Canada reflections n tidbits.

Being in Canada - a place I have been coming to from one to two to sometimes three times a year since April 1995 - is always a breath of fresh air.  I'm incognito here, without an identity, and have traditionally always hated the return trip back to insurance and landlord-land.  I just really dig and get an odd thrill by being able to disappear into another culture and "pass" for a while, as a non-American, and get away from American news and bullshit and politics, (which of course are oftentimes one and the same) all of which are surprisingly hard to escape, it turns out.

Media.
 
Growing up in the States, you don't, of course, realize how it is outside the States.  I had always naively assumed that other countries had their own media on par with the U.S., when in fact we really are globally overwhelming and overreaching in that department, as well as in others, to the point where Canada found it necessary, all the way back to 1971, to enact something called Canadian Content aka "CanCon", to ensure that Canadian tv and radio air a certain minimum percentage of content that's at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by Canadians, with cultural and creative content of a Canadian nature.  I was surprised to see just now that at least a dozen other countries around the world have enacted similar laws.  Because otherwise, all, or practically all of the content ends up being American.  This is what a monster our media is. 

Oddly though, a certain percentage of the news here inevitably ends up containing American stories, anyway.  For example, they reported Santorum quitting the presidential race, and did a story on the White House's annual easter egg hunt.  And they will often report on the wars or things like Trayvon Martin.  Which is always mildly embarrassing to me because ... do we ever report on anything remotely Canadian?  Ever?  No.  We absolutely don't give a shit.  Were Americans even aware that the Canadian prime minister Steven Harper (do we even know his name??) twice did something called "proroguing parliament" in 2009/2010, ie he shut down the goverment which was about to give him a vote of no confidence?  Huge story there.  Pretty dramatic stuff, and not a word in our news about it.  Obama sneezes and it makes world headlines.  It's just so very odd to see it from the other side.

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One great thing about the media up here is the CBC - Canadian Broadcast Company, which is like their PBS/NPR in a way.   I've been seriously impressed many, many times especially by their "Doc Zone" and "Passionate Eye" documentary programs, by the commentary of a guy named Rex Murphy, and generally by The National - the nightly news program hosted by the fabulous and highly decorated Peter Mansbridge ...

... who I sort of have a crush on, and who is along the lines quality-wise of Peter Jennings, (who was, incidentally, also Canadian) in that he has a mile long resume, has won about every journalism award out there and is just such a class act and quality presenter/chief correspondent.   Fantastic stuff.

Another credit to this country and to the CBC whom I would nominate, along with Mansbridge, for Canadian national treasure, would be wonderful George Stroumboulopoulos, otherwise known as "Strombo":

Host of The Hour and now his titularly-named show.  This guy is twelve kinds of awesome.  He is so smart and such a consistently kickass interview, of everything from pop stars to Sarah Palin to prime ministers and heads of state and even, recently, one Ewan McGregor. 

He is just an unfailing pleasure to watch and listen to, a compelling political commentator, and a great interviewer, always only asking intelligent questions that these people don't normally get asked, and is just overall a hugely quality and class act, who, like Mansbridge, has won about every journalism award out there.  Interestingly, he came out of Canada's version of Mtv, and still hosts a rock radio show, but perhaps my favorite thing about him is that for unknown reasons, he opens every program with some version of this:  "How ya doing; welcome to the show.  I'm your boyfriend, George Stroumboulopoulos".  

Dang.

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Healthcare.

It's impossible to spend any time here without reflecting on the healthcare issue.  As Americans may have heard, everybody in Canada has automatic, free health insurance, and puhleez don't buy the propoganda about 'wait times' because everyone I've spoken with about this including captive strangers sharing an airport shuttle with no axe to grind say it's b.s.  And it's not like we don't 'wait' in the States at times for certain procedures.  And the older claimant who complained bitterly to me at work about "Obamacare" and how it's "socialized medicine" like they have in Canada, let me tell you, there is no one in this country who would trade our system for theirs.  They are in fact afraid up here of the occasional threatened for-profit privitization of even small parts of their system.  One of the most squirm-filled and mind blowing hours I have ever spent in front of a television was last year, watching a CSPAN call-in show with the head of the Canadian Medical Association (same as our AMA).  Jesus, the ignorance of the American callers, and wow, the total non issue that universal healthcare is for the people up here - it just completely blew my tiny brain.

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The sad and tragic and embarrassing part is, Canada has had this system in place since the 1940's - like most of Europe - it's as ingrained in their system as taxes are in anyone's, and with none of the controversy.  Check out this mortifying article from two weeks ago about Europe's bafflement over the recent Supreme Court hearing about the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare").  Ugh: 

http://news.yahoo.com/europe-baffled-u-supreme-court-220944850.html

Bottom line:  it's almost undoubtedly too late for us now re universal healthcare.  Had we simply done it and gotten it out of the way in less corporately controlled times, we'd be all set, but we are far too deep in the hands of the insurers and pharmaceuticals, now.  Tragic.  Needless.

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On several lighter notes, did you know that in Canada, just to be nice, they grind down uneven sidewalks?

I saw this being done myself on a visit last year.  I was out on a walk and there were two men using a grinding/sanding machine, moving from sidewalk to sidewalk and street to street.  Imagine taking the time and spending the resources just to do that.  Damn. 

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Some other interesting things about this county are that they have black squirrels.

Okay, this isn't the best photo.  I took it yesterday morning on a walk about a mile from Dian's house.  The little critter jumped out of a tree and scampered along with a big nut in his mouth and stopped to look at me briefly from a long way off, hence, the fuzzy photo.

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Architecture.

Toronto has some truly lovely and hugely charming old downtown neighborhoods and some unique architectural styles, such as this steeply pitched roof style I don't think I've seen before:

Today we visited an area known as Bloor West Village.

A gorgeous old, walkable section of the city with more than 400 independent shops, sidewalk cafes, bakeries, etc., including the same green grocers and same butcher (still somehow with sawdust on the floor) that Dian's mother used to shop at back in the 50's.  Walking up the street, you can totally see how life was before the dawn of the supermarket.

And the streets running off Bloor contain some of my favorite residential architecture anywhere, with tight concentrations of 20s/30s brick bungalows with big chunky porches on the ridiculously perty tree-lined streets.

One of the coolest things in this neighborhood is the huge Chapters bookstore, which took over the old Runnymede Theatre, originally built as a Vaudeville venue in 1927.  Amazingly, they still even have the old film projector up in the balcony:

I took this picture in January. 

And here's a shot I took today from inside the front of the store, looking out onto Bloor:

This neighborhood is very pricy - average homes go for around $600k and up.  So interesting because it used to be run down and dumpy.  One thing I keep noticing when perusing the little freebie real estate mags on this trip (as I always do on vacation) is that the prices here are fairly high overall - I mean, even out in the burbs where Dian lives, and I think that's largely due to the fact that Canada's financial system is really strong and so didn't get sucked into the vortex a lot of the world did due to our real estate crisis/financial meltdown.  They are still in like 2005 here, price-wise.

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And finally, did you know that Canada is doing away with it's one cent coin, that it's ten dollar bills are purple?

And that it's 100 dollar bill is now made of plastic?

Dian's husband demonstrated for me by running faucet water over the bill.  They are now made of paper thin, flexible plastic, to last forever, I guess.