June 24, 2009 Vol. 34 No. 47

Editorial

Are you really Canadian?

Canadians are failing at educating students on what it means to be Canadian.
Last month the Dominion Institute of Canada gave several provinces, including Alberta, failing grades when it came to teaching Canada’s past.
The country-wide survey gave Alberta, Saskatchewan, PEI, Newfoundland/Labrador and the Northwest Territories an F for a lack of Canadian history in the classroom.
It was a damning study to be released on the eve of Canada Day.
Often Canadians have made fun of Americans for knowing little about other countries because their education is focused so much on the history of the United States. Whereas is Canada students take Canadian history sporadically throughout elementary and secondary school.
Perhaps it is time to put more of a focus on our own history so students are well versed on what it means to be Canadian.
How many students realize the integral role Canadians played in the Battle of Vimy Ridge? Do students know Canadians burned the White House to the ground during the War of 1812? Are students know about Tommy Douglas and his role in developing universal health care?
These are important moments in our history. These people and events shaped our culture and our community.
Many immigrants who are now Canadian citizens are preparing to celebrate their first Canada Day as Canadians. What is more concerning is many of these new Canadians know more about our storied past than we do.
As we prepare to celebrate Canada Day here is a refresher course in Canadian history.

Questions
1. What was the last province to join confederation and what year did it happen?
2. What spicy cocktail was first created in Canada?
3. What Canadian robotic invention is an integral part of the space shuttles and the International Space Station?
4. Which classic Canadian television show starred John Candy, Martin Short and Eugene Levy?
5. What Canadian replaced Babe Ruth in right field for the New York Yankees?
6. Who assisted on Paul Henderson’s famous goal that gave Team Canada the 6-5 victory in Game 8 of the Canada-Russia Summit Series of 1972?
7. What Canadian bank robber made off with $15 million from banks across Canada and the U.S. in the 1970s and 80s?
8. Who founded Quebec City?
9. Which former prime minister hails from High River?
10. Name an early foothills cowboy who was born into slavery in South Carolina and worked on the Bar-U Ranch after arriving in Alberta.

Answers
1. Newfoundland and Labrador, 1949
2. a Caesar
3. The Canadarm
4. SCTV
5. George Selkirk from Huntsville, Ontario
6. Phil Esposito
7. Stephen Reid
8. Samuel de Champlain
9. Joe Clark
10. John Ware

Column

Unprepared and undaunted

I remember sitting in the hallway waiting for my university history final and trying to control my shaking and wiping the cold sweat from my brow.
I was totally unprepared and I knew it. I was going to have to bluff my way through it with a long, insightful essay on the political ramifications of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
It was a horrible feeling.
I have that feeling once again.
On Saturday I will be participating in the Foothills Charity Triathlon — my first sprint triathlon — and it is not going to be pretty.
I have to admit I am scared stiff and it is only Tuesday.
To be honest, I knew I was in trouble on the first day of training.
The first part of the triathlon is a 500m swim which really did not seem that bad. For crying out loud — challenge me! I grew up on the lakes of Saskatchewan waterskiing and tubing every day — I know how to swim.
To prepare for the triathlon I thought I should at least hit the pool at the Okotoks Recreation Centre once to get reacquainted with my swimming stroke.
I asked the lifeguard how many lengths of the pool would be 500m and when he said 20 laps my nose plugs blew off and I asked for a second opinion.
Are you sure? Oh, the little smarty pants said he was positive.
Not to be intimidated I took a deep breath, sneered at the whipper-snapper of a lifeguard and jumped in the pool to get down to work. I would show him.
Like a shark waiting for the flounder to flounder the lifeguard walked along the side of the pool as I completed my first lap, and my second. He was not expecting too much out of me was he?
Finally after several minutes, I stopped, battled to catch my breath and asked him how many I had done. Was I making good time? Was I almost done?
“You have done four,” he said with a grin that looked like a cat was about to flick the goldfish out of the bowl on onto a plate.
I could not understand it, I spent most of my youth in the water. How could I be struggling so badly?
Then I remembered, I did spend every summer in the water, but I actually spent it bobbing on the lake with my chubby noggin poking out of the orange lifejacket like a teenager’s blackhead about to pop. I usually laid there lifeless waiting for the boat to pick me up. I never actually swam anywhere. Maybe a few feet to get my bathing suit because it had a tendency to fly off after a Evil Knievel tumble off the tube.
This was not good.
Undaunted and determined to at least be competitive I hit the pool a few times over the past three weeks and thought I had improved completing the 20 laps in about 12 minutes. Then I heard the top swimmers will finish in about five minutes. I am going to be lapped!
I was so concerned about drowning in a mass of arms, legs, wetsuits and pink bathing caps I neglected the run and the bike. It is time to start cramming.
That university history test? I passed, but something tells me my thesaurus will not help me survive Crystal Shores — although it maybe the only thing left floating.

‘Eco’ is the root word of success

BY SHEELAGH MATTHEWS
CONTRIBUTOR

I’ve been looking for connections lately. You know, those larger connections, the kind that connects people to the meaning of life. Appropriately enough for a writer, I found my connection through language.
One day it dawned on me that the word “eco” forms the root of many words used every day in our English language. Eco refers to habitat or environment, the place or house where species make their home. Tack on the suffix “logy,” referring to the sciences, and you get ecology. Ecology is the scientific study of how living things interact with their environment. Environment, of course, is really just another way of saying habitat or home.
Today our use of the word eco often carries with it green connotations, like “eco friendly,” “ecosystem,” or “ecocatastrophe.” But, it came as a surprise to me when I figured out that some everyday eco words seem to have lost their green nature entirely. Take “economy,” a noun describing a society’s economic structure. Sadly, today that structure seems to have more to do with making as much money as possible as fast as possible with little thought to the effects on living organisms in the environment.
But the word “economy” also means using resources wisely and conservatively — to be thrifty with the environment’s available resources. Economy cars, for example, are easier on the environment, helping make our world a better place to live.
Traditionally, the word “economic” referred to a household and its management, a whole lot closer to eco’s true roots. Today, however, “economic” is defined as relating to, or based on the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. Worse, it is used as another word for “profitable.” It seems to me that we have lost, in our hurry to gain riches, the true meaning of “economic.”
After years of making as much profit as we could, and harming our environment while we were at it, is it really any surprise we now face a major economic downturn? Countless company closures and staggering job losses translate into hardship being an all too familiar way of life for many. Yet hope comes in a term that gives us an “eco” double whammy: “economic recovery.” Given the damage we have done, how appropriate it is that much of this recovery will be thanks to eco-friendly initiatives, like developing a green workforce to help us conserve water and energy.
Finally, eco is found in the word “recognize.” Recognizing our actions to be eco friendly or not is a crucial step towards recovery. It seems to me we better stop harming the places where we and other species live, both plant and animal, if we are to be successful. Recognizing eco heroes, like Roxanne Walsh of Turner Valley, who was recently named Earth Day Canada’s Hometown Hero for her environmental efforts, give the rest of us community-building models to follow.
Linguistic use of the word “eco” has helped me find connection to the world. Finding connections through deeper meanings — now that’s in our best interest.

Letters to the Editor

Improving health care should Alberta’s top priority

Dear Editor,
Alberta’s chief medical health officer says plans are underway to vaccinate the most vulnerable Albertans in October. 
He lists people who smoke, are obese or are in poor health to suffer the more serious infections.  No mention of  vulnerable Aboriginal communities such as one in Manitoba where seriously ill swine flu victims are being flown out whenever a plane is available. 
They are not the healthy, wealthy Club Med crowd, says their public health physician. If the Alberta government continues to ignore the abject poverty on our reserves, this population will be hardest hit a pandemic. Why not work to improve their health while we await a vaccine?    
Larry Mackillop
Nanton

Yeehaw! It is Stampede time

Hard to believe but the Calgary Stampede Parade will be held this Friday. I see some of our local businesses are having Stampede events as well. Check it out in this issue. The George Traditional House are Rylie’s Cattle Barn are putting on a huge charity event this Saturday. Come on out and enjoy the live bands including our very own Brent McAthey.
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Hope you enjoyed your Canada Day. If you are reading this on Canada Day then head on down to the Dawgs game tonight at 7:05 p.m. and then stick around for the fireworks. Should be a fun night and I’m told the weather will be great.
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I see the population of Okotoks is now about 22,000. I think we should do a poll to see if the majority of residents are in favour of taking on city status. “The City of Okotoks” has a nice ring to it eh! There is no rule that we have to become a city but we are large enough that we could request city status and it will be granted. I’m kinda leaning towards doing it. Sounds impressive and what the hay we are an impressive town!
All those in favour say I........
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The annual Okotoks Rotary Golf Tournament is slated for Monday, July 6 and they need more golfers. Proceeds from the event will go towards three fantastic charities. The Foothills Country Hospice, Sheep River Health Trust and The Rowan House. Entry forms are available at The Wheel or Servus Credit Union. Please sign up this week so we can fill the spaces remaining. For more information please email: okotoksrotarygolf09@telus.net or call me at The Wheel 403-938-6397.
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The town is looking into renaming Elizabeth, McRae and possibly North Railway streets to take some of the confusion out of it. I think there should be one name from the east boundary of town to the west boundary. I don’t really care if you call it Main Street or Elizabeth Street. People expect that Main Street would be the centre of town. It should be east and west with the break at Centre Avenue. The town has invited businesses along the roadway to a meeting on July 15 to address the issue. Give it some thought and I’II see you there!
• • • • •
The annual Foothills Charity Triathlon will be held on Saturday at Crystal Shores. It will also feature some great athletes and some weekend warriors. Be sure to check it out and watch for the competitors on the roadways.

Neda Soltan: Anger and Fear

The grisly video of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan dying in a Tehran street, shot down by a government thug, has already been seen by millions of Iranians. If the protesters against the alleged rigging of the recent election needed a dramatic image of martyrdom — and such images have a special resonance in Iran —they now have one. But things are not quite so simple.
Her death, all the more affecting because she was not actually a protester but just trapped in the midst of the demo, has enraged many people, but it has also frightened them. She was only one of 10 people killed on Saturday, June 21 in Tehran by the police and the Basiji (the volunteer militia that normally serves as the regime’s “morality police”) but hers is the death that you can actually watch.
It was very fast, very ugly, and clearly quite arbitrary. If this is what happens to innocent bystanders, are you sure you want to go out and demonstrate again tomorrow?
The conventional wisdom says that in Iran such deaths only fuel popular anger and make the demos grow bigger, and that is certainly what happened during the struggle to overthrow the Shah of Iran 30 years ago. But there were only hundreds of demonstrators, not hundreds of thousands, on the streets of Tehran in the days after Neda’s death.
The regime has now nailed its colours to the mast: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that he will back President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s disputed election victory come what may. There will not be a compromise in which the elections are re-run, maybe with a different outcome that makes Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition leader, the new president, but leaves Ali Khamenei and the basic principles of the “Islamic revolution” in place.
The regime’s heavy artillery, a parallel army called the Revolutionary Guards, has now been deployed on the streets, and its website makes it clear that it is willing to kill demonstrators: “The Guards will firmly confront in a revolutionary way rioters and those who violate the law.” In Iran, the phrase “in a revolutionary way” instantly recalls the tens of thousands of alleged enemies of the new regime who were killed in mass hangings in 1989.
It is the regime that has deliberately raised the stakes, from a mere dispute about the outcome of an election to an existential struggle for the regime’s survival. It is a gamble, of course, for there are many young Iranians who would be willing to fight it out on that ground — but their leaders are not.
All three presidential candidates who believe they were cheated in the election are stalwart supporters of the Islamic regime. How could they be otherwise, when all presidential candidates are vetted by the Guardian Council for their revolutionary and Islamic dedication? Mousavi was prime minister during the war with Iraq in 1980-88. Mohsen Rezaie is a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards. Even Mehdi Karroubi, the most liberal of the candidates, is a cleric who has served the revolution faithfully, if critically.
If it comes down to the survival of the Islamic revolutionary dispensation that they have devoted their lives to building, Mousavi, Rezaie and Karroubi are all ultimately on the same side of the barricades as Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. That is precisely what it’s coming down to, by the bold or desperate decision (take your pick) of Ali Khamenei. As he intends, it leaves the young people in the streets (60 per cent of Iranians are under 30) without leaders.
You could hear the anguish in Mousavi’s open letter to the Guardian Council, which is supposedly investigating the election of 12 June: “We are not against the Islamic system and its laws but against lies and deviations, and just want to reform it.” And he told his followers: “Protesting against lies and fraud is your right, (but) in your protests continue to show restraint.” Nor did he tell them when they should next come out on the street to protest.
As more information becomes available, it looks likelier and likelier that there was massive rigging of the polls. Mehdi Karroubi, for example, got 55.5 per cent of the votes in his home province of Lorestan in the last presidential election in 2005. This time, according to the official figures, he got only 4.6 per cent, with most of the remainder shifting to Ahmadinejad. That is not remotely credible, nor could it have happened by accident.
It now seems likely that Khamenei and Ahmadinejad knew in advance that the latter’s re-election bid was doomed, and rigged the election to “save the Islamic regime,” or at least their version of it. Nothing could have been clumsier or more drastic than the intervention that they made, but it may have served its purpose, at least in the short run.
The protesters know they have been cheated, but without leaders or organization they may not be able to continue. We will know if it’s really over on July 31, 40 days after the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan.
In the Shia tradition, that’s when the 40 days of mourning end.
During the revolt against the Shah, that was when the masses came out into the streets again to remember their martyrs. The game is still afoot, but the young, predictably, have been betrayed yet again by their elders.