The Coldest Night of the Year

Posted on January 11, 2022 by Skid

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Last night, January 11, 2022, the temperature in Caledon dropped to -21 degrees Celsius and -25 if you factor in the wind chill. At these temperatures the unsheltered human body goes through a sequence from frost nip to frostbite to hypothermia. We begin to shiver uncontrollably to keep our body warm. Within one hour the heart stops pumping blood to our extremities concentrating the life giving warmth around our vital organs. By the end of three hours, the brain shuts down, the heart stops beating and we freeze to death. Last night Environment Canada issued an Extreme Cold Weather Alert for all of Canada except BC, They are getting hit with more rain, and flooding, and mudslides. The new normal.

Imagine being homeless in these conditions.

The Coldest Night of the Year (CNOY) walk was conceived to raise funds to address the issues of homelessness and hunger and prevent the kinds of tragedies that come with extreme weather conditions. Water, Food, and Shelter are basic needs of all peoples and are the first to be lost to the disadvantaged in our society. CNOY began in 2011 and, to quote from their website history, was “launched in two locations supported by three charitable partners, including Ann Barnard Ball at Yonge Street Mission, Greg Paul at Sanctuary Ministries in Toronto, and Harry Whyte and Scott Brush at Ray of Hope Community Centre in Kitchener/Waterloo.” They placed their trust in the Blue Sea Foundation to manage the event, and that trust was not misplaced.

CNOY has grown every year since 2011, bringing communities together in awareness and action for the benefit of our most disadvantaged. In a country as wealthy as Canada and in a province that is “For the People” the the only obstacles to providing shelters and affordable housing are lack of political will, corporate greed, and public apathy.

The first CNOY walk in the Town of Caledon began in 2020, organized through Caledon Community Services. Families came together on a cold February night to make a 5 km walk through the streets and trails of Caledon East. At the end of the walk we all met in the Caledon East Community Centre for a celebratory bowl of warm soup and to give thanks to the CCS volunteers. It was the true meaning of community.

Since then the global pandemic has not made things any easier for the most vulnerable among us. In 2021 the CNOY walk went online unless you could take your small masked, appropriately spaced group on a local outdoor trail. That will be the same situation this year on February 26, 2022 when the Caledon community takes a walk on the Coldest Night of the Year.

If you can, please support the CNOY project wherever you are – it’ll do your heart good. The way I see it.

To find out more go to the Blue Sea Foundation and to make a donation to CNOY ’22 go to <cnoy.org>

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Skid Crease, Caledon

*image from cnoy.org

Prolonging the Pandemic

Posted on November 19, 2021 by Skid

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We are nearing the end of the second year of the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. COVID-19 is the disease that is caused by this coronavirus. First identified in December of 2019, it has swept around the globe, leaving death and disruption in its wake.

In order to protect our communities from overwhelming COVID-19 infections we initiated protocols for individual isolation and quarantine; we asked our populations to wear masks, stay 2m apart, and wash up with hand sanitizer before and after we went out for groceries; as communities we had slowdowns, partial shut-downs and total lockdowns. We waited for the CDC and Health Canada to issue emergency approval for newly developed vaccines.

Our national and local Medical Officers of Health, and politicians, kept us apprised of the necessary health measures and coronavirus case counts. The choice was simple: follow the guidelines and get the pandemic under control, or don’t and suffer the consequences. Politicians played Russian roulette with our public schools as stressed parents coped with online learning at home. Businesses began to shut down and frustrated owners and staff put pressure on their local elected officials to get things re-opened. So we rushed into “shopping mall therapy” as soon as infections hit a low point.

Every time we get a drop in infections we “open up the economy” again. In Doug Ford’s Ontario that means strip clubs, bars, restaurants, and packed sports stadiums. We do it “for the people” and inevitably see a spike in infections shortly thereafter. We call them “waves” but they are really just indicators of our collective consumptive stupidity.

Medical science told us that if we stayed masked, distanced, hand-washed and fully vaccinated that we would have a chance to hold this pandemic at bay. But we just couldn’t wait to get “back to normal” and now there is no normal. Once again we re-opened and our case count is rising. Thanks to the number of people now vaccinated this bump is not as severe as April of this year when we peaked at 4500 cases.

The rise to 711 cases on Thursday, November 18, 2021 pushed Ontario’s seven day average to 600 cases and talk of modifying the re-opening guidelines bubbled up from the Science Advisory Table cauldron once again. Dear Doug and friends, please try to get it right for once. 10,000 Ontarians have already died from this coronavirus, including 4,000 from Long Term Care facilities. You are acting like immediate gratification “one marshmallow” children. In 1972, Stanford University psychology professor Walter Mischel conducted a study on delayed gratification. In this study, a child was offered a choice between one small but immediate reward (either a marshmallow or a pretzel stick), or two small rewards if they waited for a period of time. During this time, the researcher left the room for about 15 minutes and then returned.

Some of the children had immediately gone for the one small reward, but a smaller group had waited to double their pleasure. In follow-up studies, the researchers found that the children who were able to wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes in everything from educational attainment to healthy body mass index. Our politicians and their advisers are playing to the immediate gratification crew. I would prefer to wait until we have this pandemic under control before asking for my second small reward. I suspect most Ontarians who prefer a healthy life over death from COVID-19 would want the same.

The way I see it.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

UPDATE Friday, November 19,2021 – Ontario’s COVID-19 case count 793 : “Today’s case count comes after officials logged 711 new cases on Thursday, 512 new cases on Wednesday and 481 new cases on Tuesday. Ontario’s rolling seven-day average now stands at 625, up from 537 at this point last week.” You do the graph.

Reported by Abby Neufeld, multi platform writer for CTV News Toronto

@abbyjneufeld

Fireworks in Caledon

Posted on November 9, 2021 by Skid

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All was quiet in the evening darkness as a neighbour and I walked our dogs, on leash, through Fountainbridge Park to Allen Drive. Suddenly the sky was filled with a series of startling bursts of colour accompanied by thunderous booms. My companion’s dog was so terrified, he broke his leash and took off through the park. Mine nearly pulled my arm out of its socket as he bolted frantically to get away from the explosions that continued non-stop. He tugged me all the way down Highmore towards our street as the barrage amplified.. There on the corner of our intersection a man was lighting off his fireworks right on the public boulevard beside his house. These were not minor fireworks, these were major light shows – the kind that make crowds “OH” and “AH” on Victoria Day and Canada Day.

The problem was that it was neither of these two days when fireworks can legally be set off in Ontario and Caledon. On these days, people with pets, the elderly in home hospice, the recently arrived from war torn countries, families with very young children, and persons recovering from PTSD can close their doors and windows and keep a modicum of quiet inside their homes until the assault is over. The adult offender in this case had picked July 4 to celebrate, forgetting perhaps that he lives in Canada.

He was either ignorant of Ontario law and Caledon’s by-laws regarding fireworks, or stupidly selfish. I suspected the latter as he became aggressively defensive when we exchanged words about stopping the display. He quieted down shortly thereafter when he received a letter I sent him copied to the Town, the Caledon OPP, and the Caledon Fire Department who actually enforce the by-law. He no longer set off displays after that day.

But the barrages continued over the next two weeks of July, with large displays coming from the North Hill section of Bolton, and the occasional local small burst from a variety of young teens in Fountainbridge Park and the Allan Drive Middle School parking lot. When I informed one of the teens about the laws of the land, he replied, “But we didn’t get to light them all on Canada Day.” “Gee,” I replied, “I guess you’ll have to keep them dry until July 1st next year.”

And during the recent Diwali festival, came another fireworks incident with my wife walking our dog. She quickly brought the terrified dog home and went back to speak with the youths. It soon became apparent that they were not celebrating Diwali when one of them told her that he was lighting fireworks because it was his birthday, She informed them about Ontario law and the Town’s by-laws, but instead of apologizing for setting off an illegal fireworks display, the two young boys proceeded to tell her to do obscene things to herself, and then quickly scuttled off into the darkness.

To accommodate diversity, the Town of Caledon is amending its Fireworks By-law to include cultural celebrations that traditionally include fireworks, like the Chinese Lunar New Year and Diwali. However, that By-law, like many things delayed by pandemic priorities, has not come before Council for approval. Unless the organization or person is a licensed pyrotechnic engineer with a permit, like say at Canada’s Wonderland, there are only two days a year that the general public can legally set off fireworks.

Those two days are Victoria Day and Canada Day. Period. You must be eighteen (18) years of age to purchase fireworks. If you notice any illegal fireworks displays that are disturbing the peace in your neighbourhood, get the location and inform Caledon Fire at this email address: Fire@caledon.ca. Similarly, if you notice vendors selling to underage youth, notify the Caledon OPP and Caledon Fire. And if you are a parent setting off illegal displays, or providing fireworks illegally to youth, learn the laws or face the consequences. Ignorance is not knowing what the offending behaviour is; stupidity is knowing but continuing the offending behaviour anyway. It’s time for some of our neighbours to smarten up.

The way I see it.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

*image from popularmechanics.com