In July, I visited Washington D.C. on a casual political pilgrimage. It was the only place to have a chat with Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. Abe and Tommy were just fab with their advice and insights.

Washington is a most intriguing city. Thanks to the convergence of Virginia and Maryland, its urban planning is confusing. My GPS, a toy I’m not too fond of (I’d rather rely on my brain. It rarely fails me…debateable of course), had a hard time making sense of it. It took me 30 minutes to find my Best Western hotel in Georgetown.

We finally settled in and began to immediately absorb the gentle southern sensibility Washington exuded. I asked a few natives whether Maryland was “officially” a Southern state. They couldn’t answer me in the definite, what, with it being the capital and a “border” state during the Civil War.

There was too much to see and do in just one day and a half. We decided to take a trolley across down. It was the only realistic way to get a glimpse of the city. On and off we went the trolley and it was worth it. For next time, we know what and where we want to focus.

One of those spots is Arlington National Cemetery. Many Canadians probably never heard of it and if they have it was recently when it was announced Ted Kennedy (scratches head) was going to be buried there. Still scratching.

Washington and Canada have a special connection I discovered. Nationalists here, predictably, take a twisted pride in the fact we (well, technically the British) burned down the White House in 1812. However, on our trolley journey along Pennsylvania Ave., we discovered Canada’s embassy was located there as opposed to Embassy Row to “mark the special bond between the two countries” as the guide put it.

Makes sense to me. There is a special connection between Canada and the United States.

Arlington Cemetery, too, commemorates Canada. Specifically, its  military heritage. While Canadian soldiers aren’t buried on Arlington’s hallowed grounds, our nation and flag are. It turns out, Americans fought under the Canadian flag during World War I and Mackenzie King, the long-serving Canadian Prime Minister, suggested in 1925 a memorial be built to remember this and President Calvin Coolidge obliged.

This became known as the Canadian Cross of Sacrifice. The monument was designed by Canadian Sir Reginald Bloomfield.

Canada has a proud military history and heritage. I visited the monuments dedicated to Canadians in Dieppe. France and the Netherlands, two nations liberated by Canada, have never forgotten our efforts and sacrifices.

Sadly, Canadians have. We’ve let our military pitifully whither and wallow into obscurity.

It’s a shame.

Boy, is Obamacare getting hot or what? Have you seen footage of some of these Townhall meetings springing up across the country? The government is asserting this is all a conspiracy driven by the insurance companies who have too much of a vested interest in letting health care reform take place. Personally, I think the White House has lost its mind. When a government speaks openly about conspiracies and actively asks people to spy and snitch on one another well…

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” Thomas Jefferson, 1788.

Obviously, Canada is in the middle of the debate. Yay! Attention! Despite some inaccuracies, I like this video because these guys actually secretly filmed their experiences within the system here. Be forewarned, it’s from Pjamas Media - a conservative media outlet. Ooooo, so scared, mommy!

Both sides are presenting their side of the story, and while each make valid points, I still feel the left paints waaayyyy to nice a picture and under estimates just how difficult it is to run such a massive operation while the right paints waaayyy to scary a picture.

All I know is, A) good luck in trying to control costs and B) the Canadian system IS under severe strain. These facts are well-documented and can be seen in plain view when you visit a hospital.

The video is valuable for one reason: It takes a secret camera inside clinics in Quebec. The picture is stark inside a semi-private clinic imagine public! See, I told you Mike we should have done this years ago when I suggested it.

Like most videos of this sort, it suffers from some factual errors. But still far less egregious and outrageous than anything Michael Moore puts out about the subject relating to Canada.

For example, they interview someone about his experiences with dermatology. Who cares? Like dentistry, dermatologists have private practices therefore they’re irrelevant to the discussion.

An important distinction is not made: As someone (Paul say hello) keenly point out to me, these are semi-private clinics. Not public hospitals. Public hospitals never close. Just as importantly, the Quebec system is not indicative of what goes on in other provinces since health care falls under provincial jurisdiction. For instance, Quebec allows private clinics to operate while Ontario doesn’t.This leads to different results.

These are just a couple I spotted. I feel the video was at its best while they were inside the clinics. Nonetheless, it still makes some valid points.

Generally speaking, despite provincial control, nationally we all experience, long wait times, rising expenditures, drops in overall quality of care, lack of accessibility to GPs and advanced equipment, experiencing doctor and nursing shortages and fiscal mismanagement. Canada’s performance in the OECD isn’t exactly something to write home about either.

None of this can and should be disputed. If we do, then all we do is defer to another time to make meaningful changes in enhancing and improving our frustrating Canadian public system.

What kind of changes? Man, that’s the million dollar question. So far, the best we’ve come up with is to expand private services to help alleviate strain on the public side.

Rather than sit back and take glee that the Americans want to have some type of universal care - has anyone read the bill? - maybe we should take this opportunity and assess our system properly and with conviction.

Which begs these questions: Is government responsible for providing care to all its citizens? Are there other ways to get care to the most vulnerable (children and elderly)? Is it feasible to run a universal system over time?

When I was sprouting into a young man in the 1980s, I was (and still am) what is described as a sports junkie. One sport I took a liking to was cycling. But I wasn’t content just to ride my bike along Laval’s long farm roads. No, I had to learn about the history of the sport.

Soon enough, I was armed with knowledge about the Grand Tours - Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana - as well as keeping up with the UCI circuit and rankings. This included the famous cycling names from Fausto Coppi, Eddie Merckx, Bernard Hineault, Miguel Indurain and Greg LeMond to but name a precious few. See the list of cycling’s all-time greatest here. Not surprisingly, Italy, Belgium and France dominate the rankings.

Being Canadian, and a proud one at the time, I above all followed the careers of Steve Bauer and Alex Steida.

Bauer finished 4th overall at the Tour de France in 1988 - 4th! Still a Canadian best while Steida was the first North American to ever wear the coveted the coveted Yellow jersey at the prestigious tour in 1986.

Since Bauer and Steida, there hasn’t really been a cyclist to continue in their path. In fact, the 80s were a promising time for not just Canadian cycling but soccer as well. Remember we made the World Cup in 1986? That year, Canadian captain Bruce Wilson presented me with an MVP award at a tournamet at Cap de La Madelaine in Quebec. I was convinced Canada had arrived and the way they played against tournament favorites France early on (we lost 1-0), how could we not be proud and but look ahead? And then it all stopped. But soccer is not the point of this post.

Professional cycling is.

Under the radar screen of most Canadian sports media outlets, Ryder Hesjedal powered his way to a 49th overall finish at the 2009 Tour de France (he was 45th in 2008). Just as impressivley he was a top three rider for Team Garmin-Slipstream behind teammates British rider Bradley Wiggins who finished fourth overall and eight place finisher American Christian Vande Velde.

It’s nice to finally see Canadian representation at prestigious racing tournaments. Hesjedal deserves some attention. He’s earned it.

I find we don’t debate immigration issues enough in this country. If someones does open a discussion, it sometimes takes on a negative connotation for no justified reason.

It’s possible to meaningfully pontificate about such matters without paranoid assumptions often associated with adherents of anti-immigration or politically correct minions.

A perfect example of where the law, politics, immigration and racism all conspire in a confused dance is with the problem of illegal Mexicans pouring into the United States.

The question revolves around exactly how to handle illegal immigrants presently working and living in the United States.

For many, there is a legitimate argument with the notion that illegal aliens must be forced to follow the rules. If it means deportation so be it. Those who go for this approach aren’t anti-immigration or racist; they just want to maintain the integrity of the law.

Is it fair for illegals to be granted amnesty? Not when measured against the reality that thousands of people are patiently and legally waiting in line.  Indeed, how is this fair to them?

So America has to wrestle with its own immigration issues including Muslim immigration and racial profiling.

At least the debate is in the open in the United States. Not so here in Canada. This is unfortunate because once in a while we need to vigorously question and challenge our leaders. It’s the only way to really keep democratic public discourse alive.

Is discussing immigration in Canada a taboo subject? Does the media offer a fair and balanced picture of it?  Is Canada’s  immigration department is secretive and non-transparent?

Sometimes I wonder if we simply shy away from facing questions that force us to look into the mirror.

Who we are has a direct correlation in what we become. But if the road is littered with misguided ideas or faulty immigration policies, what we become may mean we won’t care about who we are.

Here are some links regarding immigration:

Immigration Watch Canada

CanadaVisa.com

Refuge

Canada and Immigration by Freda Hawkins (Google Books)

Double Standard: The Secret History Of Canadian Immigration

The problem I have with multiculturalism is the strict and steadfast adherence of preserving cultural identities (through taxpayer funding) at the expense of forging a unified, albeit elusive and confusing,  national Canadian identity.

I much rather prefer a pluralist society free of state intervention where citizens are the driving force. And yes, there’s a difference between pluralism and multiculturalism. Creating a “community of communities” organically from a grass roots level is far more meaningful than legislating culture through a bureaucratic hand. But that’s just me. I’m a sucker for power residing in the sovereign individual. Lost concepts of a time…aw forget it.

Of course, thinkers, politicians and people alike have been divided about multiculturalism since it was made a policy in 1971 (and inserted into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Section 27) by the Liberal party.

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A few years ago I wrote an article on Intersportswire exploring two unlikely sports teams: the Montreal Canadiens of the NHL and soccer club Athletic Bilbao in Spain’s La Liga. The crux of the piece was about how sports and politics collide.

Sports and politics are often intertwined, sometimes unwittingly and sometimes by design. What makes Montreal and Bilbao unique is their conscious effort to maintain identity in a global sports environment. Can a team maintain a local cultural identity and still win on a global scale?

It must be said that Bilbao’s case is more rigid than Montreal’s. Bilbao rarely, if ever, employs anyone outside its Basque heritage. Pragmatically, Montreal doesn’t constrict itself at the player level this way, or else they simply wouldn’t compete – especially considering they don’t have the rights of French-Canadian players through the territorial draft anymore. However, at the coaching and management level it’s a different matter.

Recently, Montreal Canadiens president Pierre Boivin publicly proclaimed the next coach of the fable (but faltering) Canadiens would be a francophone - or at the very least a coach who spoke French. Boivin further stipulated it was the duty of the club to give Quebecers a chance to coach in the NHL.

To some this was an odd (if not discriminatory) assertion to make. The only duty of a sports franchise is to win and make profits.

To others, there was nothing obscure in what he said. In fact, it’s a question of being practical. He was merely stating the reality of the Canadiens being intricately woven into the French-Canadian fabric of Quebec society. They are one and the same, and not to be separated.

I think both arguments are valid. For the most part, the organization does seek a healthy balance but when push comes to making hard decisions that benefits the team will they lead with conviction?

However, there are consequences to both scenarios aforementioned. The first may mean tolerating no French-Canadian representation for a coaching stint, while the second can lead to mediocre results.

Employing a person to lead a great brand like the Canadiens is a serious thing and a question we can ask is, should it come at the expense of a better candidate? If it does, then are the Montreal Canadiens a meritocracy operating in a free market system or are they a provincial operation in a global competitive system?

A blunter question is, are Quebecers willing to accept mediocrity in the name of identity? We often hear about how we Montrealers don’t tolerate losing seasons.

As a prominent member in the community, Boivin should stay clear of cultural nationalist rhetoric and speak as a business leader. In this way, he could help change the public narrative concerning this issue and usher in a fresh way of looking at its hiring practices.

After all, as the greatest hockey franchise in history, isn’t it beholden to the Montreal Canadiens to give its fans nothing but the best?

As Canada’s immigration population exploded in the 20th century, a reaction to it by white Anglo-Saxon Protestants was brewing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Specifically, this reaction manifested itself into a pseudo-science puff program known as eugenics.

More ideological than scientific, the eugenics movement sought to improve (or at least maintain) the human race (well, certain races anyway) by manipulating reproduction. Notions of “feeble mindedness” and immigrants with “weak genes diluting the strong Canadian racial stock” were the bedrock of the movement in Canada. It found many supporters particularly among women, most of whom worked for women’s suffrage and temperance groups.

One prominent figure was Nellie McClung. McClung was influential in introducing sterilization laws in Alberta where eugenics found its strongest base. By 1928, Alberta had a Eugenics Board which existed until 1972 and was removed by the conservatives under Peter Lougheed. McClung, incidentally, is ranked 25th on the CBC’s list of greatest Canadians.

Canada wasn’t the only country to be gripped by the dubious biological assertions made by eugenicists, although the scope of its sterilization program was large and rivaled only by Germany. The latter ended its program in 1945. Eugenics in the United States (Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie and John Davison Rockefeller along with many other notable Americans contributed funding to the movement) reached its peak between 1910 and 1940 while Canada’s program persisted well into the 1960s and early 1970s. In the UK, one of its early proponents was Aldus Huxley.

Interesting how smart people we tend to revere and consider visionaries were pedestrian and contemporary once upon a time. Alas, we all can be clouded by prevailing contemporary doctrines. Chalk eugenics up into the “it’s sounded like a good idea at the time” bin.

Today, it’s all too easy and tempting to think eugenics is gone. However, its spirit and residue remain among us. Varying degrees of racial and intellectual chauvinism permeates into all facets of our lives like sprawling rust.

The idea of population control under the pretext of saving the planet is one such example. It’s an ugly scourge supported by the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Ted Turner. One must ask: Who permitted these people to play God?

As absurd and disturbing as this may be, a silver-lining of sorts can be found. Consider the following small example where one need only visit a local movie theater to observe how our society is experiencing a loss of civility. The “feeble-mindedness” and “absent-mindedness” of some patrons which translates into impolite and boorish manners has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with a loss of basic common ethics and etiquettes once observed and respected.

We in the West, of all creed and race, better smarten up and pour our energies not into alchemy like eugenics but into more important issues: notably re-establishing and reasserting our moral compass, liberty, personal and civic duties and responsibilities.

If we do, perhaps we won’t be so easily swayed by misguided philanthropists and foolish misinterpretations of history.

Maybe then will we destroy the sickening mental stench known as eugenics in all its inglorious and scary manifestation.

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Watch this video to get some perspective on what Christmas should be about.

Another holiday season rolls around and again here in Canada everyone gets antsy about how to acknowledge the fact that most of us will be getting some time off work and school and will likely eat a big dinner or two with family and other loved ones.  Yes, “Happy Holidays” is the safest phrase to use if you’re a clerk at a retail store (although I haven’t recently seen a clerk friendly enough to give me any greeting aside from “Is that everything?”), but this week’s debate in Quebec’s National Assembly about whether or not to call the tree on the Assembly’s grounds a Christmas tree illustrates that Canada has really lost its way in trying to please everyone all the time.

True, in Canada we have a separation of church and state, so why have a tree at all?  Because holidays are supposed to be times of peace, happiness, worship and/or reflection, a time to step back from the quotidian and enjoy the better things in life, and the tree is a central symbol of just one of those holidays.  As much as I hate Christmas music blaring at me in stores the first day after Halloween, I have to admit that seeing little lights at night adorning trees and houses warms my heart and helps me recall how I felt celebrating Christmas as a child; the aversion to the former is rooted more with my disdain for excessive consumerism than any problem with the concept of Christmas itself.  I no longer identify myself as Christian and don’t put a tree up in my home, but I am not offended by other people celebrating this holiday or calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree, just as I am not offended by anyone practicing their religion in peace and happiness.  To be offended by a Christmas tree is the height of un-Canadian, intolerant thinking.  In our quest to accept everyone, are we so determined to erase all the customs of the people who founded this nation that we can’t even speak the names of those customs, let alone consider what those customs are supposed to be about?

A completely legitimate argument in this debate surrounds inclusion: why should the lawn of the Assembly only display symbols of Christian traditions?  I fully support the diversification of holiday symbols on the lawns of government building if that’s what it would take to call a Christmas tree what it is.  A Menorah isn’t a “Festive Candle-holder,” Ramadan isn’t a “Seasonal Fast,” and a Christmas tree isn’t a “Holiday Tree.”  To assign one religion’s symbol status to represent other holidays erases not just the goodwill supposedly central to Christmas; it also violates the meaning of holidays enjoyed by people of all religions.

That internment camps on Canadian soil during World War I and II existed is a matter of historical fact. The most famous of these, of course, was the internment of Japanese-Canadians.

However, the Japanese weren’t the only ones who were interned. Recall that Japan was a major player with the Axis powers, along with Germany and Italy. All three were enemies of Canada, the United States and their allies. As such, all three faced imprisonment in North America.

While many citizens were indeed interned, a large majority actually were never imprisoned. Rather, as a whole, strict curfews were imposed. It doesn’t make it right or fair but it was war.

Nonetheless, a while back I was working on an article exploring the internment of Italians in North America. We’ve heard much about the internment of Japanese- Canadians but very little of the Italians. In fact, this episode involving the Italians barely registers on the public imagination - even among Italians.

Every time I read an article (even by historians) on the subject, Japanese-Canadians are almost always mentioned, while Italians (along with Germans and Ukranians from 1914-1920, for that matter) are not.

Partly because Italian-Canadians who went through this period chose to bury it in the back of their minds.

Maybe this is all for the best.

These days, we’re obsessed with making amends with past (real or perceived) injustices. We should be careful. It’s ok to remember the past so long as it doesn’t impede progress. It happened and we must all move forward as a nation.

After all, that’s the only path to real progress.