post olympic tragedies: husky massacre

Danielle and I wrote with enthusiasm, love and pride following the Vancouver 2010 Olympics that were hosted in our country last year.

In the midst of the euphoria and celebration, though, the Games brought tragedy to the people of Georgia in the death of their team member Nodar Kumaritashvili during a luge practice just hours before the Opening Ceremonies were to begin.

I am still proud of my country.  But you can be proud of someone or something and still hate the choices that have been made in the past.

Recently the slaughter of 70+ huskies after the Olympics ended has come to light.

Spokesman Graham Aldcroft told reporters the company had expected a proper, legal and humane manner would be used to euthanize the dogs. Company officials heard last Friday that as many as 100 dogs were put down on April 21 and April 23 in a brutal manner.

A veterinarian was contacted but refused to euthanize healthy animals. Attempts were made to adopt out the dogs, but with only limited success.

This makes me sick:

The employee told WorkSafeBC he performed what he described as “execution-style” killings, where he wrestled the dogs to the ground and stood on them with one foot to shoot them.

(Matas & Dhillon, 2011)

One dog, Nora, was found crawling around in the mass grave 20 minutes after he had dumped her body into the pit. Others were chased, shot cleanly or died after their throats were slit. The employee, according to the report, was “covered in blood” when finished

(Cooper & Sullivan 2011)

This not only makes me really angry, it also breaks my heart.  It just makes me ask . . . why?  I can’t articulate this, I can’t comprehend this, and I can’t understand who would think that this is okay, that this wouldn’t get out, that this would go unnoticed or be ignored.

Oh yeah, the guy claimed workers compensation for post traumatic stress disorder.  Is it totally brutal of me to feel like saying “Fuck you, you didn’t have to do it”?  The after-effects may be bad, but he is still guilty of brutally massacring up to or more than a hundred dogs.  He made the choice to fire the gun, to dig a mass grave, and to put those dogs into distress and death.

Those dogs didn’t choose that life, they didn’t choose where they were or their involvement and they didn’t choose to die.

I have strong views on animal rights.  I usually refrain from writing about things like this because of the views I have.  The only place I can possibly understand the potential ‘benefits’ of euthanasia is if an animal is sick, has a decreased quality of life, and is going to suffer for the rest of their time even if they are well cared for and loved.

Not in the healthy, physically fit dogs above.

Matas and Dhillon’s article also states that after the mass slaughter of these dogs occurred a new policy has been put in place that animals to be euthanized are now required to be taken to a veterinarian to be treated as humanely as is possible for euthanization.  The same article states that due to the health of these animals, a veterinarian consulted refused to euthanize.

. . . Doesn’t that say something?  That these dogs still had fire and life in them and could have gone on to loving homes or returned to competitive sports and been cared for?

Sad doesn’t explain it.  I am outraged; can’t believe that it took this, these acts of brutality to get a policy in place.  When it was too late for dozens and dozens of beautiful animals.  I just hope “policy” is enough.

Next time somebody better think past the end of the Olympics, I don’t care where they are.  Think about the involvement of animals who participate without a choice; who bring us joy and allow us to carry on traditions such as dogsled competitions, and even dogsled tours.

It’s time to change, Canada–time to change before something like this happens again.  It’s time to act in compassion and love.

Logo confusion

All my life,  I thought the Montreal Expos logo said “ello”. I could not figure out why the HELL… it would say this. I thought about how the Montreal Canadiens are nicknamed the Habs, a reference you wouldn’t get unless you knew something about the history of Quebec. I figured maybe it was something like that, and that maybe I would get it when I was older. And then the team left Montreal in 2004 and then who cares after that. But of course you see the occasional diehard still wearing a hat with the mysterious logo, as I did today when I was leaving the library. In that split-second it dawned on me… it’s an M!!! Get it? M for Montreal! Can you see it too? Thank goodness, one more mystery from my childhood to strike off the list.

This reminds me of my confusion over the logo for the Bay (you know, the Hudson’s Bay Company, that good ol’ Canadian department store).

Does that look like a B to you? It definitely didn’t to me when I was a kid. A B looks like this: B. This to me looked like a screwed up M with a tail, not at all like the Bs my teacher wrote on the board. While I knew that it was called “the Bay”, whenever I looked at the logo I would say in my head ”MmmmhfhhjfjBBbaaay”. Until one day when I was maybe 11 we were driving by and I looked at it a little differently and suddenly a B appeared in my field of vision. It looked so weird! So wrong! Bring back the mysterious non-letter! I have regressed: now whenever I look at it I still say “MmmmhfhhjfjBBbaaay” in my head.

Being a kid is WEIRD cause the world just doesn’t make sense.

Thankful Thursday!

I was going to do a regular post this morning, but then I remembered that it is Thursday! So Thankful Thursday it is. I am feeling particularly grateful today.

1) I’m grateful for winter. Sure, it’s not the most convenient season, but I wouldn’t give it up. I’ve been making the most of winter in this city by skating every day that I can, and I want to get my roommate out tobogganing one of these days…

2) I’m thankful for music. I take music “breaks” all the time, whether it’s writing a short fiddle tune, having an accordion lesson, flaking out while listening to Simon and Garfunkel, or going to a concert (all things I’ve done in the past couple days). My friend and I saw one of our violin idols perform… NERDS!

3) I’m thankful for my sister’s text messages. In the past couple weeks my sister has been sending me the cheeriest text messages ever! They make me smile no matter what.

Have a bright Thursday!

How to say “In the middle of nowhere” in Canadian

Some places are known just for being unknown. Take Flin Flon, Manitoba for example. It’s a mining town up North that probably wouldn’t be so well-known if not for its peculiar name. People like to use it to qualify stuff, with the implicit assumption that this town is in the middle of NOWHERE. Example:

Gord: Smoking is totally an urban thing.

Sally: Oh yeah, as if! You think people aren’t smoking in Flin Flon, Manitoba?!

Note that it’s impossible to just say Flin Flon. You have to add “Manitoba” at the end so that if, by chance, the other person hasn’t heard of Flin Flon, Manitoba, they won’t think you are talking about some invented community on the planet Mars. Another example:

“The city gets me down sometimes. I think I’ll pack up and move to Flin Flon, Manitoba”.

Saying the same about Mackenzie, BC or Donalda, Alberta just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

TB here in Canada – World TB day 2010

March 24th is World TB day. Living in such an advanced country with  great healthcare, TB is not generally something we consider a threat to our own health. Am I right? Historically, TB has been an important disease in Canada. Unfortunately it still poses a threat among certain populations in our country, despite the great medical advances that have been made.

 If you’ve studied Canadian history, you’ve likely read about the “Sanatorium Age”. At the beginning of the 20th century there was a terrible TB epidemic in Canada that was most devastating to the Aboriginal and especially Inuit communities. The impact was likely greater because their immune systems had never encountered the disease. To deal with this problem, institutions called sanatoriums were opened where patients were kept in isolation and treated. By 1938, there were about 19,000 sanatorium beds across Canada. That’s a lot considering the population at the time was only 11 million. One third of the Inuit were infected with TB in the 1950s, and one in seven were brought to be treated in a sanatorium.

And while sanatoriums were the best thing available at the time, they caused a great many socio-cultural problems among the Inuit. First off, they were brought to the south, usually to Quebec, without being able to speak English or French. They were forced to acclimatize to a completely different way of life, can you imagine the culture shock? Often children were displaced from their families, and all too often those children never returned to the north. Many, many Inuit still don’t know what became of their relatives. I know it has caused an effect that is still very much felt. You can watch a short clip on the topic by the CBC.

 The advent of antibiotics allowed the sanatorium age to come to an end, and this is why we don’t see TB as a threat to our own health anymore. That being said, it hasn’t been eradicated by any stretch of the imagination. Despite our great medical system and despite Canada being a leader in tuberculosis treatment, it’s still a health concern among Aboriginals and Inuit. Aboriginals are 6 times more likely than the general population to develop TB, and Inuit are 185 times more likely to develop TB than Canadian-born non-Aboriginals.

Woah. What are some of the factors contributing to this extreme disparity? As previously mentioned, our European immune systems have been dealing with TB for centuries, but this isn’t the case for Aboriginals and Inuit. Unfortunately, higher rates of HIV/AIDS and diabetes among these groups confer additional risk factors. Higher rates of substance abuse also come into play. A higher community housing density also contributes to disease transmission. Remote living and less access to health care contribute to worse morbitity and mortality from TB.

So. There are obstacles to tackle, things to do. It’s complicated, and if you’re Canadian you can appreciate that. But we have the tools to fight TB in this day and age so there’s no excuse not to get cracking, hard. It’s really unacceptable.

I tried not to rely so much on the novels I’ve read on the subject and get some reliable sources to write this post. Check them out for yourself.

Canadian Lung Association press release for World TB Day

Canadian Lung Association history of TB in Canada

Government of Canada First Nations, Inuit and Aboriginal health

PubMed link to a scientific article on specific genotypic of Inuit with respect to TB susceptibility

There is also a movie portraying an Inuk man who requires care in a Sanatorium in Quebec. It looks amazing and I’ve been meaning to see it but haven’t done so yet. I think it would be worth it, just keep in mind it is in French and Inuktituk. It is called Ce Qu’il Faut Pour Vivre.

The Games aren’t over yet!

(logo)

Okay, y’all know I was excited for the Olympics.  (And despite the fact that I just said y’all, I most definitely am Canadian.  I promise you.)  But, I think I was equally, if not even more excited for the Paralympics.

So, Saturday, I was watching SLEDGE HOCKEY.  DUDE.  It was freaking INTENSE.  They have these little things on the backs of their sticks to use for brakes, but people end up getting poked with them, and I’m sure it’s pretty vicious, even though it’s supposed to be mostly non-violent.  Dare I say that sledge hockey is even more intense than regular hockey?

You can keep tabs on our awesome athletes here!

Remember, it’s daylight savings time! Except for you, Saskatchewan.

Y’all, remember to change your clocks.  I’ve seen a bunch of tweets this morning about people forgetting the time change.  Spring ahead, yo!

Except for you people in Saskatchewan who wear bunnyhugs instead of hoodies.  So, while you may not have to deal with the DST shenanigans, as pointed out by my friend @coldcanuck on Twitter:

Excellent we lost 1 hour off this winter and we get to push the next winter off by an hour in the fall! Too bad Saskatchewan you lose!

That’s right, Saskatchewan.  You lost this one just like you lost the Grey Cup.  Hah!

(Seriously, Saskatchewan.  Love ya, mean it.)

Gender Neutralization of O Canada?

Okay, I know I haven’t posted here in forever, and Danielle did most of the covering on Vancouver—THANK YOU DANIELLE!

And, while we’ve both been pretty into discussing the medals and standings on Twitter, we’re both university students, maintain separate blogs outside of Good Day, Eh?, and otherwise have lives, I still have failed to do any updating about the Olympics, which are now over—but, the Paralympic games are yet to begin!  I’m excited for those, too!

I do have a post planned about the opening ceremonies, but I am not sure when I will end up writing it—SOON I hope.

However, today I heard that the Feds are discussing gender neutralizing our national anthem.  YES, I am all for gender equality and social justice.  AND, I know that we can’t let things slip, or EVERYTHING will fall apart.  BUT . . . O Canada has been our official national anthem for the past 30 years.  Is it a break of tradition if we change it to be inclusive of the female gender?  “In all thy sons command” is the primary offense in the gender debate.

I’ve read in textbooks and articles over the year, in the fine print of some of these pieces, that often the pronoun “he” is used to commemorate the traditional role of males in the military in the past.  I’m all for change, but, I am not one to mess up tradition—rather, to integrate it into a solution.  YES, I do understand the discrimination in using “sons” in our national anthem.

Yet, there is another point to be made.

The role of God, most likely a Christian God, is used within the context of O’Canada, too—“God keep our land glorious and free”.  Yet, in the 2001 census, while 77% of Canadians followed a Christian religion, 16.2% were non-religious, 2% were Muslim, 1.1% Jewish, 1% Hindu, 1% Buddhist and 0.9% Sikh.  So, just as the term “son” is not all encompassing, nor is the mention of God, from a multicultural standpoint—not all of the above religions are focused around [a] God.

Does equality have to come at a price—changing bits of the anthem so it may become our history instead of our present?  I very much feel that O Canada is supposed to be a way to unite Canadians—and, we proved it during the Olympics!  But, is changing a few words really going to address key issues in equality, ASIDE from the lyrical changes in O Canada, or if the lyrics are changed, is it going to happen and then be forgotten, with none of these aforementioned equality issues truly dealt with within the context of society.  YES, we are a multicultural country, but do we embrace it as fully as we could?  To quote Irene Mathyssen from the above linked article “They’re forgetting absolutely that equality is dependant on a whole number of other things that are missing from this throne speech”.

This is not a new issue.  According to Wikipedia, this has been going on for nearly twenty years, yet it was re-investigated after repeated use of the anthem during the Olympics.

Weir’s original lyrics from 1908, consisting of three verses, did not contain the word sons, instead using the somewhat archaic “thou dost in us command”, and it contained no religious reference.^[1][10][19] Weir decided to change his lyrics to “in all thy sons command” in 1914,^[20]and in 1926 added a fourth verse of a religious nature.^[21]

In June 1990, the city council of Toronto voted 12-7 to recommend to the Canadian Government that the phrase “our home and native land” be changed to “our home and cherished land”, and “true patriot love in all thy sons command” be changed to “true patriot love in all of us command”. Also proposed, but rejected, was the idea of a phrase “with patriot love, thy sons and daughters stand”. City Councillor Howard Moscoe said that the words “native land” were not appropriate for the many Canadians who were not native-born, and that the word “sons” implied “that women can’t feel true patriotism or love for Canada.”^[22]

Feminists such as Senator Vivienne Poy have criticized the English lyrics of the anthem as being sexist.^[23] In 2002, Poy introduced a bill to change the phrase “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command”. In 2006, the anthem’s religious references (to God in English, and to the Christian cross in French) were criticized by secularists

(SOURCE)

(Other lyrics and O Canada translations can be found here at the wikipedia page).

To my knowledge, a national anthem should represent the values of a country—and one of Canada’s main values is multiculturalism.  Yet, part of multicultural society is keeping within one’s cultural TRADITIONS—and I would say that O Canada is a pretty big tradition for many, if not most, if not ALL Canadians who are not apathetic toward their country.  This song has been officially used to unite our country for three decades, even with lyrics that may be shedding a message of inequality.

On a personal level—I may not be a hardcore feminist, but, I’m definitely for equality.  Yet, I have NEVER been bothered by the “sons” in the lyrics to our national anthem, even though I am a daughter of this country.  And, though I’m a Christian now, I spent the first fourteen years of my life non-religious, and declared myself an atheist at thirteen.  And, yet, I was not bothered by the mention of God in O Canada.  But, I am only one person, and at that, I have always liked to hold to certain traditions.  My country’s national anthem that I have known since the age of five?  One of the traditions I cling to.  Don’t mess with my anthem.

So, what’s your take?  Do you think we need to modify O Canada to best fit the multicultural and equal-rights views of our country, or do we need to keep with tradition?  Let me know in the comments.

Canada’s last WWI vet dies at age 109

John Babcock, the last Canadian veteran of the first world war died at age 109. I can’t believe all our vets have passed on. Have we done enough? Have we collected enough stories, paid enough tribute, showed enough gratitude? Can we make sure their story never dies? Lest we forget.

John Babcock

photo: www.cnews.canoe.ca

photo: crossingwallstreet.com

GOLD on Canadian soil

Well folks, the deed has been done. The first gold medal on Canadian soil has been won, and the man to do it was freestyler Alex Bilodeau. I could not have been more proud at that moment. Cause DAMN, we know how to ski in Canada! I was also extremely proud to see the crowd go wild for Alex, we got spirit, yes we do!!

picture: ctvolympics.ca

But, if you’ve been watching the olympics on CTV, what do you think of the pressure our media was putting on our athletes? There was sooo much hype about who would be the first to win gold. All those CTV guys were talking about Jenn Heil like it was set in stone that she would come first in moguls, and the way they talked it up made our Jenn’s SILVER medal look like peanuts. But what a performance she gave, what a high she gave us!! Can we not just appreciate that and the excellent run she threw down in the finals? 

picture: cbc.ca/olympics

Come on media, talk about our athletes like they are human beings, and not medal machines! CANADA LOVES ITS ATHLETES!!!