Author name: Townships Weekend

From Baldwin’s Mills to Baldwin Pond

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy
Keith Baldwin

Oldest Wales Home resident can stilll catch a fish and cook it for you

By Nick Fonda

Local Journalism Initiative

When the United Church of Canada celebrates its 100th birthday this June, Keith Baldwin will be looking on with particular interest, and not just because, at 102, he is older than the Church.  His grandfather, and his namesake, Willis Keith Baldwin, played a significant role in the creation of the United Church of Canada a century ago.

“Forming the United Church—a union of three denominations:  Methodist, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian—required an act of parliament,” says Keith Baldwin.  “The Presbyterians were split on the issue with about 70 per cent of the congregations in favour of the amalgamation.  At the time, my grandfather was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Stanstead riding.  He was a Liberal and part of Mackenzie King’s government.  He attended the Methodist Church in Baldwin’s Mills and wanted the United Church to be formed.  Mackenzie King, the Prime Minister, was a Presbyterian, and part of the 30 per cent of Presbyterians who were against the amalgamation.”

 “In Quebec,” continues Keith, “many of the MPs were Catholic.  They were completely indifferent on this issue.  As they didn’t care one way or the other, they would have been inclined to follow the lead of their prime minister.  However, my grandfather lobbied them and managed to convince many of them to vote in favour of the proposed amalgamation.  Without his efforts, it’s unlikely that parliament would have passed the legislation to create the United Church.”

Keith’s grandfather was an active and industrious individual whose story and untimely death were written about by Bernard Epps.  The great-grandson of Levi Baldwin, who moved to what became Baldwin’s Mills in 1798, Willis Keith Baldwin was a lumberman who owned and operated three different businesses in the town that bore his name.  He had a sawmill, a factory that manufactured boxes and crates, and the general store.  He was first elected to parliament in 1917, won four elections in all, and served as MP until 1930.    Five years later, at the age of 78, he was murdered in his general store. 

Keith was 10 at the time. 

“It was a very intense and difficult period for my parents,” he says.   “At almost the same time, my grandmother also died.  She frequently went to Florida for the winter months, a practice she had started when my grandfather was in Ottawa for the winter sessions of parliament.  That year, she fell sick and was diagnosed with cancer.  She died on the train on her way back home.  She and my grandfather died within two days of each other and neither one was aware of the death of the other.”

Keith, the second-born of seven children, grew up in a multi-generational household.

“My father, Harold, was my grandparent’s only surviving son,” says Keith.  “Their other son returned from the Great War, as World War I was then called, with what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and not long after the war, it led to his death.  We lived with my grandparents in a large, recently-built house which replaced a house that had been lost to fire not long before I was born.  Because I shared a first and second name—as well as a family name—with my grandfather, I was always called Keith, as my grandfather was always called Willis.”

“When I was growing up,” he continues, “there were two churches in Baldwin’s Mills, one Methodist and the other Baptist, but neither one had a resident minister.  After 1925, every summer the United Church would send a student minister and we had regular services for a couple of months.  During the winter, we listened to Sunday services on the radio.  As we were the only family in town with a radio, several neighbours would come over to listen with us.”

While Baldwin’s Mills is residential today, until the middle of the 19th century, it was a thriving, bustling, industrial community.

“At one time,” Keith says, “there was a factory that made buggies and sleighs.  As well, a steam boat called the Pinnacle Belle that ferried people back and forth across Lake Lyster was also built there.  There was a creamery that shipped cream and butter as well as a factory that made condensed milk.  There was a grist mill and there were blacksmith shops.”

Little more than half a century after Levi Baldwin founded the place, the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railway opted to run its line through Coaticook, less than 20 km away.  Industries and businesses were slowly but surely lured to the nearby railway town and Baldwin’s Mills went into a long, slow decline.  Ironically, Coaticook was founded by Levi Baldwin’s son, Richard.

“Another Baldwin, Eugene, who was my grandfather’s brother, built a dairy barn in Coaticook that, for a time in the early 1900s, was the biggest in North America,” Keith notes.  “He then added to it and, for a time, was the biggest dairy barn in the world.  The barn is still standing and is part of the fairgrounds,”

As for Keith, when he finished high school, he signed up with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

“I trained as a bomber pilot,” he says.  “However, by the time I was shipped overseas, the war was in its last stages, and bombing runs over Germany had been stopped.  I did fly a loaded Lancaster bomber but it was to dump what had become surplus bombs into the North Sea.”

Back home after the war, he enrolled at McGill University where he earned a degree in metallurgical engineering.  If there was little need for metallurgical engineers in Baldwin’s Mills, that wasn’t the case in Sherbrooke.  Keith was hired by Ingersoll Rand to oversee the manufacturing of a wide range of industrial machinery.  He retired from the company after a 31-year career at the relatively young age of 60.

“My wife, Evelyn, had always been a stay-at-home mom,” Keith says.  “When I retired, with our four kids grown and on their own, Evelyn decided to try her hand at running a store.  She opened a small shop in Lennoxville, Comme Ci, and operated it very successfully for over a dozen years.”

“I went back to flying,” he continues. “I got a pilot’s license, and with two friends I bought a Grumman Tiger, which is a single-engine, four-seat aircraft.  I flew almost annually to Florida, where we have family.  On one occasion, I flew them to the Bahamas.  The longest trip I made was to British Columbia.  Without oxygen, I couldn’t go above 10 000 feet, and I flew through Crowsnest Pass to get through the Rockies.  I continued flying until I was 76 when I felt it was time to give it up.”

For 10 years after retirement, Keith made annual hunting trips to British Columbia for deer and elk.  Here in the Townships, he hunted as well, often going out to rivers to look for ducks.

“I’ve always liked the outdoors,” he says.  “In the winter, I’d take the whole family downhill skiing.  Often, we went to Owl’s Head, which was my favourite mountain, but we skied elsewhere in the Townships and in the New England States.  In the summer, I loved to go fishing.  The first time I came home with a fish, my mother sat down and showed me how to clean it.  After that first time, anything I caught, or shot, I cleaned myself.”

Keith Baldwin no longer hunts, but his fishing skills are still enviable.  Last summer, the Wales Home hosted a fishing derby in the small artificial pond on the property.  The biggest fish was reeled in by Keith.  In his honour, the pond was named Baldwin Pond.

While he is not one of them, there are still quite a number of Baldwins who call Baldwin’s Mills home.  Two of Keith’s children and their families live there, as does his brother, Lester Baldwin.  Mead Baldwin, who many know through the weekly column he co-writes for the Record, is Keith’s nephew.   

At 102, Keith is the oldest male resident of the Wales Home where he has his own apartment.  Still active, he does his own cooking, and is experimenting with growing lettuce on his north-facing window sill.  He regularly plays pool with Joe Kelly, and keeps up with current events.  He has an up-to-date driver’s license and, especially in the summer, takes his Jeep to Baldwin’s Mills to spend time with family.   

A lifelong member of the United Church, Keith Baldwin now attends services at Chalmers United in Richmond.   Erected in 1888, Chalmers United had been a Presbyterian church prior to 1925.  On Sunday, June1, he’ll be giving a talk on how the brick building on Main Street came to change denomination, and the role his grandfather played. 

From Baldwin’s Mills to Baldwin Pond Read More »

Canadians took the bait: hook, line and it will sink them

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Mary Ellen Kirby

Local Journalism Initiative

It is the morning after the night before and I have the mother of all hangovers. No, I haven’t been drinking. It’s just that I stayed up far too late, watching the federal election coverage. I hoped, prayed and voted for a different outcome, but alas – here we are with the results I dreaded but pretty much expected.

In the sober light of day, I see a number of ironies at play, not the least of which is the fact that in their fervour to “oppose” Donald Trump, Liberal voters just handed him exactly what he wanted, on a big red and white platter. Since his inauguration in January, Trump has on several occasions opined that he much preferred to deal with a Liberal government and complained that, “Stupidly, that conservative guy is no friend of mine…he’s not a MAGA guy…he doesn’t say nice things about me.” Translation: he was banking on more easily obtaining favourable trade concessions from the libs than the cons. ‘Annexing’ Canada would almost certainly guarantee a solid block of permanently Democratic voters, so I have a hard time believing a Republican president would ever float that as a serious proposal; I think we just got massively pranked by the mean boy next door.

For all the Liberal party braying about the evils of ‘American-style politics’ this is exactly what they have unleashed. Against all sense or logic, the central issue in this campaign was the Canadian approval rating of DJT, the leader of a foreign nation…as if it even mattered. It was a very cunning bait and switch con job executed with Machiavellian precision by the Liberals. If they had allowed voters’ attention to focus on their dismal decade-long record of runaway debt, waste and scandal, they undoubtedly would have joined the NDP on the sidelines. The NDP paid dearly last night for holding Canadians hostage to the dysfunctional Trudeau government: they have now lost official party status and shrunk to a measly seven seats. The Bloc Quebecois’ involuntary weight loss program cost them 10 of their 33 seats, so we now have a defacto two-party system in place…just like the Americans. We also have an increasingly polarized and divided electorate…just like the Americans. We saw an election campaign that fixated on leaders instead of examining party platforms. In other words, our election was based on the cult of personality…just like the Americans. Mark Carney chose to publicly announce his bid for the Liberal leadership on an American T.V. talk show, was endorsed more than once by Trump and hired a wealthy American actor to film a cringey hockey rink campaign ad. I think all the pseudo-patriotic railing against 51st statehood is a day late and an American dollar short: it looks and feels to me like we are already there.

And then there is the très grande irony of the Quebec vote. If I was the leader of either the CAQ or the PQ, I would be thinking long and hard before advocating again for separation. Apparently, when the chips are down, a majority of Quebecers prefer the safety of the flawed federal system. Even the undeniable fact that Mark Carney’s French language skills are sub-par, to put it politely, did not deter the loss of a third of the Bloc’s seats. So much for Quebec’s insistence that a bilingual prime minister is non-negotiable. So much for the pipe dream of Quebec independence, too. The illusion that Quebec was ready, willing and able to stand alone as its own nation died last night. It now appears to me that fifty years of separatist threats have been nothing more than an elaborate ruse to extort money and privilege from Ottawa. How can anyone take Bloc voters – and by extension, Quebec – seriously when, at the first sign of rough waters, they abandon ship?

While the Eastern separatist tiger has been exposed as toothless, the Western one is awake and roaring in the aftermath of last night’s disastrous election results. In less than 24 hours, Alberta is well on its way to collecting the large number of signatures required to trigger a referendum on secession from Canada. Theirs is no empty threat. If Alberta leaves confederation, Saskatchewan may not take long to follow them. In the early days of the election campaign, both premiers warned eastern voters that electing another Liberal government would trigger dire consequences for Canada. Is it possible that we may have just voted in our final Canadian election? The distressing paradox here is that by conjuring up a bogus crisis and then selling himself as the only one competent enough to manage it, Mark Carney may have just set in motion the real existential threat to our country. Like it or not, the western oil & gas industry is the economic engine of this country and without it, Canada shudders to a standstill. If that happens, we will no longer be strong…or free. The 2040 dystopian hellscape posited in the Policy Horizons Report commissioned by the prime minister’s Privy Council Office may read like the script for a bad movie, but western separation could bring it to our doorsteps sooner than later. In order to invest and prosper, to create jobs, to build anything of lasting value, businesses need stability. A country in constitutional crisis cannot provide that stability. A weak, divided, destabilized country ultimately becomes vulnerable to predatory takeover. As revealed by the exhaustive work of Canadian investigative journalist, Sam Cooper, the Chinese Communist Party and its malevolent operatives are already fully functional inside our borders, and the new PM favours even closer ties with China. I can’t imagine a scenario where the US blithely ignores China setting up shop along its Northern frontier. I am fiercely Canadian always, even if not terribly proud at the moment. But if it comes down to choosing between becoming the 51st American state or the 24th Chinese province, I’ll take my chances with the Yanks, thanks.

I have been looking at Abacus polling data, trying to decipher what happened last night. I am ashamed to say that, according to those polls, my generation is responsible for this train wreck. For voters over 60, the central issue in this election was Donald Trump. Why? They voted to…do what exactly? Teach him a lesson? Express their personal distaste for him? While he insists that heads of state kowtow to gain his favour and show “respect”, the POTUS doesn’t care, not even a little bit, how the Canadian electorate feels about him. We are nothing more than a single mosquito trying to penetrate the iron-thick hide of a rhinoceros. Did we seriously think that our ‘elbows up’ nonsense would dissuade him from playing tariff whack-a-mole whenever he got the urge? The undeniable irony is that our election results have simply reinforced his enormously over-inflated ego. He is already strutting and preening, congratulating himself for being able to influence the outcome of a foreign election. Look, I get that Trump is boorish and bombastic; that he walks in hobnailed boots all over anything or anyone in his way. He baits people, using jibes and insults to score points in a game where he calls the plays, writes the rules and gets to decide the winners and losers; it’s just bonkers. But what is even more bonkers is that we allowed him to goad us into playing his stupid game. That was evidenced by a short interview I saw last evening: a journalist asked a sweet, little silver-haired granny about her voting preference as she left her polling station in Toronto. ”Oh Liberal, of course!” she replied with a big smile. “And why is that?” inquired the journalist. “Well, to stop Trump”, she exclaimed. “He is such an awful person…he shouldn’t even be the president of the United States!” I was left shaking my head in utter disbelief. Maybe we need to require more than proof of Canadian identity at the voting booth; maybe we also need to require proof of a reasonable understanding of international boundaries and how our parliamentary system functions.

So, I am in mourning today. I don’t grieve because my “guy” or my “side’ lost, that would be childish, and I am too old for that. I grieve because we allowed the loudmouth narcissist next door to steal our desperately needed chance for a reset. I grieve for my grandchildren’s generation who are watching the opportunities and living standards that my generation took for granted move further and further beyond their reach. I grieve because I don’t believe that the crew who caused the problems are capable of fixing them. And as late as December of 2024, an overwhelming majority of Canadians agreed with that assessment. How did just a few short weeks and some off-hand insults cause such a massive attack of collective amnesia? I grieve because we have recklessly exchanged our grandchildren’s future for a cheap and hollow ‘victory’ against orange-man-bad. I grieve because we were persuaded to vote with our elbows instead of our heads.

Does anyone remember the old-fashioned childhood game of shadow puppets? You know, the one where a favourite uncle or your dad or grandpa turned out the lights; then using just their hands in different positions in front of a flashlight‘s beam, they projected big scary shadow creatures onto a white wall or sheet while the littlest kids squealed and cowered in delicious fear. Fun times! I feel as though this is where we are as a country. The lights were turned off in January. All our attention was directed to the big threatening monster projected onto the screens of our imaginations. I don’t know how long it will take for the lights to come back on. And I don’t know when it will begin to dawn on us that the monster we should be afraid of is not the shadow, but the hands. What I do know is, that by then it will be too late.

Canadians took the bait: hook, line and it will sink them Read More »

Ask the students

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy

By Guy Rex Rodgers

Local Journalism Initiative

I was not born in Quebec so my education options were the neighbourhood public school or a more remote, and much more expensive, private school. My parents opted for the neighbourhood school.  It was a simple choice.  I was surprised when I arrived in Quebec to learn that children educated here prior to Bill 101 had to make a choice based on religion and then another choice based on language.

Over the past few years, as I have been making documentary films about Anglos and Allophones in Quebec, I have discovered strange aspects of the pre-Bill 101 school system.  The goals of Bill 101 were logical and defensible – it is important for immigrants to share the language of their host society. The system prior to Bill 101 was neither logical nor defensible. The French Catholic schools created a demographic time bomb by turning away multitudes of immigrant children because they were non-Christian (Jews and Muslims), non-Catholic (Greek Orthodox and Protestants) or, in the case of Catholics (Italians and Hispanophones), for reasons that no one has ever been able to explain. 

Jacques Parizeau never appreciated the dark irony of blaming the 1995 referendum decision on the ‘ethnic vote’ after Quebec’s majority culture had rejected so many ‘ethnics’ from its schools. When victims of this discrimination speak about it, their experience is dismissed as an isolated incident, or as an outright lie.

Nobody knows how many immigrant children were turned away from French Catholic Schools. Was it hundreds?  Thousands?  Tens-of-thousands? The best way to shed some light on this opaque subject is to ask the students. I have received funding from the Secretariat aux relations avec les Québécois d’expression anglaise to conduct a research project. The first step is a short on-line survey. It takes only a few minutes, and you can fill it out anonymously. I am happy to note that most of the people who have filled out the survey have also volunteered to participate in an interview.

If you received your elementary education in Quebec prior to Bill 101, please take a few minutes to share your story on the Quebec Schools Question survey at   http://tiny.cc/QSQ   

The responses are fascinatingly diverse.  Some immigrants, and even a few Anglos, insisted on getting into a French Catholic school and were accepted. Other students had parents who pioneered immersion schools and bilingual education. A small number of francophone students were agnostics or atheists who did not want to enroll in either Catholic system, and they did not want to be educated in English, so they enrolled in the small French Protestant system.

The largest school boards were French Catholic, and they were quite homogenous because they accepted few ‘outsiders’.  The second largest boards were English Protestant and they were highly diverse because they enrolled Jewish students, Greek Orthodox, Chinese and most of the Black students.  The English Catholic school board, initially created for the Irish, became much more diverse after the Second World War as Italians, Germans, Ukrainians and Hispanophones joined their ranks.  The French Protestant system was quite small until the 60s when French-speaking non-Catholics from the Maghreb and Haiti immigrated to Quebec. The range of educational choices was dizzyingly complex until Bill 101 obliged all immigrant children to attend French schools, which were still Catholic until the switch to linguistic schools boards.

The raw data from the short survey will provide a sense of proportion. What percentage of students were turned away from French Catholic schools compared to the percentage that freely chose one of the non-French-Catholic options? The short survey will also indicate if patterns varied over time. Was it easier to get into a French Catholic school before or after the Baby Boom? We will also be able to test the theory that rejection was more common in Montreal than in the regions. And were there difference between parishes?

The in-depth interviews will provide invaluable data about educational outcomes.  The Italian community is a model of adaptability. Whether Italian students were admitted into the French or English system, most of them – pragmatically and sensibly – learned both of Canada’s official languages. The efforts that non-Francophone families made to acquire French language skills is not appreciated and should be celebrated.  The first step is to collect stories from former students, so I’m asking you to take a few minutes to fill out the survey. http://tiny.cc/QSQ   

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What happened to the world?

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Shawn MacWha

Local Journalism Initiative

Over the course of the past four months we have witnessed the most serious challenge to the international order since the start of the Second World War. The current American administration has unapologetically turned its back on the very economic and security institutions that it helped to create and in doing so has undermined global relationships and trading patterns that have taken generations to establish. So profound are these changes that on March 27, Prime Minister Mark Carney remarked that Canada’s old relationship with the United States, one based upon the integration of our economies and close security and military cooperation was over.

But this is not merely a bi-lateral problem between Canada and the United States. The most recent issue of Foreign Affairs (March/April 2025), one of the world’s leading political journals, focused almost entirely on examining threats to the prevailing liberal order. Across the world freedom is in decline and in 2024 there were more authoritarian states than democracies for the first time in over 20 years. While this may seem jarring to some people such a reversal is not without precedent and perhaps should not come as too much of a surprise. The long slow march towards liberal democracy and free market economics has been halting at times and there has been more than one period of sharp and painful regression. So integrated were the economic and political structures of Europe in the first decade of the 20th century, for example, that most people thought a war between the region’s major powers unthinkable. That system unravelled with remarkable speed during the summer of 1914 and twenty million people died. We forget such things at our peril.

Throughout most of the last century, from the end of the First World War in 1918 until the end of the Cold War in 1989, the world’s economic and political order was centred around the struggle between capitalism and communism with a brief interlude of fascism thrown in for good measure. This era essentially saw the world divided into ideological camps that were very often at odds with one another. The collapse of the Soviet Union saw this system come to an abrupt and somewhat unexpected end, leaving the United States as the sole superpower on the planet.

In the face of this new reality two major books came out in the 1990s that offered insights into what the new world order would look like. Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 The End of History and the Last Man argued that following a series of failed experiments with fascism and communism free-market liberal democracies had proven themselves to the be only viable means of organizing society. Secure in this knowledge Fukuyama proclaimed that history was over, at least as far as political models were concerned, as it had reached its natural pinnacle. Contrasting with this worldview, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington offered a more dismal future in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order.According to Huntington the post-Soviet world would be characterized once again by competing power blocks largely organized along cultural lines that would struggle for regional and global dominance.

Roughly speaking these two books can be seen as popular expressions of two of the main theories underpinning the study of international relations. The first of these approaches, neoliberalism, envisions a world where international agreements, often but not always based upon economic integration, establish clearly understood rules and expectations. These calming forces increase cooperation and reduce the threat of conflict between nations. The second worldview is based on the theory of realism (or more precisely neorealism) and the belief that notwithstanding any unifying factors that may exist between states they will ultimately only follow rules if the outcomes meet their own narrowly defined self-interests. Such a world is much more liable to conflict when states choose to withdraw from international arrangements when they perceive them to be working against their interests.

On the surface, this appears to be what is now happening. The United State is turning its back on long-established mechanisms such as the United Nations, NATO, and the World Trade Organization as well as newer ones like the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) free trade agreement. We are returning to the world of great power politics where a few blocks dominated by powerful states and their vassals (they’re not really allies anymore) seek to maximize their economic, political and economic status in a zero-sum game with their rivals. In such a world any gain by one must be seen as a loss by the other. And that is partially true, but there are other, darker forces at play in Washington that suggest that the current trend in American politics is not just a return to a Cold War outlook but is rather an outright challenge to the idea of liberal democracy.

In 2007 Chris Hedges, one of the most important but underappreciated thinkers in modern Western society, wrote an eerily prophetic book called American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. Hedges saw an America where a generation of workers left behind by globalization had turned to evangelical Christianity to ease the pain of their economic loss. Opportunistic church leaders, and later politicians, picked up on their despair in order to further their own agendas, pulling much of American society towards a conservative and religious worldview not seen anywhere else in the Western world. It is this fundamentalism that gives licence to today’s attacks on such things as minority rights, reproductive freedoms, and immigration. To paraphrase American comedian Jon Stewart what these people are trying to do is force a “factory reset” of American society to the point where the baseline measure of value, competency, and authority is a white male at the centre of a nuclear family.

With the presumed authority of God behind them, right-wing politicians then tapped into nationalist sentiments and a nostalgia for a “simpler” America in order to establish the Make America Great Again narrative. This, coupled with a Huntington-esque perspective on international politics, has led to the fervour by which the current administration is seeking to dismantle the internal and external structures that have formed the basis of both the American and global order for the last 80 years.

Maybe. If we are lucky that is all it is. But it could be worse. Much worse.

Starting around 2007 a new anti-democratic movement known as “The Dark Enlightenment” began to quietly emerge in the United States. Led by American software engineer Curtis Yarvin and British philosopher Nick Land this worldview argued that democracy itself was a failed experiment that needed to be replaced. Proponents of this ideology, sometimes called neoreactionaries, favour a return to authoritarianism wherein political leaders seek to privatize the mechanisms of the state in order to run it like a corporation. There is even a term for this in their thinking – the “gov-corp.” Rather than having an elected political leader supporters of this approach envision the appointment of a national CEO chosen by a board of influential, but unelected, business and thought leaders. Unsurprisingly, most of these would-be King makers are white male elites.

This would be silly if it not so serious, but the idea of such a structure has taken root amongst several influential technology leaders in Silicon Valley and at the highest levels of the modern Republican party. The Vice-President himself has stated that he is sympathetic to Yarvin’s plans to “deconstruct the administrative state” and many argue that the President too is guided by this thinking. It certainly appears that the current administration is implementing some of the ideas behind “The Dark Enlightenment.” One of Yarvin’s key suggestions is the removal of an independent public service that could oppose the corporate vision of a leader through a process that he termed “Retire All Government Employees” or RAGE. Sound familiar?

It would be alarmist to say that America today is becoming like Nazi Germany, although what we are seeing does very much have a 1934 feel to it. In March of this year the head of the Sweden-based Varieties of Democracy Project, Staffan Lindberg, announced that by as early as next year the United States may no longer qualify as a democracy. Similarly, a recent article entitled “The Path to American Authoritarianism” by Harvard’s Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way of the University of Toronto warned that “democracy is in greater peril today than at any time in modern U.S. history.” Even if these are minority opinions the risk of ignoring them completely is significant.  

It may be that America will correct itself, and in doing so will return some predictability to the international order. Surely Fukuyama was right when he suggested that the world had often flirted with alternatives to liberal democracy only to return to it when the new models failed. But current events likewise show that he was wrong in assuming that history was over. It is just repeating itself. Hold on.

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What a frightening thought

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Tim Belford

Local Journalism Initiative

Well the election is over and now the fun begins.

South of the border nothing is any different. Dithering Donald is still changing his mind and his policies at the drop of a tariff. As far as he’s concerned who’s now leading the potential ‘51st state’ is irrelevant. What matters is that the new man in charge comes to the realization that Canada becoming part of the United States is inevitable and a good thing.

We beg to differ; at least most of us. There are, however, some Canadians who would be perfectly happy to cast aside their citizenship and embrace lower taxes, a bigger army and the warmth of Donald’s smile. Just recently I heard an otherwise sensible acquaintance of mine ask, “Why not?” Well here’s why.

First off, it would play havoc with our educational system. All those children out there, and some adults too, would have to learn the names of fifty states and their capitals in a new geography class. Mastering ten provinces and three territories has proven difficult enough for most of us but this added burden would be a bit much.

We’d also no longer be a prosperous independent country. As a matter of fact we’d run second to California in both population and GDP as a mere state of the union.

Admittedly, we would probably pay less income tax than we do now but there’s a down side to that as well. Lower taxes would also mean no national health care system. It would be back to the days when childbirth or a major surgery could bankrupt you. Oh yes, there’s private insurance that you could buy with those extra tax dollars but try making more than one claim and see what happens. We’d also have to trade in our social insurance program for the much less satisfying U.S ‘social security’ system, one that The Donald says he would like to reduce. Child care? You’re on your own.

If we didn’t have the border to cross, yes, it would be easier to go to Disney World, Florida and Old Orchard. On the other hand, think of how many thousands of Customs and Immigration officers who would suddenly find themselves unemployed.  Trump would have to blame the fentanyl crisis on Greenland or perhaps Iceland.

In sports there would also be a major upheaval. Take football for instance. If the CFL disappeared, which it surely would, we’d be stuck with the NFL and its mamby, pamby four downs, tiny end zones, narrow fields and fair catches. Even worse, we’d lose the Grey Cup and its legendary parties and be stuck with the NFL Super Bore which is nothing more than a rock concert with a coin toss.

Being the 51st state would mean dropping the Maple Leaf Flag from our back packs when travelling abroad and getting used to nobody liking us anymore. It wouldn’t even help if you explained how your granny was from Edinburgh or Cornwall. We’d still be Yanks.

Being bilingual, particularly French-English, would be of no value whatsoever in a country that acknowledges only one official language. Under the kindly hand of Washington, Quebec would become Louisiana North and the building housing the Office de la Langue Française nothing more than an historic site.

But the best and overwhelming reason for not become American, however, is that we’d have Donald Trump as our leader. If that doesn’t kindle the fires of Canadian nationalism, nothing will.

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Spring has sprung, sort of

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

If April weather is often trouble, what should we expect in May?

By David Winch

Local Journalism Initiative

We made it! Or did we?

Spring is surely the most anticipated season in four-season Canada. But as we enter May, can we expect our weather to finally behave?

In 2025, Townshippers have lived through a frigid January then a February white-out, followed by a cold March and a turbulent April.

Having learned nothing over the years, I decided to change to our summer tires on April 7.  The following day, we had a big snowfall. Driving cautiously through the snow front to Montreal, it dipped to minus-8 C. Later, I trudged along city sidewalks in the dark to a big hockey game, feeling like it was winter all over again. Brrrr.

We had more light snow in mid-April, followed by a slush storm to wake us up on the last Sunday of the month. Yup, for readers outside the Townships, we had winter weather much of the day on April 27th.

–Enough, already! The weather affects my mood and dictates our recreation and travel. Since I wrote about winter and summer seasons in Townships Weekend back in 2023 and 2024, now let’s try to figure out spring.

Photos courtesy Decidingvote.blog
Shakespeare cautioned that the “darling buds of May” face stiff winds. And in the Townships, frost too.

April fools us

The roller-coaster ride in April was not entirely unforeseen. Nobody here is ever sure about that month, and it often baffles commentators.

For years, one AM radio morning host in Montreal orchestrated an “April is winter” call-in rant to back his claim there were “six months of winter” in Quebec. Uh, not really. As a mid-April birthday kid, I recall many outdoor parties, garden events and baseball games then.

Newcomers to Canada, most recently a European acquaintance in Montreal, say Canadians “talk a lot about the weather”. But we have so much of it! Others quip that, while England has too much history, Canada has too much geography. You might add: lots of weather.

England has fine writing and most intense gardening culture, so it’s no surprise they have crystallized many apt sayings and aphorisms about the seasons. We just need to adapt these to Canada.

The end of winter unrolls slowly: “March — in like a lion, out like a lamb”. This is true enough in England but needs a tweak here. In southeastern Quebec, March regularly storms in like a lion, then slinks out like a tiger.

Then there is the hopeful “April showers bring May flowers”. Again, this is often true here, if you also count snow as a shower. The bloom may finally come only in June.

Anglophile poet T.S. Eliot’s lines from “The Wasteland” capture the ambiguity of spring thaw:

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Yes, springtime can be a groaning, steady process. It does not happen all at once.

One old Townships country house we lived in featured a hand-scrawled pencil record inside a cupboard of “the dates the ice went out” on nearby Lake Massawippi. This record started in 1961, when ice was reportedly last visible on May 3-4. That was a late thaw; these dates more often clustered around April 20-22nd.

This year, the ice went out a bit earlier on Lake Massawippi, unofficially on April 14th. At least, no ice was visible from the North Hatley shore across to Baltimore Bay. Winter had ended, sort of, and we looked hopefully toward May.

Courtesy weather25.com
Weather for May

May takes its time

The month of May in the Townships can be lovely and mild, or dour and overcast. The “darling buds of May” that Shakespeare cherished can always fall victim to a morning frost.

Environment Canada and private weather apps forecast that, in the first half of May, daily highs in Sherbrooke will cluster between 14 C and 18 C, and the outlook will often be cloudy and rainy.

The weather25.com site helpfully advises foreign travelers that “temperatures in Canada in May are quite cold … between 9 C and 16 C; warm clothes are a must”.

“You can expect about three to eight days of rain in Canada during the month of May. It’s a good idea to bring along your umbrella so that you don’t get caught in poor weather.”

That’s the May norm for our region.

German meteorologist Wladmir Köppen classified climate regions across the world with a five-letter scale, denoted from A to E. The five groups are A (tropical), B (arid), C (temperate), D (continental) and E (polar).

Each group is also identified by extra letters to denote its seasonal precipitation and temperature.

Much of eastern Canada falls into group D; southern Quebec is classified as Köppen Dfb: “Warm-summer humid continental climate; coldest month averaging below 0 C (32 F) …. , all months with average temperatures below 22 C (71.6 F), and at least four months averaging above 10 C (50 F)”.

Sherbrooke, like Montreal — and Moscow — is a Köppen Dfb locale. It experiences “long, cold, and snowy winters, warm summers, and short but crisp springs and autumns”. Short but crisp, maybe that’s the spring descriptive we’re looking for.

So we’re not alone with our loudly four-season calendar. I have lived through grey winters with little drama or variety (including in northern Europe and highlands Mexico). Their seasonal spectacle is dull compared to Canada.

So gardeners, beware those comfortable English aphorisms when it comes to planting. To be safe, as one Townships grandmother cautioned, never plant “until after the first full moon in June”. Even May is not safely spring, it seems.

Despite all that, we love our springtime. English poet William Wordsworth, in his “Written In March”, sums up the season’s promise:

There’s joy in the mountains;

There’s life in the fountains;

Small clouds are sailing,

Blue sky is prevailing;

The rain is over and gone!

Spring has sprung, sort of Read More »

The unfinished business of free trade within Canada 

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Dian Cohen

Local Journalism Initiative

Canadians, including those living in Quebec, seem united in their desire for independence, sovereignty, and viability. There is so much we can do to advance this goal without constantly looking over our shoulders at the looming threat of American repression.

One improvement isn’t immediately apparent in the list of barriers to free trade within Canada: making our healthcare system more responsive. This means giving doctors more freedom to see patients while ensuring faster and easier access to healthcare professionals.

During the pandemic, all provinces expanded reimbursement for virtual care and removed administrative barriers. Before COVID-19, fewer than 3 percent of outpatient visits were virtual, but at the peak of the crisis, that number exceeded 70 percent. Feedback from patients was overwhelmingly positive: 79 percent wanted access to their personal health information, 77 percent desired electronic prescription renewals, 75 percent wanted the ability to book appointments online, and 86 percent felt more informed about their health as a result of accessing their health information electronically.

In 2021, Health Canada advocated for virtual care to become “a permanent, equitable, and fully integrated part of our healthcare system.” The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) was working towards making Canada a world leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and ensuring the success of digitization. In June 2024, the government introduced Bill 72 to ensure that core digital health assets—such as patient records, diagnostic imaging, lab results, and prescribing systems—are interoperable and universally accessible nationwide. In December 2024, then-Health Minister Mark Miller urged Parliament to pass Bill 72, stating, “Just one example [of connected care] allowing AI scribes to be used in our system would create the equivalent of 1,000 new doctors in a very short period. Connected care can open up new avenues of care, and that is something this Parliament can do.”

Healthcare is under provincial jurisdiction. Passing Bill 72 at the national level would have facilitated provinces’ adoption of virtual care. However, Bill 72 did not progress through the parliamentary stages to become law before Parliament prorogued. Now that the COVID crisis has passed, many jurisdictions have reverted to pre-pandemic policies. The federal government has exacerbated this issue by failing to provide clear guidance on virtual care. The 2025 Canada Health Act (CHA) Interpretation Letter didn’t mention it, leaving it unclear whether virtual services fall within the insured basket of what the CHA regards as “medically necessary services.”

Addressing this gap is crucial because not having connected care is a barrier not just to interprovincial trade but also to our good health. Ensuring that healthcare is interoperable, accessible, and ready for AI-driven improvements is vital to better healthcare access. Canada already lags behind other countries in its adoption of new technology. Skepticism about its usefulness is equivalent to negligence.

A 2023 Canadian Federation of Independent Business report estimated that Canadian doctors spend 49 million hours a year on administrative tasks. AI scribe technology holds the promise of removing some of that burden. Studies suggest that it can save doctors multiple hours of paperwork each week, allowing them to dedicate more time to patient care. One study, commissioned by the Ontario Medical Association, found that family physicians, who report spending an average of 19 hours per week on paperwork, spent 70 to 90 percent less time on administrative tasks when using AI scribes.

The uptake of AI scribes in Canada has been low due to concerns about privacy and cost; fewer than 10 per cent of family doctors currently use the technology. Most physicians surveyed in the Ontario study indicated they were unwilling to pay the current price for AI scribes, which typically ranges from $135 to $400 per month for unlimited use. While this price may decline with wider adoption, a quarter of respondents stated they would only consider using the technology if it were free.

In March 2025, Canada Health Infoway announced it would cover the first-year licensing fee for the first 10,000 primary care providers who sign up to implement AI script technology into their practices. Even more enticing is that providers can choose from a list of pre-qualified AI script products vetted for privacy and other concerns by Canada Health Infoway and its provincial and territorial partners.

While we claim that our healthcare system is universal, many indications suggest otherwise. It imposes unequal costs on patients in time, travel, and lost income. A 15-minute doctor’s appointment can mean half a day of lost income for some. Patients in rural and remote communities don’t just wait longer for specialists—they also face flight costs, overnight stays, and logistical headaches just to see them. Check out this out-of-pocket cost calculator from a 2020 Infoway study: https://insights.infoway-inforoute.ca/calculator.

Many participants eager to reduce interprovincial barriers are on the job and pushing hard for results. Their efforts must not get lost in the disruption and upheaval caused by the election of a new government and Parliament.

Cohendian560@gmail.com

The unfinished business of free trade within Canada  Read More »

Prepare for takeoff

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Montreal Metropolitan Airport
The renovated air terminal on the South Shore expects to handle 4 million passengers a year.

New air facility on South Shore set to become the “Townships airport”

By David Winch

Local Journalism Initiative

Everyone’s flying everywhere. The phenomenon is so widespread, we scarcely notice it anymore.

I am no frequent-flyer, unlike members of my broader family who jet away somewhere every month or even sometimes every week: to Vancouver, Florida, London, Bangladesh, Thailand, you name it.

But I do fly somewhere about twice a year, putting me in the Canadian median. “On average, most individuals take around one to three flights per year. This number includes both domestic and international flights”, concludes consumer site NCESC.com. Canadians mostly travel in winter to sunshine destinations in the Caribbean and, until recently, in the U.S.

Travel has changed

Over the years, the nature of air travel has greatly evolved. Security has been hugely enhanced since 9/11, sometimes making airports a gauntlet to battle through. Budget-cutting by airlines has ended the “luxury” of flying, except in business class. Classy service was the norm in the 1950s into the 1960s, with attentive stewardesses, as they were called, and enhanced menus.

Seats and leg room are now usually cramped in economy class. And as one Internet meme snidely portrays it, a pretzel with a plastic cup of ginger ale now constitutes an airline “meal”. The term Airbus aptly describes this uninspiring experience. –Get over it, buddy, reply the airlines.

Security restrictions are expanded in the aircraft, of course. When I first took a transatlantic flight, in 1975, I carried with me a business card signed by an Air Canada pilot I knew from Toronto. I handed that to the stew, and she quickly walked me up to the cockpit of the Boeing 747 so I could sit beside the pilots and chat with them. –Unimaginable today!

As for flight technology, even 50 years ago the two 747 pilots raised their hands in a shrug and admitted candidly that “the plane flies itself”.

Most mind-blowing today, certainly for me, is the growth and “normalization” of instant worldwide travel – flying anywhere right away. I recall a lecture in the 1980s by the then-moderator of the United Church, Dr. Robert McClure. He had served as a medical missionary in China from 1926 to 1948. McClure recalled having recently been in an airport in London where a giant poster boasted its flights to “Singapore in 16 hours”.

He mused that when he first started his work in the 1920s it was six weeks’ travel to China, then another six weeks to western China. With no stewardesses, ha.

Still, that does not mean that everyone today can just jump in a taxi and take off to wherever. Smaller, rural and regional locales often have no nearby airport with national links. As is the case with, yes … Sherbrooke.

In a Townships Weekend column comparing Sherbrooke to the very similar city of Burlington, Vermont (“Burlington-Sherbrooke: Twin cities?”, April 2023), I noted the ease of access to the American city’s airport and its many national airline connections. We do not have that in the Townships, and so we’ve been stuck with a two-hour drive to the Montreal-Trudeau airport in Dorval.

New facility in 2025

That all changes this year. The Montreal Saint-Hubert Airport, operational since 1927, is being transformed into a commercial aviation hub. It is being relaunched as the Montreal Metropolitan Airport (MET) and is expected to open its new terminal and begin commercial flights in late summer this year.

The renovated Saint-Hubert airport will give Montreal a second, smaller airport for regional and national flights. Many other cities have such secondary terminals, notably Toronto with its little Billy Bishop airport on the city’s waterfront.

MET is partnering with Porter Airlines to build a nine-gate passenger terminal, forecast to handle up to four million passengers per year (Dorval handles about 20 million). It will host domestic flights only, with no customs facilities for international flights.

Reader comments at the OMAAT site, which monitors airports and travel worldwide, have been generally favourable to MET:

“Saint-Hubert airport is much more convenient for a catchment area of about two million people stretching from the South Shore eastwards and northwards”, added one reader.

Another poster added: “There’s a train station right next to the airport that’s about 20 minutes away from Gare Centrale. If they can run a shuttle bus and increase train frequency (especially in off-peak times and directions), then I see no reason how this would be a worse option than YUL, even after the REM opens. Maybe even better.”

Indeed, this will mean – at least for domestic flights — no more requirement for Townships-based travelers to struggle through traffic in Brossard, Longueuil and over the Champlain bridge before navigating autoroute 20 west to Dorval.

Instead, after driving in on autoroute 10, at the junction with autoroute 30 at the edge of Brossard, you will just turn east and drive 13 minutes (Mapquest estimate) to the junction of highway 112 (Boulevard Cousineau). Then turn north on Cousineau another 13 mins to the airport entrance. Voilà!

Trips to downtown Toronto via boutique airline Porter are sure to be particularly popular. In the 1980s, I used to fly regularly on City Express airline from Dorval to the Island airport in Toronto. That greatly reduced stress and transit times by arriving near the city centre.

Sherbrooke is close to the South Shore of Montreal; indeed, there is a campus of the Université de Sherbrooke there, with a metro station of the same name. We are all part of the broader southeast region of Quebec.

Handled correctly, this new air link offers great opportunities for regional diversification. Business travelers and tourists will be eager to see this new gateway.

Are Townships political and business leaders prepared for takeoff?

Prepare for takeoff Read More »

Sugar Sammy – Laughing at Ourselves

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy

By Guy Rex Rodgers

Local Journalism Initiative

Sugar Sammy is back with You’re Gonna Rire 2, his new bilingual show. I was curious. The friendly greeting Bonjour-Hi makes some people angry.  The CAQ government’s campaign to eliminate languages other than French makes other people angry. What happens when you bring a random crowd together and set a rapier-tongued provocateur loose among them? Would they all laugh? At the same jokes? Or take turns seething with indignation?

Sugar Sammy advises the audience early in the evening, ‘You’re gonna hate 10% of my show. But you’ll love 90%.’ He delivers on his promise – everybody laughs, and everybody gets laughed at. This is the genius of his humour, it is grounded in how we see ourselves, how we see our neighbours, and how they see us.

Most of the time we are barely conscious of the tribes we belong to and the places where we feel like insiders.

Sugar Sammy asked an audience member his name – Antonio.  Based on that single piece of information he guessed the man’s tribe – Italian, which led to a prediction of where the man grew up – Saint-Léonard –  a clichéd guess confirmed true, and Sammy guessed, correctly, how many languages Antonio speaks – three.  Then Sugar Sammy riffed on Italian values, Italian mothers and Italian food.  Italians in the audience found this hilarious, because these are stories shared within the tribe about families, traditions and values that shape personal identity.   

But why would these ‘insider’ jokes be funny, or even comprehensible, to non-Italians? This is where Sugar Sammy’s schtick rises to the level of art – and a profound understanding of human nature. We all look at life through multiple lenses. We are ‘insiders’ within our ethnic tribes, our social status, our gender, and our age demographic.  As insiders, we can question tribal expectations and even joke about traditions hammered into us by our elders. Within the tribe, we share experiences and a version of reality. We all live within multiple tribes.

All of us also have places where we feel like outsiders. Sugar Sammy has a clear affinity for underdogs, newcomers, the marginal and the powerless. Many of his sharpest jokes are directed at the overlords, the de souche, the privileged and the powerful. In Quebec, that group is largely populated by Francophones.  One of the oddities of Quebec is that the ruling majority sees itself as a threatened minority. There is some truth to this belief, and also a large dose of self-serving nonsense that is laughable.

In May 2023, Le Devoir headlined an article – « Sugar Sammy, l’incarnation du Québec Bashing » To criticise the majority automatically qualifies as Quebec bashing. To laugh and mock is worse. Sugar Sammy gleefully fires away. He has developed huge audiences in France, the USA and English Canada. Quebec is lucky he still makes time for a visit. 

One of the running gags in the show was about Quebec’s ‘fundamental value’ of male-female equality. Recent male immigrants, who hold tradition conservative values, see ‘modern’ women as loud, bossy and unattractive. This gag got a lot of laughs. Was the audience laughing at ‘progressive’ women or ‘regressive’ men? Or both?  All audience members will make their own judgement about which 90 % of the show is hilarious funny and which 10% is outrageously offensive. 

I was impressed by the diversity in the audience, which reflected the reality of Quebec. The largest tribe was Francophones, of different ages and origins. The second largest group was Allophones, some of whom were also members of visible minorities.  Sugar Sammy presumed, and the laughter confirmed his belief, that Allophones speak both French and English well, and they understand Canada’s ‘founding peoples’ better than they are understood.

The smallest audience group was Anglos. Another of the running gags was that Anglos have become bilingual but are not yet bicultural, so Sugar Sammy had to explain all the francophone cultural references. This is a cliché, but the audience confirmed it is based in reality. A lot of Sammy’s jokes are based on realities that we rarely discuss in public and never in ‘mixed company.’

Sugar Sammy is an unrepentant provocateur.  His show is offensive. And hilarious. And thought-provoking. I also found it profoundly optimistic. Thousands of Quebecers are flocking to see a bilingual show – horror! – that skewers some of our most sacred cows – double horror!   We laughed as insiders and outsiders, at a French-English show that would make little sense anywhere else. We came away understanding each other a little better, and remembering why we love this crazy place.   

Sugar Sammy – Laughing at Ourselves Read More »

Election?  What election?

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Nick Fonda

Local Journalism Initiative

On Tuesday, March 25, Matthew sent me an email which read, “…any interest in doing candidate profiles in a riding for the upcoming federal election? Maybe Richmond-Arthabaska?”

In fact, I was interested.  Over the years, I’ve had a chance to meet a number of politicians, or aspiring politicians.  With rare exceptions, they’ve been easy people to interview.  Many, by nature, are personable.  They’re usually well informed.  As well, they’ve generally taken the time to think their ideas through, and they’re able to articulate them clearly. 

I wrote back to Matthew and asked if he had the list of candidates in Richmond-Arthabaska.  He didn’t.  I went to plan B and systematically googled the web sites of the federal parties that made up the last parliament:  the Conservative Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada, the New Democratic Party of Canada, the Green Party of Canada, and the Bloc Quebecois.  All I wanted was the name and contact information of the party’s candidate in Richmond-Arthabaska.  I took down the five phone numbers and I started dialing.

My first call was to the Conservative Party.  I was pleased to get through a short option list and to find myself talking to a woman with a pleasant voice.  Curiously, she wasn’t able to give me the information I wanted as she herself had not yet received it.  She was, however, able to give me an email address related to the candidate’s campaign.  My next four phone calls were far less productive as I was only able to leave my name, number, and reason for my call with the four answering machines.

I sent a short email to the address I’d been provided and on Wednesday, I got a phone call from the Conservative candidate’s campaign manager, Yanik Poisson.  We spoke briefly and he told me that, if I didn’t mind driving to Victoriaville, I could meet in person with the Conservative candidate, Eric Lefebvre, on Thursday.

As for the four messages I had left, only one managed to solicit a return call.  Late on Thursday, while I was transcribing my cacographic notes into a story, I got a call from the Bloc Quebecois and arranged an interview early the following week with their candidate, Daniel Lebel.

The other three parties, the Liberals, the NDP, and the Greens—and it’s now six days after I left a message—have yet to call back. 

Given that this election has been anticipated practically since the day after our last federal election in 2021, my expectation was that the five parties would be fully primed to launch their campaigns.

That’s not the case.  A week after Mark Carney’s election announcement, only two parties—the Conservatives and the Bloc—have put up election posters in Richmond-Arthabaska.

With the country going to the polls in less than four weeks, what are the other parties waiting for?  Or is it possible that this riding will only have two candidates? 

The possibility is not far-fetched.  For one thing, parties can run in as many or as few ridings as they wish.  Generally, except for the Bloc, federal parties, in an effort to show that they are truly national, normally like to make a presence in all 343 ridings.  However, with Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system, only two parties—Conservatives and Liberals—have ever formed a government.  Worse, if political observers and pollsters are correct (and they often are), many ridings can be almost guaranteed to go to one of the three main parties (four in Quebec).  The Greens, when lucky, pick up a seat or two in an upset.

In the case of Richmond-Arthabaska, the Green Party has never picked up more than a few percentage points of the popular vote.  Does it make sense to invest the time and energy needed to find a suitable candidate and then find the money needed to mount an electoral campaign in a riding the Greens will never win?  Doesn’t it make more sense to put very limited resources into those ridings where the Party has a better chance of winning?

Similarly, the NDP in Quebec has only ever been a viable contender once, and that was 2011 when Jack Layton rode the Orange Wave through the province.   Richmond-Arthabaska has never elected an NDP member of parliament.  Given that Jagmeet Singh’s party faces the same challenge as the Greens, it too might well decide to ignore the riding and concentrate on more promising ones.

Nor has the Liberal Party ever been successful in Richmond-Arthabaska.  In 2015, the Liberal candidate was Marc Desmarais.  After the election, which he lost to the Conservative candidate, Alain Rayes, he said that if he’d had an extra week to campaign, he would have won.  His reasoning was based on the remarkable way that Justin Trudeau gained more and more momentum across the country as the election campaign progressed.  With a little more time, Desmarais said, Trudeau’s “sunny ways” would have reached and swayed Richmond-Arthabaska.

As it is, the riding, which was redrawn and renamed in 1997, was first served by André Bachand (Conservative), then, starting in 2004, André Bellavance (Bloc), and then, as of 2015, Alain Rayes (Conservative).  (Canada redraws its electoral districts every 10 years to reflect shifts and growth in population.)

While the Liberals have not so far named a candidate for the 2025 election, it’s not for lack of trying.  Ever since 2022 when Alain Rayes quit the Conservatives to sit as an Independent, he has been courted by the Liberals to run for them. 

Politicians do occasionally change parties.  Very environmentally conscious in his own life, Alain Rayes could easily have been mistaken for a member of the Green Party. When he ran for the Conservatives in 2015, he pointed out that no party platform can align perfectly in every way with a candidate’s personal values.  Conservatives, even as late as Brian Mulroney, were quite environmentally aware.  In the case of Alain Rayes, when he quit the Conservatives in 2022, it was because the new leader, Pierre Poilievre, had a total disregard for environmental concerns.

Had the Liberals been successful in wooing Rayes, the race in Richmond-Arthabaska would have been as unexpectedly competitive as the one between Carney and Poilievre.

While the Bloc has done well in the past in the riding, their candidate, Daniel Lebel, doesn’t have the name recognition of Alain Rayes nor of the Conservative candidate, Eric Lefebvre.  Interestingly, Rayes and Lefebvre ran against each other in a mayoral election in 2009, which Rayes won.  Their terms in public office, one federally and one provincially, closely overlap.  Both are popular with their constituents and both have won three consecutive elections. 

But Alain Rayes is not running and, even if more candidates step forward, the race in Richmond-Arthabaska is shaping up to be a two-horse race with the Conservatives looking to have an early lead.

What will voter turn-out look like?  Certainly, less than might otherwise have been hoped.  Until Stephen Harper’s Conservatives put an end to it, for a short while political parties received two dollars to be spent in the following election for every vote they garnered.  Small as the sum was, it motivated members of small parties (like the Green Party) to vote even if they knew their candidate would never win.

The turn-out will also be less than it would be if Justin Trudeau had carried through on his promise of electoral reform and introduced proportional representation.  Again, it is parties like the Greens and the NDP that would greatly benefit under such a system.   And so would we.  Our parliament would be a far better reflection of our political leanings if we had proportional representation.  Best of all, we would not wake up the morning after to find that a given party, even with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote, because of our antiquated first-past-the-post system, had won an undeserved majority in the House of Commons.

Election?  What election? Read More »

But why is China being given a free pass on tariffs?

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Mary Ellen Kirby

Local Journalism Initiative

As soon as our last two slowpoke ewes deliver, our lambing season will be over again for another year. There are dozens of bouncy wee lambs scrambling through the pens, playing tag and bleating their silly little heads off. Their mothers are stoic and unconcerned, calmly eating hay or chewing their cuds and pretty much ignoring their babies. There is no helicopter parenting going on here. The ram struts around, the undisputed king of all he surveys. I suppose he is allowed to be a bit smug: his offspring are vigorous and plentiful. As any farmer will tell you, things don’t always go according to plan when dealing with livestock. We had some difficult births in the wee small hours; there were a couple of weeks of mixing up bottles of milk replacer to supplement several sets of triplets; we managed to get an orphan lamb grafted onto a foster mother after we lost his own mother and twin brother to an impossibly difficult birth, and we managed to keep everyone fed and watered through a couple of snowstorms and power outages. While we are fond of our sheep, we are always glad to put the intensity of lambing season behind us.                      

   As always, the sleep deprivation and stress leave me feeling discombobulated and out of sorts, but this year it’s worse than usual. I feel a little bit like Rip Van Winkle these days. I haven’t been asleep for twenty years, as he was but I have been sort of sleepwalking through the last six weeks. Emerging from my lamb-induced stupor, I find myself in a country I barely recognize. Crass political opportunism is running rampant, otherwise sensible Canadians are earnestly buying the ‘Elbows Up’ hogwash and critical domestic issues are being buried or flat out ignored by the press whose job it is to hold governments to account on our behalf. Instead, it appears the media prefers the drama: they have been complicit in stoking the Trump fire, probably a desperate attempt to bolster waning viewership. So here we are, in the middle of a snap election called on the pretext of defending our country from the bogey man of American imperialism.    According to an Abacus poll taken last week, 54% of Canadians think the primary issue in our federal election is Donald Trump. I fail to see the logic in that. He is not our president. He is not our problem. However, Canada does indeed have an enemy; one that imposes crippling tariffs, undermines our democratic processes, infiltrates our Parliament and imprisons and executes our citizens. But that enemy is not the USA. Why on God’s green earth is China given a free pass in this election that purports to be about Canadian sovereignty? They have just levied punishing tariffs on Canadian ag exports as a retaliatory measure against our imposition of 100% tariffs on Chinese manufactured EVs. I thought mass adoption of electric vehicles was supposed to get us to net-zero nirvana. Why would the very eco-conscious, carbon-taxing Liberal government choose to limit Canadians’ access to more affordable electric vehicles? I am truly baffled. In any case, the resulting Chinese counter tariffs on canola, peas, pork and seafood leave our farmers and fishermen in troubled financial waters. Canola alone is worth $43.7 billion dollars to Canada’s economy and supports 206,000 Canadian jobs. While the threatened auto industry gets immediate pledges of $2 billion in support from Mark Carney, our farmers and fishers get silence. In fact, when worried NFLD fishermen tried to ask Mr. Carney about the Chinese tariff effects on their businesses at a recent campaign stop in St. John’s, they were denied entry and subsequently locked out of the venue. Disgraceful. It smacks of overt partisan pandering, in my opinion. Could this be because auto sector jobs are mostly in the Liberal party base of Ontario, while canola mainly affects the prairie provinces where the vote is decidedly blue? I dunno…I’m just asking for a friend.

   While I am perturbed by our government’s machinations, I am much more perplexed by the response of ordinary Canadians. If Trump’s 25% tariff threats send us into such a paroxysm of patriotism and boycotts of everything American, why do the 100% Chinese tariffs not engender four times the outrage? Are we so blinded by the ‘orange man bad’ rhetoric that we can’t or won’t recognize the bigger threat to our country? I suppose if we boycotted all the Chinese imports, our collective virtue signalling would be much more difficult: we wouldn’t be able to run to the nearest dollar store for those cheap, made-in-China Canadian flags that have suddenly sprouted up like mushrooms after heavy rain. We need to do better than knee-jerk reactions to dog-whistle politics if we are serious about defending our sovereignty. And so does anyone who aspires to the Prime Minister’s office. While there seems to be a variety of choices on the ballot, we have a de facto two-party system at the moment. So far in this election campaign, the only party leader I have heard address these looming agricultural issues is Yves-Francois Blanchet, and we all know the Bloc Quebecois will never form a national government. Neither the Greens nor the NDP have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning, so either the Liberals or the Conservatives will form the next government. As far as I can tell, neither party has made any attempt to formulate or promote policy around food and agriculture. Which leaves me in a quandary: where do I park my vote?

If anyone thinks that agriculture is irrelevant in this election, that the only “existential threat” to Canada comes from the big, bad orange man south of the border…well, I have a lovely little citrus plantation in Yellowknife that I can sell you.

   In theinterest of full disclosure, I want to declare that I identify as politically non-binary. I don’t vote according to party lines; I pay attention to platforms, track records, promises kept – and broken – and then I mark my ballot according to what seems to make the most sense to me at that time. Shortly after my 18th birthday I cast my first vote and I have voted in every municipal, provincial and federal election since then. I have voted across the political spectrum over the last four decades with no allegiance to any party or leader. I have even voted Rhino once or twice when I was thoroughly disgusted by all the other options. There are about three weeks left in this campaign, and I am going to be watching for some substantive agricultural policy from both the red team and the blue team. I hope they ante up. Otherwise, I will be tempted to draw heavy black pencil lines through all the choices on offer in my riding and write in my preferred candidate: Pinocchio. At the very least, it would be obvious when the puppet Prime Minister was lying; it would be as plain as the nose on his face.

But why is China being given a free pass on tariffs? Read More »

A history of uncertainty

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy Wikicommons
Quebec after the 1775 American attack

By Shawn MacWha

Local Journalism Initiative

For more than 150 years, Canada and the United States have stood side by side as sibling countries, born of the same mother. Generations of people have crossed back and forth across the border in search of families, friends, economic prosperity, freedom from prosecution, or maybe just a summer holiday. Our armies have fought and died together to defend our ideals, and our soil, including the time in 1943 when 5,700 Canadian soldiers helped to retake the Alaskan island of Kiska from Japanese invaders – the only time that American territory was occupied during the Second World War. More recently our economies have become almost inextricably intertwined, with goods moving throughout the North American marketplace generating wealth for hundreds of millions of people. 

The recent announcements by the current U.S. administration represent a stark deviation from this pattern of cooperation that has awoken both patriotism and concern amongst Canadians. But the dark words coming out of Washington this winter are by no means the first time that our American neighbours have stricken out at Canada. Indeed during the early years of our history there were several times when relations were so sour that the United States threatened, and even used, military force against our country.

Such aggression was seen at the very beginning of the American nation when, in September 1775, one of the first acts of the Revolutionary Army was to invade Britain’s Canadian possessions. That autumn American Generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold led a two-pronged attack upon Montréal and Québec City which came north through the Richelieu and Chaudière valleys, bracketing the territory that would later become the Eastern Townships. The strategy behind this attack was to undermine London’s ability to counter the revolution by diverting British forces away from their American colonies and to inflame French-Canadian opposition to the Crown. Unfortunately for the Americans they encountered stiff resistance at Fort Saint Jean (Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu) and while the British garrison there eventually surrendered after 45 days of fighting Montgomery’s drive north was delayed well into autumn. Bypassing Montréal the Americans resumed their push into Canada and in December, 1775 their two columns met just south of Québec City. Exhausted, frost-bitten, and outnumbered, the Americans attempted to take the city on December 31st and were soundly defeated, leading them to abandon their aspirations in Canada and retreat south across the border.

Courtesy Wikicommons
Blockhouse in Lacolle, Quebec

Less than 40 years later, during the War of 1812, there were several more American attacks across the border, including into Québec. In November, 1812 American forces under Major-General Henry Dearborn, who was himself a veteran of the failed 1775 incursion, once again sought to take Montréal via the Richelieu valley. Setting off with a force of more than 5,000 men from Champlain, New York Dearborn only made it a few kilometres into Canada before his force ran into trouble. Facing a defensive line along the north shore of the Lacolle River the Americans attempted to encircle the British, Canadian and Mohawk forces. Alas in the confusion of the battle the Americans lost track of the defenders, and each other, and ended upon firing upon their own forces, breaking their momentum, and their will for further battle.

Later American movements into Canadian territory included a November, 1838 raid across the St. Lawrence River when a group known as the Hunter Patriots landed near Prescott, Ontario in the hopes of founding a Canadian republic. Approximately 250 men crossed over from the town of Ogdensburg, New York and in the ensuring Battle of the Windmill were thoroughly defeated by defending British regulars and Canadian militia. Three decades further on Canada once again faced armed attacks from the United States when members of the Fenian Brotherhood, a group of Irish nationalists, conducted a series of raids into Canada between 1866 and 1871. The idea behind these attacks was to seize Canada and then exchange it back to the United Kingdom for Irish independence. Here in the Eastern Townships a force of more than 1,000 Fenians crossed into Québec in June, 1866 and briefly occupied the area around Frelighsburg. They were met with swift and strong Canadian resistance and soon surrendered although another unsuccessful attack was launched against the same area in 1870.

Courtesy
Eccles Hill, 1870, Red Sashes with Fenian Cannon

While American regulars have not attacked Canada since Confederation it was largely due to the spectre of a hostile Union Army that we came together as a country in the first place – a country that was forced to dispatch soldiers to reinforce Canadian claims to the Yukon in 1898 and a country that the American military maintained battle plans against until as late as 1939. Most of these American threats and actions against Canada suffered from the same problem in that they greatly underestimated the willingness of Canadians to defend their land. Many of the commanders who led these attacks, and the American journalists who cheered them on, were under the false impression that deep down inside Canadians secretly wanted to be Americans. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

For all of our lives we have lived with the notion of Canada and the United States sharing the longest undefended border in the world. While the 9/11 terrorist attacks altered that openness somewhat the most recent efforts of the U.S. government represent the greatest change in our bilateral relations in more than 100 years. Yet despite that challenge we will get through this kerfuffle (to use a Canadian word) just as we have gotten through every other American threat to our homes, or as our anthem so poetically puts it, nos foyers. But to do that we need to be crystal clear about who we are as a people. We are a people who love diversity, equity, inclusion, acceptance, bilingualism, the idea that your level of health care should not be determined by your level of wealth and the knowledge that basic manners dictate that you should not yell at a person who you’ve invited into your house. Even if it is a white house.

A history of uncertainty Read More »

Maple syrup industry faces shifting landscape amid tariffs and production challenges

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy: Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec
A worker taps a tree as the sugaring season gets underway

By William Crook

Local Journalism Initiative

The Quebec maple syrup industry is navigating a shifting landscape in 2025, balancing record production with market challenges, including new tariffs imposed by the United States. David Hall, Montérégie-Est President of the Productions et productrices acéricoles du Québec (PPAQ), spoke about the state of the industry, recent technological advancements, and the potential impact of the tariffs in a recent interview.

Record production despite weather concerns

Despite initial fears that last year’s warm winter would negatively affect maple syrup yields, 2024 turned out to be a record-setting season for many producers. “Everybody thought it was going to be a bad year,” Hall said, “but it turned out to be a record year for most people.”

Hall explained that optimal weather conditions are key to sap flow, and despite the lack of snow, the season aligned well with tree activity. “It’s the weather you get when the trees want to run,” he said, noting that the ease of access due to lower snowfall also helped many producers be ready ahead of time.

While it’s too early to predict the outcome for 2025, Hall remains cautiously optimistic, stating that “long-term weather forecasts don’t look bad.” He mentioned that some producers had already begun collecting sap due to unseasonably warm conditions in late February.

Market stability and challenges

The Quebec maple syrup industry remains a global powerhouse, with significant portions of production being exported. Eastern Townships syrup producers typically sell their output to packers, who then distribute it to domestic and international markets. Large companies like Citadelle in Plessisville and a major packer in Granby handle millions of pounds of syrup each year.

While the U.S. produces significant amounts of maple syrup—particularly in Vermont—American buyers continue to rely heavily on Quebec’s supply. “The U.S. is not self-sufficient in maple syrup production,” Hall explained, adding that many American producers are seeking alternative sales strategies due to dissatisfaction with packer pricing.

The industry also faces broader financial pressures, including rising costs for labour, equipment, and materials. “COVID drove prices up,” Hall said. “Labour was hard to come by, stainless steel was expensive, oil went up, plastic went up.” These factors have increased the cost of syrup production, forcing producers to adapt.

Courtesy: Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec
People gather to savour a maple treat in the fresh air

Impact of tariffs

A major concern for 2025 is the recent imposition of tariffs on Canadian maple syrup entering the U.S. Hall acknowledged that it’s still too early to determine the full impact on Quebec producers but anticipates that American packers will likely pass the cost on to consumers. “What’s going to happen is the U.S. packers are just going to up their price,” he said. While some companies might absorb part of the tariff, Hall believes that in the long run, prices will adjust accordingly.

Some industry observers have suggested that Quebec producers could collaborate to push back against the tariffs, but Hall is skeptical. “Each packer is different,” he said. “It’s not like hair combs—maple syrup is a sweat equity game.” He explained that profit margins are tight, making it difficult for producers to absorb additional costs without passing them down the supply chain.

The push for sustainable expansion

One of the biggest ongoing battles in the industry is securing more land for syrup production. Hall pointed out that the Eastern Townships has one of the highest percentages of land already in syrup production, limiting expansion opportunities. “Maple syrup is better for the economy, better for the environment,” he said, emphasizing that it generates more government revenue than traditional forestry.

However, accessing Crown land remains a challenge, as the forestry industry competes for the same territory. “The forestry lobbies are strong,” Hall noted, adding that PPAQ’s long-term goal is to secure more land for syrup production.

For those who do lease Crown land, producers must invest heavily in infrastructure. “You’re responsible for roads if there aren’t any,” Hall explained. “You have to bring in hydro or use a generator.” Despite the upfront costs, he believes the benefits outweigh the challenges, particularly as demand for maple syrup continues to grow.

Technological advancements

In recent years, technological improvements have helped producers reduce costs and increase efficiency. One of the most significant advancements has been electric evaporators, which dramatically lower production costs compared to traditional oil-fired systems. “Your production cost is 10 per cent of what it would be with oil,” Hall said. However, the initial investment is steep—around $250,000 per unit.

Reverse osmosis (RO) technology has also continued to evolve, allowing producers to extract water more efficiently from sap before boiling. “The technology keeps improving,” Hall said, adding that new systems can now remove up to 90 per cent of the water before the evaporation process, reducing energy consumption.

Looking ahead

As the industry moves forward, Hall expects continued adaptation to economic pressures and environmental factors. He noted that the PPAQ monitors inventory levels and exports closely, ensuring that production aligns with demand. “It’s fairly transparent,” he said, referring to the reporting system that tracks export figures.

Despite uncertainties surrounding tariffs and land access, the industry remains resilient. Hall pointed out that many smaller producers continue sugaring for the tradition and enjoyment of it, while larger operations invest in new technology to maintain efficiency. “Some people play hockey; some people make syrup,” he said with a chuckle.

With the sugaring season now underway, Quebec’s maple syrup producers will be keeping a close eye on weather conditions and market trends, hoping for another strong year despite the evolving challenges.

Maple syrup industry faces shifting landscape amid tariffs and production challenges Read More »

Bill 84 – Concerns grow over Quebec’s national integration bill

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy Pexels – Valentina Rodriguez

By William Crooks

Local Journalism Initiative

A controversial new piece of legislation in Quebec is raising alarm bells among English-speaking communities and minority groups. Bill 84, also known as the National Integration Act, has been described by its critics as vague, far-reaching, and potentially harmful to the rights of English speakers and other cultural minorities. While the government insists the bill is about fostering a shared Quebec identity, many see it as an attempt to impose a rigid, undefined cultural model while laying the groundwork for a Quebec constitution.

Introduced by Minister of the French Language Jean-François Roberge, the bill seeks to establish a “national integration model” with the French language as its main pillar. It defines Quebec culture as “the common culture and vector for social cohesion” and states that “all persons living in Quebec” must adhere to it. The bill also grants the government the authority to make funding decisions based on compliance with this integration model, a point that has particularly unsettled community organizations.

QCGN: “We are being written out of history”

The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) has been one of the most vocal critics of Bill 84. In a recent presentation to the National Assembly’s Commission des relations avec les citoyens, QCGN Director-General Sylvia Martin-Laforge argued that the bill makes “almost no reference” to English-speaking Quebecers, despite their significant contributions to the province.

“This is a broad, powerful bill,” she stated. “It could well reach into every part of Quebec society and involve all levels of government, professional bodies, community organizations and their events, employers and employees, newly arrived Quebecers and even those who have lived here for generations.”

One of the QCGN’s biggest concerns is the bill’s ambiguity. “They keep talking about a Quebec model, but they don’t define it,” Martin-Laforge explained. “And in what can only be interpreted as deliberate, but symbolically powerful omissions, this bill contains no more than a fleeting, oblique reference to us.”

She also warned of financial consequences for community organizations. “They are suggesting restricting government funding to an integration model that is not defined. So what does that mean? Will cultural events need to dedicate a percentage of programming to ‘Quebec culture’ to qualify for funding? Will festivals like the Scottish Games or the Irish Parade be at risk?”

English school boards take a measured approach

While the QCGN has taken a firm stance against Bill 84, others in the English-speaking community are still assessing its implications. Michael Murray, chair of the Eastern Townships School Board (ETSB), said that while his organization is reviewing the bill, it does not currently anticipate any major disruptions.

“Obviously, we’ve looked at it, and we intend to go ahead with a process of analysis to see exactly what we need to do to change,” Murray said. “We may even be looking at some of our policies to update them in context of the requirements of the bill.”

However, he stopped short of condemning the legislation. “It’s more going to impact how we work rather than fundamentally undermine our basic operations,” he explained. “But we want to consult our employees and stakeholders before making any decisions.”

Townshippers’ Association: “We need clarity”

Denis Kotsoros, Executive Director of the Townshippers’ Association, also acknowledged concerns about the bill but urged a cautious, dialogue-driven approach. “Bill 84 is trying to enact cultural integration rather than the multicultural integration program that Canada has had for the past 150 years,” he said. “This is part of a long-standing clash between Quebec and Canada.”

While Kotsoros recognized that the government is listening to concerns, he stressed the need for clearer definitions. “They talk about reciprocity, but how do you define that? How do you define cultural integration? I’m not sure anybody has the right answer right now, including the government,” he stated. “Even Minister Roberge has acknowledged they might need to make adjustments.”

At the same time, Kotsoros emphasized the need for English-speaking communities to remain engaged. “We have to be vigilant. It’s not just about waiting to see what happens. We have to keep the discussion going, or we risk being left out.”

A step toward a Quebec constitution?

One of the broader concerns surrounding Bill 84 is that it appears to be part of a larger push toward a Quebec constitution. Martin-Laforge pointed to this as a central issue, noting that Bill 84 follows in the footsteps of Bills 21 and 96, both of which imposed significant changes to the rights of non-Francophones.

“Bill 21 (on state secularism), Bill 96 (on language), and now Bill 84 all weaken the protection of fundamental rights,” she said. “This one, like the others, overrides the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and lays the groundwork for a Quebec constitution.”

Kotsoros echoed this sentiment. “The big issue here is the clash between cultural integration and multiculturalism. That’s what needs to be reconciled. But I don’t see anything in this bill that actually does that.”

What’s next?

With consultations ongoing, it remains to be seen whether the Quebec government will make changes to Bill 84 before it is passed into law. For now, English-speaking groups, school boards, and cultural organizations are watching closely.

Martin-Laforge summed up the stakes: “This bill has the potential to erase our contributions, our history, and our role in Quebec society. If we can’t celebrate who we are, if we can’t look forward to contributing to Quebec’s future, then what place do we have?”

As debate continues, one thing is clear: Bill 84 has ignited a deep conversation about identity, culture, and the future of Quebec society.

Bill 84 – Concerns grow over Quebec’s national integration bill Read More »

The art of nurturing money

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Dian Cohen

Local Journalism Initiative

I’ve been passionate about estate planning and financial wellness for over fifty years, and I want to share some thoughts that might be helpful for those who are retired or getting ready to retire.

It’s tax time. Whether you do your tax return or have someone do it for you, it’s important to know how your retirement income is taxed and what tax perks are available to seniors. Not knowing this can make it tough to figure out how much money you have for living expenses.

Table 1 shows the major ‘pots’ from which retirement income comes and how they are taxed:

Table 1

Table 2 shows the major federal tax perks — make sure to check if there are any provincial-level tax credits or tax deductions for seniors. For example, for Quebecers aged 70 and over, there’s a Senior Assistance Tax Credit which offers up to a maximum of $4,000 for eligible couples and $2,000 for individuals.

Table 2

Just because you need to withdraw money from a tax shelter does not mean you have to spend it. If you don’t need the funds for your living expenses, consider investing them in a taxable, non-registered account. If you’re one of the lucky ones who can do this, this is good. Consider this: if you retire at 65 and live until 95, you’ll need 30 years of annual income, which could nearly match the income you earned during your working career. People are living longer, and the odds are good that at least one spouse, if not both, will live into his or her 90s.

It’s a good time to think about protecting yourself against “longevity risk” – the risk of outliving your money. Aside from investing in the stock market, an advanced life deferred annuity (ALDA) can help address this problem. This annuity can be purchased from a life insurance company and the income payments can be deferred to any age up to 85. Because the guaranteed payments are deferred, this type of annuity is cheaper than other annuities.

Another area of concern has been brought to my attention. It has to do with the internet. Older people can be more susceptible to scams. Maybe it’s because we grew up before the internet and tend to be more trusting, or perhaps we aren’t as aware of the latest digital scams. Whatever the reason, it’s important to know what to watch out for.

If you get a phone call, email, or text from someone claiming to be with the income tax department—whether it’s the CRA or Revenu Quebec—just hang up or delete the message without clicking anything. Legitimate agencies know how to reach out to you properly – and this is not it!

Never, ever, click on or open an email from someone you don’t know, and never, ever, download anything from a website you’ve been directed to. Never click on a pop-up window or open an attachment sent by someone you don’t know. One wrong click could expose all your computer files to a scammer.

Just recently, a news story highlighted a man who Googled “best GIC rates” and then received an email from what appeared to be a legitimate financial institution offering him a 6 percent return. Despite never having worked with them before and knowing that the typical rate was 3 to 3.5 percent, he transferred $750,000 from his trusted bank to what turned out to be a scam. Tragically, he lost all that money. If you are doing financial stuff online, consider doing it with a friend or family member. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

Cohendian560@gmail.com

The art of nurturing money Read More »

We The People

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy

By Guy Rex Rodgers

Local Journalism Initiative

‘We the people’ is an empowering concept, unless your people are out of power, or they are part of a minority overpowered by a rival clan.   

Democracy was built on the idea that ‘we the people’ can stand together to defend ourselves from tyrants and adversity. United, we can weather tempests and, after the storm, share the burden of reconstruction.

Unity has always been an elusive aspiration because human nature is fundamentally selfish. ‘Me first’ is basic survival instinct. In dog-eat-dog competition, the shrewdest and most ruthless live the longest. But that is not a life most people will choose if other options are available.

Given a choice, most of us will cooperate for mutual benefit, which begins with the family, extends to the clan and can ultimately encompass total strangers, although that is an unnatural relationship. Why should anyone share anything with strangers?  What is the motivation to assist needy people in a different part of the city?  Or in a different part of the country?  Or in a foreign country on the other side of the world?

One motivation to help strangers is empathy. The sight of suffering stirs our emotions. Another motivation to help our neighbour in times of trouble is the expectation that they will reciprocate when we need help. A world without empathy, reciprocity and cooperation is a sad and lonely place.

The current US president has embarked upon a campaign of America First. It is shocking to see the USA exert its considerable might in the pursuit of self-interest, ignoring friendships, alliances and principles. It seems illogical. Entire industries will be damaged, billions of dollars will be lost and multitudes will suffer, on both sides of the border.     

What is the motivation? What is to be gained?   

These are the wrong questions. There is no mystery in the selfishness of human nature or in the temptation for the powerful to exploit the weak. The real mystery is why concepts like empathy, reciprocity and cooperation inspire the human imagination, at least between periods of ‘me first.’

There is something otherworldly, almost miraculous, about strangers cooperating. This miracle requires trust and leadership.  In Canada, we have been blessed for many years to live under these conditions. Our leaders have not been perfect, nor has our democracy. But, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, we had the best option available.

Now it is threatened. The most pressing danger gathers outside our borders. The current US president could create such chaos and hardship that an offer of peace, in the form annexation, might appeal to a majority of Canadians. Those who prefer the old Canada would be lost within a double minority, as naysayers within a 51st state, and as unwanted aliens within the encroaching Empire.

We live in Quebec. I’m writing this column in English. Here we have our own issues of tribal dominance, which are also on the rise. The CAQ government has been busily re-defining which Quebecers have full citizenship rights.  This government is not using economic warfare. There are no soldiers in the streets.  The battle is cold-bloodedly bureaucratic.  

The CAQ government has passed a series of interlocking laws to define Quebec’s values and identity: Bill 21 (Secularism) in 2019, Bill 40 (Education) in 2020, Bill 96 (Language) in 2022, and the latest tabled this year, Bill 84 (National Integration).  These laws override minority rights that should be guaranteed by Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. ‘We the people’ no longer means that all Quebecers share the same rights and freedoms. The new definition of ‘we the people’ prioritizes collective values that the CAQ believe are shared by ‘true Quebecers.’  People with different values (languages or religions) can submit to the will of the majority or pack their bags. These are grim choices.

We have no reason to expect special consideration from a foreign government. In fact, we should prepare for the worst from the current US administration, and not expect a return to  ‘normal’ even after the next election.  We do have a right to expect more of our own government, and we have a right to be angry about the divisive identity politics they have exploited. It will be poetic justice for Legault and the CAQ to be soundly defeated in the upcoming provincial election.  Will the next government have the wisdom to restore a definition of ‘we the people’ that includes all of us?  Maybe an external threat is what we need to bring us back together.

We The People Read More »

Age: it’s more than a number

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Seniors are changing our society, economy. How can they really thrive?

By David Winch

Local Journalism Initiative

If you were gifted a “second lifetime”, what would you do with it?

The question isn’t often asked that way, but it should be. Seniors today have mostly received a gift of life-extension. While people living in their 60s, and even their 50s, used to be viewed as old and in decline, now their 70s are increasingly spent in fruitful activities and often in part-time or even full-time work.

The notion that reaching 70 is the Exit door for professional and social life has steadily been losing ground. Work years are being extended as the younger population stagnates. This has brought openings in the labour market.

The pension and benefits systems have not really caught up. Nor has the general culture. I noticed this recently when I was asked to check the boxes on a banking application, quizzing me whether, at 68, I was: Retired / Working part-time / or Full-time.

 Actually, in some tax years I’m all three!

Governments and voters also seem confused. The Harper government raised the pensionable age to 67, then the Trudeau government rolled it back to 65. In France, attempts to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 almost provoked a revolution.

Older workers can also be misconstrued as interlopers. In Ontario, for example, the retirement age for professors was broadly abolished in 2006, as long as these academics were “able to continue to perform their work duties”.

Media then focused on eager young grad students struggling to grasp the bottom of the career ladder as older faculty continued to teach into their 70s. But in truth, only a small minority of faculty in that age group chooses to keep teaching.

Courtesy
French writer Simone de Beauvoir argued in La Vieillesse (Old Age, 1970) that seniors needed more support and visibility.

Historic age changes

I feel this “age-quake” in my own family. My paternal grandparents were born in the late 19th century, in 1898 and 1899 respectively.

As such, they were born on farms before the Wright brothers’ first flight, then lived well into the era of satellites and moon landings. This was an astounding era of technical progress, by far the greatest ever. Just as astonishing perhaps was the jump in life expectancy.

The data agency Statista notes that life expectancy for Canadians born between 1891 and 1900 was 52 for women and just 49 for males.

Since then, Statistics Canada reports that life expectancy in Canada has greatly improved.

“Since the early 20th century. The life expectancy at birth for men has increased by 20.5 years, from 58.8 years in 1920–1922 to 79.3 years in 2009–2011. During the same period, the life expectancy of women increased by 23 years, from 60.6 years to 83.6 years.”

Sure enough, my father —  born in 1927 — lived a decade and a half longer than his parents.

Better nutrition and the advent of mass vaccinations were crucial. The decline of infant mortality showed these gains. Anyone strolling the cemeteries of the Eastern Townships notes the sad evidence of many infant deaths. StatsCan notes: “About 1 in 10 Canadian babies died within the first year of life in 1921, compared with about 1 in 200 in 2011”.

If they survived, prospects were fairly good; by 1920-1922, one-year-old boys in Canada were expected to live until age 64.7 and one-year-old girls until age 65.3.

This extension of life led, paradoxically, to new dilemmas. In 1935, U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt introduced Social Security pension payments, starting at age 65. While a great social advance, it was a cruel irony that most people would never live to benefit, as the median age of death in America was then 62 years.

Once everyone started to live past their mid-60s, however, public pensions anchored a new social class – retired seniors.

Changes shape attitudes

Pessimism and bleak perspectives have often darkened our views of old age. Stereotypes portray seniors as helpless dependants.

Folk balladeer Joan Baez in her song Hello Out There sings that “old people, they just grow lonesome”. Isolation is still a serious issue, but far from universal these days for active old folks.

French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir in 1970 wrote a weighty tome titled La Vieillesse (Old Age). Colleagues were not too supportive. She noted: “When I say that I am working on an essay about old age, most often people exclaim: ‘Quelle idée! But you are not old! Such a sad subject’. This is precisely why I am writing this book: to break the conspiracy of silence. Regarding the elderly, society is not only guilty, but criminal”.

De Beauvoir wrote astutely that the aged are not some separate class or category: “Old people are just young people who suddenly find themselves old”, she concluded.

Balanced against the negative takes is the modern retirement industry’s chirpy invocation of the “golden years”, or the cheerleading notion that “age is just a number”.

UN health agency WHO defines ageing more bluntly: “At the biological level, ageing results from the impact of … a wide variety of molecular and cellular damage over time. This leads to a gradual decrease in physical and mental capacity, a growing risk of disease and ultimately death.” Hence the pessimism.

Today, WHO promotes healthy ageing, which it defines as “developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables well-being in older age”.

That trend continues to change the economy. The Vanier Institute of the Family reports that data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) showed that “in 2022, approximately one in five people aged 65 to 74 were employed … these workers were more likely to report working primarily by choice than necessity”.

The more active seniors of the 2020s embody a new optimism. Fewer rocking-chairs are visible, especially amid all the leisure activities, part-time paycheques and continuing life interests. Long live that trend!

Age: it’s more than a number Read More »

Trump and his conflicts- it’s all in the books

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By David Winch

Local Journalism Initiative

Donald Trump is dominating the news these days, “flooding the zone”, with multiple and often conflicting actions. News coverage is so intense, one wonders: is there anything to add? —But wait!

There are several angles on Trump that are worth highlighting.

During Trump’s first term, a couple of books impressed me. One was a work of politics, the other of psychology. These come to mind again today.

To start, the Mueller Report of 2019 on election interference and foreign influence was a lengthy (758 page), and very detailed FBI report. I read every page, reference and footnote.[1] It dominated headlines, was briefly debated, then disappeared.

The other book I often consulted was a work of psychology, one which helped explain why Trump’s actions often seemed incongruous or disturbing. The work, titled Our Inner Conflicts, was published in 1945 by a German-born psychotherapist, Dr. Karen Horney. I had picked it up in a Psych course at college, and her thesis struck me as insightful.

Damaged by conflicts

Horney posits, after her long history of clinical work, that many people are damaged by conflicts as children and cannot resolve these intense issues.

Such damaged people are often hobbled by inner tensions but still must navigate daily life. Horney concludes that they adopt one of three semi-conscious “coping strategies”: they may systematically move away from people (withdrawal) or move towards people (submission and compliance). Finally, they may reflexively move against people (assertiveness and aggression).

The symptoms of the latter, “move against” strategy define Trump to a T. They provide a key to understanding many inscrutable actions.

Why does he constantly pick fights? Why is he so mercurial and unpredictable? Canadians might wonder: Why does Trump make enemies of people he should befriend?

Dr. Horney’s analysis of such “conflicted” cases explains well Trump’s obsession with pointless fights (asserting his independence), his spontaneous dislikes (asserting dominance), and his unpredictable enthusiasms (defying others’ predictions).

It’s worth another read.

Courtesy
In 2017, a group of psychology professionals argued that Donald Trump was ill-suited to the Presidency.

‘Dangerous case’

However, a more recent set of psychiatric specialists have commented directly on “the case of Trump”.

Early in his first term, in 2017, a group of US psychiatrists protested the rule against psychiatrists trying to diagnose public figures. Called the “Goldwater Rule”, this professional guideline stood for nearly 60 years. The clinicians argued that this President was a mortal threat, and they needed to alert the public as to his psychic state.

The group published The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President (2018). In that collection of essays, the authors proposed that he was “impulsive, arrogant, ignorant, disorganised, chaotic, nihilistic, self-contradictory, self-important, and self-serving”.  Whew.

(There was some criticism that these mostly liberal psychiatry professionals were as much about politics as medicine. No conservatives were included saying, for example, that they liked Trump’s Republican policies, but were troubled by his personality.)

Trump’s re-election campaign prompted another protest. In October 2024, an open letter condemning Trump was signed by 233 psychology professionals and ran in the New York Times.

The signatories contended they had “an ethical duty to warn the public” that Donald Trump showed  “symptoms of severe, untreatable personality disorder—malignant narcissism— that make him deceitful, destructive, deluded, and dangerous. He is grossly unfit for leadership”.

In a new collection, titled The More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (2024),psychology professionals again argued that the Goldwater rule was ill-suited to the present and full of loopholes.

Most of the authors agreed that Trump grew up under a tyrannical father who belittled his sons relentlessly. His father’s disapproval likely led to alcohol abuse by Trump’s older brother Fred.

One essay in The More Dangerous Case particularly caught my attention. Its author focused on “malignant narcissism” and its personal manifestations. As it turned out, the writer is a Canadian psychologist now living in Stratford, Ontario, Dr. Richard Wood. I contacted him and we had a wide-ranging discussion.

In his essay, Dr. Wood notes the rough upbringing Trump experienced under a demanding and hard-nosed father: “Becoming tough and ruthless like father and as relentlessly acquisitive was a Faustian bargain indeed. In order to be safe, Trump had to be willing to sacrifice his connection with others and his very humanity. To ensure he could never be invaded again and defined by someone else, he had to hold himself apart from meaningful engagement with other people, maintaining a tough guy posture, much like his father had, that denied need, dependence, and recognition of his own flawed humanity”.

In another essay, Wood had underlined that a child growing up this way “becomes implacably mistrustful, anticipating rapacity from others rather than love or generosity”.

Wood quotes psychologist Erich Fromm, who stated that malignant narcissism denoted “a grotesque expansion of grandiosity and omnipotence that produced profound distortions of the human character”.

Wood adds that psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg, who made “a deep investment in understanding malignant narcissism”, similarly found that it led to “grandiosity, extreme self-centeredness, and a remarkable absence of interest in and empathy for others”. In spite of this, those suffering from it can be politically successful as they “are still very eager to obtain admiration and approval from other people”.

While the contributors to The More Dangerous Case collection set out varied analyses, Wood notes that they agreed on the basics of malignant narcissism: “damaged or absent empathy, impaired thought process, and prominent paranoid elements”.

Malignant narcissism “tends, over a lifetime, to escalate the damage it imposes on the self”. No happy ending is evident.

We have been warned.

[1] The Mueller Report delivered a message that many U.S. observers found counterintuitive. As special prosecutor and former FBI head Robert Mueller wrote in his executive summary, “the investigation could not establish evidence of collaboration between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence”. That basically ended Congressional investigations and led to a separate impeachment process focusing on Ukraine.

Trump and his conflicts- it’s all in the books Read More »

A new Liberal leader?  No big deal

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Tim Belford

Local Journalism Initiative

Two days from now Canadians can stop holding their breath. The Liberal Party of Canada will have a new leader and the ‘natural governing party’ can get back to doing what it does best; studying the nation’s problems.

Justin Trudeau, for all intents and purposes, will be gone and there will be a new pilot at the helm. Who that will be is anybody’s guess, as of press time, but it looks to be either International businessman, banker and ex-pat, Mark Carney, or former finance minister and Trudeau nemesis, Chrystia Freeland.

No matter which of the two you support, or the reasons you favour them, it doesn’t really matter. If you believe that Carney has spent too much time out of the country and is just another millionaire businessman with no feel for the problems of the average Canadian, it’s irrelevant. As far as Freeland goes, if you think her long-time service in the Trudeau government makes her part of the problem and not the solution, don’t lose any sleep.

The thing is that over the past 152 years, starting with our first Liberal Prime Minister, Alexander Mackenzie, who ruled the parliamentary roost from 1873 to 1878, we’ve managed to survive whatever the party has thrown at us. Mackenzie had about as much political experience as the present Prime Minister Selfie when he started out. A stone mason by trade, he moved on to being a building contractor and finally an insurance executive. Just the same, his term in office managed to produce the Supreme Court, the Auditor General’s Office and the Elections Act that brought us the secret ballot.

Wilfrid Laurier, easily the most successful Liberal icon, spent his three separate terms in the office of Prime Minister defending French language rights. Without him French-speaking Canadians in Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario, Nova Scotia and every other province and territory wouldn’t even t have the limited rights they do now. As for Quebec? It would have been ‘Au revoir les gars!’ a long time ago.

On the other hand Laurier, unlike his arch rival John A. Macdonald, was big on reciprocity with the United States and free trade. If he’d had his way back then, we might actually already be the 51st state and Trump could find somebody else to irritate. Laurier also had what has been referred to as an “ambiguous relationship” with a married woman and maybe even a child by her. Can you imagine what today’s social media would have done with that?

As a nation we even made it through nearly 22 years of William Lyon Mackenzie King as Prime Minister. No matter what you think of King’s accomplishments, most historians would suggest he was also the oddest P.M. of the Liberal lot.

King guided us through the depression and was responsible for a considerable amount of social legislation. He also managed to get us through WWII and help save the ‘mother country’ while at the same time sloughing off Britain’s traditional controlling attitude. He signed treaties, made boundary adjustment pacts, established an independent foreign service and put our military under Canadian control; all without British permission.

All this being said, the man who some historians rate as our best Prime Minister ever, was also one odd human being. Following his death, it was learned that King was fond of holding séances during which he spoke with both his dead mother and dog, asking advice on governing from the former. He didn’t earn the nickname, Weird Willy, without cause.

So take heart. No matter who wins the Liberal Leadership race and even if he or she goes on to become Prime Minister, no worries. We’ve seen it all before and survived to tell the tale.

A new Liberal leader?  No big deal Read More »

 The journey of a local world-class institute

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

William Crooks
Dr. Pierre Sirois holds a copy of his newly released book, L’Histoire de l’Institut de Pharmacologie, in The Record’s office. The memoir chronicles the creation of the Institut de Pharmacologie de Sherbrooke and its impact on the region’s scientific and economic landscape.

Dr. Pierre Sirois reflects on innovation and impact

By William Crooks

Local Journalism Initiative

In the early 1990s, a restless Christmas vacation at home in Sherbrooke set Dr. Pierre Sirois on a path to establish what would become a cornerstone of Canadian pharmacology research: the Institut de Pharmacologie de Sherbrooke. This vision—borne from a desire to expand the Department of Pharmacology at the Université de Sherbrooke—would ultimately transform the region’s scientific landscape and place Sherbrooke on the map as a leader in pharmaceutical research.

Dr. Sirois has now chronicled this journey in his newly released book, L’Histoire de l’Institut de Pharmacologie, which offers an intimate look at the creation of the institute and the collaborative efforts that made it possible. The book not only captures the political and scientific challenges but also reflects on the significant impact of the institute on Sherbrooke and beyond.

“I’m a restless person,” Dr. Sirois reflected during a recent interview at the The Record’s office. “Being at the CHUS [Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke] was my holiday. I was always there.” In the quiet of the 1990 holiday season, while others rested, Sirois began to conceive of an institute that could expand research, attract industry, and contribute significantly to the region’s economic and scientific growth.

Dr. Sirois’ journey to this monumental achievement was far from straightforward. His career began with degrees in biochemistry and pharmacology from the Université Laval and Université de Sherbrooke, followed by postdoctoral studies in the prestigious institutions, the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. He joined the Université de Sherbrooke in 1978, quickly ascending to become Chair of the Department of Pharmacology in 1987. During this time, his research focused on inflammation and asthma, and he played a key role in the identification of leukotrienes, critical compounds in inflammatory processes.

Building from an idea to an institute

The initial concept for the institute was met with enthusiasm. “When I came back from Christmas, I shared the idea with my boss. He said, ‘Go ahead. If you need me, let me know,’” Sirois recalled. The proposed institute’s aim was ambitious: to establish Sherbrooke as a centre of excellence in pharmacology by attracting pharmaceutical companies, facilitating collaboration, and fostering innovation.

One of the pivotal moments came when Dr. Sirois collaborated with the city’s economic development team. “We were already the best group in Canada for pharmacology, even ahead of McGill,” Sirois said. However, bringing the project to life required significant funding and navigating political and bureaucratic hurdles.

Dr. Sirois’ perseverance was critical in securing multi-million-dollar funding from the federal and provincial governments, as well as contributions from local entities. Monique Gagnon-Tremblay, then President of the Treasury Board, played a key role in approving provincial funds. “I told her about my conversation with a Quebec Ministry of Education official,” he said. “She found it interesting, and soon after, the funding was approved.” The City of Sherbrooke and the then-village of Fleurimont also contributed. Fleurimont’s mayor at the time, Francis Gagnon, even held a referendum to secure $1 million for the project, ensuring local buy-in.

According to the Université de Sherbrooke website, research in pharmacology at the Université de Sherbrooke traces back to 1968, when Professor Domenico Regoli emphasized the importance of integrating pharmacology with medicinal chemistry. His efforts laid the groundwork for the department’s success in respiratory and cardiovascular pharmacology. By the early 1990s, Dr. Sirois and Professor Pierre Deslongchamps—a specialist in biomolecular synthesis—combined their visions to create an institute that would house over 2,500 square metres of state-of-the-art laboratories and establish Sherbrooke as a hub for pharmacological innovation.

Political and scientific collaboration

Former Premier Jean Charest’s preface in Dr. Sirois’ new book highlights the collaborative effort that made the institute possible. He acknowledges the role of the Quebec government’s industrial cluster policy under Robert Bourassa and the federal policies under Brian Mulroney’s government, including the contentious Bill C-91, which strengthened pharmaceutical patents. “Without these frameworks, this project might never have materialized,” Charest wrote.

The book offers an intimate look at the creation of the institute. Dr. Sirois recounts not only the political negotiations but also his day-to-day involvement, from securing CVs for funding proposals to selecting paint colours for the building. “I was involved in every detail,” he said, “even though I’m not a builder.”

The institute’s unique structure also set it apart. From its inception, it included a business incubator designed to foster innovative technologies with high commercial potential. Companies like IPS Pharma, Télogène, Néokimia, and more recently Immune Biosolutions and Phenoswitch Bioscience, were among those nurtured within its walls. This approach has facilitated significant advancements in drug development and diagnostic technologies.

Legacy and impact

Since its inauguration in December 1997, the Institut de Pharmacologie has played a crucial role in advancing pharmaceutical research. Its initial structure included space for business incubators, fostering the creation of local biotech companies, including two founded by Dr. Sirois himself. IPS Therapeutique Inc., one of these ventures, continues to flourish, employing 60 scientists and maintaining partnerships with pharmaceutical companies worldwide.

The institute’s interdisciplinary approach has been pivotal. By 2008, researchers from multiple faculties, including medicine, science, and engineering, joined forces, creating a dynamic environment for interdisciplinary projects. Later leadership under Professors Éric Marsault and Philippe Sarret emphasized translational research and industrial partnerships, aiming to optimize technologies with direct applications in medicine.

The institute’s impact extends beyond the local economy. It has positioned Sherbrooke as a leader in pharmacological innovation and training. “We’re unique in Canada,” Sirois noted, “and Sherbrooke is fortunate to have this.” The Université de Sherbrooke’s pharmacology program, bolstered by the institute, remains a national leader, attracting top talent and producing groundbreaking research.

Reflections and the road ahead

For Dr. Sirois, the journey of establishing the institute is one of his proudest achievements. Yet, his motivation wasn’t personal gain. “I did this for Sherbrooke, for Quebec, and for Canada,” he emphasized. He hopes his story will inspire future researchers and policymakers to pursue ambitious projects that can transform their communities.

In his book, Dr. Sirois provides not only a detailed narrative of the institute’s creation but also insights into the collaborative spirit required for such endeavours. As Jean Charest aptly summarized in his preface, “Dr. Sirois built an institute that improves the health of our citizens, makes us more prosperous, and defines our future.”

Dr. Sirois’ book is available on Amazon, and he remains eager to share his story with audiences across the region. For a man who has spent decades shaping the future of pharmacology in Sherbrooke, the publication of his memoir is another milestone in a life dedicated to science, education, and community building.

 The journey of a local world-class institute Read More »

Townships life is good

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy www.easterntownships.org

By Dian Cohen

Local Journalism Initiative

Those of us who live in Quebec’s Eastern Townships (aka Estrie) know how good it can be. We have a selection of universities and colleges to feed our brains and sufficient internet connections to improve ourselves without leaving home. We have one of the best research and teaching hospitals anywhere, several other regional hospitals we should try not to go to and many local health clinics we should work hard to expand. We have a regional airport. Two innovation zones and five poles of excellence provide (relatively) strong economic and business development. We can enjoy an observatory and the first international dark sky reserve for star-gazing. And of course the natural beauty of four national parks and a global reputation for year-round outdoor activities serves us all well.

The Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information (IRIS) wants life here to be even better. IRIS is a 20-year-old, independent non-profit founded to analyze Quebec’s public policies with a view to creating a better life. The Institute recently turned its attention to the Townships. (IRIS: Revenu Viable En Estrie 2024). There’s an amazing difference in the amount of money it takes to live modestly in each of our nine municipal regions (MRCs). The researchers suggest that life could be infinitely more affordable for many of the half-million people who call Estrie home if only a few missing services could be provided. The big question is whether their prescription is possible.

The study looked at three types of households — a single person living alone, a single parent with one pre-school child and a two-parent family with two preschool-aged children. Drawing from both Statistics Canada and Institut de la statistique du Québec, it paints a detailed portrait of life here. In general, Estrie looks much like the rest of Quebec. Except that we’re growing faster because more people are choosing to live here – especially in the municipalities of Saint-Denis-de-Brompton (MRC du Val-Saint-François), Waterville (MRC de Coaticook), Bromont (MRC de Brome-Missisquoi) and Roxton Pond (MRC de La Haute-Yamaska).

We have a stronger manufacturing sector (16.6 percent) than in the rest of Quebec (10.1 percent.) We’re older than Quebec as a whole: while every fifth Quebecer is 65 years old or more, in the Townships, one in four belongs to this age group.

In a city like Bromont, the high concentration of wealthy households pushes up prices for all categories of expenses, including a basket of quality food.  A single person needs more than $50,000/year to live there.  A household of two adults and two preschool-age children needs nearly $95,000. These amounts are considerably higher than for a single person in Granby ($33,490) or for a family of four in Lac-Mégantic ($71,044). It’s therefore not surprising that relatively few poor people live in Bromont.

In the majority of MRCs, the supply of childcare services, particularly subsidized childcare, doesn’t meet the demand. Even in the two MRCs where supply is slightly higher than demand (Granit and La Haute-Yamaska), there’s a significant lack of places. In other words, to find an available facility, families sometimes have to travel quite far from where they live. Unless there is reliable public transportation, these families need access to a car.

Public transit exists in each MRC, but with the exception of Sherbrooke, it’s intermittent and unreliable. For rural villages, it’s rare to find a shuttle service to bigger towns that have services. La Haute-Yamaska and Coaticook MRCs stand out by the high proportion of their populations who work in their locality. In contrast, the majority of residents in Val-Saint-François and Haut-Saint-François commute outside their local MRC. These are also the MRCs with the fewest people able to get to their jobs in less than 30 minutes. The situation is better for workers in Granit and La Haute-Yamaska Granit and La Haute-Yamaska, where the vast majority have a shorter commute. Sherbrooke stands out for its ability to retain workers on its territory.

That said, there are wide variations within each MRC. In many villages and towns, the absence of local shops, health clinics (dental, medical, etc.) and cultural venues requires travel to varying distances.

All MRCs have public and adapted public and paratransit services. In most cases, you need to book your trip a day in advance. While the service is punctual and predictable, it does not, for example, allow for emergencies such as a child becoming ill at the day-care center while the parent is at work. This not ideal for a single-parent family.

The study suggests than if a public transit network could be established and all families who wanted it could obtain a quality and affordable childcare place near their home, single-parent families as well as households of two adults and two children in Granby, or even in Cowansville, could consider a life without a car, thus making living more comfortable on a modest income.

Considering the times in which we live – namely the unsettling and often terrifying demands coming from the president of the United States — we can be appreciative that the researchers at IRIS have produced such an interesting portrait of our home region. As for their suggestions for more taxpayer-funded childcare spaces and public transit, it’s possible that more childcare spaces could be created some time in the future – perhaps after the federal and provincial debts have been paid down a bit. It’s unlikely that affordable public transportation can be established in a land area where the population density is only 31 souls/km2 — minimal density at least 10 times this number is necessary.

For now, let’s give ourselves a little pat on the back and savour our good fortune to be living in this particularly well-endowed and relatively peaceful corner of the world.

Cohendian560@gmail.com

Townships life is good Read More »

Uncle Louis, where are you?

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

PM from Townships showed skill and integrity, but image remains grey

By David Winch

Local Journalism Initiative

The last two months have seen a whirlwind of political activity in Canada, with the rapid-fire resignations of a finance minister then the prime minister, followed by the suspension of Parliament and the launch of a Liberal leadership race. All this occurs as Canada braces for the incoming hurricane of a disruptive new President in the U.S.

Even apolitical folk wonder, where are we headed? What responsible and competent political leaders will emerge?

As a politico, someone who follows politics intently, I do not recall many recent eras with such rapid-fire changes in the Canadian scene. One possible example: back in 1979-80 Joe Clark’s Conservatives defeated the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau. He then returned to power just eight months later and propelled himself into the midst of Quebec’s first sovereignty referendum, the year Ronald Reagan came to power in the U.S. But such a collision of big events is very unusual.

Macleans
St. Laurent ranks high in a 2016 Macleans survey of historians.

High-ranking low-profile PM

Today, as we look for solid and competent governance, the name of one Townshipper, Louis St.  Laurent, comes to mind. Largely unknown to Gen X and younger Canadians, St. Laurent does not even benefit from having his face on the currency, as his francophone predecessor Wilfrid Laurier does on the five-dollar bill (visible at least for those not swiping all their purchases). A somewhat grey, grandfatherly image also clouds the picture people might have about LSL’s achievements.

And yet, St. Laurent was ranked fourth-best among all prime ministers in a survey of Canadian historians assessing the first 20 PMs (through to 1999 and Jean Chrétien), as reported in the book Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada’s Leaders. In that poll, St. Laurent fell behind only the Big Three of Macdonald, Laurier and Mackenzie King.

The Compton-born St. Laurent was also ranked No. 6 in recent Macleans magazine surveys on prime ministers (trailing PMs Mackenzie King, Laurier, Macdonald, P. Trudeau and Pearson). Yet when I scanned the stacks at the excellent North Hatley library recently, its extensive shelf of political biographies included the Big Three above as well as multiple bios of Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien. But nothing on Louis St. Laurent.

St. Laurent did not seek attention or glory. He was exceptional for his personal integrity and sense of responsibility. In his lifetime, he declined both a Rhodes scholarship and a Supreme Court appointment. After he started his federal career as an adviser, Prime Minister Mackenzie King saw his discreet ability and recruited him in 1941 as wartime Minister of Justice.

By all accounts, St. Laurent showed remarkable ability early in his life. After a small-town upbringing, St. Laurent was successively an outstanding student, a top lawyer, a Cabinet appointee, then Prime Minister from 1948 to 1957.

St. Laurent was born in 1882 to Jean-Baptiste-Moïse St. Laurent and Mary Anne Broderick, an Irish Canadian. Like Pierre Trudeau, St. Laurent grew up fluently bilingual, as his father spoke French while his mother spoke only English. (His English reportedly had a noticeable Irish brogue, reports Wikipedia.) A museum in Compton, conveniently located on route Louis-S.-St-Laurent (the 147), commemorates his family life and roots in their onetime storefront.

He received his B.A. in 1902 from the Séminaire Saint-Charles-Borromée (also known as Séminaire de Sherbrooke) and then his law degree in 1905 from the Université Laval (where he declined the Rhodes). He continued with a prosperous and very successful law career in Quebec City, where he retained his father’s Liberal partisanship.

In 1941, with World War II exploding, Mackenzie King asked the sure-footed St. Laurent to accept the post of Minister of Justice. He retained this office until being named External Affairs minister after the war, during which time he attended the birth of the United Nations at San Francisco. On the strength of his accomplishments, St. Laurent succeeded Mackenzie King in 1948. His Liberals won a majority government that year and again in 1953.

Popular 1950s government

Productive and popular as PM – and widely admired as “Uncle Louis”— St. Laurent’s Liberal government expanded the social safety net, while also launching major public works such as the St. Lawrence Seaway. As Policy Options magazine noted in an enthusiastic assessment (“Uncle Louis and a golden age for Canada: A time of prosperity at home and influence abroad”, June 2003): the St. Laurent Liberals “could boast of hospital insurance, the Canada Council, a six-dollar raise in old age pensions, and Canada’s prominent peace-making in the Suez crisis”.

However, his Liberal government – stop me when you’ve heard this before –started to wear out its welcome by the nine-year mark of governing in Ottawa. Calling an election in June 1957 proved hazardous, despite Liberal achievements and St. Laurent’s pleasing personality. A controversial pipeline debate in 1956 was forcibly ended using parliamentary closure. A recession also appeared on the horizon. Suddenly, a Conservative populist was nipping at the government’s heels.

 The Liberals were defeated by the Conservatives of John Diefenbaker. In September 1957, St. Laurent announced his retirement as Liberal leader, returned to Quebec City and lived in “honourable obscurity” there until he died on July 25, 1973. He is buried with family at the Saint-Thomas d’Aquin cemetery in Compton.

Policy Options concludes that St. Laurent“left behind an enlarged and prosperous Canada, respected in the world. He was an architect of the multilateralism which, with American power, kept the Cold War cool. His era was such a golden age that many Canadians believed that peace, order and good government was their natural destiny.”

We can only hope that 2025 will again offer us political leaders of his calibre. Canada is perhaps ready to trade in glamour and clever talk for a dependable pair of hands.

Uncle Louis, where are you? Read More »

“Now is the time to speak up” amid arts funding crunch

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiaitve

Three years after the lifting of the last COVID-19-related restrictions on public gatherings in Quebec, the word “cancelled” is once again cropping up on cultural events listings again around the province.

From the Hilarium comedy festival in Sherbrooke, which cancelled its second edition this month; to the Orchestre métropolitain de Montréal, which cancelled two concerts; Théâtre La Bordée and Robert Lepage’s Ex Machina in Quebec City, which suspended new projects; the Le Festif! Music festival in Baie-Saint-Paul, whose director has said he is worried about the event’s long-term survival; to a cascade of smaller concerts cancelled due to a lack of advance ticket sales, cultural institutions are hitting a financial wall. The Musée régional de Rimouski has been closed indefinitely since Jan. 23, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Sherbrooke (MBAS) and other provincial museums have suspended school field trips and end free admission for adults on the first Sunday of the month due to funding cuts as the government seeks to reduce an $11-billion deficit. Even smaller events like the Knowlton Literary Festival in Brome Lake,  which is sheltered from rising costs by its all-volunteer management structure, is aware that expenses will probably increase and thus result in a tighter budget in future years, according to festival vice president Lesley Richardson.

Following the Ex Machina announcement, Québec solidaire cultural affairs critic Sol Zanetti asked his social media followers to let him know about cancellations and cuts to cultural events around the province.

“I got about 25 different responses, and every cancellation is a big event; it’s an alarm signal,” Zanetti said. Cancellations have “been snowballing since December, but we’ve been seeing signs for years.”

Nick Maturo, programming director of the English Language Arts Network (ELAN) says the trend is “disappointing, but not surprising.” He and other arts advocates say it has a range of causes.

“During the pandemic, there were some really important investments, both at the national

and the provincial level, to help stabilize the arts and culture sector,” he said. “I think that coincided with a situation in which a lot of artists or organizations, if they were not reliant on public funding in the past, all of a sudden, that became a really important way of supporting their work. Of course, as we exited the pandemic years, investment in arts and culture returned to levels we would have seen prior to that. Alongside that, obviously, everybody is well aware of inflation.”

“Culture has always been underfunded,” said Maude Charland-Lallier of the Musée des Beaux-arts de Sherbrooke (MBAS). “The pandemic, with the closures and the rules, accentuated everything. We did have punctual help during that time, but people had to get back into the habit of going out. Now we get even more [visitors] than before, but the assistance is not there anymore. Meanwhile, all of our costs have gone up – suppliers, fixed fees for maintaining the building – and there has not been an increase in funding to respond to that.”

The MBAS is a member of the Société des musées du Québec (SMQ), which has joined the Front commun pour les arts (FCA), an ad hoc network of dozens of arts and culture organizations formed to call for a more solid arts funding model. In a report tabled at the National Assembly as part of pre-budgetary consultations, FCA members called on the Legault government to increase funding for the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec (CALQ). “The core funding of the CALQ has been set at $106 million since 2017, despite 22 per cent inflation during that time … [while] funding for cultural organizations has risen by only seven per cent,” they write. “In addition, the basic budgets available in artist grants have stagnated for nearly 20 years at $10 million while inflation was 53 per cent over the same period. An additional $10-million envelope has been granted in recent years, but since the measure expires in 2024-2025, its renewal is not guaranteed.”

“When there is inflation and there hasn’t been [adequate] indexation, at one point, you hit a crisis,” said director general Pierre Mino of Culture Estrie. “Even when there are no funding cuts as such, the lack of indexation has the same effect as cuts.”

Echoing the FCA, he noted that attendance at live events generally has not come back to pre-pandemic levels, as people try to cut spending amid overall inflation and inexpensive online entertainment options abound. “We’re in an adaptive period…where the way of reaching people has evolved,” he observed.

According to a recent report by Hill Strategies in collaboration with ELAN, the cultural sector contributed over $15 billion to Quebec’s GDP in 2021. Mino worries about the economic knock-on effect that the cancellations could have on early-career artists trying to get a foothold in the industry, on economic activity in neighbourhoods where restaurants and bars can no longer depend on the “theatre crowd” and on longer-term efforts by municipalities to attract workers. “Would you want to take a job in a city where there’s hardly anything to do outside of work?”

“We’d like to see … the recognition that arts and culture is not just a silo, it’s not just a luxury that when times are tough, we tighten the belt and that’s the first thing to go,” said ELAN’s Maturo. “I think there needs to be a recognition that arts and culture can be an asset in many, many areas of society, whether that’s education, mental health or fostering a shared identity. In that sense, it’s money well spent; it’s not just money going to an artist that stays within the arts and doesn’t benefit all of society. If the arts are important to you, now is the time to speak up.”

“Now is the time to speak up” amid arts funding crunch Read More »

Why weren’t we already buying local, and Canadian?

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Mary-Ellen Kirby

Quite Contrary

Local Journalism Initiative

   We are less than 40 days into the new year and North America’s political players have somersaulted back and forth so many times already that trying to keep up with developments has given me a severe case of whiplash. The overheated rhetoric, snarled threats and fist-shaking are reminiscent of the orchestrated hype leading up to a WWE wrestling match, except that the only folks likely to end up knocked out flat on the mat at this event are the spectators. The ‘War of the Tariffs’ would be a great show if it weren’t so stupidly dangerous for the rest of us.     

   The personal fortunes of both Horrible Orange-Man and Captain Sparkle-Socks guarantee they are well insulated from any financial repercussions of their little grudge match. And I can’t help but think that grudge is part of the motivation here. Only the saintliest among us could resist the urge to retaliate against someone who has quite publicly mocked and maligned us and it is probably safe to say that ‘saintly’ is a highly unlikely descriptor of the POTUS. Even a blind shark can smell blood in the water, and #47 can see that our lame duck leader is about to get his trust-fund keister handed to him on a silver platter so, naturally, the Great Orange shark circles for the kill. Hard to fault him for that, obviously a shark’s gotta do what a shark’s gotta do.

   I have a harder time understanding our PM’s response to the tariff threats, though. At a time when extremely high grocery costs have caused escalating food insecurity and more than 2 million Canadians are relying on the strained resources of food banks,

Jr. thinks it’s a good idea to impose counter tariffs on the American-grown fruits and vegetables we import into the great white North. I find it unconscionable that the PM would choose to weaponize food; the disregard for struggling Canadians is shameful. But then again, I suppose we can’t really expect him to relate: he has never had to worry about where his next extravagant meal is coming from, has he? In fact, he seems quite comfortable expecting taxpayers to pick up his grocery tab.

 Trump & Trudeau…has a nice alliterative ring to it, doesn’t it? Almost like an old-time comedy duo. Except there is nothing at all funny about these two posturing playboys and the harms they are willing to inflict on their citizens in the service of their respective egos. However, there may be some not so obvious up-sides to the great tariff war. First, it seems more than three-quarters of Canadians have agreed on something: a recent poll shows that a vast majority of Canadians want an immediate federal election so that we can deal with the U.S. from a position of a strong four-year mandate.

This is an astounding number, especially when you factor in Quebec’s customary anti-federal stance. Evidently, Trump is good for Canadian unity. Whodda thunk it?    Secondly, a nascent ‘Buy Canadian’ ‘Buy Local’ trend has surfaced in the last few weeks and my social media feeds are clogged with earnest calls for Canadians to boycott products of the U.S.A. accompanied by long lists of various ‘Made in Canada’ goods as substitutes. Even The Globe & Mail and the CBC have happily hopped onto that bandwagon. 

   As a local agricultural producer, I truly appreciate the sentiment and intent of this movement. However, I have a couple of caveats: First, I distrust bandwagons. I have seen far too many of them abandoned in ditches when the wheels fall off. A case in point: the gardening bandwagon of the recent Covid years, when seeds were in short supply. Any small seed supplier that planned to invest and increase their catalogue based on that hyper demand is probably now sitting on an excess of inventory, one that is subject to decay and loss. Bandwagon passengers are notoriously fickle; it is best not to factor them into any business plan. This is especially dangerous ground for farmers because agriculture moves at Nature’s pace, not at the speed of the internet. By the time farmers could gear up for increased local demand, most of the demanders would have cooled off and gone back to Costco because, in the end, buying cheaper is more important to them than buying Canadian. We are among the blessed few to have a good, steady, appreciative client base for our farm products, but we won’t be expanding in response to this latest trend: it is too risky and unreliable for us to bank on.

   My second concern is this: why aren’t we already buying local and buying Canadian, in that order? It is quite demoralizing to be taken for granted and this farmer is here to tell you that the rule of “Use it or Lose it” very much applies to farms and farmers. If buying Canadian is truly important, then do it regardless of trade wars, bombastic rulers or social media trends. It is the only way to ensure that ‘Buy Canadian’ remains a viable option in the future. Please don’t misunderstand me: I am very much in favour of a grassroots ‘Buy Local/Buy Canadian’ movement. I just wish it came from a more generous and sustainable motive than flipping our collective middle finger to the big, bad Horrible Orange -Man.  

   If Trump & Trudeau were pugnacious little banty roosters, riling up the citizens of the barnyard and upsetting the production of the hens, then I would know exactly how to deal with them. We have a down-home, made-on-the-farm solution: it’s called Mean Rooster Soup, and I wouldn’t waste any time sharpening my axe, either. Since that is not an option here, I will have to satisfy myself with a heartfelt “BAH!! A pox on both their houses!”

Why weren’t we already buying local, and Canadian? Read More »

Lorna Gordon’s journey through dance, resilience, and Black History Month

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy
Lorna Gordon

A life in motion

By William Crooks

Local Journalism Initiative

Lorna Gordon’s life has been one of movement—across continents, across stages, and through the ever-changing landscape of race relations in Canada. Born in St. Vincent and raised in Trinidad, she arrived in Canada in 1966, drawn by her passion for dance and a desire to chart her own path, despite familial disapproval.

“My family, they’re lawyers and doctors and teachers. They did not approve of having somebody as a dancer,” Gordon recalled in a recent interview. “I disgraced the family by working to death.”

But her love for dance was unwavering. In the Caribbean, dance was a natural part of life—woven into school plays, cultural celebrations, and community events. Gordon embraced a variety of styles, from calypso and limbo to African dance, performing with fire and taking part in elaborate stage productions. When an opportunity arose to perform in North America, she seized it, touring the United States and Canada before settling in Montreal.

The vibrant arts scene in Montreal reminded her of home, and she found work quickly, performing in supper clubs and theatre productions. “At that time, you had a lot of different shows, all kinds of shows,” she said. “Not like now—it’s not as it was.”

Her career took off when a promoter, impressed by her talent, offered her a contract without an audition. This led to performances with well-known producers, including Madame Grimaldi, a major figure in the Quebec entertainment industry. Grimaldi booked high-profile acts like Michel Louvain and André Roc, and Gordon was one of the few Black dancers in these productions. Over the years, she honed her craft, refining her stage presence and earning a reputation as a captivating performer.

Despite her success, she encountered difficulties. Promoters often sought Black dancers for exoticized performances, reinforcing stereotypes rather than celebrating culture. She also had to navigate the challenges of being a young Black woman in an industry dominated by white men. Some advances were inappropriate, and she quickly learned to stand her ground. “They didn’t respect this girl,” she recalled of one instance and her attitude towards it, “All you guys who were after me, go to hell.”

By the 1970s, she was raising children and seeking stability. She moved to the Eastern Townships around 1971, becoming, she remembers, one of the first Black women in Lennoxville.

Facing racism in the Townships

Adjusting to her new home came with challenges. Gordon encountered racism in ways that were both blatant and insidious. “I found them rude. Really rude,” she said of some of her early experiences. “I heard, ‘Black women are hot, and I never went to bed with a Black woman,’”. She felt like “spitting in their damn face”.

She also faced a troubling culture of sexual aggression, where some men saw her as an object of conquest rather than a respected member of the community. “They were nasty,” she said. “The women didn’t like me, but the men wanted to sleep with me.” Rather than let these experiences define her, Gordon remained firm, ensuring her children understood their worth. “I told my kids, ‘Keep your head up. You are blessed. Don’t let anyone shame you.’”

For Gordon, the prejudice she faced was compounded by being a single mother. “I warned my kids,” she recounted. “I said, I don’t care what you do, but none of these guys—if they come at you, you come get me.”

Despite the challenges, she was determined to carve out a life for herself and her children. She went back to school, earning a diploma in special education and securing a job at the local Butters Home, where she worked for nearly two decades. “We were the second batch of educators that graduated from Champlain [College],” she said proudly.

Building a legacy

Beyond her work in education, Gordon became a business owner, running a home for the elderly while also hosting international students. “The Arab countries, the Muslims, the Chinese, and the Japanese students—they were the best students to have,” she said, speaking of the young people she welcomed into her home.

Over time, attitudes in the Townships shifted. “It changed over the decades,” she acknowledged, though she remained wary of certain lingering biases. “I told my kids, ‘You are immigrants, you are Black, and if you don’t have an education, they think you belong in the kitchen.’”

Gordon made sure her children had opportunities. Her daughter Joanne became a high school teacher in Kingston, while Suzan established her own business in Brockville, helping companies improve their operations. “They got their education and made their own way,” she said proudly.

Her businesses demanded long hours, and she often had to balance multiple responsibilities. “I would sleep at the home some nights because staff was expensive,” she said. Even when she went on vacation, she prepped all the meals in advance, ensuring that the residents were well taken care of. “The first time I left for 12 days, I came back, and they told me how bad the food was. I said, ‘Don’t do that to them,’” she recounted with a laugh.

A voice in the community

Through the years, Gordon also remained deeply involved in the community. She became a lay reader at St. George’s Anglican Church and later took on the role of warden. Her involvement in the church extended to singing in choirs, including at Bishop’s University, where she took part in symphony performances. “We sang with the symphony, and we went to Drummondville—it was really, really nice,” she said. She is a member of the Bishop’s choir to this day.

Her contributions did not go unnoticed. “A lot of people know me in Lennoxville. I am friends with a lot of people, and a lot of people respect me,” she said. “The mayors and different people, they all know me. I’ve been in this town a long time.”

Black History Month and looking forward

For Gordon, Black History Month is more than just a time of reflection—it’s an acknowledgement of the contributions Black Canadians have made to society. “We gave a lot to this place,” she said. “We did a lot. We are part of this society. We gave a lot of our time and energy and education and everything to this place.”

Her journey—marked by perseverance, success, and resilience—mirrors the broader struggle and triumphs of Black Canadians throughout history. From overcoming discrimination to breaking barriers in dance, education, and business, Gordon’s life embodies the spirit of Black History Month.

At nearly 80 years old, she remains active, connected, and determined to share her story. Whether through dance, education, or community involvement, Gordon’s impact on the Eastern Townships will not be forgotten. “I have to say, people respect me,” she said. “And that, I’ve earned.”

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Massawippi Conservation Trust secures vital wetland for future generations

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy Tim Doherty
Lim Wetlands property

Protecting local nature

By William Crooks

Local Journalism Initiative

In a landmark move for environmental conservation, the Massawippi Conservation Trust (MCT), in collaboration with the Appalachian Corridor, has announced the permanent protection of the Lim Wetlands property. This 8-hectare wetland, located in Hatley near the Tomifobia River, is a vital ecological site. “This is our first conservation project on this scale, and we couldn’t be more thrilled,” said Hélène Hamel, Executive Director of the Fondation Massawippi Foundation (FMF), in a recent interview.

The property—dubbed the “kidneys of the lake” by Hamel—plays a crucial role in maintaining water quality and mitigating the impacts of climate change. An ecological assessment conducted in 2022 by the Appalachian Corridor revealed the land’s biodiversity significance. It is home to species at risk such as wood turtles, Canada lilies, and four types of bats, as well as 44 bird species, including the Bank Swallow and Eastern Woodpecker. “Protecting this ecosystem ensures high-quality drinking water for surrounding communities and safeguards essential ecological services,” explained Appalachian Corridor General Manager Mélanie Lelièvre in a related press release.

A unique donation

The Lim Wetlands property was donated by a family that had owned it for decades but never developed it. “This land is extraordinary. It’s never been disturbed,” Hamel shared, adding that the donor had never even walked on the property. This untouched land, valued at $90,000, strengthens the conservation network surrounding Lake Massawippi, connecting it to other protected areas just 4.3 kilometres away.

The project was made possible by substantial financial backing. Funding came from several government initiatives, including Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Canadian Nature Fund and the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s Natural Environment Partnership Project, which received support from the Quebec government. Locally, the FMF provided additional funds to aid the MCT in its conservation mission.

Jaques Bouvier

Conservation and community

Hamel emphasized the dual role of the MCT and FMF in both conserving land and promoting public engagement. While the MCT handles land acquisition and stewardship, FMF raises funds and manages educational programs. Together, the organizations have protected 546 hectares of land since their founding in 2011. “We aim to conserve as much of the watershed as possible, ensuring its biodiversity and ecological balance for future generations,” Hamel said.

Looking ahead, the Trust is expanding its focus to farmland conservation. Hamel revealed plans to work with local farmers on organic practices, riverbank planting, and reducing chemical use. “Farmland is often overlooked in conservation efforts, but it’s critical to the overall health of our ecosystem,” she noted. The first such initiative will be with FMF President Margot Heyerhoff, whose organic farm is set to become a conservation servitude.

Beyond wetlands: Tomifobia Nature Trail

In addition to wetlands, the MCT is in discussion to acquire a transfer of ownership of the Tomifobia Nature Trail, a 19-kilometre green corridor connecting Ayer’s Cliff to Stanstead. The trail is currently owned and maintained by volunteers from the Sentier Massawippi Inc. team. “This trail is a gem,” Hamel remarked. More information is expected in the coming months.

Céline Lahaye

A legacy of trails

Hamel also shared updates on other ongoing projects. This year, the team will complete the Burroughs Falls Trail, the first on the eastern side of Lake Massawippi. In 2026, the Trust plans to develop trails on conserved land at Quebec Lodge. These trails, designed for family-friendly walks, complement the more extensive hiking paths already available in the region.

The ultimate goal, Hamel explained, is to create a cohesive network of protected lands and trails. By working under the Appalachian Corridor’s umbrella, the Trust uses biologists’ assessments to prioritize properties threatened by development or ecological decline. “Our mission is long-term. We’re not just conserving land; we’re fostering a culture of stewardship and sustainability,” Hamel said.

Collaboration and the future

The success of the Lim Wetlands project highlights the importance of collaboration. From government funding to partnerships with property owners and local volunteers, conservation efforts require a collective approach. “We’re in discussions with other landowners to establish conservation servitudes,” Hamel explained. “It’s not just about acquisition; it’s about ensuring long-term protection.”

For Hamel, the work is deeply personal. “We’re not just preserving land; we’re protecting our heritage,” she said. With ambitious plans for the future, including expanded farmland conservation and new trails, the Massawippi Conservation Trust is set to leave a lasting impact on the Eastern Townships.

Massawippi Conservation Trust secures vital wetland for future generations Read More »

Mousquiri tourney marks 60 years of scoring for Richmond

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy

By Rebecca Taylor

Local Journalism Initiative

Guy Marchand took time out of a very busy schedule to talk about this year’s Mousquiri Tournament that will be taking place at the Paul-Émile Lefebvre Arena in Richmond (800 Rue Gouin) from Feb. 3 to 16.  Marchand, who is also this year’s honorary president, has been a dedicated tournament volunteer for over 50 years, serving as one of the directors of the Mousquiri for 40 of them. He was also, notably, a player in the 5th Mousquiri tournament, held in 1968.

This year the tournament celebrates its 60th anniversary, an achievement that would have been impossible were it not for the dedicated volunteers who put their skills to use each year. The tournament counts approximately 140 volunteers. Back when the tournament started – before there was a Zamboni at the arena- many volunteers were required to scrape the ice. This was where Guy Marchand started his decades long stint as a volunteer for the tournament.

When the Mousquiri started, it was one of the only hockey tournaments in the Eastern Townships. Until some 15 years ago, many residents of the region would take in players from the hockey teams and be their host families. Some of the friendships developed from this still exist today and with social media, it is much easier to keep people connected than when the tournament first started.

This year the tournament has teams coming from Drummondville, Sherbrooke, Longueil, Deux-Montagnes, Montreal, Le Gardeur, Beauce-Appalaches and Vermont. One year there the tournament welcomed  a team from San Diego, California because one of the fathers of a player was from this region, and they had played in the tournament and wanted their son’s team to be able to participate in it. They raised funds to make the trip.

Courtesy

Each year since 1995, the organizers for the Mousquiri tournament have been giving out the “Prix D’Excellence Réné Thibault” to highlight the achievements and contributions of a person in our region that stand out. This year the recipient is Clifford Lancaster, who will receive the award on Feb, 7 at 5:30 p.m. during the tournament’s opening ceremonies. Clifford Lancaster is a dedicated member of the community and currently a councillor for the Town of Richmond. Other organizations that he has been involved with include Richmond Fair, Celtics of Richmond Soccer Club and the 50-Plus Club.

While many things have changed over the years for the tournament, the dedication of the volunteers has always been there. The Mousquiri tournament brings together the community, both anglophones and francophones to celebrate the youth who play hockey. Should anyone want to learn more about the tournament, they can visit the Facebook page (Tournoi National atome – Mousquiri ) or website (www.mousquiri.com ). Volunteers are always welcome, and they are encouraged to reach out via the website or to call a director.

Admission is free for all spectators. So, if you get the opportunity to watch a game or two, be sure to stop by and cheer on the youth. Maybe one day you’ll have the opportunity to watch some of them play professionally. Several professional hockey players got their start playing in the Mousquiri tournament. A complete list can be found on the website and Facebook page but includes Sean McKenna, Sylvain Lefebvre, Martin St-Amour, Eric Dandonneault, Sylvain Daigle, Sébastien Charpentier, Patrice Brisebois, Patrick Roy, Marc-André Fleury, Alan Haworth, Vincent Damphousse, Luc Robitaille, and Martin Brodeur.

Mousquiri tourney marks 60 years of scoring for Richmond Read More »

Magasin Comeau is part of the fabric of Richmond

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy
Jeannette Comeau

By Rebecca Taylor

Local Journalism Initiative

If you drive or walk down Rue Principale in Richmond, you’ve likely seen Magasin Comeau, (396 Rue Principale Nord), but you may not know the store’s amazing history in this town. This year will mark the store’s 55th anniversary in operation, making it one of the older businesses still in existence in the region. Magasin Comeau is a fabric store that is held in high regard for its selection of material for clothing, décor, and upholstering.

“My knowledge of sewing and fabrics comes from my grandmother, Rosa Pellerin, who taught it to my mother, Liliane Comeau, who in turn passed it on to me. Today, I share this knowledge with my daughters, my employees and all my customers,” said Jeannette Comeau, owner of the store.

In 1970, when Liliane Comeau and her daughter Jeannette opened Magasin Comeau, there was a fabric store in every city. Over the years, many of them have closed, but Magasin Comeau has grown, expanding the products and services that it offers. Today, the store’s services include clothing repair, custom curtain making and cushion coverings for both interior and exterior fittings. They have also manufactured a good number of custom protective covers and other diverse projects for both residential and commercial needs.

Today, this business isn’t just essential for the people of Richmond. It has become known by clients from across the province with some coming from as far as the Gaspé.

The store is known for its personalized customer service. Jeanette Comeau said, “We take the time to understand our customers’ needs in order to advise them well, they sometimes even leave with a detailed plan and the steps to follow to create their projects. We got the nickname ‘The Miracle Department’ because we find solutions to all kinds of problems, and ‘Alibaba’s Cave’ because we really have everything, and many customers who come for the first time say that they feel like they are in a candy store.”

Throughout the shop’s fifty-five year history, it has seen a lot of evolution and expansion. It began as a very small space with a few boxes of patterns at the beginning when sewing was a way to save money, but the business quickly expanded its range of offerings. In the 1980s when mass production gradually replaced homemade products, more changes were required. The store started selling curtain fabrics, and increased its surface area, as well as adding upholstery fabrics, leatherettes, and foam. For several years now, it has also been offering custom-made tailoring services, thus meeting a wider range of needs for its clients.

“Today, fewer people are sewing out of necessity, but DIY and especially quilting are booming. Gone are the days when women made blankets from old clothes; quilts are now made from high-quality 100% cotton fabrics. Nowadays, people work with this noble material mainly for pleasure. Driven by passion, they make pieces, some of which rise to the rank of works of art. Magasin Comeau has recently adapted to new purchasing methods and has developed a transactional website that offers a wide range of products and reaches a clientele from all over the province, extending to remote regions,” stated Jeannette Comeau.

Although she plans to run her business for several more years, Jeannette Comeau knows that the time is approaching when she will have to pass the torch. “I would like to find someone who shares the same passion for fabric and to whom I could share my knowledge passed down for three generations and my values ​​in terms of customer service.

Magasin Comeau is a regional gem in a unique market that serves a clientele as vast as it is varied, ready for a dynamic succession that is committed to continuing to offer these services that are essential to the development of our community. Who will be the next owner? Maybe you?” said Jeannette Comeau with pride.

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Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi de Richmond helps build better futures

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy

By Rebecca Taylor

Local Journalism Initiative

Meet Jade, Mathilde and Martin, the team at Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi located at 139 Principale Nord in Richmond, that can be a game-changer for many youth.

The Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi de Richmond was created in 1997 with the purpose of assisting 16-35 year olds. All services offered are provided at no charge. However, lately the Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi has been considering a change to its name because it can help people of any age with their job searches, CVs, presentation letters, simulate job interviews and accompaniment in the job market. Many of the activities which take place at the Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi are designed to help participants learn and enhance their skills, gain additional knowledge and to help them overcome obstacles.

One of Martin’s functions as part of the Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi’s team is to host the woodworking classes. It is a weekly training session that lasts for four months. Of the numerous benefits to this program, participants get into a routine of having to attend the program on a certain schedule.

Projet Passerelle Découverte is a literacy workshop offered by the Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi from October to June each year. This is a fun and interactive way for participants to practice their reading and mathematical skills as well as  break isolation by being in a group and to do creative activities such as cooking together.  It was initially started for mothers, but its mandate has expanded over the years and is now open to anyone wanting to improve their literacy. This program is led by Mathilde.

The CarrefourJeunesse-Emploi is committed to providing inclusive free services in a confidential manner. It is an important resource for the community and boasts a solid bank of contacts with local businesses and resources. In addition to helping individuals at the Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi, they can also refer people to the necessary organizations so that they can get the type of assistance they need. There is no shame in needing to ask for help of any kind and the Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi is a welcoming and listening ear. Their services are provided in English and French, and they can also use translation apps to give services to newcomers to the area who might not yet be comfortable in either of these languages. There is also a guidance counselor, Laurence, who can help people heading to the job market for the first time or looking for a career change more suited to their needs and interests. Another benefit to their services is the flexible hours and that you always reach a person, not an answering machine when you call.

Each year the Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi is involved with the Knight of the Arts at Richmond Regional High School. This is a project that helps promote volunteering as well as allow students to work towards raising money for a local organization or project.

They are also part of  Trio Desjardins Etudiants program for students ages 13-14 to have a first experience in the job market working with non-profit organizations in the region.

The team stated that it is a privilege to be able to give people the tools to get a new start and to achieve their goals and dreams.

To learn more stop by and see them, call 819-826-1999 or visit the Facebook page or website at cjerichmond.qc.ca. 

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New housing and summer projects on Richmond agenda

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy Laurent Frey

By Rebecca Taylor

Local Journalism Initiative

In a recent interview Richmond Mayor Bertrand Ménard outlined some of the priorities and challenges the council  will be dealing with in 2025

The 2025 budget has now been approved and can be found on the town of Richmond’s bilingual website at https://www.ville.richmond.qc.ca/ When citizens receive their tax account, it is important that they look at the description as there is one section for service costs, and another for the tax portion. Should anyone have questions, they can address them to the municipality.

An additional 200 lodgings are expected to be added to the town in the coming months and in order for this project to be a success, one of the town’s priorities will be to invest in the necessary infrastructure so that resources like water can reach the new developments. One planned project which the town was approached about is at the site of the old St. Famille Church (Rue Coiteux), where 48 residences for people aged 55 and older would be added. This plan includes the addition of an elevator and is central to numerous services in the area, even without a car.

Another major project that will be worked on over the next several years is in response to Quebec’s Climate Plan. Richmond’s plan will focus on the downtown and Rue Principale areas to create more green spaces in order to reduce the temperature during the summer and make walks on hot summer days more pleasant. Some areas will see trees and grass  planted instead of having asphalt. To consult the complete plan, visit the town’s website.

One of the major challenges for municipalities is working with the regulations passed down from the federal and provincial governments and finding ways to implement and finance them. There are sometimes subsidies towns can apply for, but that isn’t always the case. Another challenge is meeting requests for funds from the region’s many organizations. Grants aren’t always available for their projects the mayor explained, and the groups in turn request financial assistance from the municipality. It is a balancing act for the town to try and assist them when possible, and to be fair to everyone at the same time.

There will be some changes around the council table later this year as Mayor Ménard will retiring after serving eight years as mayor, and 10 years prior to that as a councillor for the Municipality of Cleveland. The mayor said he is looking forward to having more time to spend with his family, and to go fishing and golfing once he officially retiremes from public life. It remains to be seen which councilors will reoffer as several are currently in a period of reflection.

New housing and summer projects on Richmond agenda Read More »

And a new chapter began

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy
Marie-Ève White

By Nick Fonda

Local Journalism Initiative

Richmond’s stationery store, Papeterie 2000, has always sold books, however, since Marie-Ève White purchased the business last July the number of books sold and the floor space given over to books have increased exponentially.

“I’ve always loved books,” Marie-Ève says.  “We live in an age of computer tablets and smart phones, which tend to induce solitude.  Books, on the other hand, open us up to the world.  They bring comfort, and they’re friends for life.  Books can contribute greatly to making us feel comfortable in our own skin.  They give us perspective and understanding.”

“At home,” she continues, “I have a personal library of about 1000 books.  My kids have 400 books or more.  They all give themselves an hour or more of reading time before they turn off the light at night.”

If it was a love of books that led Marie-Ève to become a bookseller, the path there was far from direct.  Her paternal grandfather, Norman White, was of Scottish origin.  He was a promising hockey player who was drafted by the New York Rangers.  However, he declined a tryout preferring to pursue a career in music.   He was a jazz drummer who got gigs as far afield as Cuba.  Her paternal grandmother, Madeleine Delorme, had a strong entrepreneurial streak and a stronger work ethic.  She opened her own restaurant in Laval and, for a quarter of a century, she regularly worked from 5 a.m  to 10 p.m.      

“I attribute my entrepreneurial spirit to her,” Marie-Ève says.

While she was strong academically, Marie-Ève did not find it easy to decide what she wanted to study.  For a time, she thought of becoming a funeral director, drawn by the spiritual implications of the job.  In Cégep, she tried Dance, and then Science, before finally graduating in the Humanities.  At the Université de Montréal she began studies in Anthropology before earning a degree in Criminology.

“In Montreal, I worked with mental health patients who were living in transitional housing,” she explains.  “Then, when we moved here, I started working with the Centre d’aide aux victimes in Sherbrooke.  But after two years, I took a leave.  I felt there was something missing.  That turned out to be contact with a wider public.  The work I had most enjoyed was in retail sales when I was a student.  One of my favourite jobs was at Archambault’s where I was surrounded by books and music.”

It was one day when she was on leave from work that she stopped at Papeterie 2000 hoping to perhaps find a book.  Michel Lachapelle, the owner of the shop explained that he didn’t carry many books because of the complexities of dealing with publishers and distributors.

Marie-Ève continues, “Then, he made a comment to the effect that a different owner might have a different attitude towards carrying books.  I was intrigued and asked him if he was selling his business.  Michel replied that he was thinking about it.  I went back to see him the next day and we worked out an agreement.  This all happened in the span of a couple of days.  I officially took over on July 1 of last year.  Part of the agreement is that I can consult with him for the year following the sale, and I have called him a few times.  He’s been very helpful.”

“I have had a few moments of doubt,” she says, “when I wondered what I had gotten myself into.  But they always passed quickly.  I’m glad I acted as I did, because this way I know I won’t have any regrets, I won’t ever ask myself, what if?”

Another factor that prompted her to buy the business was travel time.  She didn’t want to deal with a daily commute to work.  She was looking for something in Richmond, where she lives

Since taking over the store, Marie-Ève has had one employee, Lysanne Burrill, who had previously work for Michel Lachapelle.

“I appreciate having Lysanne,” Marie-Ève says.  “She’s experienced.  She knows the store and she knows a lot of the clients.  It would be difficult to be alone all of the time.”

At one point, Marie-Ève White thought that she might carry only children’s books, but she realized that there was a demand for books for adult readers as well.

“I won my bet with Michel,” she says.  “He thought that nobody reads and that books wouldn’t sell.  My first month, we sold 30 books, and we’re now selling 60 a month.  I’ve been ordering 100 or more new titles every month.  The books that sell best are Quebec novels and biographies, but there’s demand for a wide variety of books.”

(During the recent postal strike, one client came in looking for a book of crossword puzzles in English.  He missed his daily crossword in the Record, which would otherwise have come in the mail.)

Papeterie 2000 carries books by four local authors.  My own books have been available there for over a decade.  Last October, Dominic Fontaine-Lasnier published Le Legs d’un philosophe amateur, Essai sur François Hertel, and Papeterie 2000 promptly sold almost two dozen copies of the book.  Philippe Collard and Marc-André Dufour-Labbé are two writers who have moved to the Richmond area more recently and they have several titles between them available at the store.

Marie-Ève is conversant in English and Spanish but most often she prefers to read in French.  Her reading is wide ranging but she does have a few favourite authors.  “Dany Laferrière, Serge Bouchard, and Anais Barbeau Lavalette are among the writers I most like.  However, just recently I’ve been reading a lot of books about bookstores!”

Papeterie 2000 still sells envelopes and office paper, but books represent an ever-increasing percentage of its sales.  A small glass display case with half a dozen books has given way to solid wooden book cases with rows of books.  As well, there’s now an attractive armchair conveniently near the bookcases that seems to be inviting the bookshop browser to peruse a few paperbacks before deciding what to buy.

And a new chapter began Read More »

Newspapers provide a space for local voices to be heard

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy BAnQ

By Shawn MacWha

Local Journalism Initiative

During the past two decades our country has seen a drastic decline in the number of local newspapers. In 2023 alone over 100 daily and weekly papers across the country ceased circulation, taking with them the voices of entire communities. In many ways this sad trend marks the closing of a door that was first opened roughly 250 years ago when a nascent publishing industry first brought word of the outside world to a growing population hungry for knowledge.

In 1752 the Halifax Gazette became the first newspaper in Canada. It was soon followed by daily publications in other major centres such as Montréal, Québec City, and Kingston. During the early years of Canadian media the price and complexity of printing presses limited the number of newspapers being published but by the 1850s costs had come down to the point that a newspaper could generally be viable in almost any small town or city. Much like today’s oft-partisan publications, most early Canadian journals assumed an overtly political viewpoint, telling their readers at the outset if they supported liberal, conservative, national or regional viewpoints. As such, many larger towns boasted two or three newspapers in order to address the varying religious or ideological perspectives of their readers.

Courtesy McCord Stewart Museum
Mechanical Printing Press c1850

In the Eastern Townships there were several small privately-owned newspapers published around the middle of the nineteenth century such as the The Canadian Patriot which was produced in Stanstead, the Waterloo Advertiser and Eastern Townships Advocate and The Sherbrooke Gazette. One of the lesser known of these long-lost newspapers was The Canadian Times which was a weekly bulletin published in Sherbrooke between 1855 and 1858. Billed as a political, agricultural, commercial and literary journal its first issue was published just over 170 years ago, on Jan. 4, 1855. The editors of the paper proclaimed at the outset that “While avowing ourselves the strenuous advocates of religious as well as civil liberty, in its most liberal sense, nothing sectarian will be admitted into our columns.” Instead, the paper sought to provide its readers with a wide range of reporting on matters of general intelligence, literature and farming.

The newspaper’s inaugural edition led with the first chapter of a serialized novel entitled “Maretimo” by then famous British travel writer Bayle St. John. It offered readers a tale of mystery and adventure set against the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea, something that must have been a very welcome distraction from the cold January evenings of 1850s Canada. Other subjects covered in that first issue included a story on the progress of the Crimean War, a (one would hope) useful article “On making and saving manure,” and a short note advising people that the little town of Bytown had just been renamed as “The City of Ottawa.”

Courtesy McCord Stewart Museum
Sherbrooke, in the middle of the 19th century

Printed by John Edwards in the Beckett Building in downtown Sherbrooke, the newspaper was owned by Ritchie and Company and its first editor was P.W. Ritchie. Its business model was typical of that of most newspapers then and now; income was derived primarily from advertising revenue supplemented by paid subscriptions. To that effect advertisers were charged $1.00 per square of 16 lines for the first instance, and 25 cents for all subsequent publications while readers paid an annual subscription rate of $2.00, which was reduced to a very modest $1.50 if the amount was given in advance. Incomes must have been modest though, given that Sherbrooke’s population at this time was only about 3,000 people.

Nonetheless The Canadian Times operated under these arrangements for most of the next four years, until October 1858 it was purchased by H. Jewitt and Company and George Bottom assumed its editorship. Wanting the re-brand his new newspaper Jewitt ceased publishing it under the name of The Canadian Times at the end of 1858, with the final edition being released on December 30, 1858 after a run of 209 issues. True to its literary roots the last front page featured a story by famed American abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Courtesy BAnQ
Final issue, June 30, 1859

The following week, on Jan.6, 1859 the paper re-emerged with very little fanfare as The Sherbrooke Times although beyond a changed name little differed from the original format. Indeed, even the volume and issue numbers of The Sherbrooke Times picked up where The Canadian Times had left off, with the first issue of the former being counted as issue number 210. A new name, however, could not alter the economics of the publication and on June 30, 1859 The Sherbrooke Times shut down following the resignation of its editor. The cause of the paper’s closure would be sadly familiar to the publishers and editors of today, with George Bottom rhetorically asking “Surely if a man devotes his talents which his Maker has given him to their legitimate use, he has the right to expect recompense for his labors.” He goes on to add that the demands of the business, and the time which it took away from his family and his general interests, were not justified by the “scant remuneration” that he received for his efforts. Thus ended the idea of The Canadian and Sherbrooke Times. Plus ça change.

Journalism has sometimes been credited with producing the rough draft of history, and it is often local newspapers that capture the first sparks of what may someday be great events. And as this newspaper has repeatedly shown, even small and relatively out of the way places like the Eastern Townships have been responsible for their share of historical achievements. That is why it is so important for local voices to have a place to be heard. It was important in the 1850s, just as this country was just starting to coalesce around an idea of unity, and it is important in the 2020s when we are faced with threats of disinformation, the erosion of our social cohesion, and the rise of artificial intelligence. It is important so that we know where we came from, who we are, and where we collectively need to be going.

Newspapers provide a space for local voices to be heard Read More »

From Decline to Collapse

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy Amazon

By Nick Fonda

Local Journalism Initiative

Almost 40 years ago, Quebec film maker, Denys Arcand, released Le déclin de l’empire américan.  It was the first of a trilogy of films all set in Quebec with story lines that directly or indirectly examined higher education, health care, and the justice system.

Arcand has been widely recognized for his films which have won an Academy Award as well as awards at the Cannes Film Festival and numerous other film festivals as well.

The title, Le déclin de l’empire américan, comes from a line of dialogue in the film.  A history professor is discussing a book she has just written that deals with modern society’s penchant for self-indulgence.  This societal egocentricity is the opposite of the selflessness and self-sacrifice that mark societies that are growing and flourishing.  The self-absorption in today’s society, the history professor argues, is a sign that the American empire is in decline.  Quebec, the history professor notes, is on the periphery of the American empire and is similarly experiencing societal decline.

One of the signs of this decline is the systemic injustice that permeates academia.  Any given undergraduate university course might be taught by a lecturer or by a professor.  The work involved in preparing a course is the same for both, but while the professor will earn a six-figure salary for teaching three courses over the course of the school year, the lecturer will be paid a few thousand dollars per course.  Worse, in a publish-or-perish environment, professors routinely affix their own names to work done by their graduate students.

The corruption to be found in Arcand’s first film is just as present in the other two films of the trilogy.  Be it in health care or the legal system, the characters in Arcand’s films time and again find themselves dealing with institutions that have been corrupted by greed.

Not quite four decades after Le déclin, the phrase that is popping up on You Tube is the collapse of the American empire.  Among others commenting on the collapse is Richard D. Wolfe who, in addition to hosting Economic Update, a weekly podcast, is the author or several books and a professor emeritus who taught at a couple of American universities and also briefly at the Sorbonne in Paris.  Wolfe is unusual in that he is a Marxian economist who is very critical of American capitalism.  (Being a Marxian is just different enough from being a Marxist that Wolfe can avoid arrest; it is illegal to be a Communist (or Marxist of Leninist) in the United States.)

Not unlike Arcand, Wolfe points out that corruption has permeated America and, although few are aware of it, the American empire (an economic empire backed up by the biggest arsenal in the world) has already begun to collapse.  From Wolfe’s perspective, this is due in part to corruption which is fueled by capitalism and greed.

Le déclin was filmed just as Quebec’s schools were about to make a massive educational reform.  This reform was American in origin.  It minimized the idea of right and wrong by abandoning the old school emphasis on grammar, spelling, and syntax.  It no longer asked students what they thought about a poem, story, or novel, but rather asked only how that piece of writing made them feel.

Wolfe points out that the American educational system fails the vast majority of the population.  While the rich send their children to expensive private schools, public schools in the United States are severely underfunded and plagued by social problems, violence, and mass shootings.  The result is that today the average American reads at the level of a Grade 5 student. 

It may be worth remembering that the Greeks who first created a democratic system of government were also leery of it.  To function properly, they said, a democratic society needs an educated, well-informed electorate. 

Similarly, America’s health care system is dystopic.  Rich Americans have access to arguably the best health care in the world.  However, most Americans find themselves paying exorbitant sums for health insurance that, one time in three, will fail to cover the costs of the medical service they need.  The United States is the only developed country in the world where private health insurance companies post multi-billion-dollar annual profits.  Health insurance executives—like the one recently shot in New York—earn multi-million-dollar annual salaries.  A very few capitalists, Wolfe points out, have grown enormously wealthy at the expense of the many.

As for the judicial system in the United States, the corruption rises like cream to the very top.  At least two Supreme Court justices have been found to have accepted lavish gifts worth millions of dollars from individuals and corporations who had cases before the court.  Yet both remain on the Supreme Court, above the law.  During his two impeachment trials, Trump was found innocent by American legislators who were not concerned with right or wrong but only worried about Republican and Democrat.     

Wolfe argues that America’s decline can be traced back to Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down economic policies which began creating the wealth gap that today has a few thousand billionaires sharing the country with almost 37 million people (11% of the population) who live under the poverty line.  More than half a million of those are homeless.

The America of the mid-twentieth century, Wolfe points out, was the envy of the world.  That is no longer the case.  Nor is America the dominant economic force that it was in the post-WWII era when it emerged all but unscathed from the global conflict.

American armies have suffered humbling defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan.  American economic dominance is being challenged by BRICS, (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) which, in the last decade, has continued to add more and more member nations.  Wolfe points out that growth in the US and in the G7 nations (US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan) has been less robust recently than that in the BRICS countries.  America, Wolfe notes, is no longer the industrial and technological leader that it once was.  Worse, it is a country that is enormously in debt ($36 trillion to start 2025) and making no effort to pay down that debt.

What does it mean for us in Quebec that the American empire (according to Richard Wolfe and others) is collapsing?

In 2018, Denys Arcand released a movie entitled La chute de l’empire americain.  However, the film is an action film (although based on a true story) and it was originally called, Le triomphe de l’argent.  It doesn’t add to Arcand’s original trilogy.

Wolfe has no specific advice for Quebecers.  He does however say that the sooner we wake up and smell the coffee, the sooner we’ll be able to adapt to a new world order.

From Decline to Collapse Read More »

Are you a digital dissident?

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Many tech options and apps may not suit you — just turn them Off

By David Winch

Local Journalism Initiative

Everything’s digital these days. Soon, you’ll be able to click Start on your car from the bedroom on a cold winter morning, then have it drive to the local grocery for a litre of milk.

Just kidding about the milk part, but the wonders of tech are proliferating.

While digital stuff is generally useful and labour-saving, it is sometimes a pain. I actively avoid some innovations, while letting others wither from neglect.

This is not some rebellion against tech or a fruitless call to turn back the (digital) clock. I am quite comfortable with desktop computers, laptops, smartphones and their various apps, and spend endless time online. I have run two websites (including, ahem, davidwinch.website) and I operated a governmental publishing unit that was 100 per cent online and paper-free.

So I am not incompetent. Just critical: there’s lots of digital stuff you don’t need.

Photo courtesy
Retro-tech author phones in his story to The Record: “Get me Rewrite!”

Shift for yourself

In our household, we have one foot in the new world, one in the old. I write cheques regularly, read many paper publications, opt sometimes for counter service at banks, keep an emergency landline at home, pay for cable TV rather than streaming, and choose numerous non-digital services.

In our car, for example. We first bought a Volkswagen ten years ago straight off the boat from Wolfsburg. So we were able to get a European model with manual stick shift. Vroom.

We bought another VW in 2024, but now, no chance of a stick shift. No clutch, just a push-button start. Luckily, it still has handy manual controls for wipers and a radio dial.

During car repairs, however, we had to rent a vehicle. It included a super-proliferation of digital everything. A big screen dominated the dashboard, with many flashy options. We had trouble turning the radio off. It was a relief to return to our old car, with less digital clutter.

Resistance is futile! you say. No, it isn’t. There have been several successful pushbacks.

Let’s look at some choices:

Banking: Yes, everything can be done online. Cash transfers, bill payments, direct deposits. But I still use paper cheques often enough, ordering packs of 50. I find them handy to pay our many contractors and for small gifts and local transactions. It feels simpler.

Media: I love newspapers, always have — I sold them on street corners, delivered them by hand, then founded a couple of high-school newspapers before becoming a letters-to-the-editor regular then a writer. I call paper “the real thing”. Once it has been printed and is in your hands, nothing can be revised, retracted or touched up. There is no risk of losing a story in cyberspace.

Buying papers these days, I am a real outlier. While their outlets have definitely shrunk, we keep track of the supermarkets, dépanneurs and bookstores that stock daily newspapers. I head straight to MultiMags in NDG-Montreal for the Globe and Mail, or to Maxi in Lennoxville for Townships Weekend and the Journal de Montréal.

Photo courtesy
Record store in Vancouver’s trendy Gastown: all-in on LPs.

Retro trend albums

Music. The most striking retro trend is in musical recordings. Vinyl LPs have made a huge comeback in recent years. In the hippest parts of the trendiest neighbourhoods, they are everywhere.

 I always liked CDs, and amassed quite a collection — classical, rock, jazz, country, Christmas —from the 1990s through their decline in the 2010s. And we have a solid Bose stereo with CD tray in my office. All good.

But I am bombarded with online requests to sign on to Sirius for our car radio and to subscribe to Spotify at home. I guess creating your own playlists is convenient; it avoids storing physical CDs. But I don’t really want it. However, since our new car has no CD tray, my hand is being steadily forced.

Meanwhile, vinyl LPs keep surging:  The Conversation reported in 2023 that “over the past decade, vinyl records have made a major comeback. People purchased $1.2 billion U.S. of records in 2022, a 20 per cent jump from the previous year. Not only did sales rise, but they also surpassed CD sales for the first time since 1988, according to a report from the Recording Industry Association of America”.

In Vancouver’s trendy Gastown district last month, we came upon a huge music store entirely stocked with LPs. Every type of music (see photo). In Toronto’s hipster Ossington district, LPs seem just as popular, with young and youngish music-lovers.

Why this change?  The blog Freestyle Vinyl concludes: “This trend reflects a growing appreciation for the tangible, analog aspects of vinyl and its unique sound quality”.

Landline phones: As cell phones have surged, landlines have steeply declined.

Statistics Canada reports: “In 2021, 93.9 per cent of Canadian households reported having at least one cellphone …. Conversely, the share of households that reported having a landline has declined consistently, from nearly two-thirds (63.3 per cent) in 2017 to less than half (47.4 per cent) in 2021”.

In a recentarticle in The Atlantic monthly on “things we wish would come back”, one writer mused:

“My parents disconnected their landline, but the number is seared in my mind alongside the other home numbers of my childhood friends. I recently learned that my internet provider offers a free landline, and my apartment has a number of its own. All I have to do is plug a phone into the jack.

“It’s an idyllic thought: coming home, putting my cellphone—and all its distractions—away, but not being disconnected. I can still chat aimlessly with my sister while doing chores, or catch up with a long-distance friend. I’m all for bringing back the landline as a way to create a just-large-enough opening for the outside world to reach me.”

Go ahead: carve your own niche in this all-digital world.

Are you a digital dissident? Read More »

Cold blooded social engineering

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Photo courtesy
Scene from Fritz Lang’s dystopian 1927 film Metropolis.

By Guy Rex Rodgetrs

Local Journalism Initiative

In 1961, Stanley Milgram conducted a social psychology experiment at Yale University that could only have been justified as an attempt to understand the horrors of the Second World War. Milgram wanted to measure the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who gave instructions to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. The experiment was simple. And horrifying. Each participant believed they were an assistant in the experiment, rather than the subject. The project leader directed the ‘assistant’ to administer electric shocks to a ‘learner’ as punishment for wrong answers. The ‘assistant’ was directed to increase the voltage at each ‘punishment’ until reaching levels that would have been fatal had they been real.

The Milgram experiment found that most ‘assistants’ would obediently administer painful 300 volt shocks, and 65% would follow instructions to inflict the full ‘potentially lethal’ 450 volts. 

Why were participants in a study willing to inflict severe pain on a total stranger? Social scientists have sought answers to this question for decades. Did participants simply allow an authority figure to silence their conscience?  Or did participants need to fabricate a justification for their compliance?

In November, the Gaspé municipal council wrote to its English-speaking citizens via facebook informing them that it can no longer communicate in English because of Bill 96 *.  The council explained that they had protested the new policy and pleaded for exemptions. “Although we support the preservation of the French language in Quebec, we believe the historical, social, cultural, and economic significance of Gaspé’s English-speaking and Mi’gmaq communities warrants acknowledgment. While French may be in decline across Quebec, it is English that faces decline here in Gaspé, our town built on a linguistic and cultural diversity we strive to preserve. However, this recommendation was rejected by the National Assembly, meaning Gaspé must comply with the Act as all other municipalities.”

Imposing the language policy was clearly painful for the mayor and the municipal council but the consequences of disobedience are severe.  “It is important to note that if Gaspé were to disregard the Act (Bill 96), the main penalty could be the loss of access to all government grants or financial assistance. This could amount to millions of dollars annually, significantly impacting property taxes for residents.”

When the Coalition Avenir Québec government sought support for Bill 96 they ran ads declaring, ‘We have to protect French in Québec.’ (Simon Jolin-Barrette) and ‘It is reasonable and necessary.’ (François Legault).  The Gaspé municipal council does not think these new measures are reasonable or necessary or that they protect French.  But they felt compelled to comply with the law.

I am not accusing Gaspé municipal council members of cowardice for allowing ‘authority figures’ to override their ‘personal conscience’.  The Gaspé council members had the courage to publically declare their discomfort with enforcing aspects of Bill 96 that harm vulnerable minorities without helping Quebec’s French language and culture. But they decided to comply with the law.

Where does this ‘punishment’ to Gaspé’s English-speaking and Mi’gmaq communities rate on the Milgram scale? Is this a minor tingle at 25 volts? A perfectly bearable 100-volt blast?  Would it be harder to comply at 300 volts?  Milgram’s ‘assistants’ inflicted pain on strangers. Is it harder to inflict pain friends and neighbours? 

As every salesperson knows, if you can get the customer to say yes once – even to an insignificant question – it becomes easier to close a deal. Authority figures know that the first battle with conscience is difficult, but once the conscience has been silenced, everything that follows is easy.  

Are we reaching dangerous voltage levels with Bill 96? How many of our friends and neighbours have been harmed by restrictions or cuts? How many of us have heard and seen things that felt wrong?

Doctors and nurses have muttered that new language laws complicate and confuse their work. Who is better able to evaluate what is better for patients and healthcare workers, the people on the ground or authority figures in Quebec City? And what if complicated, confusing directives are not only harming Quebec’s citizens, but are also harming Quebec’s French language, culture and reputation?       

If the authorities will not revise flawed laws, or repeal them, then the human conscience must find the courage to resist cold-blooded social engineering.

Guy Rex Rodgers was founding Executive Director of the English Language Arts Network (ELAN) until returning to filmmaking. You can reach Guy at: GRR.Montrealer@gmail.com

* Ville de Gaspé –  Important Notice to the English-speaking Community /Avis important à notre population Anglophone (November 2024)

Cold blooded social engineering Read More »

Winter is coming and microbes can track it

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Pooja Sainarayan

Local Journalism Initiative

As the seasons change, plants and animals all over the northern hemisphere have begun preparing for the cold winter months ahead. Using environmental cues, these multicellular organisms have complex proteins and the ability to form memories in order to sense the coming of the cold season. Interestingly, this ability to anticipate and prepare for the winter is not limited to complex organisms. Biologists have recently shown that at least one type of bacterium, the cyanobacteria, is capable of its own seasonal response, suggesting that this behaviour is a very innate and fundamental property of life.

Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae are photosynthetic microscopic organisms that arise naturally in lakes, ponds, rivers and streams. The oldest known fossil dated 3.5 billion years old coming from Archaean rocks of western Australia are cyanobacteria. Considering that the oldest rocks are relatively only a litter older (3.8 billion years old), the cyanobacteria are indeed one of the oldest life forms on Earth. Since life was completely anerobic during the evolution of cyanobacteria, it is believed that these bacteria were directly responsible for the wiping out of anaerobic organisms and eventually resulting in The Great Oxidation event. The release of oxygen by these photosynthetic organisms was responsible for the earth’s atmospheric makeup, the origin of aerobic metabolism and ultimately, the evolution of multicellular organisms. It would not be wrong to say that we owe our existence to cyanobacteria. Although cyanobacteria helped to form and sustain our oxygen-filled atmosphere, its overgrowth, also known as “cyanobacteria bloom” can result in concentrations of toxins that are unsafe to the environment and living things. Of note, not all blue-green algae blooms are toxic. The reasons behind why some blooms produce toxins at any given time is not completely understood, which is why it is probably safe to avoid them altogether.

Cyanobacteria cells contain certain proteins that allow for photoperiod recognition. These proteins fall under the Kai family of proteins and are called KaiA, KaiB and KaiC, used by these bacteria to sense the hours of sunlight and darkness in a given day, called photoperiod. A group of researchers at Vanderbilt University hypothesized that the cyanobacteria’s photoperiod sensing may also extend to sense seasonal changes. To test this, the scientists grew cyanobacteria on a dish with summer-, intermediate- and winter- like conditions and then took cells from each condition to place into either a bucket of ice (0°C) or an incubator (30°C) for 2 hours. Afterwards, the cells were transferred back into the dish (30°C) to multiply for 5 days. The researchers measured the amount of cells that grew from the ice bucket versus the incubator and found that the cyanobacteria which were subjected to shorter photoperiod were up to three times better at surviving winter-like temperatures compared to those subjected to longer photoperiods. In addition, by removing the Kai-proteins and repeating the same experiments, the researchers demonstrated that the cyanobacteria could sense the shortening of days and prepare for the cold weather.

It is known that some cells can modify their fat composition on their cell walls to preserve their structure during colder temperatures. To understand whether a similar biochemical mechanism was occurring in the cyanobacteria, researchers chemically extracted the fats in the cells of cyanobacteria grown in winter conditions and measured the composition of these fats. This confirmed that the cells grown under the winter photoperiod conditions indeed increased their unsaturated fats to protect the integrity of their cell walls and avoid freezing. To sum it up, cyanobacteria rely on daily timekeeping to sense the shortening of days in order to biochemically prepare for the seasonal changes, known as photoperiodism. As photoperiodism was never observed in bacteria before, the researchers theorize that this ability likely evolved longer than we had previously thought and may even exist in other microorganisms.

The researchers also found that different genes were being used depending on the length of daylight. For instance, colder winter months brought about genes that increased metabolism to counteract the slower metabolic activity during winter. During the summer, genes implicated in protection against sun damage came into play. Apart from extending this research to other types of microorganisms and their ability to sense the seasons, it could also be particularly useful in detecting whether microorganisms responsible for toxic blooms can predict seasonal changes and to study the timing of these blooms to better control them. Further research into understanding photoperiodism in algae may serve to protect water habitats during blooms.

Winter is coming and microbes can track it Read More »

Call for local governance in Memphrémagog health care

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By William Crooks

Local Journalism Initiative

In a passionate call to action, Jean-Guy Gingras, co-president of the Vigilance Committee on Health and Social Services for the MRC Memphrémagog (CVSSSM), has urged Santé Québec to reinstate local governance for health services. His appeal, bolstered by a detailed letter co-signed by key municipal leaders and health advocates, highlights the inadequacies of centralized decision-making, particularly in rural and aging communities.

Strong local governance once ensured quality care

“Before the Barrette reform, our hospital operated very well,” Gingras said in a recent interview. “Services were efficient, staff were motivated, and the community felt involved.” He contrasted this period with the challenges following centralization, which he claims has negatively impacted services in the region.

The Barrette reform centralized control under the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS in Sherbrooke, removing local oversight. Gingras highlighted that the reform has led to a loss of efficiency and responsiveness. Decisions, he said, are now made far from the communities they affect, undermining the quality of care.

Lack of flexibility harms vulnerable populations

The committee’s recent letter, dated Nov. 23, further explains these issues. It cites examples of patients needing to travel to Sherbrooke for care that could be provided locally and of specialized services such as geriatrics being discontinued. “We’re the most aging region in Quebec,” Gingras pointed out. “Yet services for seniors, like geriatrics, have not been restored despite promises.”

The letter emphasizes that rural areas like Potton and Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley face unique challenges. Residents often lack access to reliable transportation, making centralized services inaccessible. Furthermore, decisions made at a regional level fail to consider the diverse socio-economic and linguistic needs of the MRC’s population.

Services deteriorate under centralization

Both Gingras and the letter point to specific examples of declining services. In the interview, Gingras noted that hospital facilities remain underutilized due to staffing shortages. “We have entire floors waiting to be renovated, but no progress is being made,” he said. Specialized services like orthopedics and neonatology are no longer available locally, forcing residents to travel.

The letter echoes these concerns, describing the “siloed management” that has arisen under centralization. Each service now reports to its regional director rather than functioning as part of an integrated local team. This approach, it argues, has eroded the overall quality of care.

Structural issues outweigh individual efforts

While acknowledging the goodwill of current CIUSSS management, Gingras maintains that the problem lies in the centralized structure itself. “We need someone local who’s accountable and knows the community,” he said. He recalled a time when the director of the local hospital was a well-known figure, attending community events and directly engaging with residents.

The letter elaborates on this point, arguing that local governance fosters a sense of belonging and attentiveness among staff. It questions the feasibility of a central office in Sherbrooke managing hospitals across seven municipalities while also overseeing a major university hospital.

Community-driven advocacy

The CVSSSM, formed in 2017, includes health professionals, community organizations, municipal leaders, and residents. All members, except for elected officials, volunteer their time. The committee meets monthly with CIUSSS leadership to address issues, but Gingras emphasized that these efforts can only go so far without structural change.

In the interview, Gingras highlighted the importance of community engagement. “Residents with concerns can contact us directly,” he said, adding that the committee relies on public input to identify pressing issues. “We’re here to ensure that problems are addressed and don’t escalate.”

A call for action

The letter to Santé Québec was addressed to Geneviève Biron, president and CEO, and Christiane Germain, chair of the board. It was also copied to key figures, including local MP Gilles Bélanger. In it, the CVSSSM requests a meeting to present their case for local governance.

Gingras expressed hope that this advocacy would lead to meaningful change. “Our ultimate goal is to bring decision-making back to the local level,” he said. The committee believes that establishing local governance would not only improve care but also restore community trust in the healthcare system.

Looking forward

The centralization of healthcare services has sparked debate across Quebec, with regions like the Outaouais and Abitibi-Témiscamingue facing similar issues. As the Santé Québec agency begins its mandate, the voices from Memphrémagog add to the growing demand for a more decentralized approach.

Gingras reiterated the urgency of the matter. “This isn’t just about healthcare,” he said. “It’s about ensuring that the people of our region are treated with the dignity and care they deserve.”

Call for local governance in Memphrémagog health care Read More »

Trump 2.0

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Dian Cohen

Local Journalism Initiative

In hindsight, the first Trump presidency playbook is easy to read: Step #1: Gut punch. Step #2: Waiting for your response.

The 2.0 playbook is shaping up. The threat of tariffs directed at us is not a one-off. Trump is nothing if not an equal-opportunity bully. Trump’s 2.0 Day 1 to-do list is long, but Canada has to respond to only a few of the directives. Unless our opinion is sought, we have nothing to do with rolling back protection of transgender students from discrimination, reshaping the US federal government by firing thousands of employees, halting wind projects, rolling back targets that encourage the switch to electric cars, or abolishing standards for companies to become more environmentally friendly. Nor do we have to consider options for ending the Ukraine-Russia war, firing Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted federal cases against him, starting the mass deportation of illegal migrants, pardoning people who were arrested during the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 or dealing with Hamas.

All these are on the Day 1 list, and while some can be accomplished immediately by executive order, others need the approval of Congress and still others will take months and years for the Trump administration to put the apparatus in place to accomplish the task.

Our Prime Minister is, as of this date, paying mucho attention to the stuff that’s important to our economic wellbeing, namely, tariffs, national security, trade, fossil fuels and the US dollar. These are also on the Day 1 list, which is why the president-elect is starting early, before he’s officially president. He’s busy and expecting to be busier.

That being said, let’s look at the issues in no particular order. They’re all of long-standing importance to the president-elect and all interconnected.

  1. He wants the US to be self-sufficient in energy — as a climate change skeptic, Trump sees greater value in the US’s as-yet-unexploited fossil fuels than in the transition to cleaner energy. Canada can help in several ways. First, we can point out that as a time-honored trade partner, the vast amount of oil and gas we religiously send to the US each year is almost as good as made in the USA. We can point out that because of the vast amount of electricity we send to America – mainly New England, New York, the Midwestern states, and the Pacific Northwest — not only will Americans not freeze in the dark, but it’s also clean energy. We can either offer to help develop fossil fuels via pipelines or something else or offer our views on climate change and the need to transition.
  2. Trump sees trade not as a mutually beneficial exchange but as a zero-sum game — a “win” for the US means a loss for others. If others benefit, it must come at the expense of the US. Hence a trade deficit is a bad thing. Canada is way down the list of countries the US owes. China, the ten southeast Asian states that make up Asean, and Mexico are at the top of the list. Canada’s job is to keep this perspective in view along with the fact that what we export to the US is for the most part totally integrated into American refining and manufacturing facilities. Hence it can be truly said that when Canada exports petroleum and natural gas, auto parts and other components to the US, it is contributing to the protection of American jobs.
  3. The president-elect wants the US dollar to remain the strongest currency in the world and the world’s reserve currency. The US dollar has held this primacy since before World War II and is in no danger of losing it. The BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates) angered Trump by saying it’s fed up with America’s dominance of the global financial system. Hence the tariff threat against them. Canada’s role is to reiterate that our trade with the United States is settled in US dollars and that there is zero possibility the Canadian dollar will ever be a threat.
  4. If the US agrees to be in an alliance, Trump expects everyone to pay their fair share of the cost. Trump is not a fan of alliances, preferring to go it alone. He wants to deal with the few alliances the US is in: trade alliances like CUSMA (the Canada-US-Mexico trade agreement or as the US prefers USMCA); defence alliances of which NATO is the most prominent. Besides these, the US and Canada have several national security agreements, which include defense, immigration, and law enforcement. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) provides for aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning for all of North America. The Safe Third Country Agreement is to manage refugee access at the Canada–US land border; cross-border crime agreements are to exchange information on immigration and visa applicants and to work together to counter crime.

Tariff threats against us are linked specifically to these agreements. Canada has to come clean where it has fumbled the ball. We need to present a plan which closes the gap between where we are and where we should be. For NATO, that means getting to 2-3 percent of GDP asap. For NORAD it means stepping up our presence in the Arctic – China and Russia are already there. For the other agreements, it means demonstrating that Canadian border security has already been stepped up in response to the growing numbers of illegal migrants and drugs crossing the border, while acknowledging that border security needs tightening and more coordination with US Border Control.

For the president-in-waiting, threatening or activating tariffs will bring any of the above issues into sharp focus of a trading partner. Whether threatening or activating, the nature of the relationship will change, with the partner either changing behavior or losing more than the US. Team Canada is now fleshing out the nitty-gritty of policy possibilities that will placate the head of the world’s most powerful nation, a nation that has leverage over virtually every other and a president with little compunction about using it. That’s all we need to know about Trump 2.0. That and a sentiment the President-elect expressed in a Time magazine interview last April: He said he made a crucial mistake in his first term: he was too nice. “I don’t think I’ll do that again…” 

Cohendian560@gmail.com

Trump 2.0 Read More »

Can you dig it? Be glad you never had to.

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

There’s probably an old copper mine not far from where you are right now.

By Maurice Crossfield

Local Journalism Initiative

I’ve held a lot of different jobs over the years, each with its own inherent dangers, upsides and downsides. Truck driver in a quarry: check. Newspaper reporter: check. Forestry worker: check. Auto mechanic: check. But I’m really glad that I never had to venture underground to dig copper ore with a hand shovel.

In fact, most people living in the Townships these days have no idea that the region was once Canada’s cradle of copper production. Not to mention iron, lead, silver, and to a much lesser extent, gold. Yes, there’s gold in them thar hills, just not enough to pay off your mortgage.

When the first non-native settlers arrived in the region, their main concern was all the trees. They were pretty much everywhere, and most of them were very large. Pretty to look at, at least at first, but they tended to get in the way of more typical European pursuits, like planting crops, raising animals or having a back yard. So those early decades were all about the endless supply of trees. I’m sure many a pioneer went just about wiggy trying to clear enough land to survive.

With a few clear spots here and there, folks started to gain an appreciation of the land itself. In Brome Township, in what would eventually become known as Iron Hill, deposits of rough iron ore were found. Metal of any sort being in short supply, folks rigged up a way to smelt it into pig iron.

But the first real mining boom was in the 1850s, with a significant find in Leeds Township. That brought out the geologists, both professional and amateur, in search of what lay under the forest floor. Within a few short years large deposits of copper were discovered in Ascot, Bolton and Acton, while numerous smaller deposits were found scattered across the Townships.

Then the American Civil War erupted and with it the demand for copper. Albert and Capelton Mines opened in 1863, later expanding operations into chemicals, explosives and fertilizer.

For the average, relatively new settler, life was isolated and rough. While land was cheap, almost everything else was expensive and hard to get. And money was even harder to come by. The Townships was a nice place to live, if you could eke out a living. For the 200 men and boys who worked at the Capelton Mine they had a one-hour hike up to the entrance, followed by a 12-hour workday, in near total darkness except for the candlelight on the brim of their felt hats. No safety gear here. On the upside, the hour long walk back home was downhill. Oh, you got to have Sundays off, and you earned a whopping $1.10 a day.

And for them, this was their best option for making a living. Sit with that thought for a moment.

There were a few progressive ideas for the workplace: You could only start working in the mine once you hit the ripe old age of 14, and the newcomers got the job of bringing the toilet carts up to the surface. Meanwhile your little brothers and sisters worked down the hill, sorting the copper ore from the rocks. But you were still better off than the pit ponies used to bring the ore to the surface, who would eventually go blind from spending too many hours in near total darkness.

In short, it was dirty, dangerous, backbreaking, soul crushing work. The air was constantly humid, filled with dust and chemicals. Picks and shovels deafened their users and crippled their hands. And at any moment the ceiling could collapse, ruining your felt hat and whatever was under it. Life expectancy? Your best shot was the afterlife.

But the good times wouldn’t last. Capelton and Albert Mines closed in 1907, while Eustis, one of the deepest mines in the world at the time, held on until 1939. Over near Eastman the Huntingdon Mine opened in 1865, closed in 1883, then reopened in 1890 for another three years, and then from 1912 to 1924. The Quebec Copper Corporation reopened the site in the 1950’s, but the ore was too hard to reach to be profitable.

I really do think that we live in the best time to be alive. For the most part the good old days were never that good. And the next time you feel your financial belt cinching as you struggle to make the next car payment, give a thought to those who came before. And be grateful you never had to send your eight-year-old to sort rocks in a dusty shack.

Makes me feel pretty safe and warm in my garbage truck.

Can you dig it? Be glad you never had to. Read More »

To rake or not to rake?

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Pooja Sainarayan

Local Journalism Initiative

Leaf raking is often a topic of debate amongst many homeowners. Is it necessary? Are there any benefits to leaving the leaves and letting nature take its course? Can raking the lawn wait until spring or is it better done during the fall season? Let’s take a closer look at the ecology behind raking.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, raking our leaves does far more damage than good. In addition to robbing the lawn of essential nutrients, raking disrupts the wildlife habitat and important environmental cycles. In one article from the National Wildlife Federation, naturalist David Mizejewski describes how leaves create a natural mulch that prevents weed growth and enriches the soil as it breaks down.  Nature’s mulch is a much better alternative to spending money on mulch and fertilizer. In addition, raking can disrupt various wildlife habitats that rely on leaves for food and shelter. Pollinators such as butterflies and moths rely on leaf litter for nesting before emerging in spring. Birds also go through leaf litter to find food for their young ones. In cases where leaves are not composted, sending leaves to landfills increases greenhouse gas emissions worsening climate change. According to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 8.7 million tons of yard matter, including leaves, were disposed of in landfills in 2017, totaling approximately 6 percent of all waste in landfills. Combined with other organic waste, they can break down and release methane, a strong greenhouse gas. As leaves do smother the lawn, the National Wildlife Federation recommends replacing stretches of lawn with planting beds consisting of native plants and using leaves as mulch. Instead of throwing leaves away, let them stay where they’ve fallen and when needed, compost them or use as mulch in existing gardens.

While raking may help the ecosystem flourish, it may not be the solution to a well-kept lawn. The most significant benefit of raking is to help the grass grow. A thick bed of leaves will deprive the lawn from breathing and getting enough sunlight, thereby inhibiting the growth of grass. In addition, leaves piling on the lawn can promote snow mold diseases which can kill grass in the winter and early spring. When the mold spores get released in the air, it can negatively impact human health, especially those with mold sensitivities and allergies. Ticks and the presence of other animals like mice can also increase with large leaf beds, which can cause damage. Leaves left on walkways or decks for long periods of time can stain these areas. The best time to rake leaves is during autumn, when leaves are dry prior to the first frost or snow fall. Some homeowners prefer raking as the leaves fall in batches during the season while others wait until all the leaves have touched ground before picking up a rake. Although both are acceptable options, it comes down to the quantity of deciduous trees and the rate at which leaves collect on the yard during the fall season. Spring raking is also recommended as this loosens up any areas of matted grass that did not survive the winter or succumbed to mold.  If this is not taken care of, these dead areas create thatch. Thatch buildup occurs when organic debris in the soil accumulates faster than microbes can break it down.

Although excessive leaf beds on the lawn may smother it, some leaf coverage is perfectly alright. Homeowners can find some middle ground between what is good for the lawn as well as the ecosystem. One way is to rake less often and mow the lawn instead to chop leaves up. In addition to providing nitrogen and other organic matter to the grass, this will maintain soil moisture and protect root systems. The local wildlife can also benefit from the leaf litter remnants. If the leaf layers are too thick, try using a leaf blower to move the piles for later use as compost or mulch in garden beds as much as possible. If the leaves are already on your garden beds or near shrubs or bushes, leave them be. They will break down and be an excellent source of mulch come spring. If surrounding the head of perennial plants, make sure to move those away. If possible, redistribute the leaves along your yard’s perimeter close to wooded areas or in areas where it’s not a bother for local wildlife. As important as it is not to send leaves to the landfill, it is also important not to burn leaves as this can release toxic chemicals such as carbon monoxide.

To rake or not to rake? Read More »

Rocking the solitudes

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Photo courtesy

Does it matter if we don’t know the ‘other’ culture’s stars?

By David Winch

Local Journalism Initiative

Boomers will be boomers. Give us a name-brand musician from the 1960s or 1970s, and we flock to the concert halls. Whether it’s vintage James Taylor or Pink Floyd or whoever (Who-ever?) at the Bell Centre, I’ve seen ’em all. Or at least, the most memorable ones.

Another music-nostalgia date came on Thanksgiving weekend at the U de Sherbrooke cultural centre. And what an evening it was!

Robert Charlebois has been a rockin’ dynamo since I was a teenager in the 1970s. He somehow found a place on our after-school turn-table rotation beside the Stones, Jethro Tull, Mike Oldfield and David Bowie.

A fun and inventive musician, Charlebois in his prime was as big in Quebec as Céline Dion ever was, but he never “crossed over” to the English market.

His show prompted me to muse about Quebec and Canada and the bicultural dream.

—Is that overdone, or even possible?

First, Charlebois live

The 80-something Charlebois retains his full voice and range and he pranced about the stage, Mick Jagger-like, in a trim black outfit.

A dynamic performer, his repertory varies between soft, heartfelt ballads and quick, witty rockers. As a songwriter, Charlebois often collaborated with poet and novelist Réjean Ducharme, whose colloquial lyrics often slide into an impenetrable joual.

Always inventive, Charlebois used instruments and symbols in novel ways: at one point he played a nickel-plated guitar, and famously wore a Canadiens sweater under his full head of curls.

In October, he covered many trademark hits, from wistful air-travel fantasies Je Reviens à Montréal and Lindbergh! to the barroom comic-opera Cauchemar. But I missed other favourites like Entre Deux Joints and Demain l’Hiver, a rave about fleeing our winters to Florida.

Charlebois was at his peak in the 1970s, when his eclectic style fit urban Quebec like a glove. Sure enough, this large 2024 crowd was entirely francophone Boomers.  Was I the only anglo? Sure felt like it.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, Quebec generated iconic stars in several fields. Somehow, they emerged in series of three. Sports heroes Rocket Richard, then Jean Béliveau and finally Guy Lafleur each embodied their era.  In parallel, three top chansonniers sang out French Quebec’s dreams: Félix Leclerc, Gilles Vigneault, then Charlebois.

Lafleur and Charlebois personified the turbulent Quebec of the ‘70s, and each could bring a Montreal Forum crowd to its feet with electrifying performances.

Cultures interact

In the early 1970s, there was an authentic bicultural moment in Montreal. CHOM-FM was a magnet for Montreal teenagers and CEGEP students, and listeners there regularly heard Offenbach, Harmonium and Charlebois alongside Genesis, Gentle Giant and the Moody Blues.

But the CRTC put an end to that, ruling that FM music stations basically had to stick to their language and not infringe on other stations’ niches.

English Canadian interest was generally light. Does anyone listen dutifully to the stars of the “other” culture? Sometimes this did work, in Montreal at least, as seen in the cross-cultural fan bases for Leonard Cohen or Céline Dion.

More recent stars have appealed to all comers, like 2024 Juno winner Charlotte Cardin. (Checking into a hotel in Baltimore this year, a clerk looked at my ID and chirped: “Oh, Canadian?! I love Charlotte Cardin!”)

But more frequently, bands that enthrall English Canada are unknown in Quebec, and vice versa. The 2017 death of Gord Downie of Toronto’s Tragically Hip prompted an outpouring similar to a state funeral; Justin Trudeau even gave an elegy. Quebec barely noticed. Then in 2023, Karl Tremblay, lead singer of folk-rock band Les Cowboys Fringants, passed away. It was a huge shock for Quebecers — not so much in Vancouver.

Brendan Kelly, a culture and sports critic at The Gazette, encourages anglos to try some French content: “The two communities still live in their own worlds for the most part”.

 In Montreal, “the Mile End anglo hipster alt-music community has little connection to the franco music milieu. Go see an anglo artist and the audience will be likely evenly split French and English. Go see a hot franco band … and you’ll be lucky if you find one anglo in the hall. That’s just the way it goes”, he noted resignedly in 2016.

Photo courtesy

MacLennan’s legacy

For some time, I have thought the phrase “two solitudes” was stale and tiresome.

When I hear a Toronto-based pundit use it, it sounds like a substitute for first-hand knowledge about Quebec. A cliché. Or a headline writer’s last-minute patchwork.

The phrase’s origin is clear, in Hugh MacLennan’s 1945 novel Two Solitudes. The source is poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect, and touch, and greet each other”.

The book famously begins: “Northwest of Montreal, through a valley always in sight of the low mountains of the Laurentian Shield, the Ottawa River flows out of Protestant Ontario into Catholic Quebec […. ]”.

“But down in the angle at Montreal, on the island about which [the] two rivers join, there is little sense of this new and endless space. Two old races and religions meet here and live their separate legends, side by side”.

The novel’s 1920s French-English romance focuses on the values clash between rural religious folk and big-city anglo moneymakers.

  • Does this sound compelling in our world today?

MacLennan commuted between his teaching job at McGill and his country home in the Townships. Today a large stele, an upright stone slab, stands in front of that property above Lake Massawippi, inscribed “Two Solitudes”.

Is this a division worth overcoming?

I worked for 15 years in Switzerland, where the Swiss live peaceably separate, each in their own language-based cantons. They are as blissfully unaware of pop culture on the “other side” of their Confederation as we are. Yet somehow, they’ve stayed together for over 700 years.

Maybe there’s a lesson in that. But I still love Charlebois.

Rocking the solitudes Read More »

Quebec municipalities debate law on council size

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

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Jacques Demers, President of the Fédération québécoise des municipalités, discussed the new law allowing smaller municipalities to reduce council sizes, emphasizing it as an optional tool to ease recruitment challenges

Smaller councils, bigger questions

By William Crooks

Local Journalism Initiative

In an attempt to address governance challenges in Quebec’s smallest communities, a new law now permits municipalities with fewer than 2,000 residents to reduce their councils from six members to four. This option, brought to light during recent municipal discussions, has been met with both support and hesitation across various regions. Fédération québécoise des municipalités (FMQ) President Jacques Demers explained in an Oct. 30 interview that the change aims to provide an option, not an obligation, for smaller towns struggling to fill council positions.

“We put it in there to allow municipalities that want to do it, to have the option,” Demers said, noting that no municipality is required to reduce its council. “It’s really just a tool that was given.”

An optional tool for small communities

The law, which grants towns this flexibility until Dec. 31, 2024, was driven largely by recruitment issues. Demers observed that some smaller municipalities have faced recurring difficulties in attracting new council members, often leaving council seats empty for lack of willing candidates. He attributed this challenge partly to the unique demands of small-town governance.

“In places with 300 or 400 people, council members interact much more closely with the citizens than in a town with a population of 5,000 or 10,000,” he said. This increased proximity brings added responsibilities, which, coupled with limited financial compensation—often less than $1,000 annually—can make the role less attractive.

Demers also pointed out that several towns are considering their options carefully, especially since this decision is not reversible. “I think even among those who initially requested it, some will ultimately decide not to use it,” he noted. “It’s an opportunity, but it remains to be seen which municipalities will take advantage.”

Barnston West council retains six members

Barnston West, a municipality of approximately 500 residents, is one such community weighing the decision carefully. During a conversation on the same day, Councillor Ziv Przytyk shared insights into why the town has opted to retain its six-member council. “We didn’t choose to reduce the size of our council,” Przytyk affirmed, highlighting that despite the recruitment challenges, they believe maintaining six members is beneficial.

With four council members, he suggested, decision-making can become more streamlined but at the cost of decreased representation. “It’s less representation,” he remarked, adding that while smaller councils might ease operations in some towns, Barnston West’s needs were best served by keeping the original six seats.

Przytyk highlighted a significant limitation in the new law: once a council opts for a reduction, it cannot revert to six members in future elections. “Once you go to four, you can’t go back,” he emphasized. This permanence influenced Barnston West’s decision, as community leaders want to preserve a larger representative base to address future needs and ensure a broader diversity of voices in council decisions. He added that maintaining a six-member council helps prevent potential issues like collusion.

Implications for governance

Another factor influencing municipalities’ decisions is the potential impact on council voting dynamics. Demers explained that reducing council size also shifts the requirements for achieving a majority vote. With a five-member council, three votes are needed to pass a resolution; in a four-member structure, however, a split vote could hinder decision-making.

In addition, for certain critical decisions, a pure majority may not be enough if only a few council members are present. “If we’re down to only four around the table, then the vote is only valid if all four have agreed,” Demers said, indicating that the decision to reduce council size could inadvertently create procedural challenges in municipalities accustomed to a more populated council table.

Weighing costs and community values

While cost savings are often cited as a reason for restructuring governance, Demers clarified that for the smallest municipalities, financial considerations rarely drive this decision. “For these small municipalities, if you look at the salary, it’s sometimes not even $1,000 per year,” he explained. Instead, recruitment pressures and the logistical challenges of sustaining an engaged council are the primary motivators for considering downsizing.

Some municipalities with larger populations also experience high levels of civic engagement and are unlikely to consider reducing council size. “In places where there are plenty of candidates, I’d be very surprised if anyone would think about bringing this in,” Demers said, noting that it is mainly the municipalities with persistent recruitment issues that are exploring the option.

Flexibility and autonomy at the local level

The introduction of this law aligns with broader efforts to provide Quebec’s municipalities with the flexibility needed to address local governance challenges effectively. Demers emphasized that the FMQ’s role is to advocate for resources and solutions that respect each town’s autonomy while recognizing the unique realities of smaller communities.

Looking ahead, the real impact of this legislative change will only become clear after the Dec. 31 deadline. At present, the FMQ and local leaders across Quebec are watching closely to see if any towns decide to implement the reduced council size. In the meantime, communities like Barnston West demonstrate that for some, maintaining a larger council is essential to meeting the diverse needs of their residents.

Reflecting on the future of municipal governance

As Quebec municipalities navigate these governance changes, discussions around council structure have spotlighted the evolving role of local government in rural communities. Demers acknowledged the unique position of small councils, where the proximity between officials and constituents is greater, requiring adaptability and responsiveness that larger cities may not experience in the same way.

For now, the debate on council size underscores the balancing act faced by many of Quebec’s municipalities: upholding effective representation while addressing recruitment challenges and resource limitations. Whether towns choose to reduce their councils or maintain existing structures, this legislative change allows each municipality to assess its unique needs and priorities, highlighting the FMQ’s broader goal of empowering local governance across the province.

Quebec municipalities debate law on council size Read More »

Learning (or not) from history

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Photo courtesy

By Guy Rex Rodgers

Local Journalism Initiative

The 1960s were stormy years in Quebec. One of the most consequential battles of the era exploded in Saint-Léonard.  A new film by Félix Rose makes the case that La Bataille de Saint-Léonard (1968) was the impetus for Bill 101.

Félix Rose deserves full marks for archival research.  His film shows Italian parents and their children inhabiting a brand new neighbourhood rising in bushland. We see diverging visions of education that degenerate into streets battles and death threats. We see panicked politicians struggle to find a peaceful comprise, which is impossible as the crowds grow larger and angrier.  The film works hard to recreate the passions of the era. This makes for a rip-roaring film experience. Josée Legault, Journal de Montréal: Il faut courir voir « La bataille de Saint-Léonard. »

Rose’s story-telling technique is less successful for a history documentary. It does not create the space to view events and motivations from an objective distance. It does not ask new questions or listen to new voices. This is a pity because the Saint-Leonard riots were a pivotal event in Quebec’s history.

In the twenty years following the Second World War, more than 150,000 Italians migrated to Quebec, which offered the New World in a version that was strongly Catholic and where the majority spoke French, a language close to Italian. It was an attractive combination. Things didn’t work out as planned.  Quebec was in the throes of an extraordinary baby boom. Schools were full. They did not need immigrants.

Quebec’s predominant school system was Catholic and French. There was also a Protestant system, that was mostly English, and a small English-Catholic network of schools created for the Irish. Which system would make room for the thousands of new immigrants? The French Catholic system rejected non-Catholics: all the Jewish kids and the Greek Orthodox, as well as French-speaking Protestants. What about Italian kids, who were Catholic? This is where the story becomes complicated. Some Italians were accepted into French Catholic schools. Many were rejected.  Rose’s film adopts the Nationalist narrative that immigrants were to blame for rejecting French schools because English was the language of work and prosperity, while French was the language of poverty and humiliation.

Context is important. Saint-Leonard was a brand new district built by Italians and mostly populated by Italians. They left their homes in districts such as Saint-Michel, Rosemount or NDG to buy a house in Saint-Leonard. Many of the kids moving there had already attended English Catholic schools because that’s were they were sent by the neighbourhood French Catholic school. 

A new French Catholic school board was created for Saint-Leonard.  Many Italian parents enrolled their children in schools that offered a bilingual curriculum. This was a time when radio and TV stations were experimenting with bilingual programming.  Montreal was de facto bilingual, so why not bilingual schools?  It was a reasonable question then, and is still pertinent today.

The human story behind the Battle of Saint Leonard is complex.  The politics of the day reduced it to a stark duality.  On one side, a bunch of foreigners manipulated by Quebec’s hereditary enemies – the English; on the other side, Quebec’s underdogs fighting to defend their language, culture, history and soul!

The leader of the ruling Union Nationale party proposed a law to provide freedom of choice in education. Jean-Jacques Bertrand allegedly justified this solution because, ‘We fought on the Battle on the Plains of Abraham and lost….’ J-J Bertrand and the Union Nationale party lost the 1970 election and were erased from history.  Robert Bourassa’s Liberal’s gained power and passed a language law that alienated Anglos but did not placate French Nationalists. In the 1976 provincial election, a new party founded by René Levesque took power. The Parti Québécois immediately passed Bill 101.

We still do not have linguistic peace. Many Quebecers (46%) have quietly chosen to be bilingual, and that is a problem for people who insist that the only official language in Quebec is French, as if being bilingual is incompatible with speaking French and enjoying French culture. I have interviewed hundreds of Quebecers who arrived in successive waves of immigration. Most were happy to learn French… and English. Most Italians learned French, even if French schools in the pre Bill-101 era rejected them. This complex history needs to be confronted and reckoned with.  Films like La Bataille de Saint-Léonard do not help us understand why it was a mistake to villainize multilingual minorities in the past.  It is inexcusable today.

Learning (or not) from history Read More »

The $20,000 housewife

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Courtesy of Dian Cohen

By Dian Cohen

Local Journalism Initiative

This little item appeared in the newspapers I submitted to back in 1973. Most women didn’t work outside the home, and with the average salary being around $10,000/year, this was pretty off-the-wall revolutionary.

And maybe subversive. After all, women weren’t meant to work in the real world  — being a woman meant being passive, kind, nurturing, helpful and caring – everything required for rearing children, pacifying husbands and keeping a clean and welcoming home. The women’s lib referred to in that long ago piece was in its second wave in Canada, having benefitted from the women who transformed the idea of women as natural caregivers into women holding public office to care for and civilize society. That was happening just around the time I was born. Hail to the Persons Five.  

Of course, the more masculine characteristics of problem-solving with brute force made women who went into the workforce acceptable — by 1944, more than a million women worked full-time in Canada’s paid labour force. Many women expressed the view that after the war, they should be trained or retrained for jobs on the same basis as men and that household workers should receive labor benefits like unemployment insurance. Not to be. Five years after the war ended, more than half a million women were back at home.

The same equity suggestions were raised decades later in the 1970 Royal Commission on the Status of Women. It was not as widely promoted as a stunningly bold advertising campaign that touted smoking as the key to female empowerment, independence, confidence and liberation. To this day, a lot more of us know the phrase “you’ve come a long way, baby” than what was accomplished by the Royal Commission. (Women couldn’t open a bank account, get a credit card or a mortgage without a male co-signer. The Royal Commission made this illegal.)

Women’s rights legislation has continued onward and upward – the Canadian Human Rights Charter, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Employment Equity Act, Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act, Pay Equity Act. They undoubtedly helped — in the ‘70s, about 3 million women were in the workforce and the pay gap was close to 40 percent.   Today, there are 10 million women in the paid workforce, still a participation rate that is less than men, and now earning, on average, 12 percent less than men.

To understand why the gap remains, we need go no further than Harvard professor Claudia Goldin. She’s now 77 and has spent her whole working life filling in the data gaps and misconceptions about women in the work force – for which she received the Nobel Prize in economics last year.  Canadian data is not as detailed but supports Goldin’s conclusions. Here’s what we now know: back in the day, the wage gap can be explained through differences in education and occupational choices – since women were expected to stay at home, they didn’t get as much education, and those that did paid work did it in ‘domestic’ professions like looking after children or housecleaning, which were lower-paying jobs.

Courtesy Philip Morris/Leo Burnett Agency – one of 356 images in series

More recently, women in general are more educated than men. The pay differences between men and women in the same profession have more to do with lifestyle choices. The wage gap widens after the birth of the first child. Women still do most of the unpaid caregiving so they still take more time off from work. Their career path has gaps and they make less. Interestingly, while mothers make less than non-mothers because they work less, fathers make more than non-fathers over the course of their careers.

Couples make these choices together. Employers pay a premium now for people who will be on call 24/7. Many couples find it makes sense for fathers to respond to the needs of paid work and mothers to answer to the needs of kids. Goldin says, “Why can’t dual-career families share the joys and duties of parenting equally? They could, but if they did, they would be leaving money on the table, often quite a lot. The 50-50 couple might be happier but would be poorer.” (A small, aside: now that men get paternity leave, a study out of Spain provides evidence that while women take “maternity leave full-time and immediately after childbirth, men split their leave entitlement into several periods that are spread out during the first year of the child’s life, with a significant spike in the summer months… We find that a disproportionate number of men were on paternity leave during the exact dates of the 2022 soccer World Cup, relative to the surrounding dates.” Do men really do more caregiving?)

Were I to write the article today, I would note that the shape of paid work is changing – remote and online work play to women’s strengths. Otherwise, not much is different. Unpaid housewives still work about 15 hours a day – about 100 hours a week. Their tasks have expanded beyond what I could think of 50 years ago: Salary.com lists chief financial officer, chief operating officer, logistics analyst, housekeeper, laundry manager, van driver, public school teacher, facilities manager, event planner, kitchen manager, assistant athletics director, staff nurse, bookkeeper, physical therapy supervisor, nutrition director, consumer loan officer, fast food cook, server, conflicts manager, interior designer, fundraising coordinator. According to several different surveys, the value of this unpaid work has risen to around $190,000/year.

Cohendian560@gmail.com

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Aviation firsts in the Eastern Townships

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Photo courtesy
Watching the airship, Sherbrooke Exposition 1907

By Shawn MacWha

Local Journalism Initiative

Most people familiar with the Eastern Townships know that Bombardier, one of the largest civilian aircraft manufacturers in the world, was founded in the town of Valcourt in 1942. What is perhaps less well known is the fact that residents of the Eastern Townships were often among the first people in Canada to witness several aviation firsts in this country. Indeed, starting in the middle of the 19th century local citizens followed the exploits, and accidents, of early “aeronauts” with the same attention that the first astronauts were watched more than 100 years later.

In August, 1856 Eugène Godard, a famous French aeronaut, arrived in Montreal following a tour of the United States. He placed advertisements for seamstresses in local newspapers and, using their labour, oversaw the fabrication of the first balloon made in Canada at that city’s Bonsecours Market. Aptly named “Canada” the craft was 42 feet (12.8 metres) in diameter and had a capacity of 36,860 cubic feet (1044 cubic metres). Using this balloon Godard made three flights from Montreal during the month of September, including the first flight to carry any passengers in Canada when, on Sept. 8, Godard went aloft with three men and floated eastwards from Montreal to the little parish of Saint Mathias near the town of Chambly. While Godard and his balloon never made it closer to the Eastern Townships than the Richelieu River residents of the region were nonetheless deeply interested in his exploits of the air and followed them long after he departed Quebec. In March, 1859, for example, the Sherbrooke Times carried a fascinating story about a Godard expedition in Belgium wherein the unfortunate pioneer found himself being assaulted by a dissatisfied customer 5,000 feet over the countryside.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Crewed flight finally came to the Eastern Townships in early September, 1888 when Professor William Hogan of Jackson, Michigan was contracted by the organizers of the Sherbrooke Exposition to make two balloon ascents during the fair. In addition to performing a trapeze act from a bar hanging beneath his balloon Hogan also made what was almost certainly the first-ever parachute descent in the Province of Quebec (and only the second-even in Canada) from over the fairgrounds on September 4 when he jumped from a height of almost 6,000 feet and floated to the ground.

Following Hogan’s breathtaking performance ballooning became a regular attraction at the Sherbrooke Exposition and by the early 1890s another famous aeronaut, Professor Charles Walcott, was a regular visitor to the region demonstrating both his balloon and his dare-devil parachute jumps from it. At times he also performed “parachute races” from his balloon to the ground with his partner Nellie LeMount. Walcott was a star attraction to the 1894 Sherbrooke Exposition, at which time he also assisted local businessman Seth Nutter, who went on the found the Silver Spring Brewery, by distributing thousands of Nutter’s business cards by throwing them from his balloon as he floated over the townships. Sadly, in October, 1895 Walcott was seriously injured during a parachuting accident in Venezuela where he shattered his ankles and pelvis and broke a femur, several ribs and his spine, thus demonstrating the danger of early excursions into the sky.

The Sherbrooke Exposition was once again the showcase for new flight technology when Lincoln Beachey, an American aviation pioneer, made the first dirigible flight anywhere in Canada on Sept. 4, 1907. Residents and visitors alike were enthralled with Beachey’s machine, with the Montreal Gazette reporting that Beachey took off from the fairgrounds and “sailed over the city for a distance of about a mile and a half and returned again to the grounds. He then circled around the grounds a couple of times, steering his ship first in one direction, then directly in the opposite, demonstrating his perfect control of it.”

Courtesy BANQ
George Mestach c1907

On Jan. 26, 1912 it was announced that the planning committee of the Eastern Townships Agricultural Association had secured the attendance of noted French aviator George Mestach and his Borel monoplane at its upcoming fall exhibition. This was at a time when most Canadians had yet to see an airplane and there was much excitement about the prospects of seeing such a craft. While this would be the first plane to fly over the Eastern Townships it was actually not to be the first airplane to visit the area. In mid-July, 1912 an airplane owned by American aviator Harry Atwood was towed through the region behind an automobile (itself a relatively new sight) on its way from Montreal to Newport, Vermont.

In what was clearly the highlight of Sherbrooke’s 1912 exposition, residents and visitors finally got to witness Mestach’s aircraft take flight from East Sherbrooke on Monday, Sept. 2. It was eagerly reported that “His machine sailed high in the air in front of the grandstand, and was absolutely under control of the airman at the helm. He circles round and round, and finally came to ground without the least trouble.” The flight on Sept. 3 was even more spectacular as Mestach flew over the city, allowing thousands of people not at the fairgrounds to witness his craft. Leaving Sherbrooke three days later Mestach proceeded to Montreal where he engaged in a two mile (3.2 kilometre)  race with an automobile and a motorcycle. 

While the pace of aeronautical innovation may appear to have slowed since the early days of the Sherbrooke Exhibition there are still people in this area who reach for the heights just as the first aeronauts did more than 100 years ago. Sherbrooke native Vincent Beaudry, for example, was among the top 32 candidates for the latest round of astronaut selection by the Canadian Space Agency in 2017. Later, in 2022, University of Sherbrooke scientist Myrian Lemelin received funding from the Canadian Space Agency for a project to look for water-ice on the south pole of the moon. In this way people from the Eastern Townships continue to stand at the forefront of modern aviation, even at it carries us away from this earth.

Photo courtesy
Montreal Gazette, August 14, 1907, p. 7

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Courageous, cowardly or just more confusion?

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Photo courtesy

By Guy Rex Rodgers

Local Journalism Initiative

Let’s start with courage. Full marks to citizens who raised their voices against this summer’s bizarre 31-page health ‘directive’ that made it sound like it was necessary to hire a team of lawyers or win a bureaucratic lottery to qualify for healthcare in English. The brave citizens deserve full marks for courage because they were accused, as has been the typical response in the era of Bill-96 against anyone who questions the new language laws, of being part of an elitist, Quebec-bashing, Anglo cabal.

Our elected members of the National Assembly also demonstrated courage by unanimously affirming that English-speaking Quebecers don’t need a certificate to prove they’re entitled to English-language education in order to receive health care and social services in English. No conditions. Period.

Liberal MNAs exposed themselves to the serious political risk of reaffirming their public image as the party controlled by an elitist, Quebec-bashing Anglo cabal. CAQ and PQ MNAs exposed themselves to the serious political risk of being branded hypocrites who are easily manipulated to abandon Quebec’s official language and culture.

Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier Legault can also claim to have made courageous stands. Prime Minister Trudeau, after ignoring Bill 96 and its disturbing ramifications and after abandoning Quebec’s minority English-speaking community while rewriting the federal Official Languages Act, finally spoke out against Bill 96’s negative impact. The cynical could suspect his primary motivation in speaking up for minorities was to earn votes in an important by-election in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun. Prime Minister Trudeau’s ‘too-little-too-late’ courageous stand was rewarded with a by-election vote of no confidence.

What can we say about Premier Legault’s response to Prime Minister Trudeau’s accusation? Did Premier Legault courageously set the record straight?  Or was he blowing smoke out of both sides of his mouth to create a distracting cloud of confusion?  

Health Minister Dubé displayed courage in writing a succinct, relatively clear health directive on September 20.  So what was the purpose of the lengthy, convoluted and disturbing health directive issued by Language Minster Roberge two months earlier, which has now been repudiated?

Have these new statements ended the confusion?

Alas, no.

Forgive me for being cynical. But I have been watching and listening to the CAQ government justify Bill 96 for three years now. The right to work and live in French is primordial. The right to services in English is conditional. The CAQ have made it clear that their end game is to restrict English-language education to ‘historic Anglos’ who can obtain an eligibility certificate. The CAQ have also made it clear they want to restrict all government services to ‘historic Anglos’ plus recent immigrants, but only during their first six months in Quebec. The plan behind Bill 96 has been perfectly clear and loudly trumpeted. But now Premier Legault and the National Assembly assure us that anybody and everybody will receive health services in English, without condition or qualification. How is this coherent with the rest of Bill 96? How are these ‘feel good’ affirmations credible?

During the past few years we have heard, from the highest levels of government, that Quebec is being turned into Louisiana north by too much English on public signs and spoken on the streets. The government is even spending millions to eradicate the monosyllable ‘hi’ that has offended shoppers. We have been told that Quebec must become entirely French, and that this work of purification must be implemented in an exemplary manner by all government departments and agencies.

Where did this lead? In the realm of healthcare it led us – predictably – into a head-on collision of clashing-rights. It is quite possible for healthcare workers to believe they have the right to work only in French and to believe that by serving non-Francophones only in French they are actually helping them integrate into the new Quebec that Bill 96 is designed to create. It is also easy to believe stories about healthcare workers taking an English-speaking patient into a private room and whispering to them in English because they are afraid of being reported by colleagues for breaking the language law.

It was shocking for minorities that Bill 96 invoked the notwithstanding clause to circumvent their Charter rights. Now it is equally shocking for supporters of Bill 96 that Premier Legault and the National Assembly have declared that access to English-language health services will not be subjected to a single condition or qualification. Clashing rights – like the right to work in one language and the obligation to provide services in another – need a clear framework, not an improvised response to bad PR.

This isolated ‘clarification’ has only added to the confusion.

 Guy Rex Rodgers

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Phelps Helps reflects on the fight against systemic barriers to education

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Photo courtesy
Katie Lowry, Executive Director of Phelps Helps, poses with a group of students who participated in the organization’s youth committee, a program designed to foster leadership and life skills through community events.

By William Crooks

Local Journalism Initiative

Just days after Quebec’s “Journée du Refus de l’Échec Scolaire” , a day that focuses on school success, Sept. 25, Katie Lowry, executive director of Phelps Helps, sat down to reflect on the progress made and the challenges that still lie ahead. The annual event, organized by the “Regroupement des organismes communautaires québécois de lutte au décrochage” (ROCLD), is aimed at raising awareness of the systemic barriers that continue to impede educational success for many Quebec students.

“The ‘Journée du Refus de l’Échec Scolaire’ is a chance to focus on the bigger picture,” Lowry said during a Sept. 27  interview. “Kids don’t drop out of school because they’re not motivated or because they aren’t trying hard enough. There are deeper issues at play, and we need to address those if we want to see real change.”

Barriers to success in Stanstead

Phelps Helps, a community organization based in Stanstead, has been on the front lines of this fight for over a decade. Founded in response to the alarmingly high dropout rates in the area, the organization now serves 400 participants annually, reaching one in three youth in the region.

“When we started, only about 50 per cent of students in Stanstead were graduating from high school,” Lowry explained. “By 2021, that number had improved by 21 per cent, but the pandemic set things back. We’ve seen how hard-hit families have been, especially with rising inflation, and it’s having a direct impact on students.” Across Quebec, the dropout rate has risen by 2.5 per cent since the pandemic, and disadvantaged youth are feeling the brunt of the pressure.

One of the most significant barriers to education in rural areas like Stanstead is transportation. “Our kids are spending an hour to an hour and a half on the bus each day,” Lowry said. “For a student who’s already struggling, that long commute can make it even harder to stay motivated.”

Additionally, economic factors play a major role. “We know that kids from low-income families often start the school year already behind. If you don’t have the school supplies you need, or you’re coming to school hungry, you’re at a disadvantage from day one,” she said.

A broader solution: Community involvement

For Lowry, the solution lies in stronger collaboration between schools, families, and community organizations like Phelps Helps. “The schools can’t do it all on their own,” she emphasized. “Teachers are doing their best, but they’re under a lot of pressure. What we’ve seen work is when schools partner with community groups like ours to provide the extra support that kids need.”

This partnership model has been key to Phelps Helps’ success. By working closely with local schools and school boards, the organization has been able to create programs tailored to the needs of students in the area. But Lowry stressed that families also need to be engaged. “There are families in our community who have had negative experiences with institutions like schools, and that can get passed down to the next generation. Community organizations can help bridge that gap by building trust and creating a positive connection between the family and the school,” she said.

Lowry highlighted the importance of giving young people real responsibilities and engaging them in meaningful ways. One successful initiative at Phelps Helps has been their youth committee, which empowers students to plan events for their peers. “We had a group of kids organize a winter ball last year. They were responsible for everything—budgeting, decorating, even cooking some of the food. It gave them a sense of ownership and taught them life skills, which translated into academic success,” she explained.

Photo courtesy
Phelps Helps Executive Director Katie Lowry with several youth from Stanstead, where the organization has been working to combat school dropouts through community-driven initiatives and educational support programs.

Reflecting on the “Journée du Refus de l’Échec Scolaire”

While the “Journée du Refus de l’Échec Scolaire” helped raise awareness, Lowry emphasized that the work is ongoing. The initiative, now in its sixth year, highlights the structural causes behind school dropouts, particularly in disadvantaged communities. As Lowry noted, the dropout problem is not just about individual students’ performance or motivation but is rooted in larger societal issues.

A press release from Phelps Helps and ROCLD pointed out several key areas where action is needed, including anti-poverty measures and increased funding for community organizations. “In Quebec, a student’s social background is the primary determinant of success at school,” Lowry explained, echoing the sentiments of the press release. “We need to strengthen our support systems for students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and that includes everything from ensuring they have access to proper school supplies to addressing broader economic inequities.”

Another critical issue is the lack of support services for students in the anglophone community. At Stanstead’s regional high school, Alexander Galt, for instance, there is only one guidance counselor for nearly 1,000 students. “It’s impossible for one person to provide the individualized support these kids need,” Lowry said. “We need to advocate for more resources, particularly for English-speaking students, who often don’t have the same access to services as their francophone peers.”

Looking forward

As Phelps Helps continues its mission to support youth in Stanstead, Lowry remains optimistic but realistic about the challenges ahead. “We’ve made progress, but there’s still so much work to do. We need more community involvement, more volunteers, and more recognition of the role that organizations like ours play in helping kids succeed,” she said.

Phelps Helps invites community members to get involved, whether by volunteering, donating, or simply learning more about the challenges facing local youth. “We all have a role to play in this,” Lowry said. “If we want to see real change, we need to take responsibility for our part in supporting the next generation.”

For more information on the work Phelps Helps is doing, or to get involved, visit their website. To learn more about the “Journée du Refus de l’Échec Scolaire”, visit: www.refus-echec-scolaire.ca

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You read it here first

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Two years of musings on Justin, population booms and smoky summers

By David Winch

Local Journalism Initiative

Since its launch in fall 2022, Townships Weekend has continued to defy the trend of newspaper downsizing. As other papers disappeared or thinned out, The Record … expanded!? Great news!

A defiant generalist, my 30 columns since 2022 have ranged over politics (seven articles), culture and society (five), the environment (five), population/demography (four) and sports (four).

Today, it’s perhaps time to follow up on some articles, and invite reader feedback.

Politics: Justin fatigue

In April 2023, Townships Weekend published my take on Justin Trudeau (“Tale of Two Trudeaus”), which contended that J.T.’s act was wearing very thin. Decades after we were enthralled with his father, the entire country now seems to have caught anti-Justin fever.

This was perhaps inevitable. For any elected leader in power nearly a decade — Mulroney, Chrétien, Harper – the rule is: Yer out! Voters get tired. Agendas are exhausted. Pollsters note that, once leader-fatigue sets in, it doesn’t matter who the alternative is.

Pierre Trudeau was defeated in year 11 as prime minister. He resigned and actively sought a job elsewhere. Then suddenly, a miracle. The Conservatives bungled a vote of confidence, and PET was called back in extremis.

In 2024 Justin, perhaps dreaming of his father’s Houdini-like escape from the iron laws of politics, refused to get the hint. He could easily have taken a final-act “walk in the snow” back on February 29th, as his father had. That would have been strikingly symbolic. Instead, at press time he is hanging on, in a clinical study of denial.

The Liberal party, a useful vehicle for centrist voters that sets Canada apart (the U.K. Liberal Party has been marginal for a century), may be headed for a crash landing.  Good MPs will go down in the next election — maybe even Madame Bibeau, the hard-working Liberal MP for Compton-Stanstead, who is present for every ribbon-cutting and school fair. Dommage.

Demography, not exodus

One repeated subject has been population and demography. In short, people numbers. I wrote several columns on federal census results, mostly based on 2021 StatsCan data.

In 2023 Canada bounced over the 40 million mark. On Oct. 1, 2024 we were 41,706,342 Canadians, while Quebec had jumped to 9,125,657 people.

My demography interest was sparked in the 1970s when the term “exodus” was thrown around recklessly. Recently, one anglo community leader used it again. This is a mistake.  

Exodus means: “a large number of people leaving a place or situation”, with the implication that it is definitive and perhaps fatal.

The encyclopedic Histoire des Cantons de l’Est (Presses Laval, 1998) cites a 1991 figure of 42,400 anglophone Townshippers; The Record’s Outlet banner today claims 41,000; the correlation of rising English school enrolment here with general population suggests about 45,000 anglos. These estimates fall within a fairly stable range. Anglos are here to stay.

Personal anecdotes are often deceptive in population matters. I discuss that in detail here: http://tinyurl.com/Anglo-Numbers .

And remember: the 2026 mid-term census is just around the corner.

Forest fires: the day after

The year 2023 was a torcher for forest fires in Canada. Writing last June (“The Burning Question”), I asked: Are forest fires actually more frequent or severe than in the past?

The article traced the history of a heavily forested country in which fires are a permanent menace. They were first recorded in the 1700s when smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed Boston and Detroit.

So, after a very high-fire year in 2023, how bad are fires likely to be in 2024 and after?

The authority on Quebec fire levels, SOPFEU (Société de protection contre les feux de forêt), reports that fires plunged in 2024. Through early October, a total of 16,961 hectares burned. This is about one-seventh the level of the 10-year average for Quebec fires: 116,152 hectares. Somehow, this good news did not inspire any journalistic applause (hello, CBC).

(Canada-wide data is reported in the national database, CNFDB, Canadian National Fire Database; that will be released late in the calendar year.)

Doomsaying predictions that high wildfire levels are inevitably rising recall some communication fiascos of the green movement. Climate change may be incontrovertible, but its impacts need to be thoroughly verified. As a journalist I can attest, however, that green messaging has often been terrible.

A decade ago, polar bears were highlighted as symbols of climate-change devastation. Majestic animals were portrayed as pathetic victims. Then that message stopped. Why?

Polar bear numbers have risen, reports the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), from about 12,000 in the 1960s to over 26,000 in 2024. Despite fluctuations in the mid-2010s, their numbers remain healthy. There never was an extinction crisis.

Then there was the Great Barrier Reef panic: coral was alleged to be shrinking away. (Not so, concludes the Government of Australia in its interdisciplinary report.) Same for Pacific atolls and islands. (They’re similarly resilient, reports France’s national research institute.)

Then a whopper by the U.S. Parks Service. It erected signs during the 2010s in Glacier National Park, stating: “Computer models indicate the glaciers will all be gone by the year 2020”. Oops. In 2021, with no indication the glaciers had changed much, the signs were discreetly dismantled.

Forest fires in Canada – a serious and ongoing environmental issue — should be saved from alarmist narratives. These prompt cry-wolf weariness. Fire seasons vary hugely in intensity and level. Not every wildfire is unprecedented or human-sparked. Even the CBC should grasp that.

Feedback welcome

A surprise comment came in August after a wedding at St. George’s in Lennoxville. A lady approached me to say: “I know you; I read your columns. Every word”. Gee, thanks. For a writer, that is like Christmas morning.

While friends and family have reacted, both pro and con, I have not been otherwise reachable. So here we go: dcwinch-editorial@yahoo.com

And bravo, Weekend!

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Accessing your health files

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

By Dian Cohen

Local Journalism Initiative

While there’s not much we can do to fix the overall healthcare system, there are ways to use the system we have to our best advantage. One way is to know what our health professionals are saying about the state of our health so that we can be part of the team trying to improve it and the quality of our lives. We can do that by accessing our personal health information and medical records – we’ve had the legal right to do so since 2004.

There are two streams of information in Quebec. One is Quebec’s Health Booklet. It’s an online service that lists the medications you get from the pharmacy, your lab test results, medical imaging reports, medical services you’ve received that are paid on a fee-for-service basis, health workers who’ve consulted your health information. It also allows you to make an appointment in family medicine online using the Québec Medical Appointment Scheduler or register with the Québec Family Doctor Finder (GAMF). It’s all in one place and it’s free.

The second stream is your health professionals’ notes. Your always-curious reporter has had experience requesting health records in Ontario, and like most Canadians, has found the process both frustrating and confusing. You’re given paper photocopies of documents in the file. They’re difficult to  understand as they’re written in medical jargon and barely intelligible shorthand.

A quick review of Statistics Canada findings on the subject shows that just over 50 per cent of Canadians reported accessing electronic health information in 2023; 27 per cent were unaware of the existence of such records, and the rest were uninterested or uncomfortable and so never asked.

On Sept. 22, 2024, Quebec added a new phase to its Law 25, that says, among other things, that, at the applicant’s request, computerized personal information must be communicated in the form of a written and intelligible transcript. Your reporter has been running late following up in Quebec; this provided a perfect opportunity to evaluate the provincial system.

To register for your Québec Health Booklet, the only eligibility criteria are having a health insurance (RAMQ) card and being 14 years of age or over.

The first step is to be computer-literate – this is an online service. Next, you have to prove that you’re you — the Government Authentication Service. This is a new service “that will gradually replace clicSÉQUR for authentication to online government services,” according to the website. Opening an account and verifying who you are gives you access to everything you may have to do officially with the government — SAAQclic – Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec online service; Québec certification service for early childhood educators; registration for Public Prescription Drug Insurance Plan; replacement of a RAMQ card if it is damaged, lost or stolen; making your consent to organ and tissue donation official; issuing your directives in case of incapacity; and of course the Québec Health Booklet.

There are more eligibility criteria to authenticate yourself to the government. To open an account you must be over 14, have a social insurance number (SIN), a RAMQ card and ensure that your Quebec-issued identity cards (RAMQ card and driver’s licence) show the same first and last names. Your reporter immediately ran into trouble — driver’s licence has the married surname but the RAMQ card has the maiden name. This situation arises because Quebec’s digital platforms don’t talk to one another. If they did, they would know from other identity markers that the person holding both cards was one and the same. Until this is corrected by your disgruntled reporter going in person to a Service Outlet with other identifiers like a passport, birth certificate, marriage certificate, she is locked out of the system. A big red flag for newcomers to Quebec – make sure the names on your driver’s licence and your health insurance card are the same! And understand that as of 1981, RAMQ for your health insurance card insists on the maiden name, but SAAQ for your driver’s licence doesn’t.

Fortunately a friend became a surrogate – he opened an account without a snag and was able to access his Québec Health Booklet. He reviewed the prescription drugs he takes and the lab tests he’s had and thought the Booklet was complete. A couple of things to add: When you go into the Québec Family Doctor Finder, the first thing you see is that as of April 2024, you will be registering for a nurse-practitioner. The site tells you that it’s not possible to say how long you’ll be on the waiting list.

Bludgeoned but unbowed, your reporter moved on to accessing her files from her local healthcare provider. This doesn’t seem to be difficult. You ask. They print out your file, charge you a small amount for the paper and you’re on your way. Asked why the doctor’s/nurse’s notes can’t be emailed, the answer is concern about security. This is but one of many local healthcare providers. All of them operate in more or less the same manner. The difference between them and other aspects of our lives is striking: we live in the age of email, e-banking and e-commerce. We can not only access, but also manage our private banking, insurance, purchasing and investing online from anywhere. Securely. Why isn’t access to our health information as convenient and secure as it is in banking or buying? Because no one has put in the effort – they’re so far back in the dark ages that the digital systems can’t even speak to each other. 

Patient access to information is valuable. It helps us manage our own health. It saves the system money! Our money! Almost half the people surveyed by Canada Health Infoway said that having their health information saved them from having to see a doctor at least once. “The return on investment is significant when we can avoid wasted patient and physician time when a visit isn’t necessary,” says Canada Health Infoway.

What we have is way better than nothing. But we need to keep pushing to ensure that different platforms can talk to each other and then to us. In confidence. We should be able to access to our health information whenever we want and from wherever we connect.

Cohendian560@gmail.com

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Sweets Chez Ludovic

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Photo courtesy

By Nick Fonda

Local Journalism Initiative

Somehow, the term pastry chef doesn’t quite have the same ring as pâtissier, just as the word pastries doesn’t necessarily evoke the image of the delectable petits gâteaux traditionally found at a salon de thé.  The pastries available at Chez Ludovic are unmistakably in the latter category.

“I’m a traditionalist,” says Ludovic Meunier who owns and operates a small pâtisserie on the corner of Heriot and Loring Streets in downtown Drummondville.  “There is a new wave in the world of pastries, but the recipes I use all have a long history.  Some I’ve tweaked a little bit, but the cakes and pastries I make are essentially the same as those you might have eaten a century ago.”

Born in the town of Mortain, Normandy, Ludovic grew up near Paris.  At the age of 17 he started a two-year program where he learned to make pastries, chocolates, and ice cream.

“It was a hands-on education,” he says.  “We would spend one week in the classroom, and then three weeks working as apprentices in one type of shop or another.  It was learning by doing.”

There were no family antecedents with a similar interest in baking, but Ludovic knew from early on that it was what he wanted to do.  He was happy to find that there was a demand for his skills.

“It’s not difficult to find work if you’re a pastry chef,” he says.  “It’s also a trade that lets you travel the world.  French pastries have been introduced pretty well around the globe.  There were lots of openings when I graduated and, if I’d wanted to, I could have worked as far afield as Scotland or Brazil.”

That Ludovic ended up in Canada had much to do with a family vacation he took in January of 1991.

“I came with my parents,” he recalls.  “I remember standing on the Plains of Abraham on a day when the thermometer was at minus 15 C and there was a bit of a wind to top it off.  It was brisk.  Yet, the cold here in Quebec is a dry cold.  In France, the air is damp and the cold is more penetrating.”

Two years after that trip, in March 1993, young and single, Ludovic came to Canada as a landed immigrant.  He found a job in Three Rivers.  There he met Line Vaillancourt, a native of Danville.  The couple moved to Sherbrooke, where they stayed for a year and a half before moving downriver to Drummondville in 1996 to open their own French pastry shop.

“We found a place on Brock Street, just a few blocks away,” Ludovic says.  “It took two of us to run the place.  I worked in the kitchen in the back and Line served our customers in the front of the shop.  When we started, we had a few tables and we served coffee, but the café part of the business never really took off.  I no longer even have a coffeemaker.” 

In 2000, Ludovic changed location and settled into one of Drummondville’s oldest, and most historically significant houses, built in 1881, by William John Watts whose family played an important role in the city’s early history.

Ludovic Meunier starts his day early.

“I’m up at 3:30 in the morning and here by 4 ,” he explains.  “I turn on my ovens, take the croissants out of the cold room to let them rise, and I start my day.  Everything sold here is made from scratch.  I work alone in my kitchen and I generally have two or three things on the go at the same time.  With breads and pastries, there’s always a wait time between steps, and during that time I work on something else:  prepare a quiche, whip up a cream, or doing whatever is next on my to-do list.  My day in the kitchen is planned and structured.  I like things to be precise.”

Croissants are in a perpetual state of fabrication.  Made of flour, butter, sugar, yeast, and a dash of salt, the dough has to be repeatedly rolled out and folded over on itself, and then given time to rest. 

“Because of the butter, the trick to croissants is to work on a cool surface,” Ludovic explains.  “A wood surface is much better than a metal surface for that reason.  The actual work time on a batch of croissants—rolling the dough, slicing it into squares, and folding them into their crescent shape—is probably an hour and a half.  If it takes a long time to make them, it’s because they need time to rest, and later, to rise.

Making pastries like the Pavé Royal similarly requires wait times of varying length between the multiple steps.

“The bottom layer of the Pavé Royal is a praline, a mixture of almonds, hazelnuts, sugar, and a specialty biscuit,” he explains.  “Over that is a layer of chocolate cake, then a layer of mousse made of whipped cream and chocolate, topped with a blanket of cocoa powder.”

“This is one of the recipes that I’ve tweaked,” he continues.  “I’ve made the bottom layer thicker, and I’ve made the pastry a little less sweet.  I prefer it like that, and my customers do too.  I make close to 20 different pastries and cakes, including éclairs and fruit tarts.  Some, like Yule logs and galette des rois, which I make at Christmas time, are seasonal.”

Typically, on an annual basis, Ludovic will use 1200 pounds of butter, 600 kilos of two different types of flour, and 200 kilos of sugar.  

“I’m in the kitchen all day,” he says.  “On the days that the shop is open—Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning till 12—I leave about half an hour after the shop closes at 5:30.”

Not only does Ludovic put in a long day, he also puts in a long week.  Although the shop is only open three and a half days a week, his weekend consists of Sunday afternoon.  He does, however, give himself an annual holiday, about four weeks in the summer that he and Line spend with family in Normandy, in the area around Mont St. Michel.

Ludovic is a specialty shop, at the far end of the spectrum from big box stores.  It appeals to a limited, but faithful clientele.

“I’ve been here 28 years,” Ludovic Meunier says, “long enough that clients who first walked in the door with their parents when they were 10 or 12- years-old are now coming in with young children of their own.  Over that time some people have passed on and new ones have started coming, but overall, my clientele is very stable.  Almost all are regular customers.  With many of them, if I see them come in, I can usually predict what they’re likely to choose.”

“My busiest days are Friday and Saturday,” he continues.  “Lots of people will call in the morning and ask for something in particular.  It does occasionally happen that at the end of the day I have half a dozen loaves of bread left, and it also happens that a customer comes in at 2 p.m. to buy a loaf of bread for supper and everything I’ve baked is already sold.  But usually, I’m fairly good at estimating how much I should prepare.  Business in the summer is slower than in the winter, and the busiest time of year runs from mid-October to Christmas.”

“If you count the hours, I’m probably working for much less than minimum wage,” Ludovic Meunier says, “but I love what I do.  The pleasure I see in people’s faces is worth more than money.”

French pastries have been described as being very attractive and as expensive as they are small.  They are very much a specialty item, but there are several French pastry shops in the Townships, including two in Drummondville.

Ludovic’s eponymously named shop, according to more than one afficionado of petits gâteaux, offers among the best pâtisseries.

For more information Ludovic can be reached at 819 477-7131.

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