Musings by Rod McQueen Blog

The real meaning of pur laine

I’ve read a lot about Quebec’s latest controversial laws, Bills 21 and 96, but I don’t think the explanation for their existence has been complete. But before I say what I believe is the cause of these attacks on minorities, let’s look at what’s happened in what all too many people outside Quebec call la belle province as if to show off their bilingualism. In the past, Quebecers have talked about “pur laine” (pure wool) the term in French for those who are descended from the original settlers from New France. This group is seen as the ultimate Quebcois although...

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Potpourri

Have you noticed the increasing amount of Americanization that’s creeping into our language? For years, Canadians have spelled defence with a “c” unlike the Americans who spell it with an “s” as in defense. Even as I write, my iMac underlines that word in red to let me know that I have made a mistake. But lately I see defense in Canadian newspapers all the time. When Ontario recently mailed me a notice about how I could renew my driver’s licence online, the form used both “licence” and “license” on the same one-page advisory. Obviously some bureaucrat was careful to...

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Apologies

Some subscribers to my blog today received a blog post that you will have already read in February about the ouster of Erin O’Toole as leader of the Conservative Party. Gremlins in the works! If you’d like to read what you were supposed to receive, please go to rodmcqueen.com and you’ll find a post on the much more interesting topic of Elvis the Pelvis.

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Elvis the Pelvis

A few days ago I heard some songs by Elvis Presley. Not the blousy Elvis of Las Vegas but the clear-voiced rock-n-roller of the 1950s. I was surprised in how many cases I knew the lyrics right from the first guitar licks even before he began to sing. Of course, most of what Elvis sang in the early days was what today we would call covers. “Blue Moon of Kentucky” had been performed by many others. It was Ray Charles who first did “I Got a Woman” and Big Mama Thornton whose biggest hit was “Hound Dog.” Elvis ‘borrowed’ those...

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Down through the years

In April 1963, I walked Highway 24 from Brucedale to Guelph carrying signs in support of the Liberal candidate, Ralph Dent, in the riding of Wellington South. There were about a dozen of us Young Liberals on the ten-mile trek to my home town that marked my first foray into politics. Dent lost to the Progressive Conservative incumbent, Alf Hales, but the PC minority government was replaced by a Liberal minority under Lester Pearson.  I have often described myself as a Pearsonian Liberal, someone who believed the state could help in specific ways, such as universal health care. I also...

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The troubles I’ve seen

More than a year ago, I wrote about my so-called career, beginning with a high school news column and proceeding to books. It sounded like an idyllic life, but what I did not reveal were any of my blunders along the way. There was one particular high school column when I quoted an unnamed friend saying, “You can’t let schoolwork interfere with your extra-curricular activities.” After publication, I was summoned to the office of the principal, Lorne Fox. Already on hand were the heads of Student Council and Athletic Council. Fox was livid. “What will Fred Hamilton, head of the...

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The boys of spring

Last night I attended my first Blue Jays game since 2019. It’s great to have the boys back, and me, too. I’m part of a group that shares a pair of seats behind the Blue Jays dugout so the view is perfect. My guest was my teenaged grandson who knows more about sports than any other person on the planet. He’s great company. There are so many new players it takes a while to get used to who’s where, but we seem to have all positions well filled.  Despite the interregnum, a few elements remain the same. The wave spilled...

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Greenbacks for all

In a recent column in the Globe and Mail, Andrew Coyne described a serious problem. Productivity in Canada has always lagged behind the U.S., he noted, saying that we need to ensure the amount and quality of capital that labour has to work with. Second, we need to make certain that labour and capital are efficiently employed.  While Coyne had few answers to improve the situation, he did sound the trumpets, saying, “If this country is ever to break out of the sluggish growth track … it will have to do something striking, even shocking.” Let me quickly say I...

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War (what is it good for)

The world was racked by war in the summer of 1940 when Prime Minister Mackenzie King motored down from Ottawa to meet Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Ogdensburg, N.Y. In President Roosevelt’s private railway car, the two leaders established the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, an advisory body on continental military defence that still exists today. At the time, both countries were bereft of war implements. When the two leaders inspected local troops and lethal weaponry, Roosevelt was embarrassed to discover that what seemed to be cannon were, in fact, peeled logs painted black. Elsewhere, soldiers were busy assembling and disassembling...

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Chasing ghosts

Just finished Eric Reguly’s excellent book, Ghosts of War, that celebrates his father, Robert Reguly. Eric, who writes for the Globe and Mail, is one of the few journalists of his generation still working. All his life Eric has been chasing his father’s legacy as one of the most fearless and innovative journalists ever. In the 1960s, writing for the Toronto Star, Robert found Hal Banks and Gerda Munsinger, scoops no one else could muster. With panache he also covered international stories such as the Vietnam War and the starving children of Biafra. Says Eric, Robert was “a truth warrior”...

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The next generation

On the occasion of Canadian Tire’s 100th anniversary, no mere cake will do. The company has instead announced $3.4 billion in spending that’s mostly aimed at e-commerce, new products and more private label sales. Unlike Amazon, with distribution centres shipping straight to customers, Canadian Tire will work through the stores. After all, the dealers and the pension fund own the rest of Tire beyond what’s in the hands of controlling shareholder Martha Billes. Tire, she likes to call it, not The Tire, just Tire. Dealers have to go through years of apprenticeship before they get their own store, but it...

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Women of the world, unite

As we celebrate another International Women’s Day today, it’s useful to look at progress made. Women seem to be doing well in hockey and the Paralympic games in Beijing, but in few other venues. According to a study by Toronto law firm Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, in 2021 women held 23.4 percent of board seats among companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, up two percentage points from the previous year. At that rate of increase, it will take another thirteen years for boards to be 50-50 female and male. Growth of female executives in TSE companies has been even...

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The Soviet playbook

The following guest essay was written by my partner, Susan M. Papp, Ph.D Most people in the western world were shocked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, yet, if you examine his mindset and historical perspective, Vladimir Putin’s behaviour is in accordance with the Soviet playbook of expanding and expropriating lands for the empire. It is well known that Putin was a KGB-trained operative. What he has done in Ukraine is similar to the manner in which Joseph Stalin ordered that Transcarpathia, the easternmost region of Czechoslovakia, be expropriated by the Soviet Union in November 1944. This action was taken when...

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Whither Canada?

Canada has become a place I no longer like nor admire. It’s gotten to the point I don’t even want to know the news anymore and that’s an unlikely outcome for a former journalist like me. I made a personal pledge not to watch any Olympic coverage because I don’t think China should have even been awarded these games. They gave the world Covid, treat minorities such as the Uyghurs as slave labour, and took away freedoms from the residents of Hong Kong, all without a fare-thee-well from the world.  In fact, It turns out to be easy to avoid watching the...

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Here we go again

At 62 percent of the total, the seventy-three Conservative MPs who today voted against Erin O’Toole was well over the 50 percent minimum required. But the ouster of another Conservative leader brings as much disgrace on the party as it does the leader who was just seventeen months into the job and in the most recent election beat Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in the popular vote. Among O’Toole’s problems with his MPs was the fact that he wooed social conservatives during the campaign for leader only to move later to the more electable centre by changing his position on some issues....

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