Category: Sackville’s Memorial park

Bambi just discovered the nice short video (further below), which was produced in 2015 by the Asian Heritage Society with special thanks to the Government of New Brunswick and Government of Canada.

On YouTube, we can read the following description of the video in question: ” Winner of “Best Low-Budget NB Documentary” at the 2015 Silver Wave Film Festival Made in partnership with the Asian Heritage Society of New Brunswick. This short documentary profiles some of the Lebanese people in New Brunswick, revealing their personal stories, family history, and culture. It highlights people from various generations and families, from some of the first Lebanese to immigrate to New Brunswick and start their own businesses, to the Lebanese youth who plan on keeping their culture alive and strong”.

Anyhow, she hopes you will enjoy watching. As far as she is concerned, she was happy and proud to see a friend from Moncton in the video [Hello Mike (Timani) :)]!

Bambi’s comment below is to this interesting article in the New Wark Times entitled “Sackville Town Council calls for heads to roll over plan to cut rural hospitals”. Thank you Mr. Wark for keeping us well informed!

Will firing the CEOs of our health authorities change anything to our healthcare sustainability/efficacy issue?

Likely not. So why are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater then? To score political points or because we are too angry at these two CEOs (hired before the current government came to power)?

It is understandable, and noble, to want to defend our hospital tooth and nail. Thank you to our MLA and everyone’s efforts in doing so! Bambi has always thought to herself: By moving to Sackville, she now understands, more than ever, all what she used to hear in the news when growing up in Beirut about citizens’ complaints in regions of how centralization in the capital does not serve them as optimally as possible.

With time, Lebanon got more populated and big healthcare centres, and other institutions (like universities, etc.) opened almost everywhere in the country.

Lebanon has economic sustainability issues. Did a sort of mismanagement of resources take place, in addition to corruption? Did the country live beyond its financial means whilst nor diversifying its economy enough?

Anyhow, from such questions about public funding in Lebanon, Bambi now wonders the same about NB, and more locally about our Dear Hospital in Sackville:

• 1. What is the percentage of time the ER was closed nighttime in the past year (even if not on paper)?
• 2. How much does it cost to have it open each night?
• 3. What is the volume of patients seen during the day, the eve, in the summer versus the winter times?
• 4. Could we afford to attract more physicians or nurses by offering them better packages (salaries, appealing family benefits, etc.)? Could this help save our hospital in its current format?
• 4b. Could we perhaps consider in the future a two-tier system, mixed public and private? A bit like in some European countries or even in Lebanon? Will this help? Same healthcare providers for all. Same quality but the source of funding of services could differ, depending on the preference/financial capacity of the consumers of health services (the patients).
• 5. Did we think of coordinating with the ambulances or with the nearby out-of-province hospital/ER (Amherst, NS) or the two hospitals in Moncton?
• 6. Could we consider perhaps alternative solutions part of the time?
• 7. If not, is the vocation of an “urgent” centre better than no centre with “an emergency room”?
• 8. Perhaps this reform is even more damaging up North… and no it is not because these regions are francophone and it is a conspiracy against them by Mr./Dr. Lanteigne directly or by his colleague?

The above is just a sample of questions crossing her mind.

Other countries (France, Switzerland, Maine in the USA, etc.) or provinces (NS, ON, etc.) had to take tough decisions like that. Some even closed their emergencies over the summers. Can you imagine? What can we learn from their experience?

It would be financially and logistically impossible to have a hospital in each citizen’s backyard, so to speak. It is realistically (and sadly) sometimes not/no longer possible, for legitimate reasons. Could it be the case here?

This is problematic because money does not grow on trees to be used in a non-sustainable way. This has nothing to do with the language, colour, ethnic origins, seniority on the land, etc. This is a health economic/quality of care issue.

This being said, it is already geographically problematic to be far from a heart centre, if we have a heart event, even during the day (Saint John hospital is far) but, luckily, we have Moncton nearby and the Amherst hospital (at least until now), that has a helipad.

Even to have access to an endodontist (for a root canal treatment), one must travel to Moncton (1 specialist there) or to Halifax or Truro.

Part of the problem is due to our semi-rural areas, to the lack of professionals, to the low population density (in our whole province, we are not even 780,000 citizens). Another part may be due to mismanagement of funds or political choices.

Yes, our population is aging. Yes, winters can be tough. Yes, it is expensive, for students and other local citizens, to come back from Moncton or even Amherst, in a cab, after visiting a hospital. Could the government consider perhaps helping with costs in particular cases like that?

Yes, it would be ideal to keep our hospital existing (and hopefully thriving). However, it is challenging to do so. It is tough to take those unpopular political decisions… and it takes courage to back off when we should.

Some say no consultations happened in the community. Some things are clear to administrators, just from the data and/or from the clinical/operational observations. Sometimes, some consultations happen but in NB all is secretive.

Is it less hypocritical to pretend to consult and then take a decision or not to consult and take the decision?

Bambi hopes that if our hospital will stay, it will be for the good reasons. And if our hospital will change its vocation to be saved or to keep offering quality services, it would be for the good reasons too.

We deserve an explanation about the rationale behind the reform. Our government also deserves fruitful discussions with us to find reasonable solutions together.

Governments come and go… problems stay.

To come back to the CEOs of our two health authorities, and as a commentary to an earlier New Wark Times article, their individual salary is less than in NS [$250 000 $- 274 999 $ and $275 000-$299 999 respectively (public information) versus $372,031, plus benefits in NS, https://www.canhealth.com/2019/08/21/new-interim-leader-at-ns-health-authority/].

It may seem to be high. However, their job is not as easy as we think, as we can see with the current story. Plus, they spend much of their time travelling across our province. They may even feel at times that they live in hotels.  

A few years ago, Bambi and her spouse, learned (at a personal cost) that in NB we can be as corrupt as other places.

Tomorrow, Bambi hopes that NB will not become as indebted as Lebanon. We are sadly not immune to bankruptcy.    

First, here is the original French article by Mr. Facal, published in the Journal of Montreal yesterday:

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/02/29/le-mepris-et-les-mitrailleuses

Second, before presenting a translation further below, Bambi cannot help not to think to herself: Canada seems a bit like Lebanon nowadays (not a good comparison for us), that is with its weak governance and lawless pockets; villages or suburbs where police or the Lebanese army may not dare to enter to intervene (although from time to time they do so, with casualties). Why is Bambi saying this? Because of Kahnawake both in 1990 and, more so, now in 2020. This is what happens when we postpone addressing problems or potential conflicts for decades.

Bambi is old enough as an immigrant to remember the Oka crisis, which began when a check point was erected by Mohawks in Kanesatake. When the Sûreté de Québec (provincial police) intervened, one of its officers got killed.

Lebanon too tried to ignore, pretended all was good, and somehow implicitly accepted the non-sovereignty of its rule of law to all. Some kept their weapons (at the end civil war) and became above the law. They somehow became the law itself, justifying this with the “holiness” of their resistance, especially after a history of being neglected and/or oppressed.   

Anyhow, that is Lebanon in a different continent miles away. What about us here in Québec or Canada? Mr. Joseph Facal’s article may help us understand… or recover our apparently lost 30-year-long memory:

“When the hype overwhelms everything, you have to get back to the facts.

François Legault [Premier or “Prime Minister” of Québec] says there are heavy weapons in Kahnawake.

He says this to make it clear why the police is hesitant to intervene.

And there is an outcry! How does he dare? Can of oil on fire! Pyromaniac!

The next day, oops, we learn… that there are heavy weapons, including machine guns.

On January 7, we found these weapons during a vehicle search. Come on…

Law?

Only the idiots will be surprised.

There were already heavy weapons in 1990, and I do not know that a large operation to clean up the criminalized elements of these territories has taken place since that time.

Obviously, as soon as Prime Minister Legault mentioned these weapons, a Mohawk spokesperson asked for an apology.

Then, in a press release, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake declared:

“The defenders of our territory are unarmed and are peaceful. There are no guns.”

So, it was false and untrue. Who should apologize? Surely not the one who told the truth.

Prime Minister Legault was all the more justified in telling the truth that he cannot count on the Mohawk police.

The chief said: “We have no interest in criminalizing people who defend our rights.”

This gentleman has chosen his side: his own clan before the law, and one wonders what rights he is talking about.

The “right” to machine guns? The “right” to tell the courts to get off? The “right” to paralyze everything? Show me that right.

But when it comes to Indigenous people, the prize for delirium goes to non-Indigenous people who want to be on the right side of morality.

They tolerate behaviours on the part of some Indigenous factions that they would not tolerate from any other group.

In this hesitation, even in this refusal to denounce what one would denounce in anyone else, there is an infantilizing condescension towards Indigenous people, posed as not being required or not capable of being compelled to the same moral behaviours as us.

This amounts to saying: “Them- one must-understand-one must-endure-what-do-you want-they-have-suffered-so-much-because of our-fault-that-we-are-going-to-look-elsewhere-that we will pretend-not-to-see-the-nose-in-the-middle-of-the-face ”.

When contempt is wrapped in good feelings, it remains contempt, but it is even more insidious because it belittles the other by pretending to raise or defend him/her.

A column in La Presse [a French-Canadian daily newspaper] argued that Prime Minister Legault’s statement amounted to saying: “The message is clear: it is war. Over there, on the other side of the barricades, is the enemy. “

At this level of stupidity, it gets dirty to answer.

Responsibility

See also all these people who suddenly become experts in crisis management. Hon, the Prime Minister shouldn’t have …

What, do they know? No, they don’t know.

Balzac described some journalists as “nothingologists”: they talk about everything. However, they are not experts in anything.

Legault was right, and the first person responsible for this mess is Justin Trudeau.”

Bambi discovered this talent today. Bravo! All the best for the rest of the competition.

Bambi disco

Sackville is a small town. From your house or your office (unless your office is in your house), you can hear if demonstrators are on the streets shouting through a microphone or singing slogans, etc.

Yesterday was Friday February 28, 2020. It was a big event in one of NB prestigious universities located in Sackville (Bambi will name Mount Allison University ?). It was open house day where potential students, and their families, come to visit the campus and town. They meet with university staff, professors, and students. They spend a whole day at the university to get a flavour of what to expect, if they chose this place for their undergraduate studies in the coming year.

From a promotional perspective, this day is definitely one of the most significant ones to charm and recruit new students.

It is on such a day that a group of environmental “crusaders” chose to pressure the school with their divest from fossil fuel passionate activism. This is likely not very appealing to visitors (perhaps quite attractive to some others, who knows?).

Bambi could hear the: “Keep it in the ground” chant (in referral to fossil fuel or oil). It was like a loud mantra repeated over and over to the point that Bambi thought to herself: “Thank goodness, I do not have kids to send them to our Canadian schools nowadays” (yes, there is a good side to everything, including childlessness).

Why is Bambi saying this? Not because she does not think that it is noble to take care of our planet/environment. Not because she does not think highly of those students or professionals with them who want to feel congruent in their lifestyle (with their morality). On the contrary, we do need people who stand up for their values and who keep our political elites accountable on the environmental front. Thank you for this. However, it is a different story when environmentalism becomes too radical to the level we are observing nowadays in Canada and in the Western world by extension. Bambi would not be surprised even if in the next few years, we may see a new form of terrorism, an environmental one (a little bit like the FLQ or Northern Island militias of the past or Islamism or any form of radical movement, independent of the noble cause underlying it).

It is with this spirit that Bambi woke up this morning to news of the death of a great scientist and apparently wise man, Dr. Freeman Dyson:

https://www.businessinsider.com/legendary-physicist-freeman-dyson-death-age-2020-2

Many of our town’s loud activists will likely dismiss Dr. Dyson altogether or won’t stop to listen to his insights and understand the nuance he is bringing to the climate change (or global warming) popular narrative.

If you are like Dr. Dyson, someone who does not accuse people who do not agree with you of being traitors, you may wish to listen to this interview with him, conducted in 2015.

Rest in peace Dr. Dyson. Thank you for your long career, your contribution to science, and for your common sense.

The irony behind the cartoon above is that this story is not a fiction. It truly happened in one of Montreal’s schools yesterday.

Here is a translation of an article by Mr. Mathieu Bock-Côté who was himself the target the political correctness’ absurd mob:

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/02/27/a-la-poubelle-felix-leclerc

“The news took those who hadn’t completely lost their minds by surprise: at a Mile End school in Montreal, Félix Leclerc’s song “The 100,000 Ways to Kill a Man” [Les 100 000 façons de tuer un homme] was taught to students.

I write “taught” because it is no longer being taught. Following a complaint from a parent who said he/she was offended by the representation that was made of people on social assistance, the teacher and the administration of the school decided to remove the song from the program.

Better! To erase even the trace, the students had to tear the page on which it was written from their Duo-Tang to put it for recycling! In the trash, Félix! In the garbage!

Some will only see this story as an exasperating news item. False! It is indicative of the immense stupidity of our time.

The Song

Everything is there.

First, the hypersensitivity of a parent, who wants to censor a text that triggered him/her.

Then the cowardice of the establishment, which lies down before the quarrelsome parent out of fear of seeing the controversy swell and explode. The dissatisfaction of a person pushes the authorities to bend the knee. What to do in front of such invertebrates? We also understand that teachers are suspicious of the excessive presence of parents in their classrooms.

Finally, the lack of culture is combining with the anachronistic spirit. To treat a classic song from Québec, which evokes the moral universe of the old world and the old French-Canadian peasantry, as a vulgar political manifesto, is to offend culture and literature.

In the name of the spirit of compromise, I heard good people proposing that this song by Félix Leclerc be replaced by another.

But which one?

Around the island? I can already hear a neo-feminist being offended that Félix speaks with suspicion of the miniskirt!

The angry lark? This time, I can see someone being offended about Félix Leclerc’s sympathy for the indignation which led certain young people to join the FLQ.

The night of November 15? Especially not! He sings about independence!

Wait for me ti-guy? No! It excites populism and anti-parliamentary politics by saying bad things about politicians!

There are all the ingredients that make our time so indigestible. Political correctness pushes our society to neurosis.

Censorship

Besides, this event was not isolated. When writing these lines, a story comes to my mind that took place in a school in Sorel in 2013. Back then, a teacher who had put in the program “The Hymn to Love” by Edith Piaf had to amputate the last lines, because there was an evocation of God bringing together those who love each other!

Scandal, we talk about God in a song, two or three militant atheists will be upset! On that account, we will no longer be able to teach or admire anything.

Félix Leclerc is a classic of Québec culture. You must enter his work and not put it in the garbage. The fact that such obvious facts should be recalled tells us well which chasm we have fallen into.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-crisis-hezbollah/hezbollah-says-it-opposes-imf-management-of-lebanon-crisis-idUSKBN20J1Y6

As reported in the article above, Hezbollah opposes the IMF bailout, which assists countries that are on the brink of failure or bankruptcy, in return of implementing specific conditions meant to put government finances on a sustainable track and restore growth.

It is disappointing, yet not surprising, that the Hezbollah would refuse the conditions of reforms and accountability attached to the IMF rescue plan. Instead, it only gave the green light for a “technical help/financial counselling” by this international organization.

If you were part of an organized militia and/or a political entity like the Hezbollah, whose funder (i.e., Iran) is under economic sanctions, would you accept external barriers imposed on potential sources of funding of your activities?

Of course not.

Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese fabric, true. It is perhaps no more corrupt than the rest of other Lebanese political leaders. However, it is clearly the most powerful (and potentially destructive!) force in the country.

Sad to see how far it has pushed Lebanon in the direction of war and warrior mindset, both on the military and economic levels. It has taken Lebanon hostage of its own radical political agenda. The latter is rooted in its loyalty to its external funder, and ideological master, that is the Iranian regime.

In the article above, we can see a picture that is quite symbolic and read under it: “An Iranian carries the Iranian and Hezbollah flags during the commemoration of the 41st anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Tehran, Iran February 11, 2020. Nazanin Tabatabaee/WANA (West Asia News Agency)”—“via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY”.

We can also read the following statement within the text:

“We will not accept submitting to (imperialist) tools … meaning we do not accept submitting to the International Monetary Fund to manage the crisis,” said Hezbollah’s Sheikh Naim Qassem, deputy leader of the heavily armed Shi’ite group.”

The word “imperialist” is obviously directed at the United States.

Two comments here: (1) What about the Iranian imperialism in the region? Why is OK to submit to it and not to the tough conditions of the IMF? And (2) How funny that the language used by the Hezbollah is comparable to the style of language of our domestic radical left (this is for another post ?).

To come back to Lebanon, what is next for this heavily indebted country?  

Some, like the President of the Lebanese Republic, are excited by the recent drilling off Lebanon to finally begin the exploration of oil and gas, after years of delays. He even called this day “historic” (he may be right, even if he often seems to live on a different planet called “Hezbollistan”):

https://www.france24.com/en/20200225-drillship-off-lebanon-to-start-oil-and-gas-exploration

Clearly, the country needs to diversify its economy; now that its banking sector was hit hard by the crisis.

Perhaps this new economic sector carries hope indeed?

In a bankrupt country, such new development is usually a piece of good news that could perhaps eventually help lift the population out of poverty.

In the case a Lebanon that is resistant to change and reforms, what does all this mean, especially that past behaviours are known to be the best predictor of future ones? This applies to corrupt actions as well.

Anyhow, even if the future of Lebanon will be brighter because of this drilling, whom will be benefiting from a potential source of richness? Will it be the same entity/ties who benefited from a pervasive corrupt system coupled with a crying lack of accountability?

It is particularly disturbing for an old immigrant, who has recently witnessed her birth country dive deeper into its economic crisis, to see Canada shattered like this and our economy being paralyzed and gradually being destroyed in the longer term. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Bambi expects the next decades not to be promising, unless we collectively wake up.

Anyhow, on a more personal joyful note, Bambi feels proud of herself because she did not vote for a second Trudeau’s mandate. One was more than enough for her (as we say in her mother tongue, “we can guess the content of a letter from its title” ?).

Below is a translation of Mr. Joseph Facal’s article published today in the Journal de Montréal:

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/02/25/levaporation-de-justin-trudeau

“It is not a collapse, it is an evaporation.

At the rate at which Justin Trudeau’s leadership is going up in smoke, there will soon be no more moisture on the ground.

No one knows what the consequences of the Aboriginal crisis will be.

But whatever these consequences, Justin Trudeau will not recover from the last days.

Image

This crisis will have been the ultimate revealer of its radical shortcomings, visible for a long time to those who refused voluntary blindness.

It is not said that he could not win another election. We never know.

But he is sure and certain that he will only be strong now out of the weakness of his opponents.

He will be in power, but he will not really exercise power. For that, you have to be respected and, to a certain extent, feared.

He will no longer be either.

He is like these boxers who no longer know where they are and stand up by reflex.

These days, we were wondering if the Prime Minister, by a kind of bewildering overthrow, was not… the leader of the Bloc.

Modern politicians are often criticized for being self-conscious.

This is a somewhat unfair reproach insofar as the politician who does not care about his image is condemned, in a society where everything is publicized, to fail.

The supreme skill is to build an image of a guy … who does not care about his image, which François Legault, for example, has succeeded very well so far.

The important thing is to know if, behind the image, there is a content, a basic solidity.

Behind Justin Trudeau’s image, there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, except a little machine for making tears and looping apologies and empty sentences.

Obviously, the more you put on the image, the harder the fall.

We had a spectacular demonstration of his shortcomings in the SNC-Wilson-Raybould affair.

Today, there is no longer any doubt: this now naked, spectacularly hollow man is an authentic empty shell.

Cowardice

Worse than empty, this man also turns out to be a coward.

To “toss the ball back in the court” of provincial governments is to pretend that the aboriginal question is not a federal jurisdiction.

It is as if inter-provincial freight transportation is not a federal responsibility.

It is as if Canadian energy policy is not ultimately a federal responsibility.

There is something deliciously ironic in the fact that the current crisis concerns both the aboriginal issue and the energy issue.

It was on these two issues more than any other that Justin had wanted to establish his alleged difference from “old” politicians.

On these two issues, he has drifted from one pitfall to another for five years.

He cannot even invoke surprise. Who had not yet understood that the aboriginal question is a match near a barrel of powder?

How much longer do we have to endure it?”

This story is about two victims who happened to be former students of an ultra-orthodox Jewish school (illegal yet tolerated for years, in the name of reasonable accommodation).

According to Bambi, the victims could have been from any other religion. Who knows? Maybe also from secular yet cultic-like movements, even when they can radicalize minds in apparently different (perhaps more socially acceptable?) ways.

Anyhow, Bambi will stop here. Here is a translation of Mr. Dumont’s article:

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/02/22/victimes-daccommodements-deraisonnables

“It’s a trial that has been going on for two weeks. Yochonon Lowen and Clara Wasserstein attack the Québec government for failing to protect them by providing them with adequate education.

Providing a good quality education to all children, at least up to age sixteen, is indeed a legal obligation in Québec.

This man and woman, who fled the ultra-Orthodox Chassidic community of Boisbriand, consider that the government has failed in its responsibility with regard to a fundamental right of children: the right to education.

You understand that they went to school… but in a religious school, where education was given in Yiddish, skipping a lot of the basics. French and English? Not necessary. Sciences? Dangerous. Geography and history? Only notions related to the religious history of the Jewish people. This is what their lawyer argued in court.

Excluded

The couple in their forties say they are having considerable trouble integrating into Québec society, and especially into the job market. They ended up on social assistance. One can easily imagine how their lack of education deprives them of the basic tools to hope to position themselves on the job market.

Live isolated, live in poverty. The questions asked by these two people are very important, and unfortunately remain very current issues. Are the Québec government, the Ministry of Education and the DPJ [Youth Services] really jointly responsible for looking after the well-being of the children of Québec?

Compulsory school attendance is enshrined in law. It is not just a wish. School attendance also implies that the school offers a true, complete education, which prepares for life and allows access to higher education.

The option of educating your children at home must be framed and marked to ensure a follow-up of the program. This option should not be used to justify the absence of the child from a regular school in order to better wedge him/her in an illegal religious school camouflaged in a basement.

More news

The government defends itself by citing progress made under recent laws. There is truth. But examples of illegal schools are still in the news today. If you’ve seen the reports of the J.E. TV show on the Mission of the Holy Spirit, you understand that there is still work to be done.

Orthodox religious groups seek to fall through the cracks to keep their children locked in a strictly religious lap and to deprive them of the broader knowledge that school has to offer. These children did not choose to give up education.

Religious schools were tolerated — as a reasonable accommodation. As long as normal school subjects are covered, they can be qualified as well. But when they deprive children of basic education, when they ruin the future possibilities of young citizens, they become the most unreasonable accommodation. A shame not to be tolerated.”

Is climate change the new religion of globalism? You may wish to watch the video produced (funded?) by Dubai, published in the Guardian, to make up your own mind.

For Bambi, especially after watching this video, climate change seems like the new religion of the world, at least as featured in this production.

Like a religion, it has truth (along with absurdity), good/inspiring deeds combined to hypocrisy, cute kids, “armies” of Saints/Angels, and an expanding educational form of fanaticism, which is instrumentalizing innocent children in the name of a noble faith… with accreditation by the UN (watch until the end).