My
2023 began well after the
year 2022 had been very bad for me. My younger
brother in England died at
Easter 2022. Covid restrictions remained but I
was able to travel to the
funeral and back - masked. I got a nasty
hernia in June that was able to be checked
on ultra sound in mid-July. But it wasn’t
until early November 2022 that even
the private Shouldice Hernia Hospital could
operate on me. After six painful
weeks of recovery from the hernia operation
were ending an eye retina condition
was diagnosed. Mercifully, I had a first
treatment for that within days. Despite
all this, in my personal life 2022 ended
well with a wonderful gift of a week of
holiday at a resort in the Dominican
Republic with my daughter’s family just before
Christmas. The
year 2023 began very
pleasantly. All of January 2023 was spent in
the sunny warmth of Puerto
Vallarta, Mexico. It a wonderful gift to be
able to go for walks in the open
with warmth and sun and without snow and ice
to get in the way. In March 2023 a
week of birding in Colombia that had been
cancelled by that hernia in 2022
finally took place. By then the worrisome
Covid pandemic was moving from centre
stage. But the 2022 war in Ukraine was into
its second year, and awareness of
other wars returned in 2023 which then brought
new fears to the US, Canada,
Ontario and Toronto. The
war in Ukraine is
scary. Russia is big, has a big army, has
nuclear weapons and challenges the
dominant group of democratic western nations.
The breakdown of the agreement of
the West with Russia and the former Eastern
Europe began in 2014 when Russia
occupied parts of Ukraine. The invasion in
early 2022 aimed to bring Ukraine
into the orbit of Russian influence/control.
By rapid sanctions against Russia
and arms supplies and military training to
Ukraine, that early 2022 invasion
was stalled. But by the end of 2023 Ukraine’s
pushback was also stalled.
Concerns were returning to Europe. The US
Republicans were holding up further
funding to Ukraine. Russia appeared confident
and Putin announced he was
running for another term as President in March
2024. During
2023, as Covid further
slipped from sight, other wars occasionally
surfaced. In Mali, Russian backed
militia sided with an army coop to remove
western influence. France and Canada
had previously played roles there against
Islamic extremists. It became clear
that serious wars in Sudan and Ethiopia were
continuing in the Horn of Africa.
The war that began in 2012 in Syria that has
involved ISIS, Turkey, and Russia
continues albeit less visibly and at a lower
level. The War in Yemen that
involves Houthi rebels supported by Iran,
against a one-time elected government
backed by Saudi Arabia continues. But in
October a serious new war erupted
between Hamas and Israel in Gaza in early
October. This war produced gut
wrenching images of urban landscapes of
devastated and demolished housing and
hospitals and wounded, dead and homeless
Palestinians. Thousands of
Palestinians have died with no end in sight as
2023 ended. Initially this war
was justified as Israel’s right to defend
itself after a Hamas attack. However,
this war has put a floodlight on the impact on
civilians. It is the worst wartime
assault on civilians that the UN has seen. For
me it makes clear that if war
cannot be undertaken without the killing of
large numbers of civilians and
civilian infrastructure, war cannot be
justified. Other ways must be found. The
Israeli use of war here appears to be a
mistake dragging the US with it despite
awareness of the impact on Palestinian
civilians. As
2023 rolled on, events
in the US itself have become ever more
worrisome. The US heads to a November
2024 election with the most popular
Republican, former President Trump, leading
President Biden in the polls. Not only has
Trump been implicated in the
insurrection of January 2020, but he had
conviction and in serious law suits against
him with trials still playing out. In few
countries could a person with such a
criminal history run for election at any level
of government. The year-end
Atlantic magazine had an array of articles
featuring the areas of disaster that
a re-elected Trump portends. The Republican
party has already shown itself
capable of falling in behind such a person.
Moreover, that party is now able to
extract concessions from President Biden in
order to approve any financial
measures tied to US involvement in the
conflicts under way. On a
very different
front, at the beginning of June 2023, a
record-breaking season of wildfires in
Canada was beginning. For the first time we
smelled fear of fires. The skies
had a disquieting foggy and yellowish look at
the family cottage as well as the
smell in the air. My wife and I rushed out and
managed to buy a plug-in air
purifier for the small cottage. The smoke from
the huge fire in Quebec spread
to New York city. Those fires went on until
the end of September. Other huge
fires begin near Fort Nelson. They died down
in August and resumed in
October!
But there were yet other major
fires. On average 2.5 million hectares of
forest burn in Canada each year. In
2023, 18.4 million hectares burned. That is
over 7 times the average and they
covered a huge area. As well as Canadian
fires, July and August was a summer of
extreme heat and fires in several parts of
Europe. All of this brought the
reality of global warming and climate change
to many people and brought the significance
of continuing to use of fossil fuels home. Meanwhile,
in Spring 2023
Charles III was crowned king in the UK with
medieval pageantry and old and new church
music that many listeners in Toronto found
interesting. Post pandemic issues of
housing and affordability of housing and food
came to media attention. There
are heath care problems with frozen payments
for nurses in Ontario, and staff
shortages for hospitals and scarcity of family
doctors nationwide. The Bank of
Canada announced successive rises in interest
rates to respond to the inflation
caused by price increases. The national crisis
in the use of toxic drugs kept
emerging in media towards year’s end with
reports of families losing their young
adults to overdoses. A range of aboriginal
peoples’ issues kept rising to the
newsrooms - from drinking water to missing
girls and women. Homelessness became
a big issue in Toronto as winter approached
and that plus shortage of housing
began to provoke questions about the number of
immigrants and foreign students
and workers allowed to enter the country. On
the national political
level, Prime Minister Trudeau announced an
amicable family separation that media
treated with some respect. Conservative leader
Pierre Poilievre visibly changed
his image and style and ran a successful ad
campaign cross country accusing
Trudeau of the housing shortages, homelessness
and all other economic woes.
Conservatives passed the Liberals in the
polls, but remained mainly silent on
any response to the climate change issue and
related use of oil and gas. The
Globe & Mail noted in one of its year-end
editorials that he has yet to
reveal indications of being a responsible
leader. An
election at the end of
May in Alberta re-elected the United
Conservatives led by Danielle Smith with a
reduced majority. She has since suspended the
growth of the renewable energy
sector developments on the grounds of a need
to have measures for the eventual
take down and replacement of wind turbines and
solar panels – presumably much
as there should be some way for the closure of
unused oil wells and cleaning up
tar sand extraction wastes. She has taken
greater political control of
healthcare, a previous administrator who had
led vaccination mandates in
Alberta was sidelined from a job, and there
was shading back of information
previously used on the effectiveness of flus
and Covid vaccines that has been
linked to fewer Albertans getting vaccinated.
There have been soundings on
taking Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan.
Many seem to be ideas imported
directly from Republican US states. In
Ontario in mid 2023
reports emerged of the designation of use of
Green Belt lands for housing in a
way that appeared to have given certain owners
of lands preference. Happily,
this ended with a reversal of the use of green
belt lands. However, the
development of a new motorway connection that
will chew up more farmland while offering
very little benefit to most Ontario drivers is
going ahead. On the energy front
Ontario moved ahead with plans to meet
projected greater electricity needs with
new nuclear reactors and new plants burning
natural gas. For the most part that
means burning fracked gas for Western Canada
and the US.) The
cost-effective alternative of wind, water
and solar with storage that I have helped to
promote has been ignored. In
opposition, the Conservatives had encouraged
rural public resistance of wind
power when the Liberals ran Ontario. However,
the need to move from fossil
fuels is becoming stronger and the economic
benefit of wind water solar with
storage clearer.
As year-end approached
and opposition from smaller towns to new
plants to burn fracked gas for
electricity grew, indications
emerged
that the Ontario government may now be open to
at least some forms of wind
power that the previous Liberals had not
pursued – offshore in lake Ontario. In
early December the UN climate conference COP28
ended up in Dubai with an
inadequate outcome but some small
pluses. For the first time, the final
agreement includes text on “transitioning
away” from fossil fuels. Recognizing
this is positive, but it is not a rapid fossil
fuel phase-out that the forest
fire smoke and the scientists call
for. Although all countries are called
to triple their use of renewable energy, the
language allows ways out and
provide no agreed way to finance the change.
There is now a Loss & Damage
Fund to help countries most harmed by climate
change but the first
contributions, $700 million US is much less
than the trillions needed to build
back from unavoidable harm now faced. On
another small positive
note, in the city of Toronto, Mayor John Tory
resigned over an affair with a
staffer. In the election, Olivia Chow, a
previous runner up and New Democrat
was elected. By year end she has visibly faced
the need to respond to homelessness
people and called out the federal
responsibility for refugees amongst the
homeless. She has also followed her concern to
get the finances of the city
sorted out in serious sets of discussions with
Federal and Provincial
governments. Some deal was reached for Ontario
to pick up the responsibility
and tab for the major arterial roads into and
out of Toronto like the Gardiner
Expressway in return for her silence on some
controversial moves of the Ford
government like the redevelopment of Ontario
Place that includes a private spa
resort. There are fears that the economic
plight of the city has led her to over
compromise with Premier Ford. However, it may
be desirable that she is open to
any and all means to make Toronto financially
sustainable. My pension nervously
awaits the city property tax share for 2024. In
sum, as 2023 ends I
worry about Trump retuning to some form of
autocratic rule in the US, worry
about the fate of Ukraine and the ability of
any state like Russia to just take
over other countries for their convenience and
interest. I fear some terrible
end from the destruction and carnage in Gaza.
I fear non-ending wars and
endless refugees. I have concerns about the
demise of a healthcare system for
all that is based on need. I have concern for
the shortage of housing and its costs
which can only make homelessness rise. I worry
about living in a city that is
broke with Mayor Chow forced to compromise
with the Provincial government in
inappropriate
ways to keep it afloat. But
I can still
look forward to the ten-day trip to warm
places to bird in January and the
six-week trip to Mexico to relearn some
Spanish in February and early March. A
worrisome life right now appears preferable to
some alternatives.