Theoria » Lanark County

Canada Election (2011) Reprise

Craig — Sat, 07 May 2011 19:02:12 +0000

Previously I posted a copy of an email that I sent to local candidates running in Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox-and-Addington and the party leaders in hopes determining how and if I should vote. Based upon the responses or, more accurately, the lack thereof, it seems as though no one wanted me to vote for them. I assuming it is saying something about the politicians and not something about me. I found this especially surprising in a largely rural riding comprising a giant swath of land running from just outside Ottawa, all the way down to Kingston, and then some distance to the west past Napanee. All of the candidates, in newspaper articles and so on, made a big deal about how large the riding is and how hard it is to get in touch with constituents: doesn’t e-mail (where available, of course, because many homes do not have internet and satellite internet remains expensive) seem like an ideal way to do exactly what they say is impossible to do?

While I didn’t vote for either of them, I’d like to thank David Remington (Liberal) for replying to my email within twenty-four hours and Doug Smyth (NDP) for replying to my email a few days after that. Unfortunately, neither of them convinced me that I should vote for them personally or for their parties more generally. This means that the haughty incumbent and libertarian nutjob, Scott Reid (Conservative, formally Canadian Alliance, formally Reform) didn’t bother to reply at all (maybe he was too busy setting up a witch-hunt of academics deemed to be insufficiently politically correct due to a lack of repeated demonstrations of unconditional support for Israel?), and neither did John Baranyi (Green), which is a shame because he runs a local company that produces, among other things, frozen vegan meals–a bit expensive, but fairly good–and the Green Party likely has the best platform for animals (even if it remains thoroughly welfarist).

With respect to the federal leaders, I only received a response from Brianne No-last-name, someone who does communications and media relations for the Green Party. She apologized that Elizabeth May could not respond personally, but she felt confident that her answers were the same as those that May would have given. Of all the replies (admittedly, a small sample!), hers was the most detailed, but it took the longest to arrive. But, in her defense, the Green Party general email account likely receives more correspondence than that of Scott Reid. Perhaps it was sufficient to convince me to vote Green, if not for Baranyi failing to reply to my questions. (Not that it would matter: the Reform/Alliance/Conservatives could run a scarecrow out here and still win; I leave it to the readership to determine if Scott Reid bears any resemblance to such a scarecrow.)

As everyone knows by now, the election concluded with mixed results: a Conservative/Reform majority and a strong mandate for the nominally social democratic NDP as official opposition. The extent to which the NDP surge is a result of a nascent social democratic sentiment as opposed to a protest against Bloq remains to be determined, although the Bloq, on the whole, had strong social democratic leanings prior to its internal combustion. The Quebec separatist party (the one with, in my view, the most intelligent leader) burned up, as did the Michael Ignatieff led Liberal Party. (I hereby retract my post from 2005 making fun of him and giving him the title of the Future Ruler of Canada, although it is now somewhat ironic given the outcome–it’d be nice of people stopped linking to it in comments to the Globe & Mail, CBC, Toronto Star, and National Post comments.) Don’t worry about Ignatieff as he has already secured a tenured position at the University of Toronto making him the academic with the shortest time on the job market in the history of the world: roughly twenty-four hours (sooner had he resigned the night of the election). Hopefully he’ll be sufficiently guilt-ridden that he’ll stop writing terrible books on why sometimes you just gotta torture the shit out of people in the name of human rights and invade countries leading to the direct and indirect deaths of hundreds of thousands in the name of humanitarianism and go back to writing fairly competent and interest books (such as his A Just Measure of Pain, which I often use in teaching–although my students are often extremely upset that Ignatieff didn’t do the research to find out what the game “rolly-polly” involved in mid-eighteen century British prisons).

Fortunately, post-secondary education is a matter of provincial responsibility and the federal government will not have much direct impact upon it in the next few years (unless they really mess with the transfer payments system). But, this means that universities will see fewer capital projects, such as the non-stop building of luxury apartments for undergraduates. On balance, this is a good thing. The already limited healthcare services we have in Canada will, no doubt, suffer. Prisons, the military, and big businesses (especially oil and banking) will be the big winners, and, to a lesser extent, rich Canadians. More rabid members of the Conservatives, those deriving from Reform roots, will no doubt push insane private members bills with the tacit support of the Prime Minister calling for the criminalization of abortion, the abolishing of gay marriage, and other social conservative classics.

Canadian Election (2011)

Craig — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 00:52:31 +0000

From time to time, like most citizens, I correspond with my elected representatives; for instance, to encourage them to vote one way or another (e.g., against back-to-work legislation in the case of the York University TA strike). This is largely ineffectual: I live in an extremely conservative riding (Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington), both provincially and federally, and my elected representatives have little or no interest in the issues I find important. That’s why they are members of an established conservative party and I am not.

This year, I’ve decided to ask each candidate (John Baranyi, Scott Reid, David Remington, Doug Smyth)and leader from the major parties (viz., Conservative, Green, Liberal, New Democratic) to explain to me why I should vote for them (or anyone at all). I’ve narrowed my issues down to four: animals, healthcare, environment, and post-secondary education. I prefaced my questions stating that sending party literature easily obtainable online would be deemed a non-response and indicative of them having no interest in communicating with potential constituents. I also asked them what they would do immediately (within one year) and within one term (i.e., four years) to make a significant difference in each of these areas.

I’m not confident that I will get a serious reply from a single candidate or leader–why should anyone expect a serious answer when the Prime Minister refuses to answer more than five questions a day? When the governing party refuses to attend all candidates meetings? When the leader of the Official Opposition reduces his campaign to the level of Facebook comments? When a party running a candidate in every riding is not permitted to participate in televised debates but a party only running candidates in a single province is? I’ll post replies (should I get any) as they arrive.

What will you do to concretely improve the lives of animals in Canada? Please do not answer with food or agricultural policy. I am not interested in what you will do for farmers or for low-income Canadians who do not have regular access to nutritional food; I am interested in what you will do for animals.
What will you do to concretely improve the healthcare system? That is, why would someone without regular access to a family doctor, dental services and supplemental health insurance deem your healthcare policy acceptable.
What will you do to concretely improve the post-secondary education system? That is, why should students, professors, and parents deem your education policy acceptable.
What will you do to concretely improve the condition of the environment? That is, what will you do to ensure that the air we breathe and the water we drink is cleaner one year and four years from now than it is at present.

I also sent the following question to local candidates:

A last question: having lived in Perth for six years now and seen two municipal, two provincial and two federal elections, why hasn’t a single candidate in any election ever come to my door asking for my support?

He pays taxes

Craig — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:19:00 +0000

I wish I had something interesting and insightful to say, but I don’t. I was at Canadian Tire today getting an oil change and having my headlight bulbs replaced and, while sitting in the waiting room reading Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social (I’m not particularly impressed thus far, by the way), an old man – most likely a farmer – sits down two seats from me. His (presumably) wife sits down along the opposite wall. After awhile, the man says to me (I think), “Is that book from the library?” I said, “Yes, but it isn’t from the library in town. I got it from a library in the city.” He replied, “So it is a city-book?” I wasn’t sure what he meant, so I said, “I got it from the university.” I think he asked next if I was a student. Technically, of course, I am but lay-people tend not to understand the arcane and esoteric distinctions we make between degrees and how far along we are within those degrees. I told him that I was a professor. “Good,” he said. He continued, “My son went to the university. In Guelph.” I smiled and nodded not knowing what to say. I was hoping the conversation was over. It wasn’t.

Taking me, apparently, for an authority and one who would confirm his worst suspicions, he said to me, “Our country is going down, isn’t it?” I wasn’t sure what he meant. He went on, “The French are taking over. You know, a hundred years ago, we didn’t have bilingual signs. People spoke whatever language they wanted and got along fine.” More accurately, a hundred years ago we didn’t have paved roads and cars – there really weren’t any signs beyond the most rudimentary: “Kingston: That way” or whatever. But he was technically correct – whatever signs there were, were most likely in English. Hoping that the conversation was now over, I smiled and nodded.

Unfortunately, the conversation was not yet over. “You can’t get a job in the government without bilingualism. You have to be French.” I calmly said, “That isn’t the case.” He replied, somewhat agitated, “That isn’t what they tell me.” I’m not sure who this ‘they’ was. But, he had the answer, “They [he meant the French, this time] run Ontario from Ottawa, you know, if you’re English you can’t get a job. Just go to Hull [he likely meant a complex like Place des Portages].” I replied, again, “This is not the case. You have been misinformed.” He said, quite insistently, “They are taking over the country.”

At this point it was clear that he wasn’t going to let the conversation go and I really wanted to finish that chapter from Latour’s book before the work was done. (I have to return the book next week.) So I told him that I didn’t want to speak to him because I found him offensive. He said, “Offensive? You find me offensive.” I said, “Yes. I would prefer not to speak to you.” He answered, “I don’t care about your brother in law.” I said, again, “Please stop talking to me.”

But he had me. Boy did he ever! He had the trump card. To no one in particular he more or less yelled, “I pay taxes! I pay taxes! And a lot of them! I pay taxes.”

Awhile later he shuffled out trying to stare me down.

Dog Walk

Craig — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:05:28 +0000

Some apparently wild asparagus found while walking the dogs along the Tay River in Perth. Pictures taken with the phone, so they aren’t the best! At first I thought to myself, “Wow, that’s a giant blade of grass.” Turns out it wasn’t. In all we found five separate plants.

Winter Preparations

Craig — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:50:50 +0000

The first batch of wood from earlier in the summer, primarily from a maple cut down for construction near the cottage. Fortunately I had a mechanical wood chopper for that one – until I smashed a finger on my right hand between a large part of the tree trunk and the machine itself.

That’s Mickey in the background helping me cut wood. Despite his advanced age, he enjoys helping with the chores.

After a few breaks, we finally get about 80% of the wood done. Mind you, the dogs have long since left me alone. Shortly after taking this picture, I’ll cut into one log and it will have an ant nest in it, which will explode everywhere.

Hopefully I’ll finish chopping the rest of it tomorrow morning and get it all piled. Need to clear the driveway so I can go to the grocery store. And, of course, once this load is done, there’s more to haul back – a birch fell down in a recent storm and I need to get rest of that other tree.

Meanwhile, the southern hemisphere prepares for spring.

Three Short Notes

Craig — Sat, 06 May 2006 17:44:12 +0000

(1) After writing extensively about Igge’s mystery illness (likely hemobartenollosis), Mickey and Minnie (the dogs) have requested that I write about their nausea of more or less unknown origins. Last week, Minnie managed to throw up her breakfast and dinner, right down to the yellow stomach bile. A few days later, Mickey repeated the problem, although his yellow stomach bile was much thicker, possibly because, on average, he drinks less water than Minnie. Most impressive in Mickey’s illness was his being completely asleep on the couch while we were watching TV, waking up, looking around the room quickly, and then puking all over the place. Extremely gross. After taking Minnie off food for twenty-four hours, she recovered. We weren’t as concered for her because she’s already on antibiotics for her skin allergies. Mickey also went off food for twenty-four hours and then — breaking with being vegetarians — I bought him a half pound of ground beef and a box of minute rice and weened him back onto solid food. We couldn’t do that for Minnie because we aren’t sure which protein it is that causes her allergies. All we know is that soy doesn’t cause an allergic reaction in her, so soy based food is what she eats. They have since both recovered. Speaking of Minnie’s allergies, something I did not write about here, about a month and a half ago, she had a severe outbreak that led — rather disgustingly — to open sores on her stomach and ass and neck. The bad areas had to be shaven down and she went back into her cone. The antibiotics have cleared up the wounds (although the ass inflamation is taking the longest to go away — hence the second course of antibiotics) and the steroids have kept them from returning, as has her new food. Our current theory of the illness’ origin is that they drank dirty water from the Tay River after a storm, thus it was filled with dirty run-off.

(2) Feeling much better, on an adventure yesterday, we stumbled upon an ancient barn. Not especially “stumbled” upon as it was an attraction of sorts at a provincial park, but I wasn’t aware of its existence. We, that is, Blythe and I, parked the car and got out to look at it. As always, we forgot to bring the dogs’ leashes with us on our adventure, so we planned on being quick and leaving the dogs in the car. Mickey, however, had other ideas and managed to get out of the car before we closed the door, so, apparently, the dogs came with us. All that was left of the barn was its foundation, built entirely out of fieldstone. The extent walls were taller than me and the barn itself was quite sizeable — at least three times as large as the log house also on the site. While the construction itself was quite impressive (I highly doubt, for instance, that mini-mansions in the suburbs built by ‘professional’ building companies will still be standing, unlike the amature construction of the barn built with crude tools and materials a hundred and seventy years ago), I’ve always found the clearing of the fields far more impressive. In a sense, I can imagine the laborious construction of the barn and I can imagine the construction of the house, but I can’t imagine the clearing of the fields. How the hell do you, alone or with one or two sons and maybe a horse, clear ten or twenty acres of dense forest, turn the soil, a grow a crop? This feeling is even further amplified driving through Beckwith township, especially the ninth line, were the fields easily approach dimensions of kilometers by kilometers with the house and barns set back about nine hundred meters from the road. Unbelievable.

(3) My all but complete first comprehensive (I’m doing the final revisions this weekend) was judged, by one person, as “very well written” and, by another, as “boring and academic”. A third person suggests that my style resembles the style of the person who gave the positive evaluation and that the person giving the negative evaluation is just strange. I’m not sure what this third opinion means. More substantively, I was criticised for not making reference — at least overtly — to Hannah Arendt. Likely a fair criticism in a paper on “the social and the political”. Moving along, it occurs to me in retrospect that Schmitt has very little to say about “the social”.

Coyote

Craig — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 01:36:07 +0000

1919 was the year of the first confirmed sighting of a coyote in Ontario. Since then there has been speculation that many of the coyotes in eastern and southeastern Ontario are not ‘pure’ coyotes, but rather coyote-wolf hybrids (especially hybrids with the red wolf). The movement of the coyote into Ontario is a result of two factors: first, a decline in the wolf population due to concerted and focused campaigns of extermination that went hand-in-hand with the second, the clearing of the forests. This allowed the coyote to migrate north from its traditional pre-Columbian range, primarily in the American south.

Two winters ago, Mickey was outside for a pee at the cottage and a coyote happened to walk into the yard. They stood about five meters apart staring at one another, neither making a move. We happened to look out the window and saw Mickey staring down another dog, so we went outside to make sure Mickey didn’t cause any problems. (He likes to be the dominant dog.) At this point we realized it was a coyote and not a dog: we knew all the dogs in the area and it wasn’t one of them. Plus, it looked like a coyote and not a dog.About a year ago, I began hearing ‘reports’ (gossip, really) of an increase in population in the coyotes in the region. They had been known to pass through the area in the winter when most of the cottagers were in Ottawa or Toronto. They had been spotted along Old Perth Road near Frontenac Provincial Park (in Frontenac County) and I had seen one near Crosby (in Leeds County). But, best of all, in early last summer through the fall we occasionally saw an adult coyote and a puppy along Brighton-Houghton Bay Road (just below the intersection with Old Kingston Road), also in Leeds County. One day while we were driving along Briton-Houghton Bay Road, we happened upon the coyote and the pup; the pup, being silly, decided to flee the car by running along side the car down the road. Eventually the puppy turned off into the woods. Occasionally, about on a weekly basis, we’d see the coyote and pup along the road. Since the winter started, however, we have not seen the coyote or the pup. Today we were driving down the road and, just below the Moonlight Bay Campground, we came upon the coyote standing on the road. The coyote mosied on into the brush, back a hundred meters from the road, and looked at us with its ears up. After awhile the coyote turned around and walked off down a pathway. It wasn’t there when we returned about a half hour later, however, we saw two deer — a buck and a doe — on the way back.

Unfortunately, people have a tendency to dislike wolves and, because it is difficult to distinguish a wolf from a coyote (and, indeed, hybrids), coyotes get put into that poor group of oppressed animals. For instance, the Canadian Parks and Wildlife Society tells the story of one radio-collared wolf (part of the Algonquin wolf population under intensive study) who travelled from Algonquin Park to Gatineau Park, just north of Ottawa, and then back to Algonquin Park, where his head was found nailed to a telephone pole near Round Lake. (Readers will note that the wolf’s journey took him across the Ottawa River twice — not a small feat.) Consequently, coyotes are threatened by the same dangers as wolves; viz., assholes. These assholes are a combination of farmers who kill them as a nuissance and hunters who kill them to ‘hone their skills‘ during ‘fun, off-season hunting‘ (graphic images).For more information on the Eastern Coyote, see canids.org and CPAWS. Red Wolves [pdf] are endangered in Canada and the United States. For more on the efforts to save and protect the Algonquin Wolf, see algonquinwolves.ca.

Bridge Over the River Tay

Craig — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 22:26:19 +0000

As I approached the bridge over the River Tay on Drummond Street West, just below the famed Summit House and across from the house with the nicest stone bricks in Perth, I saw a man who was either Neil Young or the illustrious wood s lot standing in the drive way in front of his "garage gluation and scissorology scriptorium".

Woodcutter

Craig — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 01:33:31 +0000

I called a woodcutter today. I am out of wood. My source, from the cottage, is tapped out until more trees fall and I get around to cutting them. I had about half a cord left at the cottage, but it appears someone took it. That wasn’t very nice of them.

I asked the woodcutter, "How much am I likely to need? I’ve never bought wood before." He tells me about half cords and face cords. How long and how high they are. He tells me about the different types of wood and when he expects to get other types. He makes it clear he isn’t interested in delivering the wood even though his barn is about a kilometer and a half down the road. I can likely fit a full cord in my car anyway.

I asked the woodcutter again, "Yes, but how much do I need?" He still hadn’t answered that one. Finally he answered, "Depends how much wood you burn."

Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington

Craig — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:25:07 +0000

This post will serve as a dump for Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington election news and links as the silly campaign progresses culminating in a nearly-eternal return to the same on January 23, 2006. Nonetheless, the question is posed: as someone of the "extreme" or "radical" left (as we are known in the media), what do we do? Do we vote a center-left party? Do we vote at all? Do we spoil our ballot? Do we mock any candidate that may come to our door? Do we punch them? It is hard to say.

Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington
Riding Profile
Map
Results (The only significant result being that Scott Reid received more votes than all the other candidates combined. But this is hardly surprising: a rotten pumpkin leftover from Hallowe’en could have won the riding if it ran for the Conservative Party. I don’t mean to denigrate pumpkins, of course!)

Candidates
Jerry Ackerman, Canadian Action Party
Party
Phone: 613-375-8256

Helen Forsey, NDP
Riding Association
Party
Phone: 613-479-2453

Mike Nickerson, Green Party
Personal
Party

Ernest Rathwell, Esq., Marijuana Party
Personal
Party

Scott Reid, Reform Party (incumbent)
Personal
Riding Association
Party

Geoffrey ("Geoff") Turner, Liberal
Riding
Party
Phone: 613-302-8085

General
Elections Canada: The 39th General Election
Canada Votes 2006 (CBC)
Decision 2006 (Globe and Mail)
Election 2006: Christmas Election (Toronto Star)
Canada Votes (Ottawa Sun)
Decision Canada (Canada.com)