The Free Range Child

Posted on May 31, 2025 by Skid

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I still have visions of my youngest daughter running around the backyard of a property I once owned North of Orangeville. I would lose sight of her once in a while, between climbing to the top of the red pines to the north of our house, or searching for elves in their undergrowth.

One day I lost sight of her completely. We had a small above ground pool in the backyard, and I ran out to do a safety check. There she was, laying under the stairs to the pool, gently stroking the neck of a garter snake who was hypnotized by her. I left quietly.

On another occasion, I looked out on the back porch where we had a hummingbird feeder. I watched for fifteen minutes while she patiently waited with her hand outstretched under the feeding tube. Finally a hummingbird landed on her finger. She watched close up as it fed from the nectar and her smile was like a thousand Christmas mornings.

Today she lives in British Columbia with her husband and two beautiful grandchildren. She keeps them close to the wild and sacred spaces, hiking the trails, exploring the watersheds, releasing the salmon fry, and simply loving all of the life around them. They are free range children, maybe the last of a childhood immersed in nature.

Today we hear all kinds of experts tout the health and wellness benefits of keeping children in close contact with natural systems. But the easy way out is to hand them an electronic drug like a cell phone or an iPad. Will we inherit the Ecozoic or the Technozoic Era?

At least I know these grandchildren will have had their earliest years immersed in the natural world. If I leave behind any kind of a legacy, this is it.

The way I see it.

The Rise and Fall of a Political Animal

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Skid

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The results of our federal election seem to be all accounted for at this point in time, and we can enjoy those May flowers knowing that a secure centre-left majority will work their best to provide the economic, environmental, health and housing security that all Canadians hope to achieve.

It is also calming to know that Pierre Poilievre will be out of Parliament for the rest of the year. Yes, he suffered a humiliating defeat in his long held riding in Ottawa, losing his seat and his Opposition leader status, and maybe even his residence in Stornoway. And yes, there will possibly be a leadership review that could send him into the barren lands. BUT, Pierre Poilievre is a consummate political animal. Now he is a desperate political animal backed into a corner. He will fight ruthlessly to win back a seat in Parliament and resume his former role as Leader of the Opposition by any means possible. Why? Because he doesn’t have any other skills – politics is the only thing he has ever done and ever wanted to do. The only other thing he has ever wanted to do was to drive a stake through the heart of the Liberal Party of Canada.

If his Party doesn’t reject him in a leadership review, they will seek a sacrificial lamb of a newly elected or re-elected MP to give up their seat for him. It can’t be anywhere near Ottawa, because the good citizens of Ottawa have kicked Pierre to the curb and don’t want him back. That’s what you get for waving support to a convoy of anti-everything insurrectionists who blockaded and terrorized your hometown for weeks while you just smiled down on the chaos. That was really, really stupid.

How could anyone who wanted to be the leader of our country align themselves with a group of burly, bearded, bully truckers and bikers who desperately wanted to have sex with our Prime Minister? But I digress … back to slithering into the House.

Having been born and raised in Calgary, Pierre would be very safe moving to rural Alberta and trying for a seat there. He would be quite comfortable in the nest of discontent woven by past Reform, Alliance, and Conservative mentors. He could easily settle under the warm wings of Danielle Smith, Premier of Alberta’s far right United Conservative Party. There was a joke circulating when Trumpism began to rear its ugly head to our south: “What do you get when you cross a far right Floridian with a far right Texan? A UCP Albertan.” Pierre would fit right in with that crowd.

In the meantime, if needed ,the Conservative Reform Alliance Party will sit a place holder in the House of Commons and may even figure a way to let Poilievre and family stay in Stornoway until the party’s leadership is decided. Heaven forbid that poor homeless Pierre would have to go house hunting for an affordable abode like so many hard working tax-paying Canadians do every year. And imagine, having to do new job skills training at the same time. Oh, the horror, the horror!

Until then the unemployed Pierre will be putting on his election defeat speech demeanor as he continues to seduce the media circuit with his newfound co-operative spirit to work positively for all Canadians. He cannot afford to let Canadians see his true colours – that provocative, petulant partisan personality that is hardwired into his reptilian brain stem. He also cannot afford to lose the many angst filled Generation Z young adults who drank his kool aid during the election campaign. What happens if they discover that he lied to them (Canada is 1st in the G7 in per capita GDP share), and what if their needs get met, as promised, by the new minority/majority government in his absence?

Until then, if and when her returns, there will be entente in the family. Just remember that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

The way I see it.

UPDATE: As we predicted, the Conservatives found a sacrificial lamb – on May 2,2025 Damien Kurek stepped aside from his seat in Battle River-Crowfoot, Alberta to allow Poilievre to run in a safe seat. Prime Minister Carney then threw Poilievre a lifeline by promising that he would call a by-election “as soon as possible … no games.” That means that Pierre Poilievre could be back in Parliament this as early as this September. Let’s hope he’s ready to work for Canada this time.

Ignorance & Stupidity vs Environmental Literacy

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Skid

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Ignorance: 1. the condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uniformed;

2. willful neglect or refusal to acquire knowledge which one may acquire and it is their duty to have.

Stupidity: 1. the condition of being slow to learn or understand

2. a tendency to make poor decisions or careless mistakes;

3. describing actions or decisions marked by a lack of intelligence or care

*****

The five pillars of Environmental Literacy are: Awareness, Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills, and Action. In order to be environmentally literate, one must be very well informed, able to see the patterns that connect, and able to ruthlessly fact-check. The sources used for assembling that knowledge must be legitimate practising, peer reviewed, and published – the 3Ps. Otherwise we will get garbage in, garbage out.

*****

Which begs the question, dear adult voters living in Dufferin-Caledon: Why would we re-elect Kyle Seeback? Why, after knowing that the last MP who actually did anything significant for us was when we were represented by farmer Murray Calder, a Liberal MP who held the position from 1993 to 2004 when our riding was rearranged to become Dufferin-Caledon. Then a conservative lawyer, David Tilson was elected. Tilson was a former Progressive Conservative MPP who had joined the anything but progressive Conservative Reform Alliance Party. David Tilson served as MP from 2004 to 20019, spending most of that decade warming his political briefs on the backbench. He did virtually nothing for Dufferin-Caledon.

Mr. Tilson was succeeded in 2019 by Kyle Seeback, another conservative lawyer who has also warmed the backbench, again doing nothing significant for Dufferin-Caledon and Canada as a member of a hostile, divisive opposition party.

Yes, Dufferin-Caledon needed a change all right. We are entering an era of economic and political threats from the USA President, we are entering an era when the old spectre of western separatism is being stoked by far right conservatives, and we are already immersed in an era of global social and environmental upheaval. We needed someone who would fight for our security and sovereignty, not another bench warming Conservative Reform Alliance Party lawyer.

The way I see it.

The Morning After the Night Before

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Skid

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Dawn rose on a new Canada this morning. Instead of the Conservative majority predicted by pollsters at the start of the campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney wins his seat and the government of Canada will be Liberal. One of the greatest reversals of fortune in Canadian political history. To add insult to injury, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre loses his seat and a place in the House of Commons. Didn’t see that one coming.

New Democrats lose their Party Status, and Jagmeet Singh also loses his seat and graciously gives up his leadership as soon as a successor can be chosen. Elizabeth May, so-leader of the Green Party wins her seat and a place at the table. While votes in close races are still being tabulated it appears at this point that we have a Liberal minority that will need every vote from the few NDP, Green, and Bloc seats to advance their agenda.

We are going to need a united front to deal with the Trumpian threats from the south, yet it appears unlikely that a bitterly disappointed Conservative Party will be anything but the obfuscaters and obstructionists they have been for the last ten years. If you look closely enough you may see that the “lost decade” as Mr. Poilievre calls it, really had nothing to do with ten years of Liberal governance. There were global financial crises, global health pandemics, and the rise of far right politics that gave the stamp of approval to nasty, divisive behaviour.

The Conservatives frequently liked to state that because of Liberal policies, Canada was ranked last of the G7 countries in terms of GDP. True, but what they didn’t clarify was that Canada also has the smallest population of the G7 countries. When you look at the rankings, each country’s place in the list corresponds exactly with its population.

So, when we calculate how Canada is doing using GDP per capita as our guide, lo and behold, Canada comes out in #1 spot at $38,000 per person. The USA and UK are next at $35,000, Germany at $34,000, Japan at $33,000, France at $31,000. and Italy at $29,000. Gee whiz, Conservative Reform Alliance Party, you’ve been lying to us for the last ten years! Shame. Canada is actually #1 in the G7. Not last, NUMBER ONE.

And you never told us that the real reason that house prices and inflation went out of control was caused by a global financial crisis, and greedy developers, land speculators and real estate agents who all got richer while most us us got quite a bit poorer. Very little to do with our government. Dear Conservative Party, please tell all those young Gen Z people who flocked to the size of your rallies, your seductive sloganeering, and your rabble-rousing rhetoric that you’ve been pulling the proverbial wool over their eyes.

When the forces from the South come looking to plunder the richness of our lands, and when the next election comes, we are all going to need to see very clearly.

The way I see it.

WTF! They Resurrected Stephen Harper?

Posted on April 26, 2025 by Skid

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The Conservative campaign must be in trouble. The Party has decided to resurrect their old, retired leader Stephen Harper to become the new voice and face of their media campaign. Poor Pierre Poilievre was even absent from the last few commercials, on the bench for a bit while Harper and two colonial golfers filled in for him.

The question is “Why would you bring back the most reviled leader in current Canadian history to lead you to victory in this 2025 election?”

Here are quotes from John Ibbitson who was Harper’s sympathetic biographer:

“There has never been a Prime Minister as utterly contemptuous of people outside his voting coalition as Stephen Harper.”

“Harper had so wanted to destroy the Liberal Party, to reshape Canadian politics along American or British or Australian lines, with a dominant party of the centre right.”

“Harper paid a political price for the robocalls affair, as he deserved to. His own secretive, suspicious nature and his relentless determination to do everything within the legal limit to discredit and defeat his opponents created the win-at-all-costs culture.”