As Canadian as Possible... under the circumstances

September 18, 2009

Spotted Cow Press makes history with innovative double espresso book launch

Later this afternoon, Edmonton publisher Spotted Cow Press will make history by launching its latest book simultaneously in two Canadian cities.

What makes this event unique is that Spotted Cow Press will be printing off copies of S. Minsos' novel Squire Davis and the Crazy River in each of these locations on Espresso Book Machines, making this the first "Double Espresso book launch" in history. After a reading by the author, both the University of Alberta Bookstore in Edmonton, owner of one of the very first Espresso Book Machines ever produced, and the Titles bookstore at McMaster University in Hamilton, who acquired their machine more recently, will start printing copies of the book simultaneously for customers to purchase on the spot. Customers at the Titles bookstore will be able to watch the book launch in Edmonton, 3000 km away, via live video.

Spotted Cow Press and the University of Alberta bookstore already made history on this front when it launched (PDF) Twice in a Blue Moon, a new collection of poetry by Joyce Harries, using the Espresso Book Machine on November 15, 2007, which might well be the first launch of a new literary title using the machine. The cutting edge approaches of both Spotted Cow Press and the U of Alberta bookstore are only just now becoming more mainstream with more Espresso machines starting to appear in bookstores such as the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, VT, and with Google announcing just yesterday that it will being to sell copies of over 2 million currently out-of-print book titles via the Espresso Book Machine.

(Here's a PDF link to the Spotted Cow Press press release about this afternoon's event)

If you're interested in following along online, I expect that there will be a few people twittering from each event. Just look for the hashtag #doubleespresso or follow @pjmartin or @MACBookstore on twitter.

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July 26, 2009

The Tragically Hip at Shelburne Museum

All four Martins had a great time at Shelburne Museum this evening. The Tragically Hip were excellent, as usual, and the setting was a wonderful place to see a concert. It's always kind of a surreal experience seeing The Hip here in Vermont because, although tonight's gig was sold out, the venues and crowds are vastly smaller than what one would find in Canada. So, it always feels like a special treat getting to see them in such an intimate venue.

It was a great outdoor gig. As always with a Hip show, it seems, there were lots of dudes in ballcaps (my photo is Exhibit A), but this time there were also lots of families with kids and many people in their 40s and 50s who just wanted to see a great band on a gorgeous summer evening. Some people packed their own picnic dinners (I saw some rather elaborate gourmet meals going on) and other people packed the Magic Hat beer tent. Heroically, though, The Hip managed to transcend the diversions and the gorgeous scenery and captured the crowd's hearts, ears, and minds. A perfect evening.

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July 15, 2009

A bit more about Canadian healthcare, or The Truth About Canada

I've been trying to write about things other than healthcare, but it's hard these days to keep my mouth shut when I hear some critics in the US pointing to Canada's system as the doom and gloom scenario awaiting the US if Obama manages to accomplish his planned changes to the American system. This morning, I watched this video by Steven Crowder entitled "ObamaCare Yay or Nay? The Truth About Canada!". What he finds is important and it points to some of the many problems currently being experienced in Quebec, especially by those people without a family doctor. What it does not prove in any way, really, is the failure of the Canadian system as a whole.

Here's an expanded version of the comment I just posted on one of the many conservative blogs that is now using this video as their top evidence of how the last thing they want is for the US to look to Canada for inspiration.

As a Canadian currently living in the US, I watched this video with interest. I saw nothing that resembles my own many experiences with healthcare in Canada. As with the United States, the level of service one gets can depend greatly on where you live. For me, I've consistently had longer ER wait times in the US than I ever had in Canada (my son has asthma and I've visited emergency rooms on a number of occasions back in Canada). Just a few weeks ago, my wife and nine-year-old daughter waited 7 hours in our local ER in Burlington where she went because of chest pains and trouble breathing. All in all, though, I have to say that we've had fine service in both countries. In terms of service, access to care, and high quality of care, I've seen no difference. The big difference, though, is that my employer and I pay thousands of dollars per year for our coverage in the US. That works out to far more than the difference between the income taxes I paid in Canada compared to what I pay in the US. I pay slightly less in income tax here, but four times what I paid in property taxes in Canada, and my employer in Alberta paid under $200 a month for my family's healthcare.

In the video, Steven Crowder, who if I recall correctly is a dual citizen, visits Montreal, Canada's second biggest city and the place in the country that seems to be having the worst time of things by far. When I lived in Edmonton, if it were an urgent matter I could usually see my GP on the same day that I called. After-hours, there were a number of 24-hour clinics where the wait would be longer but I'd always be able to see someone. For urgent cases, we'd go to the ER and the wait was always understandable; the more severe cases always go first, as they should. Crowder goes on and on in this video about how in Canada they have to ration care because of the system. I'm sure my University of Vermont colleague down the hall, who is fighting with her insurance company here to get approval for some desperately needed spinal surgery, would be happy to talk about her experiences of care being rationed in the US. It's rationed in the US all the time, not because of a lack of capacity in the medical system, but rather to increase shareholder earnings in the for-profit insurance system.

The major problem in Canada has, to my mind, very little to do with universal healthcare itself; there can always be greater efficiency in any system, but the system in Canada at the moment is underfunded, particularly in Quebec. Crowder's video documents this underfunding very well with the clear problems in the Quebec system's shortage of capacity at the moment. Despite this underfunding, the results in Canada are still superior to those of the US. Canada puts 30-40% less into healthcare than the US does and yet Canadians' life expectancy is longer, patient satisfaction levels are similar if not higher in Canada, and no one ever goes bankrupt over medical bills. The question of higher tax rates in Canada, as I suggest above, is all relative. In Quebec, Crowder is right that with sales tax people do wind up paying the 8% provincial sales tax on the 5% federal sales tax, but there are other provinces that have solved this by "harmonizing" their sales taxes so that they are charged only one tax rather than two separate ones. In Alberta, there is no provincial sales tax at all and there never will be. Paying tax on tax is absurd, but one can't say that happens in all of Canada.

While we Canadians, like people everywhere, wish our taxes would be lower, 85% of Canadians recently surveyed said that they wouldn't dream of trading their healthcare system for that of the United States. Universal healhcare works. It's more effective than what we find in the US in terms of its ability to treat everyone equally. It's also, contrary to popular belief here in the US, far less bureaucratic than the US system. Just stop by a Canadian hospital or doctor's office and look for the billing office. You won't find one.
To see the problems Crowder found in Montreal as representative of all of Canada is as foolish as walking into one of the poorest areas in a major US city and describing the whole country as being rife with poverty and crime. The Canadian system needs to be improved and better funded, without a doubt, but overall it's still very good and works well for most Canadians.

Finally, as Canadians, it doesn't do us any good to be smug about how well our system works, because it doesn't work anywhere close to as well as it should for many Canadians, and particularly First Nations people on reserves and the Inuit . Just because we're ranked slightly higher internationally than the US doesn't mean that we still don't have a lot to learn and lots to improve. Because of our sometimes foolish and shortsighted preoccupation with what Americans think of us, it's easy for us to get distracted by comments in the US about the good and the bad aspects of our system. What we really need is to start looking seriously (as they are doing right now in the US) about how we could do a much better job at providing better access and quality of care to all Canadians. Instead of focusing how much better our system might be than that of other countries we should start looking at how much worse our system is than that of the nations higher up the list.

Followup: This report from CNN offers a pretty balanced assessment of the state of things in Canada.

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May 28, 2009

Tim Hortons Nation

This blog's in hibernation mode until I get my book done, but couldn't resist stopping in to talk about coffee and donuts...

This story on a recent survey on Canadians' taste for Tim Hortons is interesting and is probably something that's bound to come up in this fall's freshman seminar "From Pucks to Parliament: Exploring Canadian Culture."

Now, if only I could convince someone in Vermont to open a Tim Hortons, something I promise to do if I ever win the lottery.

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April 20, 2009

Great events this week of interest to Canadians and Canadianists in Vermont

Wednesday, April 22

DONALD R. BROWN MEMORIAL LECTURE IN POLITICAL THEORY: "THE ESSENTIALIST CRITIQUE OF MULTICULTURALISM." Will Kymlicka, Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy, Queen's University, Canada and senior research fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford.

Memorial Lounge, Waterman Building. 3:30 p.m.

A BECKONING COUNTRY OPENING RECEPTION

5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. — Marble Court at the Fleming Museum

Hosted by President Daniel Mark Fogel and Rachel Kahn-Fogel. In celebration of the quadricentennial anniversary of French explorer and cartographer Samuel de Champlains travels to the lake that bears his name, this exhibit examines the features of the Champlain Valley landscape through the objects and art created from and inspired by them. University Concert Choir performs. Exhibit continues through Sept. 20.

Admission Fee: Regular Admission at the door. Free to UVM.

Thursday, April 23

"Reforming Health Care: A Single Payer or Consumer Driven Solution," a debate featuring Arnold Kling, Cato Institute, and Robert Kuttner, editor of The American Prospect. Moderated by Emerson Lynn, editor of the St. Albans Messenger. A reception follows immediately. ADA accommodations: 656-5665.

4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. — Davis Student Center - The Grand Maple Ballroom

Friday, April 24

k.d. lang, "The Watershed Tour"Flynn TheatreFriday, April 24 at 8 pm
Tickets still available

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March 24, 2009

Get Fuzzy on Canadians

Thanks to Mark for sending this my way.

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March 2, 2009

Save Radio 3

Although we don't know for sure what kinds of cuts we'll be seeing at CBC over the next few months, it sounds like cuts are imminent. The mere mention of the potential elimination of CBC Radio 3 by one of the heads of the CBC sent shockwaves through Canada's music scene this past week.

As a Canadian living outside of the country these days, CBC Radio 3 is a lifeline to Canada's music scene. More importantly -- and I speak as a music fan, a scholar and teacher of Canadian culture, and a former musician -- Radio 3 has changed the face of the independent music scene in Canada, allowing people around the world to learn about great Canadian bands and artists to whom they would otherwise never be exposed. CBC Radio 3 makes a contribution to Canadian culture nationally and internationally that far exceeds the investment put in by CBC.

Radio 3 has also been at the cutting edge of podcasting and internet broadcasting for years now and really broke new ground for the CBC. The importance of this cannot be underestimated either. If CBC Radio wants to continue to be seen as current and cutting edge, eliminating CBC Radio 3 would almost guarantee that they would never be thought of in this way again for a long time. Radio 3 really is the success story that the CBC should be looking at as a model for other parts of their operations.

Whether you are a regular listener to Radio 3 or not (if you're not, you should be!!), please take a minute and sign this petition.

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February 12, 2009

Brilliant

Check out the new Pomegranate Phone!

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February 10, 2009

The ultimate economic stimulus, or how to get there from here

As I said on this blog a few weeks back, imagine how powerful an economic stimulus plan this would be for the US:

Bring in a universal health care plan that would

A) have the government, not insurance companies, pay doctors and hospitals set rates for tests and procedures (the "costs" of tests and procedures vary not only from hospital to hospital but depend on which insurance company a hospital or doctor is charging)

B) Provide access to everyone at a much lower cost (due to the huge savings in overhead found by eliminating the middleman)

C) Drastically reduce the crippling premiums that are paid by individuals and employers

Such a plan, though it would bring about layoffs in the insurance industry and hospital billing departments, would free up money currently paid by employers for benefits, allowing them to create new jobs. More importantly, no one would ever hesitate to go into their own business or change jobs simply out of the fear of losing their healthcare coverage. Finally, the worries of tens (hundreds?) of Americans about going bankrupt due to serious illness or injury would be lifted. That would be the stimulus package of all stimulus packages and on its own would radically transform the economy.

This recent article from The New Yorker finds some insight into how Americans might get there from here by examining how other countries moved to universal health care models.

Thanks to Heidi for directing me to this article.

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February 9, 2009

Fareed Zakaria on a Worthwhile Canadian Initiative

Good piece by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek this week about why Canada's financial sector has weathered this financial crisis so well:

Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it's Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada's banking system the healthiest in the world. America's ranked 40th, Britain's 44th.

Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

[. . .] If President Obama is looking for smart government, there is much he, and all of us, could learn from our quiet—OK, sometimes boring—neighbor to the north. Meanwhile, in the councils of the financial world, Canada is pushing for new rules for financial institutions that would reflect its approach. This strikes me as, well, a worthwhile Canadian initiative.

The full article is worth reading. Nice to see that someone is noticing these increasingly striking difference between Canada and the US of late. This is not to say that Canada is not also facing a dire situation at the moment. We're shedding jobs quickly and the Conservative government's bailout package, as Bob Rae so beautifully pointed out in the National Post this weekend, looks like it will be putting a lot of money in many of the wrong places. People on both sides of the border are anxious as to whether or not any of the stimulus packages each country is putting forward will help.

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January 30, 2009

More on the Canadian healthcare systems

As this is a continuing topic of conversation in the US and with Americans who ask me my thoughts on these issues as a Canadian, I'll continue to post here links to resources that I find helpful in explaining these differences. This interview with Princeton professor Uwe Reinhardt, a top American expert on health care economics, explains in a way that I've not heard before in the same detail just why the administrative costs are so high in the United States and why a national health care system could easily save enough money to bring affordable universal health care to everyone in the US. If this is something that interests you, make sure to take the time to read or watch this extensive interview.

This part of the interview, which was featured in this other shorter news story on the Canadian system that I've embedded below, explains it all:

Edie Magnus: We were in a hospital that was affiliated with McGill University, and it was a regional system that had six hospitals that were affiliated with one another, and they annually have some 39,000 inpatients, and they do about 34,000 surgeries and they deliver about 3,000 babies. And managing all of this is a staff of 12 people doing the billing, the administration. What would an equivalent hospital in the U.S. take to run administratively?

Uwe Reinhardt: You’d be talking 800, 900 people, just for the billing, with that many hospitals and being an academic health center. We were recently at a conference at Duke University and the president of DukeUniversity, Bill Brody, said they are dealing with 700 distinct managed care contracts. Now think about this. When you deal with that many insurers you have to negotiate rates with each of them. In Baltimore, they are lucky. They have rate regulations, so they don’t have to do it. But take Duke University, for example, has more than 500,000 and I believe it’s 900 billing clerks for their system.

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December 9, 2008

The Daily Show takes on the Canadian parliamentary crisis

In case you didn't see this last night...

Part two:

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November 11, 2008

Lest we forget

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae

Remembrance Day has always meant a lot to the Martin family, as both of my parents lost beloved uncles in the Second World War. My father posted a nice remembrance of his uncle on his blog earlier this week. This is always one of the days of the year where I feel more than a pang of regret at not being in Canada sharing the importance of this day with my children as my parents did with me.

One of the ways that we remember, that we must remember, is to speak to younger generations about the story of these wars and of the great human sacrifice and cost that they involved. The Second World War, as I reminded my students yesterday, was the deadliest in history. While Canadians and Americans played key roles in that conflict and suffered a significant number of casualties (45, 300 Canadians and 416, 800 Americans died in battle), both of these countries got off easily compared to the suffering experienced in other parts of the world. Roughly 72 million people died in the war, 47 million of whom were civilian casualties. (stats from Wikipedia)

A survey released in Canada today showed that there are Canadians who have never heard of the Holocaust. It's a relatively small, yet still shocking percentage, but this is part of history that everyone should know. For that matter, we also need to remind ourselves and our children of the devastation inflicted on millions of innocent people by the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and of the unjust suffering our governments inflicted upon Canadians and Americans of Japanese descent during the war. The war was a time of great heroism and sacrifice, and also of barbarism and inhumanity of the worst kind. We must be sure not to forget that we are all capable of all of these things.

Remembrance, then, can and should have many sides. Today, we remember the heroism of the millions of people who gave their lives so that we can live in the relatively peaceful world we live in today. I hope, though, we also take some time to remember all of the others who died as well.

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November 9, 2008

Oops! Government of Canada website goes down

It's always a bit embarrassing when one's website goes down, especially when it's the Government of Canada website. Ouch!

Here's what I saw there just now when I tried to open http://canada.gc.ca

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October 30, 2008

Canadians for Obama

So, I can't recall if this usually happens in Canada or not, but The Globe and Mail just published its own endorsement for Obama

Obama could really change many international perceptions of the United States, and that matters a lot. Last week, the 109 students and faculty on our Ottawa field trip had a 90-minute question and answer session with Dr. Michael Dawson, a Senior Policy Advisor with the U.S. Relations Division at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Hon. Dr. Hedy Fry. Fry, originally from Trinidad, spoke about how Pierre Trudeau and his vision of a "just society" caused her to emigrate to Canada and become a Canadian citizen.

This is a story one hears time and again from people who came to Canada from all corners of the globe during that era, inspired and energized by Trudeau's vision of a just society -- a national metanarrative that stay with Canadians to this day. I don't think you'll ever hear anyone say that about the philosophies of George Bush, Stephen Harper, or Paul Martin, for that matter. Someday, though, I think we might just hear American immigrants say that about Barack Obama, that they came here inspired by his vision of what America can become.

We are, of course, still several days away from what I hope will be an even more historic result to an already historic election in the US. We're even further away from seeing what type of President Obama will become and whether his grand vision will be tempered by the demands of actually governing. People talk about Obama as potentially being like Kennedy. I, for one, think he might just have the chance to be America's Trudeau instead.

And, if for some reason, he doesn't win on Tuesday, I'd like to suggest that Barack join the many people who are talking about fleeing for Canada. We definitely have a job there ready and waiting for him.

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October 16, 2008

Canada makes the debate

A couple of mentions of Canada last night in the US Presidential debate.

First off, FINALLY someone (and unfortunately it was McCain) recognized that America gets a great deal of its oil from Canada. All this rhetoric about eliminating the dependence on oil from foreign countries that don't like America conveniently forgets that Canada is the top foreign supplier of oil to the US. Believe me, despite being an Albertan, I'm all for dramatically reducing North America's reliance on oil. Let's just be clear, though, that the US's number one trading partner has the second-largest oil reserves in the world and it's a friendly place.

The other time Canada came up in a way that really jumped out at me was in McCain's denigration of the Canadian healthcare system. Here's what he said:

"Sen. Obama wants to set up health care bureaucracies, take over the health care of America through -- as he said, his object is a single payer system. If you like that, you'll love Canada and England. So the point is..."

Ummm... so the point is that you don't want to be like a country where everyone has access to healthcare, where employers are not burdened with huge health insurance costs that drive up the cost of production and make them less competitive, where no one will go bankrupt due to medical bills, where drug prices are lower, where people live longer on average than Americans, where the rate of patient satisfaction is HIGHER than the United States, where people still can chose their own doctor and wait times for non-elective surgery are comparable to what they are in the US, where there are no co-pays, and where people can change careers or start their own businesses without ever having to worry about losing their health coverage to do so?

I'm glad McCain clearly knows something about Canada, but he's got a lot to learn about Canada and the rest of the world if he thinks that a single-payer system is inferior to either his proposal or Obama's. Canada's healthcare system needs to be improved, and any Canadian will tell you that. The main problem in Canada, however, that our government only invests about half of what the US government already pays per capita for health care.

Sara Robinson's two-part article on Mythbusting Canadian Healthcare (Part 2 is here) is worth reading for anyone who wants a second opinion on this. For those of us who've seen and lived both sides of the coin, we cannot understand how things could continue to be this bad for so many people in the United States. From my perspective, neither of these candidates has gone far enough in their proposals to make a huge difference in the lives of average Americans. This is something that could be solved for all Americans with the right leadership and vision.

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October 15, 2008

What Canada's parliament would look like today under a system of proportional representation

Thanks to wmtc for pointing me to these rather stunning stats published today by Fair Vote Canada, an organization whose mandate is to promote voting reform in Canada:

Conservatives - 38% of the popular vote: 117 seats (not 143)

Liberals - 26% of the popular vote: 81 seats (not 76)

NDP - 18% of the popular vote: 57 seats (not 37)

Bloc - 10% of the popular vote: 28 seats (not 50)

Greens - 7% of the popular vote: 23 seats (not 0)

The Fair Vote press release also includes these facts:

- Green Party: 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no one to

Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that

gained no parliamentary representation. By comparison, 813,000

Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs.

- Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives

received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times

as many seats.

- Urban Conservatives: Similar to the last election, a quarter-million

Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative

voters in Montreal.

- New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but

the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37.

Perhaps seeing these figures will inspire Canadians to reexamine how we elect our representatives to Parliament. They certainly tell us a bit more about how Canadians actually voted than do the number of seats each party one.

If you're interested, Fair Vote has a petition you can sign that calls for the development of "a more proportional voting system" for Canada. You can sign it here.

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October 14, 2008

Election day

It's election day in Canada and tonight I'll be glued to the television and computer to keep track of what's going on. I'll be twittering as well, but I was reminded last night of the law in Canada against publishing information about results in one part of the country before polls close in other parts of the country. This includes bloggers and, apparently, even Twitter. Needless to say, that leaves me to wonder if I will be breaking Canadian law by posting that information on my blog or on Twitter before polls close in Alberta and BC. Hmmm....

It's been an interesting and, at many points disheartening campaign, as we've watched some of the most negative and childish ads in living memory appear throughout the media. Worse, the Conservative Party's ads mocking Stéphane Dion started appearing on television long before an election was called. We've also watched as Harper seriously underestimated Canadians' concerns about culture, the economy, and even the environment. The Liberals, too, have failed to persuade anyone, I think, that they are ready to lead the country. The "we must stop Stephen Harper" rhetoric of all the other sides have not persuaded anyone. I can see why people go that route, but Canadians are smart enough to make their own decisions about these things. Although Jack Layton has been mocked a bit for his earnest but unrealistic claims about running to be Prime Minister, I have to say that, although I sometimes cringe a bit when I hear him say that, I admire him all the more for taking that stand. He's told us why he should be PM and I think has persuaded more people of this than Dion.

We've heard lots of people talking about the election over the last 37 days, but I think the commentator who has proven himself to be most in tune with how Canadians have felt about this election is Roy MacGregor. His column today, as with many of them over the course of this campaign, was superb. You should read the whole thing, but here's the part I liked best:

This has indeed been, as pollster Peter Donolo of the Strategic Counsel puts it, a campaign of “failure.” Failure to impress. Failure to convince. Failure to connect.

And yet today it demands, and will receive, a decision.

And if that decision is minority government, it may be the first and only good thing to come out of this irritating exercise.

[. . .] There is opportunity here.

The reason for the visit to Pearson – he sits benignly atop a knoll backing onto the Ottawa River cliffs, his relaxed gaze aimed directly at the back of a bronze John Diefenbaker, who scowls off toward the East Block – is to be reminded of what can be.

Pearson headed two minority governments, in 1963 and 1965, and they are generally held to be the most productive the country has ever known. They saw the coming of medicare and the Canada Pension Plan – both with no small thanks to the prodding of a co-operative New Democratic Party – as well as a new flag, a unified armed forces and the auto pact.

If you listed the 10 greatest accomplishments on Parliament Hill since Confederation, at least three would come from those minority years.

So it can be done – but so, perhaps, can much more.

MacGregor goes on to call for a new era of civility in Parliament and in Canadian politics. Having watched Question Period in person once a year for the last four years on our programs annual Ottawa trip, I have to agree with him. I've been saddened by the juvenile displays I've witnessed in QP, mainly from a few members of one party in particular. Perhaps being faced with a new--and potentially even more tenuous--minority government will force everyone to work together in a more civilized and productive manner. One has to hope....

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October 12, 2008

Candidates I'd love to see win seats in the House of Commons

It was a nice surprise this weekend to discover in the NY Times a story on Tom King running for the NDP in Ontario. It was equally great to find that they included online a 20 minute excerpt from The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour. My students here are about to read his The Truth About Stories, so it's nice to be able to point them to that article and audio sample.

Listening to that segment from Dead Dog, it's hard not to be struck by the delicious irony of Jasper Friendly Bear's radio serial called The Band Councillor in which King plays the white sidekick "Ottawa Bob." If he's elected, King will be anything but. It would be GREAT to see him in the House and to see what influence this all might have on the direction of King's future writings.

As usual, both the Liberals and the NDP have managed to recruit some pretty great candidates. Two of the people I'd love to see win are Tom King in Guelph and Michael Byers in Vancouver Centre. For my own selfish reasons, I might be happier if they stayed home and got more time in to do their own work (Byers' book Intent for a Nation is well worth reading), but these are two smart, smart people who could do a lot for their ridings and for Canada.

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October 10, 2008

Canadian Studies Ottawa Trip Itinerary

Here is the itinerary for our upcoming Canadian Studies Trip to Ottawa which runs from Oct. 23-25. This trip has been running annually since the 1950s and is one of the great traditions of our program here at the University of Vermont.

As I do have a few readers of this blog from the political sphere in Ottawa, I'll use this space to put out a call for assistance. We're still trying to finalize the list of MPs who will meet with our group on October 23rd. Needless to say, this is impossible to finalize before the election results are in, but if you are someone who could help us out once the election's over, please get in touch with me.

This year, there will be 109 of us heading to the nation's capital and this promises to be an amazing trip for students and faculty alike. The majority of this trip is funded through student fees, but we also get generous support from the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC, the James and Mary Brigham Buckham Fund from the Dept. of English, and from the College of Arts and Sciences.

You can find the complete itinerary by following the link below.

Itinerary for Ottawa Field Trip: October 23-25, 2008

Thursday, October 23:

- Depart from south side of Waterman Building (College Street) at 7:00 AM sharp. Participants will arrive by 6:45 in order to assure a prompt departure, because Parliament won't wait for us (and we won’t wait for you). Students ought to be dressed for Parliament (i.e. "business attire" -jackets and ties for men) because there is no time/place to change once we are on the bus. We will plan on arriving at St. Michael's at 7:05 to pick up the St. Mike's group.

· Brief lunch at the Rideau Centre in Ottawa before walking over to Parliament.

· Go to Parliament for tours and to go up the peace tower and view the Memorial Chamber. Tours for Massell’s students (Group A) are at 12:10 and 12:15. Tours for Ayres/Martin/Bose students (Group B) are at 12:30 and 12:45.

· Group photo outside of Parliament after the tours

· 3:00-4:30: Meet with Members of Parliament in room 752 at 131 Queen Street.

· 5:30: Quick meeting in the Pearson Room after checking in at the Lord Elgin Hotel.

· Dinner on your own.

Friday, October 24:

· Breakfast on your own.

· 9:00-3:30: Tour of Canadian art at the National Gallery of Canada and tours of the Grand Hall and Canada Hall at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Before walking over to the National Gallery, Group A will be in Lord Elgin lobby by 9:00 AM (10:00 AM tour), and Group B will be in Lord Elgin lobby by 10:00 AM (11:00 AM tour).

· Lunch on your own at National Gallery before heading to Museum of Civilization. Group A leaves for Museum of Civilization at 12:45 PM, Group B leaves at 1:15 PM.

· 3:30: Both buses leave Museum of Civilization for Carleton University.

· 4:00-6:00: Speaker/reception at Carleton University, Southam Hall, Room 416.

· 6:45: Bus leaves for hockey game, Ottawa 67s vs. Sarnia Sting at Ottawa Civic Centre.

Saturday, October 25:

· Breakfast on your own. Morning free for shopping, sightseeing, touring, etc.

· Check out of Lord Elgin by 12:30 PM.

· 1:00: Buses depart from Lord Elgin. Arrive in Burlington around 5:00 PM.

PARTICIPANTS SHOULD NOTE:

Crossing the border: Either A) birth certificate and government-issued photo ID (driver's license) or B) a passport is now required as proof of citizenship to cross the US-Canadian border. Students will need to present these documents before boarding the bus. Only a driver’s license is not enough.

Dress Code: Dress is "business attire" Thursday, and "neat and clean" Friday. In general, pack for chilly weather.

Money and Food: We will provide refreshments at the Carleton reception and vouchers for concession food at the hockey game. $75 - 100 US should cover other meals. We strongly suggest that students exchange at least some of this at a local Burlington bank (including the Chittenden bank inside the Davis Center) before October 23. You may want to bring a few snacks.

Ground Rules: Attendance and participation at all scheduled activities is required. "Downtime" is your own. Be aware that your conduct and actions represent UVM, St. Mike's, Vermont, and the USA.

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October 8, 2008

My American friends, is the US election getting you down?

If so, do I have a solution for you!

Just another part of my job here as part of the ELITE recruitment team. (Thanks to Heidi for passing this one along...)

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October 6, 2008

Another historic vote for Canadians

Canadians, it's time for another important vote. Election? What election? I'm talking about Canada's Hockey Anthem Challenge!

I think many of us were skeptical about the whole contest, but the finalists are all pretty good and it really got Canadians' attention. Kudos to all of you who submitted something for that contest.

Make sure to vote soon. I think voting closes on Tuesday. Personally, my vote goes to Colin Oberst's entry. How can you go wrong with someone from Edmonton? The Edmonton Journal has a nice story today about Oberst, who teaches a grade 5/6 class in Beaumont.

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September 25, 2008

The True North, Strong, and Freer

From yesterday's episode of Marketplace:

As other people who commented on this story have already said, I don't buy Wilkinson's comment about Canada's healthcare system. Other than that, though, I'm happy to see him raise this point. As an interesting series of articles in the NY Times in 2005 noted, social mobility seens to be more possible in Canada and Europe today than it is in the US. And, for those who tell me on both sides of the border that people pay higher taxes in Canada, I have to say that I've found the opposite to be true here, at least in my circumstance. I pay more here -- it just comes out of my pocket a bit differently. Municipal taxes, for instance, are three times what I paid in Canada, and I get far fewer services here in return. And, I'm not even taking into consideration what my employer and I pay for my family's health insurance or the deductibles I need to pay any time one of us goes to see the doctor. I'm not complaining, though. Life is good here for my family, and I've been given many great opportunities. Each country has its good sides and bad, but the argument that America is freer economically hasn't proven itself to be true in my five years on this side of the border.

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September 24, 2008

In other wacky Canadian election news

Courtesy of The National Post:

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) today released results of a national public opinion poll showing that by a two-to-one margin, Canadians are more likely to accept the validity of Bigfoot than they are promises on the campaign trail.

[. . .] The survey of 1,000 Canadian adults was conducted by Praxicus, a pollster known to have close ties with senior Conservative Party officials. The results are considered accurate to within +/-3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The question asked: "Which is more likely to happen ... Politicians will keep their election promises or scientists will prove the existence of Bigfoot?"

58% said Bigfoot, while 27% opted for promises. 15% were undecided.

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Now this would be real change in Canada

Obama for PM!

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September 23, 2008

Cuts to Culture in Canada

As I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, the Conservative Party is likely a bit surprised at the vastly negative reaction across Canada to the cuts they made recently to cultural industries and artists.

It's been really great to see how artists and cultural organizations have rallied to show Canadians exactly why these cuts are so potentially detrimental to our cultural (and fiscal) well-being. This latest piece on YouTube, though not safe for some workplaces or family ears, gets to the heart of the politically motivated cuts to vibrant and successful programs such as the one that supports Canadian artists touring abroad. It's a brilliant and scathing critique.

(There's also a YouTube version with English subtitles. One of the big parts of the joke is that the song is about "une phoque," which in English means a seal. 'tit is short for petit)

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September 17, 2008

New (and Improved) Canada

Speaking of how little some Americans know about Canada, the Wall Street Journal got our country's name wrong TWICE in August. One article referred to it as "New Canada" while the other referred to the "Commonwealth of Canada."

I truly wish that I could say that this surprises me. As Homer Simpson once responded when it took his kids 40 minutes to locate Canada on the map, "Oh Marge, anyone can miss Canada, all tucked away down there." (Matt Groening's dad, Homer, was born in Canada, btw)

Though I have met many Americans who have travelled widely in Canada and who follow the news there, I've also met many Vermonters from this area (40 minutes from the border) who have lived here their whole lives and have never been to Canada. When asked about this several of those people have told me that it had never really occurred to them before to go to Canada.

Anyhow, the comments thread on the Gawker story about the Wall Street Journal made me laugh. Lots of good names suggested for Canada there. I liked "New and Improved Canada." Then I could be part of the "New and Improved Canadian Studies Program."

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September 9, 2008

Meanwhile outside of the US

I know that most of the world is focused on the upcoming US election and critical issues such as whether Sarah Palin tried to fire the local librarian for not banning books or someone else for not firing her brother-in-law, but there is political turmoil in other countries that is far more serious!

As my pal and colleague Philp Baruth points out today on Vermont Daily Briefing, the Pooping Puffin Scandal is big news in Canada. Okay, well the CBC doesn't seem to be covering it, but it's the top story at the Globe and Mail at the moment. Apparently Harper has pulled the ad suggesting that “Belittling images are not fair game.” The Puffin could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, in Thailand:

Thailand's prime minister was forced to resign along with his cabinet on Tuesday after the Constitutional Court ruled that he had violated the constitution by hosting TV cooking shows.

His supporters vowed to bring him back to power, indicating that Thailand is still not free from its deep political crisis that has virtually paralyzed the government, spooked the financial markets and scared away tourists.

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Speaking of contests

I'm not usually much of a fan of Canadian Idol, and even less so of American Idol, but I've been really taken by Canadian Idol this season. They've had a ton of great contestants and it's now down to the final two. One of the things I enjoyed about this season is that most of the finalists are also musicians and that we've seen lots of the contestants this year playing their instruments. Canadian Idol doesn't really have much, if any, of the cheesy showmanship we find on its American counterpart. The band is also much more front and centre than we see in the US show which, as a musician, I love to see.

My favourites this year have included Mookie Morris (check him out doing Valerie and Magic Carpet Ride), Earl Stevenson (who did a completely memorable version of With a Little Help from my Friends), Amberly Thiessen (she got voted out too early, but did a beautiful version of Redemption Song that stuck with me for days, as did her vesion of Everything I Own), and Theo Tams (he's had very few performances that didn't work, but his best include Collide, Heaven, and You Had Me, when he surprised everyone by finally stepping away from the piano).

Stevenson, Thiessen, and Tams are all from Alberta (go Alberta!) and so I think that split the vote a bit among the Alberta voters and gave Thiessen in particular an earlier exit than she deserved. In any case, I think we'll be seeing a lot more to come from at least two or three of these people. As for the final result goes, I don't see how it can't be Theo who wins. He's been great.

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August 20, 2008

Regular blogging to resume in the next day or so

In the meantime, here's another great reason to buy an iPhone.

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March 26, 2008

Is America Ready for a Canadian President?

I found this cartoon in my mailbox this morning after pitching the importance of Canadian Studies to the University administration.

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March 24, 2008

I'm counting on Stan Weir

Like many Oilers fans, I'm feeling the Stan Weir magic. Stan is going to lead us into the playoffs, I just know it. As I learned today on Lowetide, one of the best Oilers blogs there is,

Stan Weir wrote the words to "O Canada."

Many English words have come from the legend of Stan Weir. These include substantial, standoff, standard and it is no coincidence that all hockey players dream of winning the Stanley Cup.

Stan Weir can touch MC Hammer.

Some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Stan Weir pajamas

Stan Weir eats beef jerky and craps gunpowder.

Stan Weir was what Willis was talkin' about.

Paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, and scissors beats paper. Stan Weir beats them all.

Now that's what this English professor calls poetry...

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March 10, 2008

Things I love about Alberta

I was roused from my depression about the latest election results in Alberta this week by my friends Richard and Richard who sent me a link to this hot news story from the homeland:

OTTAWA (AFP) - The town of Vulcan, hidden among oil wells, wheat fields and cow pastures of western Canada, is aiming to host the world premiere of the latest Star Trek movie, a spokeswoman said Friday.

[. . .] To capitalize on Star Trek tourism, since 1993 town councilors have donned Starfleet uniforms while conducting municipal business, couples have been married here in themed weddings and one man, who never lived in Vulcan, even chose to be buried in the town cemetery with a planetary "Federation" logo for a tombstone.

To prepare its proposal to host the Star Trek movie premiere, Dickens said she inquired with fellow small town Springfield, Vermont about their experience hosting "The Simpsons" movie premiere last summer.

Riverside, Iowa and Linlithgow, Scotland, the future birthplaces of series characters Captain Kirk and Mr. Scott, were invited to participate in the film launch festivities too.

"There are some logistical issues," Dickens noted. The town has no cinema. "But we can definitely work around them," she said, indicating that the local school hosts movie nights for townsfolk in its gymnasium bi-monthly.

Ah yes, "logistical issues"... Still, logistical issues never stopped St. Paul, Alberta from building their own UFO landing pad did they? Or what about the giant Easter egg in Vegreville? Now that's the true "Alberta advantage," if you ask me.

See, I feel better already. Don't you? Thanks, guys.

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January 16, 2008

Check out Isuma.tv

In the news today:

Inuit filmmaker Zach Kunuk and his co-producer Norman Cohn grabbed worldwide attention for their film "Atanarjuat" when it won a medal at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, but neither expected the accolades and attention to trickle down to others telling aboriginal stories.
That's why the two have started a new service allowing such filmmakers from around the world to share and show their work on a website that could become the YouTube of aboriginal cinema.
"(We) are an example of how you can actually succeed and find an audience in this world, but we're the only ones who have been able to do that," said Cohn.

The duo's new website, called Isuma.tv, has already gathered 100 films and videos from four countries in the four weeks since it began.

Source: Macleans

This new site is extraordinary and well worth checking out.

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Moving to Canada

Every semester, two or three students who don't know me drop by my office to ask for advice about how they could move to Canada. I don't usually have much advice to give them, having only experienced the bureaucracy involved in moving the other way. Today, though, as I was diligently casting my votes in the Canadian Blog Awards I discovered a great blog called "We Move to Canada" that over the last few years has documented a couple's move from NYC to Toronto.

I've only read a few postings on the blog, but have added it to my feed list. One of the things I found fascinating was the insights these blogger offer into what Canada is all about. In fact, it all makes me a bit more homesick than usual. Here's a bit from a Globe and Mail piece that Laura Kaminker wrote about their move North:

We left behind a large, affordable apartment, great jobs, good friends and nearby family. Waiting for us in Canada was a rented house and a small band of well-wishers we met through my blog (wemovetocanada.blogspot.com). We clutched our résumés, our faith in ourselves and our sense of adventure.
What would we find? Other than Tim Hortons and Don Cherry, the new coins and the new spellings -- would it all be pretty much the same?
We knew life in Canada would be different, if only for how we see the United States: foreign wars for profit; unchecked poverty and its twin, rampant violence; increasing government intrusion into citizens' personal lives; media controlled by the government, and a government controlled by religious fanatics; a corrupt, antiquated election system.
But contrary to what some Canadian cynics say, Canada is not only defined as "not the United States." Its identity is more subtle than that of the U.S., but then, it's a more subtle country. Canada doesn't go around thumping its chest declaring itself The Greatest Nation on the Face of the Earth. Canada speaks more quietly.
I think when Canada speaks, it uses "we" more often than "I." One might sum up the difference between the U.S. and Canada as individualism vs. community. Of course, both countries have both, but there is an unmistakable difference in emphasis.
The most obvious example of this is national health insurance. Ensuring that every person has access to basic health care requires some sacrifice from everyone -- and that's a trade-off most Canadians willingly accept. Despite whatever problems the system may have, the vast majority of Canadians agree that everyone must contribute toward this greater good.

I'm looking forward to catching up on this blog and to reading it regularly. It got my vote in the blog awards, too.

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January 7, 2008

What if Canadians could help choose the next leader of the US?

This news story made me chuckle today.

When we talk about the differences between Canadian and American politics in my classes, student frequently say: "So, the Conservatives are the equivalent of the Republicans and the Liberals are the same as the Democrats, right?" Ummm... no.

In a poll conducted in Canada over the last few days, 1000 Canadians were asked which current candidates they'd favour to be the next president of the US. The results were pretty revealing, I think, of some of the differences between our two countries' political landscapes.

The survey, provided exclusively to The Canadian Press, says 49 per cent of Canadians expressed a preference for Democrats while only 12 per cent did the same for Republicans.
Even self-described Conservatives — who are supposedly more ideologically in tune with the right-leaning Republicans — favoured the Democrats by a 47-23 margin.
[. . .] Among Republican candidates, Canadian respondents favoured the most socially liberal one.
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani had the support of 6 per cent of respondents, followed by John McCain at 3 per cent, Mike Huckabee at 2 per cent and Mitt Romney at 1 per cent.
In a hypothetical presidential election between Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney, respondents favoured Mr. Obama 49 per cent to 11. And if only Conservatives voted, Mr. Obama would still have won by a 50-17 margin.
I've got to think that Mike "Congratulations Canada on preserving your national igloo!" Huckabee is happy that he's facing voters in New Hampshire tomorrow and not New Brunswick. For one thing, I imagine he might be wondering how he'd fit all those reporters on his dogsled. I keep wondering when that clip from Rick Mercer's show is going to make the news here in the US.

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January 2, 2008

City of Champion Bloggers

Edmontonians blog their way to a world record

Less than a day into the new year, the City of Champions gained a new set of world record holders.

"We will be setting the world record for the largest community blogging event in the world," organizer Marilyn Jones said when the three-hour event kicked off at 1 p.m.

"Because no one has done this before, we will be setting the record today. And I suspect that by this time next year, we will have a challenge - perhaps from Calgary," she said.

(Thanks to Steve Cavrak for passing this along)

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December 13, 2007

It's time for Canada to step up

I'm one of many, many Canadians who is tired of hearing this rhetoric from the Canadian government about how they won't sign on to any climate treaty without the US doing the same. Canada could play a leading role in this fight and we're looked at around the world right now as a country that's not only not doing enough but is hindering the possibility of any significant step beyond Kyoto.

It's not an accident that Al Gore chose to use hockey as a metaphor today in his speech at the meetings in Bali:

But at that key moment of his speech, Gore talked about hockey, referred to two of the greatest Canadian players ever to play the game and threw a bodycheck at the stance Canada has taken at the UN summit.

Gore heaped scorn on the idea that the world can only have a climate treaty if the United States signs on - the exact position articulated by Canada.

That's when he used the example of Bobby Hull and Wayne Gretzky. It's a reference that may have been lost on delegates from such non-hockey-playing countries as Tuvalu, Togo and Trinidad - but not Canadians.

Gore said the world has two choices: feel anger at the United States or move ahead knowing that it will almost surely follow.

"One of the most famous ice-hockey players in history was asked the secret of why he was so good," Gore said. "He was the best passer in the history of the game, Bobby Hull. Others might disagree (and say) Wayne Gretzky.

"And he said in response to the question: 'I don't pass the puck to where they are - I pass the puck to where they're going to be'."

"Over the next two years, the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now. You must anticipate that."

As much as I admire Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, one can't help but hear Al Gore and wish he were running again. One can only imagine how different this country would have been with him at the helm. On the other hand, what a gift to the world his defeat was in that it gave him time to devote himself solely to making the world think more about the threat of global warming.

Posted by pwmartin at 2:32 PM | Comments (1)

November 26, 2007

Saskatchewan and the Canadian healthcare system

You never know what Google Alerts will bring up on any given day, but today my alert for "Canadian Studies" brought me to a multi-story special feature in the Billings Gazette (yes, as in Billings, Montana) on the Canadian healthcare system. The comments readers have left under these stories are equally interesting as readers debate why they should or shouldn't help pay for the healthcare needs of "the poor" (one reader's use of quotation marks, not mine). To my mind, though, the Gazette journalists get it right and they do a great job of pointing out how the Canadian health care system finds its origins in Saskatchewan, and in particular the town of Swift Current (or Speedy Creek as my dad sometimes calls it).

While some of the commenters on these stories spout myths about Canadians flooding the US system and Canadians paying 50% in income taxes, the Gazette gives a balanced take on the pros and cons of the Canadian system. They also help dispel some of these myths, though clearly many of the people leaving comments on the stories didn't fully read any of the articles. As the Gazette points out,

The tax burden for Canadians is generally higher than in the United States. Data from 2004 say the Canadian tax burden is 33.5 percent of its gross domestic product, while in the United States it was 25.5 percent. But Canadians don't have to buy insurance or pay out-of-pocket expenses for basic health care.

Canadian officials also point to the low administrative costs of their nonprofit system. Alberta health officials say a mere 3.5 percent of their public health care dollar is spent on administration.

In the United States, private health insurance companies say they spend about 15 percent of premiums on administrative costs and overhead.

There's also a good story on the doctor currently working in the fine town of Maple Creek. Originally from South Africa, he has a lot of good things to say about the Canadian system:

"The level of care you can provide for every person, for everyone, is basically the same, throughout," said Le Roux, who moved here with his family from South Africa, in part because he wanted to practice in a broad-based public health system. "You never have to think, 'Can this patient afford the ultrasound, or the CT scan or the MRI?' If I think this guy needs the CT scan, I can send him for it."

The fact that the Canadian healthcare system began in Saskatchewan says a lot about the difference a small, resourceful region can make when they find a creative way to address a problem experienced by the whole country. If you've been to Saskatchewan and met the people there, I don't think you'd be surprised to learn that Saskatchewan is the birthplace of public healthcare in Canada.

Oh, by the way, go Riders!

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November 4, 2007

The Canadian Experience: A Northwest Passages editorial

In 1995, my best friend Rob Stocks and I co-founded Northwest Passages, the only bookstore in the world to specialize exclusively in Canadian fiction, poetry, drama, and literary criticism. Since then, Rob's partner Sarah Bagshaw has taken over all the day-to-day operations of the store, while Rob and I stay involved on many fronts. One of my jobs that I don't do as well as I would like is to look after the Northwest Passages newsletter which goes out to nearly 1000 readers. It's supposed to be monthly, but recently semi-annually might be closer to the truth. At any rate, here's my editorial for this month's issue:

The Canadian Experience

10/17/2007, somewhere just south of the NY/Quebec border

I’m writing to you today from the front seat of a 54 passenger bus that is taking me, two colleagues, and twenty-nine American students from Burlington, Vermont to Ottawa. In a few hours, our group and the group from the packed bus driving just ahead of us will be sitting in Question Period in Canada’s House of Commons. Our goal in this three-day field trip, run by the University of Vermont Canadian Studies program for more than 50 consecutive years, will be to learn something about Canada, its political institutions, its art and culture, and its national identity.

As I sit on the bus watching the gorgeous fall foliage roll by as we wind our way through Northern New York state, I can’t help but wonder, as I do on this bus trip every October, just what kind of understanding of Canada my students will gain from their time at the National Gallery, the Museum of Civilization, Rideau Hall, and, of course, an Ottawa 67s hockey game. All of the eighty or so students on this trip are taking courses on Canada this fall; some are taking our larger lecture courses on Canadian history, politics, and literature while others are taking one of two first-year seminars on Canadian history and Canadian culture. As few have ever spent time in Canada before, their main knowledge of the country so far comes from what they have learned in class. Will this practical experience complement or contradict the theoretical? Will Ottawa live up to or radically differ from their expectations? How will the sights and sounds of these three days work their way into the students’ overall understanding of Canada?

Questions such as these have preoccupied Canadians for as long as the country has existed; our understanding of ourselves seems all too often to be inextricably tied to how others see us – or, more precisely, to how we believe others see us (or don’t). Think of the popular Molson Canadian advertising campaign in which “Joe Canadian” rants that “I have a Prime Minister, not a president. I speak English and French, not American. And I pronounce it 'about', not 'a boot'” before concluding with the exclamation “I am Canadian!”

Although witnessing Question Period in action – something I recommend all Canadians do in person whenever possible – usually reminds me that our Members of Parliament are too busy with what’s happening within Canada to concern themselves a great deal with how Canada is perceived internationally, in every one of the Question Periods I’ve attended with my students we have heard at least one angry exchange between the government and opposition parties about how Canada sets its own agenda and “will not be taking direction from George Bush!” This predictable attempt to make the government look bad in the eyes of Canadians always elicits surprised looks from my students. Although I don’t think my students ever perceive this to be “Anti-Americanism,” they are nevertheless surprised to see the degree to which the relationship between the two countries is never far from the surface of any political debate.

One thing that always strikes me during our class visits to Ottawa is that, for the most part, the entirety of my students’ knowledge about Canada has come from a single course on Canada and, for some, the three-day trip to Ottawa. If one’s goal is to give one’s students a solid grounding in Canadian history, politics, or literature, then, the stakes when planning a course or a class trip are significantly higher than when one engages in similar activities back in Canada. If one doesn’t get a chance, for instance, to spend much time with the paintings of Tom Thomson or Emily Carr at The National Gallery, or to include Margaret Laurence or David Adams Richards in one’s Canadian literature course, someone in Canada can hope that his or her students will be exposed to this content at another point in their lives, if they haven’t been already. When working outside of Canada, where the works of Margaret Laurence aren’t even available and most art history professors have never heard of The Group of Seven, one can’t help but think that if one doesn’t include something in one’s course that there is virtually no chance that the students will ever encounter that idea, historical event, or work of art anywhere else.

The design of my curriculum (and field trip itinerary) is something that weighs heavily on me, but then again it always has, long before I ever imagined I’d be teaching in the US. It’s clear to me, and is to many of my colleagues back home in Canada that, even if students may encounter other books, paintings, or arguments in other contexts, the weight that one places on something by including it in a course is hard to overcome. Regardless of how many other works one encounters outside the classroom the content we have been taught (and teach) in the classroom will almost always seem to be more “important” than what we find on our own. Even though I regularly attempt to disabuse students of this notion by suggesting alternate choices I could have made, by having the students themselves help design the curriculum of my contemporary Canadian literature course, and by requiring them to do research and report on things that I’ve left out of the picture of Canada I’ve created for them, the impact of the “official” curriculum is hard to match.

One can apply this same argument to the effect that shortlists for literary awards like the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award have on the literary landscape of Canada. As much as we might try to argue that any shortlist is simply one jury’s take on the books from that particular year, the choices that jury makes have an an impact on the recognized books and authors that can last for years to come. For many people outside of Canada especially these lists serve as a snapshot of the Canadian literary scene for that particular year, whether or not these books are truly representative of what was published in Canada during that time. Take a look at the shortlists included below. What picture of the literatures of Canada do these lists paint?

Unless you’ve read all of these shortlisted books and the many books that didn’t make the cut, it’s hard to pass much judgement on the merits or shortcomings of these lists. Awards season, though, never fails to excite readers, booksellers, and publishers (me included). And for that alone, I find it impossible to find much wrong with the whole process of literary awards or, for that matter, an intensive field trip focusing on the “most important” sites in our nation’s capital. If these create an enthusiasm that the intended audience will continue to explore in the future, then that alone makes the exercise well worthwhile.

Postscript 10/30

The trip was a huge success and since our return I’ve also hosted the Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees, Matthew Mukash, at UVM where he spoke to an audience of over 200 students, many of whom were with us in Ottawa. This great opportunity to have the Grand Chief here provided a valuable supplement to our Ottawa experience and, I hope, will mark the beginning of a long-term relationship between UVM and the Quebec Cree.

The students came back from Ottawa deeply impressed by what they saw and experienced; everyone who met them along the way, I’m equally happy to report, was just as taken by the group of American students who could tell them things like which four provinces were the first to join confederation or converse about everything from the Throne Speech to Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.

At the same time as this experience gave us all hope that these students will go on to become goodwill ambassadors for Canada as they go about their lives in the USA, we were also met with a sober reminder not only of the ongoing tensions between the two countries, but of the challenges these students will face in a world not currently enamored with the policies of the US administration. As we boarded our bus to head back to Vermont, we noticed that someone had taken a marker and written “America sucks” over the small American flag beside the bus door.

Perhaps more than all the other class trips I’ve been on, the students headed home with a different perspective of Canada, but also of the United States.

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October 17, 2007

This week in Ottawa

Tomorrow, 84 students, 5 faculty and staff and I head to Ottawa for the annual, legendary Ottawa field trip. We're going to see what promises to be an exciting Question Period, meet with four very interesting Members of Parliament, and catch an Ottawa 67s hockey game. As great as that's all going to be, I think the most exciting thing anyone will have seen in Ottawa this week is this:

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September 26, 2007

Canadian immigration on the Daily Show

The Edmonton Oilers' own Raffi Torres makes a hilarious cameo on The Daily Show in a feature about the growing numbers of Mexicans immigrating to Canada. Contrary to the opinions of the intolerant bigot they interview as part of this segment, Canada is very happy to welcome Mexicans and any other immigrants who would like to move there. Canada needs more immigrants, and most of us believe that immigration only makes our country better and stronger. If only Raffi could have had a go at that guy... (I'm not going to mention his name or organization here). I loved how dumbfounded he was when asked to describe Canadian culture.

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September 20, 2007

I guess I did actually know what I was talking about....

At 10:58 AM today, the loonie was trading at $1.0004 US, the first time we've reached parity since 1976.

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September 19, 2007

Parity is on its way

The Canadian dollar topped 99 cents today and I expect we'll see it match the US dollar this week or next (please remember that I'm an English professor and not an economist). This is great news for Canadians travelling to the US and to Europe (the Canadian dollar is gaining in relation to the Euro as well), but not such great news for yours truly. The cost of UVM's annual Ottawa trip has risen significantly in the last few years, as has the US dollar value of my student loans sitting back in Canada. Sigh....

Here's the scoop from today's Globe and Mail:

The Canadian dollar topped 99 cents (U.S.) Wednesday on the back of surging oil and gold prices, a weakening U.S. dollar and as traders bet on the increasing likelihood of parity.

The currency rose as high as 99.18 cents, before easing to 98.51 cents after a report showed inflation at an eight-month low. The last time the Canadian dollar was at parity was Nov. 25, 1976.

The surge spells good news for Canadian travellers. Not only does their dollar stretch further in the U.S., but it's also strengthened against the euro. It has risen 8.4 per cent this year and is now trading at about 0.7 euros.
Against the U.S. dollar, the currency has jumped 1.8 per cent in the past five trading days alone. With that kind of momentum, no one's ruling out a near-term run to parity.

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September 10, 2007

Conquering Canada, with coffee and donuts

From this weekend’s NY Times:

OAKVILLE, Ontario — Tim Hortons conquered Canada long ago. The doughnut chain boasts one outlet for every 12,700 Canadians — by comparison, one McDonald’s exists in the United States for every 21,000 Americans and one Dunkin’ Donuts for every 56,000 Americans.

A survey this summer by a group promoting Canadian historical literacy found that 40 percent of Canadians under 34 consider Tim Hortons’ miniature doughnuts, the Timbits, a national symbol.

Tim’s, as it is affectionately known, sells 78 percent of the nonsupermarket coffee and baked goods sold in Canada.

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September 7, 2007

Hockey Night in Canada RADIO!

As part of our aim to make our office's Trans-Canada lounge a site where students, staff, and visitors can come to access all forms of Canadian culture, we've had Sirius satellite radio running in our office for the last 16 months. Sirius broadcasts about six different Canadian stations, including CBC Radio One, CBC Radio3, two Radio-Canada stations, and two other stations dedicated to Canadian music.

So, you can imagine my delight today when I found out even more great Canadian content on the way!

The CBC announced the launching of HNIC Radio on Sirius Satellite Radio Friday, bringing back the show's radio roots which started 74 years ago.

HNIC Radio will air Monday through Friday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET beginning Oct. 1 on channel 122, and will be available to Sirius listeners throughout North America. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

"This is a wonderful extension of the Hockey Night in Canada brand," said Scott Moore, executive director of CBC Sports.

"Hockey Night in Canada is the most powerful sports brand in the country, and we are thrilled to partner with Sirius Satellite Radio to provide Canadians with more of what they love throughout the week."

Seasoned sports broadcaster Jeff Marek joins HNIC Radio as host, and will work alongside rotating co-hosts Kelly Hrudey, Elliotte Friedman and Scott Morrison.

The show will feature insight and analysis, keeping fans updated on all the breaking news and issues from the world of hockey.

HNIC analysts Craig Simpson and Greg Millen will also be regular contributors on the program, while Ron MacLean, Don Cherry, Jim Hughson and Bob Cole will appear throughout the season.

Click here for the complete story

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August 22, 2007

Speaking of brain drain...

From today's Globe and Mail:

TORONTO — Internationally renowned urban thinker and best-selling author Richard Florida was formally welcomed to the University of Toronto's business school last night - and he plans on jumping straight into his research next week.

Prof. Florida, whose arrival is a coup for the university, will lead the newly established Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management.

"The institute is up and running ... In the next week, we'll be going like gangbusters," Prof. Florida told a room full of politicians, business leaders and scholars gathered at the university last night.

The 49-year-old has often cited Toronto as one of his favourite places and one of the more "creative" cities with the potential to be one of the top 20 research and economic hubs in the world.

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August 17, 2007

Canadian indie bands of the 1980s

 

(Artist: the inimitable Rick Clegg; source: http://www.punkhistorycanada.ca; this three-night benefit gig was put on by my pals Rob Stocks and Nick Copus in [1987]; I played on the Tuesday night as part of "i remember not," a one-time spinoff of my band Aardvark Safari)

This week's Radio3 podcast is a glorious (for me anyhow) trip back to the days where you were more likely to find me on stage than in a classroom. When I graduated from high school in 1986, I had no intentions of ever going to university. The plan was simply to keep making music. Indeed, after a year off from school altogether, I only started taking classes at the U of Alberta as something to keep my mind busy during the day while I rehearsed and gigged in the evenings. Then, I took Ted Bishop's class on the Modern British Novel (check out Ted's great book Riding with Rilke ) and Tony Purdy's class on 20th century French literature and I gradually moved to becoming more of a scholar than songwriter.

If you're into Canadian music or intrigued by the 1980s, make sure to check out the Radio3 podcast this week. Wow, does it ever take me back... I still love the song "Just Another Day" by Go Four 3, who I saw play in a memorable 1987 show at the Roxy Theatre in Edmonton, if I recall correctly. The Blue Peter track on the podcast is another old fave, too, though I've always preferred their song Don't Walk Past. The podcast also includes the quintessential Edmonton band of the 1980s and 1990s, Jr. Gone Wild. I saw Jr. play many, many times and if I were to create a soundtrack of my life between, say, 1985 and 1995, they would be a big part of it. Great to hear their song "I Don't Know About All That" again, as well as tunes by Deja Voodoo and the song "Curling" by the Dik Van Dykes.

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Border issues going in to Canada

Just to show that border frustrations go both ways, this story about hockey player Brandon Nolan (son of Ted Nolan) getting hassled and subject to racist insinuations at the Canadian border is worth reading. The fact that his status card was disregarded by the border guards is shameful.

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July 30, 2007

More Americans head north

Tide turns on brain drain as more Americans move north

OTTAWA -- The number of Americans admitted to Canada last year hit a 30-year high, fuelling a pattern that suggests the drain of Canadian brains south of the border may be easing.

The number of Americans accepted in Canada reached 10,942 in 2006, almost double the number admitted in 2000. By contrast, the number of Canadians admitted to the U.S. in 2006 dropped sharply from the previous year, falling to 23,913 from 29,930.

The article goes on to say that the last time the rate of Americans moving to Canada was so high was during the Vietnam era, when many Americans left in protest of the war.

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July 12, 2007

The World’s Best Candy Bars? English, of Course - New York Times

From today's NY Times:

The World’s Best Candy Bars? English, of Course - New York Times:
Bryn Dyment, a Web developer in the Bay Area who grew up in Canada, said he was shocked when his parents took him to a candy counter in the United States. He found out that not every child in the world was eating the same chocolate bars he was.

It wasn’t until he moved to the United States as an adult that he realized just how vast that divide is.

“You get in these religious arguments with people,” he said. “I haven’t met a Canadian who likes a Hershey bar, but Americans think you’re crazy when you say that, because they think everyone loves a Hershey bar.”

Needless to say, while we were in Canada last week we brought back a few Coffee Crisps and an Aero bar or two. I completely agree with what this article says too about Dairy Milk bars (my fave is the Fruit and Nut one). There's no comparison. I should also point out that in Canada (and maybe the UK?) we call candy bars "chocolate bars." Ask someone for a candy bar and they may not know what you're talking about.

I should point out to all you chocolate lovers out there that there are a few companies that export Canadian chocolate bars to people in the US. Were we not so close to the border, I expect we'd be using them on a regular basis!

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July 10, 2007

Michael Moore takes it to CNN

Two weeks ago I was at the EdMedia conference in Vancouver, BC. Prior to one of the keynote addresses, the American man who appeared to be one of the main organizers of the conference made the announcement that two attendees who needed emergency surgery the previous day were doing fine and recovering nicely. "The medical system in Canada is quite good," he told the crowd of about five hundred people, "even though they have socialized medicine." Aside from the fact that this person was insulting the host city and country of the conference, I was even more shocked by the ignorance of this man who seemed completely unaware of what things are like in the rest of the world.

I wonder how we would react to Michael Moore's Sicko? Perhaps in the same way Lou Dobbs does at the end of this clip of Moore's appearance on CNN last night.

Meanwhile, Michael Moore blasted Wolf Blitzer, CNN, and the mainstream media last night for their treatment of his film and his argument. Dr. Sanjay Gupta's report that precedes the interview talks about Moore "fudging facts," something Moore completely disproves today on his website. If anything Gupta's goal of "keeping [Moore] honest" with his report, backfires completely on CNN.

This live interview with Moore is one of the best things I've seen on US TV in ages. I've posted the YouTube version here, but if you want to see something better quality make sure to watch this clip at AlterNet so that you can see the comments from Lou Dobbs and the other news anchor who clearly show their own biases and just how much they don't get it. The last part is missing from all the other clips I've seen of this floating around the internet.

(I first found out about the CNN appearance earlier today on AlterNet, which may well have been the first major blog to cover this story)

Apparently there's more to come today on CNN, including an appearance with Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Larry King Live. I can hardly wait!

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July 9, 2007

Canada's other green revolution....

In his neverending quest to get more students to take Canadian Studies courses, Paul ponders the ethics of posting this news on his blog...

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June 27, 2007

First Nations take to YouTube

Interesting to see First Nations activists taking to YouTube to bring attention to their very just cause in conjunction with the June 29 National Day of Action in Canada which will see people across Canada protesting the continued shameful treatment of First Nations people.

This set of three videos on YouTube, which seem aimed more to an American audience than to Canadians, is well worth watching. Please pass it along to others.

Long Train of Abuses (part 1)

Long Train of Abuses (part 2)

Long Train of Abuses (part 3)

Interestingly, I see YouTube links from the Assembly of First Nations website, too.

Here's the AFN's public service announcement about The National Day of Action. It's a powerful thirty-second ad.

I really like what Phil Fontaine has done and admire his use of the media, including the AFN website, to get the message across that it's long past time for Canada to work together with the First Nations to change things. I hope this use of YouTube helps to mobilize the younger generation of Canadians to demand that their government take action. Check out the What Can I Do page from the AFN site to see what you can do to help and, while you're at it, sign the Make Poverty History petition.

Here's a clip on YouTube of Phil Fontaine talking about the National Day of Action. This should be mandatory viewing for all Canadians.

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June 25, 2007

The Edmonton Model, and how it might apply to Burlington

[I've had this blog post waiting in unfinished draft mode for some time, as I'm hesitant to appear like I'm saying something like "Oh, if only they did things here like they do back in Canada." It's hard not to be aware constantly of the differences between the place you are and the place you are from, and I have many days where I'm thankful for all the great things that Vermont has to offer that I never would have experienced back in Edmonton. So, this argument goes both ways most of the time. In the case of the public school system in Edmonton, and Canada's health care system, though, I hope that people here take a serious look at these examples of how we might be able to do things differently here in Vermont.]

It's funny sometimes how you don't value something fully until you don't have it anymore. With all the debates about school funding here in South Burlington and the school system's inability to fund any second language learning at the primary school level, I seem to wind up talking about the Edmonton School system on a fairly regular basis. I didn't quite realize until I left Alberta (and as a parent of kids just entering the school system I sometimes lament what might have been had we not left) just how remarkable is the Edmonton Public School Board.

All you need to do is do a Google search on "Edmonton model" +schools and you will find articles from all over North America about school districts looking to Edmonton as model of how they might reform their school systems.

This 2006 article from MacLean's magazine explains a few of the key differences with the Edmonton system:

Principals in the Alberta capital receive unheard-of autonomy and budgetary control, as well as the right to draw students from anywhere in the district. Once system-wide expenses for things like transportation and debt service are removed, Edmonton's central board controls just eight per cent of revenue. The rest - 92 per cent - is spent by principals, based on priorities set by staff at each school. "You don't have to be getting anybody's permission down here to do stuff, you know what your level of authority is, and that's quite a load off your back," said McBeath, during one of his final days at the Centre for Education, the board's electric-blue headquarters building. "In the old days - and in Canada, in most districts - the principals have to be on their knees begging somebody for something." In exchange, principals have the responsibility to deliver the goods, as both managers and instructional leaders. That means doing what it takes to attract students, to keep them, and to graduate them at higher levels of academic achievement.

[. . . ] In Edmonton, for all its reputation as Alberta's bastion of anti-corporate liberalism, there isn't much taxpayer debate. The experiment in site-based budgeting and decision-making has evolved to the point where parents expect nothing less than the right to comparison shop. Even with Edmonton's brutal winters, almost half of all students attend schools outside their neighbourhood catchment. That compares with about 20 per cent in a national survey published this November by the Kelowna, B.C.-based Society for the Advancement of Excellence in Education. That survey found that 89 per cent of parents and 77 per cent of teachers want the right to select schools - a demand, it seems, most Canadian boards aren't meeting.

In Edmonton, families pick from a stunning array of products: schools specializing in arts, sports, sciences, advanced academics, Aboriginal culture. There are traditional schools, an all-girls school, bilingual schools from Arabic to Hebrew to Ukrainian. There are Christian schools, including three that gave up private status to join the public system. Edmonton Public has more than 81,000 students and sees itself in competition with private institutions, as well as the smaller but highly innovative Catholic board. It wants every last student, and their blessed provincial grants. Such rapaciousness has critics accusing the board of a hidden privatization agenda. "Not in Edmonton," McBeath insists. "We absorb private schools here."

Here are few more links to stories about the innovative "Edmonton Model," including coverage from US states ranging from Delaware and Massachusetts to California and Hawaii.

In today's Burlington Free Press, there is a story about ongoing discussions of creating several "magnet schools" within the Burlington School System. Those both in favour and against this possibility, might want to take a closer look at the effectiveness Edmonton model in creating a system in which "public schools can provide a choice to every parent."

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June 20, 2007

Sicko

More good coverage of Moore's upcoming film from The Huffington Post. I'll be in Canada when the film launches and may even try to see it there.

I get asked on a fairly regular basis if our family is planning on staying in the US for the long term (note to anyone from UVM: I have no plans to go anywhere else right now). One of the main things that makes us think from time to time about going back to Canada is the healthcare system here in the US. Thanks to our coverage from my job, we have had great treatment so far from some fantastic doctors. But what will happen to our kids when they grow up and have to cover their own healthcare? What happens if any of us get really sick? And then the really big question: how long can one continue to support indirectly a system that only covers a portion of the population and still be able to look at oneself in the mirror? That, frankly, is the question that I find the hardest to deal with these days.

I'm really hoping that SICKO helps people realize just how much better things could be here if everyone in the US were covered by a single-payer system. That would truly be an American Revolution.

The publicity for SiCKO says the movie sticks to Michael Moore's "tried-and-true one-man approach" and "promises to be every bit as indicting as Moore's previous films."

This is actually somewhat misleading. The approach is a little different. There's humor, but there aren't many gimmicks in SiCKO. There's no effort by Moore to confront industry executives. Moore himself has a much smaller role than in previous films.

It is also a bit deceptive -- as an understatement -- to say SiCKO is as indicting as Moore's previous films. No matter how big a fan you may have been of Moore's earlier movies, you'll find that SiCKO cuts deeper and is more powerful and profound. SiCKO is, by far, his best movie.

This is, simply, a masterful work. It is deeply respectful of and compassionate towards the victims. It seethes with outrage, but its fury is conveyed by all of the horrifying stories it presents. The narrative is, by and large, understated. It overflows with raw emotion, but manages to explain clearly the systemic imperatives that lead the richest nation in the history of the world to fail so miserably at delivering health care to all.

Could things be different in the United States?

Yes.

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June 7, 2007

Congrats to the Ducks

From just one of the many, many stories I've read today about last night's compelling victory by the Anaheim Ducks:

No, this was as collective an effort as collective efforts get. This was somebody different making the difference every step of the way. This was the Ducks doing it for themselves, and for the California fans who fell head over heels for them this year.

They may not wind up ranking alongside the dynasties in Montreal, Long Island or Edmonton, but no championship squad will provide a better example of why hockey is the ultimate team sport.

And that’s the best compliment any hockey roster can receive.

I wish it had been a tighter series this year, but the Ducks outplayed the Senators nearly from start to finish. There were so many great stories about this team that makes it hard for anyone to be all that disappointed to see them win. From Teemu Selanne and J.S. Giguere to the play of many players who will never be hall-of-famers or household names, it was hard not to be touched by the sight of these players passing the Cup around and hearing them talk about all the people who helped get them there.

Although the Ducks aren't in Canada, there are a huge number of Canadians on that team and so I think we can still enjoy the thought of the Cup visiting many Canadian hometowns this summer. NIce to see the Cup in the hands of a Western Conference team again, too. The Ducks really earned this one and deserve every accolade they get.

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June 6, 2007

UVM Canadian Studies program featured in upcoming documentary

Earlier this year, a crew from Vermont Public Television came to film my English 182 class. Afterwards, they spoke with me and one of our Canadian Studies majors, Laura Pedro. They were filming a segment for part of a larger documentary on the connections today between Vermont and the province of Quebec.

The documentary is set to air on June 14 at 7:30 PM on VPT.

Here's the press release from VPT:

PRESS RELEASE
For release 6/6/07
Contact: Ann Curran at (802) 655-8059, acurran@vpt.org
or Jeff Vande Griek at (802) 655-8062, jeffv@vpt.org

Vermont-Quebec Relations on June 14 VPT Program

Vermont Public Television looks at life on both sides of the border
between Vermont and Quebec in “Good Fences, Good Neighbors,” a new
documentary followed by a live discussion Thursday, June 14, at 7:30 p.m.
Stories and interviews about everyday life, trade and tourism highlight
the documentary, and the challenges in all these areas since Sept. 11,
2001 are a common theme. Even viewers familiar with the issues may find
some of the information surprising.

(continue reading for more details)

The documentary begins in the border towns of Derby Line, Vt., and
Stanstead, Que. The girls hockey team from Vermont’s North Country Union
High School has its home ice in Stanstead. The Haskell Free Library and
manufacturer Tivoly Inc. literally straddle the border. Fire departments
from both sides of the border frequently help each other out.

Trade in hard goods is an engine of the relationship between Vermont and
Quebec, and IBM of Essex, Vt., is Vermont’s largest exporter, sending more
than a billion dollars’ worth of chips north to a sister factory in
Bromont, Que. In Bristol, Vt., a visit to the A. Johnson Company
illustrates the state’s second-largest export, wood products. An official
with the customs broker A.N. Deringer describes how the company keeps
goods moving across the borders amid tight security. The program looks at
resources for Americans who want to do business in Canada.

Energy is one of Quebec’s largest exports to Vermont. A third of the
state’s electricity and all its natural gas come from across the border.
The head of Vermont’s Public Service Department talks about the recent
sale of Vermont’s Green Mountain Power to the Canadian company that also
owns Vermont Gas. A segment from a forum of New England governors and
eastern Canadian premiers held recently in Quebec City illustrates the
importance of cooperation on energy and environmental issues.

Tourism is another major focus of the documentary. Quebecers travel to
Vermont to ski at Jay Peak, shop in Burlington and fly out of Burlington
International Airport. Vermonters head north for vacations. The program
looks at the impact on tourism of the U.S. government’s efforts to require
passports for Canadians crossing into the U.S. U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy
has worked to postpone implementation. France Dionne, the Quebec
government’s delegate to New England, notes that it would be a challenge
for teenagers in border towns to carry passports with them as they travel
back and forth for hockey games.

Lieutenant Governor of Vermont Brian Dubie, who has been working to
improve relations with Canada, notes the importance of building
relationships for cross-border security and disaster preparedness. At the
University of Vermont, Paul Martin, head of the Canadian Studies Program,
notes that when his students study Canada, they also learn a lot about
their own country.

For the follow-up discussion, host Stewart Ledbetter will welcome France
Dionne, as well as Michael Quinn, commissioner of the Vermont Department
of Economic Development, and Tim Shea, vice president of the Lake
Champlain Chamber of Commerce, as studio panelists. A group of local
Vermont and Quebec residents will be linked via satellite to the
discussion from The Goodrich Memorial Library in Newport, Vt. Viewers
will be invited to call in or email with their comments during the show.
There will also be a live web chat.

The producer of “Good Fences, Good Neighbors” is Catherine Hughes.
Executive producer of the program is Joe Merone. Production funding is
provided by USDA Rural Development.
# # #
Vermont ETV Inc. is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

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June 4, 2007

Don Cherry hits the American press (and NBC)

From today's LA Times:

There is something not quite right about Don Cherry.

It's not his trademark visage — a pugnacious mug that sprouts from one of his outrageous pink-flowered sport coats and beckons: "Go ahead, take a swing. I dare you."

It's not his oft-uttered proclamation: "I'm a redneck." And it's not his matter-of-fact self-analysis: "I can go a little insane sometimes with guys who cross me."

Rather, it has to do with what an adoring Canadian audience senses in the 73-year-old hockey analyst that perhaps he does not. Namely, his sensitivity. Oh, yes, and his vulnerability.

Eh? What? This brutish champion of hockey fights? This insulter of French Canadian and European-born players? This lout who once referred to the talented, then-long-haired Jaromir Jagr as teammate Mario Lemieux's "daughter?"

Yes, that Don Cherry. The one a poll by the CBC network identified as the seventh-greatest Canadian of all time, ahead of Wayne Gretzky.

I've written before about the experiences the poet Richard Harrison and I had trying to explain Don Cherry to a group of American students. The more we tried, the less they seemed to get it. Maybe having him on NBC briefly will help a bit. The LA Times gets it, sort of. That said, I don't think there's a much better way of capturing Don Cherry than Richard Harrison's poem "Coach's Corner" from his marvelous collection Hero of the Play.

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May 25, 2007

Poutine makes the NY Times

From the NY Times of May 23:

DURING the 2000 presidential campaign, the candidate from Texas fielded a question from Canada: “Prime Minister Jean Poutine said you look like the man who should lead the free world into the 21st century. What do you think about that?”

When George W. Bush pledged to “work closely together” with Mr. Poutine, Montrealers fell off their chairs laughing. It wasn’t so much that the Canadian leader was, in fact, Jean Chrétien, but that the “reporter” — Rick Mercer, a television comedian — had invoked the city’s emblematic, problematic, comedic junk food dish: poutine.

The article details how a handful of New York restaurants have started serving poutine. It ends by mentioning how poutine placed in the top ten of CBC's Greatest Canadian Inventions show last year. (Follow that link to see the top 50)

Whether Montreal’s embarrassing but adored junk food does take root in New York, it may never attain the status it achieved earlier this year when the CBC revealed the results of a viewer poll on the greatest Canadian inventions of all time. Granted, poutine came in only at No. 10. But it beat, among other things, the electron microscope, the BlackBerry, the paint roller and the caulking gun, lacrosse, plexiglass, radio voice transmission and basketball.

(Found via the always worthwhile Montreal City Weblog)

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May 22, 2007

Here are just a few of the reasons I'm rooting for the Senators this year

From a good article today on the highs and many lows of Ottawa's years in the NHL.

Here are a few lowlights, on and off ice over the years, to jog a memory or two:
- At the 1992 NHL expansion draft, Senators general manager Mel Bridgman selects three ineligible players in a row, prompting eye-rolling from other teams' representatives, and Mel's famous line: "Ottawa apologizes."
- An Ottawa Sun circulation employee, a former Ottawa 67's player named Larry Skinner, who played a few dozen NHL games in the 1970s, attends the Senators' first training camp to do a first-person diary. Skinner leads the camp in scoring.
- The Senators lose 41 consecutive road games in 1992-'93. When they beat the New York Islanders on the Island (April 10, 1993), for their first road win, players react as though they have won the Stanley Cup. Was that a highlight or lowlight? Former goaltender turned TSN analyst Glenn Healy, the goaltender of record for the Islanders that night, is still trying to live it down.
- The Senators have bus issues in Boston. They end up on a city subway. A local spots a couple of well-dressed young men with sports bags slung over their shoulder and asks where they're from.
"Ottawa."
"Ottawa!" the Bostonian replies. "Great city. Lousy hockey team."
"This is the hockey team," he is told.
"A hockey team riding dah subway? No wondah you guys stink!"
- Sports Illustrated declares the Senators the worst team in sports history.

These cracked me up. Seriously, though, it would be great to see these guys pull it off. Go Sens!

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May 17, 2007

A Canadian Icon Turns Its Glaze Southward

As many of you may know, I have a particular penchant for Tim Hortons. There's not a trip to Montreal these days that doesn't involve a stop at the Tims in Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu for an extra large black coffee and a blueberry fritter or chocolate-dip donut.

I've always said that if I ever won the lottery down here, I'd open a Tim Hortons here in Vermont. Despite Vermonters disdain for chains (Montpelier is the only state capital without a McDonalds, and South Burlington's staple Al's French Frys probably outsells the McDonalds next door by a ratio of five to one ) I think there are enough Canadians to keep a Tims in business here. I even have a great spot picked out for it here....

Thanks to the Wall Street Journal, Tim Hortons is back in the news here in the US. The WSJ published an article on the growing presence of Tims south of the border, a phenomenon about which I was interviewed last fall for a story on Epicurious.com. There's a glaring error in the WSJ story that any Canadian will be quick to catch. The first person to point out this error in the blog comments will win a free coffee from me the next time I see you....

In its home country of Canada, Tim Hortons claims a whopping 76% of the coffee-and-baked-goods market. Named for its late founder, who was an all-star defenseman for the Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League, the chain is so ingrained in Canada's culture that the term "double double" -- shorthand for a Hortons coffee with two creams and two sugars -- has its own entry in the Canadian Oxford dictionary.

But industry analysts say that, in about seven years, Hortons will have built as many stores as Canada can support. So, barely a year after the chain was spun off by Wendy's International Inc., Hortons is ratcheting up its U.S. expansion. Currently, most of its 340 U.S. stores are in strongholds near the U.S.-Canada border in Michigan, Ohio and upstate New York. But by the end of 2008, Hortons wants to have 500 U.S. stores -- and perhaps more, depending on if the company can make inroads in New England.

Source: A Canadian Icon Turns Its Glaze Southward - WSJ.com:
Thanks to Don Tinney for spotting this article for me.

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May 16, 2007

Americans get least bang for buck on health care

One of the questions I get asked all the time here in the US is about the differences in the healthcare systems between Canada and the US. One of the misperceptions I hear all the time is that, although healthcare costs a fortune here, the quality of care is superior. People in the USA regularly hear about waiting lists in Canada for various procedures, to which I usually counter that one of the reasons the wait times for certain things might be shorter here is that only a minority of the actual population can afford to get those tests done. It's easier to get access to a doctor if many of your fellow citizens can never afford to see one.

The following story, which it's important to point out shows that Canada still has a long way to go, is worth reading in full.

WASHINGTON — Americans get the poorest health care and yet pay the most compared to five other rich countries, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Germany, Britain, Australia and Canada all provide better care for less money, the Commonwealth Fund report found.

"The U.S. health care system ranks last compared with five other nations on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes," the non-profit group which studies health care issues said in a statement.

Canada rates second worst out of the five overall. Germany scored highest, followed by Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Source: globeandmail.com: Americans get least bang for buck on health care: report:

I should also point out that my family has had fantastic care here in the US. I should also point out that my employer pays well over ten times more than what my employer paid back in Canada for healthcare premiums.

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May 3, 2007

The White Stripes tour Canada -- all of it....

I've never been a huge White Stripes fan until now. This is pretty cool.

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April 14, 2007

Just another day at the Canada/US border, or bratwurst bandits be warned

From this story on the CBC news:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is getting a pat on the back from Alberta RCMP for helping to nab a pair of Canadians suspected in a pepperoni theft.

Redcliff RCMP officers answered a break-in call at Premium Sausage, a shop in the village of Seven Persons in southern Alberta near Medicine Hat Thursday morning.

The culprits had allegedly smashed down the door and stolen a "large quantity" of beef jerky, sausage and pepperoni.

Police said they found a stolen truck with the meat inside at a campground in Cypress Hills Provincial Park, near the U.S. border. But the suspects had fled on foot

At about 3 p.m., they arrested two teenagers in a wooded area about 50 kilometres from the U.S. border with the help of an American aircraft with an infrared camera.

Ottawa granted permission to let the plane join the hunt, said Const. Bruce McDonald.

RCMP said they also got help from the Medicine Hat police, Cypress County, conservation officers, and concerned citizens to collar the sausage suspects.

Sausage suspects? What about Bratwurst bandits? Pepperoni pilferers? Ham hijackers?

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April 4, 2007

Looks like it was a beautiful day in Vancouver yesterday...

Check out this time lapse video of the last 24 hours on a webcam from West Vancouver.

I only wish that were the weather here right now, where it is snowing–again....

(discovered this webcam via the canadapodcasts.ca blog)

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March 29, 2007

Canadians are more likely to read books than attend movies, says Stats Can

From today's Globe and Mail:

Canadians are more likely to read a book than attend a movie, and they're visiting art galleries and historic sites more. At least that's what appears to have been the case two years ago, according to an analysis released yesterday of a "social survey" of 10,000 Canadians completed by Statistics Canada in 2005.

The analysis by Hill Strategies Research Inc. of Hamilton found that, in 2005, 17.4 million Canadians 15 years of age and older -- or 66.6 per cent of that total population group -- read at least one book in the course of 12 months. In fact, about four in 10 Canadians read at least one book a month in 2005. By contrast, in that same period, 15.9 million Canadians (61 per cent) went out to see at least one movie in a theatre or at the drive-in.

Wow, this impresses me, although I would still like to see more Canadians reading. And, of course, we really don't know what they are reading. Nevertheless, the fact that we have 40% of Canadians reading at least a book a month is a good start. I think the question now is "What can we do to increase those numbers and encourage more people to read Canadian books?"

Does anyone out there know what the similar stats are for the US?

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March 27, 2007

Farewell to the Rheostatics....

I'm very sad about the demise of the Rheostatics, one of the great Canadian bands of all time. Their final concert with band members Michael Phillip Wojewoda and founding member Tim Vesely is this week at Massey Hall in Toronto. Fans from across Canada and around the world are travelling there to attend.

The Rheostatics came to play at the Piazza Bar in Edmonton in the summer of 1987, supporting their first album. I was the house sound man for a month or two that summer and they blew me away. I've been a big fan ever since. That was a great summer.

I think the fact that all of these Canadian acts got together to do a secret tribute album to the Rheos says it all. There will be a big hole in the Canadian music scene after this, though it sounds like Dave Bidini and Martin Tielli will continue to work together.

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Busy days, but here are a few links to tide you over...

No time to write much this week, but here are a few things I would comment on in more detail if I had time:

Graham Swift is one of my favourite writers, so it kills me that I've still not gotten around to reading the Light of Day. He also has a new book coming out this spring. Here's a new podcast of an interview with him from The Guardian.

I'm very happy about this news.... Hockey Night in Canada (and Coach's Corner) is a Canadian tradition and perhaps one of our greatest, most visible exports to border communities like Burlington.

I was just interviewed this morning by Vermont Public Radio about the results from last night's election in Québec. Wow, talk about a shakeup of the political landscape in Québec. Looks like that other Paul Martin was busy today, too... (nice new website, other Paul!)

Oh yeah, speaking of politics, I almost forgot to link to this....

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March 21, 2007

I guess "I am Canadian!" probably wouldn't work here...

From today's Globe and Mail:

The marketing plan began with an interesting challenge: How to market Canadian to Americans.

When Molson Coors gathered U.S. beer drinkers into focus groups and asked them what they thought about Canada, the response was a resounding "not much."

"We don't have a clear identity internationally . . .," the Canadian-born Mr. Lavoie said. "They don't think of Canada, first of all. And when they do think of Canada, they go right for the clichés."

But those clichés -- about wilderness and nice people -- are fertile ground for a beer brand.

Mr. Dolan said Americans think the ingredients used to make beer in Canada -- from water to barley -- must be more clean and pure because of the perception that Canada is home to wilderness.

"They feel that unlike some of the crowded cities in the U.S. where beers are brewed, that there's just got to be a better beer that comes from Canada because of that pristine landscape. . . Even Canadian tap water is borne from a place that's pretty pure up there," he said.

In TV ads that will run in northeastern border states, a bottle of Canadian falls to the ground and shatters. Computer generated imagery shows pristine Canadian wilderness growing out of the spilled beer.

Although I still really miss getting my Big Rock Traditional Ale back in Alberta (have you ever heard of another brewery offering such a great university lecture series?!) , I live in a state filled with great breweries like Switchback, Otter Creek, and Magic Hat. I've not actually had any Molson Canadian since I've been here, but it is nevertheless cool to see it and Labatt's beer everywhere out here. Just another thing that makes me feel like I'm not too far from home...

I can't say that this has happened to me here either... yet

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March 13, 2007

2006 Canadian census data out today...

Very interesting data is starting to emerge from the 2006 census. One of the more surprising revelations, at least to me, is that Canada had the highest population growth of all G8 countries and most of this growth has come from immigration, to Alberta and Ontario in particular. Edmonton and Calgary now officially have populations exceeding one million people and Alberta's overall population has grown by 10% in the last five years. 1.2 million immigrants have settled in Canada between 2001 and 2006, which I think is pretty great to see.

Here are a few more interesting stats from the Statistics Canada 2006 census highlights page:

- Two-thirds of Canada's population growth was attributable to net international migration, while the U.S. population growth resulted mostly from natural increase, as fertility was higher in the United States than in Canada.

- Alberta and Ontario were responsible for two-thirds of Canada's population increase. Nearly all of the remaining third occurred in British Columbia and Quebec.

- Alberta is the Canadian province with the highest growth rate since 2001. Alberta's growth rate (+10.6%) was twice the national average (+5.4%).

- In the 2006 Census, Canada had six metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people: Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Ottawa - Gatineau and, for the first time, Calgary and Edmonton. Together, this "millionaire's club" had a total of 13.6 million residents, or 45% of Canada's population.

Nothing I can see there, yet, on how many Canadians are currently living outside of Canada, but there are a lot of us as well... It would be interesting to see some sort of international census about where we all live.

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March 8, 2007

Canuckabroad.com

Got a nice e-mail recently from Matthew Reider, who runs the website Canuck Abroad. It's a great resource for Canucks missing the homeland. The message board has a great section on the dumbest questions people have ever asked about Canada. I'm not going to out anyone here on my blog, but many of those questions were pretty familiar to me....

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March 6, 2007

Essential Toronto Reads

Discovered the great blog Imagining Toronto today. This list of books is a perfect starting point for students in my Canadian lit classes wanting to know more about Toronto (you know who you are...).

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March 1, 2007

Hockey and Canadian lit

I'm writing this the day after the NHL trade deadline, the day after Edmonton Oilers fans saw the heart and soul of the team, Ryan Smyth (sometimes referred to as Captain Canada after playing for the Canadian national team on so many occasions), traded to the New York Islanders. The fact that this came on the same day as the Oilers retired the number of the former hometown hero Mark Messier, one of hockey's greatest players of all time, added further insult to injury. Having lived in Edmonton through the trades of great Canadian heroes like Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, and now Smyth, I can say that one of the things that made these trades hurt even more was not only the realization that our Edmonton team could not afford to keep these great stars of the game but also that the only teams who could were from the United States. Smyth lived, breathed, and bled for the Oilers and I think many of us envisioned him playing out his entire career in Edmonton.

So why does that rub us the wrong way? After all, these are all teams from the same league, the strangely titled National Hockey League that lumps together two countries under one hockey nation. Well, for most Canadians, I'd guess it's because we still, rightly or wrongly, think of this as our game, a game that's been played here for as long as anyone can remember and whose reach connects people from coast to coast to coast. More than that, there's a way that the game is indelibly connected with Canadian identity in ways that no sport in no other country seems able to match. Even baseball or football in the US still doesn't cut as wide a swath through the collective imagination as hockey does for Canadians. I find this hard to put into words, especially when talking to my students and colleagues here in the US. In fact, this is the only place I've ever had to put that into words. If you're a Canadian and reading this, I don't need to say anything to persuade you of this.

I do spend a good deal of time talking about this in my freshman seminar on Canadian culture that I teach here each fall. I'm retitling this fall's class "From Pucks to Parliament: Canada's Cultural Landscape," after having called it "The Great White North" for the last couple of years, in part to reflect how much we do seem to wind up talking about hockey. It turns out that none of the students had heard of Bob and Doug MacKenzie and so didn't really get the joke; I was beginning to worry that most people reading the title without that reference in mind might have been seeing it as boasting about Canada's greatness or as some reference to a lack of visible minorities in Canada, one of the common misconceptions I routinely come across here about Canada. At any rate, one of the best ways I've found to explain some of this connection between national identity and hockey in Canada is by having the students read Richard Harrison's introductory essay from the tenth anniversary edition of Hero of the Play.

Referring to the debates in Canada over where the game was first played, Harrison contends that "[what's] important isn't where the origin of hockey is found in Canada, but how Canada finds at least part of its origin in hockey." If one searches for a mythic origin of Canadian psyche, hockey may be as good a place as any to look first. "[. . .] perhaps most important, in terms of the intensityof the origin-of-hockey debate, is that creation myth insists that the distinguishing features of a people's character are things born with them, created when the people were created. Hockey emerges in the Canadian past at the time the Canada we lived in then as separate communities was being made into the Canada we live in now as a people. In mythic terms, hockey is one of the few things that could be said to be ours from before the beginning of Canadian time" (16-17).

Harrison's work is only one of many examples of the great writing about hockey and hockey players we've seen emerge from Canada over the last few years. The non-fiction front ranges from books about the love of playing the game as an adult -- Dave Bidini's The Best Game You Can Name, the great Bill Gaston's Midnight Hockey, and Tom Allen's The Gift of the Game are some of the best recent examples -- to more reflective books like David Adams Richards' wonderful Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn't Play, Stephen Brunt's Searching for Bobby Orr, or Roch Carrier's Our Life With the Rocket, proving that the world of hockey writing is far more than simply books documenting the careers of particular players or teams. While Canadian fiction and poetry about hockey don't always spring immediately to mind, books like Harrison's Hero of the Play, Gaston's The Good Body, Roy MacGregor's The Last Season, Stephen Galloway's Finnie Walsh, and Mark Anthony Jarman's Salvage King Ya! top the list of the great hockey literature of our day.

Ryan Smyth's press conference today at the Edmonton Airport, said it all, both about the man and the game. Crying, shaken, and, in Harrison's words, "smiling ugly" in the way only a hockey player can get away with, Smyth vowed "I'm going to go there and do my best and make the playoffs and win that (Stanley) Cup, so I can bring it down here to Edmonton — because that's where my heart is." I can't imagine another country where this would make all the headlines, and, frankly, I kind of like it that way.


Suggested Reading:

Tom Allen, The Gift of the Game
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0385660790

Dave Bidini, The Best Game You Can Name
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=9780771014604

Stephen Brunt, Searching for Bobby Orr
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0676976514

Roch Carrier, Our Life With The Rocket
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0140280073

Stephen Galloway, Finnie Walsh
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=1551928353

Bill Gaston, The Good Body
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=1551926938

Bill Gaston, Midnight Hockey
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0385661908

Richard Harrison, Hero of the Play: Poems Revised and New. (10th Anniversary Edition)
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0919897959

Dale Jacobs (ed.), ICE: New Writing on Hockey
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=0969466544

Mark Anthony Jarman, Salvage King, Ya!
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=1-895636-13-2

Michael P.J. Kennedy, Going Top Shelf: An Anthology of Canadian Hockey Poetry
http://www.nwpassages.com/profile_book.asp?ISBN=1894384997

Roy MacGregor, The Last Season
(currently out of print)

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February 23, 2007

Hockey and baseball

On the way into work today, there was a story on the radio news about how Manny Ramirez of the Boston Red Sox was rumoured to be appearing at a car auction this weekend instead of tending to his sick mother, his reason for not currently attending training camp.

"How is THAT newsworthy?!," my wife asked. "Ah, I said, it's because it's baseball. Clearly, we're not in Canada anymore." Were something similar happening in the NHL, though, I could see it perhaps making the local news somewhere.

If only we could combine hockey and baseball, we might truly have a sport that could appeal to a wider range of North Americans.

But wait! Maybe "Clark, the Canadian hockey goalie" has the answer we never really knew that we've been waiting for....

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February 19, 2007

Memorable moments in Canadian tv history

Had a chance to watch a bit of the East Coast Music Awards last night on CBC. It really is amazing how much great talent there is out there, including Ron Hynes, Joel Plaskett, Measha Brueggergosman, Ashley MacIsaac, and, of course, Sloan, to name but a few. As often seems to happen whenever she's involved, however, the most memorable moment came from the inimitable Mary Walsh:

Newfoundland and Labrador comedian Mary Walsh referred to the federal Conservatives as 'the arse-lickers of Satan' before introducing a performer.

The cameras then focused on Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, who had committed a faux pas earlier in the evening, when he mistakenly referred to Halifax as Toronto.

He drew a chorus of boos and was ribbed about it throughout the night.

(From the CBC's report on the ECMA ceremonies)

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February 7, 2007

Where Are the Children?

Where Are the Children? Healing the Legacy of the Residential Schools is an incredible online multimedia exhibit that accompanies a physical exhibit touring Canada right now. I'd like you all to spend some time here learning more about the legacy of the residential school system. There's lots of important information here that connects to the works we're reading, including the sections on intergenerational impacts, educational materials, and shared stories. Make sure to take the time to check out some of the video clips.

From the website:
This virtual exhibition presents photographs largely from public and church archival collections, from as early as 1880 to the 1960s. Aboriginal youth want to know about the experiences of their parents and grandparents, the stories that have not been told. It is hoped that this website will bring healing and restore balance in Aboriginal communities by encouraging children to ask, and parents to answer, important questions about their family histories.

The terrible conditions on many reserves today has been front and centre in the Canadian news in the last week or so, as they should be. The fact that "Save the Children" recently came to investigate conditions on reserves here says it all. My students and I have been talking a lot about this in my new course on First Nations writers and about Canadian attitudes towards First Nations peoples. We've just finished reading Thomas King's The Truth About Stories and one of the things he talks about in those lectures are the stories Canadians like to tell themselves about how we've learned from the past or how Natives are to blame for poverty/suicide rates/health issues/despair/crime rates/unemployment many communities are dealing with.

One of the stories we might like to tell ourselves is that the majority of non-Natives don't actually believe this and really want to help. Yesterday, Phil Fontaine, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, did a live question and answer session on the Globe and Mail website. Reading through the questions and Fontaine's overly gracious and patient answers to them, I couldn't help but be shocked by some of the uneducated opinions of many readers who questioned such things as "why we should keep paying to help them." Sigh.

Those questions and the comments posted later on the Globe's website show just how far we still need to go in educating the average Canadian about the history of our treatment of the First Nations, what treaties are, and why problems like the ones mentioned above are so much more prevalent among Native communities in Canada than among non-Native ones. I'd like to tell myself the story that the people posting on the Globe and Mail site don't represent the Canadian mainstream. The truth about that story, though, is that we all have a long, long way to go.

Fortunately, there are a number of great organizations who are trying to help. I'd like to see much more being done by the federal government and the school system to educate Canadians about this part of our history and of Canadian society today.

Phil Fontaine, by the way, will be interviewed on CBC's The Hour on Feb. 9th. The Hour is turning out to be my "must-see TV" these days. Their archive of interviews is tremendous and well worth checking out.

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February 6, 2007

"Why can't we be more like Edmonton?"

Aside from being a fine place to live and visit, Edmonton leads Canada in recycling and composting, keeping a remarkable 60% of its waste out of the landfill system. Listen to this panel discussion from CBC's The Sunday Edition (entitled "Why Can't We be More Like Edmonton?") on how other cities in North America might work to achieve similar targets.

Not a week goes by where I don't wish that Chittenden county had a waste management/recycling program half as good as Edmonton's...

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January 30, 2007

Oshawa, Ontario to celebrate Stephen Colbert Day

Of course, with it being Canada it involves a bet over a hockey game. Here's CBC's report on what happened.

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January 9, 2007

This coming Saturday is... HOCKEY DAY IN CANADA

CBC's annual Hockey Day in Canada. That's thirteen hours of hockey on CBC my friends with an all-Canadian triple-header.

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The Edmonton Public School Board hits the news in Vermont

This opinion piece by George C. Cross in today's Burlington Free Press describes the Edmonton Public School Board and suggests that its model would work well in Vermont, a state whose total population is about half the size of the City of Edmonton. The author here overlooks the existence of the Edmonton Separate School Board (the Catholic school system in Edmonton), but otherwise it seems to be a good representation of the many merits of Edmonton's system. I've found it amazing since moving here the reputation the Edmonton school system has outside of Edmonton, and even outside of Canada.

Our children's elementary school here is fantastic, but I do lament the loss of the many options they would have had back home, such as the ability to choose their own school, something that seems to me should be everyone's right...

Just looking at the list of language options there are at the EPSB. I tell my students here about this all the time when trying to explain what Canadian multiculturalism is all about. Still, it's astonishing to see that list of bilingual education programs in Edmonton public schools includes Arabic, Mandarin, Cree, French, German, Hebrew, Spanish, Punjabi, and Ukrainian. Nice to see someone in Burlington noticing my hometown!

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January 5, 2007

Hockey highlights

Watch this clip from last night's game, that saw the Oilers blow a great lead and salvage a point in the last few seconds of the game on this amazing goal by Hemsky. Even more amazing perhaps is this colossal blunder by the Stars. This is well worth watching if you've not already seen it on every highlight reel of the day. Hell, it's worth watching again even if you have...

UPDATE (01/09): I didn't watch the game the other night, so I missed (and just now discovered thanks to good ol' YouTube) this goal by Niklas Hagman. Now, I admit I'd prefer to see it happen against a team other than the Oilers, but it's a beauty as well...

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January 3, 2007

Just when I thought I was blogged out for the day....

Canada is moving on to the gold medal game in the World Junior Hockey Championship, after what was a thrilling game against the USA (Canada won 2-1 in a shootout following a scoreless overtime). Of course, I just now discovered that you can watch the games online at tsn.ca (argh. It appears that only works if you live in Canada. What about if your brain lives in Canada and your body lives elsewhere, eh? What about that?! Sigh.)

In other hockey news, the Oilers finally got their 1000th win as a team last night, making them the third fastest team in NHL history to reach that mark. It's also important to note that the two other teams to do that, Montreal and Philadelphia, accomplished that feat when there were only six teams in the league.

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January 2, 2007

Single-payer health care in Canada and... the USA?

I'm currently part-way through another round of my winter session online course on Michael Ondaatje and was responding today to a discussion board thread in which my students were talking about some of the things they know about Canada. One student brought up the health care system and I responded as follows:

As I often tell my students, learning more about another country (and
particularly one that's as close to home geographically, culturally, and
historically as Canada) can teach Americans a lot about their own
country as well. As D.... pointed out, I think one of the things that
should really make Americans look more critically at their own
healthcare system is the lack here of universal health care, something
that every other well-off country in the world enjoys. Universal health
care is not "free" health care at all. Canadians pay for it in taxes and
employers also pay health care premiums. However, the Canadian
government still pays less per capita than the American government and
the premiums paid by businesses per employee is about 10% of what UVM
contributes towards my insurance. As D... also rightly pointed out,
though, the Canadian system is also far from perfect (very long wait
times for particular tests, specialists etc). Knowing about how another
system works, though, is crucial to being able to see what works and
doesn't work well enough in your own system. Canadians often use the
American system in that way to both argue for what we should be doing
(better access, shorter wait times etc) and shouldn't (privatized
insurance etc).

Who knew that this would also be the subject of a couple of really interesting NY Times pieces over the last couple of days. In Paul Krugman's editorial "A Healthy New Year" (which you might not be able to open without being a TimesSelect subscriber) he states that "The U.S. health care system is a scandal and a disgrace. [. . .] In 2005, almost 47 million Americans — including more than 8 million children — were uninsured, and many more had inadequate insurance." Krugman goes on to bring up some of the points I always tell my students:

Some say that we can’t afford universal health care, even though every year lack of insurance plunges millions of Americans into severe financial distress and sends thousands to an early grave. But every other advanced country somehow manages to provide all its citizens with essential care. The only reason universal coverage seems hard to achieve here is the spectacular inefficiency of the U.S. health care system.

Americans spend more on health care per person than anyone else — almost twice as much as the French, whose medical care is among the best in the world. Yet we have the highest infant mortality and close to the lowest life expectancy of any wealthy nation. How do we do it?

[. . .] The truth is that we can afford to cover the uninsured. What we can’t afford is to keep going without a universal health care system.

Krugman, like Anna Bernasek's article from this past Sunday's NY Times entitled "Health Care Problem? Check the American Psyche," says that "If it were up to me, we’d have a Medicare-like system for everyone, paid for by a dedicated tax that for most people would be less than they or their employers currently pay in insurance premiums. This would, at a stroke, cover the uninsured, greatly reduce administrative costs and make it much easier to work on preventive care." As Bernasek points out, the greatest obstacle to such a plan is not really the logistics of making such a drastic change but rather convincing Americans that such a system would be possible and that it would actually be to their own benefit.

Even though "the economic case for a single-payer system is surprisingly strong" and "as demonstrated in France, Britain, Canada, Australia and other countries with functioning single-payer systems, significant savings can come without hurting the overall health of the population," the case for a single-payer system is a hard one to make here. "Most Americans just don’t believe it can be done," Bernasek writes. "The health care crisis may turn out to be more of a problem of ideology than economics."

Canada, interestingly enough, proves to be one of the key examples Bernasek offers as to the positive aspects of the single-payer system and to people's aversion to this idea here, which Bernasek seems to find as hard to fathom as I do.

Consider Canada’s system. Professor Anderson points out that in the 1960s, Canada and the United States spent roughly the same per person on health care. Some three decades later, though, Canada spent half as much as America. How did Canada manage this? By controlling the use of medical equipment and hospital resources, which statistics show has helped Canadians keep a lid on costs without measurably compromising the overall health of the population.

Despite everything that is known about the economic benefits of a single-payer system, there’s one big stumbling block: many Americans don’t believe in it. They have heard horror stories from abroad, often spread by partisan advocates, focusing on worst-case examples. Such tales play upon the aversion of many Americans to government involvement in the economy.

Victor R. Fuchs, an economics professor at Stanford and a specialist in health care economics, explained it this way: “The Canadian system is a nonstarter for the U.S. even though it’s a good system for Canadians. You’re dealing with two very different countries. We were founded on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They were founded on peace, order and good government. It’s a difference of values.”

I, frankly, don't see how life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (they sure were a great band, weren't they?) can make the idea of giving everyone in the US access to much more affordable health care while still positively affecting the bottom line a "non-starter." But maybe that's just my Canadian "difference of values".... I don't think so.

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December 15, 2006

Hear a new tune by Arcade Fire

Go here, and listen to Thursday's show. I'm sure it's now floating around all over the place, but you can find it there. Fantastic....

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December 6, 2006

Remembering December 6th, 1989

Every year on December 6, I mark the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre by taking a moment of silence in class after reading the names of the murdered women. Talking to my students, the vast majority of whom have never heard of the events of seventeen years ago even though it happened only about 90 minutes from here, I cannot help but compare their lives with those of the women murdered at the École Polytechnique.

People across Canada today, and especially on university and college campuses, will be marking this anniversary with speeches, candlelight vigils, and moments of silence. I hope we can all find some time in our classes, homes, or offices to remember the following young women who lost their lives seventeen years ago today.

Victims of the Montreal Massacre at l'École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989

Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Barbara Klucznik Widajewicz
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte

In Canada, December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada. Established in 1991 by the Parliament of Canada, this day coincides with the sad anniversary of the death of fourteen young women who were tragically killed on December 6, 1989 at l'École Polytechnique in Montréal because of their gender.

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December 1, 2006

Howard Dean on Canada's relationship with the United States

Wow, nice to hear Howard Dean's speech at the Liberal Convention the other night, which you can download to watch here. Some have complained, and perhaps rightly so, that a Canadian leadership convention is not the time or place for a speech from Howard. Of course, you also need to remember that Bono was the guest speaker at the last one. You can watch live coverage and archived video of the Liberal convention here at the CPAC channel.

I'm still pretty keen on Ignatieff, but I also really like Stéphane Dion. He might just be the guy who could win this thing.

P.S. It's also worth looking at the "commercial" for Dean's speech from the Mercer Report. Go to their archives and look for the "Howard Dean ad" in the week of November 21, 2006.

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November 30, 2006

Talking to Americans

Rick Mercer's Talking to Americans special was on CBC again last night. That show just doesn't get old. I do, with some reservations, show it to my students from time to time, but only after exposing them to a great deal of Canadian satire. It's hard to explain our relation to political satire, really. Showing them, though, that our political satire, unlike say the Daily Show, are shown in primetime on the CBC, Canada's public broadcaster helps a bit. We also spend a lot of time looking at how eager Canada's politicians are to play along, which I think also helps them to situate Mercer's special.

Canadians even more willing to laugh at/with themselves as they are to poke fun at anyone else. I don't read Talking to Americans as being cruel or making too much fun of Americans. Canadians really like Americans and, although Mercer's special makes us laugh at just how ignorant many Americans are of even the most basic facts about Canada, I find that when watching this special we're laughing with the Americans rather than at them. That's somewhat hard to fathom, I realize, but it's true. Some in the US might view Mercer's special as anti-American, but I think what Canadians find most amusing, and even endearing, is how willingly and generously they go out of their way to answer Mercer's questions.

If we take it personally that Americans know little about their neighbours to the north, we only need to listen to this clip (which incidentally I first heard broadcast on CBC Radio the day following the midterm elections) to see that it had nothing to do with us. Thanks to Michael Bérubé for digging this up again. Of course, it's one thing for people on the street not to know the name of Barack Obama, it's another thing for potential leaders not to know the name of the leader of its nation's most important trading partner and its sole neighbour to the north.

Like the end of the audio clip, many of the people Mercer talks to in his special are attending or are even, um, professors at some of the USA's top universities. This clip from Talking to Americans, though, does give me some faith in the American education system after all....

For more of Rick Mercer, take some time to go through the archives of previous shows on The Mercer Report website, or check out Rick's great blog.

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November 29, 2006

Hockey season just wouldn't be the same without this....

I've had my students in English 005 listen to a recording of Roch Carrier reading his story, The Hockey Sweater. The goal of this assignment is partly to read a Canadian classic that tells us something essential about Canadian and especially Québécois culture. The other aim, though, is to give them, I hope, some sense of the importance of hockey to Canadian identity and the place of Montréal Canadiens and Maurice Richard in the history, culture, and identity of Québec. Although I have the sense that many Vermonters might think of the Boston Bruins as being "their" team, there are many I've met (including many former Quebeckers) who will forever be life-long fans of the Habs. Despite my continued obsession with the Oilers, I too am feeling a greater connection to the Canadiens just by being so close to Montreal. They're now my second favourite team and I'm dying to get up to Montreal to experience a game there for the first time.

The story, the children's book, the audio book, and the National Film Board film short are all touchstone's in many Canadians' memories of childhood. A true classic which, thanks to Google Video, I can post for you here. It's well worth tracking down the original on DVD though. Just don't forget to read the story as well.

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November 27, 2006

Caffeine fix

The queue at Cappuccino U seems to be getting a bit longer each day.... Great to see that happening.

Update on 11/28: The lineup continues to grow. Soon it will be out the door...

Posted by pwmartin at 12:42 AM

November 20, 2006

George Monbiot, Global Warming, and Canada's obligation to the world...

"You (Canadians) think of yourselves as a liberal and enlightened people, and my experience seems to confirm that. But you could scarcely do more to destroy the biosphere if you tried." - George Monbiot

I caught the As it Happens interview with George Monbiot the other day via the CBC's excellent Words at Large podcast. Listening to it on the bus, the predictions of what could be just around the corner due to global warming gave me, um, chills. (You can download the Monbiot interview here. You can also hear him interviewed on Alberta's Wild Rose Country here.)

It's clearly time for major action from all of us. I'm looking forward, sort of, to reading Monbiot's book, Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning.

Here's what Monbiot had to say about the "Clean Air Act" my students and I heard so much about a few weeks ago on the floor of the House of Commons during Question Period:

"Oh!" he says, his disgust clear in that single syllable. "It seems, to a complete outsider, to be a misreading of the national mood. That bill was treating people like idiots, both lumping together local pollution with carbon dioxide pollution, and talking about the intensity of carbon emissions. It's almost like putting up a sign saying 'I think the people of this nation are suckers."'

The Harper government, he says, is becoming an international embarrassment because of its environmental policies.

"That Canadians are living in a fool's paradise, that they picture themselves as being environmentalist but their carbon emissions show they are as damaging to the planet as the U.S. and Australia," he said.

They have to act quickly or "have on their conscience a major contribution to what could turn out to be deaths of hundreds of millions of people."

Just to play devil's advocate, perhaps Monbiot's book would have an even greater reach, and far less of an environmental impact, if he'd released it solely in e-book form. Regardless, after hearing the interview I think I'm going to stick to taking the bus or the bike to work.

Top 10 Things You Can Do For The Environment
from George Monbiot, author of Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning

1. Cut your flights. Nothing else you do causes so much climate change in so short a time.

2. Think hard before you pick up your car keys. On average, 40% of the journeys made by car could be made by other means - on foot, by bicycle or on public transport.

3. Organise a "walking bus" to take the children to school.

4. Ask your boss to devise a "workplace travel plan" which rewards people for leaving their cars at home.

5. Switch over to a supplier of renewable electricity. You don't have to erect your own wind turbine, but you can buy your power from someone who has.

6. Ask a builder to give you an estimate for bringing your home up to R2000 standards.

7. Ditch your air conditioner.

8. Turn down your thermostat: 18 degrees is as warm as your house ever needs to be. You just have to get used to it.

9. Make sure every bulb in your house is a compact fluorescent or LED.

10. Do NOT buy a plasma TV: they use 5 times as much energy as other models.

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October 26, 2006

The Hour

I'm so glad that CBC has started showing The Hour on their main network, which we get on local cable here in Burlington. It's too bad they don't get CBC on the UVM network that runs through the dorms. I expect that students would really enjoy this show. Tonight's show for instance had interviews with Bob Geldof, Margaret Trudeau, and The Killers. I'm still kicking myself for missing Sunday's special show with The Tragically Hip....

Fortunately, from The Hour website, you can watch the most recent episode and also clips from previous shows. (This clip cracked me up, by the way) The archives of previous clips and interviews is one of the best you'll find on any website. Just look at all the clips here in the interviews section alone, including George's chat with Gord Downie from The Hip. How great is that?

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October 18, 2006

Martins going to the World Series

My sister and brother-in-law live in Windsor, Ontario, which is just south (!) of Detroit. I've been following my sister's posts about the Detroit Tigers for the last few months as she and Dale attended the last 22 games of the regular season, and now a game from each of the playoff series. Go Tigers!

Her blog post today about the being the first Martin to see a world series game, a game my grandfather loved and played exceptionally well, took me right back to watching the World Series in the small tv room at the farm back in 1979, when the Pirates beat the Orioles in 7 games. I don't remember much more than the couch, the brown leather lazy bow with the calfskin over the back, the fiddle on the wall, and baseball on one of the two channels we could get out there. It must have been harvest time, or Thanksgiving, as I'm not sure why else we would have been there in the middle of the school year. With all that goes on here, I don't get much time to watch hockey, let alone baseball. This year, though, I'll be doing my best to watch the World Series and will be thinking about more than one Martin as I watch.

Here's just a bit of what Heidi wrote today....

As a writer, it’s distressing when words aren’t there for you when you think they should be. But, I’m starting to think that maybe it’s ok that words fail to appear sometimes. Maybe there are things that you don’t need words for. My Dad once quoted his Dad (my grandfather), as saying: “God gave us two eyes, two ears and one mouth. Thus we should always spend twice as much time listening or looking as we do talking.” My dad then reflected: “When we miss him, we remember his words and we remember to look and listen.” Next Sunday when I’m at what I assume will be the first World Series game ever attended by a Saskatchewan Martin, I’ll be cheering our team on. But I’ll also be there for my grandfather, looking, listening and taking it all in as he would have done.

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October 16, 2006

I like Michael Ignatieff as much as the next guy, ok probably a bit more, but this really cracked me up....

I've been having a great time here at UVM bringing writers like Michael Ondaatje, Richard Harrison, Eden Robinson, and soon George Elliott Clarke to campus. Now, though, I think it's time to try to find a way to bring Rick Mercer. This post on his blog had me laughing out loud in the office. Loved the bit last week with Bob Rae, too.

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September 27, 2006

Harper lashes out at Martin for criticizing Afghan mission

There I am, in the news again.... As I don't have anything better to do.

Harper lashes out at Martin for criticizing Afghan mission:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper slammed Paul Martin on Tuesday for saying there's too much of a military emphasis on the current mission in Afghanistan.

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September 20, 2006

Fort McMurray getting more attention south of the border

This story on NPR yesterday highlights the massive oil boom Alberta's north is experiencing. 60 Minutes also ran an interesting story on the oilsands earlier this year.

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September 19, 2006

If I can't be a serious academic or renowned critic, at least I can be....

an international expert on the cultural impact of Tim Hortons! You think I'm joking, don't you?
Oh well, at least my sister's proud of me!

I'm feeling more like Homer Simpson every day....

But seriously, doesn't my freshman seminar sound like fun?
I don't have Tim's on the official itinerary for our Ottawa trip, but I think it just might wind up on there.
After all, if a little "double double diplomacy" is good enough for Condi, it's good enough for my students, eh?!

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August 31, 2006

New blog for Canadian Studies and pictures of the new TransCanada Lounge

Check it out!

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Big sky country

"The skies of Saskatchewan are magic."
I couldn't agree more....
Bon voyage!

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August 18, 2006

"Shoot First, Translate Later"

Glad to see a good review for Bon Cop Bad Cop, which was the 17th highest grossing film in North America this past weekend despite only being in theatres in the province of Québec. How Canadian of me is that, eh? We're 17th! We're 17th! Seriously, though, I'm really looking forward to this movie. You can find the French trailer here. Interesting to see the differences between them.

Looks like great fun, and as soon as it hits DVD it will be standard fare on the bus every year when I take my students to Ottawa. For now, we'll have to content ourselves with Strange Brew.

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August 9, 2006

The 2.13 million dollar comma

Caught a link to this great story earlier today at scribblingwoman, one of my favourite blogs. It's the perfect ammunition for the next time a student suggests that I take comma placement too seriously. Ha! Okay, maybe I am a bit of a grammar and punctuation nut....

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July 3, 2006

What is "Essentially Canadian"

The Toronto Star had a great feature over the holiday weekend. They came up with top-ten lists of Canadian books and films, but also things like architecture and children's entertainment.

I'm not usually a huge fans of lists like these and the choices they made definitely fall on the safe side. Still, it's a great starting point. I've printed these off to give out to my students this fall in my Intro to Canadian Culture class. It's important they know who Mr. Dressup was, if you ask me.

Here's their list of ten essential Canadian books:

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), by Stephen Leacock
The Tin Flute/Bonheur d'occasion (1945), by Gabrielle Roy
Poésies complètes (1952), Émile Nelligan
The Watch That Ends the Night (1959), Hugh MacLennan
Beautiful Losers (1966), Leonard Cohen
The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970), Margaret Atwood
Lives of Girls and Women (1971), Alice Munro
Obasan (1981), Joy Kogawa
In the Skin of a Lion (1987), Michael Ondaatje
Green Grass, Running Water (1993), Thomas King

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July 2, 2006

A Canada Day editorial from the latest Northwest Passages newsletter

Canada and the ImagiNation

Burlington, Vermont
July 1, 2006

I began Canada Day in my new office at the University of Vermont. It’s my first official day as Director of Canadian Studies and, it being Canada Day and all, I thought the Canadian Studies office was as good a place to be as any. It’s been a few years since the Canadian flag flew outside our building, as the last time we put it up our secretary was confronted by a troubled man who apparently has psychological issues about seeing any non-American flag flown in his country. After a mediation session with our staff, the man’s therapist, and campus police (I kid you not), it was decided that perhaps we’d best keep the flag inside for a while.

Given that this all happened a few years ago, I decided as I pulled into the office at about 7 this morning that it was time to dig out the flag once more. My first act as Director, then, was to open up a brand new Canadian and American flag and to put them both outside the front of our building, with the US flag positioned appropriately on the left (apparently we didn’t follow proper flag etiquette the last time around). It’s not often you see people hoisting flags on Main Street here at 7 AM, but there were only a few stares from passing motorists. It’s not really that unusual to see Canadian flags in Vermont, much to the chagrin of that fellow who stopped by to yell at, I mean, visit us one day. While Canada might not get much attention from the US -- a survey this past week showed that only 4% of Americans polled correctly identified Canada as its largest supplier of oil -- it’s not all that far from the minds of Vermonters. Furthermore, there are many Canadians who live here.

As most of us know, one of the things that makes Canada unique is that we’re a nation whose creation does not stem from violence via war or revolution. Canada was created, rather, out of ideas, out of conversation and imagination. If you think about it more, in fact, Canada today is not that much different. Canada is still a creation of the mind, as much, if not more so, as a physical and tangible space that we know through experience. As Canadians, most of us think that we know Canada, and yet 90% of us live within 100 miles of our southernmost border. How many of us have actually seen in person more than a minute fraction of our country?

We might well be a northern nation, but within the context of Canada’s borders it’s safe to say that there’s nothing very northern about Toronto, Calgary, or Halifax. For as much as we talk about Canada being the “true north strong and free,” few of us have actually seen the true north. For that matter, how many British Columbians have ever been to New Brunswick? How many Ontarians or Quebeckers have spent spring break in Victoria or the Rockies compared with those who head south to Florida? What holds us together as Canadians today, then, is still primarily a set of ideas, an ongoing act of the ImagiNation.

The other thing that’s been intriguing me of late is how technology is making the boundaries between nations more porous, the notion of citizenship more complex. The Internet, cell phones and cheap long-distance calls, the ease and inexpensiveness of air travel, and the influence of multinational corporations on the global economy make it easier than it's ever been to feel more connected to a country or community outside of the one in which we physically reside. As we all understand, it takes far more than residency to make a citizen; we all know people who’ve lived somewhere their entire lives but who choose not to vote, not to read the newspaper, not to connect with anything more than their immediate circle of family, friends, and co-workers. In earlier times, though, it was virtually impossible to be a citizen, and certainly to feel as if one was contributing as a citizen, without being physically present in that community.

In my case, while I may not reside in Canada right now, I can still participate. I vote, watch the national news every day (which even if I didn’t get CBC and CTV here in Vermont I could still do over the Internet), listen to CBC (mostly Radio 3 these days) and I read my hometown paper (The Edmonton Journal). I even help to run a business in Canada, selling and promoting the literature of my country. And yet, the Canada that I occupy, is not one that I connect to on a physical level on a daily basis, though frankly I feel comforted by the fact that the border is only about 40 minutes from my house. My “Canada” is an intangible, and ultimately imaginary one, that I connect to daily through ideas, words, sounds, and images – more “nationspace” than nation state. Undoubtedly, for me, “Canada is a fiction,” as I recently heard Noah Richler say in an interview about his upcoming book This is My Country, What’s Yours?. It has to be a fiction for me. But it is for everyone else as well, even for Canadians living in Canada day in and day out.

So, where does literature fit in with all this? One of the things that has been fascinating for me teaching Canadian literature to American students is to watch what kinds of Canadas they create for themselves as they read everything from Susanna Moodie and E.J. Pratt to Eden Robinson, Guy Vanderhaeghe, and Lynn Coady. I expected in coming here that I’d find the students’ visions of Canada to be reductive, simplistic, and not as rich as those of my students back home; that just hasn’t proven to be the case. Last week, I read, too, about a talk given at a recent conference on LM Montgomery that dealt with the huge following her books have had with young female readers in Finland. For those girls, their Prince Edward Island is no less real or strongly imagined than that envisioned by any Canadian who has ever read the Anne of Green Gables but never been there. There are many, many people around the world who regularly occupy “Canada,” without ever having been there. You only need to travel outside of Canada and meet one of the many people who are avid readers of writers like Robertson Davies, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, or Margaret Atwood, to realize that Canada belongs to readers in a different but almost equally powerful way than it does to its own citizens.

From my Canada to yours, happy Canada Day.

Paul Martin

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June 21, 2006

A brief note about the great Edmonton Oilers

In many ways, Tuesday was a hard day to be an Oilers fan. After watching in awe for the entire playoffs as the Oilers overcame everything from the Detroit Red Wings and the flu to the loss in the first game of the final series of Dwayne Roloson, the goaltender who played an enormous role in getting the Oilers to the finals, it's almost unfathomable to think that they weren't able to pull off a victory in the end. In other ways, though, it's a great day to be an Oilers fan. Like anyone who has seen them play this season and especially during the playoffs, it's hard not to be incredibly proud of all they achieved. I can't recall the last time I've watched every game of a series from the first round to the last in the Stanley Cup playoffs. And, it was all GREAT hockey! Wish I could be in Edmonton this week for the rally for the team at City Hall.

My sister has some fine thoughts on all this as well on her fab blog.

So, anyone ready for next year yet? How long until training camp?

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June 15, 2006

Go Oilers! Another Saturday of Hockey Night in Canada is on the way!

Wow, what a game last night! Carolina was dangerous throughout, but the Oilers outplayed them, and really deserved the overtime win. Great to see things finally going their way for a change. As an Oiler fan, you just have to be so proud of how these guys have played. They deserve to be in the Stanley Cup and, after winning the last two out of three, I think they know now that they can really pull this off. It's hard to dislike Carolina, either, though. They've played well and deserve to be there, too. While the crowd in Edmonton has been amazing, making headlines in the playoffs with how the entire arena spontaneously took over the singing duties of the national anthem, I have to say that I was pretty touched to hear O Canada sung so well by the crowd in Raleigh last night. I mean, I'm sure a good portion of the crowd there has some Canadian connection, but it was stirring nonetheless. It all would have made a pretty special final game of the series last night, but man am I stoked to see Edmonton taking the series back to Edmonton on Saturday! GO OILERS!

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May 25, 2006

Edmonton: City of Champions

I always used to cringe when I saw or heard Edmonton calling itself "City of Champions." These days, though, it feels like that title is deserved. Not only for the Oilers, but for the fans who've been, I think, a fairly integral part of the Oilers' success through the playoffs so far.

Eric Duhatschek's column from yesterday's Globe and Mail captures this so well:

I only caught the last 7 minutes of Tuesday's game, and an incredible third period it was, but since then I've hear as much about the fans singing O Canada as I have about the game:

EDMONTON — A day after the fact, Rexall Place was still abuzz over the stirring rendition of the Canadian national anthem, sung by Paul Lorieau, with help from the 16,000-plus in attendance for Tuesday night's third game of the Western Conference final.

Midway through his performance, Lorieau held up his microphone to the crowd, which was singing the anthem, mostly in unison. The effect was inspiring, according to all the principals quizzed about it Wednesday.

Oilers' general manager Kevin Lowe called it, “an extremely special moment. It gave all of us Canadians a great sense of pride. I'm sure even the Canadian players on the Ducks and management who were Canadian felt a sense of nationality there. It's very similar to, in 2002 at the Olympics in Salt Lake, when we could hear the fans in the last minute singing O Canada. It was one of those great moments in sport, from my personal experience.”

Oilers' defenceman Steve Staois added: “This is the best building, the best city to play in. Our fans have always been there for us and they deserve all the excitement that's coming with this playoff run that we're on. I've never seen anything quite like that last night with the anthem. That was pretty amazing. It's something you'll never forget.”

With five Stanley Cups and having had many of the greatest players ever to play the game on the team (at the same time, no less), it would be tempted to think of Edmonton as having been spoiled. Maybe we were a bit at the time. And maybe, in the years after Gretzky, Messier, and Coffey all left, we all felt like our team was a dim reflection of the Oilers of the past. Yet, the Oilers have always had sell-out crowds. Many of us have always followed the team. And we know today how special this team is. The fact that we've made it this far after so many years of either barely making it into the playoffs and losing in the first or second round, makes this playoff run all the sweeter. These guys have given EVERYTHING they've got and have outworked, outclassed, and amazingly outscored Detroit, San Jose, and Anaheim. They deserve to go all the way.

For the Canuck in the US, even in hockey-loving Vermont, there's NO local coverage of worth, but fortunately there's the internet. The coverage at the Globe has been great of late, and I'm also really enjoying Globe writer James Mirtle's blog.

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May 24, 2006

Radio 3 on iTunes radio

Hoorah!

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May 18, 2006

The Oilers prevail! It's starting to feel like old times...

I've been following the Oilers faithfully for years, even if I haven't always had much time to watch hockey on TV. Since moving to the US, though, I've been watching as much as I can, especially when the Oilers make it on Hockey Night in Canada. (I don't know what I'd do without CBC here in Vermont)

Anyhow, after watching so many heartbreaking seasons as the Oilers either barely miss the playoffs or get booted in the first round, it's all the sweeter that they're now heading into the third round after two phenomenal series. The Oilers have outworked both Detroit and San Jose and, collectively and individually, have brought their game to a new level -- or at least to a level we've not seen in a long time. It's been amazing to see Smyth and Horcoff play the way we Oilers fans have known they can play for a long time. For the rest of the country, though, this is a surprise to say the least. And what about Roloson?! Unbelievable. He's made all the difference.

Bring on the Ducks!

Speaking of the Ducks, I think you need to listen to this to put it all into perspective...

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May 2, 2006

New podcasts from Spotted Cow Press

I've been working tonight getting the feed up and running for our new Spotted Cow Press podcasts. You'll soon be able to find them on the iTunes music store, but for now you can head directly to the Spotted Cow Podcasts blog.

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April 17, 2006

Rome sacked by... North Americans?

From this weekend's Globe and Mail:

Mr. Berlusconi's anger and scrutiny is now focused tightly on these votes, especially in the riding that represents North and Central America, in which Canadian votes proved decisive.

In Canada, 15,425 Italian-Canadians, or 44 per cent of those who cast ballots, voted for Mr. Prodi's coalition. In the United States, Mr. Berlusconi's coalition attracted a slightly larger number -- 15,148, or 34 per cent. But the Canadian votes for Mr. Prodi, along with a smaller number from Mexico, were enough to give him a victory here.

So the new Italian senate constituency of "North and Central America" will be represented by a leftist -- specifically, by Guerino Turano, the head of a Chicago-based baking company. Among the dozen foreign deputies elected to Italy's lower house was a Canadian, Gino Bucchino, a nutritionist and radio personality from Toronto.

Italians yesterday were just beginning to realize that their fate had been determined by people who have mostly entered their country only as tourists.

What a crazy idea! But how cool would it be to be a Canadian deputy in Rome? Hmmm... Can you imagine if Canada were to do this how many Vermonters would be helping to decide Canada's political future? Now, Vermonters I'd trust. The folks from New Hampshire (New Hampshirites? New Hampshirians? New Hamsters?), on the other hand, now that's another story.

(Just kidding, of course. Some of my best students are from New Hampshire....)

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April 14, 2006

Ignatieff for PM

Okay, so there's not even an election looming in Canada, and the Liberal leadership race is far from decided. That said, I'm growing more and more convinced that Michael Ignatieff's the guy for the job.

Here's an excerpt from Alan Fotheringham's column today, in which he predicts, or at least hopes, that Ignatieff will be Canada's next Prime Minister.

He writes beautifully. In a 1984 book, The Needs of Strangers; he opens this way. "I live in a market street in north London. Every Tuesday morning there is a barrow outside my door and a cluster of old age pensioners rummage through the torn curtains, buttonless shirts, stained vests, torn jackets, frayed trousers and faded dresses that the barrow man has to offer. They make a cheerful chatter outside my door, beating down the barrow’s prices, scrabbling for bargains like crows pecking among the stubble. They are not destitute, just respectably poor."

Another chapter deals with King Lear and love. Another about Augustine, Bosch, Erasmus, Pascal. Another, The Market and The Republic, with Smith and Rousseau.

[. . .] Why should not Canada, the best of all countries, have not as leader an international figure who can demonstrate the best we have?

Dan Gardner's column from Monday's Ottawa Citizen suggests that "Ignatieff's great strength is his great weakness":

Referring to Ignatieff's recent article "If Torture Works...," Gardner says that the article proves the following:

First, and most obviously, this is a man of formidable intelligence and learning.

Second, this is a man who not only does not avoid tough issues, he is drawn to them.

Third, he revels in complexity without getting lost in detail.

Fourth, he is intellectually honest. He examines contrary arguments with as much care as those that support his views. He respects those who disagree and he values debate as the path to truth.

And last, he has a sound sense of the tragic. He understands that life sometimes forces us to make tough choices and the best we can do is choose -- as the title of his recent book put it -- the lesser evil.

The problem, though, and Gardner's unfortunately correct about this, "is that the very writings that demonstrate Mr. Ignatieff's admirable qualities provide a near-inexhaustible supply of statements that can be wrenched out of context and flung like mud. He hates Ukrainians! He supports torture! He loves George Bush!"

"This," Gardner writes "is just the nonsense Mr. Ignatieff encountered before entering the leadership race. Imagine what will happen when the hired guns on the other campaigns get to work."

Although I think Gardner's probably right, I can't help but wish that some day in the not-too-distant future we'll see George Bush meeting up with Ignatieff rather than Harper. Now that would be a conversation I'd love to listen in on....

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Phew!

Phew!

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April 3, 2006

"Our home and native blogs" at cbc.ca

cbc.ca/arts continues to be the best site online for stories on Canadian culture. Last week's feature on academic satires was really good, and today they've got a great feature on Canada's best arts and entertainment blogs. Sure, I have some quibbles with their choices, but on the whole it's a great list.

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April 1, 2006

Go Ignatieff! Go, Ralph!

First, Michael Ignatieff, rookie MP and one of the (undeclared) front-runners for Liberal leadership, gives a great speech in Ottawa. I had a few doubts about Ignatieff, but this speech (in print, anyhow) blew me away. Great to see someone with a VISION, for a change. I'm not sure he has all the answers, but he's closer to them than we've seen in a long, long time. Go Ignatieff!

A few highlights from his speech:

Critics say I’ve been out of the country a long time. They seem to miss the years spent teaching at UBC, at the Banff Center for the Fine Arts, the documentary series I made for the CBC, the television shows I hosted for TV Ontario, the Massey Lectures I gave on CBC radio, the books and articles I’ve devoted to Canadian problems. I don’t feel I’ve been away at all.

But yes, I’ve also been a war reporter, human rights teacher, journalist and I’ve seen a lot of the world.

Sometimes you only see your country clearly from far away.

I saw it clearly in eastern Croatia in 1992. I had just crossed a UN check point and had been taken prisoner by a half a dozen armed men high on alcohol and ethnic nationalism. A young UN peacekeeper arrived, as I was being bundled away. He cocked his M-16 and said: ‘We’ll do this my way.’ And they did.

That young soldier was from Moncton, New Brunswick.

I saw my country clearly watching a policewoman escort frightened families to and fro across a mined no-man’s land in another part of Yugoslavia. When I asked her why she was doing dangerous work in a foreign country she said, with a smile: ‘It beats writing traffic tickets in Saskatoon.’

I saw my country clearly in the young Canadians who took my classes at Harvard. I saw how eager they were to test themselves against the best the world has to offer.

So this is my Canada and these are my Canadians. We are serious people.

I’ve tried to be a serious person. Being serious means sticking to your convictions. I went to Iraq in 1992 and saw what Saddam Hussein had done to the Kurds and the Shia. I decided then and there that I’d stand with them whatever happened. I’ve stuck with them ever since. Whatever mistakes the Americans have made, one day Iraqis will create a decent society. When that day comes, Canadians should be there to help because their struggle is ours too.

I’ve always believed that Canada should fight for a world in which force is never used except in a just cause.

Many of us have also been waiting to have a leader who will say this:

I’m in politics to speak up for a Canada that takes risks, that stands up for what’s right. A Canada that leads.

We are a serious people.

For a long time, however, we haven’t taken ourselves seriously enough.

We need to ask more of ourselves.

For the first time in history ,we now have a real claim to being able to solve problems that have dogged human life for millennia: hunger, disease and environmental destruction. We have the science. We have the money. What we lack is focus and determination.

Forty years ago, a Canadian Prime Minister set the standard for international citizenship at 0.7 percent of GDP in overseas aid to developing nations. Forty years later, we still have not met Mike Pearson’s targets.

The time for excuses is over. We need to fulfill our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals before 2015. We need to meet this target, but we need to do more. We need to focus development aid to those who can really use it. Let’s stop spending money supporting regimes that abuse their people. Let’s find development partners who govern in the interests of their people. Let’s remember that Canadians are the people of "peace, order and good government." The single thing the developing world needs most is good government. We should be the country that leads the world in governance, in helping governments in the developing world to govern more justly.

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Second, it's been so entertaining of late to watch the infighting and incompetence of Alberta's Progressive Conservative party. They seem to be self-destructing on a daily basis, burdened by, of all things, the challenge of having the latest in a long series of massive surpluses to spend. I feel kind of sorry for Ralph sometimes, but he should have called it a day well over a year ago. You just had to see this coming. Go Ralph go! No, really! Go Ralph! Go!

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March 28, 2006

Hockey break...

I can't recall when we've had a better crop of rookies in the NHL (Ovechkin, Crosby, Lundqvist etc.). Of course, this has a lot to do with there being no season last year. This guy is amazing and, to my mind, is the guy to beat for rookie of the year. This has to be one of the most amazing goals ever.... Gotta like Crosby too, though. What a year....

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March 14, 2006

And the award for the best country masquerading as another goes to...

This article from The Globe & Mail details the latest movie to be shot in Canada, where a Canadian location pretends to be an American one. This time, though, it's "Dallas," a remake of the tv series which ran, apparently, from 1978-91. (I thought it would have been long dead by the 1990s).

The Globe has a great list of some of the more prominent movies shot in Canada where Canadian locations are trying to be passed off as American ones. One of my favourite examples, that doesn't make the Globe's list, is Jackie Chan's "Rumble in the Bronx." It was shot in Vancouver, and you can occasionally see mountains in the background. I've never been to the Bronx, but I'm pretty sure there are no mountains there...

Here's the Globe's list:

BLAME CANADA: IT'S A POPULAR LOCATION TO SHOOT FILMS

Canadian locales are favourite stand-ins for iconic U.S. settings:

Many of the fight scenes in The Cinderella Man, a Depression-era boxing tale, were shot in Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens.

Chicago, starring Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere, was shot in Toronto.

Washington drama Murder at 1600 and White House comedy Dick were shot in Kleinburg, Ont.

Rudy, a made-for-TV drama about New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, was shot in Montreal.

New York Minute, a vehicle for celebrity twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, was shot in Toronto

Brokeback Mountain, a cowboy love story set in Wyoming, was shot in Alberta.

Fever Pitch, in which Jimmy

Fallon struggles to love both Drew Barrymore and the Boston Red Sox, was shot in Toronto.

Capote, detailing New Yorker writer Truman Capote's quest to tell the story of a massacre in Kansas, was shot in Manitoba.

In How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, Toronto substituted for New York.

Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, which follows two friends' quest to satisfy their munchies at the U.S. burger chain, was shot in Toronto, where there are no White Castle outlets.

The Clint Eastwood western Unforgiven was shot around Calgary.

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February 13, 2006

Atwood on teaching writing in the North

Thanks to the always interesting MoorishGirl blog, I came across this article by Margaret Atwood in Sunday's Washington Post. Atwood talks about her experiences last summer teaching writing in a two-week camp for young Inuit women. Her description of the camp on Southhampton Island, an "island is as large as Switzerland and has one settlement, which is home to fewer than a thousand people" is fascinating. Even more interesting, though, is the question that emerges for Atwood as a way to connect writing with the forms of traditional knowledge the women are learning at the camp:

Sheree [Fitch] and I, the writing instructors, faced a difficult task. Sheree told me these women might be afraid of writing because of negative experiences at school or they just might not see the use of doing it at all. We also knew that the standard approach for college courses -- plumbing the depths of the inner you and so forth -- would not be very effective in a culture that places sharing well above self-regard. But this sewing question -- "Who's it for?" -- gave us a way in.

During our first session, we said that writing, like sewing, took one thing and made it into another; and that writing, like sewing, was always for someone, even if that someone was yourself in the future. Writing was a way of sending your voice to someone you might never meet.

The Post website also indicates that Margaret Atwood will be online on the Post website tomorrow (Feb 14th) at 3pm to answer questions about this project and her work. Further details can be found here. Sounds like it will be a great discussion!

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January 18, 2006

It's not every day UVM gets mentioned in a Canadian MP's blog!

I just finished a posting on my English 005 blog about an entry I came across on the blog of James Moore, one of the Members of Parliament we met with in October on our class trip to Ottawa. Moore was one of four MPs who took over an hour to meet with us and answer students questions. Obviously, it made an impression on Moore who is even younger than I am and one of the bright lights I saw from the Conservative Party while we were there.

My students were blown away, really, that four members of parliament would take time out of their schedules to meet with us. The students came away with a great impression of how the Canadian legislative system works.

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January 15, 2006

Let's hope Canadians think twice on 1/23

I'm just about to send in my mail-in ballot for Canada's upcoming federal election, hoping that it will arrive in time. Not that my vote usually makes a difference in Conservative Alberta, the domain of King Ralph for the last 14 years (!). Nevertheless, the latest polls suggesting that Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party will form the next government in Canada have me very concerned.

Watching this all from Vermont, where practically everyone I know wishes their own federal government were pro-Kyoto, pro-same-sex-marriage, pro-public healthcare, and against the war in Iraq, it's all a bit surreal to think that we're seemingly about to elect a that has argued the opposite position over and over again. I would be one of the last people to argue that the Liberals have been a shining example of a great vision for the future of Canada, but things like the less discussed aspects of the Conservative platform and the potential for the "shining lights" of the Conservative party to form the next federal cabinet are, needless to say, very worrisome to many of us. Let's hope that if Harper does win, it's not a majority.

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January 13, 2006

La Bibliothèque nationale du Québec soon to surpass the 2 million visitor mark

After opening a mere five months ago, Québec's amazing new Bibliothèque nationale will soon have had more than two million visitors. I've been eager to go for some time, but hopefully should have some more time to get up there this spring to explore. Being so close to Montréal is one of the many great perks of living here in Vermont.

Source: CBC Arts: Quebec mega-library set to welcome 2-millionth visitor:

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October 20, 2005

Things not to do at the border....

12:15 pm
Well, here's an interesting way to spend a morning AND an afternoon. Early this morning, my entire "Intro to Canadian Culture" seminar, 3 students from my Can Lit class, and several others left Burlington. All was going according to plan until we hit THE CANADIAN BORDER....

Now, let me start by saying that for me, up until this very moment, crossing into Canada has always been accompanied by a sigh of relief, sense of finally being home where I will not have to worry about anything. Canada Customs has always been friendly, or at least friendly compared with the people who greet me when I'm returning across the US border. Today, though, our bus was targeted for a random search and, without going into detail, the Canadian border guards discovered minute traces of something that one should never carry across the border.

That was over two hours ago, and as I write this we are still at the border.... We've finally reached a point where every one of the 25 people on the bus is going to be thoroughly searched. Once that's done with the dogs will arrive to search the bus itself. Needless to say our entire itinerary for today is due for a serious revision. Everyone on the bus is starving, frustrated, and getting a bit grumpy. BUT, to the credit of the students (and my colleagues), we are all making the best of things.

1:00 PM
What a terrible introduction to Canada, though! For most of my students, this is their first time across the border. You can only imagine that this will be THE story that everybody remembers out this trip -- me included!

Not that this is any fault of the border guards, although their approach is clearly disproportionate to the nature of the offense. My student did not bring anything with him, but simply failed to think that there may still be residue which could suggest that there might be more.... somewhere else. It's clear that one of their main objectives is to deter anyone from ever dreaming of bringing anything with them across the border.

The customs officials have locked the bathroom on the bus and for anyone to use the facilities the driver has to go to the Customs office to request that an officer come to the bus to escort a student in to the washroom in their office. Needless to say, anytime someone has to go, it takes one of the customs officers to look after them rather than continuing to search people on the bus. This could take hours still....

They are searching everyone, going through every item in each bag, every pocket of every item of clothing... how long this will take, I have no idea. We're now at about three hours and there's no end in sight....

3:24
We're now back on the road to Ottawa after a short break for lunch. We were removed from the bus shortly after my last entry and all moved to a separate building where we stood in a line so that the dog could check us all for any indication of drugs. From there, we were all kept off the bus until the dog finally finished going over every square inch of the bus. The whole ordeal took us four hours and 15 minutes.

While we were waiting to be let back on the bus, one of my students told me that this was the first time he'd ever experienced feeling like his rights had been taken away from him. Me too, almost. The only other time I've had a similar feeling was when I was refused entry to the US in 2003 when I was on my way to Burlington to shop for a house. In that case, the US border guard had no legitimate reason to give me a hard time -- he was simply in a bad mood and decided that he didn't like me. And so, he refused to allow me into the country and told me that I'd better not try crossing into the US at any other point. When Senator Patrick Leahy's office intervened on my behalf later that night, I was finally allowed into the US but was made to sign an entry card that stated I would stay in the US for no more than five days. When returning to Canada at the end of that trip, I first had to report to the border to prove that I was leaving the US. In both cases, it was entirely unsettling to feel that someone else could have complete control of my freedom until such a point that they decided they were done with me. Feeling something like that even for a short time reminds one of how lucky we are to be in countries where people only rarely find themselves in such a situation.

Posted by pwmartin at 3:54 PM | Comments (1)

October 13, 2005

Canada's ambassador

You can see from this great speech by Frank McKenna why Canadians are so happy to have the guy as our current ambassador to the US. In just a few months on the job, he has made more of an impression in the US than the last several ambassadors combined. You can also see why many Canadians think he would be a great Prime Minister. Is that too much to hope for?

Posted by pwmartin at 2:03 PM | Comments (1)

October 6, 2005

hockey all the time

A great story in yesterday's Globe and Mail about the Battle of Alberta. Roy MacGregor really captures the heart of this rivalry between the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames. It definitely took me back.... Cool to see the battle entering the blogosphere, too

Of course, this being the morning after the opening night of the NHL season, it behooves me to point out that the Oilers beat the Colorado Avalanche 4-3 while the Flames were humiliated by the lost to the Wild 6-3.

If you're reading this, you might want to take some time to explore this fabulous site on hockey from the National Library in Canada.

You'll also want to check out this unit on Understanding Hockey/Understanding Canada from a Canadian Studies site we worked on a few years ago with Spotted Cow Press. That unit is written by my sister Heidi Jacobs, who also wrote this great profile on hockey literature for Northwest Passages.

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August 29, 2005

Reasons to fear Canada....

Just when you thought Canada was a nice and friendly place, here is McSweeney's list of "Reasons to Fear Canada"

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August 15, 2005

How's this for a national symbol?

Mona and I spent a great weekend in Ottawa so that I could do some research and preparation for my TAP class' trip to Ottawa in October. We visited many of the most important sites and I snapped a bunch of digital photos that I'll be using as part of a chaptered podcast about our upcoming class trip.

One of the things we saw at the Canadian Parliament that I'd never noticed before was one of the details at the peak of the archway surrounding the main entrance. Now we know that the beaver is Canada's national animal. I'm sure many of us might think that's a bit lame. A few weeks back, I saw a beaver scuttling across the road near our house here in Burlington. Not an animal that inspires admiration at first sight. Industrious? Sure. Clever? Maybe. Noble and awe-inspiring? Ummmmm... no.

Seeing this beaver at the Parliament, though, I realized that maybe whoever thought of using the beaver as our national symbol was thinking of it as a more fierce animal than we might think about today. Just look at this guy! Does he not make you tremble with fear?!

Posted by pwmartin at 10:34 AM | Comments (3)

iPods in the classroom

I am happy to announce officially that in my TAP class this fall UVM will be lending all of the students 20g color iPods. This is the result of a $5000 Instructional Incentive Grant I received earlier this spring from the Center for Teaching and Learning, which is enough for iPods and iTalk microphones for 15 students. The College of Arts and Sciences recently came through with additional funding for me that will allow me to outfit all 21 students with iPods and iTalks.

This project will allow us to test this technology as a teaching tool that, hopefully, we will be able to deploy on a wider scale in coming years for courses that would most benefit from access to audio materials. I will be using the iPods in my TAP class on Canadian culture. In this class, which I've entitled The Great White North (a reference, of course, to cultural icons Bob and Doug McKenzie), we'll be looking at Canadian literature, film, comedy, art, and media. Texts we will be using the iPods to access will include a wide variety of Canadian music, readings or lectures from important writers and thinkers, and excerpts from Canadian radio with a particular focus on comedy programs like The Dead Dog Cafe Comedy Hour, the Vinyl Cafe, and the Vestibules. Because in Vermont we also get CBC television, my students will also be watching a lot of Canadian TV!

Of equal importance will be what the students do with the iPods themselves. As TAP classes are intended to be writing-intensive, first-year seminars, I will be having students write and record audio essays that we will make available on the web as podcasts. One of their assignments will see them podcasting about their experiences visiting Ottawa for the first time. We'll be headed there on a field trip late in October and it will be interesting to hear their reactions.

I'll soon be launching a separate blog for the course, that will have the syllabus, student comments and assignments, and a discussion area, all of which are open to the general public. I'll be using this space on my own blog to reflect as regularly as possible on how this great experiment is going. It's taken a lot of time and energy to get all the technology lined up and to figure out how we will be using it to distribute content. Now, as the start of classes is only two weeks away, I am suddenly scrambling to pull together the content itself. It's going to be wild ride!

Posted by pwmartin at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2005

NY Times editorial on globalization and Canada's healthcare system

Paul Krugman has a great editorial in yesterday's NY Times about Toyota's decision to pass over some southern states and put one of its new plants in Ontario. One of the big lures, as Krugman points out and as many Americans are slowly starting to realize, is Canada's healthcare system, which "saves auto manufacturers large sums in benefit payments compared with their costs in the United States."

Krugman rightly points out that in the global marketplace the US is becoming less and less competitive because of its lack of a nationally funded healthcare system. The overwhelming cost generated by the private insurance system here costs employers billions of dollars while Canadian employers are, relatively speaking, barely affected by the cost of providing basic health insurance to its employees. The danger to US workers, as Krugman indicates, cannot be exaggerated:

You might be tempted to say that Canadian taxpayers are, in effect, subsidizing Toyota's move by paying for health coverage. But that's not right, even aside from the fact that Canada's health care system has far lower costs per person than the American system, with its huge administrative expenses. In fact, U.S. taxpayers, not Canadians, will be hurt by the northward movement of auto jobs.

To see why, bear in mind that in the long run decisions like Toyota's probably won't affect the overall number of jobs in either the United States or Canada. But the result of international competition will be to give Canada more jobs in industries like autos, which pay health benefits to their U.S. workers, and fewer jobs in industries that don't provide those benefits. In the U.S. the effect will be just the reverse: fewer jobs with benefits, more jobs without.

I really don't know what it will take for business and people down here to get the message that a public health care system would save everyone tons of money and make the US much more competitive. I really like how Krugman ends his editorial, too:

Funny, isn't it? Pundits tell us that the welfare state is doomed by globalization, that programs like national health insurance have become unsustainable. But Canada's universal health insurance system is handling international competition just fine. It's our own system, which penalizes companies that treat their workers well, that's in trouble.

For now, let me just point out that treating people decently is sometimes a competitive advantage. In America, basic health insurance is a privilege; in Canada, it's a right. And in the auto industry, at least, the good jobs are heading north.

As this tends to be something people ask me about a lot, let me just say this: I am really happy to be in Vermont. One of the hardest things about living here, though, is to see how people who don't have access to affordable health care suffer. For that matter the amount that my employer and I put in to coverage for my family is, compared to Canadian standards, astounding. People here only see that as acceptable because they don't have a tangible alternative to compare it to in the way that one does having lived in a completely different system. If people here really understood how the health care system in Canada works, they would be calling for the same thing here. Maybe the fear of losing good jobs to other countries will help push things in the right direction.

Thanks to Steve Cavrak for alerting me to this at this bright and early hour.

Now back to my regularly scheduled last-minute writing session for my online course! :)

Posted by pwmartin at 6:26 AM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005

A Nation with too much free time on its hands.

It only gets better!

From Rick Mercer's Blog: A Nation with too much free time on its hands.

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July 13, 2005

Poor Ralph

It must be a cold day in hell when Ralph Klein announces that the Alberta government has decided against fighting the new federal same-sex marriage legislation, but that's exactly what happened yesterday.

While that is great news, what nearly got me blogging about this announcement yesterday was the photo that accompanied the story in the Globe and Mail. It looks as if this news scared the bejeezus out of poor Ralph. Trust Rick Mercer and the readers of his fabulous blog to not let that picture go by without having some fun with it. Take a look at some fabulous new pictures of King Ralph.

Rick Mercer's Monday Report on CBC will be required viewing for my fall Canadian Culture seminar.

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June 28, 2005

Same-sex marriage bill passes!

Here's something that makes me proud to be Canadian today. The Canadian parliament has finally passed long-promised legislation which legalizes same-sex marriage in Canada. This is a great day in Canadian history.

While the report from the Globe and Mail doesn't show that other Paul Martin acting like much of a visionary -- "A right is a right and that is what this vote tonight is all about” -- I especially liked what rookie Member of Parliament Michael Savage had to say: “(We are) a nation of equality. A nation of strength. A nation of compassion. A nation that believes we're stronger together than we are apart. And a nation where we celebrate equality. [. . .] We will send a statement to the world that in Canada gays and lesbians will not be considered second-class citizens.”

It's about time, or so says this particular Paul Martin....

What's going to be interesting is how the reaction to this plays out here in the US.

(I should also point out that the bill now has to be passed by the Senate and signed by the Governor General, but it's looking very likely that this will go ahead by sometime later in July)

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June 4, 2005

Podcasting and Canadian content

Probably the best news of the day for me came via Todd Maffin's i love radio.org blog. The CBC announced today that they have launched a Radio 3 podcast focusing solely on Canadian independent music.

As Todd points out:
The CBC Radio 3 podcast is special for three big reasons:

• To our knowledge, this is the first all music-based podcast from a public broadcaster -- and certainly the first all-Canadian offering.
• It's chock full of 100% 'podsafe' music
• This podcast comes from a special unit at the CBC called Radio 3. Our mission: to showcase new and emerging Canadian music and culture. We've got a website at www.newmusiccanada.com, that houses close to 30,000 tracks from more than 6,000 Canadian artists on it (!), and this podcast is full of the best of New Music Canada's best.

As he also mentions, Canada is receiving attention around the world as one of the current hotspots of great new independent music, so I can imagine this podcast will be of interest to many people outside of Canada as well. CBC Radio 3 remains one of Canada's best kept secrets and I hope this will help to get it some more attention. They've been doing amazing work for a long time now.

Aside from my affection for CBC and Radio 3, I was also excited about this podcast for another important reason: listening to it will become a weekly assignment for my fall seminar on Canadian culture. Todd blogged about this course earlier in the week, and I'm just finally getting around to announcing it here.

One of the exciting things about this course is that I've been awarded a grant that will allow me to outfit all 21 students with iPods (well, I have enough cash for iPods for 15 students but am trying to drum up a few more bucks). The iPods will be loaded with Canadian music, course materials, and will be outfitted with Griffin's iTalk microphones which will allow the students to create their own podcasts about Canada. Their main podcasting assignment will be to document their class fieldtrip to Ottawa partway through the semester.

I'll be blogging more in the coming weeks about podcasting and the development of my course.

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April 8, 2005

NH Elegy: hockey poetry hits the news

One of my favourite poets is Richard Harrison. While he writes poetry on a wide variety of subjects -- his book Big Breath of a Wish was nominated for the Governor General's Award -- his hockey poetry gets a lot of well-deserved attention. I can't think of many poets, though, who have had a single poem become the subject of a Canadian Press wire story. A quick Google search brought up 46 hits, and I'm sure this will increase over the coming days as this story is making the news across Canada and into the US. How cool is that?

One of my favourite poets is Richard Harrison. While he writes poetry on a wide variety of subjects -- his book Big Breath of a Wish was nominated for the Governor General's Award -- his hockey poetry gets a lot of well-deserved attention. I can't think of many poets, though, who have had a single poem become the subject of a Canadian Press wire story. A quick Google search brought up 46 hits, and I'm sure this will increase over the coming days as this story is making the news across Canada and into the US. How cool is that?

The great buzz is about Harrison's latest poem "NH Elegy" which he wrote in response to the cancellation of the NHL season. The poem was published online a couple of days ago, the one-year anniversary of the start of last year's playoffs, and the story got picked up by media far and wide. This poem is the final piece of what Harrison now refers to as his Stanley Cup Trilogy. The first two, "Stanley Cup" and "View from the Top," can be found in Harrison's celebrated book of hockey poems Hero of the Play, released last year in an extended 10th anniversary edition with an added section appropriately entitled "The Hero in Overtime."

Next week, Harrison and I will both be attending a conference at Bridgewater State College where I will be giving a paper on Harrison's hockey poems. Canada's Game? Critical Perspectives on Ice Hockey and Identity will be the second interdisciplinary, international hockey conference I've been to in the last several year. The first was in Halifax and it was a terrific event -- I got to meet Jean Beliveau, after all. I'm sure this one will be just as interesting.

Like Harrison points out in his interview with the Canadian Press, this is the moment that most of us are in mourning for a lost springtime ritual, the NHL playoffs. Last year's playoffs hit close to home, too. Calgary wound up in the finals (though I am an Edmonton boy, I had to cheer for the other Alberta team) and Martin St. Louis of the Tampa Bay Lightning played for the UVM Catamounts and still has a home here in South Burlington. It's hard to go from a playoff series like that to nothing.

While this is clearly a bad time for professional hockey, it's a great time for hockey literature -- not to mention, of course, the Canadian women's hockey team. Spotted Cow Press is about two weeks away from unveiling its reprint of ICE: New Writing on Hockey, with a new introduction by Roy MacGregor. I also received an e-mail from New Brunswick poet Matt Robinson, whose collection of hockey poetry entitled no cage contains a stare that well will be coming out this fall from ECW Press. Make sure to watch for both of those books.

So, with no further ado, courtesy of Richard Harrison and abebooks.com, here's the poem that's voicing so beautifully what many of us are feeling right now.

NH Elegy

Once, men came home from war,

or from the sides of family graves,

to lace up skates and play for it

as if everything could be remade

in a silver bowl passed hand to hand.

For years it etched the seasons

with their winning names,

and took the touch of triumph

into each triumphant house. It paused

just once – to mourn the dead, and

stayed unmarked to mark their passing.

Today, left idle in the Hall of Fame,

while rich men quarrel to no profit at its base,

untouched upon its plinth it stands.

And all who see it can tell you now

how a fallen thing is one that no one holds.

Richard Harrison

P.S. If you're interested in picking up any of Richard's books, all poetry books are 30% off this month at Northwest Passages

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March 30, 2005

Montréal, World Book Capital 2005

The 7th annual Blue Metropolis Literary Festival launches today in Montreal and runs until April 3. While a great deal of it is focused on French writers, there are always quite a few interesting sessions in English.

There will be many literary events in Montreal this year, as UNESCO has named Montreal as World Book Capital for 2005. That status begins on April 23 and will be marked by a two day launch festivity, which includes the grand opening of Montreal's new Grande Bibliothèque (the Big Library), which has been under construction for the last several years. It promises to be an amazing library. You can find out more about the World Book Capital events at the official website.

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March 24, 2005

If you like this title, we also recommend... Panther Girl of the Kongo (1955)

From imdb.com, sent to me by my sister.

Canadian Mounties vs. Atomic Invaders (1953): A villain named Marlof attempts to set up secret missile bases inside Canada so he can launch missiles at the U.S. The Canadian Mounted Police dispatch agents to try to stop him.

I'm not sure what I like best, the description of the series or the recommendation of Panther Girl of the Kongo as something fans of this show might also enjoy.

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March 2, 2005

I always thought that I really wanted a dog...

Now there is a new pet that is the top of my wish list. Only if I can bring him to work though....

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February 20, 2005

Latest issue of the Compass

One of the things I try to write on a regular basis is the newsletter for Northwest Passages. The Compass is a newsletter that talks about the latest Canadian literature news, new books hitting the virtual shelves on our online bookstore, and, when I get a chance to write my monthly editorial (which is conspicuously absent in February's issue), my thoughts on the world of Canadian literature.

So, in case you haven't read the Compass, here's the entire February issue for you to take a look at if you wish. To subscribe, simply e-mail subscribe@nwpassages.com

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January 31, 2005

"You don't deke Margaret"

"As in the world of literature, sometimes hockey's not pretty." -- Margaret Atwood

Check out the video of Margaret Atwood's tips on how to stop a puck from this week's episode of The Monday Report. I can't think of much better than seeing Margaret in goalie gear as she says: "I don't like to hotdog, but if the puck carrier's really putting lumber on it, then Momma can get nasty!"

If this piques your interest in the connections between hockey and literature, check out Richard Harrison's book Hero of the Play or the anthology ICE: New Writing on Hockey. In April, I'll be giving a paper on Harrison's work at a conference called “Canada’s Game? Critical Perspectives on Ice Hockey and Identity.“ If only I could bring Margaret along with me....

Note: you can now find the video clip of Atwood on the Back Issues page of the Monday Report website. Look for the segment in the week of January 31, 2005.

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December 9, 2004

George W. Bush's visit to Canada redux

Here are just a few of the stories about Bush's recent visit to Canada. Bush did his best to make himself better liked in Canada, going so far as to thank those Canadians who waved at his motorcade with all five fingers. I was not among them.

The Globe and Mail: Poll underlines differences between U.S., Canada:
These poll results will surprise many Americans, I think.

The Globe and Mail: Banned beef and borders dominate talks :
There were many issues on the table, most notably the continuing and completely unnecessary ban on Canadian beef. Bush made light of this, noting that he had dined on Alberta beef and was still feeling fine. NOT the way to make friends here...

Online NewsHour: President Bush Visits Canada -- December 1, 2004:
"I realize, and many Americans realize, that it's not always easy to sleep next to the elephant. As a member of Canada's parliament said in the 1960s, "the United States is our friend whether we like it or not." (Laughter and applause) When all is said and done, we are friends, and we like it." - George W. Bush

The transcript of this panel discussion on Canada-US relations is particularly interesting.

The New York Times: Bush, Visiting Canada, Aims to Smooth Ruffled Relations:
OTTAWA, Nov. 30 - President Bush on Tuesday thanked Canadians who waved a welcome to him "with all five fingers" on his first official visit to their country, but he also appeared defensive at a time when he was expected to reach out and try to repair the rift over the war in Iraq. (NY TIMES)

The Globe and Mail: Fun with George and Laura:
"After dining on seared Maritime scallops, breast of roasted squab, flambéed bananas and "Josh's beaver tails" -- a specialty of 24 Sussex chef Joshua Drache -- Mrs. Bush presented Mrs. Martin with a White House bag full of her favourite books.

They included one from former White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier called Dessert University, which provides "essential lessons" on dessert-making."

TheStar.com - Bush shows his funny side:
"Tongue firmly in cheek, President George W. Bush paid tribute today to his mythical Canadian supporter, Jean Poutine."

I have to admit that Bush's self-deprecating humour while in Canada almost made me like the guy, at least for a minute or two.

David Frum's Diary on National Review Online:
"Bush’s visit was a diplomatic triumph, from the failure of Canada’s small but vociferous anti-American minority to turn out in the cold streets of Ottawa to the new tone taken by prime minister Paul Martin – and perhaps above all to the laughter and cheers of the president’s audiences."

Well, maybe from Bush's point of view it was a triumph. Frum raises some good points here about Canada, as much as I really dislike the guy's politics.

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December 4, 2004

Montreal massacre victims to be remembered

Every year on December 6, I mark the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre by taking a moment of silence in class after reading the names of the murdered women. Talking to my students, the vast majority of whom have never heard of the events of 15 years ago even though it happened only about 90 minutes from here, I cannot help but compare the lives of the murdered women with those of my female students.

This story from the Globe and Mail reminds us of the lives behind each of these names.

Every year, in memorial ceremonies across the country, Genevieve Bergeron's name is heard first when the list of the victims of Canada's worst mass shooting is read.

The tragedy of her death overshadows her life for most Canadians. They're seldom told she was a loving, inspirational sister, a top student, a gifted musician and a talented athlete.

I particularly like what Catherine Bergeron says about how we should remember her sister:

Catherine Bergeron acknowledges the gun law is part of her sister's legacy but it's not the only way she wants her to be remembered.

"I would like Canadians to remember her and the other 13 women, not to be sad but to go on in life in a better way," she said.
"Think more about other human beings and be more open. More tolerant too."

I hope we can all find some time in our classes on Monday, December 6 to remember the following young women in this way:

Victims of the Montreal Massacre at l'École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989

Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Barbara Klucznik Widajewicz
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte

In Canada, December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada. Established in 1991 by the Parliament of Canada, this day coincides with the sad anniversary of the death of fourteen young women who were tragically killed on December 6, 1989 at l'École Polytechnique in Montréal because of their gender.

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December 3, 2004

Need I say more?

“Paul and I share a great vision for the future, two prosperous, independent nations joined together by the return of NHL hockey.” George W. Bush, Dec. 1, 2004

Posted by pwmartin at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)

November 4, 2004

In case you're thinking about making a run for the border....

Here's a new Canadian effort to help you make that jump to Canadian citizenship a lot easier!

Alternatively, there's still the opportunity for Vermont to secede and join the new and improved Canada 2.0!

If you want to move there, though, Sarah Weinman thinks there are some important things about Canada that you should know first...

Posted by pwmartin at 9:45 AM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2004

If it looks like a rat....

This looks like a job for the Alberta Rat Patrol!

For over 50 years, Alberta has prided itself in being Canada's rat-free province, so long as you don't count this guy.

Now, something threatens this treasured status! Quick! Somebody call the rat patrol! Everybody else, grab a broom!

Posted by pwmartin at 7:22 AM

September 21, 2004

The Tragically Hip coming to Burlington

I'm tempted to require my students to attend....

Oct. 20th will see the Tragically Hip play Memorial Auditorium in Burlington. I can't wait!

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