Tag: Canada
Vancouver is a Strange Place
After a month of driving to from in and around western Canada, I’m wondering what to do next. While on the road, I did as I intended, writing poems as I went. Maybe not as many poems as I would have liked, but enough that I have the raw material for a chapbook.
Driving Together Through Ontario
This poem emerged during my poetry challenge (a poem a day through the month of September) which resulted in the creation of a poetry photobook which you can download here in pdf format. I held your hand through New Liskeardand kissed you in Kapuskasing.In Hearst, where we stopped for gasby the pulp mill, I kneaded…
The Canada Poetry Challenge
When I was nine, my brother and I climbed into the back seat of our parents’ Ford LTD station Wagon, the model with the fake wood paneling on the doors, and we spent the summer driving across Canada and back.
10 Things I Love About Canada (and 10 I don’t)
Today marks the 144th anniversary of Canada’s confederation, a time to celebrate national pride. I would describe myself as fiercely Canadian (the word fierce is cognate with the French word for proud), but I’m also fiercely ambivalent about being a Canadian.
Russell Williams and the Reputation of the Canadian Military
Russell Williams, graduate of Upper Canada College, decorated pilot, military academic and strategist, commander of a secretive base in Saudi Arabia providing support to troops in Afghanistan, commander of CFB Trenton, fetishist, cross-dresser, serial rapist and murderer.
Vancouver McDonald’s Olympics 2010
On Friday February 12th, 2010, the Vancouver Winter Olympics officially began. While half the sentient universe was watching the opening ceremonies on TV, I was reading a book.
Ninety Pounds of Piss and Vinegar
When Lois Wilson submitted a request to transfer her church membership, board members of the receiving church asked the minister: “Who is Lois Wilson?” The minister, Rev. Doug Norris, answered: “She”s 90 pounds of piss and vinegar.”
A Fair Country, by John Ralston Saul
In A Fair Country, John Ralston Saul offers another account as to why we find it so difficult to engage one another without recourse to polarizing habits. In brief: Canada has inherited from both France and England a colonial perspective. In fact, Canada is doubly colonized when one considers Trudeau’s statement that living in Canada is like sleeping beside an elephant; in subtle ways, we have been culturally and economically subjugated by the U.S.
Tofu Pies – Weapons of Mass Instruction
MP Gerry Byrne thinks that throwing a pie at a public servant falls within the definition of terrorism. This brilliant suggestion came after Fisheries Minister, Gail Shea, got a cream pie full in the face while speechifying in Burlington, ON on Jan. 25th.
Preston Manning is a Scientist
The Harper Conservatives have appointed Preston Manning to the Council of Canadian Academies, a federal science advisory panel whose mandate is to offer an “independent, expert assessment of the science underlying pressing issues and matters of public interest.”
Pride Day in Toronto
Toronto hosts the 3rd largest pride day in North America with over a million people flocking to the city over the weekend.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association
Yesterday, the Canadian Recording Industry Association made its submissions to an appeal court in an attempt to overturn an earlier decision which held that file sharing (including music files) is legal in Canada.