QUARTERLY MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2017 - Canadian News and … … · Readiness Study of Canadian...

THE CYBERSECURITY ISSUE

QUARTERLY MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2017

Experts point to key gaps in knowledge

CONTENTSSEPTEMBER 2017 | CYBERSECURITY EDITION

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10 12

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As Canada prepares for cyber reset, experts point to key gaps in knowledge

Liberals look ready for small business tax changes fight

If Scheer wants to stay leader, he has to knock Trudeau down to a minority: Strategists

Canada’s looming cannabis supply crunch

Northern homecoming 15

5Preventing the next billion-dollar cybersecurity breach

CONTENTS

25What does it mean to call yourself a conservative these days?

30War of words:O Canada lyrics

28An insider’s look at Pierre Trudeau’s tough times with Alberta

32A job in bloom

24Reaching for the next Canadarm

IPOLITICS MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2017 1

Last month, the U.S. president’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) issued a

firecracker report assessing what can and should be done to prepare for a cyberattack on the scale of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed more than 3,000 people. What it found was nothing new: many of the key challenges in cyberspace are well-documented. Experts know, more often than they do not, where the holes are. They even know what should be done to start filling them, though most acknowledge their ideas are by no means definitive. They are starting points in the race to close the gaps. The report lays out exactly that.

Where it stands out is in tone, in a willingness to condemn the status quo of just studying cybersecurity and wave a red flag urging policy makers to actually do something to start fixing it — before it is too late.“There is a narrow and fleeting window of opportunity before a watershed, 9/11-level cyberattack to organize effectively and take bold action. We call on the administration to use this moment of foresight to take bold, decisive actions,” the council wrote.“The time to act is now. As a nation, we need to move past simply studying our cybersecurity challenges and begin taking meaningful steps to improve our cybersecurity to prevent a major debilitating cyberattack.”

The words may be aimed at condemnation of the American status quo, but they could just as easily reflect the challenges facing Canada today.While experts have been sounding the alarm over the need for stronger and more collaborative cyber infrastructure for years, the last 12 months have brought malicious attacks to the forefront of the public consciousness.Wikileaks released the CIA’s treasure trove of hacking how-tos in March. Shadow Brokers released similar data on the NSA in April. In May, hackers broke into the emails of now-French president Emmanuel Macron two days before the election and dumped the contents online. That same month, the WannaCry attack walloped the globe and crippled National Health Service facilities in the United Kingdom.And that doesn’t even include the hacking cluster$&@ during the 2016 American presidential campaign.“We’re generally underprepared,” said Stephanie Carvin, assistant professor of international relations

AS CANADA PREPARES FOR CYBER RESET, EXPERTS POINT TO KEY GAPS IN KNOWLEDGEBY AMANDA CONNOLLY

“We believe the U.S. government and private sector collectively have the tremendous cyber capabilities and resources needed to defend critical private systems from aggressive cyber attacks—provided they are properly organized, harnessed, and focused. Today, we’re falling short.”

AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

2 IPOLITICS MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2017

at Carleton University and a specialist in cybersecurity. “The threat is actually becoming more and more sophisticated. We saw that this year.”In Canada, large-scale malicious attacks have been relatively rare. However, data indicates that Canadian companies are increasingly finding themselves targeted.According to the 2017 Cybersecurity Readiness Study of Canadian Organizations by security firm Scalar Decisions, the number of organizations reporting a breach that resulted in the loss or exposure of sensitive information has increased 46 per cent since 2014.Of the 658 IT and IT Canadian security professionals surveyed for the study, 79 per cent said their anti-virus or anti-intrusion systems had failed to prevent the attack. Only 34 per cent said they believe their organizations are winning the war against hackers, down from 41 per cent in 2014.Despite that, experts say one of the biggest challenges is getting those who are hacked to share their data with others — and that leaves critical infrastructure vulnerable.“If we don’t know what someone else knows and how they chose to protect themselves, we’re creating a vulnerability where we don’t have to have one,” said Satyamoorthy Kabilan, director of national security and strategic foresight at the Conference Board of Canada.Under Canadian law, companies are required to disclose breaches of their systems when an individual’s personal information and privacy is compromised.That data then goes to the privacy commissioner, but if there is no indication that consumer privacy has been breached, there is no duty to disclose in the first place.The question then becomes, how do you get companies — especially those whose holdings make up part of Canada’s critical infrastructure

network — to volunteer that information?Kabilan says the reluctance often comes from a number of factors: fear of how stakeholders might react, concern about a loss of confidence in their services and a lack of trust about what will happen to the information and their brand if they do come forward.“Part of it is who do you trust in this space. What is going to happen to information?” he said. “It is very difficult to get people around to this idea that it is in all of our benefit, and that’s why it’s actually good that we do have organizations like CCTX.”CCTX, or the Canadian Cyber Threat Exchange, is an independent, not-for-profit organization that launched in December 2016. It aims to act as a sort of clearing house where companies can disclose details of attacks and trust the information will be anonymized before being analyzed and shared.The goal is to begin filling in the gaps and help paint a clearer picture of the threats facing Canadian cyberspace and critical infrastructure right now.Those tend to revolve around three core areas of vulnerability: to attacks, to espionage and to crime.As it stands, the systems most often named as potentially catastrophic targets are Canadian power grids and health care systems, along with the financial sector.There are tie-ins between those, however, and any attack on something like a power grid would have devastating consequences stretching to everything from how people can pay for goods and services with electronic payment systems, whether emergency service vehicles can refuel at gas stations, to whether doctors can access the records of a patient in need of urgent surgery.“When something goes wrong, almost every other infrastructure

will be affected in the sense that if it goes down, gas stations will go down, trucks will not arrive at hospitals, the patient will not have the medicines,” said Ali Ghorbani, the Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity at the University of New Brunswick. “You see that cascade is enormous in terms of effects deep down into the society.”With the vast majority of Canadian critical infrastructure held in private hands, the question facing the government as it works to craft a new cybersecurity strategy is what role it can — or should — play in fostering a stronger cyber landscape.The former government’s Action Plan for Critical Infrastructure expires at the end of 2017. The last cybersecurity strategy came out in 2010 with its associated action plan expiring in 2015.Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale launched cybersecurity consultations last summer as part of a two-pronged outreach effort aimed at reshaping Canadian national security policy — the other being consultations on national security more broadly.While the results of the consultations culminated in the announcement of Bill C-59, which will both overhaul and build from scratch many of the core foundations of Canadian national security, experts are still watching and waiting for the government to announce a new strategy for tackling cybersecurity.Some have speculated it could be out by this spring, but the government is not confirming any timeline for its release.“Work on a renewed cyber strategy is on-going,” said Scott Bardsley, press secretary for Goodale.Experts say they are watching carefully and hoping that strategy will craft a plan that finds a balance between what the private sector is best suited to do and what the government can do to shape and encourage overall industry or market conditions.

AS CANADA PREPARES FOR CYBER RESET, EXPERTS POINT TO KEY GAPS IN KNOWLEDGE


One of the challenges remains the rapid-fire evolution of cyber threats, and the difficulties that means for efforts to set clear standards for best behaviour.“What’s interesting is that industry would love for the government to say yes, tell us what to do. And I think Public Safety Canada, which is in charge of putting this out, is like well, that changes,” said Carvin. “They don’t want to set a standard because that standard might be irrelevant in six months. It’s not like when you’re building a building and you say, we need it to be earthquake-proof up to this amount. The systems that people use change so frequently and the threat changes fairly rapidly that to have certain cyber standards, that doesn’t seem to be the way to go.”Some have suggested that rather than focusing on setting regulations, government could have a role to play in fostering conditions for firms to begin offering cyber

insurance as a way to encourage companies and individuals to up their game and meet certain minimum security standards.Carvin and Kabilan both agree the legislative crawl of government makes it ill-suited to actually set those standards. And while cyber insurance might be a viable option it also brings with it a conundrum: how to you assess risk without the full picture of the threat environment?“I think that certainly holds a certain amount of promise but we’re also stuck with one of the problems that goes back to information sharing,” said Kabilan. “To be able to get a good pricing on insurance requires you to understand the risk. Right now what we don’t understand so well is the risks involved in cybersecurity and this lack of information. So yes, insurance and the way we set up cyber insurance could potentially be used as a way

to encourage better cyber security. But at the same time, the risks and the levels that are set are in a rather vague environment where we don’t quite know the true risks.”Carvin noted similar concerns, but said she is optimistic the government will take a sound approach to revamping Canadian cybersecurity — whenever the new strategy is unveiled.“One of the things I would say is the government has been pretty slow to create security policies but when it does, they’re pretty robust,” she said.She pointed to the focus on cyber in both the Defence Policy Review and C-59, which effectively seek to weaponize the Communications Security Establishment for cyber warfare.“I’m hopeful it will be more than just a hollow pamphlet.”

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AS CANADA PREPARES FOR CYBER RESET, EXPERTS POINT TO KEY GAPS IN KNOWLEDGE


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When I was moving the Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) program from

the White House to the U.S. General Services Administration back in 2013, one of the big challenges facing us was a checklist-style security assessment that — by

design — happened quite late in the process.The PIF program brings entrepreneurs and innovators into government for 12 months and pairs them with top civil servants to tackle complex issues. Fellows work in agile sprint cycles, delivering results — most often in the form of

working code — every 30 days.In the U.S. government, the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requires that certain criteria be met before any bit of code can be released. For the Fellows to move beyond development into real testing with users — a critical principle of human-centred design — their code had to be FISMA-certified.Complicating matters, our agency had outsourced certification to an IT vendor with a starting price-per-

PREVENTING THE NEXT BILLION-DOLLAR CYBERSECURITY BREACH

BY LENA TRUDEAU

Canada risks missing out on an enormous opportunity

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward


certification in the mid-five figure range. With IT projects that follow a sequential process of design-build-test-deploy-maintain that takes years to complete and produces systems and applications that are considered ‘done,’ you might think that would make sense.(Actually, it doesn’t. The data show that the operations and maintenance portion of IT budgets hide a surprising amount of development funding, just to keep legacy systems operating. But that’s the subject of another article.)In today’s world of rapid prototyping and continuous deployment, where code is released much more frequently in response to user feedback, the model quickly becomes not only cost-prohibitive but unworkable. If we needed a third-party assessment for every single iteration of our code, we’d fail before we even got started. I’ll

come back to that a bit later.I’m not a cybersecurity expert. I’m not a security expert of any kind. That’s very important to know, or else the experts reading this article will be very upset with me. Or worse, non-experts will start to think this whole security thing isn’t quite as complex as it’s made out to be. That would be terrible.“The definition of genius,” Albert Einstein once said, “is taking the complex and making it simple.” I don’t know that we’ll get all the way to ‘simple,’ especially on this subject. But as a digital practitioner who has worked hand-in-hand with security professionals for years, I do hope to demystify the subject a little. In doing so, I hope to offer a few thoughts on how we can be better prepared as a nation for the threats and opportunities that lie ahead.There are a few basic security

concepts that everyone should know, so I’ll attempt to explain. At its core, cybersecurity is about ensuring your networks, systems and data maintain availability, integrity and confidentiality. In other words, all your information and the hardware and software on which it is stored, processed and transferred must be available when needed only to those with legitimate access, and no one else. And the information must remain complete, accurate and uncorrupted. Make sense?When you layer in all of the physical and virtual assets of a large organization, with their associated supply chains and external systems, it gets a little more complex. Then you have to consider policy and regulatory compliance requirements that must be met, logged and audited. And that’s all before you’ve thrown human behaviour — benign and

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otherwise — into the mix.In an environment of rapidly changing technology, let’s just agree that it’s hard. And yet there are leading practices we can look to and adopt.But why (you might ask) is cybersecurity so important?Security breaches are costly. By the National Research Council’s own estimates, the 2014 Chinese exploitation of the NRC network did damage totalling hundreds of millions of dollars. Thankfully, few incidents reach quite that level — but the data is still sobering. A 2017 study by the Ponemon Institute cited the average cost of a data breach in Canada at $5.78 million.Just as troubling are Ponemon’s estimates of how long it takes organizations to determine they’ve had a breach (an average of 191 days) and how long it takes to contain one (an average of 66 days). That gives bad actors a huge window to exploit your systems and information, and to infiltrate the networks of your partners and suppliers.These events have an enormous impact on the people whose data have been stolen. During my service in the U.S. government, I was the lucky recipient of free credit monitoring services — thanks to one of the largest breaches of government data in U.S. history. The personal information of an estimated 21.5 million people was stolen, including the personnel files of every federal employee, security-related background check information and fingerprints. Anyone who has doubts about how seriously I treat security issues can rest assured — I take this stuff personally.When citizens see their governments failing to safeguard their most sensitive personal data, they lose faith in the effectiveness of their institutions and the people who lead them. Customers can walk away from a business that doesn’t serve them well — but citizens can’t

disengage from their governments. The result is cynicism, mistrust of government and ultimately, deterioration in civil society.Threats to our national and international infrastructure are also escalating. A report by McAfee, a cybersecurity company, puts the annual global impact of cybercrime at US$375 billion to $575 billion.If that number seems exaggerated, this example should prove it isn’t:More than 200,000 people in Kiev, Ukraine were plunged into winter cold and darkness when Russian hackers targeted the electrical grid in retaliation for Ukraine’s defense of its own territory. Maybe you think this couldn’t happen in Canada, but a Canadian Security Intelligence Service report came to the conclusion that most utilities operate similar systems and are equally vulnerable.For what it’s worth, Canada also risks missing out on an enormous opportunity. Earlier this year, the online technology firm Quid (supported by Bloomberg) published a list of the top 50 most promising startups. All 50 had been founded within the last six years. The top sector (measured by capital raised) was ‘Online Security & Fraud Detection’. It saw nearly double the amount of investment as the next sector listed ($273.6 million, versus $145.8 million). With our skilled workforce and commitments to investing in technology-driven startups, we should be doubling down.There are lessons to be learned from how we chose to build cybersecurity into our delivery process from the U.S. government — first with the PIF program, and then with 18F and other digital services.First lesson: Understand the specific requirements of the relevant laws, regulations and policies. And also understand their intent. Many of these documents were crafted years ago and don’t reflect what modern approaches and technologies can

do. Most allow flexibility in how you get to the right outcomes.Second lesson: Partner with your chief information security officer. If your CISO is anything like mine was, they’re trying very hard to keep the organization and its data safe in a highly regulated environment, with outdated tools and a pretty lean team. Bring a security team member into your project and involve them from the earliest design stages. If you’re the CISO, partner with your program and service delivery teams. Collaboration is viral — you only need to get it started.Third lesson: Adopt agile methods. Experiment. Test what works. Don’t wait to fail — do it early, when it’s cheap and low-impact, and results in crucial learning that you can integrate into your process. Do it late, and it’s expensive and hard to salvage.Fourth lesson: Invest in learning and training. New tools allow for new levels of situational awareness. Adopt them. Dynamic security models have emerged, like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation framework. 18F has produced templates and security guidelines that support agile development. Those are only two examples; a quick search will produce many more.One of the fellows — Dr. Robert Read — took the FISMA documentation home with him one weekend. He returned on Monday ready to work with our CISO and security team to devise a process that would build security into our work at the front end. The goal was to create the conditions that would make the checklist unnecessary — to make the systems and processes themselves FISMA compliant, so that they guaranteed compliant outcomes.This turned out to be the first step in implementing security by design, which enabled the team to innovate in a lower-cost, more secure environment.Who doesn’t want that?



Two years ago, with the federal election just over five weeks away, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau took

a straightforward question from CBC News’ Peter Mansbridge about the small business tax rate and made a surprising pivot.Small businesses should be paying less tax, he told the network’s chief correspondent — but only provided they actually are small businesses.“A large percentage of small businesses are actually just ways for wealthier Canadians to save on their taxes, and we want to reward the people who are actually creating jobs and contributing in concrete ways.”

The umbrage that followed was predictable. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was incredulous that someone running to be prime minister could think a large percentage of Canadian businesses were tax scams.“As the largest small business group in Canada, we see no evidence that the small business rate is being used by so-called wealthier Canadians to save on their taxes,” Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, chimed in.In the din of a campaign now best remembered for its nasty foray into identity politics, the anger over Trudeau’s small business language

dissipated, even as the Liberals’ platform, released weeks later, fleshed out their plans.Few guessed there was a serious prospect of the Liberals forming a majority government, and there were already far shinier commitments to consider — marijuana legalization, electoral reform and billions of deficit spending on infrastructure.“We will ensure that Canadian Controlled Private Corporation (CCPC) status is not used to reduce personal income tax obligations for high-income earners rather than supporting small businesses,” the platform explained.“Michael Wolfson from the University of Ottawa estimates that approximately $500 million per year is lost, particularly as high-income individuals use CCPC status as an income splitting tool.”Little more was heard on the subject until the 2017 federal budget, which raised it in a section on closing tax loopholes.Then, on July 18, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced the government’s “next steps in improving fairness in the tax system by closing loopholes and addressing tax planning strategies,” launching a consultation and releasing a 60-plus page discussion paper that anticipated three main changes.One would address income sprinkling, where high income individuals divert income to

LIKE IN 2015 CAMPAIGN, LIBERALS LOOK READY FOR SMALL BUSINESS TAX CHANGES FIGHTBY BJ SIEKIERSKI

CBC News screenshot. CBC News’ Peter Mansbridge in an interview with Justin Trudeau.


family members with little or no taxable income, another would tackle passive investment income (an individual holding money in a corporation rather than investing it and thereby deferring taxation), while a third would deal with the conversion of regular CCPC income into lower-taxed capital gains.

How much revenue the federal government expected to gain from implementing all three changes wasn’t clear. The department of finance estimated $250 million from the income sprinkling changes, but said it was premature to estimate the fiscal impact of neutralizing “the tax-assisted financial advantages of investing passively.”Nor could it determine the fiscal impact of preventing the conversion of surplus income into capital gains “based on currently

available information.”

On October 2, Morneau’s consultation ends. Unlike during the federal election campaign, however, the pushback hasn’t been perfunctory.

Perrin Beatty, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, has called the proposal “the most radical tax changes in 50 years” and Kelly has said in his 23 years of lobbying for small firms, he’s never seen as much anger toward any government policy.

Granger Avery, president of the Canadian Medical Association, told The Globe and Mail the changes would disproportionately hurt female physicians with children.

“For a government that professes to support equality and feminism, this is particularly disappointing,” he said.

Op-ed pages have been full of fury: doctors threatening to leave the country, tax lawyers and accountants braying about unfairness and “class warfare.” Even farmers, an increasing number of which have incorporated since the early 2000s, have raised concerns.

Conservative MPs have entered the fray by declaring they’ll do all they can to “fight the Liberal attack on small business.”

On August 29, Deputy Conservative Leader Lisa Raitt encouraged her Twitter followers

to start using the hashtag: #unfairtaxchanges.

When the House returns this month, it’s shaping up to be one of the more contentious policy debates.

On the government’s side, many economists, including Wolfson and Kevin Milligan from the University of British Columbia, have called out what they feel are mischaracterizations of the proposed changes.

“A key principle of good tax design is neutrality — the tax system should not favour one form of organizing economic activity over another. If the tax system is pushing people to incorporate when they otherwise wouldn’t that is inefficient,” Milligan wrote in Maclean’s shortly after the finance department published the consultation paper in July.

But the Liberals know a fierce fight is coming.

At the end of August, Morneau took to Twitter to mount his own defence of what’s looking like more of a fait accompli than a consultation.

“Our proposals are targeted only at specific loopholes. Most #smallbiz won’t be affected. Look for yourself,” he tweeted, adding the link to the consultation paper.

Just as Trudeau dug his heels in during the 2015 campaign, there’s no indication at this point that the Liberals are going to back off.

“We are committed to evidence-based policies and I will make no apologies for that,” Trudeau told reporters after the Mansbridge interview aired.

“There are a number of studies out there. Some have shown upwards of 50 per cent where it’s high net worth individuals who incorporate, professionals for example, who actually use it to avoid paying as high taxes as they otherwise would.”

Dan Kelly. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Finance Minister Bill Morneau. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

LIKE IN 2015 CAMPAIGN, LIBERALS LOOK READY FOR SMALL BUSINESS TAX CHANGES FIGHT


Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer will have to knock Justin Trudeau’s government down to a minority in the 2019 federal election if he

is to remain at the helm of the party, Conservative strategists say.According to Summa Strategies Vice-chairman Tim Powers, it’s up to Scheer — who was elected to lead the Conservatives in May, narrowly edging out libertarian candidate Maxime Bernier — to set the bar for his own success. So far he hasn’t done that, “which is smart.”“He hasn’t yet said ‘I’m for certain going to win the 2019 election’ or any of those things. In fact he’s played the expectations game pretty well,” said Powers.“He is continuing to focus on making it about Justin Trudeau losing, as opposed to Andrew Scheer winning – that Justin Trudeau is running against Justin Trudeau.”He believes Scheer will want to figure out how he defines his agenda so that if he does not win the next election — which Powers said is likely — he can maintain the confidence of his fellow Conservatives.“I suspect that to be in a position to stay on, he’s going to have to increase the Conservative seat total. A real win … an acceptable bar would be at least holding the Liberals to a minority and anything after that he’d be jumping over a bar,” Powers said.Susan Elliott, a strategist with Catalyst Management and Communications, agrees pushing Trudeau to a minority is enough for Scheer to hold on.“We – and not just Conservatives, also the Liberals – have had a disturbing trend in the last number of years of allowing leaders only one kick at the can and then, if not successful, turfing them,” she said.

IF SCHEER WANTS TO STAY LEADER, HE HAS TO KNOCK TRUDEAU DOWN TO A MINORITY: STRATEGISTSBY JANICE DICKSON

Andrew Scheer. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn


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Elliot pointed to 2004 when Stephen Harper lost the election but managed to push the Liberals back to a minority.“The party allowed Harper to continue on. I think Scheer would also benefit from that grace, assuming he has shown himself to be a capable leader – which we are assuming he has, if he can push Trudeau to a minority.”While Conservatives find Trudeau to be “incapable” as a prime minister, Elliott concedes they understand that he’s popular.“Scheer will be expected to punch holes in that image. Assuming he performs well, he’ll be given a second chance.”Saro Khatchadourian, a senior consultant at Environics Communications who recently left his position as a senior communications officer in the office of the leader of the Official

Opposition, agrees that reducing the Liberals to a minority would be good news for Scheer. Anything less and the Conservatives will be looking at alternatives.“Vote margin is a key metric to look at when determining the future of a political party leader, but there are others, such as coalition-building and alternative leadership, that factor in as well,” said Khatchadourian.“Did Mr. Scheer successfully lead the growth of the conservative coalition, while also engaging the base? If not, are there obvious alternative candidates out there to take the reins?”Those are the questions and calculations Conservative party executives will make post-election as they chart the path forward.All that said, Khatchadourian doesn’t have an alternative leader in mind.

“After a long campaign, stars emerge or plummet, caucus members may rally around someone else, and perhaps there is a clear alternative waiting in the wings,” he said. “(But) often there isn’t.”

Powers said the flip side of all of this is that if the Liberals have a bigger seat count in 2019 than they do now, Scheer will be in trouble. For now, he thinks Scheer is doing all the right things, characterizing his leadership in early days as “very responsible.”

“He’s begun to build relationships with key leaders in the Conservative party across the country. He’s tried to build a narrative for the broader public around who he is: a family guy, an average guy, a middle class guy, you know, borrowing a little bit from Harper.”

IF SCHEER WANTS TO STAY LEADER, HE HAS TO KNOCK TRUDEAU DOWN TO A MINORITY: STRATEGISTS


Almost immediately after the state of Colorado legalized marijuana in January 2014, it had a supply problem.

Long lines stretched outside and around the buildings of pot shops. In the first day alone, the state reportedly sold some $1 million worth of product.Andrew Freedman, Colorado’s first director of marijuana coordination – “pot czar” – said the state only had a few licensees up and running on day one.“Our initial economic forecasts were off,” he said in an interview with iPolitics. “We expected a very quick shift from the medical market to the recreational market. In retrospect, it was going to be pretty obvious that it was going to take a couple years for the recreational market to mature.”That recreational market ended up taking over a half a year to mature. In the interim, prices swung widely. According to The Daily Mail, one shop was reportedly charging US$70 for one-eighth of an ounce of high quality pot by the end of Colorado’s first day of legalization – the same amount of medical marijuana cost US$25.“The adult use market were tourists — curious people — who wanted to buy … as an experience. But there was a premium price on the adult use market. Over time, when more and more licensees came on, the price dropped precipitously and became kind of in parity with medical marijuana,” Freedman explained.

He said it’s closer to $10/12 an ounce now – down from the $20/$30 an ounce price range in the early days.Some worry that something similar will happen in Canada once legalization takes effect in July 2018. That group would include Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa, who said a supply crunch was top of mind when finance ministers met in June.“Ultimately, the biggest problem that appears after today’s discussion is one of supply,” he told Bloomberg.Demand is already high for medical marijuana, with about 170,000 patients. That’s growing at a rate of about 10 per cent a month, according to Health Canada. The country has experienced shortages in that market despite there being 56 marijuana companies licensed to produce.For the government, a shortage of legal marijuana could lead to recreational consumers sticking with their current illegal dealers, thereby undermining the Liberals’ goal of eliminating black market profits. If the supply problem isn’t addressed properly, it could be a bumpy ride for consumers in 2018 — and possibly for the Liberals in the 2019 federal election campaign.Well aware of a possible supply shortage, however, medical marijuana companies have been busy ramping up their production capacity. Earlier this year, Health Canada announced new measures to help boost the number of

licensed producers (LP) and allow current producers to expand more quickly.In July, an official from Aurora Cannabis said it’s going to be a rush to build up as much capacity as possible before the adult recreational market opens up. While some suppliers are publicly confident there will be enough supply, other experts and market watchers have predicted the dreaded shortage.Health Canada is currently crunching numbers on survey results from the spring so it can assess the current cannabis market and draw up a market estimate. Others already have. The Parliamentary Budget Officer’s (PBO) projections for 2018 suggest between 3.4 million and 6 million Canadians will consume cannabis by 2021, with that number possibly being as high as 7 million.In the first year of legalization, the PBO projects Canadians will consume between 378 and 1,017 metric tonnes of cannabis, with a mid-point estimate of 655 metric tonnes. A 2016 Deloitte study suggested supplying the low end estimate of recreational market demand would require producing more than 600 metric tonnes a year. In fiscal year 2015/2016, Canadian LPs produced just over 10 metric tonnes of dried marijuana (although quarterly production has been since ramping up).Andrew Balfour, an Ottawa-based cannabis lobbyist, suggested trying to calculate what the pot demand

CANADA’S LOOMING CANNABIS SUPPLY CRUNCH

BY KYLE DUGGAN


will be is a difficult task, but an initial shortage won’t become a political problem unless it persists.“I think people in the early days will be forgiving,” he said. “But it’s something that’ll have to be fixed immediately.”If the roll out is bungled, there could be an opportunity for the opposition.“Moving into 2019, they [the Liberals] don’t want that, so they need to make sure they can do it seamlessly.”Another cannabis industry lobbyist and well-known Tory insider, Will Stewart said it’s not clear to him whether a shortage will become a political problem, but there’s “certainly, by all indications, going to be a production shortage once legalization hits.”“There will be a supply shortage at the beginning of the legal recreational world. That will cause a problem for people looking to move to the legal space.”“But as we saw with alcohol and the end of prohibition, the illegal guys continued to operate until such a point as customers chose the legal one versus the illegal one. As that starts to happen, hopefully production keeps pace with that type of change.”If there’s a major or protracted supply crunch, that could come back on the Liberals, who would likely then turn to industry and say they need to keep pace with demand.“The Liberals may take some heat

for it, but I think they’ll also be able to claim success,” Stewart said. “As additional production facilities continue to get bigger, new ones come on stream and people are growing more, you’ll see the uptick in production coming out the other end.“As people move into the legal market, by definition that’s people moving from the black market – even if there are supply shortages.”As for government coffers, those would immediately be seeing green from something that’s been outright banned, albeit not much initially.Some are already arguing a looming supply problem deserves a policy response. JB Hydroponics, a Netherlands-based manufacturer which makes cannabis growing equipment, submitted a brief to the House health committee warning that if all of Canada’s cannabis users immediately tried to legally obtain marijuana, supply shortages would emerge in the first few weeks. For that reason, it said the government should introduce new funding for cannabis start-ups.Brad Poulos, a Ryerson University business professor and cannabis expert, said he doesn’t expect an initial legal-market shortage to be a serious problem because “right now, the consumer of cannabis is relatively well-served” by the black market.“It’s not like they’re going to underestimate demand and there won’t be enough. This is going to be a supply-limited industry for a couple of years ... depending on how

quickly [the government] brings out licensed producers and how quickly they expand their capacity.”While he said there’s “absolutely no way” that they’ll be fully ready on day one, it’s also not realistic to think that LPs can just charge whatever they want. People will just go to the current neighbourhood dealers instead.Poulos said the one concern he has with limited supply is that if the current bill isn’t designed properly, a legal shortage could also affect medical patients.“If the government doesn’t put medical way in front of adult use in terms of priority of delivery for licensed producers, you could have LPs choosing to serve the adult use market and running out of product for the medical folks. That would be a real tragedy.”The Liberals’ cannabis legalization Bill C-45 is currently at second reading stage. By all indications, Stewart said legalization looks to be on track for July 2018 – unless the Senate drags its heels on the bill.When Canada does press the big, green start button on pot legalization, Freedman said patience should be key. He cautioned that it’s “more important to adhere to public health and public safety standards than to meet initial supply and demand.”“I would set expectations right now that it won’t be a fully supplied market on day one. It will probably be quite far from that.”

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick.


A voyage by sea to the edge of the nation brings the past to life

BY HOLLY LAKE

NORTHERN HOMECOMING

North Arm, Saglek Fjord. Photo by Holly Lake.


NORTHERN HOMECOMING

The first ever concert held in Torngat Mountains National Park was in a natural stone amphitheatre by the shore in Ramah. C3 Photo by Jackie Dives.

Gustav Semigak was born in Hebron in 1956 and forced out with everyone else in 1959. Since 2003, he’s returned every summer to work on restoring the mission building. Photo by Holly Lake.

Inuit elder Sophie Keelan in Hebron, Nunatsiavut. C3 Photo by Jackie Dives.

Torngats Base Camp. C3 Photo by Jackie Dives.

When you set out on a trip, you can plan and prepare all you want. Often, however, you really have no idea where a journey will take you.

The C3 expedition, which is travelling from coast to coast to coast over 150 days to mark Canada 150, was certainly no exception.As part of leg six, we set out from Nain in northern Labrador in late July, with a course charted to take us up the Labrador coast through Torngat Mountains National Park, arriving in Iqaluit a week later.I grew up in Churchill Falls, Labrador, but had never been to the coast. I’d been trying to find a way to visit the Torngats for years ... no small feat for a park so remote it can’t be approached by land by most of us — only by water and air. As part of C3, I was excited to learn about the stories this part of the Big Land (as Labrador is often called) had to tell, and to share them.I had no doubt I was going to be left in awe by the land’s beauty. What I didn’t expect was to be awed by my own ignorance along the way — or that it would become clear in the most quiet and graceful of ways.

Sophie Keelan came aboard our ship as we anchored in Hebron in Nunatsiavut, a self-governing Inuit region. It was the second day of the expedition and, as we did every morning, we gathered in the former helicopter hanger on the top deck of the MV Polar Prince to talk about the day ahead.For Keelan, coming home was a deeply emotional experience.She was 11 when her family was forced from Hebron on “the big ship.” The Trepassey took her and her family away from everything and everyone they knew. She was born on Rose Island, now part of Torngat Mountains National Park. She pointed it out to me days later as we sailed by, chatting on the stern rail about her ancestors who had lived and hunted here for thousands of years.“They were connected to the land from generation to generation,” Keelan said.Like them, her family had lived on the land until Moravian missionaries told them — and others — that their children would have to start school when they were five.A Protestant religious sect in Germany, the Moravians were tasked by the British Crown in the 1700s with settling northern Labrador and providing missionary services to the Inuit.


NORTHERN HOMECOMING

Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, in Hebron, Nunatsiavut. C3 Photo by Jackie Dives.

MV Polar Prince in Saglek Fjord. C3 Photo by Jackie Dives.

Shaun Majumder. C3 Photo by Peter Wall.


NORTHERN HOMECOMING

One of several icebergs bobbing in Ramah Bay in late July. Photo by Holly Lake. Hebron from the top of the Mission building. Photo by Holly Lake.

They established Hebron in 1830.“We were living an Inuit, nomadic lifestyle at the time,” Keelan said. “But we had to move to the community of Hebron. We started school in 1953. The threat was, as the missionaries told our parents, ‘If you don’t bring your children to school, we will cut off your family allowance (from the government).’”She only has fond memories of her time there — particularly Christmas and Easter.“That was special to us. We would get Christmas toys from Canada,” she said. “They would air-drop toys and candies at the time.”In 1959, however, the missionaries gathered people in the church to tell them they had to move again. The Mission, the Grenfell Association and the provincial government had come to a decision: It was too expensive to carry on in Hebron. The Inuit who called it home were not consulted.“It was a big shock. People were forcefully relocated,” Keelan said. “Later on in the years I understood that the missionaries met with the Inuit men only. There were no women or children.”There was a community hall nearby where people could have gathered. Many feel that’s where the meeting should have been held.“Inuit had a fear of god and in the church there was not to be any argument,” Keelan said. “That’s

why they cornered the men in the church. They knew they wouldn’t talk back.”It was an underhanded, hurtful betrayal by the church that had brought them to Hebron in the first place.That was April. Come August, all 300 people and 58 families would have to be gone. By all accounts, the locals weren’t even kept informed on how it would happen.“People who were out camping on the coast of Labrador (in the summer), they didn’t know the Inuit were being moved out from the community,” Keelan says, noting some returned to Hebron only to find that people were mostly gone.“I remember my father’s uncle, he wrote a note to his son because he was out on the land. He said in the letter that we are being moved out.”Keelan was with her mother and sister they day they had to leave. No one wanted to go.“I remember being transported to the ship. A lot of the women started crying as we were motoring out from the bay of Hebron until they had their very last sight of their community, when it was very, very small. They all cried,” she said. “We cried too as kids because our mothers were crying. We had no more choice.”People were moved to Nain, Hopedale, Makkovik, North West

River and Goose Bay — and families weren’t always kept together.“We were split up,” Keelan said. “My aunts and uncles moved to Nain. We went to Makkovik. At the time, if people had a motorboat, they had to move on their own, bring their hunting equipment. They weren’t allowed to get on the ship with their hunting equipment.”There wasn’t much in the way of assistance for those being uprooted. Nor was there much waiting on the other end. Residents would soon come to learn they’d been pushed out of their homes by broken promises.“They promised us housing. When we arrived in Makkovik there was nothing,” Keelan said of her family — parents, sister, brother and uncle. “We had to live in a tent from August to December until they finished. It started snowing in September and October. It was a hard time.”Some people were told their houses would be moved with them from Hebron, which also turned out to be untrue. They went south without the ability to get new jobs or the skills to be successful in their new communities. Torn from their traditional hunting grounds and unfamiliar with their new land, many struggled to survive. Some died. Many went hungry. More were forever changed.“We were treated like dogs,” Keelan said.


NORTHERN HOMECOMING

Dinner anchored at Base Camp. Photo by Holly Lake. North Arm, Saglek Fjord. C3 Photo by Peter Wall.

The experience undoubtably changed her as well. She was angry at the government for a long time, until an apology came that was decades in the making.But it would be hard to tell today. The warmest and gentlest of souls, Keelan has a calm, steady presence about her. She doesn’t hold back from telling those she meets that she loves them — or from doling out hugs.“I’ve finished being angry,” she said quietly. “In the past the people treated us like we had no voice. What ever happens in your lifetime, you can’t forget it. It’s not a treasure.“But I’ve done a lot of healing in the past and a lot of my emotions had come out by talking about it. Part of healing is talking.”

What happened in Hebron is, of course, a symbol for a much larger story — one that came to involve the infamous residential school system for many Indigenous Canadians. The uprooted families of the region had never wanted to leave in the first place and they’d always wanted to come back — a forlorn hope that never materialized, says Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national organization that represents Canada’s 60,000 Inuit.“Over time that hope has been

replaced with a sorrow for the fact that it is gone,” he said when we went ashore in Hebron.Standing in the restored church of the mission building, Obed, who was also our shipmate, said the decisions made here were made in part because Canada did not accept Indigenous peoples as equals with self-determination.“We were in many ways wards of the state. Decisions were made for us. That’s why our lands weren’t considered our lands.”And yet, the hills all around Hebron are filled with the footprints of his ancestors. He says he’s “moved by those who’ve come before me.” They were among those forced out of the community, including his father. His uncle gave speeches as the first group of residents left; Obed named his youngest son after him.“I wanted that association and I wanted that strength in him.”By the 1970s, the Inuit started working towards self-government. In 1977, the Labrador Inuit Association filed a statement of claim with the federal government seeking rights to the “land and sea ice in Northern Labrador.” Efforts to settle the claim spanned three decades, but it became a reality in December of 2005, with the signing of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement.That agreement saw Nunatsiavut

become the first of the Inuit regions in Canada to achieve self-government and created Torngat Mountains National Park, which is co-managed by Inuit and Parks Canada.“What you see here is incredible strength in the face of adversity,” Obed said. “We have persevered.”Today, 35 per cent of this country is co-managed by Inuit through constitutionally-protected land claim agreements. That includes 50 per cent of Canada’s coastline — a fact of which a good many Canadians may not even be aware.“Unfortunately our socioeconomic status lags far behind Canadians,” Obed said. “Social equity should be for all Canadians, not just some Canadians. Without social equality for Inuit then we haven’t built the country as we should.“One society does not have to dominate another for them both to thrive.”At the national level, his organization and others are trying to tell their story and engage with Canadians — to help them see that they’re a part of the solution too. It’s a conversation he’s excited to have.“It’s not that we don’t want to be Canadian or forget our past,” Obed told us at the church. “We just want to create a new path. Inuit are proud of where they come from and want to share it with the world.”

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No one is prouder than Gustav Semigak. Born in Hebron in 1956 and forced out with everyone else in 1959, he grew up in Hopedale, Labrador. Since 2003, he’s been back to visit his birthplace every year from June through to the fall, working on the Nunatsiavut government’s project to restore the sprawling, two-storey Mission building, including the church where he and Keelan were baptized. The winters waiting are long, he said, as he itches to return every year.“I’m home. It’s where I was born. I’d like to die here, but that won’t happen.” He said he’d settle for being buried here.“All the people that are older than I am, they enjoyed life here,” Semigak said as we made our way through the segregated German and Inuit graveyards.”They worked together. They

moved together. They hunted together. I think if we were still living here we’d still be doing that. There are more animals here than in the South. Anything you would need is here.”He first returned in 1999 for a reunion 40 years after the relocation. Because Inuit had been dispersed throughout a number of communities, it was the first time many had seen each other since they’d left. At that time there were 176 people from the relocation still living. Today, he estimates only 40 per cent of those people may still be alive.“So we’re going down. We have lost of history already and there is more coming. It’s sad.”But one brick at a time, he and Levi Noah Nochasak, along with a small number of workers, have been painstakingly bringing that history back to life. They’re the lucky ones,

Semigak said, as plenty of others would love the chance to get back.They’ve removed every brick and are scraping each one clean before putting them back in the Mission building. There are thousands of them, as evidenced by the piles that dot the building’s perimeter.“Sometimes you almost dream about them,” he said with a grin.The first year was the hardest — taking the rotten wood out the church and rest of the building. When the new lumber arrived, their group of seven spent two weeks lugging it from the beach to the church. They had a four-wheeler, but it was tearing up the grounds in the process. It’s been hard work, but he enjoys it.“It’s very important (to restore), especially for my family, my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents. If they were alive, they’d be really proud of me


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for what I’m doing. Levi’s father is alive and is really proud of him,” Semigak said. “So I’m proud of myself that I’m doing something to a place where I was baptized and born.“It’s in my heart. It’s in me. I have to do it. I want to do it. And I think we’re doing a good job.”He’s keen to finish what he’s started, but said it could be another 10 years before the work is done. There were four of them working on the Mission building this summer, but at times both money and labour are in short supply.His wife was spending her second summer in Hebron this year; his son Johannes was working there also, learning the ropes so his dad can one day hand things off and retire.“I’m very happy to follow in his footsteps as a carpenter,” Johannes said. “I’ll be glad to take over.”

Even for him, arriving in Hebron was a powerful, emotional experience.“I started crying when we saw the land. I couldn’t stop until we hit the land. I hugged my father,” he said. “It hurt me and felt good at the same time. I love it. I don’t want to leave now. I’ve seen the spot where he was baptized. We’re going to finish (renovating) the house where he was born. Then it will feel more like home to me.”As we made our way through the mission building’s many rooms and long hallways, taking stock of the work that’s been done, Semigak said he’s always grateful when people come visit, especially when they have questions. Once the restoration is complete, tourists will be able to come and stay.“I love showing people around,” he said proudly. “Anybody is welcome here, any time.”

He’s a part of Hebron’s story and a critical part of writing its next chapter. Once he’s done sharing stories from his elders, people leave knowing more than they did when they arrived. I certainly did.

As for the Torngats, they are, of course, magnificent and majestic. In the many photos I’ve seen of them over the years, they often looked fake — like a special effect. It was no different in real life, but that didn’t stop me from snapping hundreds myself in an attempt to capture what lay before me.I still don’t have the words to do justice to what we saw in the North Arm of Saglek Fjord, where we hiked to the clearest glacial lake, still as glass and surrounded by towering rock walls. Back on the beach where we’d landed, Keelan cooked us a feast of bannock and Arctic char.


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In Ramah we attended the first concert in the park — in a natural stone amphitheatre by the shore, surrounded by peaks nearly 3,000 feet high. We’d occasionally feel a cool breeze coming off the three gigantic icebergs that glistened in the sun and bobbed in the turquoise water nearby.World-renowned harmonica player Mike Stevens performed that day alongside the Twin Flames, Madeleine Allakariallak, Sylvia Cloutier and Rose Cousins. He said it’s the only place he’s ever visited where music seemed insignificant.“The power of the land is playing already.”Then there was our visit to the Ramah chert quarries, the only place in the world where the distinctive translucent stone is found. We soared to the top of fjord ridges in a helicopter to reach the national historic site. The sunsets, the skies, the polar bears, the waterfalls, the canyons, the night we went ashore at base camp for a bonfire, when there was not a breath of wind on the bay ... I don’t know if I’ve been to a more beautiful place in my life.Even Keelan, who calls this spiritual place home, said she can’t describe how beautiful and amazing it is.Early on in our journey, Gary Baikie, superintendent of the park, told us while the landscapes are spectacular, they’re not the full story.“It’s part of the story. But not the story. The story is the Inuit story,” he said. “The park is committed to having people tell their own stories. It’s not about making people feel guilty. It’s about sharing.”There’s power in that. I came away stunned not only by the beauty of this land, but by how little I knew about the experience of others in my own backyard.As a journalist, I know the impact stories can have. But crossing paths with Keelan and her cousin John Jararuse, and hearing these soft-spoken elders talk about their experience, has driven that point home.

We hear a lot these days about reconciliation and how Indigenous people have been wronged. It’s one thing to hear about it or read about it. It’s another to sit and talk to someone who has lived it. This isn’t history. This is happening now and here, and there is hurt to get past and healing to be done. I thought I knew and understood. I didn’t.I have come away from this journey forever changed, my eyes opened. And it came about in the most understated way. Someone asked Obed why the experiences his people have suffered haven’t left a legacy of simmering anger. He told us Inuit have their own way of seeing the world and interacting with one another; they were raised to respect others and aren’t swift to rage.“Most Canadians don’t know about what people here have experienced. There’s no point in getting angry,” he said.Once this ship sails through Canada’s north, however, and finishes its 150-day voyage in Victoria in October, I’m convinced more Canadians will know. In addition to staff and scientists, there are 25 people from all walks of life — politicians, writers, journalists, students, artists, doctors — on each of the 15 legs of the trip, sharing my experiences and adding their own.Take, for example, the experience of one of our shipmates — comedian and actor Shaun Majumder of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. He said that even though he grew up in Newfoundland, he came on this voyage knowing nothing of the land’s special history.“The Labrador Inuit and the Nunatsiavut story — I didn’t know anything about it.”But he came away with a desire to understand more. That’s in no small part thanks to Obed, his roommate on board. An odd pair at the outset, they formed a great bond, with Majumder coming to refer to him good-naturedly as the ‘Inuit Prince’.“The path to reconciliation has to be one of a conversation

and a dialogue, not just feeling overwhelmed that you, as a non-Indigenous person, owe a lot of people apologies. That’s a heavy negative and no one wants to feel that,” Majumder said.“We have a past in Canada and we can’t ignore it. But I am now armed. My head is filled up with a perspective. This has shifted my viewpoint, my world view. This is the beginning of my new appreciation and understanding of the story.”Geoff Green, our expedition leader and founder of Students on Ice, said he’s learned over the years that ships can be the greatest classrooms on earth. Not only can they take people to remote locations, they can bring them together in a dynamic and transformative environment.“On reconciliation, I feel like we’re going to help get to that turning point and turn the corner. It’s going to take all kinds of efforts, but this one I feel could be a real contributor to moving us on that voyage,” he said. “It’s going to connect a lot of people and when you connect people, it leads to great things.”Majumder agreed.“There are a lot of stories that are going to come from this trip and there’s a lot of media. The more who talk about it and keep the conversation going and bring that different perspective that we developed from this journey, the more impact it’s going to have,” he said. “This is a legacy trip and I’m honoured to have been a part of it.”Our time on what we ended up calling the “ship of reconciliation” was just the beginning of our journey as ambassadors. It’s incredible the difference a week can make. When I set out on the C3 expedition, I didn’t expect my time at sea would end up showing me my home in a whole new light. We can’t unlearn what this experience has taught us — and as we mark Canada 150, I think that’s certainly something worth celebrating.

NORTHERN HOMECOMING


Remember the Canadarm? It’s time to reach even further.The Canadians Space

Agency (CSA) is opening the gate wide open to new ideas for Canadian contributions to missions near the moon, known as cislunar space, which will serve as a stepping stone for missions to Mars.The further you go from Earth, the more changes in gravity and radiation can threaten human health, necessitating more scientific research on risks and prevention, said Pierre Jean, CSA’s director of space exploration strategy planning.That’s why the space agency’s recent request for information, published in late August, has few restrictions on who can come forward and propose ideas for enabling - and doing research aboard - a cislunar mission.“There may be companies that haven’t worked in space but have expertise in the field of radiation or muscular-skeletal fields,” said Jean. “They might look at this and say, ‘Hey, we could take our technology that we use on Earth and possibly apply it to a space environment.’”The distance from Earth also increases risks, even compared to low Earth orbit where the International Space Station can be found.“In low Earth orbit, if an astronaut is in danger, they can be on the ground in five or six hours,” said

Jean. “In cislunar, you’re maybe two days away.”To put a finer point on it, the ISS orbits the Earth at around 408 km above sea level, while the moon is 384,400 km away. As well, a mission in the vicinity of the moon wouldn’t be in orbit; it would be floating in free space.The CSA says researchers in as disparate fields as avionics, plant health and nanotechnology should try making suggestions.The aim is to find technology that could leapfrog Canada into becoming a world leader in space science, much like the way the Canadarm - with its iconic Canadian logo emblazoned on its side - became a symbol for Canada’s work in the space shuttle era.The political timing is right for a surge in space research; the Liberal federals have done a lot in recent months to show they’re friends of the sector.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains revealed the identities of Canada’s two newest astronauts - Joshua Kutryk and Jennifer Sidey – during Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill this year.Trudeau then named Julie Payette, a former chief astronaut for the CSA, as the next governor-general in August.On the policy side, Bains is working on a space strategy, but there is no public timeline.

“This strategy will set a new approach for space, setting clear directions, promoting partnerships and defining a future role for Canada in space,” said his spokesman Karl Sasseville.Bains’ office is also examining submissions made to a $950-million supercluster program, which aims to create hubs for research and the commercialization of science. One proposal is for an aerospace supercluster, which would match nicely with the CSA’s call for more space science firms to join the fray.The Canadian space industry generates around $3.33 billion in revenues a year and employs approximately 8,000 highly skilled workers, according to 2012 figures provided by the federal government.The global preparation for cislunar and Mars missions is still in its early days, meaning efforts to use it as a springboard for a bigger and better Canadian space sector is as well.The world’s major space agencies haven’t yet made a concrete decision to collaborate on a cislunar mission, Jean said. Last month’s request for information is a very preliminary document and won’t affect the careers of the two new Canadian astronauts.Jean said the hope is to have a cislunar mission off the ground in the mid-2020s, but as with most exploration though, that timeline is very flexible.

REACHING FOR THE NEXT CANADARMBY JAMES MUNSON

The Space Shuttle Endeavour’s Canadarm. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, NASA Photo


Without a doubt, 2015 was a bad year for Canadian Conservatives

generally. But for Prairie Tories, the year was especially disappointing.Alberta’s 44-year Progressive Conservative political dynasty — which featured such Tory superstars as Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein, but also lesser lights like Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford — was displaced by Rachel Notley and the New Democrats.Then in October, the Toronto-born (but Alberta-raised) Stephen Harper lost his majority government to a Liberal party led by someone named Trudeau. The name had long been associated in the region with the hated National Energy Program and a severe mid-1980s western recession, so it was assumed that the Trudeau name and brand would be forever poison in Western Canada. Although the Harper Conservatives still won the majority vote and most of the seats in Alberta, the Trudeau Liberals increased their vote significantly and won four seats in the two major cities. They also reclaimed most of the lower mainland of British Columbia.The year is only two-thirds complete, but it’s already proving to be an equally disappointing year for Western Conservatives. In May, British Columbia’s Liberal premier, Christy Clark — claimed by Conservatives as one of their own — barely won the most seats in a provincial election but lost a subsequent confidence vote; she resigned and has recently announced her retirement from

politics. For the first time since 2001, British Columbia will be governed by New Democrats; for the first time ever, the NDP runs Canada’s two most western provinces.The only remaining centre-right powerhouse on the Prairies was Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall. Many wanted the popular Saskatchewan Party leader to run for the leadership of the CPC following Harper’s departure. His lack of French and affinity for his home province (mine too) convinced him to stay home and wage war against Ottawa’s equalization formula and its proposed tax on carbon.However, on August 10, following an unpopular budget and sinking poll numbers, Wall announced he

would be retiring from politics as soon as the party could choose a replacement. But with nether a protégé nor an obvious successor, many fear a leadership vacuum in the Saskatchewan Party. The party won three majority governments, largely on the coattails of its charismatic leader. Many equate the Saskatchewan Party with Wall; some cannot imagine a party without him. In many ways, it’s the Wall Party.So how did it all go sideways?Each province is different. But there are some consistent trends.Although modern conservatism is nebulous and evolving, it’s dictionary definition is “a disposition to preserve or restore what is established and traditional and to limit change.” Conservatives

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO CALL YOURSELF A CONSERVATIVE THESE DAYS?BY BRENT RATHGEBER

Former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh.


instinctively prefer the status quo and need compelling reasons to change how things are done.Canadian Toryism is a direct import from the British tradition — monarchical rule, a hierarchical society and a belief in God. Conservative political philosophy has been influenced by many great thinkers, including Edmund Burke. But the status quo remains, oddly enough, a moving target. While John A. MacDonald favoured strong ties to Britain and a economy protected by tariffs, eventually mercantilism gave way to open capitalism, driven by the engine of the industrial revolution.Twentieth century conservatives favoured a market economy, with limited government intervention and low taxation. They resisted parts of the welfare state but now seem to support it as a (limited) element of the political status quo.In the 21st century, conservatives are still trying to preserve the status quo — but the causes have changed because the status quo is not static.Fiscal conservatives still balk at a deficit financing. Democratic reformers want to turn the clock back to a time when Parliament was functional and MPs represented their constituents, not just their parties. Libertarians want to restore what was once a limited state that promoted the primacy of the individual and maximum personal freedom. And social conservatives also want to preserve a status quo that did not include abortion on demand (or at all), same sex marriage, legalization of marijuana, physician assisted dying and immigration policies that open up borders.Problem number one for conservatives is that you cannot be all things to all people. You cannot even be all things to all conservatives. Libertarianism — which promotes individual autonomy — is entirely inconsistent with social conservatism, which attempts to impose one person’s

morality on others. And progressive conservatism —a hybrid that promotes a big role for the state in both economic and social policies — costs money and is therefore incompatible with the views of fiscal hawks.Problem number two is that modern conservative parties have been none of these things. Short-term electoral expediency always takes precedence over commitments to philosophy or ideology. Polls, focus groups and micro-targeting — these are the tools that win elections.Although Stephen Harper is generally revered by conservatives, his legacy of commitment to conservative principles doesn’t get the same respect. A balanced budget in 2015 has to be measured against the seven deficit budgets that preceded it and the $150 billion his government added to the national debt. Free market conservatives chafe at Harper’s industrial polices and corporate subsidies, including a $9 billion auto industry bailout.His economic record is mixed. His democratic reform record is less ambiguous. Harper lost a confidence vote in 2011 after having been found in contempt of Parliament — after refusing to disclose program costs, of all things. He prorogued Parliament in 2008 to avoid a confidence vote and ran a secretive, almost paranoid government, which demanded strict and inflexible party discipline, with power and influence centralized entirely in the Prime Minister’s Office.Even social conservatives were on the outside looking in. Members were barred from tabling bills and even making member’s statements on social causes important to them. The government did attempt an ill-conceived war on the niqab in the 2015 campaign. Appreciated by the so-cons, the policy was soundly rejected by the electorate. Social conservatism is generally rejected by mainstream Canadian voters,

who increasingly are leaning urban, progressive, racially diverse and tolerant.In Alberta, the story is similar. Although Ralph Klein’s government was able to slay first the deficit and eventually the provincial debt, that debt had been incurred by a previous “conservative” government. Moreover, the debt was paid back in large part due to a windfall in natural resource royalties, most notably natural gas, as opposed to any dogmatic adherence to fiscal conservative principles.Moreover, by the end of the Klein era, the government was outspending revenue again — a trend continued by the successor PC premiers.In fact, it was this alleged reckless spending that led to the creation of the Alberta Alliance, which eventually morphed into the Wildrose party as a more conservative option to the free-spending PCs.Wildrose has always been tarred as intolerant and too socially conservative and has thus been rejected by Albertans, especially those in the two large cities.The PCs under Redford became known for waste, disrespect for taxpayers and a bloated sense of entitlement. That, plus an unpopular budget — which included both spending cuts and tax increases — an early election (breaking a vague fixed election date law) and vote-splitting with the Wildrose caused Albertans to abandon the PC ship under Jim Prentice’s leadership — and elect their first-ever NDP government.The Wildrose and PCs recently merged into the United Conservative Party. It leads in public opinion polls, despite the fact that it has neither a leader nor a single policy platform. This likely has more to do with the unpopularity of the current government than anything the UCP has said or done. But one should

PRAIRIE CONSERVATIVES


never underestimate the value of the conservative brand in Alberta.But the lesson is not that if you’re a conservative and you depart from conservative principles, you are electorally finished. It’s much more complicated than that. In fact, Premier Wall suffered the voters’ disapproval in part for offering a conservative budget that included spending cuts to pull Saskatchewan out of debt.The two main aspirants to lead the UCP in Alberta — Jason Kenney and Brian Jean — are both former members of Harper Ottawa crew and are campaigning from the right — which makes sense, as it’s UCP members who will choose the leader. They’re rallying opposition to federal and provincial carbon tax plans, ballooning deficits and any environmental hurdles that impede pipeline construction.Rookie CPC Leader Andrew Scheer sings from a similar song sheet. The federal Conservative party even tries to throw a bone to social conservatives from time to time, promising free tabling of motions or even free votes on causes important to them.Conservative leaders tend to campaign from the right but govern closer to the center. This is natural and probably necessary, as party members and the electorate at large tend to want different things.But what it is it going to take for Kenney or Jean to reconnect with the tens of thousands of voters who abandoned both of their conservative parties in 2015? What must Brad Wall’s successor

do to rebuild support for the Saskatchewan Party and win a fourth mandate?Simultaneously campaigning against an NDP premier and a Liberal prime minister is a good short-term strategy. But a sustained connection with the voters is going to require something more substantive.Dogma and ideology are not the answer. Philosophical adherence cannot be conveyed in 140 characters or a seven-second soundbite.But at the same time, for conservative leaders to be successful, they must distinguish themselves from the many alternatives serving up a range of inconsistent polices, chosen by the electorate off a menu like they were customers in a restaurant. If conservatives are too pragmatic, too consumed with polls and focus groups, they will be unable to distinguish themselves from the alternatives. If conservative-inclined voters cannot distinguish between conservatives and everyone else, they’ll simply vote for the party whose electoral goody bag they find most desirable.There are some policies that cry out for conservative leadership. Social conservatism is a non-starter with millennial voters. Both Saskatchewan and Alberta are increasingly urban; both Calgary and Edmonton elected progressive mayors and likely will do so again this fall. Similarly, rolling back the size and cost of government sounds great, but is impractical when the public demands more of everything.

Climate change and ballooning healthcare costs, however, are issues made for conservatives; they should be promoting market-based options to deal with them, rather than hiding from them. Ironically, CPC leadership candidate Michael Chong’s promotion of reducing income taxes while taxing carbon is just the kind of policy that, although it was largely rejected by CPC members, might very well have reconnected the party with the mainstream.

If they want to connect with voters, conservatives must distinguish themselves and resist the temptation to chase short-term electoral success.

I am a conservative; these days, however, I’m a member of no party, federal or provincial. For a Conservative to win back a conservative, the former must stand for something besides getting and wielding power. For decades, conservatives have criticized those in the political middle as unprincipled, as politicians who stand for nothing substantive and offer a potpourri of electoral policies to win over gullible voters with their own money. But you can never out-pragmatize the pragmatists.

Our country faces serious challenges requiring thoughtful and practical leadership: national security, climate change, public debt and inefficient service delivery, to name a few.

Conservatives — with their faith in markets, knowledge of history and belief in tradition — have much to contribute. Modern conservatives may be suspicious of change but they’re not opposed to it when a compelling reason for change exists. Thoughtful and prudent analysis is what conservatives bring to the table: Measure twice, cut once.

The table has been set; hopefully the dinner guests are serious, thoughtful, prudent and ready to make a serous contribution to serious issues.

PRAIRIE CONSERVATIVES

Brian Jean, Jason Kenney. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson


In a brief span of four years, Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the province of Alberta went from best buds to spurned friends.

The charismatic prime minister, who gave the federal Liberals a fighting chance in Alberta during the 1968 election, rapidly ran into the tough political reality of oil and gas, as well as farming and tax reform in Canada’s most conservative province at the outset of his first term.

The result of that early dip in fortunes would be serious blowback from the Prairies – and Alberta in particular – in the 1972 election. But before the curtain drew on Trudeau’s brief honeymoon in the region -- the next era in Edmonton-Ottawa relations would only grow more acrimonious -- Liberal insider Darryl Raymaker witnessed his party flail and waste a chance to secure a stronger legacy in the province.

That’s the most interesting takeaway from Raymaker’s new memoir of the era, Trudeau’s Tango: Alberta Meets Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-1972, published by the University of Alberta Press.

Few who aren’t already familiar with this heady time in intergovernmental relations will know the unique depths a select group of Liberal Albertan insiders went to in order to secure their own tails in the cut-throat world of partisan politics.

When Trudeau’s initial popularity waned, Alberta Liberals faced a choice in the run-up to the 1971 provincial election.

The Social Credit Party, steeped in evangelical traditions and fringe economic theories, had the mantle of power heading into the vote, given its 36 years in provincial government.

At the time, the provincial Liberals remained a tiny player in Edmonton, but the Liberals who won federally in 1968 and had ties to the Trudeau machine were flush with cash and optimism.

Raymaker, who ran as a Liberal four times and later served on the national executive of the Liberal Party of Canada, details the efforts to have the federal party help out its weaker, provincial branch.

Instead, however, Raymaker recalls how the top Liberals plotted to have the provincial party merge or work in alliance with the Socreds.

There wouldn’t have been a stranger marriage in Canadian politics had the ploy worked. But it wasn’t total fancy. Many Liberals had previously been Social Credit. In a move that miffed many Alberta Grits, Trudeau even named former Social Credit Premier Ernest Manning – the father of Reform Party leader Preston Manning – to the Senate, where the elder Manning would be a thorn in Trudeau’s side for years to come.

In the end, the wasted time and hurt feelings over the Socred merger plot left the Liberals scrambling. The insiders didn’t foresee how a rising star leading the Progressive Conservatives – former football player Peter Lougheed – would outflank the Liberals and NDP on the left and win in 1971.

“The first half of the strategy promoted by the Alberta federal Liberal establishment – to sideline the provincial Liberal Party and thrust its supporters into the waiting arms of Social Credit – had not worked,” writes Raymaker.

A year later, the second half would of the strategy would fail as the federal Liberals lost the four seats they’d won in the province in 1968.

To this day, with an NDP government in power in Edmonton, the Liberals remain a bit player in Alberta.

That’s not the only folly Raymaker describes in his book, which, thanks to exhaustive attention

AN INSIDER’S LOOK AT PIERRE TRUDEAU’S TOUGH TIMES WITH ALBERTABY JAMES MUNSON

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (right) and Premier Peter Lougheed. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave Buston.


to election counts and margins of victory, is an easy-to-read and interesting chronicle of this time in the province’s politics.

Alberta Liberals could always hope for patronage positions in Ottawa in the likely chance the party formed government nationally. Raymaker describes the debate within the party to try and rid its top members of that mentality so that the party could truly be one that represented its voters.

“Nothing made these nabobs happier than a Liberal government in Ottawa as long as this could be achieved without the embarrassment of MPs elected from the province,” Raymaker quotes then Alberta Liberal MP Pat Mahoney. “In this condition of good fortune the nabobs enjoyed the prestige of being the federal presence in Alberta while avoiding the burden of accountability to the voter.”

For anyone wondering how such a small party has managed to stay alive over so many decades, views like Mahoney’s provides an answer.

Also of interest is Raymaker’s description of the network of fundraisers, the rich quarters they went to find their money and the ground-floor politics of preparing a hockey arena or community hall for a visiting heavy-weight like Trudeau. Winning these rooms, which didn’t always happen for the prime minister, would go on to influence the perception of Albertans toward the Liberal leader for elections to come, he notes.

But Raymaker also records Trudeau’s roller coaster relationship with many voters, especially in Alberta. The prime minister would see his popularity soar with his handling of the

October Crisis or another event that played up his courage, and then see it falter after making a quip that made him seem arrogant.

Raymaker chronicles a time where a new kind of western alienation rose in Alberta, backed by a newfound clout of the oil and gas industry, whose desire for greater freedom clashed with the rising power of economic nationalists.

It shaped the battles between Trudeau and Lougheed in the 1970s. And given how much energy dominated the agendas of Stephen Harper’s government and now Justin Trudeau’s time in office, it’s a time that’s still shaping Canada today.

Anyone studying the critical role Alberta plays in Canadian politics would find Raymaker’s both useful and fascinating.

AN INSIDER’S LOOK AT PIERRE TRUDEAU’S TOUGH TIMES WITH ALBERTA


O Canada! Our home and native land!True patriot love in all thy sons command.

Over the course of her professional career, Canadian Paralympic rower and medallist Kristen Kit

has stood several times on a medal podium, singing those very words. For some athletes, the act of singing their country’s national anthem after an outstanding performance in their sport is a special and often emotional moment. But for Kit, there’s one thing missing: As a woman, she doesn’t feel included in her own anthem.“I do have an opportunity to use the anthem in a bit of a different kind of venue than some Canadians and I feel very proud and really fortunate to represent Canada internationally,” Kit said in an interview with iPolitics in late August. “I also feel that I’m not totally represented in my national anthem and I want to be represented in my national anthem.”Kit, who competed in the London and Rio Paralympic Games, is talking about the reference to “thy sons” in the second line of O Canada. She’s looking to Canadian senators to pass what has become a contentious private member’s bill that seeks to strip the anthem of that reference and replace it with gender-neutral language. If passed, the bill in question, known as Bill C-210, would modify the lyrics, penned by Robert Stanley Weir, by swapping “in all thy sons command” for “in all of us command” – an amendment supporters see as making the anthem inclusive of all Canadians.The late Mauril Bélanger, a long-time Liberal member of Parliament who passed away from Lou Gehrig’s disease a year ago, introduced the bill in Parliament earlier that year. He lived to see it pass a vote in the House of Commons. Despite

sailing through the House, the bill’s future now hangs by a thread in the Senate, where it has sat for more than a year. Repeated and successful attempts by Conservative senators to introduce amendments and to delay a vote on it killed all hopes of having a gender-neutral anthem in time for July 1, 2017 – Canada’s 150th birthday.It’s been more than a year of fraught debate on issues of heritage, inclusivity and political correctness – and it’s not over yet.The anthem’s English lyrics have been changed several times since their first iteration in 1908, but have remained untouched since 1980 – the year O Canada officially became the country’s national anthem. There have been 15 subsequent attempts to amend it in some way – 10 of which, not counting Bélanger’s bill, specifically tried to switch the reference to “thy sons” for gender-inclusive wording. Many didn’t make it past first reading and all of them failed. (The French lyrics remain unaltered.)Bélanger’s bill proposes tweaking the lyrics to something not far off from Weir’s original 1908 wording, which read: “... thou dost in us command.” Weir replaced that line with the reference to “thy sons” as a nod to the Canadian lads going off to war, which has lead champions of the bill – notably former Conservative senator Nancy Ruth – to frame the bill as “a restoration,” not a change.Despite this, outraged critics have managed to present a variety of arguments for leaving the national anthem alone. Some have said the bill did not receive proper scrutiny in the House and “was passed ... compassionately and out of sadness for a dying colleague.” Others have argued that editing a major piece of Canadian heritage would be an affront to tradition and history and would initiate “a slippery slope which can inspire other demands for change.”

Adding to the obstacles facing Bélanger’s bill, however, is that it came during a year in North American politics that saw a renewed campaign against political correctness.(Political correctness has been commonly referred to as the practice of avoiding terms and actions that might offend or discriminate against certain groups of people, especially groups that have been, or are perceived to be, marginalized or disadvantaged – although some argue the term has been hijacked.)In Canada, months after the anthem bill was introduced, the federal justice minister tabled Bill C-16, which sought to enshrine transgender people’s rights in the Canadian Human Rights Act and hate crime laws by adding ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. Outraged by the bill, a University of Toronto professor who refuses to use gender-neutral pronouns kickstarted a passionate discussion about the state of political correctness in Canada and what he perceives as the negative implications of political correctness on free speech. (The bill became law in June 2017.)A Liberal motion to condemn Islamophobia and “all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination” presented in late 2016 also provoked accusations that the Liberal government is taking political correctness too far. Like the transgender rights bill, critics painted the motion, known as M-103, as an attack on free speech. Conservative leadership candidates capitalized on that opposition, including Tory MP Kellie Leitch, who said Canadians need to “fight back against all of this politically correct nonsense.” (The non-binding motion passed in March 2017.)South of the border, then Republican-presidential candidate and now U.S. President Donald

WAR OF WORDSThe fraught debate over amending O Canada’s lyrics

BY BEATRICE BRITNEFF


Trump told Americans they “cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.”While few played the political correctness card during debate over the anthem bill in the House of Commons, the argument certainly gained currency among certain Conservative senators in 2017. Newfoundland and Labrador Sen. David Wells, one of the most vocal opponents of the bill in the Senate, called the proposed legislation “political correctness run amok” and asserted that amending the anthem lyrics would be “tossing away an important piece of our history and tradition, all in the name of political correctness.”“Political correctness is flavour of the day,” Wells said two days later in an interview on CBC’s Power and Politics. “Ensuring that we have the right colours or we have the right elements to make everyone happy or to represent everyone ... our national anthem represents everyone. I don’t think people sit there or stand there and go: ‘Wow, I really don’t feel included in this.’”Wells’ comments, however, directly contradict what Kit told senators when she was invited to testify before the Senate committee studying the bill last December.“I want to feel I’m a part of Canada’s cultural identity,” she said last December. “To me, ‘sons’ doesn’t encompass me.”Kit certainly wasn’t the only one to have expressed that feeling throughout the study.Asked what crosses her mind when she hears critics of the bill claim

the proposed change constitutes ‘political correctness gone wild,’ she said she interprets opinions about the bill – whether for or against it – as coming from a very personal place.“It’s interesting ... because there’s no science associated with this bill … it’s just people’s feelings and what people believe,” Kit said. “I can understand how (for) people who don’t believe the bill should be passed, their convictions are very strong and deeply rooted. But I know what I think (and) I think that Canada is always evolving ... change is always good and moving forward is always good and I think our national anthem should reflect that.”Ruth, the bill’s original sponsor in the upper chamber before she retired this past January, doesn’t see amending the anthem’s lyrics as an issue of political correctness at all -- and doesn’t mince words about it.“That’s the weakest argument I’ve ever heard,” she told iPolitics. “To exclude 51 or 52 per cent of the nation is pandering to political correctness? It’s just rubbish. They’re making up excuses to legitimize dysfunctional behaviour.”National Post columnist John Robson – a conservative commentator who writes frequently about political correctness – sits somewhere in the middle of this heated debate. He does believe Canadians are living in an era of extreme political correctness, but told iPolitics he isn’t opposed to seeing “sons” exchanged for “us.” Like Ruth, he sees it as a restoration of the original wording – but that’s where he draws the line.“It’s clearly important that heritage matters in order to be a nation,” Robson said. “You need to have some feeling that something important unites you. And so if you do too much tampering with your sense of the past and our symbols, you will disintegrate as a people. You can’t put that in a matrix … but that doesn’t make it less true.”However, Ruth said there’s no shortage of instances where Canadian traditions have been modified to reflect changing times. She points to 1965, when the federal government replaced the Union Jack

with the red and white maple leaf design that adorns the Canadian flag today.“Nothing is static,” she said. “We changed our currency. We even got rid of the penny. Was that not a strong tradition?”The future of Bélanger’s bill is shaky. Obviously, when put to a vote, there’s a risk it might not pass. But any single amendment threatens its fate as well. In the spring, Independent Sen. Frances Lankin, who took over as sponsor of the bill when Ruth retired, said that if the Senate sends an amended version of Bélanger’s bill back to the House, MPs would have to unanimously agree on a replacement for Bélanger as its sponsor. This is something Lankin insists is “unlikely to happen,” given the majority of Conservative MPs voted against the proposed wording.Even if it fails, Ruth has “no doubt” in her mind a similar bill will be re-introduced in the future.“At some point, it will pass,” she said. “Canadians want it to pass.”Kit has been following the bill’s journey and said watching it succeed would be “really special.”“At this point, I’m committed to Tokyo 2020 and I’m really lucky to be in a sport where we do have medal chances,” she said. “I think it would be really special for us, if it does pass in the fall or winter, to be included in the national anthem that I sing in front of the world.”That said, she’s also prepared for the possibility the bill will be defeated.“I’m disappointed that we can’t be more forward-thinking, that the Senate can’t be more forward-thinking … especially on the 150th anniversary of Canada,” she said. “The athletes I’ve talked to about it think it’s so amazing and that it should’ve happened yesterday – both men and women.”Even if the bill dies in the Senate, however, Kit has no plans to walk away from the nearly 40-year fight to make the anthem gender-inclusive.“I just hate missed opportunities,” she said. “I definitely feel some responsibility not to let this die out.”

WAR OF WORDS: O CANADA’S LYRICS

Mauril Belanger. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld


In the left wing of Rideau Hall’s historic greenhouses, there’s a small room that overlooks the back laneway.

Its floor is covered with bunches of snipped flower stems and bright green leaves, haphazardly swept into one corner. A corn husk broom leans precariously by the window where tall glass floral vases stand empty. Two big buckets of sweet smelling long-stem roses (one white, one pink) sit by the door.Rows of stones and marbles of all colours are sorted neatly in plastic containers that line the shelves above and behind a long countertop that’s covered in more than a dozen blue square vases filled with three precisely cut green mums, their slim, spiky petals soft to the touch.This is Nancy Cadieux’s office.

For the past 17 years, the assistant floral designer has been arranging flowers for all seven official residences managed by the National Capital Commission -- Rideau Hall, Stornoway, 7 Rideau Gate, the Farm, Harrington Lake, Rideau Cottage and 24 Sussex Drive -- and their many official events.Cadieux’s love of flowers and plants started at young age and was inherited from her mother, who she describes as “a wonderful gardener.”Despite this childhood spark, her path to working with floral and leafy folks full-time was a little untraditional.“I’ve always been into everything artistic,” she recalls. ”I was a dancer when I was younger, until my 30s. Then I studied interior design and also architecture.”

She got into flower design when she went to her cousin’s wedding after the company she was working for as an architectural technician was restructured.“Kind of after that, I decided to explore the floral aspects – so I took a class,” she said.She’d been working as a private floral designer with a local floral arranger for several years when she found out about the job at Rideau Hall through one of her professors. She started in 2000 and has been there ever since.For more than a decade, Cadieux has hand selected, handcrafted and personally delivered hundreds of bouquets, centrepieces and floral arrangements for a wide range of events.“We like to be vanguardist, you know. We get inspiration from everywhere,” she said when asked about her – and therefore Canada’s – official floral style. “It’s using flowers in an innovative way … more sculptural, more artistic.”She’s arranged flowers for countless

BY KELSEY JOHNSON

A floral designer for the official residences, Nancy Cadieux keeps things coming up roses

A JOB IN BLOOM


state dinners as well annual affairs like the Michener Awards, Rideau Hall’s annual Savour Fall festival and the many Christmas events. The National Capital Commission estimates greenhouse staff supply flowers and potted plants for more than 2,000 events annually.“Every month there’s a lot,” she says with a laugh as we wander through the greenhouse.2017 has been a particularly busy year because of Canada 150 celebrations and Governor General David Johnston’s retirement.Many of the flowers used in Cadieux’s arrangements today are grown at Rideau Hall, where flowers have been a focal point for more than century. The residence’s six historic greenhouses date back to the 1867, although records show there were greenhouses original to the grounds even before they became property of the federal government.Historically, all the flowers required were grown at Rideau Hall, with entire greenhouses dedicated to blooms like carnations.Today, the vegetable greenhouses have special beds designated for cut flowers like zinnias, dahlias, sunflowers and various grasses.Other flowers and greenery are gathered from the gardens and colour-splashed flower beds that dot the residence’s 79 acres depending on what’s in bloom. Peonies, pholox, daisies, black-eyed Susan’s and hydrangea of all shades and colours are only some of the flowers at her disposal. Rideau Hall’s traditional forced bulb program (a quicker way of producing flowers from bulbs) provides hundreds of tulips, daffodils and irises annually.“In the summer, I’ll go for a walk and I’ll go in the gardens and pick what I need,” Cadieux says. “Whatever is in season is what we use.”Few beds are generally off limits, with the exception of the ground’s famous rose garden. That said, Cadieux has used rose buds and hips from there on occasion. She and her colleagues typically check with Head Gardener Mark Burleton before

snipping in the public areas.“We have to be careful,” Cadieux laughs. “We know where we can cut and how much we can cut.”“Obviously there can be slight conflicts about what can be cut in the garden and what can’t be,” Burleton jokes. “Some gardeners get quite protective, including me.”Burleton studied horticulture at the University of Edinburgh and worked for several years as the head gardener at the Imperial College of London before moving him and his family to Montreal in 1997. He’s managed the grounds at Rideau Hall and the official residences since 2002.While he describes himself as “more of a tree guy” (one of his first projects at Rideau Hall was to document all the historic trees planted on the grounds), Burleton is responsible for helping decide which flowers, plants and gardens will be planted each year. He works closely with Cadieux and her colleagues to ensure they get the flowers they need.“If [the gardeners] are pruning something back hard, like dogwood, they’ll bring it over,” Burleton says.“They know we like to use everything,” Cadieux says.Despite its many acres, gardens and flower beds, Rideau Hall simply can’t keep up with today’s floral demand. With more and more events being added to the calendar each year, hundreds of flowers are now purchased each year from local suppliers.“With all the residences, we could never, ever grow enough,” Cadieux explains.During slow weeks, her supplier may only come once – with pre-ordered requests coming in throughout the course of the week. In busy periods, flowers can be delivered to Cadieux two or three times a week.Whether it’s busy or not, Cadieux says the goal of floral arranging is to make each arrangement distinctive while finding new ways to use various materials.

A JOB IN BLOOM

Nancy Cadieux, Mark Burleton.Photos by Matt Usherwood/iPOLITICS.


“What we try to do is make them all different. It’s not just placing stuff in a vase. All the tables are different ... and at each event it won’t be the same. We can be very creative.”Past arrangements have included everything from braided flowers to weaving different kinds of grasses and plants together.Some have even included handcrafted pieces of jewellery made by Cadieux herself -- stones and gems in a variety of colours, with intricate wire designs weaved around them. She keeps a Ziploc freezer bag of them in her office for when inspiration strikes.She’s also not one for themes.“When somebody from another country comes, we don’t try to do their colours or their flowers. We figure they must get that everywhere so we try to do something different for them.”Some events, particularly those that

reoccur year after year, she can plan for ahead of time and sketch out ideas. However, it’s not unusual to be told of an event only days before. Tight timelines like that can see help recruited from other parts of the greenhouse.“Sometimes there’s a lot of events at the same time, it’s not just here – so it can get hectic,” Cadieux says. “We do it all ourselves, but there’s been a few times where our technicians gave us a hand in arranging flowers.”A skilled-hand herself, she says it typically takes her about 15 minutes to complete a small arrangement to be used as a centre piece for a table.And like the greenery she’s working with, the arrangements are also environmentally friendly. Cadieux says she rarely uses floral foam to hold her designs in place.“What we do is we use marbles. They’re washable, reusable and very green because Oasis (foam) doesn’t

decompose very fast.”Flowers from past events are recycled and reused in the residences or deconstructed, with the flowers re-arranged into new creations. When the flowers are no longer fresh, they’re composted.Of course not every flower is everyone’s cup of tea, so there’s a plan to ensure arrangements suit the tastes and likes of those living in the official residents.When new residents move in, Cadieux will meet with them to suss out their preferences, including their favourite flowers.“We go by their tastes, the style they like, the flowers they like, the colours they like. We do each residence with the flowers they like,” she says. “We have to know what they like. If we keep putting something they hate, they won’t like us very much.”“And it’s their home.”

ISSUES ofSUBSTANCECONFERENCE

CONGRÈSQUESTIONS de SUBSTANCE

November 13–15Calgary, Alberta

Du 13 au 15 novembreCalgary (Alberta)

RegisterToday

Inscrivez-vous dès aujourd’hui

Issues of Substance is Canada’s only national conference that brings together addiction workers, healthcare professionals, researchers, policy makers, knowledge brokers and individuals with lived experience from across the country. Learn more and register at www.issuesofsubstance.ca

Questions de substance est le seul congrès national du Canada à rassembler des travailleurs en dépendance, des professionnels de la santé, des chercheurs, des décideurs, des courtiers du savoir et des personnes ayant une expérience vécue de partout au pays. Pour en savoir plus et vous inscrire, visitez le www.questionsdesubstance.ca

PROGRAM AT A GLANCE now available!

PROGRAMME EN BREF maintenant disponible!

A JOB IN BLOOM

ISSUES ofSUBSTANCECONFERENCE

CONGRÈSQUESTIONS de SUBSTANCE

November 13–15Calgary, Alberta

Du 13 au 15 novembreCalgary (Alberta)

RegisterToday

Inscrivez-vous dès aujourd’hui

Issues of Substance is Canada’s only national conference that brings together addiction workers, healthcare professionals, researchers, policy makers, knowledge brokers and individuals with lived experience from across the country. Learn more and register at www.issuesofsubstance.ca

Questions de substance est le seul congrès national du Canada à rassembler des travailleurs en dépendance, des professionnels de la santé, des chercheurs, des décideurs, des courtiers du savoir et des personnes ayant une expérience vécue de partout au pays. Pour en savoir plus et vous inscrire, visitez le www.questionsdesubstance.ca

PROGRAM AT A GLANCE now available!

PROGRAMME EN BREF maintenant disponible!

QUARTERLY MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2017 - Canadian News and … … · Readiness Study of Canadian...

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