There was a headline on a story from a reputable Canadian website earlier this month that posed a rather startling question: “Will COVID-19 kill Christmas?”
Like many of you I have been addicted to the U.S. presidential election and the strange aftermath of accusations and recriminations about the vote count.
A mad push appears to be on to get the federal government’s MAiD legislation out of committee and into the House of Commons for rapid passage.
On a recent Saturday morning I revisited simpler times. After returning home from morning Mass the Bride and I were welcomed at our front door by Rose Anne, our eldest, and her two boys Jack and Beckett. Rose Anne had dropped by for a visit and had managed to rouse her sisters, Clare, Emma and Hope, from their beds.
There are some sounds you just don’t expect to hear downtown. Police and ambulance sirens intermingled with fights and screaming are commonplace, but as I passed a darkened lane, I heard the soothing sound of someone singing the 1929 chart topper, “Tiptoe through the tulips.”
Racism virus
Regardless of what readers wish to believe (Sept. 27 letter to the editor), Canada houses untold examples of systemic racism. Now more than ever, partly due perhaps to the total disrespect for individuals of other races and beliefs as demonstrated by the present leadership to our south, violent acts of racism occur far too often in this country/province/city of ours. As Pope Francis states in Fratelli Tutti: “God has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity.”
If this pandemic has taught us anything, it is the fragility of our lives.
Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship delivered some great news in Parliament Oct. 30, a win-win for both the country and those coming to Canada to build a better life.
The old saw says nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of being hanged in the morning. I can personally attest that having a child living in a country of double beheadings runs a very close second.
Is there no middle ground to be found?
It’s been 42 years since I emigrated from Saskatchewan to Alberta, but I still have a place in my heart for the old country. Although I don’t have any stake in what happens there and can’t name the mayor of either Regina or Saskatoon, I did check in to see the Saskatchewan election results on Oct. 26.