Category: Sackville’s Memorial park

First , many thanks to Dr. Jordan Peterson for interviewing Bambi/Rima (or Dr. Rima Azar)!

This interview was Bambi’s first public interview since February 22, 2021… It was as surrealistic to her as her continuous censorship saga.

She explains: She has the UTMOST respect for Dr. Peterson. She is both honoured and humbled to be interviewed by him. She thought carefully before accepting his kind invitation because she knows how some of us do not allow their minds and hearts be open to hear others’ meaningful messages in life… just because those “others” are not “them” and their different opinions or approaches in life may at times be different.

If Bambi has one wish today is to ask you to just be human and listen to this interview, shared below, with an open mind. How would you feel personally had you been the one interviewed by Dr. Peterson for the same reason (censorship)? How would you feel had the interviewee been your spouse, your parent or your adult child?

Please think also of the clever title of his interview: “You’re next“. “You” is anyone. You is any place. You is any university. You is any workplace. You is any province and territory. You is any country.

Today, it is about me. Tomorrow, will it be about “you”?

“You” may be you personally or “your” colleague, your student, your teacher. It may be your friend, your spouse, your parent… or your child.

No one deserves this in life, not Dr. Peterson in the past. Not Bambi now. Surely not you, with or without knowing you… regardless of your opinion about this or that topic, at a particular point in time!

Second (OK, first and foremost too :)), thanks to each one of you for your heart-warming support!!! Bambi’s fear (nightmare!) is not to thank each one of you for your generosity as soon as possible. Please trust that she is doing this in her heart right now, as she is writing this post! You will hear from her ASAP… Please forgive her if your personalized thank you note will take time to reach you.

Bambi is literally overwhelmed by your kind support, expressed in so many different ways. She thanks you from the bottom of her heart for all the emails, texts, notes, and calls! She thanks you for your solidarity!

Third, to conclude this post, you can listen to the interview of Dr. Peterson with Bambi/Rima below. Before you do so, you may wish to check Dr. Rima Azar’s new personal website. It has just been finalized and soon (over the next days or week?), you will hear a video message… in English, French, and Arabic. Please stay tuned:

I’m Rima, Associate Professor of Health Psychology

In a CBC article entitled “Premier rejects calls to apologize to N.B. doctor after COVID-19-related charge withdrawn”, we learn that Mr. Higgs had the courage to remain firm in resisting the pressure to apologize to Dr. Ngola:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/charges-dropped-new-brunswick-doctor-1.6053174

First, Bambi is VERY happy for Dr. Ngola because he is free of charges and his trial did not take place (11 days before it was supposed to start, that is on June 15). What a relief.

Second, once again, we see how Québec is a welcoming province because Dr. Ngola is now practicing there.

As for us in NB, again Bambi sends her condolences to the family of Mr. Daniel Ouellette, our first covid-19 death in the province (http://bambisafkar.ca/index.php/2020/06/04/good-bye-au-revoir-monsieur-daniel-ouellette/)…They have been dignified in their grief.

Plus, to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, had Mr. Higgs (and Dr. Roussel) been opaque about this story involving Dr. Ngola, we would have accused our government of being non-transparent when we needed to have honest information about the pandemic.

Mr. Higgs did not name Dr. Ngola in his press conference of last year. He just informed the population of what was happening. This is his duty as PM and he simply did it from the best of his capacity. It would be unfair to pretend otherwise. It is surely inappropriate to ask him to apologize.

Now, was Dr. Ngola at the receiving end of some citizen’s anger frustrated and scared by the pandemic? Yes, likely and sadly with nasty words online, it seems. However, it is not because of neither his skin hue nor his accent. It is because citizens were upset and frustrated to have to worry and go into a lockdown again. With all due respect to Dr. Ngola as a compassionate physician throughout his career, what has upset citizens is that he is a physician and he should have known about the need to quarantine after travels.

This being said, everyone can make a mistake or take risks in life. In his case, he seems to have had family obligations to fulfill (i.e. travels of his spouse abroad due to death in the family) and, if Bambi recalls well from the media, he also had a job interview in Québec too at that time.

Once again, Bambi is happy for Dr. Ngola. He deserves peace of mind to enjoy his life and fully devote himself to his new patients in the nearby Québec.

A year ago, Bambi wrote that she would definitely seek his services for herself, but perhaps not for her senior parents. Well, now that they are both vaccinated twice (since February/early March in Beirut), she would gladly drive them to Dr. Ngola’s new clinic… had they been living in NB or Québec.

Mind you, Bambi would have written the same post had Dr. Ngola’s name been Dr. Khoury, Dr. Smith, or Dr. Bélliveau.

To conclude this post, once again, enough of resorting to identity (or racial)-based politics to such absurd extent… Bambi is saying this in reference to Dr. Ngola’s lawyer’s statement: “There is a terrible systemic racism history in North America of using the dog whistle against racialized citizens and labelling them as the ‘bringer of diseases,’ and this has to stop,”

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Bambi’s earlier posts on this same topic:

Had Dr. Ngola’s name been Dr. Surette or Dr. Smith, would this story have attracted the attention of journalists at home or abroad?

Why should Mr. Higgs apologize to Dr. Ngola?

Bambi would like to thank, a dear family friend from Québec (Dr. Nadim Korban), for sharing this beautiful short video of landscapes from Lebanon produced by Mr. Mourad Halimi.

May our birth country see the light at the end of this long tunnel of political deadlocks, financial as well as moral corruption, and continuous security risks/threats, regardless of their sources.

The people of Lebanon deserve better. The “land of the Cedars” surely deserves brighter days…

Bambi loves this love song called Mi Gna, as her friends of Armenian origins know :). She is lucky because it played on the radio today. Well, she may be lucky, but not her spouse! Poor guy because she cannot stop singing the song since this morning… and it is now late in the evening.

Bambi wonders if her family members in Beirut heard this song before. Mind you, It is not that new. However, for the dinosaur in her [in addition to being a deer :)], this musical discovery is considered a recent one.

Bambi hopes you will enjoy discovering this song as well. Now, if you decide that you do not like it, you will be the lucky one here. Indeed, you have the agency to ignore this post or the whole blog altogether!

Mmm, why did the Bloc Québécois, along with the Liberal Party of Canada and the NDP, vote down “Bill-C10 amendment that would exempt social media content from regulation”, as per the National Post?

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/bill-c-10-amendment-that-would-exempt-social-media-content-from-regulation-voted-down

Why does Mr. Blanchet’s Bloc Québécois (BQ) consider that Canadian or French content would matter more than a risk of censorship?

With regard to Bill 96 on the protection of the French language, Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould saw partisanship of our federal political parties with the BQ asking to amend the Canadian constitution (i.e., Québec is a nation and French is its language).

Does she or do you see any partisanship of both the BQ and NDP with the Liberals with regard to Bill C-10?

Despite Mr. Blanchet’s articulate press conference about this proposed bill (and compassionate answers to other questions from the journalists), and as a non-expert citizen, Bambi still sees the risk of censorship on social media and questions the need for this bill. She is saying so, even if Mr. Blanchet may be right in pointing to the competitive attitude of both the Liberals and the Conservatives toward each other (with regard to this bill), to use his own words.

To begin with, why don’t our lawmakers listen to the expertise of the University of Ottawa law professor, Dr. Michael Geist (https://commonlaw.uottawa.ca/en/people/geist-michael)? As reported by the National Post article cited above, Geist once wrote one his own platform: “The CRTC’s lack of competence and dismissal of competitive concerns combined with the government’s willingness to vest the future of Internet regulation in its hands creates perhaps the greatest threat arising from Bill C-10”.

Last but not least, why would any government of any democratic country in the world want to regulate (OR control) social media? And why would citizens accept this or do they really do so, if they were not consulted about it (of course, assuming consultations are genuine, etc.), Bambi cannot help not to wonder?

Without any clear answer, she remains concerned about this proposed Bill C-10 or at least its possible use in the future. She is saying so, despite her utmost respect for Mr. Blanchet, along with her gratitude for ALL our lawmakers’ hard work related to the proposed Bill C-10.

Yes, it is June 3rd again… Time flies from year to year.

Bambi cannot go to sleep before wishing her sister (Rania) and nephew (Michael) a double Happy Birthday :). May each one of them have a wonderful new year!

To honour them both, Bambi will re-share their double birthday post from last year where you can see their artistic/entrepreneurial talent and rewarding corporate banker career journey as well as wisdom.

In addition, this year, she will allow herself to “steal” two videos of personalized birthday songs from YouTube. How could she not be delinquent when the songs seem to be meant for the Ranias and Michaels of our world? Even if these names are common, Bambi’s sister and nephew are unique in so many beautiful ways. She misses them both beyond words.

Happy birthday Rania! Happy Birthday Mickey!

Rania’s personalized song:

Michael’s personalized song:

Rania’s and Michael’s common song:

To conclude on a joyful note, here is the kid song that Bambi initially found for you. Yes, even if you may feel wiser today (while aging :)), you have been adorable babies like this cute one:

Happy Birthday Rania & Michael, two talented family members!

First, Bambi would like to thank her cousin Christiane for sending her the picture below, likely widely shared on social media. It dates from 1963 and it informs us that Lebanon was one of the four most prosperous countries of the world back then, after Switzerland, West Germany, and the United States:

Look at the contrast with today’s situation (Wion short news documentary)!

This economic fiasco is likely the outcome of the mindset/actions of endemic corruption in public service with impunity, along with an absence of a clever long-term vision of prosperity for the country (of course, there has also been a destructive 15-year civil war, in addition to regional challenges… and now a pandemic).

Bambi has always wondered which is worse in life: financial OR moral corruption? Although she is convinced that the latter is worse, the tragedy of Lebanon is that the latter is also likely responsible for the inaction of its political so-called leaders now.

Bambi is saying the above while recognizing the complex competing interests of foreign forces in this tiny, bankrupt yet always beautiful and dignified country. If over the years, the political elite had put Lebanon’s interests first, perhaps this fiasco could have been prevented, mitigated, or… at least confronted by now.

To conclude this post on a musical note, here is a moving song, entitled “J’ai quitté mon pays” [“I left my homeland“] by Mr. Enrico Macias from Bambi to Lebanon and the people of Lebanon… with love:

Again, the CBC, in its section called “Being black in Canada”, seems to be pushing for a certain political agenda in our country and now province. You can read and hear videos here:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/black-indigenous-discrimination-1.6045321

The three folks being interviewed will also be featured in two follow-up articles. They are as follows: Mr. Matthew Martin (President of BLM, Saint John & musician), Mr. Neil Clements (lawyer), and Dr. Timothy Christie, Philosophy, Medical Ethics and Epidemiology.  

The same article calls to defund the police whilst also arguing (as per Dr. Christie’s words, it seems) that “making racism a crime would better protect Black people by allowing them to report racism to the police, who would then be able to investigate, collect evidence, subpoena witnesses and see that charges are laid.”

First, do you see the contradiction like Bambi?

Are these just talking points or do these men realize what they are saying?

Second, are they, perhaps along with the CBC, serious in asking for the criminalization of racism? And what about false accusations of racism? Concretely speaking, this means that Bambi’s censorship saga is not only an attempt to silence her, but eventually, it can also make her go to jail ?. Does Dr. Christie and the CBC reporter realize the pandora’s box of abuses that can happen when anyone in our world can be called racist for having a different opinion… yes, including deer.

If you happen not to see the contradiction and the potential slippery slope of such demand, perhaps like Bambi, you can just find it hard to understand the mission of BLM (in the About section of its Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/249620259466028/). It reads as follows:

“The platform upon which black communities across Saint John and New Brunswick can actively dismantle all forms of anti-black racism, liberate blackness, recognize black excellence, support black healing, affirm black existence, to create freedom to love and self- determine and to help offer education to those who seek it”.

Bambi read this mission several times and she struggles to understand it. She even thought at one point of offering editing services. For instance, what does “liberate blackness” mean? What is “blackness”, by the way? And why does it need to be liberated? And how to do we “create freedom to love and self-determine”?

In Bambi’s dictionary of tolerance, we surely do not create freedom by revoking the freedom of, or by contributing to censoring, those who think differently; perhaps even those who may agree with the demand for justice, but not with the means to achieve it…

Canada is mourning…

Flags are lowered.

Hearts are broken.

Broken in at least 215 pieces…

Since the remains of 215 children were discovered at a former residential school in British Columbia :(.

Of course, Mr. Trudeau is also deeply sad like all of us, as a father, as a human being, and as… our Prime Minister.

Today, Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould challenged Mr. Trudeau with the following question:

Perhaps Mr. Trudeau will use the national grieving time of reflection OR discussion (as wisely demanded by Mr. Jagmeet Singh, from NDP) to move forward with his “concrete actions”. Could it be?

In the meantime, he seems to forget about our Canadian context. Yes, he appears to insist on considering us as a Northern extension of the United States.

Why is Bambi saying so? Because Mr. Trudeau insists once again on creating those identity-based programs for so-called “Black Canadians” entrepreneurs”? The federal government loan with allow the latter to access loans of up to $250K.

What kind of message is this program giving to those entrepreneurs? You cannot compete on your own to start your business because of your skin colour/hue?

As a result, you need the government to become dependent on in order to succeed your business.

Plus, on which discrimination-related banking services data is this program based on? Are our banks that awful in providing services to their customers?

In other terms, why are we resorting to publicly-funded identity-based programs?

What if we take this logic of identity (or sectarian)-based programs further in the future? What and whom will be next? Today, it is this target group. Tomorrow it will be whom? The Arab-Canadians? The Muslims? The Jews? Is this a wise approach in life?

Bambi may be wrong, but this approach to entrepreneurship seems to be counter-productive to the mindset of entrepreneurs. The latter usually take financial risks in aiming to succeed in their profit. They push themselves forward to serve their clients. They compete with other entrepreneurs, as needed. They likely do not need to be taken by the hand (by governments) to that extent, like little children.

Plus, will our bankers now have to apply a skin hue test to their clients to help them set up a business? Why don’t they just simply apply the same criteria with all their potential clients, that is asking them entrepreneurial questions like a solid business plan, a guarantee for reimbursement, or the potential of success of their business idea in 2, 5 or 10 years?

To conclude this post, instead of creating such expensive and likely not much needed programs (even if they sound politically correct), why not focus our energy and public funds on solving the concrete social and health problems of our fellow Indigenous citizens, especially on some reserves? For instance, there is a crying need for an improved access to water, to mental health and other health-related services, and… perhaps even to a form of compensation for the families of the victims (or survivors?) of residential schools? Or maybe even to trauma-related healing programs, etc.?

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Bambi’s earlier post on this same topic:

Had you been a “black” entrepreneur, wouldn’t you be insulted by the creation of a new race-based government program, like Bambi?

Bill 96 is a reform of bill 101. It is about the protection of the French language.

In Québec, bill 96 is very welcome, even when it is perceived by many, including experts like Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Charles Castonguay, as being possibly not strong enough. For instance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1BqAzgpG3A), it may not address key questions like the funding of English-speaking colleges in Montreal by the government or the issue of the high number of immigrants to Québec who do not speak French before their arrival to Canada or those who do not benefit much from Francization efforts.  

Perhaps the symbolic yet real strength of the proposed bill (http://m.assnat.qc.ca/fr/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-96-42-1.html) is that it seems to put Québec in a position of assertiveness (not dependence), in its relationship with the federal government, which is a remarkable change of mindset according to journalists and political analysts like Mr. Mario Dumont (https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2021/05/21/le-quebec-decomplexe-face-au-canada-frustre).

Bearing all this in mind, we learn from a CBC article by Mr. Jonathan Montpetit (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bloc-quebecois-motion-bill-96-1.6041350) that a Bloc Québécois (BQ) “seeking support for Quebec’s proposed constitutional amendments failed to pass unanimously in the House of Commons… In order to pass without debate, the motion needed to face no vocal opposition from MPs. Former Liberal justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, now an independent MP, yelled out a “nay” after the motion was read out”.

Bambi thinks very highly of Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould because she is a principled politician.

She also has the utmost respect for Mr. Blanchet because of his loyalty to Québec.

Ms. Wilson-Raybould is right: Québec has never signed the Constitution of 1982. Indeed, it was imposed on it ever since. It is even used against it in court and in the public opinion in the English media (e.g., bill 101 on the French language, bill 21 on secularism, etc.).

Rightly, citizens of the rest of Canada may find it odd to see Québec seeking constitutional amendments without ever having endorsed the Constitution that the Canadian government repatriated from Great Britain ( entrenching our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms within it).

Even Mr. Gerald Butts, former Principal Secretary to Mr. Justin Trudeau, seems to agree with Ms. Wilson-Raybould on this one, unless she has other more deep legal reasons  (https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-real-problem-with-quebecs-new-language-bill/).

As for Mr. Legault’s provincial government, Mr. Blanchet’s BQ federal party, and most importantly Québec’s people, they have shown a renewal of their vibrant and inspiring patriotism… within Canada. Isn’t this political attitude worth celebrating, even it may look or be partisan in the eyes of Ms. Wilson-Raybould?