British Columbia – frustratedboomers

Whatever Happened to the Artsy Fartsy BBS?

by Roxanne Tellier

In the nineties, I ran the Artsy Fartsy Bulletin Board System out of my home for several years. Those were the days of 2400 baud modems and the scree scraw weeeeeeeeeekkkk!!! sound of the connection soon became a part of my every waking and sleeping moment.

In those days, tens of thousands of hobbyists around the globe ran primarily text-based boards, where users could exchange messages, upload and download files, (often pirated) play games, and generally hang out with other computer geeks.

These boards were in someone’s home, and that system operator (sysop) could see what the incoming caller was doing, since their actions scrolled by on the sysop’s own monitor. Sometimes a sysop would break into your session for a one-on-one chat, which was always a little bit of a fanboy experience. The sysop controlled entry – they could disallow your admission, or give you access to the ‘secret’ files you craved, like the latest version of FileMaker Pro or the naughty Leisure Suit Larry video games. And all you knew about this person was that they were probably as cuckoo for computers as you were.

The boards were personal, they were usually rather unprofessional, messy, and run by teenage boys, and the boards were often geared to special interests. For about three years I wrote a bbs column, Roxanne Online!, for We Compute!, a monthly paper I helped launch, describing local boards, how to access them, and how to find boards that catered to your personal needs.

(I still have all of the clippings of those columns, and someday I intend to scan them, and upload the texts to a website. Patience, padawan.)

Only the cognoscenti, the nerds like myself who used local bbs boards, could foresee that this ability to communicate, pretty much for free, with likeminded people around the world, was the future. I loved being a bbs user, and when my old friend, Iain Grant, offered to set me up a board on my own PC, I jumped at the opportunity.

I became friends with many of Toronto’s FidoNet Region 12 Net 250 sysops along the way, getting to know people like Craig Hastings, Paul Chvostek, Don O’Shaughnessy, Luke Kolin, James Korolas, and Loralie Freeman, many of whom I remain in contact with today.

Over time, and as I trawled the Net Echos for fun, I came to know and eventually spend a lot of quality online time with, some of the denizens of the FidoNet Writing Echo. Each of the writers, whether their writing was yet in print or not, had interesting details to share about their work, and publishing. Pakki Chipps, Laurie Campbell, Rocky Frisco, Dennis Havens, George Willard, Jack Lynch, Billie Sue Mosiman, Shalanna Collins, Lisa Peppan, Carl Thames, Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet, Diane Lamoureaux, Kevin R. Tipple, Karen Rhodes, Jack Ruttan, Douglas Rhodes, Rich/Rachel Veraa, Michael Nellis, Patrick Goodman, Rebecca Bohner were just a few of the people I would never have encountered, had I not discovered this wonderful online world.

And it was a very egalitarian world. When you chatted with people, you only knew as much as they’d decide to tell you. Anyone could present as any gender, race, or sexual preference. No one was ‘The Boss.’

While most of us used our real names, there were a few who preferred to be known by a pseudonym. George Willard, aka Mark Matthews, was an ‘animal lover’ in the carnal sense, and his book, “The Horseman,” got him and his ‘bride,’ Pixel the Pony, as guests on a Jerry Springer TV episode that was the one episode Springer never aired. It was a very long time until the episode became available at all, and then, only on some rather shady video tapes.

I met Pakki Chipps ‘in real life’ soon after my mother died. I had mentioned in an online post that I needed to go somewhere and heal, and she immediately messaged me to say she was preparing a room in which I could stay, and that her daughter Weyla was already out picking flowers for the room.

And that’s how I came to stay on a reserve in Sooke, BC, where I spent a week doing nothing but relaxing on verdant hills and exploring rain forests with someone whom I had previously only known online.

Many of us were musicians as well as writers. Rocky Frisco was a true Oklahoman character, adept at many fields. He’d been a race car drive, a disc jockey, a writer, an actor, and JJ Cale’s goto keyboardist from 1957 until Cale’s death in 2013. Rocky’s Wikipedia entry is a study in just how much one man can pack into a life. I was honoured to finally meet him when he played The Phoenix with Cale in 2002.

I would often feel that this entree into the online world was slightly unreal. I’ll never forget the time we were on vacation in Florida. We drove up to a Miami medical treatment centre, where we had arranged to have coffee with Rich Veraa, a writer who was a resident there. As we pulled up to the centre, I saw two men in wheelchairs – one white and one black – and realized that I had no idea what this long time friend actually looked like. It was an ‘aha!’ moment for me; in the future, I realized, people could be whomever they wanted to be online, unconstrained by any reality. For good OR ill.

Somewhere along the line, Rich Veraa became Rachel Veraa, but not many of us gave it a lot of thought. People lived their lives as they pleased, and most of us didn’t care what you got up to, as long as you had something interesting to share in your writing.

Not having met most of these writers in person was no impediment to very long, very strong friendships. Although the Writing Echo is long gone, I still stay in touch with many of it’s denizens, on Facebook, and thru the Writing Tavern Google group. I get to read the exploits of Laurie Campbell, as she and her husband prepare to return to New Zealand in retirement, and Dennis Havens can be counted on to keep me in the loop of what he’s been up to in his writing, and in the music world, where his past as a life long Vegas musician and composer of many a Sousa flavoured march makes him a delightful raconteur.

The first time I encountered one of Billie Sue Mosiman‘s horror tales (she wrote over a hundred novels, and was also a well-respected editor of horror anthologies) I was a little bit in awe of actually having this talented woman as a ‘pen pal.’ I often think about how she would describe accompanying her beloved husband Lyle, a long distance trucker, while she sat in the cab and wrote to the rhythm of the road. Billie Sue loved her man, her little dogs, and her life, all with equal passion.

“To look at her, Billie Sue looks like a typical Southern belle (born someplace like Mobile, Alabama, I think) with no more concerns than the cotillion and whether there’s enough Spanish Moss on the oak trees adorning the plantation house… okay, I’m being silly again—I know those sorts of Southern belles went out about the time the carpetbaggers invaded the Deep South after the War of Northern Aggression, as some call it. Although she lives in Texas (or Alabama, I’m never quite sure) with her husband Lyle, I don’t think they can afford a plantation or would want one if they could. And probably the cotillion would be the last thing on her mind—unless as a setting for a massacre; she’s been a full-time writer for years, and her favourite genres are (surprise!) thrillers and horror/fantasy, at least judging by what she’s been publishing lately. The first book of hers I read was called Wireman, about a singular serial killer who used piano wire to garrote his victims. And she looks so normal!” (from AmazingStories.Com/2015)

Every time I pick up one of Pamela Dean‘s wonderful science fiction or fantasy novels, I marvel again at how lucky I’ve been to have had access to her generous sharing of writing and publishing knowledge over the last three decades.

Times were very different, pre the sort of Internet connectivity we now take for granted. You probably didn’t know what a BBS was unless someone you knew was a hobbyist. Most people were actually a little afraid of computers in general; when I applied to be the executive secretary of the CN Tower‘s food and beverage director, the job involved working on one of the only five computers in total that were in use in the executive offices at that time.

Times changed pretty quickly, though. We went from, “computers! too scary!” to “How does this thing work, and why do I have a steamer trunk full of AOL starter discs?” almost overnight. Prodigy and CompuServe also got into the game, and soon the internet was so intertwined with the corporate world that any sense of the intimacy or personality of the bbs days was gone. When the internet went viral in the late nineties, it was the computer equivalent of the dinosaurs being wiped out by comets – one day BBSes were there, and the next … poof! Gone.

Though – in the beginning, none of the majors really sounded much different than they had back in the 2400 baud modem days.

It was right around that time that we were moving from our home in the east end of Toronto to a bungalow in Scarborough, and that seemed like a good time to shut down the Artsy Fartsy, and put the home pc to better use, making a living, working from home (which was ALSO considered an impossible ‘ask’ for the average office worker in the mid nineties. Old school bosses just didn’t believe they’d get an honest day’s work out of anyone whom they couldn’t see by a quick glance around the workplace.)

BBSes were the gateway drug that allowed many computer geeks to get involved with the Internet, well before the hordes arrived. There’d have been no eBay, PayPal, or Youtube without the hobbyists who were the first to see the potential of a worldwide connectivity.

These days, what with our dependence on smart phones, and the ubiquitous
hyper-connectedness of the internet, most of the social media sites tend to feel more like corporate-sponsored trips to the mall.

Our interactions with friends and family (and Russian trolls) are interspersed with cute animal videos and products tailored to the information big data firms glean from our conversations, enabling big corporations to better target what they’ve decided we need in our lives, all for a pretty price.

It’s slick, and professional, and very corporate, impersonal to a fault. And it’s not anywhere near as fun as the bulletin board systems of the nineties.

You just had to be there.

A Sunday Pot Luck

You ready, Canada?

Legal weed can go on sale at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 17, 2018. Cue the screaming and yelling from those who have never seen a Reefer Madness poster that didn’t give them a semi-erotic frisson of fear.

I’ve talked about this over and over .. I’ve researched what’s gonna happen until I’m blue in the face. Nothing I say is gonna move a real pot hater to change their opinion by Wednesday. And I know that. I’m not even gonna try.

But, this is my prediction; those people who fear pot and of the possibility of losing control after ingestion, will one night be talked into trying an edible. Or someone they like will dare them to take a toke, and they’ll feel kind of cool and cutting edge. Then they’ll find that an edible, or maybe some CBD or THC oil, will help with a health issue, or send them off to a lovely sleep, and within a few years, we will be wondering what all the freaking out was about.

Because, whether you knew it or not, whether you liked it or not, a very large percentage of Canadians have been quietly enjoying pot in one form or another for decades. World didn’t end. Won’t from this either. That’s not how we’ll go.

It’s not that big a deal.

Just wait until we inevitably decriminalize personal possession of all drugs.. like they did in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Uruguay, and the Netherlands.

Then you’ll realize that freaking out over this tiny loosening of our cannabis laws just shows that a small group of Canadians have never really gotten over their fear of the unknown, or of any kind of intoxicant, be it alcohol or cannabis.

Bill Hicks talking about pot

There’s just so many more, far more, important things to worry about. Like, Why are the United States and Canada suddenly turning back the clock on the civil rights of Native Americans?

On October 10, the American Supreme Court ruled to uphold a decision by the state’s courts that requires a residential street address in order to vote in North Dakota’s elections. Since much of the state’s Native American population, which lives largely on tribal land and whose IDs typically feature P.O. boxes, cannot comply, the decision is expected to steal away the right to vote of thousands of Indigenous North Dakotans, along with those who share their residences.

“While North Dakota claims that tribal IDs qualify under its law, most tribal IDs do not have a residential address printed on them. This is due, in part, to the fact that the U.S. postal service does not provide residential delivery in these rural Indian communities. Thus, most tribal members use a PO Box. If a tribal ID has an address, it is typically the PO Box address, which does not satisfy North Dakota’s restrictive voter ID law.” (Rewire.news)

“We have ways of legally stopping a fair vote.“

This is an utterly unacceptable ruling. It should be noted that new Justice, Kavanaugh, did not participate in the decision, and that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan dissented.

As America turns back the clock on progress for it’s most vulnerable citizens, the larger concern to America’s Native Americans becomes – how long will it take until other states follow suit?

If that’s not enough to make you howl in frustration, Canada actually one-upped that stance, when our own Canadian Supreme Court ruled that politicians do not need to consult First Nations when drafting new legislation that may affect Indigenous rights.

“One judge wrote such a duty would be “highly disruptive” to the lawmaking process.

The decision came just over a month after a federal court reversed Canada’s approval of Kinder Morgan‘s Trans Mountain pipeline over a lack of meaningful First Nations consultation. In response, the feds have appointed a former Supreme Court judge to redo the project’s consultations.

… Canada’s commitments to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples supersedes today’s ruling. Canada signed onto the UN declaration in 2016, and in doing so committed to obtaining free, prior and informed consent on all matters impacting Indigenous rights. “That’s the principle piece,” Clogg told VICE. “We would be expecting Canada to live up to its obligations, particularly around obtaining consent.”” (Vice.com)

Now .. is it just me, or does that not sound an awful lot like the democracy and the civil rights are being drained out of Canada’s interaction with First Nations people?

It started with Harper; in two omnibus bills, he jiggered water and fishery protection laws so that he could ram through whatever measures energy companies needed to start digging and drilling.

But with this new, egregious disrespect for the rights of the people to determine what happens ON THEIR OWN LAND, we’re starting a descent very like that of America’s, where wealthy corporations can push forward whatever process benefits the corporation, at the expense of the people living on the land being exploited.

And the government is complicit.

I think most Canadians thought that rejecting a decade of Harper’s hard right, capitalist/corporation friendly government would lead to a kinder, gentler form of governance. After all, that is what we were promised on the campaign trail.

But that’s the thing about campaign promises – they often disappear when the cold reality of day to day management of a country is involved.

Remember this, from 2015? ” As part of his 32-point plan to “restore democracy,” Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that if elected, he would create a special, all-party parliamentary committee to study alternatives to the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system, including ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting and online voting.” (CBC.ca)

And in Febuary, 2017: ” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau abandoned his promise to reform Canada’s electoral system on Wednesday, claiming no consensus has been found on an alternative system.

… Trudeau’s decision shelves months of work by a special House of Commons committee, two separate public engagement and consultation exercises, numerous MP town hall meetings and one cross-country ministerial tour.

The move was called a “betrayal” by the opposition New Democrats, who accused Trudeau of lying to progressive voters when he made electoral reform a central promise in the 2015 election.” (TheStar.com)

And then there’s the recent reveal, via The Guardian, that exposed a disgusting bit of information; “The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), which manages $366.6bn in pension funds on behalf of some 20 million Canadian retirees, holds US$5.9m of stock in Geo Group and CoreCivic, immigration detention firms profiting from Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ Mexico border policy.

The move to increase holdings comes despite criticisms from Canadian politicians about US detention policies and following international outcry over the US “zero-tolerance” crackdown this summer on the US-Mexico border that led to children being separated from families.”

Most Canadians would not agree to an investment into the incarceration of children in Kiddie Koncentration Kamps, and the separation of families. But most Canadians also have a real problem with how the government is dealing with our energy resources. Sure feels like we’re not being listened to much, between elections.

Prior to the purchase of the pipeline, the majority of Canadians were onside. After the purchase, and the follow-up reports that proved we’d just invested $4.5 billion into a proverbial white elephant, the majority shrank quickly to a minority.

And that’s without taking into account the protests of environmentalists, scientists, and the people of BC who just couldn’t reconcile profit over losing their clean air and water.

I just find it sad, now. When the UN released it’s report this week, saying that we have 12 years to limit a climate change catastrophe, that would include extreme heat, drought, floods, forest fires and poverty, I wondered which country would blink first.

We knew it wouldn’t be the United States; Trump has always contended that global warming is a Chinese hoax, put into place to trip up any possible manufacturing competition. Trump’s cancellation of climate policies that might have cut U.S. carbon emissions by about half of what was necessary, mean that they have NO plans in place.

But we in Canada seemed to be talking a better game; our image involves mountains, lakes, lumber jacks and mounties, for pete’s sake!

In reality, we are little better than America. Canadian Petroleum Producers say oil production will surge 33 per cent by 2035.

” New exploratory drilling permits for fossil fuels, publicly owned pipelines for oilsands bitumen, and the endorsement of highly questionable mega-projects like British Columbia’s Site C dam. And now LNG Canada.

Just this week, Canada’s environment minister appeared on Vancouver CBC. As bright, articulate and telegenic as she is, Catherine McKenna came off more like the minister of finance or fossil fuels than the person leading the war against global warming.”

…. The reason that politicians like McKenna, and her counterparts around the world, don’t get it, is that getting it means taking serious hits to the gross domestic product and employment.

The PM talked about 10,000 jobs, even though, when the construction phase is done, the real number will be tiny.

In making the announcement, Trudeau sounded more like former B.C. premier Christy Clark than the man who told the world in Paris that Canada was back on the environmental file.

Government decisions marketed by big jobs numbers can sometimes be a path to policy hell.

In the 1990s, the Mulroney government wouldn’t reduce quotas or close the cod fishery off Newfoundland because 100,000 regional jobs depended on it. The overfishing continued until the northern cod collapsed and disappeared as a commercial fishery.

The jobs carrot can also leave a government stranded on the moral low ground. After the disappearance and suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a group of bipartisan U.S. senators lobbied to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia. President Trump opposes that idea, saying it would hurt American jobs. “(Michael Harris, ipolitics.ca)

So here we are, then. A stalemate where our self-interests outweigh what would seem to be our possible demise.

It’s like that old joke, where the robber says to the victim, “Your money or your life!” and the victim says, “Take my life. I’m saving my money for my old age!”

It really is that insane. We can do nothing without the politicians being far braver than they have shown themselves to be. On the campaign trail, politicians come on strong, promising to save the world, but once in power, the focus moves from changing the world to keeping power via re-election.

Doing the right thing is hard. And it’s rarely rewarded come election time. So those in power, the ones we need to make the power moves, fear strong moves will get them booted out of their cushy jobs.

Better, they think, to keep the focus on bringing money in to the country’s coffers, by hook or by crook. We can think about the future .. .in the future.

And, c’mon … be honest … no matter how virtuous and outwardly concerned we are about the planet, or about the morality of investing in Kiddie Koncentration Kamps, or about the ethos of denying Indigenous people a voice on the discussions on how best to destroy their land …

at the end of the day, we tend to turn a blind eye to what goes on around us. We don’t want to see the blood on the diamond. We don’t want to know how the hamburgers are made. We’re saving our money for our old age.

Not a one of us is individually capable of doing the sacrificing necessary to save the planet, and no one person or country can do it alone.

Which means – it’s over. You can give up now. Once a full blown climate catastrophe hits, there will be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. According to the UN’s scientists, that could be as soon as twelve years from now. We will also see more and more extreme climate events, like the recent disaster in Florida, as we build up to the real weather horrors that await.

Make your peace with whatever deity you subscribe to, and be glad you’re not gonna have to worry about outliving your money…

And be grateful for small mercies, like the legal cannabis you can enjoy starting Wednesday, ‘anywhere cigarettes can be smoked‘, in Ontario.

Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em. You’re gonna need it.

Thinking About Thinking

Ain’t I a wonder, and ain’t you a wonder too!

Or so we’ve been led to believe, by all of our ‘likes’ and ‘loves’ on social media, which is where we go to show off our funny, pretty, and intelligent sides. It’s where we go to get our ‘strokes’ of approval, to find out who’s doing what, and it’s where some of us go to air our opinions and beliefs, and to challenge the opinions and beliefs of others.

“(As of August 2017) For the first time in the Pew Research Center’s surveys, more than half (55%) of Americans ages 50 or older report getting news on social media sites. That is 10 percentage points higher than the 45% who said so in 2016. Those under 50, meanwhile, remain more likely than their elders to get news from these sites (78% do, unchanged from 2016).”

There really isn’t anyone moderating what we say on Facebook. Oh, the book of face would have you believe that, like McDonalds, “we do it all for you,” but anyone who’s been slapped with a three day suspension for uploading a picture of a woman breastfeeding would disagree. No one seems to really know what FB will decide is pornographic or unseemly. Even Facebook itself is unable to provide a hard and fast policy, since it changes with whatever the loudest voices declare to be currently correct.

And Facebook’s acceptance of Russian payment for the placement of ads that ultimately swayed voters in the last election – well, that’s for the courts to decide, but I’d say that might be considered a Russky Bridge too far.

What is indisputably true, in the world of social media where reputations can be made or destroyed in the space of a tweet, is that there aren’t many grown ups in the room.

And the barrier that might have once existed between terrestrial media and internet social media is gossamer fine.

Because it’s that kind of world, now, where the highest rated radio and TV shows are filled with loud, opinionated, and often grossly under informed ranters who toss the red meat of controversy to the most rabid of listeners who will wait, slavishly, by their phones, in order to add their own voice to the cacophony, and be part of the fun. It’s a world where a reality TV host gets to be president. It’s Idiocracy.

How did we get here? Well, I’d say the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) played a very large role in this slide into mis and disinformation. Created in 1939 to license and renew the license of broadcast stations, the FCC did not originally have the power to censor what was aired. Until the 1950’s, most people got the bulk of their information from radio, and news was sold strictly as news, not entertainment. However, then as now, radio stations needed advertisers to keep in business, and the Commission worried that station owners would be influenced by their advertisers, and by what the conservative owners might decide to pass off as truth.

And so, the Mayflower Doctrine was put into place by then FCC chairman Larry Fly, “fearing a further commercialized, conservative-biased and corporate dominated medium.” The Doctrine declared that broadcasters have “an obligation to allot a reasonable amount of time to treatment of controversial issues and that they have an affirmative duty to seek, to provide representative expression of all responsible shades of opinion.”

The Mayflower Doctrine gave way to the Fairness Doctrine in 1949.
“It established two forms of regulation on broadcasters: to provide adequate coverage of public issues, and to ensure that coverage fairly represented opposing views. The second rule required broadcasters to provide reply time to issue-oriented citizens. Broadcasters could therefore trigger Fairness Doctrine complaints without editorializing. The commission required neither of the Fairness Doctrine’s obligations before 1949.” (wiki)

But even that modicum of control was removed in 1989, ushering in a whole new way of presenting information. No longer did radio or TV have to be held to truth – instead, it became permissible for broadcasters to present, higgledy piggledy, views that directly benefited their paid advertisers and corporate owners. it was the beginning of ‘fake news,’ paving the way for owners like Rupert Murdoch to found stations based upon the rantings of radio and TV shock jocks, those highly emotional if often low informed and biased talk show hosts ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

While this sort of blathering can be very entertaining, and kickstart the hearts of those who either lack their own opinions or love to air their ideas and conspiracy beliefs, it really didn’t do much good for those people who are easily led to often ill informed and hard right theories.

The thing about life is that most of us come to our ideas through our very limited experiences. And yet somehow we believe that our conclusions on goings on outside of our own personal spheres are as valid as those of the people who have dedicated their lives to understanding those events.

Thinking like that is naive, and is what led to America electing one of the most incompetent presidents of their history. Believing that success in business equates to success in government is an enormous lie of epic proportions and horrifically sad consequences. The very qualities that comprise ruthless thinking and lead to success in business are the direct antitheses of the qualities necessary for a wise, compassionate, and humane leader able to put the needs of the Nation before his own.

Why is it so hard for most of us to realize that we don’t have all the answers? To understand that there are people out there who are smarter than us, or who have more information about a topic, or maybe just have that intuitive flash of brilliance that allows them to weigh up an issue, thoughtfully and with ALL of the data considered, and then come up with a solution that actually works for all involved, something that we’ve somehow missed, no matter how long and hard we’ve worried the question?

Why is it so hard to understand that there are very few of us capable of holding every aspect of a quandary in perfect balance for long enough to solve the equation?

Time and again I have seen businesses and governments weigh up a problem with all of their combined brainpower .. and still come up empty. It’s truly infuriating for all of us – the entity trying and failing to find a solution, and those impacted by their lack of a properly considered conclusion in which all of the players needs are considered.

Fr’instance. In British Columbia, homelessness and drug addiction are a crushing burden to those who suffer from these issues. Trying to help and control the realities of how these problems impact upon not just those who suffer, but those who live within a society that bears the financial and legal brunt of these issues, is something that the BC government and policing agencies have to deal with. At this point, a tangle of laws, rights, and ugly reality have created an impasse. There’ seems to be no answer to this question. The result is an uneasy standoff, that benefits and pleases no one.

I don’t have the answer. But somewhere out there, someone does. He or she just hasn’t been asked the right question.

Corporate and political entities are not the only ones that often have a smug belief that they are the only ones with the answers.

Take the subject of phasing out oil powered vehicles vs electrically powered vehicles. Pretty much every driver who is of a certain age has little belief that the demise of fuel will happen any time soon. And yet, the Chinese government is following in the footsteps of countries like India, France, Britain, and Norway, which have already announced plans to ditch gas and diesel cars in favour of cleaner vehicles in the coming years.

I’ve heard all of the arguments, and the cries that trucks and other heavy vehicles will never be able to be replaced by electric or electrified vehicles, for at least the next fifty years.

But it IS gonna happen, and much sooner than those who picture electric vehicles being powered by a trunk full of double AA batteries can conceive. Barring a nuclear holocaust, which would put paid to pretty much all of civilization, electric vehicles will be the only new vehicles manufactured in many countries, as soon as 2021.

When the Fairness Doctrine was tossed aside as though the citizens of 1989 were far more intelligent and civilized than the yokels who’d laboured under these doctrines for the previous fifty years, we ushered in a time when any fool with a platform and a theory could control large groups of people, without any constraints, be they of decency or truth, covering their speech.

The internet and the ubiquitous social media furthered the range of those loud voices, and multiplied the numbers of potential followers their words could reach.

But without any control, or any way to establish rules of argument and debate, the loudest voices tend to be the ones most likely to resort to schoolyard bullying tactics, like name calling, the distortion of truth, and outright lies being repeated until the lies themselves are woven into the fabric of society.

Despite the miracle of the internet allowing each of us to research, in real time, any questionable information presented to us by even the loudest and most authoritative voices, the demand that truth be spoken is often overridden by the Bully Pulpit of those in power.

I’m pretty sure that this is not where the inventors of broadcast media hoped that we’d arrive.

But it is the situation in which we now find ourselves drowning.

Everything is Everywhere

Since I have a fear of flying, and a flight to B.C. tomorrow morning, I’ve been in a constant state of panic for the last week or so. When I finally fall into a restless sleep, I have non-stop nightmares of arriving at the wrong terminal, without a ticket or some vital bit of identification, and wearing all the wrong clothes, if I’m wearing clothes at all. Even when there’s no reason to panic – and I can always find a reason to panic – I’m in a simmering pre-panic mode. My house looks like an exploded suitcase. Everything is everywhere.

I’m reeling like an enraged Tasmanian Devil, with piles of lists that disappear under yet more piles of lists, of things that I need to buy or do, or do bee doo bee doo, before I hit Pearson International in the a.m., legs trembling, and a nervous smile flitting spasmodically over my lips.

So I’m going to keep it short, and just tell you about a few musical events happening today that will make this hot and sunny September Sunday a day to remember.

The timing of this trip meant that I wasn’t able to volunteer at the Kensington Market Jazz Festival this year (September 15-16-17) as I had last year. With over 200 Canadian musicians playing over 150 shows at very cool venues up and down the Market streets, it’s a weekend that’s chock full of great music.

Trip and jitters aside, I still found the time on Friday afternoon to drop in on Greg Godovitz at El Mocambo‘s pop up shop, Prohibition (66 Kensington Avenue,) where I bought a couple of rocking t-shirts for my western family. Then it was off to the media launch at Tom’s Place, (190 Baldwin) where local luminaries, including a texting Mayor John Tory, the dashing Richard Flohill, and chanteuses Molly Johnson and Genevieve Marentette, along with Celine Peterson (daughter of Oscar) and a host of others, gathered to celebrate the beginning of the fest.

The ever effervescent Joanne Smale greeted me as I entered. She’s handling the media around handsome young santur player, Sina Bathaie, and his latest production.

From the artist: “This album, Rays of Hope, is dedicated to all those who have pursued; who have suffered while the world waits for us to remember this perennial first wisdom that love ignores all boundaries. What we hope for in the end is that remembrance with which we can hurdle every fence, tear down every wall and arrive at that place where hope greets us in warm welcome. Each text in the cover is a verse of a poem which celebrates our timeless elusive pursuit for peace, hope, and the most important of all these, love. “

To my hippie ears, his new CD has a sort of new age-y updated feel of Mike Oldfield‘s Tubular Bells, played on this fascinating Persian instrument.

The album release concert will be on Friday, October 13, at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, Lyric Theatre. Or you can catch him this afternoon, from 3:00-4:00 pm at Handlebar, 159 Augusta. ($12. at the door,)

If you can find your way down to the Market today, there’s still a lot of great music to be heard, starting at noon with the Sidewalk Crusaders Street March, and including a slew of free concerts at the Yamaha Grand Piano Room in Tom’s Place, by some of Toronto’s most respected players, including Brian Dickinson, Carl Bray, Don Thompson, Joe Sealy, Mark Eisenman and Robi Botos.

Toronto’s favourite son and perennial Energizer bunny, Danny Marks, will be playing at the Hotbox Cafe (204 Augusta) from 1:00-2:00 pm, ($12. at the door) and then at Prohibition from 4:00-6:00 pm (Pay what you can.)

Bertie & The Gents, with the wonderful Manfred Koch on trombone, will be holding court from 6:00-7:00 pm at El Gordo’s Backyard (214 Augusta) ($17. at the door.)

Hit Amadeus’ Restaurant, (184 Augusta Ave) at 6:00 pm to get your jazz on for free, courtesy of Rick Donaldson & The Jazz Cats with Jim Heineman.

And at the kitschy, eclectic Lola, (40 Kensington Ave.) there’s Donne Roberts from 4:00-5:00 pm (($12. at the door,) Anh Phung & Alan Mackie playing from 6:00-7:00 pm ($12. at the door,) the Selcuk Suna Trio featuring DIA from 8:00-9:00 pm ($12. at the door,), ending with Eric St-Laurent ($12. at the door,) from 10:00-11:00 pm.

For more info, maps and schedules, head on over to the fest’s web site.

http://www.kensingtonjazz.com/mobile-phone-schedule-a-z

As for me, hopefully I’ll get to hear some fine jazz this afternoon , and still be at the right airport terminal tomorrow morning, with the right paperwork in hand, and without having forgotten something deathly important. Like clothing. I’ve got this! Head’s up, British Columbia! I’m on my way!

Sorta kinda.

Of Time and Tides

Next week, I’ll be heading to British Columbia to visit my daughter, granddaughters, family and friends. My husband gifted me the fare; he knows I’ve been aching to see the girls. I’ll be there for my daughter’s birthday, and to reacquaint myself with my granddaughters, who are teetering on the brink of their teenage years, at ages 11 and 13. My daughter will have her hands full for the next decade with these two little minxes.

I, on the other hand, have ‘grandmother privilege.‘ I get to see them when they’re on their best behaviour, and to leave the room for a nap or to visit friends when they’re acting up. Life is good!

For years I was unable to travel. A weird combination of finances and bureaucracy kept me from obtaining the necessary identification to board a train or plane. My clever friend, Barbette Kensington, steered me through the morass of paperwork, and now … I am a genuine, legally viable, traveling person!

So I’m looking forward to this trip, for many reasons, and despite my insane fear of flying. It’s a joy and a privilege to be able to travel, and one that I’ve not been able to do in over 16 years.

Getting older is a privilege as well, although many of us hate to think about it. As our loved ones, idols and contemporaries succumb to time, it starts to seem like the world we once knew is fading away, leaving us adrift in an altered space.

Coming to grips with aging looks a lot like getting thru the stages of grief. You’re gonna have to go through denial, anger, bargaining and depression before you finally come to acceptance.

I have my own theory on how we deal with getting older; I think I read it somewhere, but it’s mine now. Basically, there’s three stages.

In the first stage, you feel pretty much like you always did. You still want to do all of the things you used to do, and for the most part, you are able to socialize, travel, and maintain your hobbies with maybe a little more resting time needed than before. But you’re still a you that you recognize, and if you’ve got a few bucks, you can finally relax and enjoy life.

In the second stage, something goes wrong, either physically or mentally. Maybe you break a hip, or have a stroke. Now you’re wishing you had gotten in that trip to Peru before your lungs decided high altitudes were no longer an option. You get a little angry that your social calendar looks barer than it used to, and you might start to tell people that you’re “not as young as you used to be,” in order to get out of doing any sort of strenuous movement … like walking up the stairs.

In the third stage, you can’t do very much at all, and there isn’t much you look forward to anymore. That’s the last bit of the human journey, and probably the least anticipated.

Aging is inevitable, and few would prefer the alternative. Ready or not, at some time in your late fifties or early sixties, you will realize that you’re nearing, or in, that first stage, and that you have no idea when exactly the second stage will kick in.

We live in wonderful times. While we can’t turn back the clock, we can be grateful that medical science now allows an array of options for dealing with aging bodies. Hip surgeries and knee replacements are commonplace. Who knows what miracles will be available as we age and need a few more drastic nips and tucks?

We simply can’t anticipate what the future will hold, for good or ill. As a kid, I never dreamed that there would someday be a surgery available to correct vision … I had just assumed that I’d eventually lose my sight entirely, as both of my grandmothers had. Thanks to lasers, I had two decades of perfect vision. One of these days, I’ll have more laser surgery, and that will correct the effects of aging as well.

It would be great if there were big advances in cancer treatments. Cancer is a cruel bitch, and she’s taken away too many of my loved ones. Last fall, I had to finally admit that it was time to stop smoking, and I quit cold turkey. I’ll be dealing with the damage that I did to myself from here on in, and keeping my fingers crossed that I escape the Big C.

Took me too long to realize that you only need to change a few letters to go from ‘excuse’ to ‘exercise.’ A regular exercise program makes me feel a lot less stressed. Maybe the aquafit will also help me lose a few pounds. Couldn’t hurt. For sure it’s refocusing my attention on how good it feels to be able to stretch without pain.

The first stage of aging can be a bit of a shock – it’s almost as though our bodies are betraying us. After years of doing pretty much whatever was asked of them, our bodies have gone mutinous, and are demanding that we treat them with more care.

There’s several reasons for these changes, but they are all inevitable, so you may as well get used to them.

” Two biological phenomena appear related to the aging process:

• Accumulation of waste products in the cells
• Loss of elasticity of the connective body tissue

These changes, sometimes called nongenetic, occur at the cellular level. They have a direct bearing upon many declines we experience in our physical and sensory capabilities.

Many bodily changes take place over the entire lifespan— some beginning with birth. They are part of a relentless, post-maturational phenomenon called senescence (biological aging).

Senescence results in a decrease in the physical capacity of an individual, accompanied by an increase in a person’s vulnerability. As a result, any product or environment may become less friendly and less supportive for some people while adequately providing support for others.

Most of the changes that characterize senescence occur slowly. As they occur, individuals adapt to them. For example, people with arthritis may select utensils with larger and softer handles to ease the pain and enhance their grip.”

http://www.transgenerational.org/aging/aging-process.htm)

While the changes are inevitable, how we deal with them is up to us. Denying the realities of aging only leads to a more rapid decline, and if we try to force ourselves to perform at the same level, mentally or physically, as we did in our prime, we’re doomed to failure, and to setting up a negative feedback loop that tells us that it’s no use to even try for what improvement we can rationally expect.

What we really crave is a happy aging experience, and that’s easier to get to when we aim for smaller goals, with less dramatic gains, but gains that are progressive and ongoing. In a positive feedback loop of self-reinforcing and self- energizing behaviours, we can find the sweet spot of feeling comfortable at any age.

There’s got to be joy in our lives. That’s what really motivates us, and leads us to the healthy actions and interactions that make getting up every morning something to anticipate rather than dread.

We need ‘fresh air and friendly faces,’ people that we care about and people who care about us. We need to love and be loved, and to hold dear those whom we treasure for the good impact they’ve had in our lives.

We need to appreciate where we’ve been, and what we’ve done, while embracing new experiences that stretch our abilities. And sometimes we need to get on an airplane even when we’re terrified of flying.

There’s no sense in denying your ‘golden years;’ there’s only the reality of how you’ll choose to live them. My choice is to make the rest of my life, the best of my life.

Climate Change? What Climate Change? Part Two

Part One: /https://frustratedboomers.com/2015/08/12/climate-change-what-climate-change-part-one/

Why would politicians continue to argue whether or not a profit motive is bringing us to the brink of extinction? Why would countries continue to invest in corporations hell-bent on raping the planet’s natural resources, with no apparent plan for the future?

Because those who deny reality are actually the most frightened of us of all. There is certainly no way that the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of Canada is unaware of what is known to be fact. And yet, Prime Minister Harper went so far as to fire or muzzle Canadian scientists, so that Canadians would not be privy to environmental information necessary when deciding the economic arc of the coming years.

They didn’t need to manipulate unwelcome news. They just decided not to show it.

In February of this year, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the Senate’s most vocal critic of the scientific consensus on climate change, and author of The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, tossed a snowball on the Senate floor as part of his case for why global warming is a hoax.

Fun Fact: Jim Inhofe is the chair of the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Governor Rick Scott of Florida, one of the states most likely to be ravaged by climate change in the very near future, has officially banned the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from using the phrases “climate change,” “global warming,” and “sustainability,” since 2011.

This is the political equivalent of an ostrich burying it’s head in the sand in order not to see an enemy coming.

Obama spoke to Floridians on Earth Day 2015, saying, ““We do not have time to deny the effects of climate change. Nowhere is it going to have a bigger impact than here in South Florida. Here in the Everglades you can see the effect of a changing planet.This harms freshwater wildlife. The salt water flows into aquifers that flow into the drinking water of 7 million South Floridians.”

“If we don’t act, there may not be an Everglades as we know it,” he added.

In California, Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought State of Emergency in January 2015 and imposed “strict conservation measures” state-wide. Californians have been suffering drought for four years, yet the actions being taken at citizen level amount to little more than “don’t water your lawn,” and “shower with a friend.” Corporations continue to literally suck the state dry for profit.

Five years after the explosion of the Deep Water Horizon, tar balls still wash to shore. In Oklahoma, the state acknowledged in March 2015 that the earthquakes rocking the state are linked to fracking.

British Columbia is already feeling severe effects from climate change. B.C.’s 17,000 glaciers are all melting, which means no late summer water supply, diminished hydro power production, and serious impacts on fisheries and spawning salmon.

Unprecedented damage has been done by wildfires, that started burning early in the year, and could continue burning longer than usual. Greenhouse gas emissions that are released during forest fires are another major concern. “We have the initial CO2 emissions during the fire, but then on that blackened landscape we have continued emissions over time.”

Climate models have indicated that B.C. will have more precipitation this winter, but that more of it will fall as rain rather than snow. That will increase the importance on how fresh water is stored and managed.

In the Prairies, drought is an ongoing issue, which has forced farmers to re-evaluate their cattle. If they sell or slaughter cows which they can’t afford to feed, the impact will have a long term effect on the availability of beef. It’s a one-two punch, with both grain and meat stores becoming sorely depleted.

Non-agricultural regions may welcome the thought of warmer winters, but the reality is that climate change will eventually have an impact on all us, whether through rising food prices, or through the health of children, as increased disease, freshwater shortages, and suffocating smog become commonplace.

In 2011, Environment Minister Peter Kent pulled Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol, saying the “incompetent Liberal government” who signed the accord took little action to make the necessary greenhouse gas emission cuts. That, coupled with a failing economy, meant the move was necessary to save the government an estimated $14 billion in penalties.

“The Kyoto Protocol, which expires next year, committed major industrial economies to reducing their annual CO2 emissions to below 1990 levels, while providing financial supports to developing nations to encourage them to follow suit eventually. Canada signed the accord in 1998 and ratified it in 2002 but was not on track to meet its legally binding targets.

The Conservatives have committed to 17 per cent cuts from 2005 levels by 2020, a much lower threshold to meet than cutting below 1990 emissions levels.” (CBC News, December 2011.)

During Toronto’s Pan Am Games, more than 300 delegates from 20 countries gathered at the Fairmont Royal York to urge those in power globally to make solid commitments for carbon reductions. In December, the UN Climate Summit will meet in Paris to present the latest facts and figures on this global issue.

Environment Canada recently announced that the country’s overall greenhouse gas output climbed 1.5 per cent between 2012 and 2013, continuing a slow, but steady, upward trend since the global recession of 2009.

So again, I ask, why are we not acting? Why must anyone interested in the latest facts on climate change dig deep into the internet, and sift through still dissenting voices shouting disinformation to that small group who refuse to accept human culpability? Why are we being coddled by politicians and a fence straddling media while evidence mounts that our children and grandchildren will pay a horrific price for our lack of planetary conservation?

Quite simply – understanding the extent of the damage, and the near impossibility of turning this sinking boat around, is too terrifying to imagine. 30 plus years of denial, of allowing lobbyists to turn mild disbelief or skepticism into a tug of war over scientific facts, of politicians lying to themselves, and then to us, in order to stay in power, has decimated the time and research that might have slowed, if not halted, our current reality.

A population aware of how dramatically climate change will impact on their daily lives would never elect any politician who’s denied the crisis.

So we’ve been sold a different future, a future where someone else will pay the price for our good times. Using the fear of the masses who have no viable ideas of their own of a future where oil is obsolete, politicians have doubled down on denial, stupidity and short term profit.

The attention has instead been focused on issues that appeal to present day thinking. Let’s talk about terrorism, or illegal immigration, or reproduction or gay rights. Let’s let the tension increase on inequality, and sex education and prison reform. A people divided on pressing, but ultimately minor, issues won’t have the resources or unity to rise up against a far more dangerous enemy – their own planet.

Lacking the imagination to picture a time when water will become the new gold standard, they see no other way to prosper through their election cycles than to protect the financial interests of those who profit from corporations allowed to take what they want of dwindling resources, without any compulsion to use environmental responsibility.

When political powers opted to create faux ‘scientific’ studies that didn’t accept science, they also failed to create an environment in which necessary change could flourish. The richest countries opted to continue doing what they knew how to do – capitalize on dwindling natural resources – rather than what they needed to do – encourage energy alternatives. In Canada, there has been no new funding for clean tech innovation since 2011.

The concept of human impact on the environment is not new. Rachel Carson released her book Silent Spring in 1962. The book introduced the idea of how our abuse of the planet was taking a toll on human life. Chemical companies ridiculed her words, but Americans were alarmed enough to rally for and get, a reversal in national pesticide policy, and a nationwide ban on DDT in 1972.

David Suzuki, an environmental activist since the mid-1970s, has been well known for criticizing government inaction on protecting the environment. The people valued his input, but didn’t pressure governments to act as vigorously as his words indicated. “In 2004, David Suzuki ranked fifth on the list of final nominees in a CBC Television series that asked viewers to select The Greatest Canadian of all Time. Suzuki was the top finalist still alive.”

So – we’ve known for decades that our actions impact upon our environment, and that our environment then impacts on our health. We’ve simply chosen to push that knowledge to the back of our minds, aided by politicians eager to appease corporations who have profited handsomely by deregulations and tax incentives further encouraging a rapacious appetite for natural resources and a reckless disregard for the health of the population.

The world’s developed countries agreed in 2010 to mobilize US$100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and reduce their emissions. Those commitments have fallen short by about US$70 billion, according to the World Bank. Brazil, China, India and South Africa are still waiting, in 2015, for those funds to arrive.

Ironically, while politicians are choosing to ignore or decry climate change, corporations are seizing upon the opportunity to profit from the reality. So while most humans and non-human species face the prospect of mass extinction, corporate interests ramp up activities that will further heighten the effects of climate change.

Exxon has partnered with Russia to look for more places to drill for oil in the Arctic seas.

Mining companies are taking advantage of record ice melt in places like Greenland, to dig for rich mineral resources like zinc, iron ore, uranium, copper, and gold. Biotech companies have invested millions in research for new vaccines to combat the diseases brought by heat-loving mosquitoes. Flood disaster planning is currently almost a billion-dollar industry and is expected to double by 2020. Monsanto continues to develop drought resistant GMO crop seeds despite growing protests from countries that have outlawed the use of GMOs.

The richest countries have created the problem, but it’s the poor nations who are having to deal with the realities.

The wealthy, who understand very well what’s at stake, are fortifying their estates, using green technology, and assuming their money will protect them indefinitely. But no matter how well protected anyone thinks they are, anywhere on the planet, you can’t fight a compounding rush to irreversible environmental disaster that has already seen 52% of non-human species become extinct in just the last 40 years. No matter how high on the hill you’ve built your fortress, you’re still dependent on the ‘little people’ growing your food, and on having uncontaminated water to drink.

The voices of those who understand climate change and it’s effect on humanity are becoming tinged with fright and despair. We are all a part of an environmental cycle; the food chain spares no one. As the glaciers and ice caps melt in the north, the shores of the south are rising.

In the oceans, “Warming temperatures are sucking oxygen out of waters even far out at sea, making enormous stretches of deep ocean hostile to marine life… These are not coastal dead zones, like the one that sprawls across the Gulf of Mexico, but great swaths of deep water that can reach thousands of miles offshore. Already naturally low in oxygen, these regions keep growing, spreading horizontally and vertically. Included are vast portions of the eastern Pacific, almost all of the Bay of Bengal, and an area of the Atlantic off West Africa as broad as the United States.

Globally, these low-oxygen areas have expanded by more than 1.7 million square miles (4.5 million square kilometers) in the past 50 years.

This phenomenon could transform the seas as much as global warming or ocean acidification will, rearranging where and what creatures eat and altering which species live or die. It already is starting to scramble ocean food chains and threatens to compound almost every other problem in the sea.” (National Geographic, March 2015.)

Drought, ongoing globalization and heightened political instability are having an increasing pressure on the global food system. Each new disaster – drought, hurricane, flood, typhoon – puts more strain on food production. When food and water become scarce, the people will riot. The very instability feared by climate deniers will occur, as panic sets in, followed by mass migration, death, territorial war, and the end of civilization as we know it.

Still unsure? Still easily swayed by those who will argue that “climate change is not so bad?”? Here’s a helpful link to how to understand and respond to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming.

http://grist.org/series/skeptics/

To read Part Three; https://frustratedboomers.com/2015/08/20/climate-change-what-climate-change-the-aftermath/

Target’s Gain, Canada’s Loss

Attention Target Shoppers! Start your shopping carts as Target gets ready to liquidate stock from its 133 Canadian stores! Great news, right?

Not quite, actually. In a continuance of mismanagement, and “whatever could go wrong, will,” Target will begin to sell off stock in early February, after receiving court approval of a liquidator. They will not, however, be advertising closing sales with “bankruptcy” or “going out of business” signs. You’ll have to pick through the goods to find the goodies.

But – what goods? Canadians have been faced with lacklustre merchandising from Target stores since they entered the market, with many stores being visibly under-stocked, and shelves either empty or with a few sad items lined up in single rows.

There’s been a problem with Target’s supply chain management since they first arrived in Canada, which resulted in Tony Fisher, the first president of its operation here, being fired in early 2014. CEO Gregg Steinhafel was asked to resign from Target Corp in June of 2014 – he’s the one that got a total severance and other benefits package worth about the same as the total amount being offered to all 17,600 of the chain’s Canadian employees.

(Steinhafel’s severance, which includes profit sharing and stock, will amount to $61 million USD, according to Fortune magazine, a sum greater than the severance package for all 17,600 Canadian Target employees combined ($58 million USD). Target Corp has now agreed to increase the employment trust to $90 million (CDN) to ensure the Canadian employees receive their full severance payout.)

Mark Schindele was parachuted in as president of Target Canada in May 2014 to try and fix the merchandise log jam, and pricing discrepancies that resulted from products arriving at warehouses with incorrect information, thus failing proper price comparison checks. In January 2015, he was quietly moved to Minneapolis to become SVP of Target Properties.

Target’s withdrawal from Canada is going to cost the corporation a bundle – they have said they estimate they’ll take a loss of $7 Billion. But what has been the cost to Canada?

The total amount of jobs gained across Canada in all industries for 2014 were 121,000 positions, down from the previous high figure of 186,000 reported in November. I’m not great at math, but the loss of 17,600 jobs at Target, spread across 133 stores, is a significant chunk of the pie. Also, our new jobs were concentrated around the oil industry, which is taking a beating as OPEC drops prices.

“The City of Edmonton’s chief economist says 80 per cent of new net jobs in Canada in the last year came from Alberta. “Over the past 12 months, Alberta has generated more new jobs than any other province in Canada and that includes Ontario, which is five times as large as we are,” said John Rose.” (Sept 11/14 http://globalnews.ca/news/1559263/40-of-all-new-jobs-in-canada-last-year-generated-in-edmonton/)

Additionally, those 17,600 jobs were suspect to begin with. . When Target first arrived, they bought 200 Zellers stores, but did not honour the employees union in place. In fact, the first thing it did was ditch the union, eliminate seniority for long term employees, and drop all former Zellers employees to the bottom of Target’s pay scale. Because the majority of Target Canada’s workers were largely part-time, seasonal, or working irregular shifts, they will not qualify for Employment Insurance or other benefits.

The 133 stores, as well as office space leases and the three massive distribution centres in Milton, Calgary and Cornwall, will all be put up for sale at the same time, as early as March 5.

The distribution centres alone represent a significant real estate investment; each warehouse covers some 1.5 million square feet, or about 26 football fields.

Target came to Canada promising jobs, new shopping opportunities, and a boost to the Canadian economy. In exchange, they received subsidies and tax breaks, along with favourable bank financing. This should have been a win/win situation.

Instead, it’s one of the biggest corporate bankruptcies in Canadian history.

Target wants to walk away from over $5 billion that is owed to creditors, big and small. They owe cities, suppliers and landlords. It’s such a long list of creditors that it took a 45-page document to list them all. They owe The Canada Revenue Agency and provincial governments millions in taxes ( $12 million to the CRA, $2.6 million to the B.C. government, and $6.5 million to the Quebec government.)

With just five stores in Manitoba, they still managed to rack up bills of $850,000 to Bison Transport, more than $450,000 to TransX, more than $200,000 to Old Dutch Foods and more than $1 million in tax owed to the Manitoba government. Beyond that, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to smaller suppliers and pharmacies which operated independently within the stores.

Suppliers owed hundreds of thousands of dollars are considering ways they can force Target to return their unsold goods that were shipped within 30 days of the filing – rather than have the inventory be included in the chain’s liquidation sales. Target filed under the Companies Creditor Arrangement act, which doesn’t have the 30-day goods provision. After aggressively purchasing stock for anticipated December sales, it entered the crucial holiday season with the highest levels of stock possible. Companies such as Elfe Juvenile Products of Montreal, listed as being owed $38,294, is actually out $147,758, based on stock now in Target’s possession. So is Sager Food Products Inc. in Montreal, which is owed more than $11,000 on the books, but the company estimates as closer to $16,000.

Sager Food VP Santo Fata received its last order the day before the filing. Sager had been happy to fill Target’s orders, which “were steady, regular and getting larger. We were happy.”

Chapman’s Ice Cream is owed $19,987. Coca-Cola Canada hopes to see some of the $339,699 it is owed. $1.7 million is owed to Hillcrest Mall Management Inc. Roots Canada Ltd is owed $433,248 in royalties. Sobeys will have to absorb over $3 million in losses.

But no worries – Canada will take up the slack, in a loss of jobs, and increased prices and taxes to cover the share that Target is walking away from. Over $5 billion.

This is not the first corporation that has been invited, even aggressively courted, to bring their business to Canada. Nor will it be the last. It’s just one more corporate experiment that failed, and is ultimately paid for by workers, taxpayers and Canadian companies.

Added March 6/15 …

The gall of these thieves!

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/03/05/suppliers-gear-up-to-chal_n_6809404.html