Guide to Alberta Politics:The Lieutenant Governor

In my previous guides I talked about the democratic process in Alberta. Democracy exists so that the will of the people can be carried out in government. However, under the Canadian Constitution, we are a constitutional monarchy. The Queen is our head of state. Serving "at her Majesty's pleasure" are representatives who play a largely ceremonial role in government.

Canada is a federal constitutional monarchy. The Queen is our head of state. Elected official swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen and so do new citizens.

I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.

The Queen's representative in Canada is the Governor General and in Alberta, the Lieutenant Governor (typically pronounced "leftenant" in British fashion as my friend Glenn likes to remind me). Their roles are a legacy of Canada's history as a colony of Great Britain. 

The Queen, the Governor General and the Lieutenant Governor have power on paper but their role is primarily ceremonial. As unelected leaders, their job is generally to ensure that the will of the people is carried out through the decisions made by elected representatives.

Every province has a Lieutenant Governor who is appointed by the federal equivalent, the Governor General, who is appointed upon the advice of the Prime Minister upon recommendation from the Queen's Privy Council.

Alberta's Lieutenant Governor, the Honourable Lois Mitchell, was sworn in on June 14, 2015. Like all Lieutenant Governors, she was chosen based on her record of service to her province and community. She is a successful business woman with a history of volunteerism, especially in amateur sport.

What does she do? The position of the Lieutenant Governor is apolitical. This means that the Lieutenant Governor does not get involved in any political activity, intervene in day-to-day issues and decisions made by Alberta government ministries, or advocate for groups or individuals seeking to change government. She does not belong to any political party and cannot show favour to one party over another. If you contact her to ask her to act on your behalf, she will forward your concerns to the elected government.

She has two primary roles.

Constitutional She ensures the constitution is upheld. She summons and ends the sitting of the Legislature, reads the Speech from the Throne, and dissolves the Legislature when an election is called. If there are irregularities in how an election is conducted, she She ensures the province has a Premier and swears in the cabinet. She gives Royal Assent to bills passed by the the Legislative Assembly. She also signs Orders-in-Council and other official documents.

1. Royal Assent:  The Lieutenant Governor can use something called "royal prerogative" against the elected government if she feels a bill contravenes the constitution or infringes on fundamental rights and freedoms. This only happens if the bill violates the constitution or gives the province powers that  belong to the federal government.  Historically, this occurred three times in 1937 when the Social Credit government was in power. Two of the bills passed in the house would have put banks under provincial control.The third limited freedom of the press. The decision to refuse to give assent to all three bills was later upheld by the Supreme Court. While these three bills never became law, the Premier of Alberta William Aberhart had a little hissy fit, closed his house and took away his official car.  Yet the Lieutenant Governor remained in his position for another 23 years and the Social Credit party with its majority government remained in power for another 34 years.
   
   in 2000, Lieutenant Governor Lois Hole wanted to discuss a private health care bill with then Premier Ralph Klein. It was suspected she might withhold Royal Assent to a bill that was protested by thousands of Albertans. However, she was unable to discuss the bill with the Premier and she did eventually give Royal Assent.
   
2. Ceremonial  She presides over many ceremonies, including the presentation of awards to Albertans who have shown bravery and dedication. She hosts the Royal Family when they visit Alberta and represents the Queen at numerous functions including meeting visiting dignitaries.

What does "Lieutenant Governor in Council" mean? This term can be found on many legal documents. It refers to the actions the Lieutenant Governor makes with the advice of the elected government. It does not refer to actions she might theoretically take against the government.

The Lieutenant Governor is a lovely lady. She does a wonderful job representing the Queen.  She does her best to embody the words spoken by the Queen decades ago: 

I want the Crown in Canada to represent everything that is best and most admired in the Canadian ideal. I will continue to do my best to make it so during my lifetime, and I hope you will all continue to give me your help in this task.” I would like to repeat those words today as together we continue to build a country that remains the envy of the world.

The Lieutenant Governor is not elected by Albertans. She will not intervene in the daily workings of democracy in our province and I don' think we would want her to. 

You can read more on the official page.

Social Studies Teacher Laments a Lifetime of Accomplishing Absolutely Nothing

WEST BUTTE ALBERTA    A retired Albertan educator is demoralized after learning that his former students learned absolutely nothing during their 12+ years of public education.

      "I didn't think they were all paying attention in class," said 63 year old Social Studies teacher Grant McIteer of West Butte, Alberta, "but I wasn't thinking it was quite this bad. I can't help but wonder what I was doing wrong all those years I taught high school." Upon learning more than 56,000 Albertans believed they could remove a majority government from power based on an online petition, he shook his head and continued, "I can accept the poor spelling and bad grammar. I can even accept that no matter what I do, some students still believe Hitler was a communist. But the fundamentally flawed understanding of the democratic process is a bit hard to take." Echoing the sentiments of dozens of teachers across the province, McIteer continued, "Recent events have called into question whatever it was that I thought I had accomplished after more than 30 years as a teacher." 

     When reached for comment, an unidentified representative of the province's Ministry of Education stated "We're not really sure what to think at this point. Alberta has an excellent curriculum and traditionally one of the best records in the world when it comes to test scores. So to learn a significant number of Albertans believe they can call on the unelected Lieutenant Governor to overturn democratically enacted legislation is a bit confusing." 

     Rumours of a Royal Commission are unfounded at this point, but something the government has not ruled out. "Something went wrong, there is no doubt about it. We're just not sure what."

Guide to Alberta Politics:Recall, Plebiscite and Petition

In my last post, I discussed how elections work. 

Elections in Alberta are the means by which voters select representatives in the legislature. 

If the person or the party elected does not do the job electors hoped for in some parts of the world, there is a way to call for an end to a particular piece of legislation or remove a representative through peaceful and legal means.  However in Alberta, the only legal way for voters to effect change while a majority government is in power is through election. 

Recall Legislation allows registered voters to remove a politician from office and hold another election when voters have lost confidence in their representative.

British Columbia is the only province in Canada with recall legislation. The Province of British Columbia brought in Recall and Initiative legislation following a province wide referendum in 1995. Under this legislation, voters can petition to remove a representative after member has been in office for 18 months. The petition requires the signature of more than 40% of all eligible voters in the riding. No one has been recalled so far.

Under the same legislation, a registered voter can propose a new law or changes to an existing law. The voter must obtain the signatures of 10% of registered voters in each electoral district. To date, there have been nine petitions approved and one-regarding the Harmonized Sales Tax-was successful. 

Alberta very briefly had recall legislation from 1936 until 1937 when it was repealed. There have been several private members bills requesting recall legislation. None have passed. Wildrose MLA Lelea Aheer proposed such legislation in November 2015. Her proposed bill includes a recall based on a petition 20% of registered voters. It is highly unlikely to pass because the Wildrose does not control a majority of the seats in the house.  A summary can be found on David Cournoyer's blog.

We do not have recall legislation in Alberta. There is no mechanism to recall an MLA or a Premier other than another provincial election.

Plebiscites provide an opportunity for registered voters to have their voices heard on important issues by direct vote. 

The government may call for a plebiscite or, under section 128 of the the Elections Act,  the Lieutenant Governor may request one if she feels it is expedient. However, since the Lieutenant Governor is largely a figurehead, it would be unprecedented for her to act against an elected government. Even if she did, the plebiscite would not be binding. 

In other words, the government is under no legal obligation to conduct a plebiscite or act on the results.

Historically, there have been five plebiscites in Alberta:

• 1971  Daylight Savings. Called by the government. Passed
• 1967  Daylight Savings: Called by the government. Defeated
• 1957  Liquor Sales: Called by the government, this had two parts, one calling for more ALCB (government owned liquor stores) and one calling for "mixed drinking" to be allowed in bars.  Passed.
• 1948:  Electrification: Called by the government, this asked if the province should create a crown corporation to deliver electricity. Split.
• 1923:  Prohibition. Triggered by a vote in legislature after the presentation of a petition in accordance with the Citizens Referendum Law (no longer in effect), a petition for a plebiscite was presented by the Prohibition Committee which wanted to see the end of liquor sales in Alberta. The plebiscite was defeated.

Petitions

Online and paper petitions are a great way for people to demonstrate their views on many issues. I have signed many petitions myself and in fact I used an online petition drum up support for the retention of air ambulance services in my community. However, what is their legal status in Alberta?

There are circumstances when a petition can be legally filed.  For example, under the Elections Act, a citizen can petition the government in the case of a controverted elections, ie when the legitimacy of an election is in doubt. Citizens can also petition the Minister of Municipal Affairs on certain municipal issues.

Citizens may also petition the government of Alberta directly. Petitions must be presented by a Member of the Legislative Assembly. Members are not obligated to present these petitions. The petitions must be in proper form and must be reviewed by Parliamentary Council before they can be presented. Petitions cannot call for any money to be spent by the government.

Neither the Assembly nor the Government are compelled to take any action on a petition.

To recap, we do not have recall legislation in Alberta and will not have it any time soon. The elected government is not legally obligated to act on either a plebiscites or a petition. 

The next provincial election will take place in 2019. As a citizen, there are many ways you can effect change. But to effect a change in leadership, you must wait until the next election.

Guide to Alberta Politics

So I guess some of you weren’t listening in Social Studies. Maybe you thought Social Studies was boring and had no impact on your life. Now the economy has tanked. You're mad. You want to blame somebody. You want to blame the government. You think if you got rid of the government, things would be better. Maybe it would help if you understood how the government is elected and how you can change it. 

Here’s a guide.

Things we have

1. Political Parties. A political party is a group of people who share a set of beliefs about how government should operate. They make this known to the public through their platform- a set of promises they intend to keep if elected. People vote for the political party whose platform they agree with.  Follow the links to read the platform of the ruling New Democratic Party and opposition Wildrose.
   
   Alberta has 9 political parties.
   
   The political party that elects the most MLAs to the legislature forms the government. As of May 5 2015 that party is the New Democratic Party.
2. A Premier  The Premier is the leader of the political party that holds the most seats in the legislature. Albertans do not directly elect their leader.
   
   Alberta's Premier is Rachel Notley, leader of the New Democratic Party.
3. Ridings The province is divided into areas called "ridings" or electoral districts. Ridings vary in population and size. For example, the riding of Dunvegan-Central Peace-Notley has just over 23,000 people while Spruce Grove-St. Albert has a population of nearly 52,000. The person in the riding who gets the most votes becomes the MLA. The party that elects the most MLAs becomes the ruling party and forms government.
4. First Past the Post  Alberta, like all other provinces in Canada, use the "first past the post" or "plurality" system of electing representatives. This system is also known as "winner-take-all" because whoever gets the most votes wins. Let’s look at how this would work with some simple numbers. Let’s say you have 3 candidates running and 10 voters.
   

   Scenario #1 Majority Government In the scenario that follows, Party A wins. It has more seats than any other party. It also has more seats that all the other parties combined. It would form what is called a majority government. If Party B and C were to join forces they would have fewer seats than Party A . 

   We have a majority government in Alberta. 

   Party A	6
   Party B	2
   Party C	2

   
   Scenario #2 Minority Government In the scenario that follows, Party A wins. It has more seats than any other party but it doesn’t have the most votes overall. It would form what is called a minority government. If Party B and C were to join forces or form a coalition government, Party A could be defeated in a motion of no confidence.  

   We don’t have a minority government in Alberta.

   Party A	4
   Party B	3
   Party C	3

5. Motion of No Confidence The ONLY way an elected government can be democratically removed from office is if it fails a motion of no confidence. This only happens when there is a minority government. Alberta has never had a minority government. It does not have one now. While the opposition could make a motion of no confidence, when there is a majority government it would not pass and such an action would be pointless. See above.
6. Members of the Legislative Assembly or MLAs These are the people Albertans choose to represent them in the legislature. Each MLA in Alberta today belongs to a political party. MLAs tend to vote with their party on any laws that are proposed. There are 87 MLAs in Alberta. As of Jan 9 2016:

• NDP 54
• Wildrose 22 
• Progressive Conservative 8 
• Liberal 1
• Alberta Party 1
• Vacant 1

       The opposition parties combined have 32 MLAs. 

       That means the NDP is a majority government. 
       In other words, they hold the majority of the seats. 

       If every MLA who is not NDP voted against the NDP, they could not defeat them.

Alberta:Not as conservative as you thought

7.     Elections. In Alberta, citizens vote for the people they want to represent them in the legislature. This is called representative government. Alberta holds regular and fair elections.

Alberta’s Election Accountability Amendment Act that says elections must be held between March 1 and May 31 every four years. The last election was May 5 2015.

The next election will take place on or before May 31 2019 following a request from the Premier to the Lieutenant Governor to dissolve the legislature.

Things we don’t have

1. Recall legislation
2. Proportional representation
3. Plebiscites to demand another
   
   Stay tuned for more Social Studies lessons!

Spirit of Christmas

Where would Christmas be without traditions? Our lives revolve around little customs and rituals that have evolved through the years, like decorating gingerbread houses, skating parties with Santa, and -you know what I'm going to say- the ever-popular and much maligned "Christmas concert." Perhaps as you are reading this you are heaving a sigh of relief because yours is over for another year, or cursing at the very thought of another class of tiny tots holding up construction paper letters to the glare of a thousand flashes and the hum of a hundred video cameras.

Christmas concert memories from my teaching days have all blurred together, except for one, the concert held in the small northern community where we lived many years ago.

"It's always been a tradition for our school to host a Christmas concert," our principal told us. "The community expects it, and I guarantee you will see parents there who would never attend interviews or meet-the-teacher-night. A few years ago we put on a musical, `The Littlest Angel.' We held auditions and practiced after school. Actually, I directed it. It was great. Having one school event is hard work, but it frees up class time for students who need extra help. Of course, being principal and all, I don't have time to direct it myself, but think about it."

After the staff unanimously turned this idea down in two seconds, we decided to go with the usual format. For the kindergartens and grade ones, it was easy. Does it really matter what they do? Who can resist thirty little ones in their Christmas finery, up on stage for the first time? The grade two-three class got their hands on a super musical about Santa and his snowmobile, which they performed with a beautiful wooden skidoo built by one of the dads. The grade three-fours did some skits they wrote themselves, and the five-sixes sang a couple of carols with their classroom assistant, a talented local musician.

But what was I to do? The seven-eight-nines thought the whole concept of a concert too juvenile for words. "Can't we just set up the chairs and pull the curtain open and closed?" One suggested. "We'll serve refreshments," another offered. "Do we have to?" In their own adolescent way, I knew they wanted to be a part of the evening, but they just couldn't figure out how. As the day of the concert drew frighteningly nearer, I tried to get creative. "You could write your own play about what Christmas in the north is like?" No way. "How about an air band with some contemporary holiday music?" Well, maybe...no way. "What if you read and acted out `The Night Before Christmas'?" Forget it. "Okay, break into small groups and brainstorm your own ideas. But we have to put something on."

Imagine my astonishment when the final decision was handed down. "We want to read the story of Christmas from the Bible and act it out." This from a bunch of 12-18 year olds whose behaviour had caused the local nuns to cancel their religious instruction class? This from the group of wild and rebellious young offenders who had named their class `The Exterminators'? The Christmas story?

And so it was that the next week of afternoons were spent in a frenzy of tempera and tinsel. Helen and Susan painted brilliant backdrops in the style of Ted Harrison, Lorraine and others prepared their angel wings, Curtis practiced his humble bow as a wise man and Eddy and Eugene sorted through tea towels and rummaged for bathrobes befitting a native shepherd. Myra, a grade seven who had startling just burst into womanhood, rehearsed her lines- and Cindy volunteered to open and close the curtains.

The concert itself was bedlam. The classroom rang with last minute threats to back out by the principal players, screams that halos were misplaced, the baby for the manger couldn't be found, and where was Myra?

The community turned out in full force to watch, although the adults in the audience could have used a few lessons in concert hall etiquette. Dads wandered out for a smoke in the middle of songs, aunties gossiped with other aunties, moms visited the bathroom and shouted at their children at inappropriate times, but the kids were perfect. They shone with a glow more perfect than anything the makeshift spotlights could provide.

The next year, there was a new principal. In his wisdom he decided that given the chaos of the previous concert, the school would not host another. The stressed out staff did not protest. I never found out what the people in the community thought, and maybe they didn't care, but I know the kids missed their concert. They seemed to be the only ones who knew what it was all about.

Originally published in the ATA News, December 10 1997.

Of Yoga Pants and Ideologies

So I have this activity in Social 30-1.

I ask kids to go to this website called spezify.com and enter the term "ideology" and see what comes up.  Spezify uses some kind of algorithm to search certain areas of the web comes up with a visual display of images, quotes, websites and videos around your term.  

It's kind of an interesting activity as many different things come up and no two kids get exactly the same result.  You might get a meme of Will Smith, the cover of a textbook about Chairman Mao, or a thought provoking quotation or a beautiful photo. It gets students thinking out of the box or so I hope.

I've had this activity in my online course for a few years. I never get any comments on it. Then a few days ago a kid emailed me and said "I don't get the point of this spezify thing. I did it and all I got was pictures of yoga pants. That is not helpful to my thinking."  So I tried the thing and it worked normally. But I figured something was up, dug around a bit and sure enough if lululemon doesn't have yoga pants called "ideology." Five star yoga pants no less.

What's the connection between ideology and yoga pants? Clever branding is what I am sure the genius marketers at lululemon think.  I mean, how cool are ideologies? They can imply that yoga (in expensive pants) is the core of your belief system.Core values that influence the political and economic system you believe in. And if their consumers have no clue what an ideology is, by co-opting the term maybe they will seem politically aware.

I wonder if Rachel Notley wears ideology yoga pants as part of her Sunday workout?  Or does she wear something union made? And when she runs, do her body guards go with her?

Spezify "Rachel Notley" and see what comes up. Ugliness that make me ashamed to be an Albertan. Ugliness that reminds me Rachel was not wrong when she said Alberta is "the embarrassing cousin no one wants to talk about."  She might have been referring to Alberta's record on the environment, but with every word and every meme produced by Alberta's Wildrose supporters, I am reminded that Albertans have plenty to be ashamed of.

Ideologies are not pretty things. No matter what pants they are wearing.

Land of the Free

When I was a kid, my brothers and sister and I spent a lot of time on our grandparents' farm.

One of our favourite things to do was play in the granary full of canola, or rapeseed as we called it then. We would climb up the homemade ladder on the outside of the wooden building, climbing far over our own heads, jumping into the pile of shiny little black seeds. We would see how far down we could wiggle and still pull ourselves out again.  It was a ton of fun. We didn't think of the danger. Every now and then Granddad would say, "You kids aren't playing in the rapeseed, are you?"  "No," we would say. Thinking we weren't supposed to be in there because we might reduce the quality of his harvest.

So when I heard about the three little girls who were killed, it was chilling. I knew that could have been me slipping down under the seeds, unable to pull myself up. My brothers following in a desperate attempt to save me, perishing in the same way, suffocating under all those little black seeds.

We never thought of the farm as dangerous. It was home. It was familiar. We collected eggs and fed chickens and found the barn cats and their kittens. We leaped from the hay loft. We climbed as high as we could on the stacks of hay bales. Once a mouse ran up the inside of my brother's pants and that was hilarious. We wandered around the cows and horses. Swam in the river. Played on the old tractor and in pickup truck.  Dressed up in old clothes. Picked wild strawberries and saskatoons. Slept overnight in the old bunkhouse, loading up the airtight heater to the point it glowed red. It was a place where we were free.

My grandfather

My parents and grandparents were not risk-takers. They were not in any way casual in the way they raised us. We were warned about certain things. We learned a healthy respect for machinery. We knew which animals to avoid. We weren't allowed to swim unsupervised until we reached a certain skill level. We had a healthy fear of crossing the highway where my grandmother herself died. So I understand when people say they are angry about Bill 6. I really do. I understand resenting any implication that farm parents don't teach their children safety skills. The family farm is their home and they believe they and their employees and their kids are safe. They don't want anyone setting safety standards for them, any more than I would want someone telling me how to store my kitchen knives or the propane for my barbecue.

But the facts are the facts. As idyllic as farm life may seem, a farm is also a work-site. It contains far more dangers than a house. Should we romanticize a way of life that includes death and injury without recourse for the victims? Five children died on family farms last year. The three girls in the canola. A ten year old boy driving a forklift. These children were not safe.  They were denied the opportunity to continue the way of life their parents hold dear.

In high school Social Studies we look at many issues when it comes to liberty.

We look at the degree to which we should sacrifice individual rights and freedoms for security. We give up our individual right to drive as fast as we can or drive while impaired to ensure traffic safety. We give up our right to carry a pair of scissors onto a plane for public security. We give up our right to smoke in a public place so others will be free from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. We give up privacy every time a CCTV camera is focused our way. It's part of living in a civilized society where the rights of the community take precedence over the freedoms of a few.

We also look at positive and negative freedoms. Freedom from and freedom to. The owner of a family farm may want freedom from government interference. But an employee or a child deserves the freedom to be safe. The freedom to say no when asked to perform dangerous tasks. The freedom to financial security if an accident occurs. The freedom to grow up.

The places in between

I'm supposed to teach my students "historical thinking skills."  I'm not 100% sure what that means. I know it doesn't mean memorizing facts from the past. It's more about understanding how the past influenced the present, cause and effect, intended and unintended consequences, contextualizing events, worldviews, who benefited and who gained, and trying to understand the world through the eyes of those who went before.

As with a lot of my teaching, if you can call what I do that, I hope students will find that there is very little black and white in history, just as there is very little today that is clearly 100% right or wrong. Globalization, nationalization and ideologies all have their reasons and their varying impacts on the worlds' peoples, for good or ill.

The Industrial Revolution, for instance. Child labour, atrocious working conditions, terrible living conditions. The end of the feudal system. The end of cottage industries. Urbanization. Increasing employment. The beginnings of organized labour. Public education. Universal suffrage. Human rights.

Stuff gets lost along the way of history and "progress"- whatever that means. Other stuff is gained. The world is always changing and we change with it.

And that brings me to Madagascar.

It is a dreadfully poor place, statistically and in almost every visible way. Poverty is all around you. Malnutrition. Stunting. Village after village made of bricks or sticks. Mile after mile where you don't see even one manufactured product, not even a tarp to protect you from the sun or the wind. Women scrubbing their garments in the river and spreading them to dry on stubble-covered hillsides.People pulling plows by hand. Shops whose sole product is a thermos of coffee and a glass to drink it from.

In a way, it is like stepping back into history, into a medieval era before mechanization and technology and the mass production of goods.  And you, as a wealthy first world tourist, ride by in your air-conditioned SUV time machine, watching how people used to live, back in the dark ages.

The poverty you see is not the result of any one historical event. It may be the result of colonialism, economic imperialism, tribalism and corrupt political systems. One thing you know for sure is, it's not the result of laziness.

Here you see barefoot men running as fast as they can pulling "pousse pousses" -a fancy name for a rickshaw, a device that has been banned in many countries. The men run because if they don't get you to you destination faster than you could by walking, why would you hire them?  And you ask yourself, "Should I hire a pousse pousse?" Because it seems so wrong to be pulled from place to place by a barefoot man when you could just as easily walk. But if you don't hire the pousse pousse, who will? Will the man and his family starve? Because what other labour is there to do?

Here you will children walking along rural and city roads, balancing water jugs on their heads because there is no running water in their homes. Indeed, even most health clinics do not have potable water. You see women and children balancing impossibly huge bags of charcoal. They haul these to their homes or to the market to sell.  Children shouldn't have to work this hard.  But if they don't, where will the heat come from for their mothers to heat their homes and cook their meals?

Here you see the $7 billion Ambatovy mine, a joint venture, 40% owned by Canada's Sherritt along with other partners. It is the largest single employer in the country with a workforce that is 84% Malagasy according to the project's website. It employs hundreds of foreign workers who make significantly more than their Malagasy counterparts. It's a secretive operation, with most of its action hidden high in the highlands around Moramanga and the rest behind a guarded wire fence. Foreign owned companies contributed the capital and the know-how to make the mine work. Madagascar provides the raw materials and the labour force. In exchange for the extraction of raw materials, Madagascar receives 1% in royalties and the employment of many of its citizens.

Yet without Ambatovy, thousands would be unemployed.

The uncomfortable place between right and wrong, past and present, progress and regression.

With Regret

Is it a cultural thing, this need to find someone or something to blame?

Why do we feel the need to find a cause for every effect? 

Is it human nature to lash out at a specific person when we are hurt and angry? Is is somehow normal to find someone we can make responsible for our suffering?

Certainly, there are reasons for things. Global warming contributes to climate change. Drunk drivers kill people. Sex gets you pregnant. Arsonists start fires. It's important to know those things and take responsibility when we are part of the problem.

But often there is a host of complex global factors that contribute to events. In Alberta we are experiencing a serious downturn in the economy due to the the declining price of oil. Who is to blame? Some blame the government or even the premier herself. Yet there are dozens of reasons why this has occurred. The impact of any one individual, even the premier of a province, is negligible.

There are other things that just happen. Things that are are no one's fault. Natural disasters, illnesses, accidents and the unexplained. 

Yet we still want to find someone to blame. We blame our boss, our co-workers, our community, our parents or others close to us. 

And we blame ourselves.

• I didn't work hard enough.
• I work too hard.
• I should have studied more.
• I should have taken that job offer.
• I shouldn't have taken that job offer.
• I'm not smart enough.
• I never should have gone out with that guy.
• I'm lazy.
• I'm a loser for being depressed.

Teachers are among the worst people out there when it comes to blaming themselves. They frequently take responsibility when their students don't learn or don't behave or don't "succeed" yet rarely if ever do they take credit when their students achieve.

You've seen the memes. The memes that tell you everything that is wrong is your own fault. The memes that suggest that the world out there has nothing to do with what happens in your life. It's all on you. 

Tell that to my daughter who wakes up every day wondering if she still has a job in the oil industry. Tell that to my sister who lost her house when B.C.'s coal mines closed. Tell that to the poor of Madagascar who labour night and day for a dollar. Tell that to the Syrian refugees, trapped between their repressive government and ISIL. 

Why do we beat ourselves up in a thousand ways for the things we didn't do that we should have done, the things we could have done better, the things we should never have done? Our self abuse leads to spiraling self recrimination and guilt that causes anxiety, depression and a deteriorating sense of self worth. 

Stuff happens in life. Things that are not your fault. Things that aren't any one person's fault. They just happen. 

not today

November 13, 8 p.m.

We're walking the dogs.

That's a lot smoke, my husband says.

Haven't heard any sirens, I say.

Then they start. A lot of them. We look up the street. Blue and red flashing lights everywhere.

Uncomfortable silence. We pick up the pace. Even the dogs seem more agitated than usual.

Finally he says it.

That's where the mosque is.

We walk faster. Like there is anything we could do.

The fire trucks come blasting down the highway and turn into town.

The mosque burned down once before back when it was out of town. Arson was suspected, I recall.

In my head ...don't let it be the mosque don't let it be the mosque don't let it be the mosque.

We cut the walk short and head through the park. The mosque is standing. A couple of vehicles in the parking lot.

It's house fire a block away. EMS standing guard at the end of the street gives us the idea no one was hurt. By the time we get home the fire chief has already tweeted the house fire has been put out and all loss stopped.

No one likes to hear there's a house fire. Especially not in my town.

But it wasn't the mosque. Thank God for that.

Not my town.

Not today.

For Fuzz

Burns Foster

My dad always called him Fuzz.  He never explained why. It wasn't until years later when Fuzz and his wife Kay came for a visit that we learned his name was Burns. Kay did not call him Fuzz any more than my mom called my dad "Ginge"- which was the name Burns called my dad. This was mystifying for us kids because Fuzz was the guy who featured in many of Dad's stories as bomb-aimer of their Lancaster "S for Smitty". Burns was someone else altogether.

My dad was a pilot in World War II. Fuzz was a bomb-aimer who described his job on the plane as follows:

“Fuzz”, Burns Wilfred Foster, Bomb-aimer, probably caused more disturbance than the others. He sat beside the skipper and shoved the throttles through the gate on take-off; took a position beside the navigator and behind the pilot to operate Gee and H2S and pass fixes to the navigator; down to the bomb hatch to fuse bombs upon crossing the enemy coast; drop window (foil strips) to confuse enemy radar, give the pilot directions to the target—steady,steady, left left steady, push the button and wait before calling bombs bays closed. Much the reverse on the way home.

Burns far left and my dad third from the right.

I think about Dad and Fuzz and their navigator Doug as they once were, bright Canadian boys barely out of high school. How young they were. How eager. I picture them flying through the dark skies over Europe, skies pierced by searchlights, holding their breath as they prayed to escape detection by the enemy. As they watched one plane after another fall in front of them, at some point did they think their luck would run out? I imagine Fuzz and Dad and Doug working in a kind of strange rhythm that must have developed over their many missions, reacting to whatever came at them. Hoping their bombs would hit the target. Mission after mission, returning unscathed. My dad's neat notes in his log book tell a tiny part of the story in his own perfect block letters, "FLAK HOLES IN KITE."  "SAW FIVE KITES SHOT DOWN, 2 CHUTES OPEN." On D-Day "GOOD TRIP EXCELLENT NAV. BRIDGE AND HIGHWAY." "WELL PRANGED." Once in awhile "RESULTS DOUBTFUL" and once "WE DID IT AGAIN!"

I imagine the adrenaline rush. The camaraderie. The joy and relief after a safe landing. And I wonder too, did they dare dream of the future that they might never experience?  

These life and death experiences must surely have shaped the men that they became. Confidence, faith, civic-mindedness and compassion were qualities they all came home with. An appreciation for what they had. And friendships that lasted a lifetime. Dad and Fuzz had a special connection in those exciting years in 419 Moose Squadron. Their experiences in the air created a bond as did their time away from their missions. 

The home of Gwen Smith in the Lake District.

On leave they once spent time on an estate in the Lake District. My dad boasted that he had once played on the same pool table as Winston Churchill. I wonder if Fuzz was with my dad the time these gullible young lads met some girls in the pub-perhaps the infamous "Oak Tree" down the road- girls who told them they would meet them in church the next day. The boys showed up and the girls never arrived.

Burns was not the youngest of my dad's crew as I once thought- he says he had five months at least on my dad and Pete was younger yet. He went on to become a pharmacist in Ontario and had a couple of kids and now grandchildren and great grandchildren. My parents received Christmas cards and letters from them every year. Once they came to visit. Years later we drove across Canada and met them. I know very little about him but I know he is a good man who has lived a good life.

Every June 6, Burns used to phone my dad. They talked about their families and their lives. They caught up with stories about the rest of the crew. I don't know if they ever talked about what they did on that fateful day-D-Day-a day that changed the course of history. Did they reminisce about their flight over the coast of Normandy or the bridge they bombed, the night they flew so low they could feel the bomb blast in the cockpit? Did they recall their amazement as they looked down on the ships that filled the English Channel on their return flight? 

I contacted Burns when my dad passed away and every now and again I hear from him. An email entitled, "Love of my life" telling me that Kay, to whom he had been married for 72 years, had died. Another time, an apology, saying that even though his picture had been in his local paper as being a "tech savvy senior" he did not know how to accept my accidental LinkedIn request. More than once he has complimented me on my blog and thanked me for being my father's daughter because "that, of course, is how I make the connection." That is a kindness not many would think of. Burns and I were both excited to hear from the grandson of the one missing member of the air crew. John Knox junior had read my blog. I sent him photos he had never seen. Burns shared stories with him. In my Dad's absence, Burns and I speculated about why their old wireless operator had fallen out of touch. 

Now, every June 6, Burns reads my blog and sends me an email. Perhaps I am the only connection he has to his past: the only connection that remains to his good friend Ginge.

Once in awhile the phone rings and I see "Burns Foster" on the call display. My heart skips a beat and I smile. Yet while he talks my eyes well with tears and I can barely speak because it's like for a few minutes my dad is right there beside me. The emotion is almost overwhelming. I too have a connection, a connection through my dad to a man I have scarcely met and barely know. A connection to the lively young Fuzz who came alive for me through my father's stories. A connection to the much older Burns, a wise and gentle man who is so much like my dad. A connection that transcends the miles and the years. 

Burns Foster. The last living connection I have to my dad and his generation. I am glad to know him.

Dad in the middle at the back, Burns far right front.

Girl

In his letters he called her "Girl". There were many letters. Letters from Sarcee Camp, where he trained. Letters from the front. Postcards from Belgium while he waited to come home. Later, letters from their home to her parents' homestead where she spent every summer. And much later, long lonely letters from the Far North where he worked. He signed himself "Boy" or sometimes just "B".

She told me one day she planned to write her life story.

She never did.

It was an epic romance. A quiet beautiful girl from a pioneer family and a lonely charming British orphan. Wars and hardship. Compromise. A woman in search of adventure. A man who wanted nothing more than a home and family. A love that lasted.

He was a banker in Lake Saskatoon. She wanted to be a nurse, but instead became a homesteader with her family in the Peace Country.

One day he came to call on horseback. The horse bucked him off and he lost his gift of chocolates and mandarin oranges. He said that newcomers found them and felt they had come to a promised land where oranges and chocolates grew.

World War One. He signed up immediately, joining the Peace River Contingent of the 66th Battalion. They were married while he was on leave. He gave her a beautiful ruby engagement ring. She lost so much weight after he joined up that he had a keeper ring made for her, a ring with the number 66 on it. A ring I wear to this day.

He went to war. She followed. I don't know how she afforded passage but somehow she made her way across the continent and onto a ship and into Britain. A couple befriended her. The only passenger who didn't suffer from seasickness, she sat at the captain's table for dinner.

England. Once she got lost in the streets of London. Terrified and afraid of the dark, she ran for miles until she found a familiar place. Her leather gloves were drenched with sweat.

Back row, far left.

She worked in a munitions factory and lived with my grandfather's people. One day the factory was shelled and huge chunks of glass fell onto the women below. Her neighbour, a refugee from eastern Europe, was struck in the back of the neck by falling glass, saved only by her enormous braid of hair which was sheared off completely.

She was good at her job and soon was promoted from making shells to inspecting them. One sits on my desk.  One of the millions of women who stayed behind, trying to do their part in times of fear with limited resources and a shortage of labour. The women of my grandmother's generation didn't just "keep the home fires burning." They kept their country working.

He was wounded and returned to England to recuperate. Soon he returned to the front to fight another day. Then the armistice. It took her some time, after the war, to secure return passage. It took him even longer. But eventually they both made it home.

Delia, Alberta

They moved from one prairie town to another. Their first child was born and then the second. She sewed fabulous dresses and doll clothes. She nursed my mom through meningitis. It was the Depression. She learned to make anywhere she lived feel like home. She picked the gold embroidery out of her gorgeous flapper dress stitch by stitch so she could make a new dress for my mother.

My grandmother loved her two children fiercely in her own quiet way. A neighbour miscarried her first child. "How horrible," the ladies said. "Losing your first child!" "Oh," my grandmother said, "Losing your second child would be so much worse. Because then you know what they are like. You would know what you missed."

Every summer she returned to the family homestead with her two girls by train or by car. She was an excellent driver and could maneuver almost any vehicle out of snow or mud. Granddad remained behind, writing his letters to his darling girl. She rarely wrote back.

In Edmonton

They moved to Edmonton, where he was known to juggle plates for dinner guests, much to her alarm. There were countless visitors from back home, especially when the second World War began. Their daughters grew up, went to university, got jobs, married and had kids. My grandparents retired back to the Peace Country just meters away from the family homestead where she could raise horses and chickens and and cats and visit with her sisters.

My father, before he was my father, came for a visit. "I've never liked the name George," she said. "It reminds me of someone walking on gravel."  And "Never mind about the porridge. If you don't like it I'll just feed it to the cats."

Granddad worried about money. In retirement, he relieved for bank managers across the Far North. Inuvik. Aklavik. Fort Smith. More letters home from "Boy." No letters from "Girl." His letters described his loneliness and asked why she did not respond.

On the farm

Toward the end of their lives, my grandfather wanted to move to town. They rented a suite at the seniors lodge. He loved chatting with the people in the lodge. Every chance she got, she drove back to the farm, once getting snowed in for a week. He relented and they moved back home. To her dying day, she was still searching for a piece of land to homestead on.

On the morning of their 60th anniversary, Granddad was grouchy. "I got up this morning and went to thank your grandmother. I sat on the side of the bed and told her how much I loved her and what a wonderful wife she had been for the past 60 years and she just rolled over and went back to sleep!"  My grandmother smiled. "I didn't hear you. I didn't have my hearing aids in."

My grandfather died. My grandmother stood in the kitchen. Her stalwart pose dissolved and she wept. "Whatever will I do now"? she said. Late one winter night, returning from tea with her sisters, she stepped in front of a truck and she was gone.

My grandparents were married for 62 years.