Lisa Hrabluk

Damn, I fell down the well of online information and it took me a while to climb out.

I’ve got a vase of lilies blooming beside me, the sun is shining on my keyboard and I came across this neat little web project yesterday, courtesy of bookninja, that go me thinking.

Project Bookmark Canada is going to mark the spots across the country that are imagined by writers and then described in their books and poems.

Michael Ondaatje & Toronto mayor David Miller will launch the initiative Thursday, April 23 by installing one of the bookmarks – a permanent marker that describes the book and the passage that references the area. The first bookmark is going in at the Bloor viaduct, which is referenced in Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion.

Its a cool idea. I just finished reading Old City Hall by Robert Rotenberg, which is set in Toronto and makes a point of mentioning Toronto landmarks, and – don’t laugh – I just read the Twilight series, and while it is a bit overwrought, author Stephenie Meyer, does make the Pacific Northwest region one of the central characters in her vampire love story.

Some other books that stand out for me are:

• Wayne Johnson helped me understand Newfoundland in a far deeper way than any history book with his novel Colony of Unrequited Dreams;
• Robertson Davies was inspired by Kingston for his Salterton Trilogy, Toronto for the Deptford Trilogy and U of T for his Cornish Trilogy – and I wanted to experience all of them;
• Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is a book I reread and which has sat on my desk, next to my computer since my early days in journalism;
• Elizabeth Hay took me way up north in Late Nights on Air and of, course,
• David Adam Richards has captured the poverty of rural New Brunswick in his ongoing study of Miramichi in his novels.

If I were to put up a bookmark in Saint John, I would put it in the deep South End, to mark poet Alden Nowlan’s place in Canadian literature with his piece “Britain Street”.

This is a street at war.
The smallest children
battle with clubs
till the blood comes,
shout ‘fuck you!’
like a rallying cry ––

while mothers shriek
from doorsteps and windows
as though the very names
of their young were curses:

‘Brian! Marlene!
Damn you! God damn you!’

or waddle into the street
to beat their own with switches:
‘I’ll teach you, Brian!
I’ll teach you, God damn you!’

On this street
even the dogs
would rather fight
than eat.

I have lived here nine months
and in all that time
have never once heard
a gentle word spoken.

I like to tell myself
that is only because
gentle words are whispered
and harsh words shouted.

Where would you put a bookmark?

I want to be a face in the crowd.

Watching the Obama inauguration on TV and online, I was moved by the millions that gathered on the Mall. Ordinary people, most of whom weren’t able to see this new president except on large screens erected for the occasion, stood there for hours, in the cold, just for the opportunity to say ‘I was there’.

I want that.

I want to be drawn to something that is so deeply powerful that I am compelled to be at a specific place on a specific day at a specific time to bear witness.

I want to be there with my family, with my husband and with my daughter.

I want to hold her on my shoulders so she can see the size the crowd she is a part of, feel the twitchy energy of anticipation and perhaps, hold onto the memory of this powerful moment so, years later she can say of that point when her nation changed ‘I was there’.

The Obama locamotive has arrived.

The soon-to-be American First Family (along with VP designate Joe Biden and his wife) brought a little gravitas to the pre-inauguration festivities in the U.S. with their whistle-stop trip from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., waving to the crowds from the back of an old vintage caboose that was supposed to echo the journey Abraham Lincoln made back in 1861.

He began with a speech in Philadelphia that challenged Americans to get behind a common purpose:

“What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives — from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry — an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.

Further in his speech he did what many politicians do – he cited examples of individuals who embody the challenges or issues of the day. But then he took it that one step further, illustrating the now trademark Obama rhetoric that takes ordinary stories, weaves them together and elevates them to nation-defining myths.

“[N]o matter who we are or what we look like, no matter where we come from or what faith we practice, we are a people of common hopes and common dreams, who ask only for what was promised us as Americans — that we might make of our lives what we will and see our children climb higher than we did…

“…But we should never forget that we are the heirs of that first band of patriots, ordinary men and women who refused to give up when it all seemed so improbable; and who somehow believed that they had the power to make the world anew. That is the spirit that we must reclaim today.”

This is the second major address Obama has given in Philadelphia. In March 2008 Obama gave his now-famous speech on race, A More Perfect Union.

While Americans were watching the pageantry of the inauguration Canadians were watching it too.

Of course we were.

The alternative was to tune in to yet another meeting of the Prime Minister and the Premiers and Territorial Leaders. (side note: why the heck can’t we call the leaders of the territories premiers? It would save typing out that cumbersome phrase.)

They were meeting in Ottawa to talk about the economic downturn, depression, recession, crisis (pick your own cataclysmic noun) and to debate how to solve it (heaps of public money into infrastructure and capital projects; bricks and mortar are back in style) and, in the case of the provincial and territorial premiers (see, isn’t that easier?), to tell Prime Minister Stephen Harper and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to spend the bulk of the money because it will be so much easier for the federal government to recover from a deficit.

Okay I just guessed that, based on a couple of GlobeandMail.com headlines and half-listening to the CBC radio news while cleaning the kitchen a couple of days ago.

These guys are so predictable.

If you want to actually find out what they did, try here or here or here.

Years ago during Bernard Lord’s first term as premier of New Brunswick, I was talking to one of his advisers about Lord’s rather low-key approach to governing. There were no grand statements or grand plans in the Lord years, it was just a regular day at The Office.

When I suggested that Lord was kind of boring, the adviser laughed and told me that New Brunswickers don’t want to see their government at work; they just want to know it’s working.

Now, that is true when it comes to stuff such as getting a driver’s license or paying property tax – I want ease of service – but where that adviser missed the point, and where so many politicians stumble, is in understanding that great politicians are not civil servants.

They are symbols.

We have bureaucracies to make sure the trains run on time.

We can only hope for politicians who know what to do when it pulls into their station.

“What I’m proposing has a simple name – it’s democracy.” – Bob Rae – to reporters in Toronto on Dec. 8.

Guess he didn’t like that name.

CTV reports Bob Rae is withdrawing from the Liberal leadership race.

Remember when the Globe and Mail used to have that little box on the bottom of the front page called ‘The Morning Smile’?

It’s back.

Well, at least I smiled when I read about New Brunswick MP Dominic Leblanc, what’s-his-name from the federal leadership prance (this hardly qualifies as a race), throw his support behind caucus fave Michael Ignatieff.

The third candidate in the Liberal leadership race, New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc, pulled out yesterday to support Mr. Ignatieff, arguing that circumstances require Liberals to rally behind the “consensus” choice as leader – tacitly pressuring Mr. Rae to follow suit.

“The ideal scenario for me is that the Liberal caucus is united behind Michael Ignatieff as the leader,” Mr. LeBlanc said.

How funny to talk of consensus at a press conference organized by Liberal courtiers furiously try to organize a pre-Christmas coronation.

Leblanc threw down his sword – as expected – and declared his fealty to Ignatieff.

Damn if that repentant socialist Bob Rae won’t do the same.

“I don’t think coronations are generally very successful in political parties. … Most people believe it’s better to have a contest, it’s better to have a choice,” Rae, 60, told reporters in Toronto.

“What I’m proposing has a simple name – it’s democracy.” – Toronto Star, Dec. 9, 2008

I have to admire the stubborn obtuseness of a political party that can get so caught up in its own rules, procedures and processes that it fails at the one thing that matters: earning the respect of Canadians.

In his new book, Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability in Canada the United Kingdom, Donald Savoie refers to political parties as empty vessels.

Brian Flemming, a former Trudeau-era policy advisor, wrote a thought-provoking critical essay about Savoie’s argument in the October 2008 issue of the  Literary Review of Canada.

In the article, entited ‘Control-Freak Kingdom’, Flemming summarizes Savoie’s thesis:

“The Canadian prime minister has become a Ruritanian king, surrounded by a coterie of courtiers and praise singers.”

Cue the choir; the Liberals and Michael Ignatieff are in the House.

What is this fascination the federal Liberal caucus have with Michael Ignatieff?

After a weekend of anxious phone calls and velvet-gloved cajolling, the Liberals are almost certain to name Ignatieff their interim leader this week.

In a country of 30 million + people, just over 100 (the MPs plus the Liberal senators) will crown him their king, pushing aside Bob Rae and what’s-his-name, otherwise known as Dominic LeBlanc, New Brunswick MP.

Poor old Stephane Dion is being unceremoniously dumped by his party. His greatest mistake, and there were many, was to forget the cardinal rule of Liberals: they play to win and so you better too.

I didn’t warm to Ignatieff during the last leadership race and in the last few weeks, he hasn’t done or said anything to give me any indication that he represents a new style of leadership.

How can a scion of the old order be repackaged as the the leader for a new era?

The evidence laid out by Michael Valpy in his excellent 2006 Globe and Mail profile suggests it can’t be done.

Ignatieff’s most recent behaviour provides further evidence of his inability to understand what the country wants and needs. As Macleans national editor Andrew Coyne points out in a recent blog post, Ignatieff chose to remain silent in the lead-up to the coalition’s creation and then, once it was launched, freed his minions, otherwise known as supporters, to whisper in journalists’ ears that Ignatieff was decidedly cool to the idea.

When I wrote a political column, I reserved my greatest contempt for those politicians who let their backers speak for them, preferring to pull strings off-stage rather than grab the spotlight and let their true opinions be known.

If you can’t speak up for yourself, how can you possibly speak up for Canadians?

We deserve better.

Margaret Wente’s on the money when she writes that there’s something not right about Stephen Harper’s smile.

We’ve got a prime minister whose hubris sent the House of Commons into unnecessary turmoil, a trio of party leaders who can’t see past their own ambitions and a battered Liberal party closing ranks around a bilingual photogenic man with a famous last name.

As Ignatieff prepares to grab hold of the Liberal party, his greatest task will not be to defeat Stephen Harper, but rather, to win back the trust of Canadians weary of political games.

David Williams, the long-time wise man of the Saint John Times-Globe and New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal newsrooms, has released a collection of his favourite stories and columns, entitled When Headlines Spoke in Capital Letters.

It’s a delightful book that illustrates not just what Saint John was once like, but also what great newspaper writing can accomplish.

David’s gift is his ability to draw his reader into each of these stories – some now over 40 years old – with language that feels fresh and inviting. He tweaks and prods the powerful and the pompous with the wit of a truly talented wordsmith.

Take for example, his May 13, 1972 column, “Booze and Business” about city councillors coming to council meetings drunk:

Of course, I would never write a column about it.

To mention liquor and a Common Council meeting in the same connection – even to hint at it by implication – would be unthinkable.

To even to attempt to answer such questions would call for the care and caution of a novice animal tamer in a cage full of lions and tigers.

David, of course, does answer the question and as I read that column, I pictured him at his typewriter in the old Times Globe office, with sleeves rolled up, wearing that half-smile you see on the face of every journalist when they are writing something that sings.

I know David, ever so slightly. He was the letters to the editors page editor and the stamp columnist when I arrived at the Crown Street newsroom in August 1997. I was a business writer for the Telegraph-Journal in those days and so I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to talk to the quiet, well-mannered and always immaculately dressed Mr. Williams.

As someone new to the newspaper and to New Brunswick, I didn’t know anyone’s back story, a distinct disadvantage when trying to build relationships in the Maritimes. So, I wasn’t aware that David had once dined on T-bone steaks with Tommy Hunter, had climbed to the top of the Harbour Bridge to take in the view and had engaged in a thoughtful conversation with the new Catholic bishop about celibacy and the role of women in the Church.

I do know that now, thanks to When Headlines Spoke in Capital Leaders.

But I’ll tell you what I did know.

I knew that David Williams stood apart in that newsroom.

That he was afforded a level of deference and respect that only one other person, the late Glen Allen, received from the staff and managers of that paper.

That he never raised his voice because he never had to.

That he listened with great patience and respect to every person who called him to harangue and harumph either him or their target of disdain.

And I knew that when I wanted to know something about Saint John or New Brunswick, David would have the answer or would know who did.

When Headlines Spoke in Capital Letters is a wonderful discovery.

Treat yourself to some great stories, told by a pretty damn good writer.

You can order the book directly from David at www.DavidWilliamsReports.com

It is also available at UNB’s Inprint Bookstore on King Street in Uptown Saint John and at local Coles and Indigo Bookstores.

Yesterday I went into Canadian Tire looking for enough Christmas lights to create a landing strip for eight tiny reindeer.

Instead, my path was blocked by the four horsemen of the Canadian political apocalypse.

Okay, so Harper, Dion, Layton and Duceppe weren’t literally in my local Canadian Tire store, but they might as well have been.

There, gathered around the Christmas lights aisle was a salesman and two customers yammering on about that mess up in Ottawa. They were mad. Raise your voice mad. I had to detour down another aisle to pick up my Noma outdoor lights and was still able to hear them going on about political party public financing, the role of the Governor-General and voter intent.

Retail politics on full display at a shopping mall near you.

Oh, the inanity of it all.

While partisan supporters have been quick to pick sides in this Harper vs the Coalition of the Willful, their numbers are dwindling as an increasing number of Canadians view the faux drama of this power play/constitutional drama as little more than a poorly constructed pantomime.

This amateur production has it all:

• A song and dance from the male lead Stephen Harper about the evils of separatist leader and former BFF (circa 2004) Gilles Duceppe. Although Harper was thrown off balance with the quickly formed coalition, he’s “back on my feet /Just a man and his will to survive“;
• There’s a second number performed by that slightly discordant duo of Stephane Dion and Jack Layton who believe they can live together in perfect harmony. “There is good and bad in evryone/ We learn to live, we learn to give/Each other what we need to survive together alive.”
• Audience participation via talk radio, quickly organized public opinion polls and my fellow shoppers; and,
• A traditional story line defined by a set of performance conventions. Welcome back to Canada Michaëlle Jean. A few short days ago she left for Europe a mere figure head and now return as a constitutional head of state.

We spent $200 million on a federal election and we end up with a House of Commons that appears to be held together with little more than a few pieces of hockey tape.

Someone owes us an apology.

We’re not likely to get it from a cast of characters that have displayed little character over the past two weeks.

Too strong to tell us they’re sorry. Too proud to tell us they were wrong.

Is it any wonder that Canadians don’t love politics that way we use to do?

From the comments I’ve gotten here and through Facebook I’d say Canada’s telecos and cablecos have managed to unite all their customers in one large chorus of………..ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This in a country that once prided itself on excellent phone service. Sadly Bell, Aliant and Rogers can’t seem to get it together in the wireless world.

Interesting side note. Earlier this week I was sitting in on an MBA class at the University of New Brunswick Saint John campus (UNBSJ), which featured a discussion about the rise of NBTel as an innovative company in the 1990s only to be blasted into mediocrity when it was subsumed by that telecommunications deathstar that is Bell Canada around the turn of this century.

The class has a high percentage of international students and one South American student offered the opinion that he was disappointed and surprised when he arrived in Canada for school to discover that he had to sign a multi-year contract with Aliant for wireless phone service. In his country, the regulator won’t allow multi-year contracts.

His point was, with wireless phone technology changing every few months, phone users don’t want to be stuck with the same phone for two or three years – it would be obsolete a few times over before the contract was expired.

Tell me about it.

On my last trip to Toronto, I lost my cell phone while digging through a fabulous warehouse sale. Trust me, for the clothes I got and at 70 per cent off or more, I didn’t mind sacrificing the phone!

Anyway, I hadn’t had my plan long enough to qualify for an upgrade, but Michael did qualify for an upgrade. So off to mall we traipsed. Michael got his new phone – lovely touch screen – but it, of course, came with a three-year contract. I inherited his well-used flip phone, circa 2006.

Now I know why we call South America a developing region; it’s developing modern wireless service a hell of a lot faster than us!

Shawn Graham deserves a new title: fanboy-in-chief.

The provincial Throne Speech was delayed Tuesday afternoon because the Premier and an assortment of his self-titled brain trust were down in Moncton with 4,000 other people for a noon hour presentation by former US president Bill Clinton, hosted by former NB premier and Canadian Ambassador to the US Frank McKenna.

Moncton is about a 90-minute drive from Fredericton, the supposed seat of power, but as the premier and his cadre illustrated in their morning pilgrimege down the TransCanada, the real power in the province on Tuesday was sitting in a pair of overstuffed green club chairs, relaxin’ and regalin’ a crowd of 4,000 people in an old hockey arena on the outskirts of town.

Two political stars soaking up the adoration of their fans.

And why shouldn’t they? McKenna and Clinton are two highly charismatic and fascinating public figures.

People, including Graham, wanted to be there to listen to the insight and wit Clinton and his host brought to their interpretation of the major political and economic issues of day.

It was a level of rhetoric not normally heard in this province and it was a stark contrast to the speech delivered a few hours later in the Legislative Assembly.

Allow me to illustrate the contrasting, ah, speaking styles.

Here is Bill Clinton talking about fixing the economy on The View with Whoopi Goldberg. (I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence)

Clinton on The View

Reasonable and engaged with the live studio audience whilst chatting with the ladies.

Here is the once-effusive Shawn Graham talking to reporters at the Throne Speech media conference:

Media conference

Getting……………..Very…………..Sleepy…………………

Sheesh.