Discrimination

 

Discrimination

Discrimination.  You can almost sing it to the tune of Carley Simon’s hit ‘Anticipation’.

Discrimination is an ugly concept to me.  I cannot conceive of the idea that one person is superior or inferior than another.  I do not understand why one person or group of people would discriminate based on a person’s colour, ethnicity, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, country of origin, education, language, supposed place in society, profession, hair or eye colour, or anything else.  After all, every one of us is a human being, are we not?  So, why do people do it?  Despite violent attacks on groups of marginalized people (there have been more than 600 mass shootings in the US this year alone), most discrimination is fairly subtle and probably most people don’t know they are doing it.  Let me illustrate with this short story I wrote a while ago.

I’m Not Prejudiced

Sam Turnbull was not prejudiced.  If you asked him, he would have said, “I am not prejudiced against any colour or religious group.”  And Sam believed it.  But nonetheless Sam was very proud of his own heritage.

Samuel Josiah Turnbull, to give him his full name was proud of the fact that his ancestry in Canada went back to the pioneering days.  The first Josiah Turnbull had immigrated to Canada as a young man in 1820 and had worked for Colonel John By as a surveyor during the building of the Rideau Canal.  He married the daughter of one of the canal builders and had a family of seven children, one of whom formed the family line of Sam Turnbull.   Sam took his ancestry quite seriously and had traced his lineage right back to Josiah Turnbull’s parents.  Sam’s wife, Karen, said she sometimes felt like an unwelcome newcomer since her family had only immigrated to Canada in 1921 in the aftermath of World War One.  Sam made sure that his two children knew of their heritage in every detail.  He also frequently admonished them to avoid prejudice of any type.

A couple of years earlier, a new neighbour, a recent immigrant from Britain had move into the house across the street from Sam.  Their names were Charles and Penelope Beckwith.  Sam was ecstatic about the new neighbours both because the couple seemed to be real English gentlepeople and because they brought wonderful stories of Britain.  Sam and the new neighbour became very good friends.

Sam worked for the federal government as a middle manager.  He hoped one day get into the executive SX category.  But the going was slow.  One day a new person came into the same department as Sam.  Bobby Hall seemed a very nice and hard-working man seemingly in his mid-thirties, but Sam found it hard to tell the age of Afro-Canadians, which Bobby and his wife were.  Sam had barely spoken to Bobby, but one day he came up to Bobby and asked, “Are you one of those Somali’s that have been flooding city recently?”  Bobby was taken aback and wasn’t sure how to answer this.  Finally, he collected his thoughts and answered, “My parents are Canadian as am I.  In fact, my family came to Canada in the late 1700s as slaves in Nova Scotia.  When they were freed, they stayed in Nova Scotia.  In fact, my great-great-great grandfather was one of the first Canadian born winners of the Victoria Cross when he was a gunner in the Royal Navy[1].  I came to Ottawa to go to Ottawa University and stayed after I got my master’s degree.”  Sam was somewhat taken aback himself, particularly the fact that Bobby Hall’s family had been in Canada longer than his.

The house next door to Sam’s went up for sale.  Sam and Karen paid very close attention to people who came to view the house.  A couple from the Indian sub-continent seemed to be very interested in the house.  They had a number of children.  Sam could envision a strong smell of curry and spices permeating the neighbourhood. Charles seemed excited at the thought of Indian cooking saying it was a favourite in England where you could always find good food in Indian restaurants.  Sam wasn’t too sure.  As it transpired the couple did not buy the house and Sam was relieved.  But he reminded himself, he was not prejudiced.

The couple who did buy the house next door turned out to be full-blooded Algonquin aboriginals, Vic and Tina Proudfoot.  Vic had lived off the reserve since he was a child.  Tina had spent most of her life on a reserve in northern Ontario until she came south to go to Carleton University where she met Vic.  They were married right after they both graduated.  Sam was uncomfortable because all the stories he had heard about conditions on these reserves: run down houses; a large number of big dogs; guns and drugs; and dirty water.  He wondered if this was the way aboriginal people lived in the city.  He wasn’t prejudiced, he told himself, just concerned about his property value.  Vic and Tina turned out to be model neighbours.  Vic did a lot to fix up his house and garden and Tina kept her house spotless.  Sam had nothing to worry about.  Vic and Tina turned out to be very sociable and soon a significant friendship grew up between the two couples.

Sam wasn’t prejudiced but he was starting to think that there were a lot of new immigrants showing up everywhere.  He didn’t know how the country was going to be able to handles them all.  Were there enough jobs and were these people qualified for them?  Where would they live?  These immigrants were also different.  They weren’t from Europe anymore.  There was a new political party being talked about and Sam became interested.  He liked the things the party was saying about the dangers of too many immigrants.  But Sam found out the leader of the party was a French-Canadian and Sam couldn’t put up with that. 

The culmination came for Sam when a family of Syrian refugees bought the house two doors down the street from Sam’s house.  These were strangers who didn’t seem to know a word of English although they spoke a bit of French.  Sam didn’t know a thing about them, but he was upset at their arrival in his neighbourhood.  On the Saturday that the new folks were moving in, Sam was standing outside watching them.  Just then, Vic came up behind Sam and asked what was going on.  Sam used the occasion to launch into a tirade about these new neighbours and all of these immigrants that were pouring into the country.  Vic listened patiently until Sam had finished.  Vic then turned to Sam and said, “Now you know how my ancestors felt.”

Let’s not be Sam Turnbull.

 

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[1] William Hall, VC.  A Canadian gunner with the Royal Navy who fought in the Crimean War and the Indian Uprisings.

Housing Crisis

So, what part of the housing crisis are you more concerned about?  Are you worried about the middle class not being able to afford to buy or rent a house?  Are you concerned about young couples unable to get into the housing market?  Or are you concerned for the homeless getting shelter of any sort?  How about immigrants being able to find anywhere to live?  These are all facets of what is being billed as the housing crisis.

For example, this is the time of year when homeless people migrate to the west coast to places like Vancouver and Victoria to avoid freezing to death farther east.  This is not a new phenomenon.  I remember years ago when I lived in Victoria seeing people late in the evening huddled in store fronts along Douglas and Government Streets. 

But here is one thought about how we may alleviate some of these problems (remember there are not problems, there are only challenges).

In Pictou, Nova Scotia, there is a neighbourhood called Victory Heights.  It was built during the Second World War to house the influx of workers and their families who arrived in Pictou to work primarily in the local shipyard.  These houses were small, boxy little places largely constructed as prefabricated units.  In one form or another many are still there.  Go to almost any large or middle-class city in Canada and you will also see them.  In Peterborough, they were built to house mostly workers at the sprawling General Electric plant.  In Hamilton, it was for the steel plants and other defense industries.  And so it goes all across Canada.  All of these places were built between 1940 and 1944. Many of the remaining houses have been modernized and upgraded.  New brick or metal siding, added rooms. Some have even had a second stories added. And that is 80 years since they were first constructed as “temporary” housing.

So, does the wartime example give us an idea for dealing with the most dire parts of the crisis?  It could.  Suppose we had the political leadership to undertake this initiative and provided several thousand low-cost small housing units.  They don’t have to be single family dwellings but could be row houses or small apartment buildings but please, no high-rises that can blight a neighbourhood as witnessed by the many “projects” of the 60s and 70s which turned out to be complete social failures.  The idea would be to build these quickly with not a lot of embellishment.  What could it solve?  For the homeless, it can provide shelter of a permanent nature which can give people some hope and has shown to encourage people with mental and addiction problems to seek help and improve their lot.  For people just entering the housing market it can provide that first dwelling that they can provide a place of their own (no more adult kids in the basement?) and stability.  For immigrants it can provide a haven in their new country while they can find work and adapt to Canada.  It will also give immigrants a sense of belonging.  Success will come later.

So, whose stopping us?  Probably developers for one. They will determine that there is not enough profit in this for their stockholders.  So, give smaller contractors the opportunity to thrive.  It will take some degree of effort by all levels of government to resist developers’ lobbying, to provide the funding to get the projects started and provide monetary support, to resist Nimbyism, and to work together with each other to find solutions.  Short term support could provide long term benefits to just about everyone.  Why don’t we give it a try, not on a very small scale but on a reasonably large scale with projects in several large and small cities and towns.  It can’t be any worse than the present situation.

 

The Trip

 

The Trip

Well, have you missed me?  I haven’t posted anything for several weeks because I have been on the trip.  The trip was an idea that my wife Denee, now deceased, and I mulled over for several years. We both loved train travel and this trip promised one of the best such travel.  But her growing dementia meant that we never made the trip together.  So, I decided to do it by myself this fall. 

The trip involved flying to Calgary and visiting my daughter, Robyn, and her family for almost a week.  Then I was to take the Rocky Mountaineers train trip from Banff to Vancouver on my way to Victoria to visit my son, Peter, and his family, again for almost a week.  I was then to fly home, initially direct from Vancouver.  That was the plan.  The trip was supposed to be from the 14^th of September to the 29^th.  Notice I said, “supposed to be”.  More of that later.

Oh, did I mention that the trip started by going to a Jays game with my son, Andrew who then drove me to a hotel near Toronto’s Pearson Airport?

One of the luxuries I allowed myself was to use almost all of my airline points to fly in business class in each direction.  I must admit I enjoyed that.  My knees just don’t fit in economy class anymore.

The first stop was Calgary to visit my daughter Robyn.  The day after I got there, I started sneezing and dripping which I thought at the time may have been allergies. There was some smoke in the air from forest fires.  But the symptoms got a bit worse, and I got a sore throat.  Robyn suggested I test for Covid which I did and guess what – I was positive.  I had had four shots and had avoided the disease for two and half years.  Of all the inconvenient time to get it.  So, isolation was in order.  What to do now?

Well, here was where a tablet and cell phone came in handy.  The first thing was the train trip.  I had to get a PCR test to prove Covid.  With that the people at the Rocky Mountaineer were very helpful in getting me booked on the trip a week later than originally planned.  So, that determined the rest of the timing.  So, hotel, flights and rental cars all had to be dealt from my isolation.  A few tweaks were made to the original plans which, as it turned out were for the better. 

I finally came out of isolation and had a few more days with my daughter and got a chance to see all of my family there including a charming young lady who seems to have got stuck with my grandson. 

If you ever want a wonderful travel experience, I greatly recommend the train trip on the Rocky Mountaineer.  It is truly a first-class experience.  You start with the excellent staff on each car.  On the Goldleaf car I was in, we had two hosts upstairs where you spend most of your time in the dome part.  Our two were not only knowledgeable and friendly but had only recently been married to each other.  Downstairs there is a dining room where you take breakfast and lunch (you are on your own at the hotel for dinner). There are two wait staff who look after you there plus two cooks in the galley. The meals served were excellent.  The hosts keep you informed about sites and history as you go.  And the scenery, if you have not seen it, is spectacular. From the high mountains of the four ranges through them to the many river valleys you traverse really is spectacular. This is a truly beautiful country we live in.  The only downside to the whole trip was a late arrival in Vancouver due to train traffic and a minor crew issue. 

So, then it was on to Victoria where I visited my son, Peter, and his lovely partner. I just got to his house and before I could even unpack anything, I whisked off to a Toronto Raptors pre-season practice game.  That was very unexpected.  In Victoria I had the chance to have lunches with a couple of old friends where we talked about old times, new times and told a few lies . . . er exaggerations. I also had dinner with very old friends that I hadn’t seen in years.  Getting caught up with family was the most important part of the visit.  I visited my grandson along with his new family where I got the friendliest reception.  His wife is expecting in November, and she insisted that I had to come back then to see the new baby.  She has nine-year old twin girls who I found to be very charming, particularly when they started calling me great-grand-dad. I also got to visit with my granddaughter who is my oldest grandchild.  She is a very free spirit and gives the best hugs. Unfortunately, it was then time to come home despite my son telling me I should stay longer.  The trip home by plane was uneventful.  Then I was home and was actually glad to be there. It had been a wonderful experience, but you have to come down to earth sometime.

I should probably mention that this trip came at the end of a summer of travel.  In June I was in Ottawa for a few days, July in Burlington, Ontario, August in Nova Scotia (for the internment of Denee’s remains), and again in August a few days in Markham, Ontario.  All were great trips to see friends and family apart from the sadness of burying Denee.

I wonder what next year will bring.

 

My Train Car