Following the last four ‘heavy’ weeks of politics (campaigning, debating, making extravagant announcements, and then denying everything to the next audience, and finally voting with a ‘joker’ option on the ballot), let’s tackle something completely different this week: HUNTING (or is it that really different?). Enjoy this quote from Bismarck, a German statesman, diplomat and writer who said that ‘People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.’

‘Doctor, Doctor, (in fact, he’s a psychiatrist), what is wrong with me, why can’t I be ‘normal’ like most of my buddies? Am I overly sensitive, am I a… ‘sissy’?’ ‘Normal in what sense my dear sir?’ ‘Well, Doctor, I am now a senior and I have never gone hunting in my whole life! My buddies keep on inviting me to experience the thrill of it at least once… Am I missing something important here, something I should add to my bucket list?’ ‘Nothing to worry about, my dear sir, you are totally ‘normal’, but just a little ‘different’ I suppose…Fortunately, you don’t live in Texas where you would be considered very strange…’ ‘How so Doctor? I can swap mosquitoes and spiders without regret or remorse, I even used a pellet gun once to shoo away a skunk!’ ‘You just don’t have a true killer instinct, to look an animal straight in the eyes and shoot it, but it’s OK: if God had wanted us to be vegetarians, he would have made broccoli more fun to shoot at!’ ‘But… what’s your point Doctor? I don’t think I could shoot at a broccoli either: I love broccoli! And I am not even a vegetarian! Is that what’s wrong with me?’

‘I can’t say for sure my dear sir, science hasn’t reached that far into the mind yet, but I wouldn’t be too concerned if I were you: I love my broccoli too!’

Environmentalist Gary Varner identifies 3 types of hunting: therapeutic, subsistence, and sport, each type being distinguished by its own purpose.

Throughout human history, hunting for food has been a way of life: cave paintings from the Bible depict hunting as a normality. A few generations ago, hunting was a formality in the seasonal life of a family, it was at the core of the process of growing up: learning how to care for and use a rifle, whether you enjoyed the outdoors or not, every fall you were expected to join in the family men’s hunting trip: father, grandfather, brothers, uncles, cousins and head to the woods for male bonding, camaraderie and food supply. Fast-forward to today, and we find hunting in decline: farming meat operations and grocery supermarkets provide us with all the meat we need; double that with the decline of close ties between generations of family members, hunting experiences have lost their appeal and their necessity. Today, hunting is not a prerequisite to manhood anymore, but it still helps develop age-old masculine qualities. What are the real implications, the down-to-earth practices required of a potential hunter? Well, let’s see now if you are up to it:
‘Real hunting involves early mornings, long hikes through often rugged country, hours sitting behind a pair of binoculars, constantly trying to beat an animal’s keen senses, sneaking into shooting range undetected, and making a good, ethical shot to dispatch the animal quickly (which requires countless hours of practice in the off-season). And if you manage to get through all of that successfully, the real work begins. Now you must field-dress the animal, quarter it into manageable pack-loads, and then get it out of the woods, often on your own shoulders for what can be miles back to your pick-up truck! There’s nothing easy about hunting! When I hunt, I can almost feel my place in the food chain, my role in this massive ecosystem that is earth, I feel like my most authentic self!’ (from the Canadian Outdoorsman Magazine)

Some top-3 stats just for fun:

-Top-3 best hunters: Bill Cody (Buffalo Bill), Ernest Hemingway, Davy Crockett

-Top-3 best destinations: Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa (Canada #8)

-Top-3 hunted animals: Deer, turkey, duck

-Top-3 most endangered animals: Lemurs, gorillas, snow leopards

Did you know that in Ontario, you MAY NOT…

-Hunt in provincial parks or national parks or any other protected habitat

-Hunt big game, moose, deer or black bear when these animals are swimming

-Hunt specially protected birds and other wildlife

-Hunt polar bear unless being indigenous or accompanied by an indigenous person

Well, HAPPY HUNTING SEASON all you hunters; and for those of you who are not, HAVE A BEAUTIFUL FALL SEASON!

‘I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it’s such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I keep photographs of her.’ (Ellen DeGeneres)

“A good party man puts his party above himself and his country above his party.”   (Winston Churchill)

(Registered parties of end of August,electoral district of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Ontario, in alphabetical order by official name)

Conservative Party Of Canada

Free Party Of Canada

Green Party Of Canada

Liberal Party Of Canada

New Democratic Party

People’s Party Of Canada

In last week’s column, a list of six candidates was submitted to the electors of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell: no specific advantage was given to anyone of the six;  I could have added my own name to the list, had I registered to become a candidate, and would have been granted the same consideration as other candidates; as everyone else on that list, all candidates start the voting process with ZERO vote; and should my wife fast enough to be the first voter in GPR to cast her ballot, I would have taken the lead in the polls (assuming she had voted for me…)! So then, let’s consider this question: When the actual voting procedure starts, are all candidates really equal, is the process really fair?  If you did your homework and evaluated all candidates according to criteria established by specialists to find the ideal MP, then ‘NO’, candidates are not all equal: some stand out by their personality, others by their experience, by their humanity, their wealth…I would probably stand out by my age (and wisdom since it is a factor of aging)! But let’s suppose they are all clones of one another, what differentiates them from one another? If you answer ‘the party’ they are affiliated to, which is the second element of our equation, you basically understand politics.

Political scientists agree that ‘When voters cast their ballot, are they choosing a candidate or a party? The right answer is probably both; electoral systems are used to apportion seats among the different parties that compete during an election and select the candidates that will be appointed as representatives; elections thus act as a mechanism for deciding the policies to be enacted among the options proposed by different parties and for conforming the representatives that will enact them. In addition, citizens also use their vote to express their judgment about parties’ and candidates’ performance in office during the previous term.’

Two opposing tendencies in the voting process: personal or party representation? Some of us will stick without question to a ‘favourite’ party, sometimes for generations, without much consideration for the candidate that represents it, although the better the candidate, the better are chances of winning; on the other hand, some will stick with a candidate that represents the closest they can find to their ‘ideal’ one, whatever party he/she is affiliated with; this candidate might have ‘charmed’ them by his looks, his voice, his intelligence, his honesty, …

Voters tend to pay more attention to candidates’ personal traits in local elections, and tend to give more weight to partisan or ideological factors when deciding whom to vote for in provincial or national elections. This column was based on the assumption that in the voting decision, voters face this question, this dilemma: when they cast their ballot, are they choosing a candidate or a party? Both are true: in most countries, elections serve the purpose of selecting both the public policies that will be implemented (from among the different proposals of each party) and the specific individuals who will be in charge of this process. But what about voters? Do they care about these two types of representation? Conclusions are that they do: when citizens decide whom to vote for, they weigh up not only the candidates’ individual skills or public image, but also the party which they represent. In other words, they care about both the quality of representatives and of representation.

In a multi-party system like Canada’s, forming a government is all a matter of mathematics: ‘majority = half the seats in contention + one’ is the rule and grants the leading party the privilege of forming a government; minority governments are also workable and able to survive a few years (18 months on average actually as per data) before a lack of consensus between associate parties leads to a new general election; this has now become a redundant situation, almost a tradition in Israel for example, and sometimes the case in Canada!

Whatever your voting strategy is, Glengarry-Prescott-Russell voters have choices, TWELVE in fact: candidate #1,2,3,4,5 or 6, and parties #1,2,3,4,5 or 6. Whatever party or candidate you vote for, DO VOTE because ‘Every election is determined by people who show up!’ (Larry Sabato).

Erratum

In last week’s column, an error was made in the list of official candidates for this election in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. Jean-Serge Brisson is NOT a candidate for this election: you should have read the name of Marc Bisaillon instead. Also, the independant candidate named The Joker (sic) was omitted. Sorry for the inconvenience.

‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat’ -Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill’s quote and offer of service to his country is quite dramatic and bold, and may result in unreachable goals for whoever among us humble citizens plan to jump into politics, whether at the municipal, provincial or national level.

If you have a right of vote in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, you either:

– already made your choice along party line or according to candidate’s positions

– will not be voting for whatever personal reason

– are still ‘screening’ candidates in search of the ‘ideal’ one.

So then, what are the specific qualities expected of an ideal candidate?

According to different political scientists and specialists, here are some typical profiles and qualities to look for: politicians should be people that have a significant life experience and be willing to share it with constituents/population, they should be mature and independent in all aspects of their life (financially, emotionally, professionally, …), they should display integrity, competence and humility so as to not promote and glorify self, they should be team players and be able to assume leadership if and when required, they should have the courage to face challenges that are outside their normal comfort zone, able to entertain lobbyists and media without falling under the pressures of wealth, vanity, sex; most of all, they should envision what the future will require  rather than try to survive the present or be haunted by the failures of the past: voters want someone with a vision, with a direction rather than a catalogue of unrealistic promises, they have to trust their candidate to deliver what is expected of them.

James Freeman Clarke, a renowned American theologian, summarizes it all by saying that ‘the difference between a politician and a statesman/stateswoman is that one is obsessed about the next election while the other about the next generation’. Which one are we/you looking for to represent us in G-P-R?

Once elected, specialists tend to classify politicians in two classes: the ‘trustees’ who see themselves as the supreme authority in taking all decisions that were granted to them when elected and feel free to proceed without further authentic consultation; on the other hand, the ‘delegates’ see their role more as liaison between their constituents and the government; they tend to use their charisma, their appearance, their elocution as weapons of attraction to voters.

You will have noticed probably that there hasn’t been any mention of ‘party’ yet, the reason being that we are searching for the ideal ‘individual’ to assume the function of MP, discovering his/her values, independently of party affiliation. A follow-up article will discuss how Canada’s multi-party system can be both a blessing or a curse for voters that try to make the best choice in all good conscience.

If, in the meantime and in order to help you evaluate every candidate fairly, take time to listen to some personal interviews, to speeches or debates they participate in, while keeping in mind our friend Winston Churchill’s final quote and recommendation: ‘A good speech should be like a skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest!’

These past two years, out of personal interest, I joined two local groups whose membership is thriving: Histoire Photos Hawkesbury (5000+ members) and Vintage Vankleek Hill (+1000 members) and have been pleasantly surprised by members’ contributions and the richness of the material shared. I eventually joined two more similar groups: as I lived my kid and teen years in Montreal, I enjoy the Montreal Historical Photos (+56,000 members) and the Yesteryears Memories (+110,000 members) groups; wherever you are from or wherever you now live, there is probably such a group dedicating itself to ‘local nostalgia’.

They are known as ‘nostalgia’ social media groups and they are trending. Through quarantines, confinements, restrictions and NO-NO-NOS! of all kind, it was a normal reflex for us to imagine better times and happier situations, either by projecting into our future or by rolling time back to our past. The internet and the popularity of social media sites provide many kinds of services to its users like helping them connect with people, share opinions and life experiences with likeminded people, stay in touch with friends and colleagues; they also allowed users to create groups, a.k.a. ‘clubs’, that share same interests, hobbies, education, situation, whether past or present.

During 2020 and 2021, nostalgia was everywhere and it all made sense: the time was right to long for the past and relive happy memories while we were stuck at home pondering our situation and hoping everything became ‘normal’ again; it made its way into every walk of our life, from our wardrobes to our music, from our recipes to our television selections, from vintage classic car to stores we used to shop at, from Woodstock to the golden age of Hollywood and ‘Gone with the wind’, family Christmases at home with our pet dog; it  made us more optimistic for the future, happier despite it all through this ‘blast from the past’. Social media and its groups had seen our wishes, needs and expectations, and it was only happy to oblige us by facilitating our membership.

‘Way back when’, today’s boomers didn’t have internet to document their past: memories were made of poorer quality photographs and sound recording; today’s millennials have the benefit of powerful technologies to record their life events to the second in high-definition picture and sound. Nostalgia becomes a warm blanket, a gushy feeling to the downs of life: simpler times, happier lives.

As a finale to this week’s column, I would like to share with you excerpts from a FB post from the group Yesteryears Memories that show how life wasn’t all rosy in yesteryears, accompanied by a collage of yesteryears pics for your enjoyment. See after reading if you are still as nostalgic and sentimental about the past. Enjoy!

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just like you like it, here are some facts from the ‘yesteryears’: most people got married in June because they last took their bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June… However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence, the custom today of carrying a bouquet when you get married!

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water; the man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the sons and men, then the women, and finally the children, last of all the babies. By then, the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it! Hence the saying: ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!’

In the old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire; every day, they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat; they would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight, and then start over the next day. Sometimes, stew had food in it that had been in there for quite a while!

Those with money had plates made of pewter; foods with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death; this happened most often with tomatoes; so tomatoes were consequently considered poisonous. Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky; the combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out cold for a couple of days; someone would take them for dead and prepare them for burial: they were laid on the kitchen table and the family would gather around and eat and drink, and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of ‘holding a wake’!

P.S. Thanks to my friend Terry ‘la-terrible’ for this contribution!

Summer is half over, so are probably your annual vacations; out of necessity, many of us have opted for local or regional destinations this year, either day trips or short stays here, there and everywhere… offering ‘some’ type of attraction, where hotels, restaurants and leisure services are available. Some of these ‘theme’ vacations are kids-oriented, some sports-oriented, water-oriented; whatever-oriented yours are, it’s totally fine and you deserve it! What if I were to suggest an activity that is a multi-combination of art-history-culinary-nature-religion-…? What if I told you it is FREE? What if I added that it is within a 30-minute drive? Well, get your agenda out!

From Hawkesbury and Grenville, head east on Route 148; shortly after the village of Marelan, intersecting Route 148 is Montée Hall which will  bring you to the Half Moon Lake district; follow indications at intersections and you will have reached the Monastery of Virgin Mary Consolatory! Welcome… and as the greeting formula on their internet site says, ‘Come and you shall see!’

If you ever had the opportunity to visit the Trappist monks’ Abbey and Monastery in Oka, your experience will be somewhat comparable, depending of your approach: it may be deeply spiritual, inquisitive in culinary delicacies, appreciative of byzantine art, or strictly a great family visit in a gorgeous natural setting: all of the above are allowed and welcomed, no need to be Greek Orthodox. You are required to dress decently and sacraments are reserved for Orthodox only.

The monastery is the only Greek Orthodox one in Quebec and is under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada; it was founded in 1993. Two nuns came from Macedonia to establish it in rather difficult conditions: 235 acres of dense forest set on a hill in the Laurentians on which stood an old farm and farmhouse were purchased from an English-speaking family with the objective of transforming it into a monastery. The farmland itself was overgrown, the house in ruins: love, sacrifice and hard work, plus new nun recruits and volunteers worked miracles and transformed it into what it is now…although there is much left in the plans to do and to raise funds for! And although prayer still remains their main duty, today’s 24 nuns share many other responsibilities, from sunrise to sunset. The nuns are from various origins but share a common language: greek; they are all dressed in a black robe and their order is semi-cloistered.

Since that the purchase of this property was conditional to being run as an agricultural business, the nun administrators decided to keep the goats that were still roaming the property and to go into the cheese-making business: some of them registered at l’Institut de technique agro-alimentaire de Saint-Hyacinthe in order to get a commercial permit, which they did successfully. And so in 2000 was born the cheese factory, ‘Le Troupeau Bénit’; it produces ten varieties of cheese, their star cheese being their goat feta ‘Fêt’à la Grecque’: but the prototype recipe had to be adjusted many times before they reached the ideal combination: not too salty, not too grainy, with a subtle creamy taste… They also produce pastries, yogurt, ice cream, jams and soaps. Their cheeses, home-grown vegetables and other products are now sold in select IGAs and public markets. These ‘businesses’ are their main source of fundraising in order to finance their expansion projects; from the gigantic structure already in place, it is obvious they have big ambitions for their estate. But from what we witnessed when visiting on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the Greek communities from Quebec and Ontario are taking good care and great pride in their monastery and it will turn out to become a great success! Thank you Sisters for your kind reception!