Happy Thanksgiving!

Not my handprint turkey art.
Photo by bnilsen. CC.

It's Thanksgiving in Canada!

Like much of Canadian history, the background of our Thanksgiving has a sort of lacklustre and muddled backstory that is often confused with American history. (In school, I'm pretty sure we did a lot of pilgrim-related crafting for Thanksgiving, even though that has nothing to do with the Canadian holiday.)

So, in case you were wondering (and I KNOW YOU WERE), here is the backstory to Canadian Thanksgiving:

For a very long time, there were a bunch of random feasts of thanksgiving to mark a whole bunch of different occasions: colonizers who almost died on their journeys and then didn't, the end of some wars, and a member of the monarchy getting over an illness. Yes, there were even a few shared feasts with some First Nations clans in there to celebrate the harvest.

Finally, it got to the point where thanksgiving-related festivals were happening pretty regularly, so they decided to make it a thing in 1879.

Of course, they still couldn't agree on a date. It shifted around a bunch until finally someone said, "Enough is enough! Let's stop being random. How about the second Monday in October, because that's around when harvest celebrations have been going on for lots and lots of generations?"

And everybody said, yes. Let's do that. So we did.

Now you know why. You're welcome.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

---

The Receptionist Delivers!
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Dear Prime Minister Trudeau

One of the things I said yesterday is that, in a post-Trump world, we have a responsibility. We are responsible to stand for what is right and to encourage those in power to do the same. I am starting with a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau. If you are Canadian, consider sending him a letter of your own. If you are American, write to your reasonable Republican leaders. If you are from any other country in the world, write to your leaders. Trump can be held back, if we do it together.

Your Pride Parade high-fives were great, and now you can follow through
on the values you symbolically supported there.
Photo Source: Flickr

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,

As you know, Donald Trump was just elected the president of the United States. Of course you know. Yesterday, you congratulated him on his win and have invited him to Canada.

In your statement, you said that we have "shared values" with the United States. I am giving you a lot of benefit of the doubt that you were referring to the values of an ideal America - not of our values compared with the values America signed off on by electing Trump. Because Canada cannot ever stand for those values, and you were elected based on very different values.

Personally, I am a bit disappointed so far at your follow-through on some of your promises. You did increase arts funding, which I am grateful for. You also marched in Pride parades, a powerful symbolic statement of your values of inclusivity and celebration. Thank you for that. In the next turn, however, you approved a pipeline and went back on promises to Canada's Indigenous people - this is not okay.

So first of all, I want to remind you of the values you were elected for: peace, unity, and caring. Partnership with the Indigenous people of Canada. Support for the environment and the rights of those whose rights are too often questioned (women, people of colour, transgendered people, people with disabilities, and more). You presented yourself as a Prime Minister who would care about the needs of this country and its people - not just the rich or powerful. As a Prime Minister who would uphold progressive values, who would be inclusive and collaborative.

Our diplomatic relationship with the United States is important. Because of this, you will be put in a lot of difficult situations in the next four years. You will have to make decisions between things like economic security and the values of Canada.

Please, do not ever compromise our values. Work with Trump where you can, when it does not compromise these values, and stand up to him whenever necessary. Do it diplomatically, when you can, but if you must pull a Hugh Grant in Love, Actually and openly call him out for being the bully that he is, then do that, too. 

As Prime Minister, you always have a choice for who you are going to ally yourself, and therefore this country, with: the rich or the poor; the privileged or the oppressed; the truth-speakers or the liars; the bullies or the victims. The choice isn't always either-or, but sometimes it is. Be aware of who you are standing beside, who you are aligning yourself with, and who, by default, you are then standing against. Do not stand against the people and land your are here to protect. 

I hope you will be increasingly aware of your power as an ally in all your decisions as Prime Minister. Perhaps I am getting too caught up in my fear, but right now it feels especially important, especially symbolic, when it comes to Donald Trump. He stands for so much that is wrong. You must stand for what is right. Hopefully this won't mean opposing him at every turn - he may not be able to do half the things he promised - but it might.

The water is going to be hot for the next four years, but as Prime Minister, you should be used to a little heat. If it gets too hot, call on us, the Canadians whose values you are protecting. If you stand up for us, for truth and equality and compassion and accessibility and inclusivity, then I will stand with you, and I know others will, too.

Be the Prime Minister that was promised to us when you were elected.

Sincerely,

Andrea Loewen

Second Generation Immigrant (descended from refugees) and Settler/Visitor on the Unceded Coast Salish Territories

PS: Hopefully we have entered a dark alternate timeline due to someone's errant time-travel, in which case this may all get corrected soon without us even knowing anything happened. This means that if anyone rushes into your office claiming to be from the future and that the world isn't supposed to be like this and somehow you're the key, HELP THEM! Destroy the amulet, distract the dementors, repair their weird car, whatever.

---

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Prime Minister #3: John Abbott

I am feeling way too lazy to look up the format I used for the first two prime minister posts, so instead I'm just going to tell you some fun facts about John Abbott.

1. There aren't very many fun facts about John Abbott. 
2. When you google him, the fourth link actually goes to a site talking about him.  Apparently a college in Montreal (that is actually probably named after him) and a photographer are more important than the third prime minister of Canada!
3. He was the great-grandfather of Christopher Plummer!  Now there's a guy who shows up first when you google his name.
4. He was a reluctant PM - he actually wanted his successor (John Thompson) to be the leader, but everyone forced him to do it instead.  Bet they regretted that when he wound up being all corrupt, which is exactly what happens when you force someone into a job they don't want.  Even I could have told them that.  YEESH.
5. His famous-est quote is "I hate politics."  Oh hardy-har, how ironic.  Was he the first hipster prime minister?
6. Just below Prime Minister John Abbott's listing on Google is the Imdb page for an actor named John Abbott who was in the Audrey Hepburn classic Gigi.  Well done, John.  Well done.

Prime Minister #2: Alexander Mackenzie

Name: Alexander Mackenzie

Alive: January 28, 1822 – April 17, 1892

Reign: November 7, 1873 - October 9, 1878

Born in: Logierait, Scotland

Party: Liberal

Known for: Being the first Liberal PM ever, overseeing the completion of the Parliament buildings, introducing the secret ballot, building a bunch of railroads.

Looked a lot like Abe Lincoln, no?  Pretty dreamy too, if you ask me.

Fun Facts:

A hopeless romantic, ol' Alex came to Canada because he was in love with a girl whose family was moving here!  He almost drowned after falling through frozen ice to see her once, but made it to her door, a shivering mouse of a man.  I bet she warmed him up that night, alright.  Someone needs to make a romantic comedy out of this, or one of those boring olden-times romance movies that people convince themselves is really good because of the corsets and petticoats and flowery language, but is really just full of violins telling you when to cry, and your eyes obey because they are stupid.

Another rags-to-riches story, Alex dropped out of school at 13 because his family was all poor and he was 3rd of 10 kids (talk about middle-child syndrome).  He was a stonemason and newspaper editor until someone said "Dude!  You should totally form a party and take down Sir Johnny!"  And he did.

He was the J-Lo of Prime Ministers - no matter how successful he was, he was still Alex from the Block, used to have a little, now he's got a lot, no matter where he goes, he knows where he came from (from Scotland!)  Seriously, he wouldn't even let them knight him.  That's for reals.  You could also liken him to Paul McCartney's Working Class Hero.

Was the first rider to have a dragon hatch for him, which is really the main reason why he defeated Sir John A. MacDonald.*

Hated being asked for money so much he had a secret second staircase (alliterative apologies) built out of the back of his office so he could escape anyone waiting to try to get some out of him.

Might be the reincarnated spirit of Alexander Mackenzie, the explorer.  I mean, I'm pretty sure most reincarnated spirits don't have the exact same name, but COME ON!  They were both Scottish!  And the PM-version was born two years after the explorer-version died.  Argue with that.

Argument: there were many other Scottish Alexander Mackenzies, including a violinist, architect, and an actor.  And those are just the ones listed as Scottish on Wikipedia.

*I probably stole that from Eragon.  There just aren't that many fun facts about his life.  Work with me.

Prime Minister #1: Sir John A. MacDonald

Here is the first in the series of however many Prime Ministers we've had in Canada.  Everything you ever needed to know about Sir John A. MacDonald.  History students, feel free to cite this and all subsequent posts in your research papers.

STATS

Name: Sir John A. MacDonald
Alive: January 11, 1815-June 6, 1891
Reign: July 1, 1867 – November 5, 1873 / October 17, 1878 – June 6, 1891
Born in: Glasgow
Party: Conservative
Known for: Being first PM ever of all time, having his face on the ten dollar bill, spending a lot of time and money building Canada's territory, being the first PM to have a scandal - it was called the Pacific Scandal.  He took bribes and then scared the country away from Conservatives for a long time.

Sir Johnny doing his best impersonation of a hipster.  He's got the ironic hair and lazy, indifferent gaze.  
I think it's the high-collared shirt that undoes it.

FUN FACTS

Rags to riches!  Sir Johnny was born to a life filled with poverty and failed business ventures, only to become a lawyer (even though he quit school at the age of 15) and the first Prime Minister!  People should talk about him more often when they tell disenfranchised children that they can be anything they want: "Look, Sally!  Our very first Prime Minister came from nothing, just like you!  Now if only you were a man like him you could be just as successful as he is..."

Married his first cousin (not uncommon in those days?) who was 6 years older than him - so probably not a sexist, or at least not in the sense of wanting a younger, hotter wife-accessory.

He was a Freemason, so, you know, lots of creepy rituals, right?

In an election debate he was so drunk he threw up on stage.  (PS: He was the first and not last drunkard, lecherous PM, although he did it to escape the heartbreak of his first cousin, 6-years-his-elder wife's tragic decline into death.)

Although he was a conservative, while being a lawyer pre-politics, he was like Mark from Empire Records.  And by that I mean that he would shout things like "DAMN THE MAN!" and "SAVE THE PEOPLES FROM THE EMPIRE!"  Or at least that's what I imagine him as having shouted while he protected all sorts of innocent people from British meanness.  Luckily he was much more competent at helping out than our friend Mark was, because let's be honest, a one-night kegger party is not going to raise the tens of thousands of dollars needed to save a record store from the evil big box record-o-rama.  If that was the case then theatre wouldn't be in the horrendous financial state it's in.

He actually physically attacked a fellow MP once, in Parliament, shouting (once restrained) "I'll lick him faster than hell can scorch a feather!"  Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

He named his private train car The Jamaica.  Whaaaaaaat?

He got knighted on the very first Canada Day ever - which if you think about it is probably why he then won the first election ever.  Everyone was just like "well, the Queen totes just knighted him, so, you know, it'll be sort of like having a monarch still and we're not really emotionally ready to give that up."

He died in office, just like Dwight from The Office has always dreamed of doing.

A brief history of Canadian Prime Ministers

(This might turn into a series profiling each PM.  I don't know why, but to me this seems like a brilliant idea right now.  If it gets lame I'll probably stop halfway through and then pretend it never happened.)

Okay, so first off there was John A. McDonald, and he was like, "DUDES!  I'm the first Prime Minister EVER!  Beat that."  And no one could for like, 6 years.  But then Alexander Mackenzie came along and just went "SCHWING!  Oh!  I totally stole the Prime Ministership from under your REAR END, Mackers!"  And then he stayed PM for 5 years, which is not 6 years, but is still pretty solid.  But then, out of nowhere, Sir John A. McDonald was all "remember Victoria?  That city way out WEST?  Well I just got elected THERE and now I'm Prime Minister again and I'm going to stay Prime Minister for... oh... I don't know... THIRTEEN YEARS!!???!!  Maybe, if I feel like it.  Whatever, NBD."

So then JAM (that's John A. McDonald, by the by) hung out for 12 years while John Abbott built up a solid pity vote that would make him PM for one year.  Then John Thompson rounded out the trio of Johns on Sussex Drive (some kind of dirty joke about Johns and prostitutes and the government?  Anyone?) with 2 years as PM representin' Antigonish.

After the Johns came Sir Charles Tupper but he only hung around for a few months before LAURIER totally SNITCH SLAPPED him and took the Prime Minister Belt for 15 years straight, defeating JAM's previous reign of longest-consecutive PM.  So this is 1911 now, and while Laurier is sitting pretty, this dude Borden's sitting on the sidelines, just waiting.  He is waiting until BAM!  He is PRIME MINISTERED!  He even switches parties halfway through his 9 years in power, but no one cares because they're all like "Borden, you're DA BOMB!"

Sadly, Borden's reign was cut tragically short by Arthur Meighn, who looked totally dorky and (probably because of his dorky appearance) was replaced in less than a year by the one, the only, the slightly unbalanced, seance-holding man himself, Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie KING!  A FOUR NAME PRIME MINISTER!  No one saw that coming.  An epic battle between King and Meighn broke out.  King held for 5 years, then Meighn came in for 4 months, then King stomped Meighn to the ground for 4 MORE YEARS (oh wait, that's an American reference, isn't it?)  Then Richard Bennett was all "Uh, hey guys?  Can I have a go at this?" and stole Meighn's spot for 5 years.  This whole time King was just rallying though, because when he came back, he came back for 13 YEARS bringing his total years as PM to TWENTY ONE!  That is so impressive I wrote the number out in full.  Seriously.

So then it's 1948 and King is all "you know what dudes? I took a walk in the snow* and I am tired of all your whining." and he handed the whole job over to Louis St. Laurent, who did it a solid for 9 years.  Then Diefenbaker tricked Canada by calling his party "Progressive Conservatives" and people were all like "you know, that doesn't sound so bad, it's not like, actually conservative, right?  It's progressive!" and it took them 6 years to figure out they were wrong and replace him with dreamboat Lester B. Pearson, who was replaced 5 years later by an even dreamier Pierre Trudeau, the PM who swept the nation with a mania surpassed only by that of The Beatles!  Minus a 9 month hiccup known as Joe Clark, Trudeaumania held strong for 13 years.

John Turner was next, but Trudeau was a hard act to follow and Turner wasn't dreamy at all.  The only mania he produced was that of a 3 month Prime Ministership that causes the nation to elect the Official Most Hated Prime Minister of Canadian history: Brian Mulroney.  (Don't worry Bri, I think you'll be replaced as Most Hated as soon as our current idiot-mc-I'm-a-big-jerk-face gets ousted.)  He spent 9 years teaching Canadians everywhere how to hate before being replaced by the first female Prime Minister EVER: Kim Campbell!!!  Sadly she was not actually elected, but was a mere replacement, and as soon as an election rolled around 5 months later the nation went "oh SNAP!  The Prime Minister has BOOBIES?  That ain't right!" and so they elected Jean Chretien instead.  Fun fact: Jean Chretien was the first PM who was elected when I was old enough to care about elections!  In my young mind he was pretty much the first real Prime Minister ever.

Now Jean Chretien reigned solid for 10 years and created a new territory for the first time in... a really long time.  This is pretty impressive if you ask me.  Since there is no new territory to explore, a creative and resourceful Prime Minister chopped one territory into two, increasing his overall amount of territories!  In 2003, the first election I ever got to vote in, Paul Martin was given the golden crown.  After only three years, however, tragedy struck and the country was taken over by Stephen Harper, or as I like to call him, Mini-Zombie-Bush-Mc-Jerk-I-Hate-the-Arts-and-Anyone-Who-Doesn't-Love-Oil-Face.  We still live under his dark cloud today.

The end.

*I don't know if King actually said that, I just know that one of the former PM's did, and it makes most sense that King would after that epic reign.