MAP QUEST

Hanns F Skoutajan

When I was a teenager I developed a great interest in maps. A friendly neighbour who had heard of my interest introduced me to topographical maps - 1 inch to 1 mile - of the county in which I lived. I soon learned to interpret the brown contour lines to indicate hills and valleys and  then took to my bicycle to explore the territory first hand, identifying the farm houses, the rural schools and churches, the ponds, creeks and rivers that dotted the county that were indicated on the map.

Next I expanded my interest beyond the immediate environment of Hastings county. Whenever I went to Belleville I dropped in at the James and Texts stationery store where I found a large variety of topographical maps. My maps soon covered the whole area from Oshawa to Kingston, north to the outskirts of Ottawa and west along the southern border of Algonquin Park. 

As time passed some of these maps became obsolete. None of my maps showed

Highway 401 as it stretches west from Toronto to Montreal. Towns and villages changed radically as suburbs mushroomed on the outskirts of these communities following the end of the war. Roads changed their course, were straightened and went around communities rather than through them as a main street. Railways such as the one running north from Trenton through the beautiful Trent Valley to Maynooth, disappeared when the iron ore near Marmora ran out  So did the line from Kingston to Pembroke and from Perth west to Peterborough. Their right of ways can still be identified. Some have been transformed into bike or hiking trails

I am still vey much interested in maps. Our bookshelves are loaded with atlases. The Internet has made maps very accessible. By means of Mapquest I am able to transform paper maps into areal photographs. I enjoyed the photography of Chris Hadfield from outer space as they revealed our whole planet showing mountains  and mighty rivers, shorelines as well as all sorts of terrain such as deserts and large urban areas. I was particularly fascinated by maps of the world that revealed the lights of civilization as they lit up large sections of the globe. They also showed the damage that humans have visited upon this planet as can be seen in pictures of the oil sands of Fort McMurray, Alberta or the strange tint of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 

Our world is indeed fascinating but also a worrisome place. Viewing this terrain one wonders what will become of it. How can we rehabilitate the damaged areas? The question presents itself - have we gone too far, has our greed pushed us beyond the brink of viability?

From time to time I open the box of these old maps and remember what it had been like in the days of my youth. Undoubtedly there have been some vast improvements but we have also left what seems like irreparable damage.

I don’t want to live in the past but I also do not want to bequeath a despoiled environment to my granddaughter. These old maps raise in me a great sense of responsibility for new generations. Will the maps and photos of today be incomprehensible to the people of the future?

The national anthem of the Czech Republic, the land of my birth, begins with a question: “Where is my home, my fatherland?” It then goes on to describe the beautiful countryside, its mountain and rivers, waterfalls and forests. The question is appropriate for our time and place. Are our lakes and rivers still able to sustain life? Has our thirst for resources, oil and minerals, so transfigured our homeland that the question leaves us frustrated?

The maps of today may soon become obsolete as we transform our environment for better or for worse. What is needed is a sense of responsibility and imagination for what might yet be.  There is little time to wait.

SQ  01/06/2014

    

TO PRAY

Hanns F Skoutajan

“To clasp one’s hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorders of

the world.” So wrote the late Karl Barth, the eminent Swiss Reformed theologian. Time

magazine placed his picture on the cover of their weekly news magazine on April 20,

1962 and referred to him as the most important theologian of the 20th century.

Barth was born in Switzerland in 1886 and died there in 1968. He taught theology in

several German universities including Muenster where I did postgraduate studies albeit

long after his time. His magnum opus : Church Dogmatics (13 large volumes) was

required reading for any theological student in Germany.

But Barth was no mere academic he was also deeply involved in the political situation of

his time. He is said to have insisted that the preacher mount the pulpit with the Bible in

one hand and the newspaper in the other. He is well known to have called upon prewar

German Christians to give allegiance to God rather than the state, which of course

annoyed Hitler and his followers and made him a marked man. He was deeply involved

in the formation of the Confessing Church along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a movement

that stood against the fascist ideology of the time.

In 1935 Barth left Germany for his native Switzerland. Many theological students from

around the world both before and after the war came to him to sit at his feet. He was

quite open to students, indeed, a friend of mine, a great admirer of Barth visited him in

Basel. Quite unannounced he found his home, knocked on the door and spent a goodly

hour with him discussing theology. After the war he also lectured in American

universities.

While professor in Basel he was a frequent preacher in the prison chapel in that city. His

collected sermons were called Liberty to the Captives. To read them helps one to

understand his theology from a very practical point of view.

“The Disorders of the Time” were well known to him. Prayer, however, was no mere

pleading with God to change the world but a call to those who dare to clasp their hands

in ritual to involve themselves in the uprising as Barth had dared to do in prewar

Germany.

These disorders are of course still visible in every part of the globe, on every continent .

To pray, therefore, means to be involved in the struggle against what the Apostle Paul

called “the principalities and powers , against the rulers of the world of this darkness.”

Ephesians 6:12

In a letter published in the Guardian UK (April 10, 14) Bishop Desmond Tutu calls upon

Christians and others to stand against those who would despoil the environment for

profit. He begins his letter, “ Twenty five years ago people could be excused for not

knowing much, or doing much about climate change . Today we have no excuse. No

more can it be excused as science fiction, we are already feeling its effects.” He

continues, “Throughout my life I have believed that the only just response to injustice is

what Mahatma Gandhi termed ‘passive resistance.’”

The hands clasped in prayer are to be employed in an uprising that is non violent but

nevertheless powerful as it was in India in the latter 40s, and in the struggle against

Apartheid in the 90s.

To dare to clasp ones hands in prayer, therefore, means to stand in solidarity with the

poor, the disenfranchised, the least of these, the exploited of the world. In our own

country it certainly means to stand with the aboriginals, the first people of this land.

When the preacher on Sunday announces “Let us pray” what is demanded are no mere

pleas for God to intercede on our behalf but to seek to understand what is God’s will

and to become involved in the struggle against the disorders of our time.

MYQUEST

May 20 2014

CELEBRATING EASTER, THE SEASON OF HOPE

Hanns F Skoutajan

Its Easter time, my favourite season of the year. That basket of beautiful coloured eggs  once again adorns our dining room table. Not only are those eggs beautiful but they are now over 55 years old. I bought them from a vendor on the Old Town Square in the heart of the city of Prague in April 1968 on the occasion of my first visit after my mother and I had fled our homeland in 1938.

Prague was in a festive mood when I visited. The simple red, white and blue flag fluttered from every tower and mast throughout the city.  The picture of Thomas Garrigue Masaryk , the first president of the newly created Czechoslovakia after the end of World War 1, adorned many store windows and homes. It had been absent during the dark days of communism after the Second World War .

It was spring but more than that it was the Prague Spring when Alexander Dubcek had brought new hope to the people of the republic that the dark days of communism were over, that there was now a socialism with a human face. Unfortunately those day were not to last. In August of that year the tanks and soldiers of the Soviet Union and its allies rolled through the cobblestone streets of that ancient city and most of the country and the old totalitarian dictatorship was reinstalled. The pictures disappeared from the store windows and drabness and fear returned.  It would take another twenty years before another revolution, “a velvet revolution” would take place under the leadership of Vaclav Havel. I have often wondered whether Havel would have been possible without Dubcek  to lead the way and bring hope for a better future.

Certainly the beautiful Easter eggs had something to do with it.  Hope could not be extinguished in the hearts of a people.

Shortly after the Prague Spring I had the privilege of hosting Milan Machovec, a Christian Marxist philosopher  who had taught at the Charles University in Prague. He had been out of the country teaching in Vienna  where there was greater freedom  to explore the Christian significance of Karl Marx. Both in the West and in the East Machovec raised eyebrows. Neither Marxists nor democrats agreed with him.

When Jan Palach, a student of Machovec, immolated himself on Wenzeslaus Square, Machovec was deeply troubled and he told me that he must return  to be with his students no matter what the consequences for him. As I saw him off at the Ottawa airport he confessed that he was not going home directly without first visiting Jerusalem, as he said, “ to walk where the Master walked” where Jesus was crucified and resurrected and from where his movement for peace and hope emanated. However dark the days that followed the aborted Prague Spring there was a hope that could not be extinguished. The colourful eggs were a symbol of that hope. 

I live in hope. Without hope there would be no life worth living. I live in the hope that the tension between the Ukraine and Russia can be resolved without recourse to war. I live in the hope that Canada can once again become a peacekeeper rather than a worrier nation ( read the book Worrier Nation by McKay and Swift ) I hope that Tom Steyer, the American billionaire and environmentalist and opponent of the Keystone XL Pipeline who recently visited Canada, is right, when upon visiting Alberta he said that “ your country can survive without the oil patch” ( Doug Saunders in the Globe and Mail, April 19) It is my hope that English  and French and Aboriginals and all the many newcomers to our land can live together and build a responsible and prosperous nation without being the world’s greatest source of pollution.

Hope has to be broad. Those Easter eggs remind me of that many faceted hope without which there is not hope for a happy future for the next generation, for my granddaughter Sophia and her friends. Hope springs eternal. Spring is my favourite season because it is a season of hope.

Spirit Quest 19/ 04/ 2014

Dear Friend and Reader:

I AM BACK .....WITH A VENGEANCE!

Many moons have passed since I last accosted you with my Spirit Quest.

Some of you have enquired whether I have dropped your address from the

roster of my correspondents. Others have suggested that I have decamped

to a warmer clime, not a bad suggestion for this winter. Neither is the

reason for my truancy, rather, I confess that I have been dealing with a

health issue that has deprived me of some of my writing energy and ideas.

Nine years ago on a sunny spring day I stood by the banks of the Ottawa

River and observed the water running over the stones. It was very soothing

and pleasant, however, there was something else sitting on my mind. In an

hour or so I would have to present myself at the hospital to hear the result

of the urologist’s investigation of my prostate gland.

“ We have discovered cancer cells on both sides of the gland.” It wasn’t

quite the blow that I had imagined, there seemed no indication that the

cancer had spread beyond the gland itself. I was recommended to an

oncologist for further investigation and treatment.

Nevertheless, as I left the office I was conscious that I was hosting an inner

battle. Over the next months and years I would always be aware of this

malaise. I comforted myself that I had no pains or discomforts, that my

symptoms were all statistical.

Since then I have undergone radiation and hormone therapy and more

lately with a rising PSA rate had to undertake what I had vowed to myself I

would never accept: chemotherapy. It was in reaction to this invasive

therapy that I recently spent two weeks in hospital. The therapy had worked

wonders, my PSA had come tumbling down to below the normal level but

there was a price to be paid. My immunology had suffered. My white blood

cell count had dropped dramatically and I felt unwell. Cancer in all its forms

is the body attacking itself. My natural defences had in fact turned against

me.

The McMurtrys are a well known Toronto family. Among the four sons is

Robert a medical researcher and John a professor of philosophy at the

University of Guelph. Some years ago when their mother came down with a

form of cancer these sons spent much time thinking about her condition

and the nature of her disease.

Robert with his clinical knowledge was of course concentrating on the

human body and its vagaries but John became aware that what held true

for the physical body had parallels for the body politic. In other words there

was much evidence that the very forces that ought to assure a just and

equitable society had a way of being turned against itself. He compared the

behaviour of corporations in the economy to the conduct of biological

cancer cells. He tells about it in a book called “The Cancer Stage of

Capitalism.” Ed Finn, editor of the CCPA Monitor recently wrote the

following about it:

“To invade and multiply in the human body, a cancer virus has to overcome

the body’s natural defences. A strong immune system has a good chance

of beating back the virus invaders, but someone with an immune system

weakened by poor nutrition and environmental carcinogens can’t stop the

cancer from spreading .

The unchecked cancer doesn’t win, of course . This is battle in which both

sides ultimately lose, because soon after the cancer kills the host, it also

dies. But that’s the only way it can function.

Its the same with corporations . Their CEOs are also programmed to

maximize profits, which means spreading and growing by any means - by

cutting jobs, battering unions , evading taxes , corrupting politicians ,

exploiting sweatshop labour , clearcutting forests , pillaging natural

resources, increasing poverty and contaminating the environment.

The corporate cancer is doing what comes naturally to all cancers : it is

growing; it is feeding on its hosts.”

Austerity, privatization,, cut backs in social programs, education and health

care have been very much in vogue as a means of restoring an economy to

profitability by means of structural adjustments, which have done great

damage to economies. They affect the non wealthy class while enhancing

the status of the rich and corporations whose incomes have vaulted beyond

recognition. The public is assured that its the only way

Our own country is a case in point where the petroleum industry with

promises of jobs and wealth have released a cancer that has all but

destroyed the ecology of northern Alberta. No warnings have been

sufficient to deter further extraction and shipments of petro products. Like a

cancer it spreads exponentially bringing about climate change.

Our government who ought to be in the forefront of protecting our country

and its natural resources are way out ahead in propagating more assault

on the natural environment. Few are allowed to stand in its way that are not

denounced as foreign interference.

Cancer is writ large not only on the bodies of our aboriginal people who live

in close proximity to the tar pits and the rivers polluted by them. Seeing the

photoography of Edward Burtynsky is a shattering exeperience.

Can cancer in all its forms be beaten? The motto of the Canadian Cancer

Society assures that it can and indeed there are many cancer survivors, but

the disease in all its various forms is almost of epidemic proportions.

Similarly the corporate attack on the body politic is devastating particularly

to the middle and lower classes and indeed the economic heath of nations.

Finn concludes : “Some environmentalists envision our planet as a giant

living organism . They call her Gaia, and they lament all the wounds

inflicted on her seas, forests, ecosystems and diverse living creatures.

They are still confident that Gaia will survive the corporate cancer

onslaught but fear that many of its life forms - including humankind itself -

will not. The battle for survival is on!

Hanns F Skoutajan

SPIRIT QUEST : March 29, 2014

WHAT IF?

Hanns F Skoutajan

In my imagination I see them, a long line of horse-drawn wagons stretching beyond the hills across the prairie much like their predecessors many years ago. But these were not ordinary settlers but second time refugees. Only months earlier they had escaped from the Nazi take-over of their native Sudetenland ( the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia), now they were once more on the run, hoping to make it to the US border before the vanguard of Hitler’s forces reached them.

Unlike other settlers these were not farmers, most of them were labour union officials, leaders of the Red Guard , a paramilitary organization set up to protect the Social Democrats against the Henlein thugs (Nazis under the influence of Der Fuehrer next door prior to the Munich Agreement of 1938). It would be at least two weeks before the wagon train reached the US border. Crossing would be no problem unlike today. It was after all the world’s longest undefended border. Later there might be some objections to their presence, they were after all socialists, not communist, a distinction the Americans found hard to define. 

Hitler hated them with a passion as they had stood against his incursion. Several thousand managed to get away to Britain while other got caught behind the lines and ended up in concentration camps of Dachau , Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Teresienstadt (Terezin). A goodly percentage of them were Jews, albeit non- practicing, who were in even more danger. Many British rallied to rescue them but now they too were helpless. 

This scenario came to me as I read the book Dominion by C J Sansom, a British writer historian, who published a “what if?” historical essay - what if in May of 1940 Britain had surrendered to Hitler? Would the German forces have quickly rushed across the Atlantic to seize the “bread basket” and

“lebensraum” for Volk and Fuehrer, and would they have remembered their Sudeten foes? The Sudetens certainly were not going to take any chances. 

In this story “the Canadian born Lord Beaverbrook is the pro-German prime minister replacing Chamberlain, ready to condone the continuing erosion of civil liberties and the spectacle of Britain’s Jews being rounded up and deported.  (In fact Beaverbrook became a member of Churchill’s wartime cabinet.) A huge painting of Hitler now hangs in the entrance hall of the hallowed National Portrait Gallery. Meanwhile an ageing Churchill is in the shadows, the leader of an underground resistance group,” so writes Sansom.

The action goes back to that day in 1940 when the discredited prime minister Neville Chamberlain steps down. Lord Halifax, Chamberlain’s right hand man and a Brit who was a Nazi admirer was in line to succeed him but failed. Sansom writes that “I was always struck how close it came to Churchill not getting the premiership.” He had many enemies both among his own party, the Conservatives and of course the opposition parties, Liberals and Labour. There were lots of fascist sympathizers in the UK such as Enoch Powell and Edward VII. 

Canada as well had its pro Nazis. Prime Minister Mackenzie King had called Hitler an “honourable man” only months before the war broke out. Many Canadian farms were settled by Germans in the thirties. I recall a bruhaha that broke out on the platform of the Saskatoon CN station when our train stopped there. Members of the German Bund, a rabidly pro Hitler group arrived to confront us. Only the departure whistle of the train prevented a riot. Canadian National Colonization obviously had little knowledge of what our political persuation was when they appointed Boscher and Kastendick as settlement supervisors. When war broke out they and many others were interned in camps. I cringed when I read Sansom’s fictional scenario.

Democracy is a frail plant indeed, like a chain, it is only as strong as its weakest link. The government's proposed overhaul of the Elections Act includes elements that constitute an affront to democracy, according to Canada's Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand.

In an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio's The House, Mayrand said, "My reading of the act is that I can no longer speak about democracy in this country. I'm not aware of any electoral bodies around the world who cannot talk about democracy," Mayrand told host Evan Solomon. 

Others, David MacDonald, former minister of communication in the Joe Clarke cabinet, denied that Canada could any longer be called a democracy but had become an oligarchy.

Ed Finn,editor of the Monitor, the official organ of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives writes (Feb. 14 2014) “Its not only the Harper government that is servile to the big corporations and billionaires. To varying degrees, all governments are. Canadian provinces may occasionally defy their corporate overlords on some social issues, but basically they all see their primary role keeping Big Business happy. That means keeping business taxes low, keeping regulations weak , keeping social program spending down, keeping pollution control measures minimal  and keeping unions on a tight legislative leash.”

Lately charitable organizations have been threatened with costly audits should they be found critical of government. The command from on high is “do good deeds and keep your mouth shut about the forces that cause the problems.”

As for Canadians in general, in an article in The Walrus TimothyTaylor writes that “Most of us say that we favour higher taxes, but in the privacy of the voting booth we will all do the same thing we did the last time: vote for the government we think will cost us the least.” 

Sansom writes, “ If the squeeze had been put on us long enough and hard enough by a German government that dominated Europe, I think that Britain would have caved in, as it does in the book.” Fortunately a man of iron will came to the leadership calling Brits “to fight on the beaches,” demanding “blood sweat and tears,” all of which they offered in loads during those years when the German Luftwaffe reduced Manchester and Birmingham, Coventry and London to rubble, when the war’s end was anything but a foregone conclusion. Hitler was occupying Europe from Norway’s Nordkappe to the Sahara, from the English Channel to the Pripet Marshes just short of Moscow. 

Our Sudeten settlers did not have to migrate a second time but many of the men left the farms to join the Canadian forces to fight their arch enemy. Others like my father worked a 60 hour week to produce the guns and planes that eventually turned the tide.

“What if?” is not an idle question. A year from now Canada will be involved in a hard battle for political supremacy in the House of Commons. What if Harper’s Conservatives gain another majority by fair or foul means and the Canadian government is given the green light to continue with even more speed to privatize, to infringe on our human rights and allow the corporations to lay waste to our land as is happening in Northern Alberta.  None of it is beyond the realm of the possible

What if? I cringe!

SQ 12/ 02/ 2014

                     BOXES ON THE HILLSIDE

                                      Hanns F Skoutajan

“Little boxes on the hillside ... and they all look just the same,” was one of Pete Seeger’s songs wherewith he spoofed the suburbs that were growing like mushrooms at the periphery of most cities and towns in America and Canada following WW II. I remember first hearing it and got a big laugh out of it. 

But on second thought I recalled having once lived in one of those “little boxes.” Indeed it was my home for almost ten years. The suburbs that Seeger sings about are post war while I lived in wartime housing from ‘42 - ’52, that looked much the same.

The Bata Shoe Company where my father was employed as a quality control engineer, established a village to house the workers.  It was located six miles north of the city of Trenton, Ontario in the beautiful valley of the Trent River,  There were hills all around that reminded the Czech employees of their homeland. They had escaped the Nazi take-over of Czechoslovakia.  I know that my own parents felt that way.

Batawa, as the village was named after the world famous shoe enterprise, was quite an anomaly. On a Sunday afternoon quite a number of cars brought curious people to see this unusual sight - a village of small houses that seemed to have sprung out of he ground.  Most communities in Canada had developed slowly over the years and were comprised of a variety of styles, or no style at all. Batawa was “little boxes” of a variety of colours, a planned village.

Today, the “little boxes” are all gone, replaced by much more modern homes such as we see in most suburbs. These wartime prefabs can still be seen in other places, for instance in Ottawa at Kirkwood just south of Carling Avenue.  The owners have often added to them on the back and on the sides.

I vividly recall the day that we moved in. After fleeing from our comfortable apartment house in Czechoslovakia, we lived in a variety of accommodation which included a castle in Scotland, a log shack in northern Saskatchewan and in a couple of rooms in a small house in downtown Toronto. For the first time in my life I had a room to myself. What a luxury! Those Little Boxes on the hillside weren’t all that bad.

The late Pete Seeger accompanied on his banjo, was a musical prophet, performing songs critical of the Vietnam War and indeed all war. “When will we ever learn?” His grandfather protested the US entry into World War I. He campaigned for justice and human rights and took with him thousands of fans and will be well remembered. I shall certainly replay those vinyl platters that I bought years ago.

He was, of course, brought before the House Unamerican Activities Committee and denounced by Senator McCarthy as a communist. Indeed in his student days at Harvard University he had joined with student rebels some of whom were communist. 

His songs were audacious but not rabel rousing. He was first and foremost an American. To the CBC goes the credit when he was banned from most major US networks for giving him a platform from which he could reach many of the citizens south if the border but also in Canada where they had immigrated to avoid the draft.

He lived a long and productive life and had many friends in the musical field such as Odetta, the well-known black singer and Woodie Gurthrie among them. In his death at the age of 94 he will be much celebrated. It is fervently hoped that his spirit , like that of John Brown, will march on. It is much needed at a time when the corporate world has taken over the United States as well as Canada. We need to experience a rebirth of democracy to replace the oligarchic systems that have taken over. 

Yes, I lived in one of those little boxes but what I remember best of all is the sense of community that existed in our little village on the banks of the Trent. There is now a new community there. Of the old structures only the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic church built in 1941 remains. The five story factory, which was once a war plant producing shell casings, gun mounts and aircraft arts and later on shoes and boots, stands idle. Sonja Bata, the widow of the late Thomas Bata, has dreamed boldly and, as the first Batawa once was, it is again in the forefront of being a unique community.

         

The Batawa Ski Hill has attracted much attention plus the many exciting community initiatives such as environmental care and just plain fun for the residents is very much apparent. It keeps true to its motto: Batawa - beautiful by nature and design.

They are no longer “little boxes on the hillside” but a modern community that Seeger could well have sung about.

Spirit Quest 30/ 01/ 2014

More writings can be found at MYQUEST.

   

REP BY POP

Hanns F Skoutajan

I received my first lessons in civics in that little red school house (36 pupils, 8 grades, one teacher, one room with potbellied stove in the centre) in the wilds of Saskatchewan north of the prairies. 

As was the practice with most schools in the province the teacher set up a branch of the Junior Red Cross. This organization was not to teach how to roll bandages or to administer a variety of minor medical procedures but to raise a few funds and to teach the students the rudiments of parliamentary procedures. Thus at the age of 11 or so I had some sense of how a meeting is to be conducted, to pass motions and, yes, even to amend them. So why is it that most Canadians are still blissfuly ignorant about rules of order insisting that motions be passed before amended rather than the other way round?  

At this point I need to emphasize that the Canadian parliamentary system is not run by the American Robert’s Rules of Order but by Bourniot, and there is a difference. The latter rules of order are the authoritative manual of parliamentary procedure originally published in 1884 .

As university chaplain I often visited the meetings of other ethnic organizations on campus. Attending a meeting of students from Latin America I was impressed by the fact that few had any understanding of parliamentary procedure and indeed, all business seemed to be accomplished by “coups d’etat.”  Undoubtedly that is what they had experienced back home where they did not have a Junior Red Cross.  

Canadians elect their government by the antiquated “first past the post” system of elections, still in effect in the UK, Australia and India, and to some extent in the US where it is complicated by the votes of the Electoral College.

Having just returned from his “love in” with Netanyahu Prime Minister Harper is undoubtedly aware that Israel from its very inception 75 years ago has had a system of proportional representation and thus has never had what Harper has so much coveted, a majority government which can run rough shod over all those other political parties and their opinions. 

There are, of course, many different kinds of proportional representation. Roughly stated it means that when 30% of votes are cast for a particular party that party receives that same percentage of seats in the House.

All political leaders long for a majority to institute their unwatered-down agenda, the platform on which they campaigned in the elections. In a minority government there has to be compromise. Parliament has to become a place where members debate the issues rather than grandstand and call each other names and in the end get what the “ruling” party wants.

The recent death of John Matheson, best known as the inventor of the Maple Leaf Flag, reminded me of an incident which I witnessed when he was a member of parliament. One day my spouse and I sat in the visitors gallery of the House. It was on that momentous occasion that the infamous name “Gerda Munsinger” was voiced from across the aisle and pandemonium broke out. 

The Munsinger Affair was Canada’s first national political sex scandal. It focused on Gerda Munsinger, an alleged East German prostitute and Soviet spy living in Ottawa who allegedly had slept with a number of cabinet ministers in John Diefenbaker’s government and thus was political dynamite when called to mind in what seemed like a cat-call from the ranks of the opposition.

Later on our way home I saw the lone figure of John Matheson looking very crestfallen on the steps of parliament. I knew him somewhat from our mutual association with Queen’s University. As I approached him I noted that tears were coursing down his cheek. He was devastated by the spectacle in the House and called the episode a “travesty of democracy.”

In many ways what we see in the Commons these days, especially in Question Period, is but a “travesty” of which Canadians can be ashamed.

I do not mean to suggest that any system of proportional representation will solve all problems, sexual or otherwise, but it does mean that parliamentarians and particularly their leaders must be cognizant and respectful of the opinion of other members and their parties. Gone should be such aberrations as the so-called omnibus bills which, like Skylar’s pipe bomb, contain many “goodies” that can wreak mischief by bypassing parliamentary scrutiny and sanction. Gone also should be the government’s heavy handed rule by the Prime Minister’s Office. 

My fervent hope is that Prime Minister Harper will have been so impressed by Israel’s democracy, a fact which he reiterated on many occasions in the Knesset and elsewhere, that he will have become an advocate of their system of governance. I look forward to his standing in the House and announcing boldly that “it is crystal clear” our great nation is lagging far behind the political system of Israel, and that at the next election Canadian voters will be truly represented by a system of proportional representation, and to hell with majority rule. (ha!)

I shall not hold my breath until that time. I nevertheless hope that Canadians will find a new and better way of being represented in government soon. I believe that it will resolve many if not all of our problems of governance and make us a more truly democratic nation.

Spirit Quest  22/01/2014

Other writings can be found at MYQUEST

NB: Change of address  fj735@ncf.ca