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!