Opinions
Ignatieff and soon it will be Jack Layton's turn. Will Jack be forced to ritual sacrifice, like losing leaders of old?
The convention allowed CPC members to congratulate one another and to worship the fearless leader who has brought them to the Nirvana of Majority. Majority has given him people to play with so hopefully he can demand more of those appointed to senior positions and to change more frequently to get rid of misfits or incompetents. Still there is much deadwood in government and unfortunately in Layton's NDP also, since so many are new including the much publicized lady who didn't even know her constituency. One hopes that they have the capacity to learn quickly and not get carried away by the mere fact of being elected.
The adoration at the gathering was not new; but the agenda did provide some grounds for debate and revealed a few cracks in the party superstructure. One of these came from a motion by Ontario conservative Scott Reid who reintroduced a proposal for a one-man-one-vote method of selecting the party leader, versus the existing one based on equality of ridings, a keystone of the conservative alliance and passionately defended by Peter MacKay. Reid's method is akin to proportional representation, and not surprisingly his motion was defeated. In practice, it would favour Ontario and Alberta politicians over those from the Atlantic Provinces and Québec, which tend to be small and could never compete numerically with those of the larger conservative regions. In fact Mackay sounded rather peeved that Reid could bring this proposal yet again to the convention, especially as it revives the previous divisions of the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance. However some of Reid's colleagues—Baird, Kenney, Finley, Plett—would back the system but set the range of points allowed at 100-400 per riding—to prevent smothering of small ones. Currently each riding is allowed 100 points.
Clearly Alberta's Kenney is looking to his future candidacy for party leadership, against the likely favourite Peter MacKay or possibly John Baird. It's nice to know that politicians are willing to massage the process to their advantage. How ironic that Reid's system, applied federally, would not have given his party a win. Yet something like it should be applied federally to replace the discouraging and vote-wasting first-past-the-post (FPP) system that gave Harper victory with only 40% of votes. The FPP election model is notorious for this deficiency. Finley regards the current system as broken and an "...opportunity for abuse, for improper conduct, for sheer downright cheating..." and suggested that it did not produce the majority but rather "accidentally produced a leader who gave us a majority."
A few interesting comments were made. In his speech Harper arrogantly dismissed the NDP and suggested that its flirtation with Québec would soon end and that the conservatives would have little need to dialogue with the party. This was not unexpected and if Jack Layton is naïve enough to expect anything different then he must bestir himself to realize that Harper will not easily change his spots. The anomalous NDP successes in Québec have to be seen as a protest against Harper, the Bloc Québecois and the Liberals and illustrate an FPP weakness.
Harper might be overly optimistic in believing that Québec conservatism is the same as his, and that Québec will dump the NDP and return to his fold.
On international affairs, he labelled many members of the United Nations as dictators (partially true, and needed to be said) but it sounded like sour grapes as Canada did not get a seat on the Security Council largely due to their negative votes; he promised to do right and follow a principled approach to international affairs rather than seek popularity.
On another issue: what's become of our major press? With catastrophes, conflict, desperation and human tragedies worldwide the Toronto Star front-paged a pair of decerebrate humans who advocate gender-neutral development for their little children! The pyramid of ignorance their position hides is mind-boggling.
Cherry blossoms and a
flowering of poui trees
My years in high school back home saw me leaving the known in central Trinidad where I grew up and daily traveling into the eastern part of the island. These are among the last years I spent in Trinidad before leaving to make a life abroad. I treasure these years. I like to link these to the growth of my sensibility as a writer.
I recall my first impression of my new school. It was lined inside the perimeter of the wire fence with the beautiful poui trees.
Many of us who grew up back home would remember fondly the two main "flowering" times during the year. For me there were the cane arrows that
pushed out from the tops of the sugar canes in late November and December. In the warm month leading up to our tropical Christmas I would watch the landscape transform as the canes "flowered". The arrows would dominate the skyline, its soft white feathers like a million dusters reaching skywards. What was a hard landscape of razor-sharp blades of the sugar cane leaves waving like swords was transformed into a downy white that swayed in animation whenever a gentle trade wind winnowed through.
Then came the months of April to May with the flowering of the poui trees. The blooms were brilliant – yellow or pink. Where the trees dotted the hills their pink and yellow flowering emerged as splotches of paint on a forest green landscape. Such was the limit of my worldly knowledge, that is, until I entered high school for the first time.
Up to then, it had not occurred to me that these trees could be taken out of the "wild" and become part of the landscaping surrounding an institution such as a high school. The trees before me were quite youthful, not yet as tall and grand as their counterparts growing on the summits of the mountains of the central range where I had always known them to be. Instead, they were lined and planted in exact distances from each other. I had looked up to see the growth of a canopy in the years to come, with the upper branches eventually interlocking to knit the sky out.
The poui trees were not in bloom when I first saw them. What I saw around me was a lot of activity under the trees. Men were toiling in the sun. They were glistening, sweating with the labour of hewing and climbing the young trees to prune the wayward branches. A few were sitting in the dappled shade around a bucket of water. One man dipped into the bucket with a cup, swirled the contents and lifted out a dripping draught of what was cold water. A handcuff hanging from a wrist flashed in the stray light that had penetrated through the young canopy. The men were prisoners. Indeed, a maximum prison was located a few kilometres east of where the school was located. I was looking at a prison work gang.
The scene began to fill in – a prison van was parked behind the fence. It was a vehicle that was solidly made. Its iron sides showed the endless weal lines of thorough, unyielding welding; the windows high on its frame were solid iron bars that simulated the daily prison that held these men now laboring as makeshift arborists. Prison officers armed with shotguns leaned languidly against the trunks of the poui trees in the shade, watching the prisoners as they laboured in the hot sun.
One prisoner, wearing trousers only and without shoes, appeared to have been entrusted with an axe. He was a powerful man, his arms thick with muscles and a massive upper body. He was swinging the axe downwards with concentrated, clockwork intent, chopping the thicker branches that had been pruned from the poui trees into small pieces for firewood. It seemed an effortless task for him given his musculature. At the same time I wondered at the futility of it all, the make-work moment in prolonging the freedom and the space away from the confining walls that make it hell for inmates ending their days pent-up in a Trinidad prison. The pile of firewood stayed behind.
I spent many hours under the poui trees. We sought its shade to watch the inter-school cricket matches. We raised our deepening voices at the Intercol soccer games. And each day we had lunch under the canopy with the trees resplendent with its blossoms overhead. Under our feet were pink and yellow carpets of the decaying, fallen flowers.
We teased one schoolmate for the monotony in his lunch bag. Each day he had roti with fried plantains. The plantains were tucked inside the slices, golden brown and crisp, the roti softly leavened in the center. He chewed each mouthful with eyes closed, savouring the caramel in the plantains. Sometimes he shared.
In springtime the cherry blossoms see my feelings mixed about the poui trees. I fry plantains trying to recreate its golden brown under the poui trees, even as I recall the barebacked prisoner futilely swinging an axe.