15:45 - 01.07.05
Bon Fete
I'm certain you noticed how poorly I wrote last night dear diary. Bad spelling, ungrammatical and incomplete sentences/thoughts/descriptions. I have been coming home exhausted the past few days and I'm not certain why. It isn't the job. The last time I had this much fun was back in 2001. I am really enjoying the tasks that are arising from the original assignment. It could be the stress about the cats I suppose and the uncertainty about who is watching and/or intervening in my private life. The whys? It could also be I'm not as fully recovered from the bout of pneumonia as I thought - maybe the weather issues have affected the pace of my recuperation. Normally June is one of the best lunchtime walking months, but it hasn't been possible this year with the deluge we've experienced. I start noon hour yoga classes two days per week on Monday, so maybe that will help somewhat.
My youngest and one of his buddies take Canada Day celebrations very seriously. He headed out early this morning so that they could take in as much as possible. Good on them. I found this article in our capital city's newspaper today really interesting. Another of those stories about how intertwined Canadian and American history was when our borders were a lot more fluid. I wasn't aware that our National Anthem was composed by a French Canadian who had also joined the Union army during the Civil War because of his strong opposition to slavery. The origin of the anthem dated from that time. The saddest thing about the current political climate is the calcification that is starting to become evident between governments with respect to our national boundaries. One of the things that has kept life on this continent healthy, forward-looking and zestful has been the cross fertilization of ideas and values between our citizens based on the free association across the borders. Current legislation that has been imposed over the past few months in both seats of national government has basically removed those freedoms and yet the media has not even whispered about all the published amendments to Canadian law in the Canada Gazette since the beginning of the year. Yesterday, on the way home from work, at the turn into our community, my neighbour and I saw two army helicopters swooping down low and racing for the nearby heliport. In the past I would have reacted with idle curiosity. Yesterday, melodramatic as it sounds, I just felt fear. I hope what I foresee in the future for Canada is wrong. I sometimes wonder if all the bluster in parliament over the same sex bill wasn't just an all party smokescreen for the unanimous support the parties provided to pass all those bits of legislation over several months that Canadians really aren't aware are removing our ability to travel and associate freely with each other. Oh Canada.
I didn't finish my tales of the day yesterday, because I just couldn't keep my eyes open while I was keying last night, so I thought I would finish up while the cats are snoozing and my youngest is out playing. The work afternoon was pretty quiet although my trip out with the one coworker at noon had not gone unnoticed. A couple of other people came and asked for their turn at lunch forays. I guess that means acceptance - right? More visits from the people who were in the dance class too. One had to sit out most of the classes because she had dmamged her knee earlier. I had promised to supply her with some reliable websites that she could visit to research the problem for herself. She doesn't trust the diagnosis she's been given and is frustrated with the lack of specific information given to her about realy basic things such as the structure of the knee joint and how it operates by the caregivers she has visited. She also is overwhelmed by all the available treatments both in terms of knowing which ould best apply to her situation and how to assess them for effectiveness. One of the other dancers just wanted to shoot the breeze a bit. She starts holidays this weekend and won't be back until after the Stampede.
The ride to and from work the past couple of days has been much more comfortable for me dear diary. The neighbour who I ride with is the one married to the male who took on the assistant job during the election then quit the day before the event itself. He had nearly compromised the vote three times in the four weeks he was in that position and only blind luck and the intervention of a couple of the other staff protected us from having to face the possibility of a by election based on those near breaches of the Elections Act. You know, the incident with the nomination papers, the dismissal of a class of workers before they were properly oathed and then the refusal to be present election day and validation day. He claimed he didn't understand what he was doing, but he had had possession of my manual with the daily step by step instructions from the day he began and had made a point of reading it ostensibly whereever there were the most staff to witness it each day. When I called Ottawa to alert them they asked me whether I wanted them to pursue legal means with respect to his behaviour. The pattern with several other incidents that were recorded by me or told or witnessed by other staff who came forward later indicated passive obstruction mostly but active in other times. That is a criminal offense under our laws and can also be extended to be considered sedition if forethought can be proven. At that point I had all I could handle and I wasn't certain whether he had finished being destructive or not. His inside knowledge of the processes involved meant he could have inflicted a great deal of harm election day and beyond.
Early on too, he had brought in a miniature tape recorder for me, saying I should use it to deal with a couple of the destructive people who were trying to disrupt work in the office. I turned it on that first day, when one really serious incident occurred and I needed to discipline one person. When they left the office I destroyed the tape, because to me it was entrapment. I document things like that in several ways and places that are legitimate. I don't need to break the law in order to enforce it. What I didn't know and wondered about when he quit, was if he had placed other listening devices around the office when I wasn't present that would provide him with even more information. As a result, I just asked the lawyer from Ottawa to leave it be for the moment - that I needed to focus on just surviving the election itself. If anything happened to compromise things further then the decision would be driven by that. He understood that and was sympathetic too. Nice guy. He did insist that I appoint someone else right away because of the requirements of the legislation. As you know that assistant is still my number two support.
When his wife asked if I wanted to catch a ride in to work in February I was dubious about her intentions, given that and the phone call I mentioned to you from her son warning me about taking her up on it. However he wouldn't tell me what the purpose was so I accepted, having known and volunteered with his mom for a couple of decades, based on the fact that she had started the process of separation from her spouse around Christmas. In May her husband started insisting that he needed to ride in to work and be picked up every day, because both his other vehicles were broken. Uh huh. Obviously the separation proceedings were halted. Given the political grandstanding going on at that time and the appearance of the imminence of an election call I assumed that he was thinking he could wangle himself back in to the assistant's position despite his behaviour last time. At that point, dear diary, I was still really ill from the pneumonia and likely would not have been able to go to work without the ride. Commuting by transit would have been beyond my strength for at least another couple of weeks. The upshot was that I didn't stop riding with them although some behaviours really bothered me.
There was a manipulation of conversation sometimes that made me uncomfortable. Sometimes about my downtown contract. Sometimes about past volunteer activities or people we had known. Sometimes about political positions. As a Returning Officer charged with administering elections, I am allowed to have any personal opinion I want of course, but I may not take a public stand on any federal issues. Fair game, bias can't be perceived in the process. I sometimes felt the conversations both about political and work issues were of the type lawyers use when they have no case but what their semantics can create. You know the "when did you stop beating your wife, Mr Smith?" question imputing that there was no doubt that Mr Smith had beaten his wife when he had in fact never had. Any response, including silence, would make him appear compromised. However since we were in their car, I didn't worry about it too much because again at least political comments in private are not forbidden. I was always somewhat guarded with any of my comments anyway because of her husband's behaviour and the fact that I have some belief that it is connected with the people who were involved in the municipal voting scandal. Four days ago, on the way to pick up her spouse after work, when she was asking about things to do with election preparation I let slip that I had hired someone else as an assistant. When we reached the place where we pick up her spouse, it was obvious he was barely able to control his anger and he was directing it at me. Made me wonder if they had wired their van for sound. If so what is the purpose of capturing our conversations on tape. The other thing that sometimes concerned me was that the wife was obviously using her access to restricted government databases to research my background as well as that of my family's. A couple of weeks ago she tossed some pages from one of those databases at me and said she could find no evidence of my Dad's family having been in Alberta early in the 1900's.
There is the book Mosquito Creek Roundup published by the local pioneers society that has photos and articles that included the names of some of my relatives in them - objective reporting. One thing I do know is that the census at that time both in the US and Canada was not as thorough as could be either. My Dad' brother - older by 10 years than him - was born during one of my grandparents residences in the US. My grandfather seemed to have started several businesses that crossed the border including real estate ventures and trucking. The family lived wherever it most made sense from a business point of view. When my Uncle was applying to join the RAF during World War II he had to forswear his American citizenship and submit to a firearms investigation by the RCMP, before he could be accepted for training. At that time, the US was not involved in the war and didn't join in until Pearl Harbour occurred, two and a half years into the conflict. Before that the policy had been one of "isolationism". My Uncle's only choice if he wanted to fight appeared to be with the British forces. When my cousin, my uncle's second son applied for residency in the US while he was working there he was told that the record of his father's birth couldn't be found. So even though there is evidence through the RCMP and the RAF he wasn't allowed to stay as a citizen - just on a green card. It hurt his feelings because he loves the community where he worked. As I mentioned in my Canada Day homily, the borders were a lot more fluid then and citizens from both sides regularly moved back and forth to work and establish families. Many like my Dad's parents, moved back and forth more than once to make a living if family legends are correct. If in a fairly well documented situation like this one the paper evidence doesn't exist then the data in the census stats can't be seen as entirely authoritive. Those newspaper clippings and class lists in the history book have to be considered too.
That being said I don't know why the neighbour was intruding and breaking those privacy laws anyway. Last week we were discussing the activities of one of the women who had volunteered with us, probably 15 years ago. We had lost track of her entirely. Two days later the neighbour came back with that woman's whole history since the time she moved out of the community to the present. Makes me wonder what else she does with restricted information, who she tells and why. None of it is legal and it violates the ethics policy of the department she works in. That said I was really grateful that yesterday was our last commute together. She left for university in Montreal this morning. As I noted before, I used my airmiles to book her two days with a rental car as well as tickets for an art museum and movie passes to ensure she has some play time too. When we stopped in at the major food store yesterday I used the gift certificates I had received for helping organize the one event for the Play Day and bought her purchase with it as well as my own. The gift of a ride to work is still valid and greatly appreciated, even though I really am uncomfortable with her other behaviours - the ones I've mentioned today or documented in various posts. In some ways I think I've returned the balance to the relationship by reciprocating in a material sense and I may be wrong about her and her husband's behaviour anyway.
Time to go watch the news though. I'm thinking in retrospect that those army helicopters have something to do with assisting with flod relief and I want to see how celebrations for this Canada Day have gone so far. Talk to you later.
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