It's election time - do you know where your children are?

Rock the vote, man, Yeah, like rock it totally. Come on you young uns - get out and VOTE! Tweet your vote, facebook your vote, shoot, facepaint your vote. Just VOTE already.

We oldies are sure keen to get our youth democratically motivated. And we should be; it ain't no democracy without every last eligible voter voting.

( Are you sure all your boys are doing their best? Are they ALL making noise? Are you sure every Who down in Who-ville is working? Quick! Look through your town! Is there anyone shirking?)

The funny thing I've noticed lately, though, is that only parties of a certain colour seem hyper-engaged in rockin' the youth vote. By colour, I mean the red, green, and orange variety. The blues, well, they are noticeably absent on this particular mandate.

This is good, right? I mean, getting those 18+ "kids" out to vote can only be something fantastically great and democratic, regardless of who lights the fire under their derrières. Right?

Cue ominous music and whisper: be careful what you wish for....

Ponder this: there is the remote possibility, dear parents and assorted oldies, that, even though you may be waving a red, green, or orange flag, the brilliant son or college-aged niece that you've been pushing aggressively to the ballot box may actually be A CONSERVATIVE. Still want them to vote? Huh?

I can almost hear the deafening silence that would transpire should those 2.6 million young voters show up on May 2 and vote in a Conservative majority.What if Jo-jo is no shirker but simply a quiet Conservative?

Now don't panic. Just because our first born put campaign signs in his bedroom window when we denied him the front yard and embarrasses us in public with his bold blue pin. And just because he's been reduced to saying "the Party" in mixed company. And just because he may blast his political beliefs all over public radio sometime this afternoon - don't panic. Or toilet-paper our house, please.

All of that and none of that necessarily means we should be careful what we wish for. I'm just saying, democracy can sometimes be a bit of a surprise.

Now get out and VOTE. Election. May 2nd, 2011. Coming to a school gym near you.

	Talking Heads - Burning Down The House .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

YOPP!

O Canada

The last time I sang our national anthem was on a July long weekend in Kamloops two years ago. Shy in a crowd of many, my voiced cracked in a half-hearted attempt to appear patriotic and, though now thirty-four, I know I reminded myself to sing the new words, sans “God”, as we has been instructed sometime around grade four. My son sang gleefully beside me, slipping into the French version when the English words escaped him, the French lyrics more forceful, prideful: “…des plus brillants exploits….” The great Canadian immersion project.

When I entered the gymnasium of the local elementary school this past May 17th, I recalled all of the gyms of my school years and the frequent “assemblies” which always began with a scramble to sit near my friends and then a hush as we stood for, in the early years, God Save The Queen, and then, of course, O Canada. My vocal performance then was no different from that of today, struggling with the tricky balance of appearing “cool” in front of my friends but feeling in my gut it would be wrong not to sing (after all, Canadians young and old are embarrassed by any overt American-style jingoism…aren’t they? or perhaps it is what Adrienne Clarkson calls our “pathological modesty”). In truth, butterflies would tickle my stomach and I would feel something incredibly like pride as the anthem built momentum. I don’t doubt that both the cool and the uncool felt that same glow.

So, as I sidled up to an election volunteer in my son’s school gym that Tuesday, I felt the familiar thrill of my childhood anthemism. Of course, I can attribute the lump in my throat to the super-polished wood floors, the stale smell of sweat, or the stage and its makeshift curtains over which hung the red and white maple leaf. And yet, if I dig deep, I know that it’s because each of these are successfully symbolic, they make me believe, in the joy of childhood, in the satisfaction of education , in Canada, in the whole damn reason I was standing there that afternoon, in democracy.

I don’t normally think of myself or my family as very politicized, yet my 9- year old son wants to be Prime Minister and giggles at the Globe’s Heather Mallick and her term of dislike for our southern neighbour’s leader (or “neighbor” if you wish): “Bushlet”. My husband has started to refer to me as the “pop-up head” as I interject every news item on the radio with my invariably partially-informed, yet passionate, views on world affairs (“I can’t believe the CBC would broadcast comments like ‘dipstick’ “; “Newsweek shouldn’t have to apologize for publishing misinformation; for god’s sake, Bush went to war on misinformation!! And so on…) When my mother-in-law suggested I was wasting my vote if I voted for a certain environmentally-concerned provincial party, I argued that the heart of democracy was not strategic voting and that her vote could be considered trash too if she voted by default for the likely winner, rather than for the party that most closely represented her values. My friends and I discuss the fallacy of a true democracy in a two-party race and a decreasing voter turnout. Perhaps I am more politicized than I realized.

Of course, it was just a provincial election and (yes, Ottawa and Quebec) JUST a wacky B.C. election at that, but what I realized that afternoon as I hovered over my ballot (YES! STV) and my stomach did flip-flops was that O Canada and Gordon Campbell were the same butterfly. I realized that, with the possible exception of Stephen Harper, I can trust that Canadian politicians, regardless of the waxing and waning of scandals and budgets, will forever uphold democracy, will forever cherish my right to vote and it is up to me to stand on guard, protégera nos foyers et nos droits, by submitting my ballot. If democracy is a sham it is only because a country’s citizens (or a U.S.-sponsored coup d'état) make it one. Sure, I am sometimes as embarrassed by our politicians as I am singing aloud but, fortunately, I can hide behind the cardboard divider. Something as simple as a school auditorium or as seemingly complex as a provincial election nudges the word “free” from my heart to my lips. Free. As in True North. As in Strong and. Sentimentality perhaps, simple-mindedness even, but just try to sing O Canada and not feel funny inside. Peculiar and ha ha at once.

I used to be envious of the determination and passion of voters in countries where democracy is in its infancy, where, sometimes, to vote could mean to die. Canadians no longer value this freedom, I would tell myself. I saw no trace of that lazy monster voter apathy last month on the city roads awash with campaign posters. When I stopped for milk at 7:30 p.m., the clerk asked me to hurry, so she could make it to a polling station before it closed at 8. At my polling station, an elderly man struggled with his cane up the path; he looked determined. He looked proud. I’ll bet he had butterflies.

X Canada
X Democracy

(as published in Monday Magazine, July 2005)

Brand FOX

A month or so ago, my ten-year old and I were perusing the shelves of a local bookstore in search of a Winston Churchill biography. My son idolizes and idealizes the great War Prime Minister for reasons both understood and unfathomable to me. When I was ten, my Ken doll was hot and feathered hair was my one goal. However, support him I do, in all his frivolous schemes. So there we were, thumbing through lives of the rich or famous when a lovely photo-biography of Terry Fox caught our attention.

Of course, we’d both scraped pledges in the annual school runs; even at his tender age, my son has participated in no less than 5 Marathons of Hope. My own September primary school memories are grazed with a diaphanous image of “our” tousled-hair Terry and his endearing gait. Now, in our hands, was a touching, and in the way only photographs can be, painfully honest record of Terry’s life and achievements (I say and write “Terry” here as most Canadians do, as if he is a member of our own families, and, mistakenly, as if I knew him, knew his struggle, knew his heart).

I lie. The biography was not really honest or truly painful; it was no more honest than my knowledge of Terry is first-hand. It presented images of people and items from Terry’s short life and worthy dream: family barbeques, running shorts, the sock. In a small voice squeezed through the pinhole my airpipe had become, I declared to my son that it was a beautiful book about a beautiful and courageous young man. And it was and it is. Yet it is dishonest in that, however poignant, the clean images are as far removed from the stench of terminal illness as the glorious swath of school children streaming down the street each mid-September morning “marathon” are.

Within a few minutes of reading some perturbing reports of death and anarchy after Katrina and her ferocious waves tore through the bowl of a city known as New Orleans, I found myself humming a particular Hip tune. You know the one. I wondered to myself if it was getting some renewed airplay in light of events down south. I read several days later, to my indignation, that, in order to show sensitivity to those who have suffered great loss in New Orleans, “New Orleans is Sinking” by the Tragically Hip had been pulled from some radio playlists. First of all, I’m fairly certain it’s a clever metaphor of a song. Second, since when do the media decline to play or print stories that may be insensitive? Did no one see the photographs of floating bodies or catch the sensational headlines: “Katrina survivors screaming for help”, “All I found was a shoe”? Third, it’s true. New Orleans is sinking. Was and is. Besides, when your heart is broken, you don’t sing love songs, you sing down and nasty saaaaaaaaaaaad songs. With broken homes, hearts, souls and bodies, maybe that’s just what some New Orleanians want to sing and maybe, just maybe, they don’t wanna swim either. Gord and the guys just got too darned close to the truth, the honesty of the stench.

So here it is: we’ve wrapped up Terry in a beautiful branded box. This true hero: Brand Fox. A man who believed his struggle to raise awareness and hump his broken body across Canada paled in significance to the realities of the cancer ward.

A man whose name may be behind Adidas' The Terry Fox Limited Edition Replica Shoe, but who, in the words of Ken McQueen, was "even uncomfortable with the trademark three stripes on his running shoes".

Middle-class North America could use some down and nasty to desensitize their delicate souls just as it would behoove them to remember that fresh-faced youngsters are not the face of a devasting disease. They are symbols of Hope.

Though I never knew our Terry, he is remembered for igniting Hope but also for not wanting people to wander too far from the broken hearts and bodies. I think that’s what concerned him about corporate involvement and potential exploitation. The point is to raise awareness, to make the lucky hear and help those much less so, not to create a pretty distraction. I’m guessing Terry would have liked a little more Hip and a little less brand. I never knew our Terry, but I sure wish I had.