Mambo Taxi

Friday's citizenship ceremony was a reasonably banal exercise in officialdom (not High Officialdom, but certainly not minimal either). The judge was the same man who presided over melted_snowball's citizenship last year. There were 48 New Canadians, from 20 countries. Unlike d's, there was no one from Iran or Afghanistan. The judge spoke at length about the importance of being citizens. Karen Redman, the MP for the downtown area (but not for us), spoke and handed out our citizenship packets.

They gave us pins celebrating this being Canada's 60th year of citizenship. That still catches me; 61 years ago, Canadians were all British subjects.

Because some of the new citizens were from part of La Francophonie (Senegal?), we affirmed our Citizenship in both English and French. Apparently they only do the French during an English-language ceremony at the judge's discretion, plus they have less frequent French-language ceremonies as well.

In case you're curious: the Oath of Citizenship goes like so: "I affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfill my duties as a Canadian citizen." "J'affirme solennellement que je serai fidèle et porterai sincère allégeance à Sa Majesté la Reine Elizabeth Deux, Reine du Canada, à ses héritiers et successeurs, que j'observerai fidèlement les lois du Canada et que je remplirai loyalement mes obligations de citoyen canadien."

My parents took us out to lunch downtown, and my mom said she wants to go see a US Citizenship ceremony to compare. We expected that it would invoke the flag more, and likely involve a metal-detector.

On the whole, the ceremony was less of a big deal than graduation, but more of a big deal than turning 30. For me, the real big deal was Friday night, when we had something like 30 or 35 people here for the party!

What a lot of fun, from start to end. The only real disappointment was not having enough time to spend with everyone- it felt like a very short 5 or so hours to me!

Our old neighbours David and Lesley (and kids L. and A.) came. ..We'd really like them to be happy in Toronto, but we're doing our best to influence them to move back here. David's first comment was, "So this means that if you've sworn allegiance to the Queen, if we badmouth her, you have to beat us up?" Um, no. But since we're pacifists, must we have someone else beat them up? This led to the question of who at the party had actually sworn allegiance, versus being born in Canada or moving here as a kid. I've done a quick run-through of people at the party, and unless I'm mistaken, I think the only people who have declared citizenship were Karl, Jennifer, and Dan, all three of us Quakers. Huh. So I wonder whether there were any other declared Canadian citizens at the party?

You lot didn't drink as much as we expected. I am terribly terribly disappointed. Also, my parents weren't scandalized, though I don't know where they were during the Cleavage-Off that eventually went on in the living-room. Heh, I think I was talking to my Mom then, as she was trying to figure out who she'd just been talking to. My parents were both convinced I have great friends, and I'm certainly inclined to agree. If you were there and I didn't introduce you to my parents, I'm very sorry- I had tried to make that work.

What a great way to end the party; chilling with about fifteen of you LJ lot in the living-room, complete with back rubs and mellow conversation. Have I mentioned recently how grateful I am to have friends like you folk?

And additionally, a public thanks for all your party contributions.

Notable at the moment: fuzzpsych's record album whose title (and soon, image) are at top of this post. :)

I'm official.

Now, time for a nap.

I went to the Citizenship office this morning and learned that I'm not gonna become official in the next three weeks. The officiant for June hasn't booked his ceremony-dates yet, so they haven't scheduled our ceremonies yet. I might learn this week. Maybe.

I suppose this was a good use of 45 minutes of my time, because my parents were worried about some dates in May, and originally there might've been the chance it would happen while dan was away or the day he came back!

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In passing, I'd like to note that I would happily trade in the part of my sinuses sensitive to air-pressure changes. The fun started a few years ago, and has gotten slightly more pronounced over time. I'm not ecstatic about the superhero trait of being able to tell when it's gonna rain that day even if the paper weather says it won't.

The recent UN report on climate change released in Paris last week seems to be affecting Canadian politics much more strongly than those in the US, though I was interested to see that the NYT article on that report is currently their most emailed and blogged story. But not so for a few other papers I just looked at, namely the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the LA Times. (Chosen somewhat unscientifically).

It's frustrating that this seems to be an "elitist issue" as much as ever in the US; and the Associated Press seems to be casting the report as a French statement, highlighting Chirac's statements, when the Canadian papers (Globe and Mail, Toronto Star) are casting it as an international coalition of scientists, as it seems to be from looking at the actual report.

Anyway, the environtment and advance notice about this report has been front-and-centre on the Globe and Mail for the last two weeks, and according to their reader polls, Canadians have plunked Climate Change at (or near) the top of their list of governmental priorities. This has made for an interesting political football, since the current minority government was elected on a platform of not particularly caring about the environment, including proposing to pull out of the Kyoto Agreement, and now Harper is scared of not looking green enough.

I liked an article I read in yesterday's Globe and Mail. It showed up in the Business section of all places. I think the author hit the essentials that politicians should consider, for the near and long term.

I would love to send something like the following to federal, provincial, and local representatives. (A major problem is that I can't vote here at all, so the first paragraph is disingenuous, at least for the time being).

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Yesterday's Globe and Mail had an article by Eric Reguly with five suggestions for a Canadian response to climate change. These are great ideas, and I would sincerely like to be able to vote for whoever was able to make all of them happen.

• The first point is essentially that increasing gas taxes would be political suicide. Instead, mandate increased product standards. We should be using the technology we have. Mandated standards would push development of better technologies.
  
  The remaining four points are excerpts from the article:
  
  
• Rail, not roads: Canada was built on the railway. It's time to recreate it. Shipping by truck emits five to eight times as much greenhouse gas per tonne of freight than rail. Shifting the freight onto rail for medium- to long-haul routes would work wonders for the environment, for highway safety and for infrastructure maintenance budgets; it is trucks, not cars, that do the most damage to roads.
  
  
• There isn't a road built on the planet that cured traffic congestion. They're highly skilled at achieving the opposite. Keep the maintenance budget and axe the capital budgets for construction. In the latest fiscal year alone, Ontario's construction budget was $1.4-billion, up from $1-billion in 2002. Imagine if that money were put into public transportation.
  
  
• Insulate homes: Mr. Harper's Tories killed the EnerGuide program, which paid for home energy audits and reimbursed owners for the cost of better insulation, more efficient furnaces and the like. Realizing their mistake, they have just launched a program inspired by EnerGuide. But it's not ambitious. An ambitious program would retrofit all of Canada's 1.6 million or so low-income households. At, say, $5,000 a pop, the bill would come to about $8-billion.
  
  
  
• Kill ethanol: In Canada and the United States, ethanol, the fuel additive made from corn, consumes vast amounts of taxpayer subsidies. If ethanol were the miracle cure for greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels, the expense might be worthwhile. But, at best, the environmental benefits are inconclusive. It would be far better to divert Canada's hundreds of millions of dollars of ethanol subsidies to technologies of proven environmental benefit.
  
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  I can't say I disagree with any of these, and I'm glad to see them appearing in the Business section of the more conservative national paper. [ETA: hm, not sure why I just thought the G&M was more conservative than the Post. Must've been thinking of the Star? Donno.]
  
  The complete article is behind the globe and mail's paid subscriber wall. The rest of the article is mostly lightweight. But give a shout if you want a copy.
  
  I wish I thought the Canadian government were sincere about making real change. But, even more, I wish that citizens in both the US and Canada had the political will to elect politicians to make real change. I don't think that's there yet really, in either country. (In a month, will climate change be replaced here by Quebec as the biggest issue facing the nation? Or US relations? Sigh.)

After my post yesterday, I was miffed to discover this morning that I can't apply for citizenship yet, after all.

Math error. Arrrrgh!

I got through being grumpy, though, and now I'm mostly a bit amused at my inability to add.

( Warning, arithmetic problem ahead )

'fraid I don't have any good closing to this post. But I figured I'd give y'all a nice big bowl of schadenfreude. Mmmmmm.... schadenfreude...