Passion Power

You might win, but you probably, and most certainly, won’t. Even when the great one, Wayne Gretsky lies to us saying, “with the right attitude and positive outlook you can win too.” In the long run, the chances of successfully coming out ahead are really, really, pathetic. But Connor McDavid and Austin Matthews, two of the best young hockey players in the NHL today, don't mind filling their over-flowing pockets to coerce you into trying it. Pretty sad when they’re targeting younger generations. Gaming advertisements are plastered everywhere on TV, sports broadcasts, billboards, and social media. It’s a total disaster. Yet, the Attorney General of Ontario, Doug Downey, said “We are truly proud of this strong, responsible, competitive online gaming model.” The government continues to bolster this industry at the expense of the next generations well-being and prosperity.  Even my husband admits he would have been in trouble at that age. Meanwhile, Paul Burns the President a...

The adolescent stage is between 13-19 years of age. They are filled with untapped potential, but the teenage years are often not seen as positive. It’s the stage of life where we are fraught with insecurity and self-doubt. The stage where we make mountains out of molehills. We sit around feeling isolated, lonely, and believing we are the only ones. The brain is still developing and there is a lot of life lessons learned during this period of life and it doesn’t always go smoothly. It can be explosive and full of drama. Author Cassandra Clare writes, “All my life I've felt like there was something wrong with me. Something missing or damaged. Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants.” I don’t know anyone that wishes to go back to that time in their life again, yet it’s a time of great discovery about ourselves and world around us. There has been so much emphasis on redefin...

Jimmy Carter’s speech as he addressed the US in 1979, talked about a growing doubt about the meaning of our lives and the loss of a unity of purpose for the nation. He said the erosion of confidence is what threatens to destroy countries. The fabric of society used to be woven by strong families, close knit communities, our faith in God and pride in hard work and a job well done. These shared values have been replaced with owning and consuming things. There’s not enough stuff in the world to fill that longing for meaning in our lives. Consumption isn’t making us any happier. Society is getting sicker and sicker, and the solution isn’t more meds. We are confronted with a moral and spiritual crisis and a growing disrespect for government, churches, schools, news media and other institutions. Classic liberals, small ‘c’ conservatives and reasonable middle folks seem to have evaporated as we wrestle with culture wars, forever wars, war on drugs, political and corporate corruptio...

Mutual Respect I wish that I could say that sexism and misogyny was not a part of the work culture I was in, but it was, in every single workplace. Sexual harassment had varying degrees of seriousness and creepy, but it was all just swept under the rug. I remember one place I worked women had to wear skirts, pour the partners their coffee and get their lunch. I didn’t last too long. Blond jokes were funny. I laughed. Comments such as, “when are you going to wear those jeans again to work” were embarrassing, but nothing crazy. Women were seen as less important, less intelligent, and less able than men. We survived, but I much prefer what is happening now. One of Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous quotes is, “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” She was right but exposing people like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby showed the world how men abuse their power. The “Me Too” movement started a global discussion to end sexual harassment and violence. I’m so proud and gratef...

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...

The greatest charity of all is to give someone a job and there’s a million of them out there. According to Statistics Canada there are 997,000 vacant positions in the second quarter of this year, the highest quarterly number on record. The working class aren’t working but why? The working class perform essential work. They work in restaurants, cook, serve our food, clean, work as cashiers, take care of the sick and the elderly. We devalue the working class yet who will build your house or fix your steps or mow your lawn or deliver your food or look after you when you’re old? Every trade is desperate to hire workers, but nobody seems to want the job. Parents understand that getting into the trades is the way to go but good luck convincing our kids of that. They look down on their hard-working parents. They want the highest pay possible for the least amount of work. Kids listen to social media influencers and are looking for get rich quick schemes. Who hasn’t fallen for that at...