Letter to Pierre Poilievre re CBC

Dear Pierre Poilievre

I have voted Conservative in my lifetime – before Harper – but will never vote that way again with the current leadership and platform. 

One of many concerns with your party is the attack on public funding for broadcasting. We are watching the USA attempt to silence Public Broadcasting claiming it is “spreading radical, woke propaganda disguised as news” – whatever that means. I have watched many documentaries from PBS  and NPR. The main bias I see is toward balance, truth, myth-busting and creating and unifying communities with diverse storytelling. I believe it is the role of journalists to call leaders to account when they are not acting in the best interests of citizens, especially when large media corporations are caving in to immense political pressure to cover up misdeeds. 

Looking at Per Capital funding of public broadcasting, I see that Canada is ranked poorly behind many stable democratic countries based on Bang for our Bucks: Comparing public service broadcasting funding in 19 countries, including Canada (Policy Alternatives, 2018. Geoff Bickerton)  See below.  Looking at the countries at the top of the list, it confirms my belief that democracies that offer the best stability and quality of life for all citizens occur in countries with solid support for public broadcasting. 

I grew up with CBC, missed it while I was abroad, and although I find programming much thinner, I still cherish it. The archives are a rich mine, as are the podcasts. I trust media who look beneath the empty and misleading slogans that pass for political platforms. 

 

 cc Scott Reid CPC Caucus Chair

 

Blue Monday and Martin Luther King Day

 “Blue Monday” originated from a 2005 travel company marketing campaign

Ron went out to shovel heavy, sloppy ,“heart attack” snow. I set to work cleaning the kitchen.  As I was removing the gas rings and caps from the stove so I could clean underneath them, one of the little caps launched itself “I know not where.”  The cap is a small flat disc about 3” across. I imagine it singing “I’m free, I’m free. I must be a wee frisbee.” I finished cleaning and started looking for it. Ron kept shovelling in several shifts. and then we started a deeper search. We pulled out the stove and the fridge – Gasp!  We cleaned out the Devil’s Dust and Grime. A perfect job for Blue Monday. Ron searched the compost bucket. We moved furniture. I rolled out an old microwave stand, repurposed for phone and storage, and  – lo and behold – there was the beautiful little hand-woven Mi’kmaq basket whose “disappearance” Ron has been bewailing for months. We bought it at a Storytelling Conference in Prince Edward County many years ago. The Blue Monday gremlins were smirking in glee, but did not let us find the elusive cap. I am now searching for sources other than Amazon.

More significantly, yesterday was also Martin Luther King Day

After our Blue Monday exertions, we turned our attention to MLK day and settled in to watch The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, based on the novel by Ernest Gaines (1971) and made into movie for TV in 1974. It won 9 Emmys. This 52 year old movie still rings with tremendous authenticity and is a profound reminder that the United States is attacking civil rights for everyone with malice and forethought.

President Ronald Reagan signed the King Holiday Bill into law on Nov. 2, 1983, designating the third Monday in January a federal holiday in observance of the civil rights leader.  All presidents have issued an official proclamation recognizing Martin Luther King Jr. Day since Reagan made it a holiday. 

Trump did not sign the Official Proclamation until late in the day yesterday, and only after much criticism was directed at him. Clearly, he could not have, and did not, write it.  Trump is incapable of putting together a sentence. This sounds like it was copied and edited from a time when presidents proclaimed it with conviction.

The Trump administration eliminated Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from the National Park Service’s lineup of fee-free days (and added Trump’s birthday instead.) Last year, the Pentagon paused observance of Black History Month, and Trump has made rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion programs a key priority of his second administration.

Letter to Ambassador Hoeckstra - on ICE deaths and threats to Canadian sovereignty

Dear Ambassador Hoekstra - sending by snail mail

A few weeks ago, you said on camera " one death from fentanyl is one too many."  This is true. You also asked for “our cooperation". One percent of fentanyl seized at the US Border had come from Canada when your boss started his Blame Canada game. There is a small ray of hope that the death rate has been declining since 2022.*  The latest  statistics on the CDC website do not reflect this, and I don't think your President really cares - he's playing to his mob. 

Your President's calculations on drug deaths prevented by killing people on Venezuelan boats must come from a frolic on an exponential bouncy castle, unsupported by anything resembling the truth. We know a red herring when we see one, and we know why he was making inflated and false claims – to justify his illegal invasion and go after the oil, of course.  We “Remember the Maine” – even all the way up here in Canada.

The Blame Canada Game is being played to convince gullible Americans that we are Bad Guys. Old tactic! Worthy of Goebbels! We are not that gullible up here, Mr. Ambassador. We know what the USA really wants. It’s been made quite clear.

When are you going to ask your president how many deaths by ICE is too many?  Maybe you have some suggestions on how you would like us to cooperate on reducing those?  

·   *       https://usafacts.org/articles/are-fentanyl-overdose-deaths-rising-in-the-us/

 

What Canada can - or cannot - do to defend against US threats.

 

Dear Premier Houston, Dear Prime Minister Carey

There is an excellent interview in the Halifax Examiner with Jim Stanford,  Canadian economist and director of and director of the Centre for Future Work, a labour economics think tank based in Vancouver, B.C.

This is the link to the article by Joan Baxter, a journalist I trust.

An existential moment for Canada’: Economist on what federal and N.S. governments should – and shouldn’t – do to defend the country from U.S. threats

There is good out-of the-box thinking outlined in this interview. We need all the help we can get. Here is a paragraph that really struck me and one ​I truly believe

And for those of us who care about sustainability, the answer is not to say the environment is more important than the economy. That argument won’t work. We can protect the environment and strengthen the economy at the same time. That is why in my work I’ve been trying to emphasize the economic opportunities associated with the energy transition, debunk the supposed economic benefits of fossil fuel extraction and use, and show that you could have an enormous economic boom based on investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

The largest obstacle is, of course, the fossil fuel industry itself. 

An open letter to Pierre Poilievre - Venezuela

 

A letter sent to Pierre Poilievre

Dear Pierre Poilievre

You just publicly congratulated the President of the United States for attacking a sovereign  country and kidnapping the leader and his wife. Maduro is not exactly a great guy. Neither is the President of the United States. He is already a convicted felon. Whether all the alleged charges against Maduro are true, remains to be demonstrated. Allegations that Maduro is the leader of Cartel de los Soles is a manufactured crisis. Even the US Department  of Justice has called him on that one.

This is a President who makes things up and devotes great energy to accusing other countries of a vast number of unproven offences, for example, painting Canada as a major source of fentanyl entering the U.S. This is beyond hyperbole, disproved by The US Border Patrol Agency - about as major as 1%!  It is part of the propaganda and puffery campaign that he feeds to his supporters to justify his outrageous lawlessness - and congratulate him. He loves to be congratulated.

For decades, the USA aided by the CIA has been covertly overthrowing governments they didn’t like - right, left, and center - to make them safe for American investors to exploit resources and people - well any even slightly left of centre.  What a mess they’ve made.

Iran (1953)

Guatemala (1954)

Democratic Republic of the Congo (1961)

Brazil (1964)  

Chile (1973)   

Australia (1975)

Nicaragua (1980s)

The only thing different with Venezuela is that  it was done in plain daylight – with a prelude of murder and mayhem at sea. American oil barons have never forgiven the country for trying to get control of its own resources by nationalizing them. Nationalism is a crude tool. How dare they? “They Stole from Us.”  How many countries have been impoverished by ongoing exploitation and foreign investors. Unfortunately for Venezuela, the government of that day didn’t have the resources to achieve its goal, and the resulting sanctions only worsened the situation, leading Venezuela into worse poverty and corruption. Had the oil industry even been the slightest bit less greedy and more interested in helping improve the situation of the people whose countries they exploited, I suspect some of the world’s trouble spots would not have developed.

Consider Bostwana. Once among the world's poorest nations, well-managed diamond wealth has improved its economy and people's living conditions. With a population of 2.5 million, it is now an upper-middle-income country. With independence looming, foreigners were salivating over the possibility of getting very rich.  However, the first President, Seretse Khama, a British educated lawyer and a former tribal chief led the nation to independence in 1966, establishing Botswana as a stable democracy and laying foundations for its economic success, successfully negotiating and leveraging diamond resources for the good of the country (education and health care, etc)  and promoting the rule of law.  Compare this to Nigeria.

 There are laws in place, both internationally and in the US, that clearly make these actions of the US government illegal. They fly in the face of the international rules-based system that was put in place after the Second World War to protect all of us. They are also in direct contravention of the US Constitution. These are facts, not opinion.  Are you celebrating the Rule of Law being completely ignored? Would your party respect the Rule of Law if you were in power?

What would you say to Trump marching in and kidnapping our Prime Minister to get our water and rare minerals. What if you were that Prime Minister?  Maybe you would welcome becoming his puppet?

Down with unregulated capitalism and lawlessness. It looks like one leads to the other. Long live dignity and true freedom for all which means human beings  before excessive profits.

Public broadcasting falls victim to Trump. It could happen here.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Votes to Shut Down  New York Times  Jan 5, 2026   If you are not able to read the article, I put the full text of the article  below

This is among Trump’s many heinous crimes.  Please support PBS and NPR if you possibly can. Watch all the Ken Burns’ documentaries while you still can. You can also watch them on Amazon Prime for now.

Important: This can happen here.  Pierre Poilievre has targeted our Public Broadcasting System because he hates it.  It is high on his platform if he is elected Prime Minister.  It was created by a Conservative government in 1936 based on the BBC

At $33 per capita, Canada ranked 17th out of 20 Western countries in terms of per capita public funding for public broadcasting systems.   

 

The full text 

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Votes to Shut Down By Benjamin Mullin  New York Times  Jan 5, 2026 

Executives debated whether to allow the corporation to lie dormant after federal funding ended last year, but decided against it.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funded NPR, PBS and hundreds of local radio and TV stations across the United States for more than a half-century, said on Monday that its board of directors had voted to dissolve the organization because Congress cut off its federal money.

The vote formalized plans announced last year to wind down operations after lawmakers voted to strip more than $500 million in annual funding from the organization. Executives have been emptying the corporation’s coffers in recent months by making grants to public media organizations.

After the federal funding ended, executives at the corporation discussed putting the organization into hibernation, keeping it alive in case Congress eventually voted to restore its federal appropriation. But in a statement on Monday, the corporation said that allowing the organization to lie dormant could have resulted in “political manipulation or misuse,” threatening the independence of public media.

“C.P.B.’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks,” Patricia Harrison, the president and chief executive of the corporation, said in a statement.

The end of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, founded in 1968, begins a new era in public media, with local stations across the United States fighting for survival. Donations from listeners are up, and philanthropists have stepped in, but the long-term future of public TV and radio is far from certain.

Bizarre

Good Grief!   How on earth did I get on the White House Christmas Greeting list?  I actually received a Year in Photos email  from the White House. Many years ago, when I was a student, I worked in the Gifts and Exchanges Department of the Butler Library at Columbia U. One of the "gifts" we received was a collection of propaganda from the Third Reich. There were books of  photos of Hitler kissing babies and accepting bouquets from Aryan maidens. This message was redolent of those books.

Just for the helluvit, I sent the following to the White house awhile back:  I wonder how the minions interpreted it as benign.  I got the definition of Anger Projection from Google's AI . It is interesting to receive the propaganda straight from the very font of it. 

 

 Merry Christmas, President Trump

I feel sad for you.  You are a very angry man.  It does neither you nor your country any good.  You are feeling back what you yourself project to the world.  No wonder your citizens are angry. What you are experiencing is your own projected  anger reflected back at you.  This does not make them your enemies.   Unfortunately, history is full of men like you. 

What Is Anger Projection? 

Projection is a natural, often subconscious, coping mechanism the mind uses to tolerate emotional distress and protect the ego. It typically occurs when a person finds it difficult to admit they are feeling angry, perhaps because they view their anger as irrational, "bad," or unacceptable

Here are some excellent maxims from some wise men. I try to keep them in my own heart - and on my wall.  I send them to you as a gift. 

    "Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." – Mark Twain 

    "You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger." – Buddha

    "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." – Buddha

    "Between stimulus and response lies our power to choose." – Viktor Frankl

    "Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret." – Ambrose Bierce

    "The greatest remedy for anger is delay." – Seneca