Dear Mr Clement,
As a constituent of the Muskoka – Perry Sound riding, my emails are no stranger to your inbox, nor vice versa. During the parliamentary dispute last fall, email traffic between myself, my father (Doug Winter, of South River) and your office was certainly heated, though I would think also informed and honest. While I make no secret of the fact that I disagree, often vehemently, with the policies and practices of the Conservative government, I would like to offer belated thanks for your up-front attitude in answering my questions.
I hope you will be so straight forward in your answer to another, far more important issue. This issue is not partisan, for it takes not sides but that of greed. This issue is of grave concern to our resource rich environment, as well as the future of Canada the mosaic as we know it. This issue is the Alberta Tar Sands, the largest industrial project on the planet, and the most disgusting stain on our country’s honour. This project is directly responsible for producing more greenhouse gasses than all of Austria. It is a quagmire of toxic lakes and steam-baked earth larger than England. The continued support by your government of this, one of the world’s most heinous climate crimes must stop, and it must stop now.
As a full time cross country ski athlete and aspiring Vancouver Olympian, I see the damage of climate change every winter. People are holding their breath, hoping that Whistler gets enough snow to run all the events. Race sites across Europe are pushed higher and higher into the mountains in pursuit of snow, if not cancelled outright. I can attest to the hotter, dryer summers; it's now nearly impossible to train during July and August unless it's early in the morning or late at night. Searing heat waves kill in summer, massive storms and deep freezes kill in winter. The fact that our climate is in distress can no longer be contested. All that can is what we are going to do about it.
Canada used to be a world leader. We had a reputation as a peacekeeping, socially forward and environmentally conscious nation. Our culture of inclusiveness and understanding was the face we presented to the world. We prided ourselves on these things, and yet we have let them slip away. The Tar Sands are the embodiment of the values we seem to have reversed. First Nations treaty agreements are constantly thrown aside as meaningless to make room for more open pits. Oil companies continue to dictate to us what demand should be, toying with gas prices like a spiteful kid with a yoyo. This is only driving us closer and closer to violent conflict over a resource that should by now be obsolete. The obvious dangers of run away climate change are hastened with every three-story shovel scoop of oil-blackened earth. This is the face we now present to the world; that of a country bent to the will of an outdated industry, a country that treats its most historic citizens as refugees, and a country that values a quick buck over a sustainable future.
The upcoming climate conference in Copenhagen offers a chance to reverse this trend, to bring back some of the respect that Canada has lost in recent decades. You can start by publicly taking the pledge to change at http://www.kyotoplus.ca/en/pledge.html. I urge you and the Conservative government, in the strongest possible terms, to find the mettle necessary to stop acquiescing to Big Oil. Make the stand that Canadians want you to make, to stand for what we used to believe in. Show yourselves to be true climate leaders, and Climate Leaders Don’t Buy Tar Sands.
Yours truly, Jesse Winter
Monday, September 21, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Going Home
Travel in Canada is an odd thing, especially when you do it as much as athletes like I do. It’s a lot of repetition, doing things over and over; the same cabin interior, the same airports, the same crowded airport Starbucks.
The flight from Calgary was uneventful, save for the fact that it almost didn’t happen. I think I’m getting just a little too good at cutting things close. Those last few minutes of sleep almost cost me a few hundred dollars. I’ve always been mildly amused watching other folks barrel frantically through the corridors, luggage flailing, only to stand in impotent frustration in the security line. Hurry up and wait isn’t so funny when it’s happening to you. The security guard waves me through, but stops me short for a moment. He grins as he reads my tee shirt, with its skeleton highland piper and Dropkick Murphys lyrics. “Nice to see a fellow fan,” he says.
“Sing loud, sing proud, man” I reply, also grinning as I grab my backpack and dash off to my next obstacle.
I arrive at the gate just as the last passenger is boarding. The gate attendant and I share a moment of awkward silence as I rummage through my stuff for my boarding pass. I manage to find it and hand it over. The attendant checks my ID, saying, “Oh good, you’re the one we were waiting for.” I begin to stumble over two or three apologies at once, but she just laughs and says, “Enjoy the flight, Mr Winter.” I take my seat half way through the in-flight safety demonstration that no one really pays attention to anyway, and I’m fast asleep by the time we reach cruising altitude on the way to my stopover in Toronto.
Another gate, another boarding pass. The woman behind the counter raises her eyebrow in surprise.
“I’m sorry sir, this aircraft is bound for Vancouver.”
“It is? But I’m…at the wrong gate.” I shake my head ruefully, the woman behind the counter smiles accommodatingly. I’ve done this all before; sat at the same bar eating the same misspelled Sicillian Panini and drinking the same overpriced beer while waiting for a flight. I had finished my meal and walked mistakenly on autopilot to the adjacent gate from which I have boarded so many flights bound for Thunder Bay. Curses to the airport for changing their gate schedule on me. I head back to the bar, casually wondering if it’s acceptable for me to ask the bartender to watch my stuff while I run to the washroom…after all, Never Leave Your Luggage Unattended. Still, he seems like an all right guy, and it’s pretty quiet right now.
“Of course, buddy…no worries, just remember to tip well.” He grins, his thick Italian accent matching his pressed black shirt and bouquet of heavy rings to a tee. His friendly wink is a reassuring glimmer of humanity amidst the chaos of beeping metal detectors, disembodied boarding calls and throngs of travel weary people.
As the plane climbs smoothly up through the broken clouds over Toronto, I am struck, as always, by the immensity of cities like this. As a kid, I can remember driving to The Big City with my parents for the weekend. Back then you passed Canada’s Wonderland about forty minutes before hitting Toronto…now you hit Toronto about forty minutes before Canada’s Wonderland. The lake where I grew up, once quiet, is now churned incessantly by the pleasure craft southern Ontario’s elite as The Muskokas are pushed further north by an ever-expanding suburbia. Cottage Country may be getting closer, but at least my parents’ house is worth more now. I imagine present day South River, the town where I grew up, as having a close resemblance to the Canmore of the 60’s and 70’s, before the 1988 Olympics and the tourism boom, just a hotel and a gas station on a highway. Granted, Canmore has the mountains, but South River, as the crooked sign proudly extols, is ‘The Gateway to Algonquin Park’. After a few days in Thunder Bay to visit old friends and help my brother set up his new digs, it will be nice to head back to South River with my parents to visit my old high school, do some sponsor hunting and have a few days of much needed relaxation by the lake, before braving the chaos of Pearson International a second time for my flight back to Calgary. A break away from skiing is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I can almost hear the static-choked CBC Radio One that is the soundtrack to my childhood playing in my parents’ kitchen.
Despite my last minute check-in, my duffel somehow made it through the gauntlet of the Calgary airport baggage services and repeated this impressive feat again in Toronto to immerge onto the conveyer belt in Thunder Bay at the exact moment that I arrived to claim. A baggage handler in an orange jump suit steps from behind a door to hand me my pole tube. “Ski poles?” he asks.
“Uh, yeah…thought most people usually guess fishing rod,” I reply.
“There are a lot of you skiers here in Thunder Bay,” he says. “You hear for training camp?”
“Nope, just visiting old team mates,” I say.
“Well, have a good one.” With that, he’s gone back through the door, the howl of jet engines sinking to a dull hum as the door shuts behind him.
People often complain about air travel, about how exhausting and inhumane it can be. As an athlete who usually travels with fourteen pairs of skis for weeks on end, I have had my share of horrendous experiences over the years. Those awful stories of forty plus hours of travel, of lost and broken luggage, or narrowly missed flights go really well with friends and a pint of beer. However, it’s the simple examples of kind people along the way that stand out most to me, the kind that are so common in Canmore. Maybe that’s why I love my new mountain home as much as my old Algonquin one.
On the mountain, as in life, it’s good to know that everywhere, there are other people out there who always ride the high line.
The flight from Calgary was uneventful, save for the fact that it almost didn’t happen. I think I’m getting just a little too good at cutting things close. Those last few minutes of sleep almost cost me a few hundred dollars. I’ve always been mildly amused watching other folks barrel frantically through the corridors, luggage flailing, only to stand in impotent frustration in the security line. Hurry up and wait isn’t so funny when it’s happening to you. The security guard waves me through, but stops me short for a moment. He grins as he reads my tee shirt, with its skeleton highland piper and Dropkick Murphys lyrics. “Nice to see a fellow fan,” he says.
“Sing loud, sing proud, man” I reply, also grinning as I grab my backpack and dash off to my next obstacle.
I arrive at the gate just as the last passenger is boarding. The gate attendant and I share a moment of awkward silence as I rummage through my stuff for my boarding pass. I manage to find it and hand it over. The attendant checks my ID, saying, “Oh good, you’re the one we were waiting for.” I begin to stumble over two or three apologies at once, but she just laughs and says, “Enjoy the flight, Mr Winter.” I take my seat half way through the in-flight safety demonstration that no one really pays attention to anyway, and I’m fast asleep by the time we reach cruising altitude on the way to my stopover in Toronto.
Another gate, another boarding pass. The woman behind the counter raises her eyebrow in surprise.
“I’m sorry sir, this aircraft is bound for Vancouver.”
“It is? But I’m…at the wrong gate.” I shake my head ruefully, the woman behind the counter smiles accommodatingly. I’ve done this all before; sat at the same bar eating the same misspelled Sicillian Panini and drinking the same overpriced beer while waiting for a flight. I had finished my meal and walked mistakenly on autopilot to the adjacent gate from which I have boarded so many flights bound for Thunder Bay. Curses to the airport for changing their gate schedule on me. I head back to the bar, casually wondering if it’s acceptable for me to ask the bartender to watch my stuff while I run to the washroom…after all, Never Leave Your Luggage Unattended. Still, he seems like an all right guy, and it’s pretty quiet right now.
“Of course, buddy…no worries, just remember to tip well.” He grins, his thick Italian accent matching his pressed black shirt and bouquet of heavy rings to a tee. His friendly wink is a reassuring glimmer of humanity amidst the chaos of beeping metal detectors, disembodied boarding calls and throngs of travel weary people.
As the plane climbs smoothly up through the broken clouds over Toronto, I am struck, as always, by the immensity of cities like this. As a kid, I can remember driving to The Big City with my parents for the weekend. Back then you passed Canada’s Wonderland about forty minutes before hitting Toronto…now you hit Toronto about forty minutes before Canada’s Wonderland. The lake where I grew up, once quiet, is now churned incessantly by the pleasure craft southern Ontario’s elite as The Muskokas are pushed further north by an ever-expanding suburbia. Cottage Country may be getting closer, but at least my parents’ house is worth more now. I imagine present day South River, the town where I grew up, as having a close resemblance to the Canmore of the 60’s and 70’s, before the 1988 Olympics and the tourism boom, just a hotel and a gas station on a highway. Granted, Canmore has the mountains, but South River, as the crooked sign proudly extols, is ‘The Gateway to Algonquin Park’. After a few days in Thunder Bay to visit old friends and help my brother set up his new digs, it will be nice to head back to South River with my parents to visit my old high school, do some sponsor hunting and have a few days of much needed relaxation by the lake, before braving the chaos of Pearson International a second time for my flight back to Calgary. A break away from skiing is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I can almost hear the static-choked CBC Radio One that is the soundtrack to my childhood playing in my parents’ kitchen.
Despite my last minute check-in, my duffel somehow made it through the gauntlet of the Calgary airport baggage services and repeated this impressive feat again in Toronto to immerge onto the conveyer belt in Thunder Bay at the exact moment that I arrived to claim. A baggage handler in an orange jump suit steps from behind a door to hand me my pole tube. “Ski poles?” he asks.
“Uh, yeah…thought most people usually guess fishing rod,” I reply.
“There are a lot of you skiers here in Thunder Bay,” he says. “You hear for training camp?”
“Nope, just visiting old team mates,” I say.
“Well, have a good one.” With that, he’s gone back through the door, the howl of jet engines sinking to a dull hum as the door shuts behind him.
People often complain about air travel, about how exhausting and inhumane it can be. As an athlete who usually travels with fourteen pairs of skis for weeks on end, I have had my share of horrendous experiences over the years. Those awful stories of forty plus hours of travel, of lost and broken luggage, or narrowly missed flights go really well with friends and a pint of beer. However, it’s the simple examples of kind people along the way that stand out most to me, the kind that are so common in Canmore. Maybe that’s why I love my new mountain home as much as my old Algonquin one.
On the mountain, as in life, it’s good to know that everywhere, there are other people out there who always ride the high line.
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