Category: Canada

The Government Store, Canada

When I was a kid old O.H. Armstrong in our church called it the “Government Store”. In the South Shore of Nova Scotia apparently it is called the “Power House”. What ever you call them, there is a little left over from prohibition in every province in the country – the need to control…which also leads to the inability to shop around much. We are lucky here in eastern Ontario with the shops of Quebec and New York state not that far away, so that an hour and a half or two gets you into another world with another set of wacky regulations. If you are looking for something different when you travel, you can plan ahead with the web…but just don’t get too depressed from what you read:

What do you learn from looking at these sites? Don’t go beer hunting in PEI right off the top: no selection, six imports three of which are Heineken, Becks and Stella – mmm, macro-industrial North Sea lager. Quebec has very interesting beers, allows you to find out if a bottle is actually in your shop and shop on-line but if you are in a northern village you have to let the local authorities know what you have ordered. Newfoundland calls beer from New Brunswick imported. Alberta has privatized the shops in 1993 and has since only regulated but still they are left, according to the Bar Towel in 2002, with limited selection.

So – what do you do with a country that cannot organize itself better than a cornerstore in a suburb of a small US city or a pub in Halifax

BBQ

One thing about growing up Canadian, you have a sneaking suspicion that you have missed out big time on the whole BBQ ribs thing. You can brag about Canadian beer, about how its a dry cold so you should suck it up or how watching hockey is sooooo much better than any other team sport but then you remember how all those things would be improved by a pile o ‘ribs and you know something is missing. In this morning’s New York Times there is a description of New Yorkers lining up at a ribs-fest:

In New York, demand for great barbecue tends to outstrip supply. A few weekends ago, thousands of ‘cue-seekers descended on Madison Square Park for the Second Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, hoping for a shot at Mike Mills’s Memphis baby backs and Ed Mitchell’s North Carolina ribs. The lines were epic. Some waited it out. Many fled to nearby Blue Smoke, figuring that New York barbecue is better than no barbecue at all. And quite a few — present company included — hopped on the subway to Chinatown and sated the craving with a huge pile of Cantonese spareribs.

I know that fever, BBQ rib fever.   Apparently, I live 2 and a half hours north of a very legitimate ribs joint, the Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse but it  looks too bikerish for the kiddie set.  Regardless, we are not going that far south this weekend, heading for Oswego checking out the canal, Fort Ontario and Rudy’s, more of a fish joint on the beach, an inland Bill’s. The Kingston Brewpub does a very nice smoked ribs but they are not cheap and not plenty. My ideals would be like the lobster feeds of youth, picnic table covered with newspapers and piled with red sea spiders. Does such a ribs place exist in Canada?

Ed The Orange

So DutchAre the NDP on a national rebound? Or is it a really slow dead cat bounce? Who knows but all of a suddenBroadbent is back in town.

The biggest problem they have faced is the lack of credible leadership. Libertarians and evangelicals will gnash and wail that it is the wacky Volvo in cords vision that people reject. Foooohaaa, I say. These days we do not vote vision so much as visuals. With the “New Conservative Party”™ and the “New Martin government”™, Canada politically has just taken one or two tiny steps but firm steps to the right. As a result, the left is wide open and, supposedly, that is where the heart of many Canuck beats, at least on the social side. And when the visuals align with the heart, who knows?

All they need is a solid presence. Jack Layton has proven himself to be a quality leader – neither strident and ideological or shrieking from the pulpit. Reasonable, if opposing and socialist. A recent poll released three days ago places them, with a commanding 14% of voter support, ahead of all parties other than the Liberals (pretending that the joint 21% of the PCs and the Alliance are still separate – as most of their supporters still are).

I'm with wuzziznameIf I look back over 22 years of voting status, I have voted Green the last two times, NDP, against the Charlottetown Accord, Hec Clouthier as an independent liberal in 1993 and solid NDP before that – when Ed was king…if socialists had kings….which they do not… because they are socialist.

I like socialist politics given that we fundamentally believe in socialist policies in Canada: free universal healthcare, peacekeeping, welfare – even the wacked Ontario Tories only downloaded it and renamed it Ontario Works (expect that last link to die soon). It is just a matter of ensuring no rip-offs and no debt financing which, given the farcical dependency of Canadian conservatives on rip-off and debt, should not to be taken as much of a ideological challenge to the NDP.