Federal agencies are continuing quiet research on a proposed shipping lane for oil tankers on B.C.’s northern coast. The Department of Fisheries awarded a $50,000 contract to scan the Douglas Channel using robot gliders. Environment Canada earlier initiated its own studies on the impact of a tanker spill in the region: “It would be useful information in an actual spill”.
Canada saw a dismal year for housing starts in 2014 with declines in seven provinces, according to CMHC. Only Alberta saw significant gains in construction of new single-family homes, condos, apartments and townhouses: ‘It’s much weaker than expected’.
If I could tune my radio
to the exact frequency
of the Royal Canadian Air Force,
I would listen to CF-18 pilots
as they debate today’s agenda:
Are we bombing ISIL out of Iraq and Syria,
kicking Putin out of Ukraine,
or heading to Ottawa
for the flag, the anthem, and the fly-by
over Parliament Hill?
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday) Photo: DND
Acquired Tastes is ingenious. Researchers at six universities take a bird’s-eye view of Canadian supper tables. They interview families nationwide, rich and poor, from Vancouver to Halifax, and ask: why do you eat that? Interestingly, nobody replies: “Because I’m hungry.”
Food, it turns out, is an expression of Canadians’ intimate values and ideals of self-worth. We are highly opinionated on the subject. Consider those who rate themselves “virtuous or moral individuals as they differentiated between their eating habits and those of other people,” editors note. One mother recalls the time she volunteered on a class field trip: “Kids would bring a little mini pop. I mean, it was just horrible”; “Cinnamon rolls and those Vachon cakes. I haven’t even seen them for years. One guy had an extra-big Coffee Crisp and a pop, and his dad was there on the field trip, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my god, this is just awful!’ I couldn’t believe it.”
Acquired Tastes is not another lament over national obesity or food marketing. If McDonald’s Canada sells $260 million worth of Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets annually, nobody interviewed here volunteers the fact they are faithful customers. This research is much more compelling.
Editors discover everybody knows what “healthy eating” is. They cannot find a single family that has never heard of basic nutrition: “Everyone understood the concept that food affects health.” Second, Canadians eat what they eat for a whole variety of cultural and economic reasons that often have little to do with necessity. “What people say they know and believe about eating is not always what they do, even when a variety of foods are readily available to them,” authors conclude.
Consider the Valverde family, an East Vancouver couple with a six-figure income and a 17-year old son. They buy organic and like to experiment with recipes. “We spend more money on food than most people,” says Mrs. Valverde. Their groceries are an expression of environmental awareness and cultural diversity.
Then there’s the Austin family of rural Alberta: husband, wife, three children. They eat fish and chips, burgers and potatoes. Organic is too expensive, Mrs. Austin explains: “I rarely if ever buy anything that’s not on sale.”
Families have definite views on food. Indian fare is “really spicy”, complains one participant who has never tried it. Others are annoyed by the cliquishness of farmers’ markets, where urban shoppers are expected to browse with delight over costly produce. “I just want to go and get the food,” says one. Another boasts of shopping on Mondays, when grocers discount date-expired meat left unsold from the weekend: “We never pay full price.”
Acquired Tastes confirms what we eat is a statement of how we think of ourselves: frugal or choosey; sophisticated or practical; wealthy and urban or small-town, Kraft Dinner cheap. “Interestingly, food as gratification and as a tool for coping with stress and depression was articulated by participants of European descent, which may speak to family and cultural histories concerning the moralities of food,” editors report. “In contrast, interviewees who had recently migrated to Canada from non-European locales did not seem to speak of food in this way.”
Acquired Tastes is fresh and quirky, eloquent and very human. Eat it, you’ll like it.
Acquired Tastes: Why Families Eat The Way They Do; edited by Brenda Beagan, Gwen Chapman, Joseé Johnston, Deborah McPhail, Elaine Power and Helen Vallianatos; University of British Columbia Press; 292 pages; ISBN 9780-77482-8581; $32.95
Confidential Transport Canada reports predict little gain in Arctic shipping despite climate change that’s expected to see ice-free summer passage within 20 years. Two studies conclude the Northwest Passage will remain too risky and expensive to generate commercial traffic: ‘Insurance is costly’.
MPs will debate legislation to radically overhaul VIA Rail as the Crown passenger service braces for record deficits and cabinet prepares to appoint a new chair. The private bill would curb service cuts and permit employees to purchase VIA shares: “It would be a good first step”.
The Canadian Transportation Agency is ordering airlines to formally adopt family-friendly seating policies. The order, effective March 2, says carriers must take steps to seat parents and children together: “We put consumers first”.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner is indicating support for a bill to appoint a new Inspector General to oversee the Canada Border Services Agency. The Senate bill, scheduled for hearings, would see a chief inspector granted broad powers to scrutinize the agency’s work: ‘We should be alarmed such powers are wielded by an agency with no independent oversight’.
Cabinet will enact a contentious union bill C-525 within five months by speeding legislative amendments to correct technical garbling. The Department of Labour said the bill must become law before a fall election: “It will come into force on June 16”.
Environment Canada is being sued after approving a scheme to sink a toxic warship in fish habitat. The department quietly issued a Disposal At Sea permit to a scuba diving society to scuttle HMCS Annapolis, a decommissioned destroyer, in a marine park in British Columbia: “This is costing a fortune”.
Railways may insert vague “surcharges” into shipping contracts that go to final arbitration, a federal judge has ruled. The decision came in the case of a Nova Scotia shipper overcharged by Canadian National Railway Co.: “We lost”.
Environment Canada’s refusal to target road salt as toxic will see wider use of the substance despite evidence of ecological damage, says a green manufacturer. Canadians use five to seven million tonnes of road salt each winter, primarily in provinces west of Manitoba: “There is nothing here”.
The first fungicide ever registered in Canada now faces a federal ban after sixty years of use. Health Canada proposes to begin phasing-out quintozene this year amid concerns it is environmentally toxic: “Even if you have it on the shelf in your garage you can’t use it”.
A federal rail and air regulator, the Canadian Transportation Agency, has been cited as “rigid”, “inflexible” and lacking common sense by a federal court. The stinging judgment came in an uncomplicated case involving a dog aboard an airplane: “Form took over substance”.
A Senate committee next month will take up clause-by-clause scrutiny of a bill to enact Canada’s first federal privacy protection for genetic testing. The proposal still faces “exaggerated” complaints from insurers, says its Liberal sponsor: ‘Everybody else says we need it’.
