My view of the from Tiananmen Square, during a layover in 2013.
There’s a rhythm to an election campaign, from a media coverage standpoint anyway.
The coverage is breathless, and comes hard and fast, out of the starting gate. Lots of stories, angles, in-depth pieces from kitchen tables and rural sawmills and the morning meet-ups of retirees at McDonald’s…some horse-race stories and the fate-of-this-party-or-that-party (or this senior strategist or that one), and then slowly — but not in such a way that it’s admitted, it’s just accepted with a silent nod — the coverage switches back for a time to whatever else is happening in the world.
But this week it’s time for THE DEBATES.
Some people believe that the televised debates are a chance for a leader to really stand out.
For someone to cement their lead (Carney), slip on the banana peel (Carney), change how people see them and wrestle back the momentum (Poilievre), or do something - anything! - to get noticed and possibly not get taken to the electoral woodshed on April 28th (Singh, Blanchet & Pedneault).
All dudes in the Leader’s Debate = Back to the Future; first time since 2011.
But, still, for political junkies, the Leader’s Debates are a little like a Super Bowl half-time show, that only happens once every three or four years.
I don’t know about the sonorousness of Jagmeet Singh’s voice, but this classic from 1985 bears some striking resemblance to the NDP’s revised pitch to voters, which goes something like this.
hey folx, we’re right here. We’ve been here all along, and we’ll still be here even if you don’t vote for us, but since we’ve really done a lot for you we really hope you don’t…forget about us:
And, hey, we get it. You’re scared of the POTUS and a trade war and your job, and house and maybe even our safety. You’re worried about our sovereignty and all that big picture stuff. So are we, for sure. And we know you don’t like Poilievre (neither do we, we really, really don’t, and we promise we won’t support or work with him!). But, if we can ask one little thing — just one thing — please don’t do the whole strategic voting thing and go red and leave the NDP with a tiny handful of MPs who can’t stand up for you like we have (as Tom Petty would implore…):
Ok, it wasn’t quite that faux-millennial text streamy, or that pop or folk music-y.
The night before a speech at the annual Broadbent Institute Progress Summit - taking place a few blocks from the former Manning (as in, Preston Manning) Conference, now known as the Canada Strong and Free Network Conference - the NDP released a new campaign ad. Pivoting from the decades-old (and serially-ineffective) ad copy which basically does a Liberal-Tory, Same-old-Story theme, the campaign pivoted to a closing argument style ad…in an attempt to gain some traction in this disappointing campaign for it so far.
You’ll notice that the statute of Jack Layton as the proverbial angel on Singh’s shoulder plays a prominent role in the ad. The party is hoping for some kind of divine intervention to help improve its fortunes in the closing days of the campaign.
And so are the Conservatives - who spent millions spiking Singh’s negatives in 2024…and must be living to regret that decision now.
For good measure, and balance, here are some of the more prominent Conservative and Liberal ads from the campaign. This Liberal attack ad ties Poilievre to Trump — something his party is desperate to avoid as the POTUS remains deeply unpopular in Canada, and is credited with the rebound in Liberal electoral fortunes.
These ads, from about a year ago, featuring Poilievre’s wife Ana, are still among the best rated ads about the Conservative Leader - who has become a victim of his own success as Prosecutor-in-Chief, when Canadians are looking for something different.
Election denialism isn’t something that normally features in Canadian contests, notwithstanding its significant presence in the US - most notably in 2021.
But last week Conservative campaign rallies featured the ‘green shoots’ of election denialism by attempting to sew doubts about the veracity of the polls. The very same polls, and polling consensus, that gave the Conservatives a 25-point lead as recently as January 26th.
Ahem.
This display brought more than a few rebukes, and some mocking.
In addition, some of the mocking came chiefly not from Liberals, New Democrats or other non-Conservatives…but long-time Conservative strategist, and Doug Ford Campaign Manager, Kory Teneycke; who seems to be doubling, even tripling, down on his criticism of “campaign malpractice” by the Conservatives.
A number of Business leaders, seemingly underwhelmed at the prospect that a fresh Carney Prime Ministership from 2025-29 will reverse the GDP challenges that the country faced under Trudeau’s government, are speaking out. The co-founder of Blackberry, among other things, Jim Balsillie penned this piece in the Globe and Mail: Opinion: Mark Carney will not make Canada more prosperous
Over the weekend, this ad appeared in newspapers across the country, signed by a number of business leaders. It might be a bit glib to note that there are a significant number of “former” before the titles (impressive, all of them) listed among the signatories in the ad; but, still, notable.
In this week’s campaign round-up here on #FragmentofImagination:
- Why the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India & China) matter to #Elxn45;
- Why the US matters waaaaay more;
- Death(s), and Taxes; and,
- Retirement is over-rated.
Dudes.
The Home Front
Promises, Promises
The parties got out of the gate making big promises, trying to either catch or create some wind for their sails.
The week began with big duelling tax cut promises from Carney and Poilievre. The Conservatives didn’t manage a theme, or at least not a discernible one, in their first ~10 days of announcements. They did everything from taxes, to skilled trades, to promising they wouldn’t cut dental care, to fentanyl and justice. On the Liberals’ side, there were some defence policy pronouncements, free tolls on the PEI bridge, a homebuyer’s tax credit and the like. They mostly managed to stay in the Defence and Economic lanes, buttressed by Carney’s moments as PM.
Poilievre’s team ostensibly tried to filter all of their policy announcements through a Canada First lens this week, with less plaudits than they might have hoped. The Conservative Leader’s rallies, though, remained a topic of conversation – and Conservatives were quick to highlight rally attendance numbers and ‘sell-out’ crowds in places like London, ON and Surrey, BC.
He has swapped the t-shirts and bunnies for the Red (!) ties and Canada pins.
Carney’s response? I see your big rallies, and raise you a First Minister’s Meeting, a phone call with the POTUS and the like. Carney stepping off the campaign trail - or ‘pausing’ his campaign, as his office likes to say - to do the PM’s job has a reinforcing effect that the Conservative leader has no real answer to, or ability to compare or contrast with.
Retirement is for schmucks
Many Liberal MPs were choosing to ‘spend more time with family’, taking a run at other jobs like Mayor or in provincial politics, or just tapping-out as the Liberals’ ~25-point deficit in the polls persisted and Trudeau insisted he would lead the party into the next election.
Brison’s post on LinkedIn; he has since joined his longtime friend Carney on the Liberal Campaign plane.
Former Cabinet Minister, turned BMO Vice Chair in 2019, Scott Brison took the extraordinary step of announcing he was taking a leave from his banking role to help on the campaign. It was peculiar – although maybe not if you know Scott. Most of the former senior Cabinet Ministers from either party who choose to help their former tribe are encouraged to do so, and manage to ‘volunteer’ without having to inform the world about it. It’s a sign of the Liberals’ momentum swing that so many former leading lights want you to know that they’re back on the scene to help out.
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Candidate eruptions
They’ve started, in earnest. The closer we get to the April 7th nomination deadline, after which parties cannot swap-out a blown-tire of a candidate for one with some air and less PR punctures, expect to see more information ‘drop’ on candidates for whom there was a #vettingfail or a #frontallobemishap of some sort.
Expect to see an uptick in the brown envelopes, revealed tweets and other ‘bombshells’ (most of which will be more like fizzling cake sparklers) on candidates after the nominations close and taking down a candidate may cost a party an otherwise safe seat.
The Foreign Desk: Foreign Agents, Assassinations, and Moles
For our purposes here, re: ‘Foreign Countries’, I’ll call the U.S.’s role in Canada an “inter-mestic” one; not 100% international or domestic, as a former U.S. State Department bureaucrat once told me they considered the Canada-U.S. relationship.
Reports around interference from India, China and Russia have circulated in the media after a warning from Canadian officials. This followed stories early in the campaign that Poilievre’s 2022 leadership bid might have been subject to Indian interference and gave fresh legs to the stories about his refusal to gain a security clearance in Canada to be briefed on foreign interference efforts.
“It’s very weird, because I can’t imagine, from a political perspective, why it’s worth it. I have top-secret clearance, it’s not that hard,” said Lori Turnbull, the director of Dalhousie University’s school of public administration. “It’s very hard for me to get my mind around why a leader who wants to be prime minister would not go ahead and do this. To give your rival something like that, for free, is stupid when you’re fighting a close election.”
Preach.
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The Liberal resurgence has pushed the NDP down, and the Greens, too, in opinion polling – and pushed the Greens below the required 4% threshold of vote intention. The party managed to fill out its slate and nominate dozens of candidates on Monday – many of which are likely to be known as NOB’s (Names on Ballot), in political parlance.
To be fair, they’re not the only party with NOBs nominated, every party has political deserts in which a willing and stalwart party member agrees to carry the banner to allow them to have a full slate of candidates. This was, perhaps, most famously brought to the fore in the Orange Wave of 2011, when Jack Layton’s NDP surged into official opposition status by electing dozens of Quebec MPs, some of whom weren’t even in the country for a good part of the election.
This outcome likely frustrated the Conservatives, since they must share the time with one more leader in each debate. If they’d still been running in front, they would have likely warmed to a situation where smaller parties got some airtime and their front-runner was less on the hot seat.
Ummm, maybe it’s stuck in Customs; did you pay the tariff bill?
I visited an old friend this weekend, who lives in Southern California (but, of course, proudly displays his Canadian flag, and blasts The Hip). His spouse is American and is one of the numerous folks I met across three US cities over the last week who want us all to know it’s not them doing all this sabre-rattling and annexation-threatening stuff, they love Canadians (often, literally).
I was struck by something they said, as we drove down the highway in their new car smelling Honda. They’d decided to bite the bullet and buy new last December, maybe before they were completely ready, to get ahead of Spring Tariffs they were sure would come. And, last week, POTUS 45/47 made good on that threat to impose tariffs on foreign Automobiles.
Tomorrow, he’s likely to impose more tariffs on what he’s taken to calling Liberation Day. The only thing he may be Liberating (in the short-term anyway) are Pierre Poilievre’s hopes of a major comeback (I know, I know, it’s weird when the guy who was the massive house-money favourite only ~8 weeks ago is now the one trying to mount a comeback). Economists in the US forecast more economic pain, a likely recession, and serious consumer backlash to paying the cost of their own supposed Liberation.
If – when – he imposes more tariffs on Canada, he will continue to provide Mark Carney with the ability to have us all think “Prime Minister Mark Carney” more often than “Liberal Leader Mark Carney” because like a bad tennis partner he keeps on serving up lob ball opportunities for Carney to step off the campaign trail and do his day job…a job it becomes harder and harder to see Poilievre doing if the guy doing it right now is doing even a half-passable job of it.
What I’ll be watching for this week:
- Tariffs: Tomorrow might feel like Déjà vu, all over again. Given the jerkiness of the on-again-paused-again-on-again Trump Tariffs, it’s likely there will be more on and off action as the week progresses. Some companies – most particularly lumber producers – are likely to start making announcements about production reductions, or downtime, in response to the tariffs. This will have the temptation of shifting the centre of gravity from Southwest Ontario and the auto sector – even if only briefly – to rural Canada and resource-dependent communities.
- Conservatives’ (at war?) Room: The Conservative party has had some high-profile advice from its own top strategists about how badly off course they are. The indomitable
- Gas price drops: The removal of the consumer carbon tax/price on pollution means that gas prices across the country are likely to drop significantly this week. Any opportunity for the Conservatives to do an Axe the Tax victory lap to try and remind Canadians they would still be paying such a tax – and an escalating one at that – will be overshadowed by Tariff talk and related handwringing.
The next Canadian Federal Election, to elect members to the 45th Parliament of Canada, will take place on Monday, April 28th, 2025. It was set into motion just after 12pm Eastern Time yesterday, but has been coming fast in the 9 days since Prime Minister Mark Carney was sworn-in to office, fresh off winning the Liberal Party leadership race on March 9th.
Dude! Time to vote.
What will this election be about? With 343 federal ridings covering the second largest land mass of any country in the world, Canadian elections vary in their subject matter from sea-to-sea-to-sea. Some are given a short-hand, like the 1988 “Free Trade” election, or the 1968 Trudeau-mania election. This is fast becoming the Upside-Down Election.
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The numbers game
Maybe this is a little too Sesame Street for some tastes, but humour me - let’s play a numbers game. What are two of the key numbers to remember in this election? Besides the obvious one, 172 - the threshold for a majority in Parliament - I’m going with 45, and 51.
Why 45? This election will return members of the 45th Canadian Parliament, and will mostly be about the 45th(and 47th) President of the United States (POTUS). And as recently as January 26th, 2025, one party was running away with 45% of the vote according to opinion poll aggregators, see image below…
In a 4+ party system, that level of vote share would have translated to a supermajority of seats in Parliament. When Justin Trudeau announced he was stepping down, the numbers still didn’t budge much for the first few weeks…and then POTUS 45/47 was sworn into office and the ‘shock and awe’ (h/t George W Bush) began.
The rise in both fear and outright rejection of the idea of becoming more closely linked with the U.S. has completely changed the political landscape in Canada. It used to be on my trips to the U.S., election observation missions in Eastern Europe/former Soviet Bloc countries, or more commonly trips home to Northern Ireland, where I’d see a lot of flags flying on homes and residential properties, and not just at government buildings. It wasn’t, really, a ‘Canadian thing’. Now Canadian flags are proliferating. In particular the over 60-set – who also vote more reliably and regularly than any other age cohort – are flag-erecting and flag-waving like never before. It’s quite something.
Turnabout is fair play
In just under 2 months the Liberals have gone from a forecast potential third (or even fourth) place finish in the Federal Election, back to a position where poll aggregators – and every mainstream pollster in Canada, except one – have them in the lead and at least lightly favoured to win the election. Some even put them back in majority territory. Which is not as crazy as it sounds, see below.
If you’ve never visited 338 Canada (there are now 343 federal ridings after the latest redistribution, but they maintained the brand and address), you should. They have provincial-level, and riding-level, forecasts and data.
I know, I know. Canada is confusing in lots of ways, and this first-past-the-post (FPTP) election system is deeply imperfect and often produces skewed, or at least skewed-seeming, results. Basically, in terms of macro electoral success, a few things matter in a FPTP system, and ‘vote efficiency’ is chief among them. Vote efficiency is basically the concept - how well-distributed are your votes so that you maximize the number of districts or ridings you can win, with the least number of votes. Whereas one’s opponents might run up the score in their riding contests, winning by massive margins and therefore increasing their overall popular vote…but winning less seats in the process.
Because a candidate only has to win a plurality of votes to win a seat, and a party only has to win the largest plurality of seats to be given a chance to form the government even as a Minority Government (there are exceptions, and constitutional conventions – but we’ll get to that later in the campaign if things look like they’re trending that way), which Canada has been functioning under for the last 6 years, when the Liberals lost their majority in 2019.
In 2019, for instance, the Liberals won 33.12% of the national popular vote, and 46% of the seats in the House of Commons. In the 2021 election, the Liberals won 47% of the seats with 32.62% of the national popular vote. In both those elections, the Conservative party won ~1%+ more of the popular vote than the Liberal party, but their ‘vote efficiency’ was unfavourable, and they won 36% and 35% of the seats, respectively.
I knew it all along…
Lots of people – especially those with self-proclaimed or credentialed political ‘expertise’ – like to talk about how they were right in their belief about what would happen and where we would be politically at this moment. There are a lot of Nostrodamus’ around these days, it seems.
I’ll own up here – I was wrong. Spectacularly-so, actually, in my private forecasts of what would happen in a federal election in 2025. Even as recently as late January, I was unable – or unwilling – so see past the data, the trends, and the deep dissatisfaction with the federal Liberal party.
No one had held such a sustained lead, for so long, as the Opposition Conservatives had from late 2022 through early 2025. Poilievre had been leading in the polls from the month he was elected leader in the Fall of 2022.
My partisan Liberal friends like to remind me that they never gave up hope, and they always saw a pathway like this opening up. To that: I call a healthy load of bullshit. A lot of pragmatic Liberals had made up their minds that after ~24 months + of a steady, and historic, Conservative polling lead, the best they could do would be to bring the party in for a soft landing – and not a crash landing – to have a base to rebuild the party on again after Canadians realized they didn’t like the style of Conservatism on offer from Pierre Poilievre and his massive majority-to-be.
My partisan Conservative friends like to remind me that they never thought they had it in the bag, they always believed the race could tighten up, and that their years-long advertising campaigns and air-war advantage, coupled with a superior ground game, meant they were well-positioned to prevail in a dogfight. To that: I also call a healthy load of bullshit. They had written the Liberals’ political epitaph in permanent Sharpie.
I do think there is a little bit of revisionism in that line of argumentation.
I even think it these structural advantages - the ground game superiority, and the air war dominance - will make and keep this a tighter contest than many politically-progressive Canadians would like to hope or believe.
But, Justin finally did the right thing. After, as a former boss of mine was fond of saying, he had exhausted every other option.
As unpopular – among Liberals, even as much as among average and Conservative-leaning Canadians – as Justin Trudeau was, he finally observed one of the golden rules of politics: Always take out your own trash.
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Even if the analogy infers that I’m calling JT trash (I’m not, his leadership of the party had become the stinking albatross around the party’s neck, though)…it’s moreso that he didn’t put up a moat around the Carbon Tax/Pollution Price, or fight to ‘save/keep’ his most unpopular, if signature, policies. In doing so all his potential successors were given space to vow to end it, and each in succession dumped the policy in a Glad bag on their way past the Prime Minister’s residence at Rideau Cottage, to pay their final respects to his time at the helm – and left him to clean up after the party. This removed the primary plank in the years-long Conservative ad and policy push underlying their case for change.
The rest of the Conservatives’ four-part pre-campaign medley – “Axe the Tax; Stop the Crime; Build the Homes; Fix the Budget” – became positively quaint and niche-feeling policy planks (they are slogans, let’s be honest, but the policy that would back them up in government) next to the looming threat of Tariffs from the U.S. that would cripple the Canadian economy, coupled with a threat to ‘erase the border’ with the U.S., and the insistent and insidious idea that Canada wasn’t a real country…anyway! (If you don’t get the historical comical reference, with the “anyway” part of that — this ~2 minute musical clip from the show South Park from 1999 is the source – their song “Blame Canada” lays the responsibility for all of the U.S.’s ills on, well, Canada).
Meanwhile, the lone mainstream Canadian pollster to still have a Conservative lead on Election eve is David Coletto, of Abacus Data. He’s a good pollster, and definitely among the youngest pollsters in the country, which in and of itself disentangles him from among the more establishment set, even if he’s been in the business for a while now.
Some of his longer-serving predecessors, including the Angus Reid Institute, show the trajectory for the Liberals continuing well into majority territory - even with a similar starting position in December 2024.
The (non-profit) Angus Reid Institute, March 24, 2025.
Why is the ~2022-24 Canadian PM-in-waiting, Pierre Poilievre, falling like a stone, then? Maybe, ask Tom Mulcair (or, maybe don’t – he’ll lecture you and make you feel small in the process. No wonder he never became PM!).
Tom Mulcair was the last Leader of his Majesty’s Loyal Opposition (LOO) to lead his opponents in Opinion Polls going into an election within the last ~30 years in Canada. He entered the 2015 Federal Election with a lead and wind in his party’s proverbial sails – people were asking if this was the first time the NDP might form a national government. By election day on October 9th, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals had leap-frogged from third-to-first, and taken a majority government; Mulcair was reduced to third place, and shown the door by his own party a few months later. Mulcair had been a very effective “prosecutor” in his role as LOO, but his audition for the job of Prime Minister went decidedly worse, and Canadians were looking for something different – like Justin Trudeau’s promised “Sunny Ways”, or maybe just not that guy’s ways.
I’ve heard it said in the last few weeks that maybe Canadians are looking for someone they trust – a doctor, a teacher, a scientist – and not a prosecutor, or a politician. This lines up with the IPSOS Global Trust rankings, and intuitively with the situation on the ground in Canada. The same thing is happening to Poilievre since January 2025 as happened to Mulcair in August-September 2015, but for different reasons.
People seem to be indicating they don’t want a prosecutor, or a professional “politician” – so the very resume Poilievre brings – and which made him so effective over the last ~24 months in prosecuting the Trudeau government – is now a moment that has passed. And the new moment is calling for someone Canadians trust – at least so far, in this fast-changing situation – and so Carney fits the bill.
Some of the very criticisms my partisan Conservative friends make of Carney have the virtue of being both accurate, and true (h/t former Daily News columnist and Kings College Professor David Swick, who cleverly uttered these words to a colleague and I around the NS legislature some ~24 years ago).
Truth, before March 2025: Mark Carney never ran – or maybe even attended – a political caucus meeting. Mark Carney never presided over a Cabinet meeting. Mark Carney had never run for any kind of regional or national elected office. The list of “he never’t!” (as a late Cape Breton MLA used to say jokingly from time to time) is long in this respect.
For the moment, Canadians seem drawn to that notion of someone they believe they can trust, or who cuts a figure close enough to that ideal, in a time of great uncertainty. Where people from all walks of life have said to me “I never thought I’d see the day…”, “Never in my lifetime did I imagine…”, and then they have inserted thoughts, possibilities and future pathways that seemed unthinkable to most but sci-fi or fantasy authors only a few months ago.
What to watch in the campaign
The old Harold Wilson quip, a week is a long time in politics, feels particularly apt since POTUS 45 took on his term as POTUS 47. This Canadian election is taking place in that context, and the potential for ‘events, dear (boy), events’ to alter the course and outcome of the election is high.
Things I’ll be watching for, this week:
1) Leaders’ itineraries: Where do they go, what does this signal, what does it actually mean, and how are they received there? Carney — who has been high on symbolism so far in his tenure as leader - started the day in Gander, N.L., while Poilievre targeted the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and Singh joined him there after a morning stop in Montreal. Keep an eye out to see if Carney heads for areas like Calgary, Northern Ontario, rural Atlantic Canada and B.C. - all areas in which the Liberals were writing-off their electoral chances a few months ago. Keep an eye on whether Poilievre hits Quebec, non-incumbent ridings in Atlantic Canada and battleground ridings in Manitoba or BC. The conceit of the first week is that leaders can afford to hit places they will or may not return to, or need to ‘show the flag’ at - so it is less telling than the final week and days of a campaign.
2) Ad buys: Now that the campaigns are under spending limits, and the race has significantly changed and tightened-up from what it was 6-8 weeks ago. What the messages are, how those are micro-targeted, and whether they take advantage of celebrities or leverage other influencers (like Carney managed to do on Saturday), better begin to pay dividends. The Conservatives’ “sneaky Mark Carney” ads have drawn mixed reviews, and since Poilievre traded his CrossFit buff, t-shirt and Blundstones for a suit, they have pivoted other things, too, including their messaging.
Yeah, baby! Mike Myers is in town:
Sneaky Mark Carney ad:
3) Message of the day: What message a leader tries to send, and whether they are successful in getting a “clean hit” is important in helping drive their overall message, campaign plan and success. I bet Pierre Poilievre wishes he had yesterday back in that regard.
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Things I’ll be watching for, during the campaign:
1) English language Debate (April 17, 2025):Canadian election debates are run by a non-partisan Commission. This election a slightly new format will see only one moderator – in the case of the English Language debate, Steve Paikin will play that role. Poilievre is a great political streetfighter, and a practiced orator. His challenge will be to look “Prime Ministerial” in this debate, while Carney’s will be to develop a thicker skin and to look like the safest pair of hands on the stage, swatting aside insistent and quaint-seeming attacks from Poilievre, Singh and a free-agent – with no votes to win in English-Canada – in Blanchet.
2) French language Debate (April 16, 2025): The French language debate is important mostly only in one Province – Quebec – and marginally-so in a few other pockets of the country. Ultimately, will Carney’s work-in-progress French be good enough to pass for Quebecers, or will that even matter by then? Canadians – even to some extent Quebecers – have given a pass to people like former Prime Minister Stephen Harper when their French proficiency was not on par with some of the other leaders’. Blanchet’s French is obviously the best of the lot, Poilievre’s is very good, Singh’s is decent and Carney’s is passable. The other also-ran leaders don’t matter in this scenario at all, other than as spoilers or political flame-throwers. Carney has tried to court Quebecers from the very start, and used the loaded phrase “Maître chez nous” in his first speech as leader to try and build a bridge for/to Quebecers. So far, it seems to be working.
4) Candidate eruptions: These are mostly localized, pesky problems for parties – when a candidate is forced out, is volun-told to leave, is resigned, or bows-out, after revelations about their past statements, behaviour or history which was a #vettingfail – the real trick from a political management standpoint is to see that they don’t trip up or touch the leader with their bad vibes on their way out the campaign door.
I’m not sure where to start, and I’m honestly not sure where this will end.
I think that sentiment kind of sums up how a lot of people are feeling these days – or, maybe, it’s just me?
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I haven’t written a post since April 2024, and there are lots of reasons for that – excuses, mostly. And I’ve missed it, and it’s exacerbated my ability to deal with the challenges and related anxieties life throws at all of us.
To process things I have some strategies – I listen to music, I exercise, I meditate, I have languorous conversations with people I love and I write. What strategies do you use – feel free to comment below; I’d love to hear about them.
I’ve been pretty good about doing the first of four of those things lots in the last year. Right now I’m listening to a playlist a couple of friends and I co-created to help us “keep current” with music; and given some of the subject matter I’m going to write about, the fact that there’s some pretty ‘sick beats’ (that’s still in circulation, right?...Ok boomer!). The other night on a long-delayed flight from New York I listened to playlists with songs my kids have introduced me to; just acknowledging that made me feel lucky and grateful, and smile widely as my fellow passengers grew more frustrated and anxious.
But I haven’t committed myself to writing enough in the last year. It’s been brought to my attention lots, people checking in on a bigger writing project I’ve been in and out of for the last couple of years. I got an email the other day from someone I met at one of the events I attended around this time last year checking in on how it was going. I had a quick wash of shame, followed by some pangs of guilt, but they gave way to more gratitude that people cared enough to ask, to be curious.
And when you offer stories, or share your interest in pursuing stories, I find people generally are curious, and engaged. Almost like they’re cheering you on. At a business dinner the other night in the US South we were swapping stories, and I related some adventures from last Spring on a trip to Vietnam. That was shortly after a close friend called to check in after some deeply-troubling triggers brought all that’s happening in the world right now – particularly emanating out of fortress USA – searingly close and to their doorstep.
It helped us both to talk it through – and where we both were, literally and figuratively – in the world at that moment in time. It was a powerful reminder of the value of the quick check-in – no substitute for the languorous conversation, but a tonic in and of itself – and of the power of story to help us get more proximate at a time when it feels like hugging your people is sometimes the only thing you can do – and maybe, for a moment – that’s enough.
I write to process things (maybe you do, too)? For some reason, putting fingers-to-keyboard, or pen-to-paper, has always helped me to feel more grounded – not necessarily more settled, or ‘better’, but maybe I arrive at a better understanding of some things along the way.
I also get to experience a lot of the world, and it’s something I take for granted too often, even though I try to be mindful and conscious of it. Every time a friend checks in and asks if we can get together, and I respond that I’m currently – or will at that time be – in (insert city/country/continent) – and they reply with “I’ve always wanted to go there”, it sort of smacks my complacent ass a little up the side of its proverbial…head – ok, that doesn’t make sense, but you get the drift from the mixed metaphor there, I hope.
This week I started off on the East Coast of Canada where I live, visited the US South along the border with Mexico while the new US Administration was deploying soliders to the border and putting in deportation quotas, came back through New York where the US Homeland Security Secretary was personally leading immigration raids during Chinese/Lunar New Year celebrations, ventured into Canada’s most export-exposed-and-reliant Province 2 days before threatened US Tariffs could be imposed, before heading back home.
Maybe that seems like a humble-brag, but it’s not intended as such. It’s mostly to help me locate my microscopic interactions with the national and international events swirling around us, and see if I can relate some of what I saw and experienced along the way.
So this post – and, damn, I’ve taken long enough to tee it up…talk about burying the lede – will walk you a dozen or so kilometres through a border city and along Trump’s border wall, zip you through NYC and up to the cold, frozen (great, white) North. Music plays a part, too. Feel free to post links to your favourite tunes below in the comments, too.
Buckle up, it’s a long one.
Happy Sunday.
—
The Uber driver picked me up at my non-descript hotel and dropped me off in downtown Brownsville early on a sleepy Sunday morning. I’d found one of the only coffee shops open that early, and I was keen to make the most of my few available hours to see if I could catch a glimpse of the border Wall, and maybe understand a little more of what it was like to live in this part of the world – particularly in the midst of a flurry of Executive Orders and actions by the new US Administration to deal with the “illegals” and “migrants” it wanted to send packing.
After a coffee I wandered across to the begin to explore the City of Brownsville, which is separated from Matamoros, Mexico, by the Rio Grande River - which became the international border in this area following the 1846 Mexican-American war. Speaking of cartoonish heros and villains – I couldn’t help but hear the voice of the actor playing the villain in the movie Three Amigos who intones he has a plethora of pinatas, when he’s facing down Chevy Chase. The villain’s chief henchman struggles to define what a plethora is, when his boss asks him, but he basically just knows that it is a lot. A few minutes in, and I already felt like this was a place with a plethora of barriers.
In the way we unconsciously mirror one another when talking (when our body language mimics that of the person we’re talking with) I immediately get the impression that this town is in a way a mirror of the ~20 ft border Wall that “protects” it. There are ‘no trespassing’ and ‘private property’ signs aplenty. Everything is fenced, gated, barred and double-barred, or boarded up. The playgrounds, the schools, the businesses, the homes.
The courthouse, a neat and imposing stone edifice in the style of so much of this town — its old forts and military installations, its small houses and its university campuses all mimic the style – sits at the start of one of its top attractions: the 11-mile Battlefields ‘hike and bike’ trail that runs from the war memorial at its front steps, to the plains of “Palo Alto” Battlefield. It’s an origin story, of a sort, because these are the places that the Mexican-American war in 1846 (America’s second bloodiest war, I’m given to understand) triggered the process of turning the Rio Grande into the border in this state.
The Courthouse (with a big sign stencilled on the glass entrance in block white lettering: ‘Weapons Prohibited’) and its sister institution, the US Courthouse I walked past a little later, are among the most well-maintained buildings in town; priorities, I guess. It’s a stark contrast to the proliferation of dingy, sketchy-looking and near-dilapidated bail bond businesses (all declaring - “open 24 hrs!”) that surround the courthouse.
The Wall looms up at the river end of downtown, something like a wooden window blind, casting sunny shadows on the “American side”. I wasn’t quite sure if I could walk right up to it, or if a flood light would shine on me and some voice would warn me away. I saw a man walking along the Wall, with the Mexican customs bureau and a few massive Mexican flags looming in the distance behind him, visible through the Wall.
I walked over to it, and put my hand on it. It looked like a rusted brown drainage grill, or maybe a Barbeque grill – just 20 feet high and turned on its side. I wasn’t electrocuted, and I looked around and hadn’t seemed to attract any particular attention. So I started walking down the wall toward a border crossing.
An interpretive sign explained that this area of the Rio Grande - which was flowing about 200 feet behind the Wall from me - was the Southernmost point at which the Texas Longhorn and other varieties of cattle were gathered for the drive north along the “Chisholm trail” – and estimated that ~10 million cattle were driven north along the trail before its use was discontinued.
They weren’t lugging suitcases, or toting their life’s possessions with them – most just had purses or small daypacks or even just light coats (one young man had a bomber jacket with Korea stylized into the back of it), as if they were on a stroll, going to church, coming to get a thing or two at the local store.
Across the road from the customs point-of-entry buildings in a store parking lot were clutches of families huddled by their car or truck, or beater SUV, looking toward the border crossing; seemingly waiting for someone to come over, come back, or join them. Maybe it was me reading the stoic anxiety into their faces, or their poker faces weren’t as solid as they thought. Given that POTUS 47 was bringing back his “remain in Mexico” policy, and threatening to deport tens of thousands of people a year, under new quotas, the anxiety would be understandable.
It was a hot day and I needed some water, so I stopped into a Dollar General store sitting about 300m from the crossing, which backed onto the Wall. It was stocked full of everyday essentials, directed to a Spanish-language audience.
A Mexican flag was flying beside the cash/till, as if in seeming solidarity – like it was sending a message: I see you. You made it; you’re safe, here. Feel free to engage in commercial trade and all those things so central to the American Dream.
I walked down to the border crossing, looked around at all the infrastructure protecting Us-from-Them, and Them-from-Us.
I turned around and walked back along the Wall in the other direction.
I tried to remember the name of the protagonists – Lydia, and Luca ? – who are forced into a situation of trying to escape Cartel violence and retribution in Acapulco, so they end up trying to enter the United States with the ‘protection’ of some Polleros/Coyotes – the name given to those who smuggle people across borders into the US.
I remember reading the book shortly after it came out – which was also during the height of a global pandemic. It was the kind of novel that shreds, or roughs up, your soul a little as you sink deeper into the story of the desperate people, doing desperate things so that they can live with adjectives like ‘safe’ and ‘free’ as part of their lives.
In downtown Brownsville there’s a very pedestrian way in which people seem to live with the wall. They habituate to its cameras and gates, and even advertise how to manage if it gets in the way of living their lives (“Stuck? Code won’t work? Call the local office at xxx-xxxx; open 24 hrs”).
If only it were that easy for some of the people who have mortgaged their futures to a coyote, who have left their loved ones, or whose loved ones left them, and are now journeying to freedom in the seemingly vain-hope that the wall - and all its peeps and peeping tech, won’t stand in their way.
I wandered away from the Wall into the downtown core of Brownsville. It feels like everywhere I look I see signs advertising Plasma sales – literal blood money. I google it in the Maps app just to see if I’m just imagining it, but it turns out I’m not. Plasma sales outfits pop up all over the map of the downtown.
I walk past a lot of empty, boarded up buildings, and there aren’t many people around for the first few blocks. Then I start to see families pulling up and jumping out of their cars, and dipping into a series of pop-up churches – offering compassion, and serving food. Come for the food, stay for the word…or, maybe it’s vice versa?
A bald, fully frocked-up Catholic Minister walks past me in the ~22 degree heat, wearing blue jeans underneath the frock, and white running shoes. He smiles deliberately, and cheerfully, seemingly out proselytizing on foot.
I look around and think this town is living in a version of urban development whack-a-mole, with ‘missing teeth’ all over the place, and then some nicer, newer buildings like oases in the urban desert.
I spot some street art, clearly paid for by the city to help distract from the barred windows and long-vacant buildings. Collectively they seem to be trying to will an image of a town long forgotten, or maybe one which never existed here: white picket fence, swing in the yard off the old tree.
Besides the Plasma depots, the most notable retail outlets are the assortment displaying women’s undergarments, bright bejewelled dresses, and quinceanera outfits.
I read somewhere that Brownsville is also home to a SpaceX operation. I had mostly forgotten this factoid until I began to happen upon street art of Elon Musk and astronauts.
There’s an Alanis Morrissette song from the 1990s, Ironic, that still causes debate when it comes on the radio if my wife is in the car with me. She’ll often say “that’s not ironic, it’s just bad luck” when some part of the lyrics are belted out.
That came into my mind as I saw another mural of space and astronauts. I wondered if it was deliberate [and maybe ironic - ?], that Elon Musk chose a border town like Brownsville, with it’s big border Wall and preoccupations over illegal aliens for his space launch base?
All this thinking was making me hungry, and I began looking around for a place to eat. I passed a handful of ‘higher-end’ restaurants – one, closed on Sunday, offering a French-American cuisine, a busy brunch spot that wouldn’t be out of place in most new condo buildings in any big city, both like green shoots of commerce amidst closed-and-closing looks shops.
I was in the mood for a more home-cooked meal, and I happened upon a populated spot called Arados. It had 60s era window stencils promising “Comida Mexican”. Inside were a handful of families, and what looked like grandparent with their grandies, eating healthy portions of homey Mexican meals. I was definitely the only white or white-passing face in the place, and the only one who spoke English.
I ordered flautas – which turned out to be some of the best I’d ever eaten.
Playing on the TV behind me, so I couldn’t see it but could hear it in stereo, was a movie that talked about a Mars landing; with aliens and secret orders from the President being delivered by agents with secret briefcases. It was in English, and at least one younger patron was mesmerized by the screen, as far as I could tell.
Turns out it was the Transformers movie.
I remember transformers - I played with them as a kid. Optimus prime and all his buddies, battling the Decepticons. When I immigrated from Northern Ireland I did so in a plane, during the daytime, and I did leave an item of clothing behind in an overhead bin - I simply forgot it; I was bummed, but no big deal.
Yet here we were in a town with a border Wall where people ran for their lives, and if they dropped a precious item, or had to slim down their belongings along the way – that was the price of pursuing freedom.
After I fueled up, I walked past another border crossing, and toward the less inhabited areas of town where the Wall ran closer to the Rio Grande river.
I walked past the Campus of Texas Southmost College – the University of Texas @ Rio Grande Valley (UofT@RGV). Even on a Sunday, empty as it was, it was being patrolled by security in golf carts. The site was formerly Fort Brown, and had seen many notable Americans serve there, and also was the launchpad for the first US Army plane to be fired upon in armed hostilities, in 1915. During a border patrol, in pursuit of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, the plane sustained gunfire.
As I reached the edge of the campus, I could see the border Wall reappear. It almost bisected the Southmost Scorpions baseball diamond, and ran just behind the athletic complex. I wanted to see a historical marker commemorating the siege of Fort Brown, and learn more about the history of the American-Mexican conflict in this area.
As I approached where my map said the marker should be, at the edge of a now-abandoned Golf Course, two Border Patrol guards on ATVs whizzed down a road off in the distance. Up ahead, I saw a Border Patrol truck. I wasn’t sure what kind of reception I’d get, so I put on my best ‘dumb tourist’ face, and as I approached the truck, it sped off in pursuit of a civilian vehicle that was driving past us.
I kept on heading toward the historical marker. I poked around that area, and walked back toward the College. The curious part of me wanted to walk along the wall here for a while, and get a better sense of the area; I just wasn’t sure if that was a good idea, or how welcome I would be in that pursuit.
The Border Patrol truck was back idling in his previous spot, and I tentatively approached him and gestured that I wanted to ask a question. He rolled down the window, and a twenty-something guy looked out at me in a not-unfriendly way.
Me: “This may sound strange, but I’m visiting from Canada. I’ve heard a lot about the border Wall, and I wondered – can I walk along it, or is that a problem?”
Him: “Don’t worry I already called you in. They all know you’re here; you’re good.”
Me: “So I can walk along this road here, along the Wall…no issues?”
Him: “No issues, I already called you in. You’re fine. But just be aware. Cause, like, you know – I guess the only issue is that stuff can happen.”
I didn’t know what stuff was, although my imagination had ideas. I was nodding my head, and decided to venture out a little further in the temerity department.
Me: “Just so I’m clear, when you stay stuff…”
Him: “You know, if people are trying to come over or whatever, and they are being pursued. A group of guys were walking along a part of the wall earlier and, well, they just weren’t ready when some stuff happened. So, just be ready, that’s all.”
Me: “Ok, thanks. Have a good day.”
Him: “You, too.”
As he was rolling up his window, 2 more Border Patrol officers on ATVs – both in full SWAT gear, whizzed by standing in the ‘bike stirrups’ and nodded with a smile. I watched them zip off down a dirt road into the underbrush, toward the Rio Grande – which lay about 500 metres from the Wall, behind me, at this point.
I walked along, and up ahead was another Border Patrol truck. They seemed to sit every ~500 metres or so along the dirt road bermed-up behind the wall. I didn’t want to ‘stare’ at the trucks, so I began to ease into the experience, and looked around a bit.
Just then I spotted something in the grass beside me. I took out my phone to take a picture, but wasn’t sure how the Border Patrol guy in his truck just up ahead would like that. So I snapped a side angle pic of the sweater which had been ground into the dirt road. I kept walking, and eventually I noticed slippers, socks, torn jeans, and pieces of shirt sleeves.
I wondered how the clothing came to be there. Did those who had been trying to cross to freedom, under cover of night, after negotiating with or navigating the cartels, the Mexican police and border service, the coyotes, the RG river and the walls and border patrol officers, just drop clothing when they are running; trying to get lighter or not have anything loose they could be grabbed by – maybe to try and not leave shoe prints that can be followed, or to prop over top of the fence to help them clear it without scrapes and injury?
At one point, just past an imposing gate in the Wall with cameras, and a length of barbed wire at it mid point to deter people from climbing up it to take advantage of the tree cover on the other side, I looked up and saw a t-shirt at the top of the Wall.
It was sun-bleached, and fixed into the Wall’s tip. I wasn’t sure if it was too high for someone to retrieve it, or if it had been left there as a bit of a talisman. For the guards and those on patrol, a reminder that people would make desperate attempts at freedom, including scaling a 20-foot steel wall. For those seeking to make the attempt, both a sign that you could scale the wall – and maybe also a warning, that you’d lose more than the shirt off your back if you got caught.
Each of the five different Border Patrol trucks I saw over the next few kilometres had Hispanic-American men, in their late 20s or early 30s driving. They all nodded amiably at me, as they either idled at their post, or drove slowly along their route.
I wondered after their job, and how they thought and felt about it – what their pre-and-post-work routines were? Every job has its drudgery, and some jobs are clearly dangerous. For some people, that’s part of the attraction – the adrenaline, the sense of purpose, and the feeling of contributing to the broader safety of one’s community.
It’s among the reasons so many people choose military, or police, service.
Back to the Border Patrol dudes, which seemed to me a different kind hybrid of police and military work – they didn’t call it Homeland Security for nothing.
How did these guys normalize their jobs? Did they exchange messages with friends or family, talking about how boring their days were? Just driving the wall, day was kind of mid. Or, did they share videos of particularly ‘thrilling’ chases, or ‘apprehensions’? Man, you should have seen this one. When they caught families – if they were parents, themselves – how did it feel to have to separate parents and children? Or chase down scared, screaming kids…and, then, try to make them feel safe?
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I wondered, how many people were there actually crouching in the woods on this lazy Sunday morning, waiting for a chance to make their way to “freedom”, or “safety”, or a “better life” beyond the Wall? And did they know they were already, technically, on American soil – even if they were still behind the Wall? Even if they were in the U.S., they weren’t safe, or free, or likely to have the better life they were pursuing.
Million Dollar Lottery…one side of the Wall sure seems that way.
It made me sad to think I was possibly a few hundred metres from a cluster of people – Coyote or not – huddled there waiting for the chance to ‘run for it’ when the Border Patrol were changing shift, before they could more easily be caught as the patrol used their night goggles and thermal imagers to pick them up and pursue them.
I hit the end of that section of the Wall, at the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge crossing into Mexico, and turned around. By now I felt like all the Border Patrol folks I’d passed, and the cameras I’d been recorded on, knew I was taking photos – so why take bad, half-assed ones anymore? Why not just take pictures of whatever I wanted, and beg forgiveness later?
I walked back along the lower part of the berm, right beside the Wall. About halfway down I had just passed a pair of boots, whose sole was the only thing visible, ground into the dirt at the base of the wall.
On foot
I heard some laughter, and I looked up to see a few young women playing a game of Pickleball on the other side of wall. They were oblivious to me, and I had a sense of cognitive dissonance at the normalcy of their lives ~50 metres on the other side of this Wall.
I was nearly back at the College campus, and for some reason a song came into my head. When I was in high school, a friend had a band called the Mere Prophets. He’d recorded some demos on cassette tapes, and I remembered this song from 30 years ago, about teenage angst.
“I’ve been talking to the wall
And I’ve been listening to the floor
Looking for answer for so long
I don’t want an answer anymore
Not listening to what they said
Found out that they just closed the door,
On you
But closing doors are so easy to do”
As I turned back toward town, and waved at the idling Border Patrol agent as I exited away from the Wall, I saw a sign on a construction site at the Southmost College’s sports complex: All Visitors Must Check in at Office.
Now, that, I think, is ironic – right?
Having walked about 12 kilometres along the border Wall, and a little bit into downtown Brownsville, I decided I needed to head back to the hotel. But first, there was one other place I wanted to see – and I didn’t think I should do it on foot.
I approached a cab driver and asked him if he’d take me to my hotel. When we got in the car, I said “but I want to go on a short detour first – into Milpa Verde”. He looked at me in the mirror. I said I wanted to see how the wall bisected that community, and left some houses between the Wall and the River, as this amazing story laid-out in the New York Times, in 2019. I was curious how much had changed.
The story did a great job of outlining some of the trade-offs and consequences of having a wall - at all – but also to be distant enough from the Rio Grande when it flooded its banks.
As we drove down Milpa Verde road into a neighbourhood, my taxi driver turned down a road too early. As we were turning around, he waved at a friend who rents a house in this cul de sac where the fence runs through the backyard – less than 50 feet from the back corner of his house.
We looped down through one part of where the Calle Milpa Verde is bisected by the the Wall, with a break for the road to run through, and the by-now familiar white pick-ups with their green BORDER PATROL decals were sitting off to the left and right, along the raised-gravel Wall road.
I recognized the front porch of the home of Homar, who was in the NYTimes story, and I saw his yard, and that of his 3-4 close neighbours, on the outside of the Wall, but still tucked between the wall and the RG/international border. The road did a dog-leg left and another section of wall lay ahead, and I didn’t notice any border patrol here. I told my driver we could turn around and head back, as he looked a little nervous that I had the window rolled-down and was taking photos as we went.
He turned around and I snapped some photos of the wall as we headed back toward town.
As I looked to my right tucked behind the wall was a Humvee with active duty military sitting on the wheel wells quenching their thirst. They were kitted out in full combat gear and looked straight out of Sebastian Junger’s 2010 war documentary Restrepo, about his embed with the U.S. military forward operating base (FOB) deep in Afghan territory. I remember watching it in my buddy Dave’s basement with a handful of friends, and it feeling very surreal.
An officer looked over at me as we passed, as I began to recognize and have my mind process the scene of a group of warriors I’d seen only in movies sitting behind the wall, a stone’s throw from a poor suburban house; in Southmost Texas. I nodded my head but got a decidedly-less/far less friendly response than from my first border patrol officer in his truck.
It was a quiet 15 minutes for the taxi driver, and I, back to the hotel. He was making change for me, and I wanted to give him a decent tip – but he waved his hand and me and said it was fine; feeling like he’d had enough of driving a Wall tourist around for the day.
The next day, after a series of meetings in Boardrooms, our group was taken on a driving tour of the SpaceX facilities – out in the Boca Chica Wildlife Refuge area.
We were told that – speaking of the migration that the border Wall was aiming to stop – a major economic boom in the area is from birders - that group of highly motivated, patient and somewhat pedantic folks who can patiently wait in the camo to catch a sighting of a rare species as it migrates southward, or northward, depending on the season.
There’s an annual festival of birders, and these folks mean business. They now also hold an annual protest of SpaceX because its launchpad is said to disrupt the birds and/or scares them off.
On the drive out to the SpaceX pad, on the only road (the eponymous Boca Chica road), you could be mistaken for thinking it is a road to nowhere, the state it is in. Allegedly Mr. Musk takes helicopters to get there, his Tesla couldn’t withstand the potholes.
As you approach the “Starbase”, there’s a sign in the side of the road - next 2 miles adopted by Starbase Development Corp, and the road condition improves dramatically. The launchpad looms above the cactus and loam/dunes to your left — with the hotels of San Padre Island off in the distance.
Starbase
An Uber driver told me the previous day that Elon’s presence in the area was a mixed blessing.
When the richest person in the world is your neighbour, it can make some things easier; some harder.
She said on the first launch, their home shook – and it was 45 mins, or 40 miles, away from the launchpad. They woke up at 7am and thought there was an earthquake – a picture frame fell off their wall. Since that launch, they’ve fixed it, she said. She seemed to live with the neighbouring SpaceX facility as a combination of fascination, awe and occasional annoyance.
The $5 million Musk donated to help revitalize downtown Brownsville likely helped.
Yeah, I guess I think it’s cool, she said, finally.
When I asked what it had been like living in Brownsville over the last ~20 years, as the Wall got built, she said her in-laws lived near the wall.
It was bad, before the wall. People would come and hide in cars and houses. One time, my mother-in-law started her truck, and forgot something so she went back into the house to get it. When she came back out, there were people in the truck – migrants – and they asked her to hide them or help them.
That doesn’t happen much since the Wall.
Back at my hotel, I sat down to begin to write out this – now over-over-long piece – and a friend called.
There’d been something happen at work that day, but really they were experiencing a lot of what many of us are absorbing these days – a lot of anxiety, worry, vicarious-and-direct trauma, and just a whole passal of-what-the-actual-f**k-is-even-happening-ness.
We shared some of our day, thanked one another for being on the other end of the line.
They were targeting schools, food vendors on the streets, as well as known criminals.
I arrived at my hotel, feeling emotionally heavy. The next day I would be back in the great white north.
I checked in, and as I got into the elevator, there was music playing.
It was the Indigo Girls song, Closer to Fine.
I’m including some of those lyrics below, as they rattled through my brain that day. I don’t have good answers for many of the distressing, disturbing and horrible things happening right now in the world. But I do know that checking on your people is maybe one of the only predictable things we can each do – and be open to – in what can feel like dark, and darkening, times.
I'm trying to tell you something 'bout my life Maybe give me insight between black and white And the best thing you ever done for me Is to help me take my life less seriously It's only life after all, yeah
Well, darkness has a hunger that's insatiable And lightness has a call that's hard to hear And I wrap my fear around me like a blanket I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it I'm crawling on your shores
And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains There's more than one answer to these questions Pointing me in a crooked line And the less I seek my source for some definitive (The less I seek my source) Closer I am to fine, yeah Closer I am to fine, yeah
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I know, I’m shamelessly ripping-off the title of an (Oscar-nominated) movie.
I was on a lot of planes last week — Halifax-Montreal-New York-Toronto-Vancouver-Halifax — so I ended up watching a fair few things; and re-watching this movie was one of the better choices I made.
I’d mostly forgotten the plot line, but I knew it was the story of the Guildford Four and in particular focused on the relationship between a father and his son in that tragic circumstance. If you’ve never seen it - you should; if you haven’t watched it since the ‘90s, it holds up.
Or maybe my #substack title reference above has a more solemn resonance for you — a Catholic religious prayer. It evokes memories for me of mass in Northern Ireland or New Brunswick, before we put the “lapsed” before Catholic.
Either way, I digress.
This is a complicated day for a lot of people.
It’s a joyful day for some. And for others it is probably quite painful; acute, or more dull and achey, the pain is still the pain. Probably for all of us it has been some combination of all these things at different times.
Feel free to share this with someone who you think might enjoy it.
There are a lot of people I think about on this day.
One - my good friend - is a devoted father, and easily one of the most thoughtful humans I know. He tries to do ‘the right thing’, he works hard at building connection with his kids. Even through separation, and divorce, he’s spent considerable focus putting his kids needs’ and interest at the forefront.
I think it’s what we all hope - maybe even believe - we’d do in that circumstance; but I’m not so sure it’s universal. For a lot of people the triggers and trauma of that situation can easily pull focus away if there are kids involved. It takes a lot of work and effort to try and be the kind of parent you might aspire to, and you don’t have the ‘mirror’ of a partner to reinforce or validate that when you’re no longer in a marriage or long-term relationship.
My good friend doesn’t have his kids with him this year on father’s day, and I know that must be hard.
I have another friend who has a really big, important job - doing something that really matters. She does it with a lot of heart, intelligence and energy. I’m sure there are a lot of times she’d like to call up her dad and bounce a situation off him, to just check in, or to share a small win, or big frustration. But he passed away a few years ago, and she can’t do that anymore.
Still another friend of mine recently concluded an important business deal. It means a lot for his company, but even more for an important aspect of our lives as a country and a democracy. His father passed away over the Winter, and when I saw this friend last week I could sense how hard it was that he wasn’t able to share the conclusion of the deal with his dad - just one of many things I know he’ll miss.
I have friends who are single mothers, working hard to be the lone parent in a super-complex world, where toxic masculinity is one of many challenges parents have to contend with. One of my acquaintances approaches it with humour in her social media posts, and much aplomb in real life; even as I’m sure it feels very raw, lonely and sisyphean at times - these handful of years after her husband passed away.
Another friend has struggled with her dad’s addictions, and his transitions in and out of homelessness.
This is a hard weekend for all those folks.
My mother was a single parent for the first 4 years of my life. She made a lot of hard choices, and put a lot of herself into giving me the kind of love and home she could at the time; with a lot of support from my aunts, uncles, grandparents and her friends, before she met my dad and we eventually moved to Canada.
I didn’t ever really think before of how difficult Father’s Day would have been for her when I was a toddler.
It’s hard to validate your own parenting at any time - other than in retrospect - even if you’re partnered up and can compare notes or anecdotes or happenings as they occur.
I was reminded this week of how much we as parents really just want our kids to be “ok”. Healthy and happy, really; that’ll suffice. Not all the time, obviously - no one is happy all of the time, that’s part of being human - but happy, on balance; and healthy, always.
Finding that validation is hard.
Report cards at school? Mostly useless.
Coaching reports in sports? Of limited utility as a parent.
Grandparent reflections? Biased.
The only real unbiased feedback is the unsolicited kind we might get from friends or acquaintances - and it’s rare that people feel comfortable in saying it.
This week I was fortunate to receive that kind of feedback about all 3 of our kids, from different people, and about different aspects of each of their personalities.
One told me they thought one of our boys was a kind-hearted young man. Someone told me they wish they’d gotten to know another of the boys years earlier. Another that they thought our son was a great influence on so many of his peers.
When it’s unsolicited and genuine, it can feel a little like someone climbed inside your skin - strange and uncomfortable - so you (or maybe just I?) want to change the subject, and soak in their words later on, when they’re not there to see how happy, or teary, it makes you.
After 20 years of parenting, I still don’t know how to take that kind of feedback with anything approaching elegance or grace.
I fumble to accept it, and deflect - or worse, maybe I say “That’s so lovely - I just wish they’d learn how to clean their room!” which undermines or even negates what the person is offering — and it is that; an offering.
I sometimes worry that in my desire to be humble in hearing and assimilating this kind of feedback (which of course we ALL WANT TO HEAR about our kids from time to time), I undermine the giving of it.
I’m still a work-in-progress on that front.
I almost went stir crazy last month. All 3 of our kids were on another continent for 5 days. The illusion of being able to step in and fix a problem for them - which somehow persists when they are physically more proximate - can evaporate quickly into the ocean they are on the other side of; which it did, for me.
three kids waving from a plane flying over an ocean
It’s different than me traveling solo - which I do, a lot - or us as parents traveling somewhere. In the latter instance, they are with grandparents and we get non-stop updates. In the former case, I’ve spent years perfecting flight schedules and contorting ways to leave after breakfast and be home before hockey/soccer/supper the following evening in an effort to miss the least possible. And, still, every time it feels like a little bit of a failure.
But it was different last month because they were all “gone”.
I used to be a professional political ‘fixer’, of a sort. I was a problem-solver, and sometimes I style myself that way as a father. It could just be an illusion, or a story I tell myself, because I wasn’t ever really taught those ‘guy things’; so I’m not the father teaching someone how to change a tire, build a shed, or shoot a moose.
When they were “gone”, my problem-solver persona was gone with it; and that felt acutely uncomfortable.
I began to worry that this was what it might be like in our house, all the time, and…soon; my utility, in a way a big part of my parenting identity, would have to change quite significantly. Two of our boys will be at university this fall, and one is starting high school.
It reminded me of how I felt - and how far I’ve come - from the “Spider-Man” feelings and associated pains in my hands, when our oldest went to Uni a couple of years ago.
I sometimes wonder what it must have been like for my folks to absorb when I was heading to Uni, or a couple of years later when they made the decision to move across the country. Popping by for tea, to do laundry or have a warm meal that isn’t Kraft Dinner doesn’t happen at a distance of 6000km very easily.
phone cord stretching across map of canada
That must have been hard. There was no “find my iPhone” to check on me back then (thank god!), only emails, snail mail and weekly phone calls from a phone booth, or Rez phone.
This Father’s Day has significance in different ways for our family.
My father is retiring this week. He’s spent ~45 years observing the hippocratic oath, helping and healing - and probably far too often (for once is too often, isn’t it?) - losing people, in the process.
As a doctor he first came of age in early 1980s Northern Ireland - an environment where the late republican hunger striker Bobby Sands was being treated in the same hospital where he was training, and in others he worked at where car bomb victims succumbed to their injuries.
He’s worked in emergency medicine, surgical assists and family medicine, and lately that has included assisted dying. He has put his proverbial hand up more than a few times when someone shouted “is there a doctor in the house?” following a roadside accident or fainting spell.
He was supposed to retire last year. But the island couldn’t find a doctor. So he agreed to stay on for another year to give them a chance to find a replacement. A decision some of us disagreed with - but it wasn’t ours to make.
He was feted in an “un-retirement” party last year instead, since the food had been ordered and a plan made, which might make his last day of work a lot more anticlimactic later this month.
They’ll never find another him - he’s too unique a human, anyway - but in 2024 the idea that they will hire a doctor who will minister to the people of Texada Island for the next ~26 years is unfathomable.
Medicine is changing, and so are the expectations of young doctors — they want a ‘life’, not just a living. (Plus, we may all have Doc-bots a few years from now; who knows).
robot doctors
My dad isn’t someone who remembers his patients kids’ names, their favourite movie, or what they did for passion/love (before they did whatever they do now for work) because he has to. He is someone who loves what he does. And someone who might be a little lost, for the first while, after he’s no longer doing that full-time.
A little like I might be feeling again this Fall, and even moreso when our youngest finishes high school.
In February, my father-in-law died of cancer; he was 81. I was reflecting that I only knew him *after* the remarkable and impactful career he had as a teacher and coach.
His legendary exploits as a student-athlete at Acadia University will live on in part through a scholarship established in his name, and first awarded last year: the Rea Clark Scholarship. You’re welcome to donate at that link if you’re so inclined.
The personal legacy he left was evident during his final days, and as people reached-out with personal stories of how he impacted their life trajectory in seemingly-small ways...evidence of which resonated for them ~55+ years later.
There are lots of reasons to remember him this weekend beyond Father’s Day - because this really was his favourite time of year.
As a teacher of more than 3 decades he was winding down his classes at this time of year. His family would pack up their car and head north to the family cottage right after school ended. And they would stay there for the better part of 2 months.
As a retiree it was now that he was settling in at the cottage - if the weather was good he’d been going up, or staying up for weeks by now - and where he and his brother (at the cottage next door) could strike off the days and weeks spent at the cottage, and compare it to previous years.
It was there that many of the memories shared by family and friends at his celebration of life - this past family day - took place. His fishing trips with buddies (on Father’s Day). His golfing trips with buddies (on Father’s Day). Kids learning their timetables while fishing with him. His perfect dives, his legendary waterskiing…you get the drift.
I miss him.
My relationship with him wasn't always smooth, or uncomplicated, as it can sometimes be with in-laws, or even within our own nuclear families. I have realized on reflection that I “reconsidered” him more and and more the older I got, and the more space I gave myself for that to happen.
He was dependable. He was straightforward. He valued effort. He respected tradition. He was a valued friend who kept a remarkable circle attached to him.
Being a father - however that manifests -is complicated stuff.
Twenty-five years ago this month the idea of Father’s Day became a little more complicated for me; at least intellectually, not in my heart. I went home to Ireland to visit family, and meet my biological father for the first time.
I laid eyes on the person without whom I wouldn’t exist, even if he played no role in my life for the previous 22 years.
I met my half-brothers, and most of my 20 uncles and aunts, and some of the many, many dozens of cousins I have in that part of my family.
I still haven’t fully assimilated what it means to be a father, biologically, and a father/dad - when those aren’t the same person — and what the differences are in nature and nurture. If I figure it out I’ll let you know (and then I’ll write a best-selling self-help book!).
It was written by his daughter, Trish.i have often remarked to people that a non-formulaic, authentic obituary with a voice and a perspective is one of the nicest tributes someone can be paid.
I worked with Bill on and off for 13 years. I travelled with him, drank beers with him, canvassed with him and helped him juggle two government departments after the NDP were sworn-in to government in Nova Scotia 15 years ago last week.
Bill was the kind of person who left a lot of individual legacies, some I’m sure those who benefited from them will never relate.
Just like with my father in law, Rea (about whom stories of quietly helping people emerged after his death that we would never have guessed at).
And for my father, Kevin, many of whose kindnesses will remain under doctor-patient privilege.
So to Bill, to my late father in law Rea, to my good friend, to my biological father Dermot, to my father & dad Kevin — and all the fathers, grandfathers, people who are fatherly, or play that role for for someone, and to the moms or significant others — I hope you know that you are loved, appreciated and valued.
You make the world a better, brighter and funnier place.
