control the outcome, he makes himself available to a wide range of potential events and outcomes that can be beneficial to himself and those around him. While there is always the risk of looking foolish or worse – perhaps easier to accept if you are a comedian by profession – that attitude must open up a huge range of experience and opportunity that is not available to the more cautious among us.

I know from experience that I subconsciously say no to doing things which would be unusual for me and probably a lot of fun. So I am trying to acknowledge those opportunities when they cross my path and to take advantage of as many as possible. It’s not easy. My preference for safety, security and routine are often difficult to overcome, yet I’m aware that there may be few (perhaps very few) opportunities left for me to expand my horizons. Recently I have attempted to suppress my caution and boldly go into new experiences and opportunities and let the chips fall where they may. So far, as Takei said, it has been very fulfilling.

 

May 9: One of my work-mates at the former City of Etobicoke would often say that it was never officially Spring until the Saucer Magnolias had come into bloom. With that in mind, I offer this picture of the gigantic specimen at the end of my street, and proclaim that Spring has (finally) arrived. Time to start wearing shorts and drinking rosé.

By comparison, Spring was declared last year on April 28, with the note that the date was 10 days earlier than 2016. So, even with the seemingly endless colder weather and ice storms, we seem to be right in the ballpark of opening days (to belabor a metaphor…)

April 24:  Toronto lost a degree of innocence yesterday when a young man in a van plowed through crowds on Yonge Street killing 10 and injuring 15 more. I say a “degree of innocence” because I believe that many people felt that an attack of some sort was just a matter of time. Toronto, as the largest city in the country, is an obvious target and it seemed to be only a matter of time before something happened.

People have experienced a range of emotion. Some are angry, some sad. If I feel anger it is because this is such a senseless act – so selfish and unnecessary. But I am also angry because this appears to have been the act of a man with mental health issues and the system did not provide him enough support, and did not identify his intention to do harm before the fact. So ten people paid with their lives.

Many people are sad. Even though they may not be affected personally, I think we feel sadness because we know intuitively that we have all lost something we value deeply: the security and openness that we feel as Torontonians. Most of us felt that terror attacks and the random shooters common in the United States happened to others, not to us. Now we’ve lost that sense of distance and perhaps even smugness that gave us the unreasonable belief that we were somehow different and would therefore escape the emotion of an assault.

Several weeks ago, an horrific bus crash in Humboldt Saskatchewan killed 14 people. While it was shocking and saddening for the rest of Canada, it felt like an “accident” that happened at a distance that somehow removed it from having an immediate and direct impact on our lives. I was shocked and amazed to see that a crowd-funding effort had netted more than $10 million to support the victims’ families. At more or less the same time, a bus went off the road in India killing 23 students, yet I couldn’t find a gofundme page for them.

Dozens of people seem to die every day as a result of horrible accidents, suicide bombs or terrorist attacks. Their lives are no less valuable than ours, yet the distance and frequency of such attacks makes them somehow less significant: Just another bomb in Syria. Toronto has been lucky to avoid an attack, until now. And while it was not a “terrorist attack” in the literal sense, we did lose our innocence and have woken up to the potential damage that a “real” attack could do. Many other cities and countries live with this reality every day.

Toronto often seeks to be “world-class” and perhaps now more than ever before, that may be true. We have learned that we have the same potential to be a target as Paris or Brussels or Barcelona or London or Beirut or …

Further reading: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/toronto/article-the-truths-canada-needs-to-remember/

April 15: Frequent reader(s) will know that I have been learning to play the electric bass, so it’s exciting to announce that I had a recording gig last night at Koerner Hall with the Hot Sardines. Based in New York, the Hot Sardines play funked up jazz written by everyone from Al Jolson and Sophie Tucker to Duke Ellington. The concert was recorded for a future CD and, along with 1,134 other souls, I will be on it, making a continuing contribution to musical history in Toronto. The band includes trombone, trumpet, reeds (clarinet and sax), drums, bass, piano and a singer.  And a tap-dancer.

At first, the tap-dancer seems a bit odd. He sits in the middle of the band with his arms hanging over the side of his chair, quietly tapping away to the rhythm of the song. At some times, with the shifting feet and flailing arms he looks a bit like a man having a seizure, but when the solo arrives ( does one “solo” on taps ? ) he leaps up and belts out a texture that adds a new dimension to the music. At this point he looks more like a demented marionette on black ice, but it all works.

My musical weekend started the night before when I played at Chamber Sweets, an event put together by the New Horizons Band. Chamber Sweets is a concert to promote small groups of musicians from within the NHBT organization. Students form a group, pick the music and rehearse a short number. Each band is limited to 2 minutes, and there’s a wide diversity of music given the range of experience and ability within the NHBT universe.

My band chose a version of Pachelbel Canon in D Major played on trumpet, French horn and bass. It was arranged with my bass doing a 4 bar solo introduction: 8 notes in total repeated throughout the piece. I managed 7 of the 8 notes, skipping one in the middle somewhere. Arriving at the beginning again, I recalled our instructor saying that if you make a mistake, the best thing to do is own it and continue playing like there’s nothing wrong. Which I did. Having managed all 8 notes the second time through, the rest of the group joined in and we had a more or less uneventful performance from then on.

As I listened to the other bands I realized that most people made some sort of mistake during their performance. Some were more noticeable than others, but none were fatal to the outcome. It reminded me that music is an art-form that must be performed. You can look at the notes on a page and have some idea of how it might sound but until it is actually played by musicians – mistakes and all – it is lifeless. It is in the playing and interpretation that it gains life.

Even my band-mates in the Hot Sardines have miscues: The tap dancer sat thrashing in his chair through a half-bar when he should have had the lead. So it gives me comfort to know that, as I practice for next years performance with them at Koerner Hall, my best is good enough. I will never be error free. That’s part of what makes performing music so exciting.

April 2: A friend recently started an on-line course for creative photography using his Apple iPhone. It has been fun watching his skill improve and see the results of his effort. As he got better, he started posting batches of pictures to Facebook, and actually developed a devoted following. I realized that, if I was to continue to see his work, I would need to consider joining as well.

To say the least: I was reluctant, but after some thought, I decided to take the plunge. On entering the site I was asked for a bunch of personal information which would presumably be used to “make my experience more enjoyable”. Data related to age and sex, schools I attended, where I worked and a personal photo were all sought, and ignored. Once I became a member, I was asked to download Messenger and started to receive news items and advertising that looked suspiciously like some things I had already seen on my own searches. I got a long list of “friends” already on the site – some that I had not seen for many years and for good reason –  and asked to “like” them so that we could chat on Facebook.

After a couple of days on the site, the story of the Cambridge Analytica data hack broke in the news. A small avalanche of stories appeared in the papers about the subtle effects of electronic devices on our daily lives, and more specifically, the loss of privacy on-line. They pointed out that people now use their cell phones to capture an image of a place or an event, rather than taking the time to experience the place or event first-hand, and to then take an image as a reminder. On-line groups of friends have replaced actual live friends, and their “like” provides an endorphin hit that becomes mildly addictive. Like-minded communities become insular and inward-looking, receiving a stream of information tailored to their viewpoint. More extreme views were often reinforced with feeds from dubious sources.

Much of this was not news to me; it mirrored my view of many of the sites most of my friends used. My photographer friend often said that he spent several hours a day on electronic media including Facebook and Instagram. While I sometimes felt like a bit of a Luddite for not being more active on-line, I had no desire to follow his example and shortly thereafter, I uninstalled Facebook.

In reaching that decision I needed to balance the convenience of having access to my friend’s pictures against the obvious incursions into my privacy and personal data sought by on-line sources. I am already very aware of being tracked, and the potential for loss of privacy or worse, and being on sites like Facebook only seemed to magnify those threats. While I will continue to use this site to share my miscellaneous ramblings (with the security ratcheted down as tight as I can get it), I’m off Facebook. I’ll need to find another way to enjoy my friend’s photography.

Perhaps.

The crows and cardinals, and red-winged blackbirds have all migrated back.

I’m still waiting on the first rabbit of the year to appear in the courtyard.

There are shoots appearing in the garden which hold the promise of these blooms, shot in my neighbourhood grocery store.

The days are getting longer, and the quality of the light brighter and stronger, yet the temperature remains a solid 5 degrees below “normal” – whatever that might be in these days of climate change.

So I remain hopeful that Spring will appear for real when we pass the vernal equinox this week. I can only hope it’s soon.

March 18: George Carlin, one of my favourite comedians, used to do a monologue about stuff: the stuff we own; the stuff we collect; how we store our stuff; how we ultimately become prisoners to our stuff. It was very funny, and very insightful.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my stuff. When I moved 3 years ago, I was forced to go through my stuff and decide which pieces went with me, and which would be jettisoned or left behind. There was a certain amount of stuff thrown out or recycled, and most of my paintings remained in Marisa’s basement. So I moved here with a relatively small burden of stuff. Yet it has continued to grow.

The problem is that we tend to define who we are by our stuff. The house or condo we own, the clothes we wear, the car we drive all make a statement about our personality. It’s hard to imagine a life without a collection of stuff. That said, I am finding that stuff that was important to me at one stage of my life, is less important, or perhaps even irrelevant right now. For example, everyone has a collection of books. They got read at some point in time, and were kept because they were entertaining or insightful. They look good on the shelf, but in most cases, they never get opened again. I have three shelves of books that I haven’t opened in recent memory. Why keep them ?

And so the question becomes: how do I decide what stuff to keep, and what stuff to pitch out ? I recently heard someone say that we should only retain the stuff that has emotional resonance in our lives. The rest is clutter – stuff we can do without. So the crystal vase I was given by the Etobicoke staff when I got married is a keeper; the glass decanters that look good on the sideboard are recyclable.

It’s an interesting perspective, and one that I am using to consider cleaning house. That may be more difficult than I think. After all, I kept this stuff when I moved because I felt some level of emotional response to it. Yet it has recently begun feeling redundant and superfluous to my life, so the time feels right to begin the process of assessing my stuff to try and reduce the overburden of stuff I carry. It is a job best approached with perspective and a sense of humour. I think George would be gratified.

February 19: It seems that each day brings new allegations of sexual misconduct by actors, businessmen or politicians. While it is obviously necessary and appropriate to address these charges, there are aspects of the whole movement that leave me a bit uncomfortable.

To be clear: Sexual assault is assault and it is a crime no matter when it occurred. What I am considering here are the seemingly more frequent and nuanced interactions that include harassment, inappropriate or unwanted touching and comments. These seem to me to be on a sliding scale of severity and the intent needs to be closely examined. When does a supportive arm across the shoulders after a bad day become unwanted contact ?

Many of these events happened decades ago. When I look back on my own life, I am painfully aware of how misguided some of my opinions and actions would look if viewed through the lens of today’s values and mores. There were times when my behaviour toward particular women would be called inappropriate if judged by todays’ values. At the time, (we’re talking the 70’s and 80’s here), love ’em and leave ’em was much more prevalent and understood, at least by my own demographic. Yet viewed through todays value system, some people would see my actions as something more sinister than exploring sexuality. Values change and I’m not sure that we can use the values of today to understand the actions of the past.

If I was, in fact, confronted by my past, I wonder how I could respond. Most of the men charged in these cases have denied their accusers, yet it seems that they have already been found guilty and charged. The mere fact of the accusation makes it true in many minds. And if those charges are ultimately proven to be unfounded, I wonder if those men won’t remain tainted by them.

And how do we resolve these charges when they arise ? Absent criminal charges, which may be difficult to lay after years have elapsed, I believe that the only route available is civil action through the courts. I know from experience that litigation is by definition an adversarial process. It is combat. There are winners and losers and sadly, the truth may be a loser. The casting of doubt to eliminate the certainty of the charge can lead to many difficult and uncomfortable perspectives on the same event. What really happened, or was understood to have happened, can be less clear than we thought. “Reasonable doubt” arises. We need look no further than the Jian Ghomeshi case to understand how the system fails women.

It seems to me that most of these encounters arise from an environment where men held power and felt able to exercise that power to abuse others without repercussions. In a way, I find that odd because my entire employed life was spent working with, and for, women. During the last 25 years at the City, most of my Managers, Directors and Commissioners were women, so I became very comfortable with women in power. It was understood that they were equals, or better, and I can’t imagine any of them putting up with inappropriate conduct. Perhaps when there are more women in power, men will be less inclined to behave poorly.

January 19: I never really liked birthdays when I was a kid. I hated being the centre of attention and, to me, that’s what birthdays were all about: opening gifts while everyone watched; making appropriate approving noises at yet another pair of socks and so, for the most part, I have effectively avoided celebrating my birthday for many years.

This past week, I went to a small birthday celebration for one of my running buddies who is the same age as me. Over the last few years, he’s advanced from 5 km runs to completing his first marathon. Another friend in the same running group now has 2 marathons under his belt and is training for a third. He’s in his seventies. One of the younger women who run with us said that she found it inspiring that the “older guys” were running faster than most of the folks in the clinic, and while that’s a bit of a backhanded compliment – “You’re looking better since your face cleared up…” I took it as it was intended, and with some quiet satisfaction.

Both of these guys are role models for me. They are active in fitness outside of running. One volunteers at a shelter; the other is a great chef who loves swapping recipes. Both have many interests and are involved with lots of people. All of this reinforces the old cliché about being as old as you think you are.

My Mum passed away last Spring at 94. She was strong and in good health until the last two weeks of her life. She walked a lot and sang in a choir most weeks. As we cleared out her stuff, we came across a small bundle of death notices carefully cut from the newspaper. They included friends, relatives (4 sisters), members of the choir in which she sang and residents of the building where she lived. As I looked through this melancholy memorabilia, it seemed to me that she was literally the last of her generation left standing. How must it feel to look around and realize that you are alone, at least as it applies to life-long friends and contemporaries ?

From my own self-centered perspective, these questions have increasing relevance as my generation moves more rapidly than I would like down the great conveyor belt of life toward the sudden drop at the end. My friends and family are intact, at least for now, but we don’t know how long that might be true. My end is inevitable, and perhaps all I can do for now is to emulate my running buddies, run like hell and try to stay as interested and active in my life as I can. With luck, I too may live to 94 and have dozens of birthdays left to avoid.