Teamwork

Recently spotted in Thunder Bay, Ontario: Regional Chief Isidore Day (right) and the Rt. Hon. Glen Murray, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change.

But for the coincidence of my finger on the shutter button and the Minister's up his nose, Minister Murray and the Regional Chief put on an impressive display of teamwork in Thunder Bay two weeks ago. They wanted to help the gathered crowd to see both the down and up sides of climate change. So long as they were in the room, the magic seemed to hold.

When they left, things went back to normal. Not much was accomplished for the rest of that day. Or the day after that.

Working hard to get nowhere is what I spend most of my time doing these days. Let's check in with our friend the Ruler and her Advisors to see if I can convey the state of affairs without breaking confidentiality rules ...

*******

[Continued from two weeks ago....]

The Ruler of a small but pleasant realm was hurrying early one morning along the Yessir Yessir Highway. She wore a cloak in disguise, but the day was unseasonably hot already and no one was around, so she removed her cloak and stuffed it in her bag.

She hoped to hold an audience, if she could, with the Emperor, her boss to the fourth power, to see if anything could be done about the scourge of the Power - the vast and terrible force that occupied her realm. The Power had pillaged all her resources to fill in templates for no reason. The Ruler's advisors were worked to a frazzle.

On her way to visit the Emperor, she had witnessed a disturbing ritual, annoying in its implications but that had given her an idea. She was sure now that she had what she needed to get the Emperor on her side. Nothing enraged him more than someone else taking the Credit.

All she needed was five minutes of his time. She rehearsed her speech in her head as she approached the Emperor's castle.

"Hoy there!" Someone called to the Ruler. She recognized the voice and instantly regretted removing her cloak.

"Good day to you, Pinchy," the Ruler said. She stopped in her tracks, feigning pleasure at seeing him. Pinchy was one of the Emperor's advisors, second in rank only to Cyril, the Emperor's Chief advisor. 

The Emperor's advisors wore strings as their insignia -- long, fine, taut strings.

"What brings you to the Emperor's castle?" asked Pinchy, perfectly within his rights to know the business of everyone in the Emperor's kingdom.

"Oh, you know," struggled the Ruler, "I was hoping to see, um, YOU, because I would like to talk with the Emperor."

Pinchy's eyes narrowed. "Talk? About what?"

"Yes. About what?" said a second voice, and the Ruler's heart sank. She now had both Pinchy and Cyril and all their taut strings between her and an audience with the Emperor. Getting past them could cost her a limb, or even her head.

She figured she might as well tell the truth.

"I need to tell the Emperor that the Power has come to this kingdom to take all the Credit."

Cyril and Pinchy recoiled as if struck. Their attitude became almost menacing.

"Why do you speak such treason?" Cyril asked. The Ruler immediately saw her error. 

The Emperor and the Power were allies. She was blind not to have seen it or perhaps she'd just not gotten the memo. She recalled the clouds of dust at the castles of her bosses to the fourth and fifth powers the morning after her first battle with the Template Hordes. 

She had misread the signs.

"OK," said the Ruler, initiating the About Face Protocol. "My mistake. The Power is a welcome friend in my realm and I will happily sacrifice my last Advisor for their and our greater glory."

"See that you do," said Cyril, completing the Protocol.

[To be continued ....]

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

 

Firsts

First times happen all the time.

For example, the picture below is the first I've taken of the geological formation famously known as the "Sleeping Giant". It's just a bunch of rocks eight kilometres offshore from Thunder Bay, but all the human eye needs is the shape of a chin in silhouette and the rest of the image just falls into place.

Another first, also in Thunder Bay, is this photo of a bunch of engaging and pleasant people in their twenties and early thirties come to town for some earnest talk about First Nations and their struggles with climate change.

The young woman second from the left, Jade, recounted for all of us gathered at the Valhalla Inn a story I heard for the first time of how people learned about the sweet sap that runs in the spring inside maple trees. It went like this:

A young girl who was supposed to be out gathering firewood had stopped to sit under a tree and enjoy a fine spring day. Happy in the dappled sunlight, she watched as a squirrel first chewed and then sucked on a small branch on the tree. The squirrel seemed to like this, so the young girl gave it a try. To her surprise and delight, she tasted a sweet liquid inside the tree! Knowing the elders back home would be hard to convince, the young girl used her knife to cut a small hole in the side of the tree. She fashion a spout out of a small piece of hard wood and found some birch bark to curl up and use as a bucket.

When she brought this liquid back to the village, so the story goes, her father had three hundred questions, one of which was "where's the firewood?"

I've been travelling a lot these days - generating many greenhouse gas emissions in my part of the collective pursuit of reducing same so as to prevent the end of our tenure on this planet.

Because I've been so tired from my travels, I thought there was this month another first in my family - my oldest sister was going to cross the hallowed threshold of sixty years old. 

As the most senior sibling, she had already crossed many other thresholds first, forging the way for the rest of us:

- first to commence her menses

- first to smoke cigarettes

- first to get a job that wasn't baby sitting (though she did that first, too)

- first to get her driver's license

- first to reach legal drinking age

- first to have a husband

- first to have kids (but not first to have grandkids - one of us got the jump on her there)

- first to be diagnosed with cancer and first to be successfully treated for same

- first to retire ....

The competition for first heated up in the middle years. My other sisters and I lapped my eldest sister on other important milestones such as first to be divorced or fired from a job.

But, she will always have that temporal edge. For as long as we are all alive, she will always be older than the rest of us, leading the way.

So this is an auspicious milestone, turning sixty. Which, I was gently reminded by my eldest sister this week when I sent her birthday wishes, is what she did last year.

Happy 61st Birthday, Carol!

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

   

  

Four Leaks and One Late Arrival

Spring blossom. Foggy day. Halifax, May 2016.

As luck would have it, I was out of town when, for the fifth time, the province released its Climate Change Action Plan.

There was one official release of the plan, four unofficial. For the record, because no one in the media has gotten it right, the first leak - to the Globe and Mail - was of a draft overview of the main concepts proposed for the plan.

The second - again to the Globe and Mail - was of an early draft of the document that would eventually be released to the public. The media story line was that the province planned to ban natural gas. 

The third leak - this time to the Toronto Star - was of a pretty-close-to-final draft of the public document. The story this time was that the province had made some changes to the plan including the clarification that there was no ban on natural gas.

Just before the official release on the morning of June 8, there was a fourth leak, to the Canadian Press, of the final public document. 

I learned of the fourth leak while I was listening to the radio in the cab on my way from the Ottawa airport to the Best Western Hotel on O'Connor Street. I was in the nation's capital for two days of meetings with governments from across the country to talk about the fed's game of catch up on climate change.

******

The Ruler of a small and pleasant realm was travelling on the Yessir Yessir Highway to the palace of the Emperor, her boss to the fourth power, to make a desperate plea. 

Ever since the scourge of the Power had come to her realm there had been, along with house-high drifts of templates, dark rumours of terrible sacrifices. The Ruler sought an audience with the Emperor to tell him of the toll being taken upon the land. She prayed the Emperor would take pity upon her and release her realm from the Power.

She hurried along the deserted highway in the pre-dawn darkness, disguised in a cloak and unattended by even her most trusted advisors.

Suddenly, a light flashed to her right. Then another. And another. The flashes were like lightning, but there was no thunder, no rain, and the brightening sky overhead was free of clouds. 

The Ruler could make no sense of the flashes, but she heard voices and thought she could go safely in her disguise to investigate. She turned off the highway in the direction of the flashes.

About a hundred metres off the highway, on a rise half-concealed by brush, the Ruler saw a small crowd of Advisors from the Power. From their insignias, she could see they were higher ranking officials. They were standing in a half circle.

She watched, horrified, as, one by one, lower ranking advisors from many realms, not just the Power, all bearing templates, approached the higher ranking officials. The senior officials took the templates, bowed to the lesser officials and then kicked them from behind, sending them into something that the Ruler couldn't see, but which flashed with each fallen advisor.

A great anger seized the Ruler as she watched advisor after advisor being thanked for their efforts with a kick in the ass. She stepped from her hiding place, threw back her cloak and called to the officials from the Power.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Surprised, annoyed, slightly inconvenienced, the representatives from the Power turned to look at the Ruler.

She strode up to them, and looked at the one bearing the most senior insignia right in the eye. 

"You may be vast and powerful," said the Ruler, "but you're still on my turf and you have no business treating advisors like that, here or anywhere."

"Treating them like what?" asked the most senior official from the Power, "This is how we do things. There's no harm."

"No harm?" sputtered the Ruler. "You're kicking people who have just given you everything they have into some obscure oblivion... It's despicable!"

Half amused, half genuinely perplexed, the senior official from the Power said, "This is how it works. If our bosses to the fifth and sixth powers see that we have built mountains of paper and sacrificed hundreds of lives, they will be impressed enough to listen to us."

"Don't you think that's a bit over the top?" asked the Ruler. "You expect people to die for the sake of impressing your boss?"

"Die? No," said the official. "Disappear, yes. We kick them through this portal so they can go back home and start again." The official gave the Ruler a quizzical look. "Don't you have one of these?" and he gestured at what finally came into focus for the Ruler as a kind of turnstile rigged with flashlights. 

"Not as such, no," said the Ruler, an idea starting to incubate. "Thanks for your time," she said, spinning on her heel and heading back to the Yessir, Yessir Highway. "Have a good day."

[To be continued....]

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

   

Gifts from the Departed

Cold, crabby pigeon on a foggy day at the Halifax Citadel, May 2016.

After my mother died, Bruce and I spent the greatest part of my share of her estate on renovating our little condo on Maitland Place. With the money left over from that, almost on a whim, I decided to get braces to straighten my teeth. My parents had never been able to afford orthodontia when I was growing up, and I think that bothered my mother. Using the last of her gift to me to accomplish some unfinished business for her made me feel good. We've long since sold the condo and the lovely renovations, but I think of my mother every time I smile.

Recently, as readers know, Bruce's sweet Aunt Arlie passed away. She left Bruce a gift in her will. And, now, thanks to the generosity of the dear departed, as of Tuesday coming up, Bruce and I will no longer have a mortgage. I will also, before the end of the summer, have a new hip. 

More about that later. 

It's now time to return to the land of the Yessir Yessir Highway to see what's up with the Ruler, her Advisors and the Template Hordes.

*******

Winded and limping, the Ruler reached her chambers and shut the door behind her. She had just fled from the multitudinous masses of Advisors of the Power, the vast, terrible scourge that had been neither seen nor heard since time immemorial and was now advancing on her realm at a startling pace.

The Ruler had been able to distract the template-bearing horde with a riddle, but she now needed to plan an offence, something to appease them and ultimately make them go away.

She called in Chappie, her most trusted advisor, and the Wizard, her most skilled improvisor. 

They came right away both looking pale and scared.

"You have heard the news, then," said the Ruler, and they nodded sadly. "Great, so what do we do?"

"Not sure," said the Wizard, turning his bag of tricks inside out to demonstrate just a bit grandiosely that it was empty. "We've never seen anything quite like this before."

"Are you absolutely sure of that?" asked the Ruler, a bell ringing faintly in her head. "Is there nothing in the Great Book of All That Has Been to tell us of another time when the realm was inundated with templates?"

The Wizard pondered for a moment and then brightened. "Of course!" he exclaimed, "The Bureaucratic Invasion of '92!"

"The what now?" asked the Queen, who had actually been thinking of something else - the storied Administrative Armageddon of '69.

"Then there was the Great Forms Fallout in '54," added Chappie.

"And the Document Monsoon," said the Wizard, remembering the previous summer.

"And," said the Ruler, "about a couple of dozen more in the time I have been ruler. This is really nothing new. There's just more of them than we're used to. So check your bag of tricks again, Mr. Wizard. What have you got?"

The Wizard bowed respectfully to his ruler and said, "My answer hasn't changed. We should do nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

A light dawned for the Ruler. She went to get herself a cup of tea and then sat at her window until the Template Horde arrived.

She didn't have long to wait before thousands and thousands of them stood under her window, each waving a template, each calling upon her to fill out Annex 1 and Annex 2 and so on.

Using the international sign for "please shut up", the Ruler raised her arms. The multitude fell silent. 

"Thank you so much for involving me in your process," said The Ruler. "I am honoured to be a part of this historic collaboration and look forward to the fruitful endeavours it will launch. I am, however, a little busy. Could you fill the templates out for me?"

As one, the giant mob of advisors dropped to their knees, forming small circles, each using the back of the advisor in front of them as a writing desk. They began filling out templates as if their lives depended on it. For all the Ruler knew, that might just have been the case. She shut the window.

The next day, the Ruler looked out to see the Template Horde had gone. At least it was gone from her realm. She looked up the Yessir Yessir Highway and saw clouds of dust raised in front of the castles of her bosses to the fourth and fifth powers, the Emperor and the Greatest Ruler. This was not a good omen, but the trouble was distant for now. 

She turned back to her chambers. Her paperwork pile had begun to grow again. As she settled into that task, the Wizard dropped by.

"All good?" he asked.

"I don't pay you enough," said the Ruler, initiating the Corny Joke protocol.

"Oh great Ruler," said the Wizard, following the protocol, "you don't pay me anything."

"Well, in that case then," said the Ruler, delivering the Official Punchline, "I'll double your salary."

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Sub-ordinates

Before: the massive water infrastructure installation site in the Allan Gardens: what's left of the big hole that sat behind hoardings for almost four years.

After: Same site, resodded. 

Some of my readers may be aware of the agreement reached by First Ministers early in February in Vancouver to work together on Clean Growth and Climate Change. 

This is what's called a "Pan-Canadian" effort, because the term "national" offends the tender sensibilities of Quebec.

This is also the first time in a decade that federal officials have had to put on their "away" uniforms and play with the provinces. They have been told to play nice. But, like the big, awkward new kid who doesn't know his own strength, the federal team can't help itself but wreak a little havoc.

As always, these are confidential matters, so it's time to take a trip to the land of the Yessir Yessir Highway and our friend the Ruler and her Advisors.

*****

The Ruler of a small but pleasant realm found herself with some time on her hands. She hadn't seen the Henchman in days, nor any messengers with demands from her bosses of the second-through-fifth powers, and she finally, after many months, had gotten through all her paperwork.

She decided she'd go for a walk.

On her stroll, she passed close to the old stone wall that separated her realm from that of another Power.  Rumour held that the Power was terrible. Fully fifteen times the size of any kingdom, the Power was supposed to wield awesome magic that had, long ago, thrown the whole world as it was known then into a vast conflagration unleashing destruction and pestilence everywhere.

But, thought the Ruler, as she passed her hand absently over the moss-grown, smooth old rocks of the ancient wall, that was long ago. No one had seen or heard anything of the Power for as long as she had been Ruler. These were old wives' tales.

She felt a stone in her shoe and leaned on the old wall for balance while she fished it out.

Ever so slightly, the part of the wall the Ruler rested her hand on moved. She thought the rock was just loose from the crumbling that comes with the passage of time.

She thought different when she saw the whole wall fall away on both sides for as far as the eye could see. For the first time in living memory, the vast and terrible Power lay revealed before her.

What the Ruler saw made her knees tremble. 

There were legions of Advisors, ranks upon ranks of them, in numbers beyond counting. And each Advisor held a template. 

Some Advisors looked upon the Ruler and said, "You must fill in this template by Tuesday." 

And others said, "We must hold twenty-four teleconferences this week to fill in this template." 

And still others said, "We must meet with stakeholders to discuss what else can go in this template."  

And still others said, "We must meet face to face to fill in this template." 

And still others said, "We must form sub-groups and sub-sub groups and sub-sub-sub groups to fill in this template."

Overwhelmed by the sight and ruckus of the jabbering Advisors of the unseen-until-just-now Power, the Ruler covered her eyes and ears to give herself the opportunity to think. An idea came to her.

She raised her hands to the multitude in the internationally-recognized sign of "could you please shut up for just one second."

The horde of Advisors, trained in the international sign language, felt silent en masse.

Shouting as loud as she could so the whole giant crowd could hear her, she asked "Can you tell me why we must fill in these templates?" 

The baffled Advisors turned their gaze away from the Ruler and started to argue fiercely among themselves.

Half-running, half-hobbling, the stone still lodged in her shoe, the Ruler beat a hasty retreat. She'd bought herself some time, but the hordes would soon turn their attention back to her, and she would have to be ready.

To be continued ...

********

Lucky Dog Update

Pictured below is Pico, rescued from life in a puppy mill by our good friends Angie and Keith. You can see that Pico has adjusted to her new situation, and is now tied for sixth on the list of the top ten luckiest dogs in the world. Occupying sixth place with Pico, but not pictured here, is Slim, Angie and Keith's rescued Chi-weenie (half chihuahua, half mini-dachshund). 

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Conversations About Leaks

The Battery, St. John's: May 11, 2016

The last time the province of Ontario released a climate change action plan - that would be in 2007 - there were a mess of leaks in the run up to the official release.

But, nothing comes close to the degree and intensity of the leak this past week - on Monday, when I was still on Newfoundland time, so that the enormity dawned on me about a half hour after everyone else.

The official climate change plan is still some time away from hitting the street. We are now on super double plus document distribution lock down. If there's another leak before the planned release, we'll have no one to investigate but ourselves.

Because of all the uncontrolled releases of information recently, I've spent a lot of time on the phone with stakeholders - people representing businesses that will be affected one way or the other by the government's plans.

One of these people said to me: "It must be a great feeling to be working on something that is in the newspapers and that everyone is talking about."

Maybe. Let's ask Mike Duffey about that.

Still, my neighbours are impressed. I'd hinted a couple of meetings of the condo board ago that there might be in the near future other things in the offing for home heating besides natural gas. A fellow board member loudly scoffed at the notion that anything would trump natural gas from now until the end of time. He's not scoffing now.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great long weekend!

Karen

The New Found Land

I'm torn over which photo to start with.  

This is Quidi Vidi. I'll bet it's one of the prettiest places in Canada and among the most Newfoundland-y.

But, the lighthouse at Fort Amherst is also Newfoundland-y.

And this sign harbours a newfie joke in it somewhere.

Tragic tales are a good lead, even of those foolish enough to test the waters at the easternmost point of Canada.

You can't go wrong with dogs. Especially when they are made of bronze. St. John's honours Newfoundland's two breeds with larger-than-life likenesses on the only public spot on the waterfront. 

Still, nothing says "local colour" like a big, rusty gun from the second World War left behind by the American military.

But, the real story about Newfoundland is rocks and water, so I think I'll start with this shot.

We're back home after a fun week away. If you want to know about where we stayed, what we saw and what we ate, I did all kinds of reviews on TripAdvisor: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The best things about coming back home after a nice trip away: your own bed, your own shower and a cup of coffee made just the way you like it.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen