...and the brave defenders of the castle have been well and truly overrun, thrown down their shovels and retired to the nearest Tim Hortons for a well deserved coffee. Yes, the snow is here and every household resounds to the merry tune of snow blowers and out of condition middle aged men clearing the onslaught of winter off their drives for the umpteenth time in a week. Still, that's Canada. The thing is, the arrival of the snow has actually brought about much relief. We could do without the -25 degree temperatures thank you very much, but the idea of Christmas without snow here would be unthinkable.Christmas, of course, is now the focal point of every Canadian's (and indeed everyone in the Western world's) life. Our children are getting excited, particularly Eleanor, who is now old enough to grasp the concept of a fat man in a red suit coming down our chimney and delivering gifts. This was reinforced at the annual Christmas party held at Galaxyland in the West Edmonton Mall for all the children of Stantec employees. For three hours, Stantec hire the vast indoor amusement park, provide free food and drink and lavish delights on the kids for a paltry two dollars a head. Marvellous. Both Charlotte and Eleanor met Santa for a little chat and we all had a good time. Charlotte even conquered her fear of roller coasters and with the help of some friends we bumped into, rode the same ride four times before being hauled away at closing time.
Well, I think we look pretty relaxed, which is more than can be said for my friend behind me.Mind you, I should have worn a different shirt...it clashes terribly.Before the final run-in to the Christmas festivities can truly begin, there is of course the school concert. It is that time of year when that little slip of paper falls out of your child's backpack announcing that 'the school Christmas concert will be held on the 10th December and parents are invited to attend'. Of course, reading between the lines, this actually says 'You are expected to be there, failure to show up will result in you being hunted down like the uncaring, heartless dog you are'. It is only fair of course, Charlotte has been rehearsing her part as Elf number 8 for some time and had a very important line to say. Claire and I, along with Eleanor, duly trooped off to the school hall along with a hundred other parents and about three hundred video cameras to see our little ones performing a story about how Santa has lost his jingle or something. I couldn't make out what the hell was going on and the whole thing had that wonderfully innocent 'look at me Mum, I'm on stage' presence about it, but the songs were fun and the kids had a good time. Charlotte duly said her line and honour was satisfied.One more thing, here in Canada, Santa has his own post code. Yep, children simply have to address their carefully crafted letter of demands to 'Santa Claus, North Pole, Canada H0H 0H0 and the post duly delivers. Charlotte received her reply within 2 days and it was no photocopied round robin either. This had a hand written name and a post script added by Santa himself. Good stuff.
Canada, it seems, has got itself into a bit of a constitutional crisis. No sooner has the dust settled after the recent election and parliament opened, than all Hell has broken loose. Readers will remember my previous blog pre-election, but I didn't follow up (in order to prevent acute boredom setting in) with the result. As it happened, unsurprisingly, the Conservatives won with a small increase in their number of seats, but still unable to hold an overall majority over the three other parties; The NDP, Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois (who shall henceforward be known as the BQ). Now, it seems that the other parties are a bit fed up with this, have decided to contract together to form one big party, or more accurately an 'alliance' and are challenging the incumbent, democratically elected leading party. Now, this does not mean that they want to force another election, go back to the electorate and get their permission to form any new government - Oh no. They have decided, that, collectively, as they now have more seats than the Tories, they should govern, installing the leader of the Liberals, the bland and ineffective Stephane Dion, over the incumbent Stephen Harper. This they intend to do by invoking a dubious bit of the constitution - aka threatening the Tories with non-cooperation until they have no option but to stand aside. What the Hell? Hold the phone. Apart from being slightly unethical, arguably constitutional and downright immoral, haven't they forgotten something? Er, yeah, the electorate. Now I don't have any particular axe to grind here, I can't vote yet and I'm no great fan of the Tories, but it seems to me that the great Canadian public might, possibly, want to have a say in who is going to govern the country. There is a word for it, oh what is it now? It is on the tip of my tongue. Oh yeah, democracy. Needless to say, the mainstream press and the majority of the public are up in arms about this. As one commentator put it ' if we were an African nation, this would be called a political coup and UN troops would be amassing on the border'.You see the big problem, is the BQ. Not to put a finer point on it - they are barking mad. Their only interest is to make life miserable for English speaking Canada by demanding non proportional power for Quebec or better still, independence. Any alliance involving the BQ would almost certainly mean that the Liberals and the NDP would have to make some serious concessions to get the BQ support. If this happens, then the Western Provinces of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan are going to get some serious grief. You see, the Big Three have more money and potential wealth than the others and they are the heartland for the Tories. The Liberals and NDP have strong support in the Central and Eastern Provinces and the BQ have, well, Quebec. Should this evil alliance prevail, then it won't be long before legislation starts ganging up on us. When this happens, the West will become more isolated, rifts will appear in an otherwise unified nation and in the face of an oncoming recession, this will be a bad thing. We will have no option but to form a rebel army, call Han Solo out of retirement and launch an all-out assault on the Imperial death-star that is Quebec. OK, I'm getting a little carried away here, but you get my point. The only way a minority government can work is with the other parties, sometimes the Liberals will get something, othertimes the NDP and the BQ. Thus balance is preserved, all Provinces are involved and things, generally, get done. It is not perfect. It has problems, but one thing is for sure - at least it is democratic.
