The library of lost interests

Some books are like old friends, even if you haven't read them for years their presence still brings a lot of happiness. Holding these old books is to return to the past, when one was younger and enjoyed reading them for the first time; or just the physical presence of the book, the cover, the paper on which it is printed, the smell of the book that returns one to the past. Take, for instance, this Sherlock Holmes title, published in 1895, and inscribed "George Henry Donald with best wishes from G.C. Rankam 17/6/95"; I was afraid I'd given this book away when I reduced the number of books I wanted to keep; but here it was, among other books where it had been left, in a box. Another book, one that I taught, is The Great Gatsby (1925), teaching from this second hand copy, every page annotated, it is a book I still love; the carelessness of these people that Fitzgerald describes is more common than many of us are able to accept. I read Irving Stone's Lust for Life (1934), a biography of the artist Vincent van Gogh, when I was a teenager and later I read Vincent's letters to his brother Theo; these letters to Theo van Gogh are a description of Vincent's insights into art and his life as an artist. Apparently, it was Irving Stone's Lust for Life that brought Vincent to a wider audience, and fame, in North America. I was never as much a fan of Paul Gauguin as I was of Vincent van Gogh but I did read Noa Noa (1901), Paul Gauguin's "Journal of the South Seas"; this edition was published in 1957 by The Noonday Press, I bought my copy for only 65 cents at the now defunct NDG Paperback around 1985. I inherited Steel of Empire from my stepfather; written by John Murray Gibbon and published in 1935, it is a history of the Canadian Pacific Railroad’s expansion across Canada. These books that I have described were chosen randomly—they were the first books I took from one of the boxes of books where they’d been kept for the last two years after our basement was flooded. It's good to have them back!

The carelessness of the rich

 

Some of the many disguises worn by Justin Trudeau

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is not the "great American novel" but it is a great short novel, and Fitzgerald's writing is flawless. His insights into human nature are brilliant; he knows of what he writes, he knows the class of wealthy, careless, selfish people. One of the themes of The Great Gatsby is the carelessness of the rich, they are depicted as being entitled and privileged people who really don't care about anyone but themselves, they leave behind them a trail of broken promises, disappointment, and death. These are people who inherited their wealth, they didn't work for it. 

    Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative opposition in parliament, was not born to wealth like Justin Trudeau; Pierre Poilievre can be abrasive, he is too abrasive for the liberal white middle class of the GTA, Ottawa bureaucrats, CBC administrators and announcers, and other city folk who are progressive; they don't like abrasive people who disagree with them. Justin is suave and handsome and comes from a dynastic family, the son of a former prime minister and on his mother's side other prominent politicians; he was identified as a future prime minister by the Liberal Party of Canada from when he eulogized his father. I watched Pierre Elliott Trudeau's funeral on television, it was in 2000, and when Justin stood beside his father's casket and was introduced to the public I knew this was a future prime minister, he was to the manor born. But I also knew that Justin hadn't written his own speech and I doubt he knows the Robert Frost poem from which he quoted, "The woodshed are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, /And miles to go before I sleep, /And miles to go before I sleep." Even then you could see that he is a man without depth, a man who lives on the surface of life; and he still lives on the surface of life, recently at the Pride parade in Charlottetown, there he was, running along the sidewalk and shaking people's hands, taking selfies; there is no gravitas about him, there is only the occasional appearance of faux gravitas.

    Despite the negative way Poilievre is depicted on the CBC he is a man of possible depth and thoughtfulness, but maybe this is wishful thinking on my part; there was no silver spoon in his mouth when he was born; good people nurtured him and he seems to have good values. But he is not totally to be believed or followed, he is still a politician and full of ambition; neither Justin Trudeau nor Pierre Poilievre are particularly popular among average Canadians. Poilievre has already sold out the English-speaking people in Quebec as he lusts after the French Quebec vote, and the Liberals did the same. The progressive CBC and the liberal media condemn Poilievre and everything he stands for. Meanwhile, Justin maintains his progressive message despite the country being in the mess that he created; he doesn't care about the middle class who are experiencing what he has done to Canada, a country that is now woke and progressive and poor. "Go woke, go broke", as they say . . .

    Today, many Canadians can't find affordable housing; their children will never own their own homes; more people than ever are homeless; food banks are being used by people who used to donate to food banks, not use them; food has never been more expensive than it is now; our medical system is collapsing; crime rates are increasing; in sum, the country is on a downward slide. The rich are getting richer and the rest of us are getting poorer, and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Canada has never been in as bad shape as it is now, and Justin took us here in only eight years. I believe that Justin's emphasis on progressive woke ideology is inconsistent with Canadian values; woke values displaced a more practical management of the economy. But Justin is solidly committed to woke ideology and only tenuously committed to balancing the books, good administration, and serving the Canadian people, and he has failed the country because of this.

    Justin has also alienated the few cabinet ministers who were serious and decent people, not just ambitious politicians; I refer to Judy Wilson-Raybould and Marc Garneau, they cringe when they hear his voice, they regret ever having known him, and the politicians that remain, for instance Freeland, Mendocino, Joly, and Lametti, will do anything to remain in power. As well, Justin has been kept in power by the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, who doesn't see the contempt in which Justin holds him, or the contempt many voters now feel for Jagmeet because of this. 

    Despite the costumes he wears, the rich boy antics, the inconsistencies, the profligate spending, Justin does have a core personality, it is made up of two things: the promotion of woke and progressive values and a narcissistic hunger for power. To this end he has spent us into hundreds of billions of dollars of debt. He is used to a life of wealth and comfort, never any worries about money, and a subsequent carelessness in his behaviour. I don't know if the country can survive Justin's years as prime minister, years of carelessness, years of waste, years of progressive ideology; Canadians know that the values that will sustain a person--and a nation--are conservative values, these include decency, respect, and trust; meanwhile, Justin promotes diversity, equity, and gender fluidity, values that are not primary to Canadian values and history.