A few weeks ago, at Centennial College where I teach, we realized things were reaching a breaking point. Students faced a never-ending stream of deadlines. Faculty appeared completely stressed out. And everybody seemed at wit’s end. So, we invited in a campus counsellor to conduct a stress workshop. Eventually, she just asked straight out, “What seems to be the problem?”
“I can’t seem to get things done,” one student said. “There’s never enough time.”
Canada’s wartime history was rewritten 13 years ago this autumn.
Not a lot of it. But three Canadian air crewmen listed as missing in action became war dead with names and a story Sept. 6, 1997. at day, an o -duty airline pilot led a salvage expedition at the crash site of a Second World War bomber, near Geraardsbergen, Belgium. Shot down the night of May 9, 1944, Halifax bomber LW682 took all eight crewmen to their deaths. German troops quickly removed ve of the bodies before the Halifax vanished into the mud, it seemed, forever.
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Photography courtesy Neville Palmer
They tell me if things go a certain way, one day soon I’ll have this day to myself. I’ll be able to rise, take a leisurely breakfast and then do the right thing. They tell me if their plan is accepted, I’ll have all day to pay my respects to Canada’s veterans. That plan will mean I’ll have a statutory holiday on Nov. 11, on Remembrance Day. At least, that’s what the sponsor of a private member’s bill, MPP Lisa MacLeod, believes.
“There’s been an outpouring of support for Canadian soldiers, our war veterans and our war dead,” she told CBC a few days ago.
In his 2009 book “Tainted,” Canadian author Ross Pennie explores the hypothetical likelihood of a regional health facility facing a sudden outbreak of mad-cow disease in a small Ontario community without any apparent explanation. The book is a thriller, an entirely fictionalized depiction of a system facing a medical crisis and widespread public panic right in our own backyard.
But Dr. Pennie admitted to me – and the audience watching our interview at the Whitby Pubic Library, Monday night – that he didn’t write this medical mystery as a slam against doctors or Canadian health facilities. No, he said, it was, in a way, medical teaching universities he was decrying.
“I’m not criticizing doctors or the medical system,” he said, “but I am knocking those in academe who would rather drag each other down than see any one individual scientist get credit for advancing the cause of medicine.”
The other night, I sent a couple of dozen of my journalism students out into the night. They had to go to one of the municipalities where the public was voting for mayors, councillors and/or aldermen. Their job was to get the perspective of the loser and the reaction of the winner in their chosen ward for the record. The reaction I got from one or two members of my class of practising reporters amazed me.
“Why is it so important to do this?” one student asked.
A few years ago, a good friend of ours in town began working on some special projects. They were pieces of handyman work. Things such as ramps alongside staircases, wider doorways inside houses and railings and handles for people with temporary or permanent disabilities. He got the work because Kate Thompson-Hawks (from Durham Access-to-Care) knew that he understood the needs of her clients.
“We knew you’d be fair,” she said, “and you’d do a good job.”
You’ve probably never heard of Luis Iribarren. Or Claudio Lagos. And you’ll likely never run across Dario Rojo in your lifetime. But, in fact, you do know them, all of them. They are three of the 33 men trapped in the Chilean mine since Aug. 5. For the record, you probably remember the very first words that Iribarren spoke to the world on Aug. 22.
“We are well,” he said through a communication line, “and we are hoping that you will rescue us.”
This was perhaps his only opportunity to address the electorate in a debate for the 2010 municipal election. His competitors for councillor in the ward were in the public hall in person. But municipal candidate Joe Amarelo could not be present. A family emergency had forced him to miss the event. He did, nevertheless, have an impact on the meeting. A statement he’d written was read.
“I see unresolved issues in our town, including vandalism,” Amarelo’s statement read. “It’s important to … create a dialogue. Why not have a Youth Day?”
I walked into my History of Broadcasting class last Friday morning. I told those present – about 50 Broadcasting and Film students at Centennial College in Toronto – that I was tossing out the lesson plan that day. I suggested I had a more contemporary issue on my mind. But I didn’t want to colour their responses. I simply asked for their take on the alleged gang rape of that student near Vancouver earlier in the week.
“It’s revolting,” one male student said.
Even in liberated communities, there are some areas still considered off-limits to certain people. Children aren’t often seen in pubs. Most women don’t hang out in repair garages. And men don’t generally frequent manicure and pedicure salons. The same could be said of men in sewing shops and the like. In fact, last Saturday afternoon when I decided to pay a courtesy visit to the Quilters Cupboard in Uxbridge, Ont., I got a predicable response when I entered.
“Hey ladies,” a voice announced from inside the store, “a man has just entered the shop.” Most got a chuckle out of the remark. Me included.