I wonder what people would say if there was a conservative government in power, and they were changing election boundaries to increase the chances of their own candidates getting elected? I think we actually know:
People quite rightly get pissed off about this kind of thing.
So why is it OK when liberals do it? Do you think they don’t know that this change increases their odds of being elected again, as Acadian and black voters have swung liberal quite consistently in recent decades, as far as I can tell.
This reminds me of the famous line from Animal Farm. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. True democracy is not supposed to favour anyone’s chances of getting elected, even if people are trying to tilt the playing field for reasons that they consider legitimate. As such, I consider this type of a change decidedly undemocratic.
Check out this link regarding Dr. Rick Mehta of Acadia University, a psychology prof there.
You are no longer allowed to speak your mind in Canada if it doesn’t fit with the current politically correct climate. If you consider how other forms of fascism have risen in society, it typically starts by removing anyone with divergent views from positions of power. Google and read about the Lindsay Shepherd issue as another prime example.
This is FRIGHTENING that a very brave and intelligent man has had his job and livelihood threatened simply for speaking his mind.
The following was posted on FB by Rick, I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing it:
In this long post, I’ll give some information about my family history and so-called lived experience in Canada so people know where I’m coming from when it comes to issues related to racism, sexism, etc., and WHY I have been so outspoken of late – and also why I have adopted the positions that I have taken (e.g., standing by Cornwallis and Senator Beyak).
My grandfather was stoned to death outside of his own home during the separation of India for the “crime” of being a government employee. My grandmother blamed my mother for my grandfather’s murder and did what she could to make my mother’s life miserable. In turn, my mother directed her anger about how she was treated onto my older brother – until she realized that what she was doing was wrong. She then overcompensated by spoiling me when I was a child and that created its own problems. For example, I spent a good part of my childhood looking down on people who were poor and blamed them for their situation without giving any consideration to the greater societal context (e.g., did the people I was insulting even have access to drinking water, education, etc.) I also had a difficult time finding work after graduating from university because I was too spoiled from having had everything given to me, and to had to learn the hard way life’s lessons about the importance of hard work and how to find a job.
Other incidents that have shaped me as a human being stem from my own direct experiences with racism in my childhood (this paragraph) and observing how my mother was treated when she was trying to succeed in the workplace as a woman with brown skin (next paragraph). During the 1970s, there was a lot of tension between the English and French; because I was a first generation Canadian, I was accepted by neither group. That resulted in me not being allowed on certain streets, being beaten up routinely (in part because of my skin colour, although I imagine that being socially awkward and overweight played a role in being a target of bullies), my family receiving crank phone calls at all hours of the day and night, having total strangers scream at my family and me to “go back to your country”, and routinely coming home to have to clean eggs that were thrown at our home. After the 1980 referendum, my experience as a first generation Canadian has kept getting better. Until Justin Trudeau became prime minister and started dividing our country, I had little reason to even think about my ethnicity or skin colour; I was simply a proud Canadian.
With regard to the issue of sexism, It pained me to have to hear stories of what my mother had to endure due to racism and/or sexism. I’ll give two examples. She was unceremoniously fired over the phone when she called in to miss work because my brother and I were ill with the measles. She also had to watch as people who were junior to her in the workplace quickly rise through the ranks (one person ended up becoming her boss) – not because of qualifications or work ethic, but because they were connected to “the old boys club”.
I like to think that these and other experiences have shaped who I am as a person, how I treat other people in general, and – more importantly – why I’ve tried to structure my classes as a functional hierarchy and democracy. My hope has always been that students would take what I did implicitly and would adopt it into their lives after they’re no longer students in my classes (e.g., how they treat other people, what qualities they look for in politicians when it comes to elections, etc.).
In term of India’s history, it’s true that the British insisted that India and Pakistan become two separate countries, and that this resulted in much bloodshed; I know this because it affected my mother directly and affected me indirectly. However, I believe that a greater good was served as a result of this decision. India is now an economic powerhouse. I highly doubt this would have happened if the British hadn’t insisted on having India separate into two countries. I believe that the situation would have been a lot worse and would have made the conflicts in the Middle East look like world peace in comparison. It might seem counterintuitive (and some might argue that my position is “racist”), but I believe that the British used their greater and advanced knowledge of civilization and democracy to do what was best for the people of India. I’m not saying that the British were perfect or angels, but if they were evil people hell-bent on genocide, I believe they would have found a way to have accomplished that goal many years ago.
For this reason, I see colonization very differently from the FN advocacy groups and openly challenge some of the narratives that are dominant at university campuses (e.g., the decolonization initiatives) – especially when they’re done under the premise that they can’t be scrutinized (e.g., any attempts to ask questions or offer different perspectives are countered with charges of “racism”, “cultural genocide”, being “pro-colonialsim”, etc.) and when the past is used for endless demands for financial compensation. This explains why I have been very skeptical of the so-called “Truth” and “Reconciliation” report on the residential schools and why I am standing with Cornwallis (I believe that the activists are trying to rewrite history).
I’ll bring my thoughts to a close by saying that respect is a two-way street. At what point are we going to start playing by the same rules when it comes to issues such as race, gender, etc.? We can continue to along with with divides us, which will help us continue to magnify the polarization we’re seeing in society today and the path to civil unrest; if I’m correct, we’re on a path to WWIII and this will consist of civil unrest in the liberal democracies. In the past, evil has persisted not because the citizens had adopted the views of fascism or communism (the term “social justice” is in vogue at the moment), but because the good people did nothing. Applying the lessons of the past to the present, this explains why the voices of reason must start to speak out.
If my reading of history is correct, the voices of reason outnumber the far left to the point of being able to minimize their impact. Once the far left is neutralized, there will be little reason for the far right to advocate for itself. From there, we will finally have a context in which we will finally be able to have the difficult conversations to address both the good and dark sides of our history, and to finally address modern social problems. The simplistic “settler/colonizer” = evil (or “genocidal”), “patriarchy”, “systemic racism”, “systemic sexism” approaches to our history and complex social problems is only worsening problems that can potentially be about as close as humanly possible to being solved or nipped in the bud.
This is a copy of a letter I sent to the Chronicle-Herald that was published in their April 30th 2016 edition. The original article should be viewable HERE. To summarize, Mr. Lukacs is arguing that when obese patients are bumped to a later flight, moved to another seat, or asked to buy an extra seat, this constitutes unfair “discrimination”.
Here are my thoughts:
Normally, it doesn’t take me long to agree with Gabor Lukacs in his ongoing efforts to get fair treatment for passengers from the airlines who serve them.
However, I think his latest foray (April 26) is misguided and simplistic. He suggests airlines are being discriminatory by asking obese passengers to do such things as “move to another seat, take a later flight, or buy an additional seat.” He compares discriminating based on size to discriminating based on sexual orientation.
This misses the central issue. Another passenger is not inconvenienced by having their physical space restricted because the person sitting next to them is gay or transgendered. Unless they are a closed-minded bigot (in which case it’s their own problem), it makes no difference to their flight whether the person sitting next to them is gay or straight. But when part of the chair space that you have paid for is being taken up by the passenger who has only paid for the seat next to you, this becomes unfair to the non-obese passenger.
As a tall person, I often spend extra money to buy an extralegroom seat. In a normal seat I often end up sitting askew, or having my knees crunched when the passenger in front of me decides to suddenly recline. I have much less control over my height than an obese person does about their weight. Am I being discriminated against? Avoiding the thorny issue of blame for being overweight, it still must be realized that obese passengers make the flight more uncomfortable for their seatmates. I have experienced this first hand and have to say I felt it was unfair that I paid for a full seat and only got two-thirds of one — and arrived at my destination with a stiff and sore lower back from sitting crookedly for three hours.
People with obesity issues face certain consequences: higher levels of diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, etc. One consequence is they sometimes face difficulties flying, when they are moved or rescheduled to avoid inconveniencing others. I don’t dislike obese people, and don’t advocate “discriminating” against them. But their rights end where others’ rights start — at the edge of their own seat.
When is discriminating OK? When it is necessary to protect others from being unfairly treated.
Oh my goodness gracious. This is very disappointing to see this on Huffington post – I am used to seeing much better articles.
Click here for the link to the article which got me ranting
A number of studies have shown increased performance in subsequent workouts in athletes who refuel right after the previous workout. The sports ‘nutrition’ companies like Gatorade and Powerbar have pounced on this opportunity to sell “recovery drinks” (bars, shakes, etc) to us semi-slovenly masses of rec athletes. And sadly, articles like this Huffington post article, written by a “Professional Fitness and Weight Loss coach, writer, and public speaker” (not sure of his exact educational qualifications, but I’m guessing perhaps they didn’t involve a background in hard science?) just add fuel to the fire of this myth. I’d be interested to know whether he has ever been sponsored by one of these companies.
A few things to know about this issue.
First, if you go for a 1/2 hour walk, you might burn 150-200 calories at most. Many of these “nutrition products” have 200-400 calories.
The research done showing that post-exercise “refueling” is important was done on athletes doing two very intense workouts quite close together. This probably applies to 1% of the people reading this article.
Read about “glycogen-depleted training”. There is more and more evidence that training when glycogen depleted increases one’s ability to burn fat, which is the critical metabolic skill for endurance athletes. So running on empty is often a good thing, not a bad thing, for athletes.
There is NO REASON to think or say that the timing of intake is so critical it requires a shake rather than real foods. Real foods win every time, including in this case.
The vast majority of recreational athletes are active because they are trying to stay healthy, feel well, and control their weight. Advising an athlete to stuff a protein shake down her maw right after each workout, even if she is not hungry, might make sense. For instance if she is at tri camp. just did a hard run and is heading out on the bike in a few hours. But it makes no sense if she just went for a jog, isn’t hungry, and isn’t going to jog again for a day or two.
No wonder we live in such a fat society when we have someone (who is supposed to be an expert) promoting calorically dense, liquid food choices (liquid calories are proven to be the worst for those trying to control weight – likely because they add lots of calories without filling you up for long) to the masses of recreational athletes.
My advice if you’re a normal rec athlete like me, and not in the runup to Rio:
Eat when you’re hungry
Don’t eat right before you run, especially if you’re doing a harder run.
Avoid artificial foodstuffs (always eat whole foods if possible).
Take in the majority of your calories from plants.
On the off chance you just did a hard workout this morning, and are planning to race this evening, please go ahead and follow Dave Smith’s advice to eat right away. Although I would still advise avoiding the protein shake, and instead eating some real food.
Thought I’d share these musings on the blog. Parks Canada is looking for feedback, or so they say. I have good reasons to be skeptical about “public consultation” which many times is done for appearance’s sake after all the decisions have actually been made. I hope that’s not the case here.
This image is from the May 26th article about the issue published in the Chronicle-Herald (still the best NS daily newspaper by a long margin)
Here is my submission to Parks Canada:
To Whom it May Concern:
My comments on the proposed Never Forgotten memorial to be built in the Highlands National Park.
This proposal has been of great interest to me and I have given it a lot of thought. It is fresh on my mind having just hosted a group of 20 people here from Ontario for the Cabot Trail Relay run, and having driven around the Cabot Trail with them.
Here are my thoughts:
-The mandate of national parks is not to commemorate our war dead, but to preserve and display the natural beauty of our land. This proposed memorial would dramatically alter the coastline in the immediate area, dramatically alter the beautiful, natural view from many miles away, and pave a large area, causing significant changes in drainage and runoff, and impact wetland.
-Being from Ontario, I don’t think Mr. Trigliani has ANY sweet clue of just how dramatically isolated the proposed site is for up to 8 months each year. Other than a very sparse local population, there is no other traffic from late October to late May, and even June and part of Sept-Oct are sparse for tourists. Even in peak season, tourist traffic in Cape Breton is greatly reduced from 10-20 years ago. As such, if the intention of the memorial is to stimulate public consciousness of the sacrifices of a certain generation, it should be put in an area with more traffic on a more consistent basis. (perhaps in the Glace Bay area for instance?)
-When visitors that I speak with (such as our large group this weekend) are told of the proposal, they are almost universally shocked and appalled. They talk about it “ruiining” the park, “wrecking” the view, and the question from everyone is “why would they pick here??”
– What support I have heard locally is based on “jobs” that people somehow believe would be created from this project. I do not believe that there would be any extra traffic to the area generated by people coming specifically to see the monument, and therefore don’t see it having a beneficial effect on our local economy on an ongoing basis. Furthermore, as far as I understand it, we don’t have a lot of unemployed mega-statue builders based in northern Cape Breton, so much of the brief employment that would be created during construction would require workers to come from far away from Cape Breton. I think that if an honest reckoning of both short and long-term job prospects was presented to the local community, what support there is for this project would go away very, very quickly.
I do hope sober second thought prevails and that this project finds a more suitable location. As a born-and-raised Cape Bretoner, it pains me to see this being seriously considered. Sadly, from the vibes I get through the media and through local contacts, I believe that this is already a “done-deal” and that this “public consultation” is merely an 11th-hour attempt to quell controversy by giving the appearance of true public consultation, without doing real public consultation (which would require door-to-door surveys rather than internet calls for input, which solicit a hugely biased sampling of the population). I hope that I’m wrong and this is a true attempt to solicit feedback that will be meaningful to an eventual decision.
I’m happy to talk in more detail about this if you’d like to contact me.
This is an issue that I’ve been working on for a long time. As a doc, I love to see people become more active. We spend most of our time sitting – at work, at home, in cars. The last thing we need to do is use our health promotion dollars to promote yet another way to sit – on ATV’s and snowmobiles. But that is exactly what Nova Scotia has done over the last 15 years or more.
This post is an edited version of a letter I sent to CBC radio. I hope more people think about and discuss this issue, and put pressure on our government to stop being stupid with our hard-earned tax dollars.
As a side note, are you aware that NS is now “on the outs” with the Trans Canada Trail society for taking money that was supposed to be for hiking and walking trails and using it for ATV’s and snowmobiles? Tons of people contributed to the TCT over the years after getting brochures showing happy families hiking and cycling through the woods, only to find their money went to ATV groups. Not cool!
For anyone who has ever tried to run or cycle on an ATV trail and not been able to because of the ruts, or has almost been killed when cross-country skiing by a snowmobile coming faster than someone would drive on the 401, or has breathed in the fumes of a group of 10 ATV’s as they idle, it’s pretty obvious to see that motorized trails are not easy to “share” for non-motorized users. And for someone like me who’s looked after dozens of people seriously injured from riding ATV’s, snowmobiles, and dirt bikes, the fun-to-danger balance is obviously questionable.
And getting down to one of the main reasons I think that encouraging ATVing and snowmobiling doesn’t count as “health promotion”: driving a motorized vehicle just ain’t exercise.
Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs Board of Governors. ?Is this a pastime that helps people be more fit? Hmmm…Now here is a photo of a group of runners. Think wisely before you choose your pastime.
(Aside: I’ve met fit people who drive minivans, but they didn’t get fit from driving a minivan. Similarly, I’ve met some fit ATVers but they didn’t get fit from that activity, despite some claims to the contrary): http://www.atvbc.ca/stories/new-atv-study-show-health-welfare-benefits-atv-use Perhaps not surprisingly, the funding for this study was provided by an association of ATV manufacturers. I was an assistant reviewer in a paper that debunked this: www.acadiau.ca/~bissix/Disputing_the_Claims.pdf Our paper made much less news than Burr’s, as we didn’t have the promotion power of a multi-billion dollar industry behind us!)
And finally I’ll get to my letter to CBC:
I was listening to your discussion a few weeks back with Lynn Baechler regarding the vision for a trail that would follow the shores of the Bras D’Or lakes.
You two had discussed the necessity of including ATV groups, stating that they do the bulk of the work on many trails and therefore need to be included.
There are a few issues that seem to be misunderstood over and over with the discussion of trail building here in NS.
First, ATV groups have done the bulk of the work because they have gotten all of the funding. Not because cyclists or hikers or horse riders are somehow lazy people, or unwilling to do the work. When was the last time that a cycling or hiking group got a grant for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to do work on trails? This financial discrepancy is somewhat self-perpetuating, since motorized groups use some of their grant money to hire paid staff. This then gives them the capacity to watch for and pursue further grant opportunities.
The ongoing push to support ATVing and snowmobiling is very odd. I have nothing against them. My nephews are avid motorized vehicle riders and they are great people. That said, ATVing and snowmobiling have no exercise benefit, and a high risk of injury. (One of my nephews has a permanent limp from a very serious dirt bike accident). So supporting them with government money is odd. We are unique here in NS in our support of motorized trails (not “shared” – motorized is motorized) over non-motorized. In NS, government support of ATV’s and snowmobiles has been so extreme that they have even used money earmarked for “Health Promotion” to promote off-road motorized interests. Not coincidentally, much of this foolishness started and/or accelerated when Barry Barnett was our minister for Health Promotion and Protection back in the Rodney MacDonald years. Barry was an avid ATVer who became the head of ATVANS (The ATV Association of NS) immediately after being voted out of office.
The party line here in Nova Scotia has continued to be “shared use”. Simply put, motorized interests state that they are willing to share trails with non-motorized interests, if only those hoity-toity cyclists and hikers could learn to share as well as they could.
But let’s look at reality. ATV’s and snowmobiles are now very high-performance. How many parents want their kids biking on a trail with vehicles capable of reaching well over 100km/hr? And ATV’s have the unfortunate side effect of digging ruts in the trails which renders them very difficult to use for hikers or cyclists. The noise and pollution of motorized vehicles make the experience much less enjoyable for those who are looking for a quiet day out in the country hearing the birds and smelling the trees. So “shared use” actually means “motorized” for all intents and purposes.
Want to let your kids go out biking on this trail today?
About 5% of Nova Scotians own an ATV or snowmobile. Well over 50% own a bike, and over 80% like to walk or hike. So for me it’s not hard to see where we should focus our efforts and tax dollars. It needs to be remembered that the money it costs to buy, license, maintain, and fuel these motorized vehicles means that they are toys of the financially advantaged. As a matter of social equity we should be focusing money on walking and cycling.
This is a plea that in the future, when discussing trail development, rather than describing ATVers and snowmobilers as white knights, without whom we would not have any trails, we should realize that Nova Scotia is the only province with such a unique and illogical financial focus on motorized users.
Are they doing something healthy? Or are they subversive social radicals, endangering their own lives?
I used to be RABIDLY pro-helmet-law. I believed the common arguments (some of which I still believe) for forcing everyone to wear helmets. The main ones are:
Cycling is risky and we need to mitigate the risks
We live with socialized medicine where we all pay for the foolhardy when they bash their brains in
Helmets are extremely effective in preventing head injuries and saving lives
There is no logical reason not to wear a helmet.
If someone doesn’t want to wear a helmet – fine! They can just go ahead and stop cycling.
I’ll preface the following comments by saying I ALWAYS wear my helmet personally. But making it a law is a different kettle of fish.
Despite the religious fervour from some health professionals and policy-makers on the need for helmet laws, there are a few clear downsides to them. It goes back to my philosophy that nothing in life is black and white, or all good with no bad. Over the years I’ve been open to reading the evidence for and against helmet laws as they have been adopted in various places, and my opinion has changed.
Let me outline a few of the arguments against helmet laws. Far from being radical, silly, or signs of poor judgment, they are actually quite logical, and backed up with statistics if you care to look into them.
There is some evidence that cyclists take more risks if wearing a helmet, and there is some evidence that cars are more aggressive around cyclists if they have a helmet on. It shouldn’t be that way, but this may be an issue.
Helmet laws promote the perception that cycling is a risky activity. It’s not. Your odds of dying on a bicycle are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1 in a million km travelled. And you can greatly decrease those odds by using lights, following the rules of the road, and learning to cycle defensively (Can-Bike courses!). Everything in life has a risk. Cycling is a lot safer than many things we do.
Some people stop cycling if forced to use helmets. And given that the mortality reduction from the exercise of cycling outweighs the mortality increase from cycling without a helmet by somewhere around 10:1 to 20:1, it’s a no-brainer (excuse the pun) that we don’t want to discourage cycling, even though our reasons might be noble. Stated another way, the statistical likelihood of a helmet saving a cyclist is tiny. So it doesn’t take many people stopping cycling and losing the exercise benefit before the public health benefit of the law is cancelled out. And statistics from areas where helmet laws have been adopted say that the numbers of cyclists who give up are probably quite signifant. Why? I don’t know. The big complaint I’ve heard is “helmet head” (messy matted hair) when you get to your destination. I don’t care about it, but I try to put myself in the shoes of a 15 year-old girl going to meet her friends at the mall.
Cycling is good. It provides much-needed exercise. It acts as a roadway decongestant as more people leave their cars at home. It keeps our city air cleaner and reduces GHG emissions. It frees up urban space to use for HUMANS instead of cars. There is no downside. We should be doing everything we can to encourage it and be very careful not to DIScourage it (hear that Rob Ford?)
Furthermore, if this is really being done as a public health measure, then why do we not force people to wear helmets in cars? Before you laugh, let me say that in 14 years of ER work, I have seen only one serious head injury in a cycling accident, where I think damage was perhaps mitigated by a helmet being worn. On the other hand I have seen many dozens of serious head injuries from people riding in cars. So as a public health manoeuvre we could clearly produce much more benefit by forcing drivers to helmet-up before driving to the mall, then by having bicycle helmet laws. Why does this sound ridiculous? Because we look at driving as safe and necessary and cycling as risky and optional.
It turns out that cycle helmets are not the panacea that they were made out to be. Lore has it that “bicycle helmets are 85% effective in reducing head injuries”. This was a mantra, so oft-repeated that it became true. But as far as I can tell, those numbers came from studies done by dropping weights onto the heads of some very unlucky monkeys. Not exactly real-world testing. In the real world, cyclist deaths often result from catastrophic, multi-system injuries that no helmet, or whole-body armour, would prevent.
Also consider that Denmark and Holland have death-by-head-injury rates in cyclists that are small fractions of our rates. And nobody wears a helmet on a bike unless they are involved with racing. (A friend of mine from The Netherlands says: “we would assume you are handicapped” if you wear a helmet to commute). So obviously helmet laws are only a VERY SMALL part of making cycling safer. If they were a big part of it, they’d be dropping like flies in Amsterdam.
I can’t see a helmet on anyone. They must all be at very high risk.
I think that governments and public-health folks like to force helmet laws on people because it’s free, easy, doesn’t require any real thought or effort or planning, and they can pat themselves on the back publicly and talk about how they’re working to make cycling safer, without actually making cycling any safer at all.
Don’t worry buddy. Just put a helmet on and you’ll be plenty safe.
So I say to our politicians – repeal the helmet law in Nova Scotia. Give people the choice to wear a helmet or not. Cycling without a helmet is WAY healthier than not cycling at all. And while all these crazy radical scofflaws are cycling around without their helmets, perhaps we could be working on ways to make them truly safer. Like separated bike infrastructure. Or car-free zones in our cities. Or lower residential speed limits. Or serious penalties for a driver who hits a cyclist. There are lots of useful things to do. But they are difficult and cost money. So I suspect the status quo of “I’ll force you to be safe by wearing a helmet” will remain.
For a great TED talk on this issue by Mikael Colville-Andersen, click HERE.
Musings of a medical heretic 