Looking For The Positive in Canada’s 2019 Election

I am a regular columnist for a regional Manitoba newspaper called The Carillon.  Several weeks ago a fellow writer for the paper penned his entire column about why Canadians should definitely not cast their vote for Justin Trudeau in the upcoming election. That column inspired me to attempt something different. Despite my own clear and established political preferences could I look at the major candidates and parties and find something positive to say about each of them? Canadians have consistently rated Elizabeth May of the Green Party the most ethical and trusted party leader in the country. She wants to bring more civility and collegiality across party lines to the House of Commons. I am so glad a woman is running for prime minister. It is high time Canada had an elected female prime minister especially in 2019 when every provincial leader is male. No other party takes climate change as seriously as the Greens, but they also have concrete plans for improving the lives of Canadians in areas like housing, LGBTQ rights, justice, and health care. Elizabeth May has a theology degree and the United Nations has named her one of the world’s leading environmentalists for her work as a politician, author, and environmental lawyer.
Andrew Scheer of the Conservative Party has a wealth of political experience. He was elected to the House of Commons in 2006, 2008 and 2011. He was the Speaker of the House for four years. Scheer’s party has promised $1.5 billion to buy more MRI and CT machines for medical facilities. This is important to many Canadians. As someone who rides the bus almost daily, I appreciate the Conservative initiative to provide a tax credit for folks who buy passes for public transportation. Before he entered politics Andrew Scheer worked as a waiter. I waitressed my way through university so I know few professions teach you as much about human nature. That knowledge would serve a prime minister well.

According to a recent article in the Atlantic magazine Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party has kept 92% of his 2015 campaign promises, the most by any Canadian government in 35 years. He has instituted a carbon tax, a strategy more than 3000 economists have endorsed as an effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Under Justin Trudeau’s leadership in 2018, Canada settled more refugees than any other country in the world. Statistics Canada reports that the child poverty rate in our country has declined thanks to the child benefit instituted by the Liberal government in 2016. Justin Trudeau appointed the first gender-equal cabinet in Canada and presently the jobless rate in our country is the lowest it has been since 1976. It sounds like in many ways Justin Trudeau has done a very good job.
Jagmeet Singh’s New Democratic Party has detailed plans for instituting national pharmacare, childcare, and dental care programs. These are vital services. One has to admire the poised professional way Mr. Singh responded to racist comments he received recently while campaigning in Montreal. Mr. Singh’s autobiography Love and Courage describes how he rose above a challenging childhood to become a respected criminal lawyer and member of the Ontario legislature. In a CBC interview, Jagmeet Singh gave many examples of older male House of Commons representatives in the New Democratic Party stepping aside to allow young women to run for office and then lending these new candidates their support. This kind of change is of great importance in Canadian politics. 
Although we all have our own convictions about which leader and party would be best for Canada I think it is helpful to acknowledge that all our leaders have some positive qualities and each party has some plans and promises we can applaud. In a campaign that has sometimes been far too negative, we might do well to think of something positive we could say about each person who has made the sacrifices needed and had the strong convictions required, to run for political office. 

15 Reasons I Am Thankful to Live in Canada

I am thankful to live in a country where………….

Posing with statues of  female suffragettes in Quebec City

I can vote to elect my leaders

I don’t have to worry about health care costs

Marching in the Pride Parade in Steinbach. Photo credit- Grant Burr

People are free to marry the person they love

There hasn’t been a war in my lifetime

Diversity is celebrated

Window at my church

 I have the freedom to worship as I please

Women have the right to make the choice about what happens to their bodies

Capital punishment has been abolished

Waterfall in Cox’s Cove Newfoundland

There is a wealth of natural resources 

There is a good education system

Prairie grasses in the park at the end of my street

There is gorgeous scenery 

We have world-renowned writers, musicians, artists and actors

We have sensible gun laws

We give parents leave to stay home with their newborns

We allow people to die with dignity

Sitting in the speaker’s chair in the House of Commons Canada

On Thanksgiving Day I am thankful to live in Canada. 

Other posts………

Thanksgiving and the Kitchen Table

Pumpkins For Sale

Giving Thanks

The Dionne Quintuplets

I remember my mother telling me she had played with Dionne quintuplet paper dolls when she was a little girl and so when I saw the book The Quintland Sisters by Shelley Wood I thought it would be a good way to find out more about the set of famous Canadian quintuplets who were media stars in my mother’s time.

I waited until I had finished reading the novel before I looked online to discover what had eventually happened to the famous Dionne quintuplets. The Quintland Sisters is historical fiction and chronicles the first five years of the little girls’ lives through the eyes of a young midwife’s assistant named Emma.

The Dionne quintuplets with Dr. Dafoe who delivered them

The quintuplets were born in 1934 in rural Ontario and are believed to be the first set complete of quintuplets to ever survive infancy. The girls became wards of the government and were kept in isolation in an institution built especially for them.  Millions of people came to see them through a one-way glass as they played outside each day. They were studied by all kinds of medical experts.  Movie stars and politicians visited them.  They even met the king and queen.

The quintuplets at age 4

A bevy of commercial deals and three Hollywood movies brought in millions of dollars for the Canadian government, the quintuplets’ parents, and Dr. Dafoe, the physician who delivered them and was appointed to supervise their care.  Eventually, their parents won the right to take them back into their own home and join their other eight siblings. The novel suggests that experience was less than ideal.

Reading stories about the surviving quints online one discovers that their parents physically and sexually abused them. They left home at eighteen and broke off all contact with their parents. The five sisters had rather tragic lives. In a CBC documentary, they admit their dysfunctional childhoods did not equip them for adult life and that resulted in unhappy marriages and troubling relationships with their own children. Only two of the five quintuplets still survive. 

The book The Quintland Sisters is fictional but contains many actual newspaper articles about the quintuplets so you can read the historical information on which the book is based.

I really liked Emma, the main character in the novel, who cares for the quintuplets in their early years. You can see how she develops as a person and an artist.  But I wasn’t happy with the ending of the book where the author uses a series of letters to tie up all the loose ends from the plot.  I felt cheated out of hearing the actual story of Emma’s life after she leaves her job caring for the quintuplets.  

The two surviving quintuplets Cecile and Annette

The Quintland Sisters is an interesting read and provides another perspective on the history making story of the Dionne quintuplets. 

Other posts……….

Wushu Twins

Siblings

Sisters

Edna May Brower- The Other Mrs. Diefenbaker

Last week a columnist, Michael Zwaagstra, who writes for the same newspaper I do, described the unforgettable legacy of Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. I have no doubt, as Mr. Zwaagstra contends, that John Diefenbaker made some important contributions to our country. However, he remains an unforgettable character to me for two very different reasons.

My younger brother had a difficult time pronouncing the Prime Minister’s name, so when we were children he always called him Mr. Beef and Bacon. In our family that’s how we came to refer to Mr. Diefenbaker.  Mr. Beef and Bacon is still the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the name of Canada’s thirteenth Prime Minister. The second reason Mr. Diefenbaker is unforgettable for me is because in 1986 I read a book written by Simma Holt called The Other Mrs. Diefenbaker.  It was the biography of John Diefenbaker’s first wife Edna May Brower.  John married her in 1929 and Edna died of leukemia in 1951.

John Diefenbaker and his second wife Olive with American President John Kennedy and his wife Jackie.

In 1953 John got married for a second time to Olive Diefenbaker and never mentioned his first wife again. Author Simma Holt claims that when Diefenbaker wrote his memoirs he did not even record his twenty-two-year marriage to Edna May. He only added a statement about it at the urging of his advisors who said his autobiography would lack authenticity if he did not.

Edna May is buried with John’s parents and brother

John did not pay for a cemetery plot for Edna but buried her with his mother and father. According to many sources, Edna and John’s mother did not get along at all.

Why did John act this way towards his first wife after she had died?   Did he just miss her so desperately that he dared not speak of her? Did he want his second wife to be absolutely certain of his devotion to her? He had briefly dated his second wife Olive a few years before he met Edna.

The first Mrs. Diefenbaker, Edna May Brower was born in Wawanesa, Manitoba.  She was vivacious and outgoing and worked as a schoolteacher in Saskatoon before her marriage.  John had run for political office unsuccessfully many times but with the friendly and personable Edna May at his side, he finally won a seat in Parliament. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says that Edna May offset John’s rather dour presence with her warmth and spontaneity.

Edna threw herself into advancing her husband’s political career, editing his speeches, acting as his chauffeur and helping him overcome his shyness. She would visit towns on the campaign trail in advance of her husband to gather valuable information before he arrived. She had a regular seat in the House of Commons’ Visitors Gallery and facilitated a warm relationship between her husband and the press.

Edna suffered from some mental health issues for a number of years.  Author Simma Holt suggests this was as a result of Edna discovering that her husband had been unfaithful to her. In the last decade or so two men have come forward claiming to be John Diefenbaker’s illegitimate sons. Despite Edna’s protests, John had Edna institutionalized and authorized electric shock treatments for her. During Edna’s terminal battle with cancer, John remained faithfully at her side. Several Members of Parliament rose to pay tribute to Edna’s contributions to the country after her death in 1951. This was an unprecedented honor for a Canadian who was not an official member of the House.

Learning about John Diefenbaker’s intelligent and gifted first wife and his intriguing relationship with her, is part of what has made him an unforgettable historical figure for me.

Other posts………..

Why Are Most Canadian Prime Ministers Old White Men? 

Agnes McDonald’s Railroad Adventure

I Sat in the Speaker’s Chair

An Ancient Sacred Site- Do You Know What Petroforms Are?

We spent Saturday night at our friends’ Jan and Mitch’s cottage at Jessica Lake. Sunday morning we headed out to Bannock Point with them to take a guided tour of a petroform site estimated to be around two thousand years old. We were surprised when our friends from church Carol and Vern and Marge and John showed up. They have a cottage at a nearby Brereton Lake and Marge was the one who told me about the Bannock Point tour. Our guide Adam said the Anishinabe people still consider the site a sacred one and continue to hold ceremonies there. He asked that we treat the site with the same kind of respect we would afford any place of worship. Our first stop was at a rock where people leave offerings of shells, bundles of tobacco, sweetgrass and many other things as a way to pay tribute to the spirits while coming and going from the site. Adam had brought along some tobacco for us to sprinkle on the offering rock if we wanted to. We saw many prayer ties in the trees. Adam told us the colorful pieces of material tied to the branches represented people’s prayers.  At the end of the season, an Anishinabe elder collects them and burns them sending the prayers they represent to the creator spirit.  

Petroforms are features formed by the careful placement of stones to create the outlines of figures or shapes.  The first kind of form we looked at was called a power line. Adam suggested it might represent a story or a song with each stone a chapter or verse.  It might also symbolize a person’s life with each stone representing an important event in that life. Our next stop was at a turtle formation.  Adam told us the familiar Anishinabe creation story about Turtle Island but he also said the turtle formation served a practical purpose since the head of the turtle pointed to the nearest lake.  Following the head of this turtle formation would lead you straight to Heart Lake. Snake formations, like this one, provide directions to rivers and this one’s head points to the Whiteshell River which would have been the route people used to visit this site before the highways into the Whiteshell were built as a ‘make work’ project for unemployed men during the Great Depression. This formation is a woman giving birth to a child. Adam told us that sometimes the stones in a formation can be moved by animals or weather elements and also by vandals who might visit the site. Anishinabe elders are consulted about whether to replace the rocks in their original positions or not. Ceremonies are still held regularly at the Bannock Point site including ceremonies for murdered and missing indigenous women.  This red dress has become a symbol of the movement which tries to find a measure of justice and peace for the families who have experienced this grief. Although Adam had told us not to touch the rocks he said we could touch this Grandmother Rock. Many people come to this rock to pray. Adam also showed us some of the newer petroforms like this medicine wheel with arms pointing in all four directions. Our last stop was this more secluded spot. Adam said there are those who believe ‘little people’ live here. They come out at night to fix any of the petroforms that may have been disturbed.“Those granite rocks are billions of years old,” Adam told my friend Marge as she posed atop one of them. 

I was so glad Marge had told me about this interesting site, a great place to learn more about the religion and culture of the Anishinabe people who came to the Whiteshell long before we cottagers and vacationers discovered it.  

Other posts………..

Zion National Park- A Place of Worship

Aboriginal Spirituality

Giants Elves and Jules Verne

 

Canada A Country For All Seasons

Winter skiing with my family in Banff Alberta

Winter 1956 -Playing outside with my friend MaryJane in Winnipeg Manitoba

Winter skating on the Red River in Winnipeg

Spring visit with my 96-year-old aunt under a birch tree in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Reveling in the spring sun with my girlfriends at Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg

Spring walk in a trillium forest with my sister-in-law in Leamington Ontario

Summer kayaking and whale watching with a fun group in Johnstone Strait British Columbia 

Doing the limbo on the golf course in summer with my nephews in Leamington Ontario

Summer day on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario

Fall exploration of the Tablelands in Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland

Fall hike with family at Point Pelee Ontario

Strolling through the gorgeous fall colors in Quebec

On Canada Day it’s great to remember that you can have a good time in every season in every part of Canada.

Other Canada Day posts………

Canada Day at the Forks

Canada Day in Leamington Ontario

I Could Cry I’m So Happy To Be A Canadian

Vision and Voice

Arthur Slade, David Robertson, and Miriam Körner are some of the most successful children’s writers in Canada right now.  Between them, they have published a raft of books and have won all kinds of awards.  I listened to them last night as they shared their vision and voice in a discussion at a Saskatoon conference for children’s writers. Their exchange of ideas was led by Alice Kuipers a children’s writer who helped to organize the conference. 

Arthur and David listen as Miriam talks about her writing motivation

It was interesting to note what motivates each writer. Miriam is passionate about Canada’s north and loves sled dogs and sled dog racing.  In her books, she is trying to share that passion with others.  

Arthur told us his latest book Crimson was written especially for his daughter who he and his wife adopted from China in 2010. He wanted to create an authentic story for her.

David talked about trying to be an example for young indigenous writers. He wants them to feel that they too have powerful stories they can share. 

As you can see the discussion wasn’t all serious. Alice and her panelists were having a good time.

When Alice asked each writer to talk about how they present themselves to the world Miriam laughed and said she would rather not have to think about presenting herself to the public.  She wishes her books would speak for themselves and she could just spend all her time in her cabin in the bush in La Ronge Saskatchewan with her husband and sixteen sled dogs.  

Arthur talked about the persona he needs to maintain on social media and how it is hard to balance the work that involves, with his need to find space and time for writing.

David shared his thoughts about wanting to present himself as an indigenous writer. He hasn’t always embraced that role but realizes there are many things Canadians need to know about his culture.

Why does each author choose to write for young people rather than adults?

Miriam writes books for young teens because she thinks that is such a crucial time in their lives when everything begins to change for them and the world they had taken for granted suddenly looks so different. Many young people believe they can change the world and Miriam wants to capture those youthful voices in her writing.

Arthur told us he fell into writing for kids accidentally.  He was writing adult novels and someone evaluating one of his manuscripts told him it would be a great teen or young adult novel.

David says he writes for kids because he wants to have some input into shaping the children who will be our leaders of tomorrow.  He thinks about what he wants young people to carry with them so they can create a different reality for our country and the world. What will his books teach them?

The Vision and Voice panel was a great way to kick off the conference and really got attendees thinking about their own motivations, public persona and why they have chosen to write for young people.  

Other posts……….

Reading Pictures

A Top Ten List From a Top Notch Speaker

Writers All Around