Passion Power

Twitter gives everyone a voice. It’s the wild west, entertaining at best and toxic at its worst. It has mobilized groups like me too and black lives matter and most recently the Iranian revolution and the war in Ukraine. It is a lazy form of activism. Twitter is not a place for a healthy debate. It is a noisy confused state where context goes to die. It never takes more than a minute or two to find something to be annoyed at and yet I’m compelled to return to the chaos and engage in some bickering with strangers online. As a free speech advocate, I applaud Elon Musk wholeheartedly for buying Twitter. Twitter employees were notoriously shadow banning and censoring one political side. These moral arbiters of truth were using the platform to push their own agenda and they got caught multiple times. Elon Musk saw what was happening and vowed to make it a more level playing field. As the famous philosopher Voltaire once said, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend ...

Politics matter because the stability of our country depends on it. Canada is changing and in an effort to remake ourselves, we want to make sure our political leaders are fighting for our rights and upholding the values we believe in. We all want a liveable world we can happily give to our children and grandchildren. In Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, Haidt writes, we are divided politically because of our innate differences and that we all suffer from confirmation bias. He says that we make moral decisions intuitively then justify them with rational arguments. For example, I can see why I’m a right of center person politically. I come from a blue collar working middle class home. I was educated in the school of hard knocks. There was no coddling in my household and nurturing someone’s self-esteem was considered laughable. There were no freebies. If I wanted something I had to go out and earn it. My upbring...

I’m old enough to remember when it was considered impolite to discuss religion, politics, or money outside your home.  Then social media came along and gave everyone a voice.  It’s a new era to navigate.  As my mother-in-law would say, this is not our world anymore.  And while there are trolls being paid to create chaos and discourse on the internet by gaslighting people that take social media seriously not all internet storms are bad.  Twitter has brought public awareness and scrutiny on the ruling class and all their questionable ethics. Take the Ontario conservative long term care minister, Merrilee Fullerton, who dropped the ball in long term care homes is now working with vulnerable children and families as the Ontario minister of family and children services. See what I mean.  The former Canadian conservative Health minister Rona Ambrose now sits on the board of Juul owned by a tobacco corporation, an industry that floods our healthcare system with ch...

With genuine curiosity I had to google why the Bloc Quebecois leader, Yves-Francois Blanchet was at the federate debate on September 10 th .  He has no intention or desire to be Prime Minister of Canada. I doubt Mr. Blanchet has any interest in unifying Canada and said as much in the debate. I found information on the Meech Lake Accord agreement and understand how and why the Bloc got official party status in 1991. It’s an insult to our democracy to have Mr. Blanchet at the federal debate as he represents one province.   We really don’t need more of what’s good for Quebec.   We need more of what’s good for Canada. Am I the only one?   We must work together across all regions to restore our democracy and unify the country. Candidates at a federal debate should presumably be willing to represent all Canadians.   The last thing Canada needs is self-serving federal leaders speaking on behalf of one province.     Why were people apologetic to Mr. Bl...

I think it is a fabulous idea to write your own personal political manifesto. Am I the only one that gets annoyed when leaders speak,” on behalf of all Canadians or Ontarians.” How is that even possible? What I learned through the US election is that mass media is tilting society towards ‘crazy town’ and trying to throw us into separate camps. The best way to avoid group polarization is to march to the beat of your own drum, have your own set of values and a political manifesto to adhere to. Now I can focus on the issues I care about without getting lost in the weeds?  I can lay all my cards on the table because I am irrelevant. I am an ordinary, unseen member of society with the right to cast my vote and voice my quibbles. I have nothing to gain and nothing to lose. I cannot get cancelled. Just a regular schmo. I am not going to get elected or hired or fired. I will not lose my job or position. I have no coworkers to posture around. I have no power or authority. I have no group or...

We are too complicated for simple labels. I think we should just stop trying to put people in categories and subcategories before we get so divided, we forget which way is up. People want to cram your whole identity into a single term, “Liberal” or “Tree Hugger” “Feminist” “Transgender” “Social Anxiety Disorder” “White Supremist” “Karen” It even bothers me when parents call their kids “asthmatic”. I would not be able to breath properly if I had a label like that. Labels are a slippery slope. I read an article that said you are either a Racist or anti-racist. Those are labels. I am a nice person and a decent human being and that is good enough for me. As a young teenager I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I felt unsupported misunderstood and confused. These days you are assigned labels such as anxiety, depression, transgender, bisexual, social anxiety disorder, ADD, bipolar, etc. “Emily” showed up at camp a totally different person. They had a new name, pronouns, and a bag ...

March Madness is a long-observed phenomenon in Ottawa which sees federal departments quickly spend all their remaining annual budgets in the last month of the fiscal year to avoid losing the cash altogether in the following budget - This has been going on for decades. Why? I also wonder why we must pay for people’s sick days when nobody pays for ours? If I’m really brainstorming, I’d say we charge a flat fee of $5 for a Doctor’s visit which would deter needless appointments and save millions if not billions. This money can be moved around into areas like healthcare. Spending cuts and economic prosperity measures go over like a lead balloon especially during an election campaign. There’s always a hullabaloo from opposition parties and special interest groups. They would find one person’s heart melting story and put it on the news, and you would be a buffoon committing political suicide if you tried to ignore it. Welcome to democracy. I agree that a universal daycare soun...