Robert Paterson's Weblog

Canada Day - Proud to be a Canadian

I find flag waving difficult but I am feeling especially proud to be a Canadian this Canada day.

I am a citizen of one of only 3 countries that recognizes gay marriage. Why should this mean so much to me, a middle aged hetero man? It means a lot to me because it signifies that I am part of a society that accepts difference. Again why should this mean anything to me or say - to you?

Because of two things. Firstly, we are indeed a country of minorities. Maybe not here in rural PEI but if you spend a day in a large city in Canada where most of Canadians live, you will see that this is no longer a white Christian nation. This is simply a fact. Push time out 20 years and Canada will be maybe unique - a nation that has no tribal centre only a centre based on values. We will survive and thrive if we can make tis work and we can only make this work if we accept each others differences. The only value that will not work is intolerance itself. Marriage is not under threat, tolerance is. The irony of the so called Christian Right is that every aspect of the life and teaching of Jesus is about tolerance and acceptance. Just as Luther challenged the Church to show him where Jesus empowered the church, I challenge Christians to show me how Jesus can support intolerance.

My second point is about our economy. It is becoming clear that communities that accept difference accept innovation. If Canada is to think its way out of the challenges that we have before us, we have to be a community that can look at novelty and difference. Richard Florida's work suggests that there is a link between the acceptance of the Gay community and innovation. He is not stating that Gays are the driver in themselves, though they often are any firm's best customers and best employees. He makes the case that societies that have enough tolerance of Gays can accept many new ideas.

The closing of the American border and mind to difference gives us in Canada the opportunity to increase our national well being by becoming a magnet for open minded and intelligent and hard working people from all over the world.

So for me this Canada day weekend, I wonder if we have chosen more than to honor our brothers, sons, friends daughters, aunts, uncles, mothers who are gay but also to open our doors to thousands of people who want to make their home in a place that is so accepting.

Oh Canada - Glorious and free - I stand on guard for thee

John Hunkin - CIBC - A Perspective on his Business Life

It was announced yesterday that John Hunkin was retiring from the CEO position at CIBC.

Many commentators made a point that his 6 years as CEO had been tough at best for CIBC and that his time at the helm was not the best for the bank. Maybe this will be the verdict of history. But I feel compelled to talk today of the brave and honourable man that I knew and worked with for many years and I hope to put his 36 years of service into the broader context.

My caution - I write this from memory of discussions with John and many others at CIBC that took place many years, sometimes decades ago. So please do not expect history or journalism - these are my memories of stories that may be myths. But the one thing I know is true - they represent the man I knew.

Queen Street Commons - Pictures of the Work

As usual being the only member of the team who is without any handy skills - I got the best jobs on the day before opening. Cleaning the second bathroom and the kitchen floor.

Well we are ready to open and open we will tomorrow Monday June 27 at 4.

What have we been doing the last 5 months? This picture gallery will give you a sense I hope.

See you tomorrow.

CBC Finding Home Monday June 27 - John and Darla

This Monday, June 27, after the news at 5.30 my back to the land guests on Finding Home will be John Rousseau and Darla Thompson.

John is my cousin by marriage and the two of them have a major part in why Robin and I came to PEI ourselves. They gave us a base to start from the the encouragement to make the leap.

John and Darla were part of a remarkable group from UNB that arrived in the early 1970's to create a very different life than the rest of us middle class boys and girls.

Here is a photo album that shows the effort of the lifestyle that they choose. Hard work and hard living barely describes it. This choice - to learn about the practical - is one that as I get older, I admire more and more. I like so many middle class people actually have almost no practical skills. There is nothing of a practical nature that John and Darla cannot do well. John talks about the difference between being "educated" and being "schooled". Most of us are schooled. Few of us are educated. I am learning that to become educated, you have to experience things. Schooling only requires you to read a book.

Choosing the harder road, this group also choose community over the individual. The house in the album would never have been built without the support of their friends. Such a life choice, also places great demands on relationships. John makes the key point in the interview that the strength of the woman was the key to pioneer life.

The photo album ends in a tragedy. I leave you to find the meaning of it. I have my own opinion on the album.

Think you are being Phished? - An excellent resource

I am sure that like me, you receive a number of fraudulent request from what appears top be eBay, Pay PaL or even your bank to provide sensitive information.

Here is an excellent link to how to determine if you are being scammed.

My Birthday - the year my father died

It's my birthday tomorrow. I will be 55. This is the age that father reached when he died.

So for me there is a poignancy of reaching a milestone. Life has become very precious for me as I acknowledge that my father had less than a year to live when he reached his 55th. How much time do I have? How much time do you have? What would it mean to have less than a year to live?

Of course none of us know and it may only be an hour or a day for many of us but we imagine that we have decades ahead of us.

For much of my youth I imagined that I had time.

No more bullshit for me now only life.

No more worrying about silly things. No more wasting time with people who make me feel bad. No more working for things that mean nothing.

More play. More being with those that I love. More doing dangerous things that do mean something. More being nice to myself. More doing and less thinking. More time with dogs and nature. More drinking better wine. More with my body and less with my mind. More love less bitterness. More love. More love.

Queen Street Commons - Why did I get involved?

This will be a busy weekend. We open on Monday and there is a ton of things to do as with any opening. More cleaning, furniture moving, titivating etc.

So why did I get involved? What do I hope for? What might you expect?

I have worked for myself and largely by myself for 10 years now. I love my commute. I stumble out of bed and walk a few steps to my office in the next door room. My world is online. But I miss people at work. I don't miss the meetings. I don't miss the politics. I don't miss the internal competition.

I miss belonging to a community. I miss the accidental discovery that comes from simply interacting. I miss how easy it can be to look up and se a friend across the table. I miss the jokes, banter and flirting. I miss the adventure of doing something difficult and dangerous with a cool group of people. I miss the adventure of university where we would stay late and talk about mystery. I miss playing games and being silly with friends, I miss hanging out. I miss being with special people.

I want to go back to the best of work and to the best of university.

We are doing our best to set up a place where we can find this sweet spot of life again. Pictures and news to follow

Queen Street Commons

We open the Commons on Monday June 27th. If you would like to see what this is like please come to our Open House Party between 4pm and 7pm at 224 Queen Street.

Our inspiration has been Lloyds Coffee House.

I will post more later this week - pictures, stories etc but for now if you would like to know more about our intention and what this could become here is part of our plan.

Download qscpdf.pdf

Father's day - My Bliss

This is my idea of bliss!
A fried breakfast and the dogs in bed

OK - when you get to my age "Bliss" gets modified from what it might have been in earlier times. The Dogs might have had to move over.

The first X rated film I ever saw was Tom Jones with Albert Finney. The part that really struck me though was the first scene with Hugh Griffith.

Jones enters the manor and spots a writhing pile of dogs. From it emerges, still drunk, Squire Weston wonderfully over played by Griffith. Oh to sleep in a pile of dogs!

Just a fantasy here as Robin has this odd idea about dog hair in the bed. (The Cat can sleep here but not the dogs - go figure)

Father's Day - A reprise and a reprieve

I posted this last year and can't better it - so I thought I would post it again.

Father's day - A second chance?

What do we expect from our fathers? What do we celebrate on Father's Day?

One of my most vivd memories of being at boarding school as a young teen was making a promise to myself that I would be more available to my children than my father had been for me. I was not going to be on endless business trips. I was not going to talk ceaselessly about business at home. I was not going to to be a mystery to my son or to my daughter. I was going to be a warm and nurturing father.

But for many of the early years of Hope's and James' life I was just like my own father. So by the time they were 8 and 10 I had failed to be the warm father that I had promised myself that I would become.

But I had a second chance.

When we moved to Canada when the children were quite young, it broke the inevitability that they would leave home at 8 to spend their adolescence in a school and not at home. I had the time and the space that my father did not have to live with my children - what a concept! I discovered that I could get along with teenagers in a way that I could not with younger children. Why? Because I think that coincidentally my own very messy midlife crisis aligned with many of their own teenage struggles to understand their world and themselves. Perhaps we found a bond in our mutual uncertainty.

A few years ago, we all seemed to come into the light together. This shared experience of emergence has given us a bond that is more enduring than had I only been a nurturer in their early years. On reflection, my promise aged 13 was I think premature. I felt at 13 that I needed a father to be maybe more like a mother. I wanted a nurturing father when I was a boy. I think that I can see now that a father's role must be different than what we expect from a mother.

On a simple level, and Mothers/women are never simple, Mothers are maybe easy to understand - they give us life, love and order. Mothers are surely our natural nurturers. In this role, our mothers inform us about ourselves and about relationships. They can and do give us more but I am satisfied that this might be their core role. They by their example in relationships give us, for better or worse, our view on ourselves and how we relate to others.

So what then are our fathers all about? What is the real job of fathers? What do we celebrate our fathers for? They surely inform us about the world outside. They show us, not by their words, but by how they live their lives how to interact with the world outside the hearth. We unconsciously make decisions based on their lives about how we too will act in the larger world. We see their example more clearly when we can have a wider perspective as I have found in middle age. I needed 50 plus years to "see" my father's life without the fierce judgment of my own youth. As a result, Fathers take longer to connect to than to our mothers.

Young men die asking for their mothers. Middle aged men grieve and long for their lost fathers.

So paradoxically, on this Father's day, we all come full circle. My father, long dead, stands shoulder with me - his life a map for my own. Many of his mistakes - mine. Many of his strengths - mine. His face - now in middle age- mine. The gap has been bridged for all of us. The promise, made one desperate and lonely night hour, has been kept at last by all of us.