Dear Mr. Harper, I MISS TRUDEAU

I miss Trudeau. I’m sure I’m not alone, but at this moment in time it’s hard not to think about him. Canada seems to be stuck in a metaphorical political rut. No one takes us seriously, no one seems to want to really ‘hang’ around with us anymore and we hear those slanderous whispers drifting over our boarder from down south. When did we become the odd man out? When did people stop caring about Canada?
I think it all started with the conservatives. I’ll admit, Canada isn’t generally a scandalously interesting Country. We don’t have an Amsterdam or a Paris or a New York, but we did have the hopelessly liberal, anything goes attitude that used to draw in a few shocked viewers. Oh to remember the early days of the gay marriage bill, the leaders who weren’t afraid to flip people off and of course good old Trudeau’s close relationship with Fidel Castro. You have to admit that that was the golden era, nobody during that age was saying Canada who?
Unfortunately now we have Mr. Bobble head Harper, who instinctively agreed with many Bush policies and today still relishes in his conservativeness. This is terribly unhelpful to our off color Canadian image. We’re supposed to be the crazy leftists, the bleeding heart liberals that draw in those viewers and yet here we are once again with the stiff and terribly dull Harper in charge. What are we to do with a Prime Minister like that? There’s just nothing fun about him. Even his stiff hair refuses to let loose and have a good time; this is not a positive sign.

Generation A: The Politics of Disinterest

I sat down the other day with the new Douglas Coupland book Generation A. At first glance it appeared to be the farthest thing from contentious or political, but the more I read the more my gears began to turn. Coupland, by far my favorite Canadian author, was talking about bees, yes those pesky creatures that most of us run screaming from, or possibly that’s just me. The point though is that the more he went on with his unique prose, the more the scenario reminded me of the direction in which our society is going, the isolation we seek, the things we simply don’t care about anymore. This novel is supposed to be about my generation, a time era filled with people hungry for solitude, and then it hit me. This isn’t just applicable to teenagers, to us moody unappreciative monsters, but instead to Canada as a whole.
We don’t want to be politically active anymore, we don’t want to debate; we don’t even want to read about what those strange freaks who do want to debate are saying. We just want to be left alone. The more you search the more truth this statement seems to hold. In elections, barely fifty percent of eligible Canadian voters do. News channels are focusing less on politics and more on what celebrities are doing. Many citizens don’t even know who’s in power. I repeat there’s this complete disinterest.
So I look to Generation A for answers. In the book it points to ‘Salon’, a pharmaceutical drug designed to make people care only for themselves. Today, in the real world, I think we call this commercialism, globalization, the new society of ‘oh you deserve it’. Sure we seem to like our drugs here in the year 2009, but none of this seems to rot our sense of oneness, our empathy, our line of communication, like this cancerous idea that we are special, so special, and need autonomy.
I say this as a self critic as well, I too enjoy finding a one of a kind shirt, relishing in a homemade bracelet that no one else will ever wear, but the political consequences of this seem terrible. The screaming matches in parliament are just a little more lethargic, the bills just a tiny bit slower and there remains this lack of public excitement. It’s enough to make one terribly upset; or it would if our feelings weren’t so darn rusty.

Catholics and HPV: A Dangerous Love Affair

The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is responsible for 70% of cervical cancers, which amount to 220 000 Canadian deaths a year. Luckily today we have the ability to prevent the spread of this; a fact that seems decidedly good. A single vaccine has the power to guard a future generation of girls from the heartache of a now largely unnecessary illness. Why then are there objections being raised from the Canadian Catholic Church?
Yes, many Catholic schools are sidestepping government recommendations for the vaccine, voting to bar their female students from getting it. The reason, because to get HPV one must have sexual intercourse, an activity the Catholics frown upon amongst students, possibly rightly so, but the greater issue is that students will inevitably do as they please. HPV then is seen as to curb premarital sex. HPV appears though a cruel and unusual deterrent to hold onto, a malicious way to teach morality, as it has the potential to take female lives.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2008/09/25/hpv-vaccine-alberta.html has a great article on the subject, describing the stance of two Alberta Catholic schools; a disturbing reality that should not be allowed by the government.
We fight for separation of church and state, and yet this is sanctioned. Some may say that the non-allowing of this vaccination is trivial, not important and that schools should have the opportunity to approve of it or not. Those on the opposition point out that those girls can get the vaccine at their doctors or even go to a non Catholic school, but this is a weak argument. Girls often do not choose their schools, and parents who are catholic may disregard this vaccine because of the stance of the school. The school’s choice is a powerful one that is hard to reverse, a decision that could be fatal many times over.
The Canadian government gives organizations and people the power to choose. I hope these schools see that their means to morality appear perilously wicked from my vantage point.