I was look­ing up some bio­graph­i­cal data on Thomas Robert McInnes, a Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of British Colum­bia at the turn of the pre­vi­ous cen­tu­ry, when I came across an extra­or­di­nary piece of Cana­di­an leg­is­la­tion, one that tells us a lot about 19th Cen­tu­ry Canada. 

Why­co­co­magh, in Inver­ness Coun­ty, Nova Sco­tia, Cana­da. It’s name is from the abo­rig­i­nal Mi’k­maq lan­guage, but is local­ly known by a Gael­ic ren­der­ing of Hoga­m­agh. The vil­lage is in the heart a for­mer­ly Gael­ic-speak­ing region. A small num­ber of peo­ple still speak that lan­guage in a dis­tinct­ly Cana­di­an dialect.

McInnes was born in Lake Ainslie, Nova Sco­tia, and lived an adven­tur­ous youth. He was one of the cel­e­brat­ed “Rush Doc­tors” trained in Chica­go at the Rush Insti­tute, and served in the Union Army dur­ing the Amer­i­can Civ­il War. But he returned to Cana­da and, along with a promi­nent med­ical prac­tice, became May­or of New West­min­ster, British Colum­bia, and then an inde­pen­dent nation­al Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. Sub­se­quent­ly, he served as a Sen­a­tor, then Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of BC. His career as Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor was stormy and eccen­tric, rather typ­i­cal of BC politi­cians. He made many ene­mies. In 1890, Prime Min­is­ter Lau­ri­er asked him to ten­der his res­ig­na­tion in favour of the tamer Hen­ri-Gus­tave Joly de Lot­binière. He attempt­ed to get back into Fed­er­al pol­i­tics in 1903, but failed.

His most inter­est­ing deed was his attempt, in 1890, to make Gael­ic the third offi­cial lan­guage of Cana­da. His pro­posed Act to pro­vide for the use of Gael­ic in Offi­cial pro­ceed­ings would have made the Cana­di­an ver­sion of the Gael­ic lan­guage legal­ly equal with Eng­lish and French. The bill made it through first read­ing, but when the Orders of the Day were called, McInnes had not yet arrived in the Cham­ber. In his absence, the bill was dropped. When it was restored to the order paper, mem­ber R.B. Dick­ey of Nova Sco­tia moved an amend­ment that the read­ing be delayed for three months, after which it failed on final read­ing. Read more »

Yes­ter­day (Oct.4), Tim Kyger, life-long friend and expert on space pol­i­cy, wrote:

“49 years ago today, the very first thing of any sort was put into Earth orbit by we puny humans. The begin­ning of a new age; a break­point in history.”

Next year will be the half-cen­tu­ry mark since the begin­ning of space explo­ration. While it began with a Sovi­et project, and there have been impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to it in sev­er­al coun­tries, the Unit­ed States put the most effort into explor­ing space. Some peo­ple, myself includ­ed, con­sid­er the explo­ration of space to be a crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant human activ­i­ty, one which is con­gru­ent with the respon­si­ble stew­ard­ship of the earth­’s ecol­o­gy, respect for human rights, and the fos­ter­ing and cre­ation of the arts. To us, it is sad­den­ing to con­tem­plate how lit­tle has been accom­plished in that half cen­tu­ry, com­pared to what could have been accom­plished. Read more »

On the Nation­al News, a tour through the com­plet­ed ren­o­va­tions of the Library of Par­lia­ment, in Ottawa. This is no ordi­nary library. Com­plet­ed only nine years after Con­fed­er­a­tion (the for­ma­tion of Cana­da as a nation-state), it is a mag­nif­i­cent High Vic­to­ri­an Goth­ic fan­ta­sy, a cir­cu­lar cone of fly­ing but­tress­es and mul­ti-coloured stone that ris­es atop the cliffs along the Ottawa riv­er. The inte­ri­or is very beau­ti­ful, employ­ing a cir­cu­lar, radi­ant plan. Light streams into it from the sky, in the man­ner of a cathe­dral. In the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, Cana­da still retained its tra­di­tion of fine crafts­man­ship in wood, and the work that was done in this library is the equal of any­thing in the world. On the news item, one Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, who was a jour­ney­man car­pen­ter in his youth, said “this stuff is porn for any car­pen­ter”. Read more »

I’m stretched out on the couch. At the oth­er end, sphinx-posed above my right foot is a cat — not mine, but a long term vis­i­tor. Next to the oth­er foot is my rab­bit Stampy. They are both star­ing at me, with that air of aris­to­crat­ic dis­dain that both have per­fect­ed. Cat own­ers are famil­iar with it, but they may be sur­prised that rab­bits can be just as proud. I’m not going to dis­turb them. I’m grate­ful for the calm. Nor­mal­ly they would be chas­ing each oth­er around the room.

I’m read­ing a nov­el, and lis­ten­ing to some choral music by Chris­tos Hatzis, who may be Canada’s answer to Arvo Pärt. A mug of hot choco­late (made prop­er­ly with cocoa, not some instant junk), cheese and crack­ers on the table beside me. Elec­tric lights have been dimmed and replaced with a small oil lamp, which emits a hint of ros­es from its scent­ed lamp oil.

So I can’t work up any anger over any polit­i­cal news. At the back of my mind, an idea for a new nov­el is start­ing to take form, so I’m not con­cen­trat­ing too strict­ly on the book. In fact, I should prob­a­bly set it aside and read it prop­er­ly lat­er, when my head is not drift­ing into my own fic­tion writ­ing. I do a lot of writ­ing in my head. Not from lazi­ness. My right wrist was severe­ly dam­aged many years ago (bro­ken in twen­ty places), and it is phys­i­cal­ly painful for me to spend too much time at a key­board. Those long stretch­es of work for clients, where I spend many hours fill­ing out data­bas­es on Excel tables, are real­ly hard on me. So I do as much writ­ing in my head as I can, before actu­al­ly sit­ting down to type. I’ll some­times have entire pages in my head, com­posed while walk­ing or rid­ing a bike, before they are put down, though that very process will gen­er­ate all sorts of errors, which have to be cleaned up on rewrite.

Things are improv­ing, finan­cial­ly, very very grad­u­al­ly. I’m deter­mined to trav­el next year, and I’m lay­ing the ground­work to do so.

Stampy sud­den­ly desires a Maria Bis­cuit. For some rea­son, he is obsessed with these tea bis­cuits, import­ed from Spain. He would rather eat them than car­rots. He jumps on my chest, push­es his face under­neath my book and into mine, and pulls at the frame of my glass­es with his teeth. This is his method of issu­ing a non-nego­tiable demand. I’ve always sus­pect­ed that Stampy has trained in spe­cial camps in Afghanistan, or Wis­con­sin, or wher­ev­er rab­bit ter­ror­ists do it.

I cave in to ter­ror­ism. The Maria bis­cuits are kept in a brown cook­ie jar which is with­in reach. The music has shift­ed to Hatzis’ Foot­prints In New Snow, which incor­po­rates that pecu­liar form of Innu­it throat-singing where two women sing direct­ly into each oth­ers’ mouths. The atmos­phere in the room has changed from serene to spooky. The oil lamp, burn­ing down to a short wick, is flick­er­ing, and throw­ing unsta­ble shad­ows on the wall. I have a flash of mem­o­ry or a lone­ly evening on top of a moun­tain in north­ern Que­bec, at the back of the north wind, besieged by cold shiv­ers and thoughts of Wendigo.

The lamp goes out. The cat and the rab­bit dis­ap­pear, off to the bed­room for some secret game. The room has grown dark. I hear voic­es laugh­ing in the street. Red LEDS on the com­put­er and audio equip­ment, burn like fireflies.

You can be in so many places, with­in one room.

Pak­istani dic­ta­tor Per­vez Mushar­raf revealed, in an inter­view with the CBC (Cana­di­an Broad­cast­ing Corp.) exact­ly how the lead­er­ship of the Grand Alliance Against Ter­ror­ism sees Canada’s role. With some insult­ing­ly snide put-downs, he dis­missed any con­cern in Cana­da about casu­al­ties in Afghanistan as cry-baby weak­ness. Read more »

Soraj Honglaradom, at the Phi­los­o­phy depart­ment of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chu­la­longko­rn Uni­ver­si­ty, Bangkok, has gra­cious­ly allowed me to quote his e‑mail con­cern­ing the coup in Thailand:

The coup d’e­tat was per­pe­trat­ed by a group of offi­cers who are dis­at­is­fied with the Prime Min­is­ter Thaksin Shi­nawa­tra, who has gen­er­at­ed such an intense amount of con­tro­ver­sies in Thai­land as has nev­er been expe­ri­enced before. The tran­si­tion process is going on smooth­ly and there is no vio­lence. At the time of writ­ing this mail, every­thing appears calm. The “Reform Group for Democ­ra­cy under Monar­chy”, as the group calls itself, has declared today (Sept.20) to be a hol­i­day and so I am writ­ing this from home. Many peo­ple that I know actu­al­ly wel­come the event, as they are fed up with the regime of the Prime Min­is­ter. From my past expe­ri­ences with pre­vi­ous Thai coups, what will hap­pen next is prob­a­bly that the Reform Group will name an inter­im Prime Min­is­ter. A new char­ter will be draft­ed (the much vaunt­ed Con­sti­tu­tion of 1997 last­ed only nine years), and final­ly a gen­er­al elec­tion will be called. No one knows exact­ly when this will hap­pen, but my guess is that we will expect a gen­er­al elec­tion with­in a year. This is only my guess: things have a way of unrav­el­ling them­selves in unex­pect­ed ways.

Mr. Saro­j’s com­ment rings true to me. It seems to fit the oth­er reports I’ve got­ten. Read more »