[PHOTO] Late Evening at Harbord and Grace

Late Evening at Harbord and Grace
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

What the subject line says.

[LINK] "Norilsk, an Arctic Oasis"

The interesting LJ community russiamagazine, where notable Russian-language LJ posts are linked to and sometimes translated into English, has a great photo post up, showing the northern Siberian nickel-mining city of Norilsk in winter. Go, read and see.

[LINK] "A Small Place"

Slate's Ian Mount lets us know that the has become an immigration magnet proportionately as huge as any Persian Gulf state.

For decades, the Falkland Islands have been a mix of punch line and trivia question, its popular image that of a few hundred boozy, inbred sheep farmers living on a rock in the South Atlantic. During the so-called Falklands conflict, British troops memorably dubbed the locals "Bennies" after Benny Hawkins, the village-idiot character in the British soap opera Crossroads. And, indeed, after going for a run on my second day on the islands and finding myself held still by the famous driving winds, I wondered why a dimwitted penguin, much less a sentient human adult, would willingly move there. The word grim comes to mind: Besides sandpaper winds, the islands are blessed with a skin-frying ozone hole, a near complete lack of trees, and import-dependent stores where sad tomatoes fetch $4.15 a pound (about twice what FreshDirect charges in Manhattan).

But there they were: gaggles of immigrants. Every five years, the islands conduct a census with the Orwellian precision that is possible only on remote islands with a population of 2,478. Besides enumerating statistical curiosities—the number of dishwashers, for example, rose from 130 in 1996 to 338 a decade later—the census notes the surprising facts that only 53.2 percent of the 2006 population was born on the islands, and 25 languages other than English are spoken in Falkland homes. Among the immigrants are 650 U.K.-born residents, plenty of them Kelpers whose parents had moved to the United Kingdom to look for work and who themselves returned after the conflict. But there are also 153 Saints, 131 Chileans, 36 Australians, 26 New Zealanders, and a sprinkling of Germans, Russians, Indonesians, and Filipinos. Even an Argentine or two.

Post-war investment by the British government, and a boom in the local fisheries and oil exploitation, turn out to be responsible for this immigration surge. So far, it seems to be going easily enough. So far.

[LINK] A St. Pierrais problem

North of the equator, the people of Saint Pierre et Miquelon, an island group located off the Newfoundland coast, aren't doing nearly as well as their Falklands counterparts, with an economy that has been decidedly unproductive since the collapse of the cod fisheries. Some Saint-Pierrais want France to renegotiate seabed and fisheries rights with Canada.

Xavier Bowring points to the row of rusting, 19th-century cannons that overlook the harbour of this tiny French territory and jokes: "We'll use these to defend ourselves from an attack by Canada."

Then he says, "We don't want a war with Canada. We only want discussions, so we can have a piece of the resource -- a piece of the pie."

Bowring is an outspoken member of a citizens group on St-Pierre-Miquelon -- the French archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland -- that since February has galvanized many of the 6,000 residents here behind a passionate campaign for a new economic arrangement with Canada.

[. . .]

For most of the 20th century the islanders prospered off the East Coast cod fishery, not as fishermen but as merchants who processed fish and who served the foreign fishing fleet that used St-Pierre as a refuelling and resupply base.

"The big money was made here by merchants selling food, fuel, and lodging to Spanish, Korean and Japanese boats," said Gilles Borotra, a local businessman who co-owns one of the islands' last remaining fish plants.

"We had 25 bars, 14 nightclubs, and the town was filled with foreign fishing crews. There was lots of traffic in the streets. Now there are only three bars and one nightclub and almost all the hotels are closed. Everybody's in financial turmoil."

The collapse of the cod fishery in 1992, and Canada's decision to ban the foreign fleet from inside its 200 mile limit, put an end to St-Pierre-Miquelon's prosperity.

Only the occasional fishing trawler now comes to St-Pierre, and the territory relies increasingly on handouts from Paris, which the town's Mayor Karine Claireaux says amount to as much $166 million every year.

Paris not only sends money but also civil servants -- police, customs officers, technocrats -- to help run the local government and provide services. More than a third of the population are now expatriate bureaucrats from France, who come on two-or-three year assignments and then return home. The big money here now is not in business, but in a well-paid government job.

[. . .]

[D]reams of a new future fuelled by petroleum wealth are hampered by the fact that St-Pierre-Miquelon's offshore rights are confined to a small sliver of seabed -- 2.5 miles wide and 200 long ---- known derisively here as "the baguette."

Awarded two decades ago by a U.N. commission, France has a looming legal deadline of May 13 to appeal the boundaries of "the baguette."

Islanders want either an enlarged French economic zone in which to exploit petroleum resources, or at least the right to share with Canada revenues from undersea natural gas fields believed to lie across French-Canadian offshore boundaries.

Saint Pierre et Miquelon, as the islanders note, isn't such a large constituency-- fewer people than could fit in a soccer stadium--as to be unignorable by French politicians, and that change is probably unlikely. Still, there's hope.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the Dhalla scandal

Toronto-area Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla (official website, Wikipedia) has recently gotten herself involved in quite a scandal as a result of allegations that she abused two foreign caregivers, recruited under Canada's live-in caregiver program, by forcing them to do housework, janitorial work at the family's chiropractic clinic, and other non-caregiver related jobs--that, and confiscating their identity documents. The two caregivers and Dhalla have given opposing testimonies at a recent parliamentary inquiry.

Members of a parliamentary committee in Ottawa heard conflicting and often emotional testimony on Tuesday from Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla and two foreign caregivers who say she hired them to work at her family's house.

Magdalene Gordo, 31, and Richelyn Tongson, 37, testified via videoconference from Toronto. The two women of Philippine origin said Dhalla interviewed and hired them to care for her mother in Dhalla's family home in Mississauga, Ont.

They alleged she forced them to work long hours doing household chores (including shovelling snow and cleaning family-owned chiropractic clinics) and held on to their passports — all in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that lasted from February to May 2008.

"I was mentally tortured and physically stressed," Gordo testified, saying she worked from 7:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. each day on "various household chores, not caregiving jobs. … You're being insulted. They show you were a slave. They do not show you love and compassion."

Tongson said she had handed over her birth certificate, marriage certificate and passport to Dhalla.

"I asked [her] for my documents every Thursday night," she told the committee. "I didn't know if she would deport me."

Tongson broke down sobbing, prompting a short recess, as she described that she had four children to support in the Philippines and did not want to be deported.
MP says staff treated with 'love, care and respect'

Immediately following the testimony by the women, Dhalla appeared before the committee with her lawyer at her side, calling their accusations "false and unsubstantiated."

"I, Ruby Dhalla, did not employ Magdalene Gordo or Richelyn Tongson," she said. "I, Ruby Dhalla, did not sponsor Magdalene or Richelyn. I don't know what their motive is, but I do want to tell all of you today that I have nothing to hide, and I have done nothing wrong."

Dhalla said her brother, Neil Dhalla, was responsible for hiring and managing the women — but Gordo refuted this.

Neil Dhalla "was never involved in interviewing me, orienting me in the job responsibilities, nor supervising me," Gordo said. "He never introduced himself as my employer. He did not discuss employment issues with me."

Other than him showing her how he wanted his shoes shined, his suits prepared and his car vacuumed, she had no interaction with him, she said.

This scandal has gotten embedded in the increasingly bitter politics in Ottawa, with party leader Michael Ignatieff standing by Dhalla amid allegations that Dhalla, until recently the Liberals' immigration critic, has been targeted by the Conservative government--the controversy is certainly ongoing. I don't know the truth of what happened, and I likely never will. It does strike me as odd, though, as it did when I heard Dhalla's address on CBC Radio, that she began not by denying the accusations but rather by disavowing all responsibility for the caregivers. That strikes me as off, suspiciously so.

[LINK] "Michael Ignatieff: Arrogant Bastard"

For whatever it's worth, I'm in complete agreement with Andrew Steele's blogged position at The Globe and Mail about the Conservatives' new attack ads aimed against Liberal party leader Michael Ignatieff, an intellectual and long-time Canadian expatriate.

I'm a subscriber to the Will Ferguson theory of Bastards and Boneheads.

It states that Canadians elect leaders who are bastards, not boneheads.

Ferguson writes: "Bastards succeed. They are ruthless. They are active. Their cause may be noble or it may be amoral, but the Bastard is always the active principle. Boneheads fail, often by stumbling over their own feet. They are reactive. Inept. Indignant. They are usually truly amazed by their failures."

Trudeau versus Clark. Mulroney versus Turner. Chrétien versusu Day. Harper versus Dion. Most of our recent national elections were competitions between arrogant bastards and stumbling boneheads, and the bastards always win.

Conceding the "arrogant bastard" high ground is a major error. In effect, the Conservative Party is paying millions of dollars to brand Michael Ignatieff the very thing Canadians vote for: arrogant bastards.

The best attack ads make their victim an object of ridicule. This one attempts that with a cheeky attitude, but builds up its target so much before it tears him down that the net result can be a grudging respect for Ignatieff.

Taught at Harvard? Isn't that a good thing?

On the cover of GQ? That's kind of cool, actually.

The thing he missed most about Canada was Algonquin Park? How Canadian.

A final point is the reliance of the campaign on the tall poppy syndrome.

As I've written before, the jury is most definitely out on the existence of a tall poppy syndrome when it comes to national politics.

Most of our Prime Ministers have been men of letters. Many have spent time outside the country, although none to the degree of Ignatieff.

The nation has not been a bastion of populism, electing hockey players and lumberjacks to the top job. Rather, it almost exclusively elects university professors, lawyers, mandarin bureaucrats and long-time senior Cabinet ministers to the top job.

The choice of brand by the Conservatives is an odd one.

Better choices would have been out of touch, or making it up on the fly, or shifty.

But arrogant is something that Canadians say they don't like, and then vote into office again and again.