Newly-elected Conservative MP Steven Bonk led the nation in Monday’s election with the biggest majority of any candidate. Bonk won almost 84 percent of votes cast in Souris-Moose Mountain, a sprawling Saskatchewan riding the size of Austria where the second language is not French but German: “Thank you.”
A federal board mandated to enforce a ban on replacement workers has only 17 members though the legislation takes effect in weeks, according to a Department of Justice memo. The Canada Industrial Relations Board is to oversee disputes in the federally regulated private sector that numbers a workforce of one million: “It will be difficult for us to meet the timelines that are in the bill.”
Both the Communist and Marxist-Leninist parties saw statistical gains in their vote Monday night but were unable to crack the 6,000-ballot barrier. Communists had proposed to tax all capital gains while Marxists urged interested electors to join in May Day parades tomorrow: “Let Canadians know what the options are.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney last night led Liberals to a fourth term but with another minority government and casualties that included the loss of seven cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries. “I have much to be humble about,” Carney told supporters.
New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh last night announced his resignation after leading the Party to the worst showing in its 64-year history. Singh only days prior to the New Democrats’ collapse said he had no regrets in opting against a winter election when the Party was 21 percent in the polls.: “Is that how you want to be remembered?”
Electric transit buses are so impractical in Canada they require diesel heaters to extend battery life in winter conditions, say federal researchers. The National Research Council studied the vehicles’ feasibility four years after then-Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna promised billions in subsidies to make the “planet safe.”
Restaurant and food services receipts increased about three percent over a 60-day GST holiday period, Statistics Canada figures showed yesterday. The tax break cost $2.7 billion, by federal estimate: “Let’s help the people.”
Most Canadians complain internet scamming remains commonplace 15 years after Parliament passed an anti-spam law. CRTC research found more than 7 in 10 were personally aware of criminals using deceptive emails to obtain personal information: “The most shocking thing I’ll say is that Canada’s anti-spam legislation was never going to eliminate all spam.”
The Green Party acknowledges several candidates withdrew from today’s election to avoid vote splitting that could benefit Conservatives. The admission came in a Federal Court application protesting the Party’s disqualification from televised debates for failing to field a minimum number of candidates: “A small number of candidates, no more than 15, decided to withdraw their candidacy to avoid splitting the progressive vote.”
The Conservative Party if elected today will bring Parliament into session all summer if necessary to pass tax cuts and reform bills, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters. “Change cannot wait,” he said: “The bad news for politicians is your summer vacation is cancelled.”
A British Columbia First Nation was deemed “a priority client” for federal funding after claiming to find 215 children’s graves at an Indian Residential School, records show. The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation prior to its announcement was repeatedly told by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government it did not qualify for grants: “It was with a heavy heart that Tk’emlups te Secwepemc confirmed an unthinkable loss.”
Compensation for victims of Covid vaccines is expected to go over budget, says a Department of Health memo. The document is dated only days after new figures showed more than $16 million was paid to date to families of patients medically certified to have suffered death or injury after taking a government-approved shot: “The overall cost of the program is dependent on the volume of claims.”
Liberals if re-elected will improve disclosure of public records, says Prime Minister Mark Carney. Canadians deserve access to information regardless of who runs the government, he said: “I’m happy to commit to having a review.”
Electricity in Ontario,
costlier than ever.
Some must choose
between hydro
and buying food, paying rent.
On the other hand,
Canada has more oil
than it can ever sell.
In Ottawa,
crews install structural steel, pour concrete
for the new electric light rail system
that will replace
our diesel powered buses.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
Ask oldtimers what pre-industrial life was like in Yukon and Northwest Territories and they recall the sound of sled dogs galloping through the snow, the blue gleam of moonlight in winter and smell of fresh caribou steaks drying on spruce boughs.
Anthropologist Leslie McCartney asked twenty-three Gwich’in elders as old as 99. Their stories are chronicled in Our Whole Gwich’in Way Of Life Has Changed, a big, beautiful volume, 848 pages. It is warm and human.
There is a blank space in all history books dotted here and there with guesswork and anecdotes. Missing are accounts of daily working lives prior to the 18th century. There are no written descriptions by workaday Norwegian sailors or Hessian miners or Mongolian herders since ordinary people had no means of writing it down.
It took mammoth investments in public education and inexpensive pulp paper before people kept diaries and family scrapbooks. They relied instead on storytelling, what researchers call oral history. So did the Gwich’in. “Oral history stories are not so much about getting the facts correct as they are about ways of talking about the past and hearing voices that would have been, to date, marginalized,” write authors.
Readers learn adoption of orphaned children was commonplace, as were arranged marriages. The Gwich’in believed in prophecy, prized self-reliance and thrived on an all-meat diet.
“Meat was what we lived on most,” one elder recalled: rabbit and boiled porcupine, whitefish and blueberries in season, but mainly caribou. Annie Benoit, 88, remembers her family followed the caribou herds. “Lots of good places to stay in the bush,” said Benoit. “When they hear about lots of caribou, they move to the mountains and after that they work hard on their meat, caribou meat.”
Children from the youngest age were taught to find food. “Every day they repeated the same thing to us, teaching us our survival skills,” said Joan Nazon, 87. “They told us and taught us every day. They always said, ‘We don’t tell you this for now but for your future, so you will be self-sufficient.’”
“No one is going to live like they live today in the future,” said Nazon. “There is going to be starvation. People are going to suffer and there will not be enough food.”
Our Whole Gwich’in Way Of Life Has Changed is a memorial assembled by the Gwich’in Tribal Council. “Most of the elders interviewed are members of the last generation to fluently speak Dinjii Zhu’ Ginjik, the Gwich’in language, as their mother tongue,” the authors write.
“Language determines how we perceive, understand and communicate our world views and deep beliefs. Language is not simply communication; it also serves as a link, connecting people with their past.”
If working lives of Gwich’in people were hard, elders mainly recall those years with fondness. Alfred Semple, 70, looked south to the cities and saw no obvious signs of superiority. “There are many, many people down south,” he said. “Many are poor and homeless and do not have much to eat.”
“Today they just work for money,” he said. “Money, that’s all that is in their head. We never grew up that way.”
By Holly Doan
Our Whole Gwich’in Way of Life Has Changed: Stories from People of the Land, by Leslie McCartney & Gwich’in Tribal Council; University of Alberta Press; 848 pages; ISBN 9781-77212-4828; $99
