Tag: apropos of nothing

Remembering what I haven’t known

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

I have always had that strangely-Canadian Generation X respectful detachment from Remembrance Day. I proudly wear a poppy, I go to a Cenotaph or Memorial on November 11th, I show respect to the women and men in full uniform, but I recognize I don’t know what is in their head, and I’m cautious to include myself in their personal experience.

What I find most amazing about Canada at Remembrance Day is that these veterans and those we lost, fought and died overseas. Canada didn’t fight a revolution to become a free nation, and in almost 150 years of being a nation, we have never faced a serious threat of invasion (Fenian Raids notwithstanding). However, we have forged strong alliances with other nations across the border and across the oceans, and we have been quick to engage in the fight when we see our allies being attacked, their right to self-determination or the rights of their citizens being undermined. Sometimes because we knew we may be next if we didn’t take the fight to them, but more commonly because it was the right thing to do. Two World Wars, Korea, Cypress, Croatia, Rwanda, Afghanistan… the list is long of places Canadians went to protect people under threat, or simply to stand between belligerents while peaceful resolutions were sought.

I try to understand these conflicts, and the sacrifices made by individuals for the greater cause, but it was never personal for me. I have an uncle who served in Vietnam and some more distant cousins with military careers, and when I lived in the Mid-West, I made friends with a few people who eventually got called up and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thankfully, they all got back alive and well. So I have been, through luck and happenstance, distanced from the real impacts of war.

I never knew my Grandfathers, both died before I was born and I have very little knowledge about them. Writing this, it occurs to me I don’t even know their full names. It’s not that they were not mentioned in my household, but more that when I was growing up, my extended family was stretched all over Canada and the United States, so occasions to spend time together were limited, and talk of my Parent’s childhood was not a common subject around the house. I know both of my parents had difficult relationships with their fathers, but those are their stories to tell, not mine.

I knew my Mom was born just after her sister, at the beginning of WW2, and that their brothers were born well after; the narrative in my family was that gap was the time when my grandfather “went off to war”. I also know he struggled in his later life with things that sound much like what we would currently attribute to PTSD, but I am too far removed from that reality to know what the story really is.

What I never knew until this summer was his father’s fate. My parents spent some time in Europe this summer, their first time touring the continent, and my Mom sent us back this picture.

I now know my Great Grandfather was named Henry James Leavitt, he is one of the 11,285 people commemorated at the Vimy Memorial, and he never met his son who eventually went on to fight in the Artillery for the length of WW2, and came home changed.

This year, on Remembrance Day, I will be thinking about those who served to bring the freedoms we enjoy as Canadians to people they didn’t know. I will think about people who came back changed, those who did not come back, and the families that love them. May they all find peace.

Hey Guys! Stay on your ass (and fill out this survey)!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

HEY! Got a bit of free time this weekend? Surfing the web, looking for something more interesting? Admit it, if you are reading my blog, you must be pretty stinking bored… so here is a good way to slake that boredom for 5-10 minutes, and provide useful data for someone doing interesting research here in New Westminster.

If you are at all like me, your typical healthy-ish 40-ish male, you haven’t seen a doctor in quite some time. If you have kids, you likely interacted with the healthcare system, but for those of us without, we try to think about the last time we had stitches. Or maybe that’s just me, but this is kind of the point of this survey.

Fraser Health has been doing a “My Health, My Community” survey over the last couple of months, and they need a few more people to provide data before the end of the month (yes- in the next three days!). They especially need info from my cohort- healthy-ish males who may hardly ever interact with the healthcare system. Of course, the rest of you should also take part, it’s just (typically) the middle age males you need to kick in the ass to take any kind of health self-assessment at all.

The purpose of the survey is not to sell you services, but to gather better information about the health needs of the community. They need data from a bunch of locals about your life, as it relates to your risk for health conditions, and their need to provide services. They aren’t getting too personal, but they want to understand a bit about how New Westminster folks live their life and access health care, so they can do some longer-term strategic planning.

Typically for any health care situation – young (and youngish) males are lacking in their participation. They really need a few more male people to provide data. I filled out the survey a couple of weeks ago: it was easy, it took no more than 10 minutes, and it was a little fun (remembering the good old days when I used to smoke…). This from a guy who has not seen an actual doctor in about 15 years. Yeah, I should probably go get a check-up, but the survey didn’t guilt me into feeling that. Really, who has a family doctor anymore?

Back when I was whinging about how Democracy is what you do between elections – this is a chance to help your elected officials and bureaucrats make better decisions to save you money while providing the services you need. So I’m going to say it: If you don’t fill out this survey, you are not allowed to complain about the healthcare system!

But Hurry, survey ends on the 30th, and if you fill it out, you can win a new iPad. And hey, who doesn’t need a new iPad?

You are surfing the net right now, you clearly have time. Follow this link right now and help out a bit.

An April bike ride report.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I like to ride bikes.

I do a lot of different bike riding types. Sometimes I commute to work on a bike. Sometimes I use a bike to get around town. Sometimes I hop on a mountain bike and go up Burnaby Mountain and ride the trails I have known intimately for more than 25 years. I used to race bikes, with a remarkable level of non-very-goodness. Sometimes I get on a road bike with friends and pound a few score kilometres off between coffee breaks.

That last one is where the Fraser River Fuggitivi comes in. FRF is an informal group of something like a dozen people, some sub-set of which meet up regularly on Sunday Mornings (in months without an “r”) at the River Market in New West and ride to a distant coffee shop. Very social, sometimes fast, always fun.

This year, the FRF took a group approach to a spring ride that has been a Vancouver tradition for 29 years: the Pacific Populaire, run by the BC Randonneurs Cycling Club. And that, I suppose, takes some definitions.

A Randonneur is a person who likes to ride a bicycle very long distances. It is neither touring (where you travel through the countryside or across the country carrying tents and sleeping bags, and enjoying the sights), nor is it racing (where people compete to get from A to B as fast as possible). Instead, they do rides called “brevets” which are measured distances (typically 200, 400, or 600 km) that must be completed in some minimum time. For example, a 600 km brevet must be completed within 40 hours. Each rider can decide how much time they spend riding or sleeping in those three days. The mother of all Brevets is the Paris-Brest-Paris, a 1200-kilometre voyage into the depths of your own soul that must be completed in 90 Hours.Madness.

A Populaire is an ever-more-rational and somewhat more social event. The Pacific Pop is an annual spring event held the first weekend in April. Although it is structured like a brevet, it is “only” 100 km. The idea is not to make record time, but to shake out the winter cobwebs and have some fun. The roads are (mostly) not closed, but some of the usually-strict Randonneur rules (mandatory fenders and tail lights, etc.) are relaxed.

Several members of the FRF took to the streets of Vancouver for the Pacific Pop this year, and with the weather marginal to good as the day went on, the day was exceptional in its pleasantness, for April in the Rain Belt. Below is a bit of a photo essay:

With a marginal forecast and an early start, it was rain coats and espresso to
enhance the pre-ride jitters.
In rainy weather, a rear fender is more a courtesy to your fellow riders than an attempt to keep dry. With a showery forecast, many of the FRF went for the Fender Mullet: Business in the back, party in the front.

The 2014 Pacific Populaire had 700+ riders, which makes for a crowded start area.
Luckily, the first kilometre or two are closed to cars, to give the riders a chance to spread out and make space. Unlike a race or a Fondo, the traffic lights were operational for the entire ride, and the entire group generally followed the rules of the road (two-abreast riding notwithstanding).
See the FRF rider gritting his teeth like Hinault on the Col de Marie-Blanque? Then note the couple behind him on city bikes with baskets, she in skinny jeans. They finished about the same time as us…
I seem to remember saying to Matt about this time: I know you feel good now, but with 80 more km to go, let’s think about saving energy.
Always as good reminder.
The control station was on Dyke Road in south Richmond, about 45km in. Here riders get a time stamp for their cards and fill up on baked goods, oranges, and Gatorade.
Then back on the rural roads of east Richmond for some serious paceline action to make up for the lost time. 
River Road in north Richmond is the regular FRF stomping grounds. The rains refused to come, but the headwind here was feeling rather unkind.
Back over the best piece of bicycle infrastructure in Greater Vancouver. I hope they had the traffic counters on for the bridge today.
As prophesied, the long road up Marine to UBC into the breeze got me. There is nothing a rider hates to see more than this: an expanding distance between your front wheel and the pack…
…and the gap begins to grow. Time to dig deep and close that gap, only because 5 minutes of big effort will make the rest of the ride so much easier…
It took more than 5 minutes, but the gap is closed, and I hook back up with the FRF folks.
Just in time for us to the finish… no “finish line” in this non-race, just a line-up for the check-in and…
A completed time card and souvenir pin, the only prizes at a Populaire…
…and the real reward of 100km in April.

MoreMilesMoreBeer. That’s the FR Fuggitivi motto.

On Competition for Groceries

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

With a spate of new (but remarkably familiar) signs going up around town, and everyone wondering about how increased consolidation could possibly result in increased competition, I have also been thinking about the changes in the New West retail world, and what they may mean.

Admittedly, I may be the wrong person to opine on this. I pretty much hate shopping, and by Brand Loyalty gland seems to have swole up and broke. Allow me to explain.

I spent much of my young life working in retail. My parents were small business owners, and I worked around the shop from a young age. Even when not working around the shop, it was the place I hung out at after school in those pre-teen years. Eventually I was cleaning shop, merchandising goods, helping with inventory and sales, waxing skis and fixing bikes. Although I did a variety of other jobs when I was young (pulp mill, bike courier, logistics, dishwashing and kitchen prep, etc.), pretty much all of my beer money through my undergrad came from working in bike shops – I loved working in bike shops. It may be because of these retail experiences that I am kind of cynical about retail sales, and generally dislike most retail experience decades later. I suspect it is some combination of subconsciously seeking the approval of the retail salesperson (wanting to not be one of those “bad customers” we criticized in the back room) and my internal critique of everything that a retail salesperson is doing to persuade money from me. I’m sure a therapist could work these knots out of my psyche, but as the end result is my buying less and living a more affordable lifestyle, I’m not sure it is top of the list of personality problems I need solved.

For likely unrelated reasons, I am not “brand loyal” at all. I essentially don’t care what name is on the outside of a store, but I do care about what is inside the store. I like to shop locally, and help out a small business person if I can. I don’t want to buy my underwear and spark plugs in the same store. I want the person selling me something to know more about it that I do. I will pay more for a higher-quality more durable product, if that option is available to me, but only up to a poorly-defined point of marginal gains. When shopping for apples, I look for the BC label. For larger purchases, I do my research, know what I want, and am rarely swayed from my opinion. I hate when shopping is a hassle, and more often than not, I find shopping to be a chore worth avoiding than a pleasurable way to spend my time. Again: the rich psychological tapestry.

With that context out of the way, how does this manifest on grocery stores? I have an internal algorithm that balances proximity (because I would rather walk), large but not too large (enough selection to find what I want, but not to be overwhelmed by variety or scale), a good produce section (because I like to buy ingredients as opposed to prepared foods, and this is where a quality difference makes a big difference) and easy to manage (reducing the hassles). When living near Lougheed Mall during my SFU days, that added up to the Lougheed Safeway. When living in downtown Langley a decade ago, that added up to the old-school Overwaitea/Save-on-Foods a block away. When living in Champaign, Illinois, that added up to a Meijer, which was a humungous big box store on the edge of town, but had an excellent compact grocery within and the only decent produce section in town. At my current Brow of the Hill address, that adds up to the Save-on-Foods in the Westminster Centre.

In my experience, the brand of the grocery store doesn’t matter that much – the difference in the shopping experience is a product of the staff and managers. Some stores are, simply, better run than others. They are all selling the same stuff in different packages and most analysis I have read suggest that if some have higher prices on some types of goods, they almost invariably have lower prices on other types. If a store has lots of expensive high-end packaged goods, they can generally afford to sell the staples at lower margins, and vice versa (which in part exacerbates the paradox that staple foods can cost more the lower-income neighbourhoods).

I love(d) the Thrifty Foods in Sapperton every time I was in there. In a very short time, it became my favorite grocery store in town, but I rarely shopped there – the proximity part of the algorithm just didn’t work out. When I was near-by, I shopped, but for the most part, the more local shop won. The Safeway in uptown is strangely too big and too hard to navigate, and I cannot get over the impression that things I buy there cost more than at Save-on (I have no data to support this, only personal anecdote). For quick-shop things, I often run to Uptown Market, which is a great little grocery, and in the summer months, try to buy produce from local producers along Marine Drive in Burnaby and, of course, at the Royal City Farmers Market. I am convinced by my own theory that the things that make the stores I prefer better are the staff and managers.

So when I heard that Thrifty Foods in Sapperton is being converted to a Save-on-Foods, I was glad to hear the staff were staying put. In fact, the order from the Competition Bureau insists that they not change staff when they sell the store off. The management and staff of that store have been exemplary to deal with. Not only has the shopping experience there been great, they have taken a really proactive role in community outreach. They contribute to community festivals in fun ways and have contributing to amateur sport in town. The General Manager, Doug Ford (no relation) has gotten involved in local organizations and is a great guy to chat with. He seems to understand community and his store’s role in it. I have no reason to believe that will change when the CEO changes from Marc Poulin to Jimmy Pattison. Only time will tell.

As for the Competition Bureau decision, we need to keep in mind that this was part of a country-wide purchase of 213 stores. When you read the Position Statement, you can see how they arrived at the decision they did. The math was based on distance to closest stores, competitors and non-competitors, and community mobility. In a dense urban area like ours, they looked at the make-up of the closest grocery stores.

Before the change, here is what the Competition Bureau saw (colours represent ownerships, distances are kilometres “as the crow flies”, and the black bars are to scale of relative distance):

After the owner of Thrifty buys Safeway, this is what it looks like:

All of the sudden, New West is looking pretty red. The Competition Bureau moves in, and here is the result:

seen form 10,000 feet up, it would be easy to argue that this is a more level and competitive field. One has to recognize this does not reflect exactly how the neighbourhoods work, nor does it include the smaller grocers (specifically exempt from the analysis the Competition Bureau performed, based on their Position Statement) like Donald’s. The analysis also did not anticipate the selling of the old IGA location to Save-On/PriceMart, or the introduction of a WalMart to uptown, but even the Competition Bureau can’t predict the future.

Me? I’ll still go up to Save-on-Foods in Uptown, because my personal algorithm hasn’t changed. If it closes (as I suspect it will, even Uptown can’t manage kitty-corner Save-on-Foods), the math will shift with it, and maybe the other Uptown Save-on will be the winner.

Resistance may be futile.

Remembering Jack

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

The news came down a couple of days late, as tends to happen when Gulf Islands are involved. Last weekend when we had heard that our neighbor had died, it had already been a couple of days.

It didn’t come as a surprise, but that makes it no less sad. Jack’s health had been in decline for a number of years. Emphysema had sapped him of much of his energy, and the oxygen tank was always present the last few years. When we saw him last fall, he was using a scooter to get around and had pretty low energy. But it seemed for a few years that every winter was tough and he would perk up during the summer. 83 is a good number of years, but I guess we all hope for one more good summer…

All images are photos of Jack Campbell originals and prints from our home.

I met Jack Campbell a little more than a decade ago. He was a resident of Saturna Island, where my in-laws also reside. It is a small community, and it doesn’t take too many weekends to get to know most everyone. Jack stood out at first because of the bright sign at the top of the Missing Link directing people to his gallery. It was a vibrant watercolour of a forested stream, grey rocks and blue water and green trees cross-cut with sharp blades of light. “Pieces of Light” was a phrase he used to describe the style he employed commonly while painting natural areas of Saturna Island and the built environment of New Westminster. It was just a coincidence that the three places Jack spent most of his life, New Westminster, the West Kootenay, and Saturna Island, are three places I called home at different stages of my life, and another coincidence when we bought a lot on Saturna, Jack was our neighbour.

The boldness of his watercolours appealed to me immediately, starting with the Gallery sign. I always preferred his New Westminster scenes, mostly pained back when he had a gallery on Columbia Ave during the Bingo-Parlour-and-After-Hours-Club era of Downtown New West, and the River was more of a working place of log booms and beehive burners and fishing vessels.There is one great original piece in his galley (“that one is not for sale” he would say in his gentle, gentlemanly way) that was a drawing of the Queensborough Bridge being built, with the mills of Queensborough smoking behind, and his green Volkswagen in the foreground. It belongs in a museum.

MsNWimby preferred his later work, where he found organic forms in the shorelines and arbutus trees of the Gulf Islands. We always tried to support his small gallery, although most of the time our finances didn’t really allow us to support him the way we wished to!

Jack was raised in New Westminster, and had strong connections in this community. He painted posters for the old Fraser Fest events, and there are various places around town where his paintings still pop up (including one of my favourite works of his in a dentist office up at Royal City Centre). He was a generous man with his talent, often painting posters and postcards for free to be used for events like Fraser Fest or to be auctioned for good causes, and teaching a generation of artists though 14 years of teaching at Emily Carr and 8 more at the Kootenay School of the Arts in Nelson. When he “retired” to Saturna 15+ years ago, he created a new legacy on the island. His work is well represented in a wall mural in the old community centre, and even as the artwork on the back of your library card at the Saturna Island Library.

Although is work is in collections around the world, it never made him rich; People tell stories of him sometimes paying rent in the form of paintings. However, he created a lot of beauty in this world, and made a lot of our lives richer for having done so. I’ll miss running into him out walking around our pond with Carole and Warbie (their rambunctious little pup named after Warburton Pike), and his welcoming hello whenever we dropped by his gallery.

I feel very lucky to have met him, and to have shared a planet with him, if just for a little while.

What I’m working on

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Wow, I haven’t posted anything in a few days, so I thought I should just update folks on what I’m doing these days, just so my dedicated reader (Hi Mom!) doesn’t worry.

You know, I have been busy. But I am consciously trying not to say “busy” when people ask me how I’ve been or what I am up to, because it seems a bit of a dodge that doesn’t really say anything. And everyone I know is really busy. Busy is our generation, it is our age, it is maybe our life stage. I’ll rest later, there are things to get done. Whatever, we’re all busy. I’ll just shut up about it now.

With what am I currently busy? Among other things, I have been working on research for this:

Link Here

I hope you can make it, it should be interesting.

On Fort Mac and Dr. No

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

A short post related to my last one on Neil Young, Fort Mac, and Integrity.

For people who like to read long-format journalism as opposed to Maclean’s style photo-caption writing on the latest “hot trend story”, Canada has the Walrus. It is usually interesting, often brilliant, always worth reading. The NWimby household has been a subscriber since the first edition.

I raise it now because an article about Fort McMurray in the November edition should be read by everyone in Canada. The author clearly brings his anti-tar sand biases into the discussion, but the best parts of the article are not his writing, but the quotes of the Mayor of Fort Mac, Melissa Blake.

It all starts out friendly enough, the Mayor tries to dispel some negative impressions about the City and its livability, and talks about the big plans to build an integrated, sustainable, and full-service community. It only gets weird when the author questions the Mayor about the potential disconnect between building a low-carbon sustainable City fueled completely by the carbon-intensive and unsustainable extraction of oil from bitumen.

“Blake doesn’t miss a beat. ‘I’m a big believer that, yes, the climate is changing. If the climate goes up by two, three, four degrees in the future, we’re lucky to be here in Fort McMurray. We’re lucky not to be in California or BC. They’re going to fall in the ocean. In a place like this, we’re going to survive a lot better.’

You mean digging up bitumen is a good thing, because it will make Fort McMurray’s winters milder?

With a nervous laugh, she assents: ‘And that means my real estate becomes a very important asset in the future, so I’m not selling my house anytime soon.’ “

OK, let’s get something straight. This young person with a young family clearly believes in anthropogenic climate change, and she is talking liltingly about a time in the near future when California and Vancouver will “fall in the ocean”. That is no doubt a bit of fanciful hyperbole, but it has to be put into perspective. With no check on our greenhouse gas emissions, we could see, in her lifetime, global sea levels rise enough to displace hundreds of millions of people from low-lying cities like Miami and Shanghai, Osaka and New Orleans, Bangkok and Mumbai. California and Vancouver don’t need to “fall”, the ocean is coming up to meet them. Climate disruption at this scale will also cause widespread crop failures, mass migrations, unprecedented famines and unimaginable human suffering.

It takes a certain kind of sociopathy to think about the death and suffering of hundreds of millions of humans and say “Wow, that’s going to be good for my real estate value”, nervous laughter notwithstanding, if you are not the one causing these events to take place.

However, when you say that with a giggle at the same time as you are leading a community of people hell-bent on accelerating the very activity that will cause all of those bad things to happen for a little short-term profit?

That is a level of truly evil sociopathy usually reserved for Bond Villains.

Thanks

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

I guess it would be inappropriate for me to not blog about this…

As the story says, I was honoured to be nominated, but seriously did not think I would win. I was actually offering 10:1 odds against me winning before the event, and no-one took me up on it. I did not go with a speech in hand, so I am happy that speeches were not expected. Although I am always running off at the mouth, I am not always very good at thanking people, so let’s call this the “acceptance speech” I would have delivered, getting progressively more frantic and louder as the band tries to play me off the stage so everyone can get home to their loved ones…

I have a lot of people to thank for empowering (enabling?) me to rouse so much rabble.

I need to thank the person who nominated me, both for thinking of me and for saying such kind things about me on the nomination. I don’t want to call them out personally here, as that is their thing, and they may be regretting it all now (!) but I have thanked them personally and will for some time to come. I’ll just say, they are serious community builders, and every bit as deserving of this type of honour as I am.

I also would like to thank the Chamber and the nominating/selection committee(s). I actually don’t know how the process works past the “nomination” phase, how short lists or rankings are done. I chatted with a couple of Chamber folks after the event yesterday, and they clearly wanted to preserve the anonymity of the people who make the final choice. So whomever you are, I thank you.

Of course, Ms.NWimby is always shockingly supportive (if you think reading my frequent Tweets gets annoying, imagine living in a house with them!). She is the inspiration for many of my ideas, a sounding board for my constant jabbering, and constitutes the majority of my better judgement. She also keeps the rest of my life in order so I can spend an unhealthy amount of time at meetings, researching, writing, and dreaming. All this while she maintains her own kick-ass career, volunteers for several groups, athletes the socks of people half her age, and bakes the best muffins in the world. She’s damn charming too, if you get the chance to meet her! Thanks Tig, I never forget how lucky I am.

I joked to Grant from the Newsleader that I might be the first “Digital Citizen of the Year”, because so much of my connection in the community comes from the social media and on-line world. Much of the thanks for that go to Brianna Tomkinson and Jen Arbo at Hyack Interactive. When I first started reading Tenth to the Fraser, it broadened my horizons in my adopted town, and inspired me to start doing my own blog – even if it took a couple of years to actually start blogging. Then one day Jen asked me why I wasn’t’t on Twitter, and I said – yeah! Why aren’t I on Twitter? The rest (much to James Crosty’s lament) is history.

But it’s not just about the blog and Twitter chatter, I have made numerous connections and friends through these connections. Networks were created, ideas shared, and community built. People who think that relationships built through the social media are less genuine, or do not result in a strong community, are doing it wrong. I find it amazing that I can have a backyard barbeque and new friends from up the street can come over and meet my Mom, yet feel they already know her because she comments on my blog from 600 km away. Facebook still hasn’t replaced standing in the NWEP booth at River Fest or Sapperton Day when it comes to generating interest in sustainability issues in the City, but the web presence is now as important as the interpersonal face-to-face team building. So… uh, thanks Al Gore? He invented it, right?

My first reaction on Twitter last night was to thank #NewWest, and this meant two things.

First, this City is a great place to be a rabble-rouser, because people in New West are genuinely engaged and interested, and it doesn’t take much to get them a small crowd off the couch around an issue. When TransLink holds an open house in Surrey and 10 people show up, then they get hit by 150 people in New Westminster, you know there is something special about this town. People love to talk issues and love to seek solutions. We also love to disagree, but that is all part of the conversations. I have been to more open houses and consultations in the last few years than anyone (with the likely exception of Bill Zander) and am constantly encouraged to see that the citizens of this City care about their community, and are willing to burn so much of their “spare time” helping to build it. I looked around that room last night, and there were so many people who have been putting in decades of great selfless service to the community (Bill and Lynn Radbourne, Rick Carswell, so many others!), it feels strange to get singled out…but that is the fate of the squeaky wheel. So for everyone who came to a Coal Rally or a Master Transportation Plan open house or Community Plan consultation (even those who wrote down opinions opposite of mine), thank you for being involved.

Second, this City is a great place to be a rabble-rouser because people in decision-making roles are equally willing to engage. For the most part, elected types and staff are willing to listen to new ideas, and are not afraid to take risks. Unlike some senior governments these days, it is not a struggle to get sustainability on the agenda locally. I don’t always agree with the decisions they make, but even in those times they are willing to hear an opposing viewpoint that is offered respectfully. The positive change we have seen over the last decade in this City is not an accident, it is a legacy of good decisions and good leadership. Thanks New West.

Finally, the long list of my enablers in this City include many of the NWEP folks from the early days (Andrew x 2, Matt x 2, Reena, Luc, Peter, etc.) and newer members (Karla, Ginny, Jaycee), my teammates and friends at the Royal City Curling Club, people I have served on boards with and learned so much from (Bruce, Mary, Marion, etc.), constant community organizers like Kendra, James, and (of course) Tej, and so many people that have gone from neighbour to friend to co-conspirator, I know I’m forgetting some of you, but I will thank you next time I see you!

Finally, thanks Dad for making me so opinionated, and thanks Mom for making me so loud about it. 

Now, everyone get back to work.

on skepticism

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I listen to a lot of podcasts. With the intellectual wasteland that is talk radio in the Lower Mainland, where every conversation or idea is a reduced to either a he-says / she-says argument between two people who are too busy hitting their “message points” to hear what the other is saying, or random uncritical repeating of press releases with no time for setting context, (and don’t get me started on call-in or person-on-the-street bitching), the options are thin. Stephen Quinn is a brilliant interviewer and engaging host, but even his work is hampered by every-10-minutes traffic reports and redundant news “updates” every half hour. As the weekends on CBC 1 have basically shifted to all “Debaters”, all the time, and the commercials have arrived on Radio 2, the wasteland is only expanding.

So while I listen to quite a bit of music, there are many times when talk works better, and occupies brain space that music cannot while doing non-thinking stuff: commuting, weed-pulling in the garden, bike maintenance, ironing. So podcasts, with their flexibility of timing and ready access fit the bill.

One of my favourites is the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe. This weekly hour of “skeptical talk” discusses science and reason in a fun and engaging way. Not a “hard science” program, but one that often delves into pretty science-heavy topics. There are several good Science podcasts (Material World, Science Talk, etc.) but the Skeptic’s Guide stands out in what can only describe as their “skeptical approach”. The hosts and guests spend less time talking about the potential meaning of the latest “groundbreaking” new scientific study or discovery (although they often cover that), and more into the process of how a discovery was made or study was performed, and what that means about the result. In other words- they view a wide variety of topics through the lens of a rigorous application of the scientific method. They are also merciless at tearing apart bad science, bad science reporting, and the preponderance of pseudo-science that fills the modern media. They don’t do this by mocking the characters involved (well, any more than deserved, and I’m talking to you Deepak Chopra), but by systematically disassembling their bad ideas.

As a result, their show is a weekly hour-long primer on how to think. It engages you to not just question “what is the evidence?”, but to question “what is evidence?” or even “what is the evidence presented actually evidence of?”. From listening to the Skeptics Guide, I have learned to better recognize sloppy thinking and weak arguments: on my part, and on the part of others. It has also taught me about common logical fallacies and rhetorical techniques that are used when someone is trying to make a point that the data do not support.

It seems funny that I am still learning this stuff after all the time I spent in school getting degrees in science. However, that is a common failure in our current post-secondary science education system. Neither UBC nor SFU (my alma matter) require a student seeking a science degree to take a serious Philosophy of Science course (although UBC has the optional SCIE 113– which is an English writing course that discusses the topic).

I was fortunate to have an undergrad Prof (who became my supervisor for the Masters) who spent part of a mandatory second-year Structural Geology course discussing the scientific method and its application to problems. We also spent much of his upper-level course time reviewing the scientific literature, with him asking us to critique the thinking in the paper – to understand what the basic assumptions are, and how to test their validity. I learned to look at the citations of a paper, the citation of the citations, to find the root of an idea. All of this was, however, in the context of teaching structural and sedimentary geology. Frankly, I probably did not appreciate it much until I got into my Grad work and realized he had equipped me with a scientifically skeptical mind. Thanks Peter, you sneaky bastard!

However, a geology Prof shouldn’t have to sneak this into students in courses that are meant to be teaching about eigenvectors, stress vs. strain, and what those Moment Tensor solutions on the USGS Earthquakes site mean. Every science student should take a course in third year (after all the wheat-and-chaff data bashing of the first two years is out of the way, and only those really interested in a field of science remain) to teach the philosophy of science. What is evidence? How is it evaluated? What is certainty, and what is consensus, in the scientific context? How do Theory, Law, and Hypothesis interact? What is a model, and how does it compare to reality? What is the Dunning-Kruger effect? What can we learn from what we don’t know? What are the major categories of Logical Fallacies, and how do you detect them?

Why should we subject students to this scientific brainwashing? Because our brains are dirty. We all have our biases, our bad ideas, our perceptual weaknesses. We cannot avoid these, but to approach even the simplest problem scientifically, we need to recognize these problems, and find a way to isolate them from careful observation of the evidence. The more complex the scientific problem, the harder this is to do. With a high level of science illiteracy today (no higher than in the past, I suspect, but more pronounced because there is just more science to be illiterate of), there are often calls to address complex problems with liberal application of “common sense”. The problem is, “common sense” is often wrong. Common sense tells us the earth is still and the sun rotates around it. Common sense tells us that you are more likely to be killed by lightning than an asteroid impact. Common sense tells us driving your kids to school is safer than letting them walk. Common sense tells us more snow is not a predictable result of global warming. The data proves all of these ideas false. Pretty much the entire subject of Quantum Mechanics belies common sense – it is still a hell of a useful model of the subatomic universe.

His Eminence, apparently one of the great Thinkers of our time, does not clarify what to do in frequent occasion when scientific findings are contrary to “experience” or “common sense”. 

The problem with common sense (especially when biased by personal experience and inherent confirmation bias) is that we all have it, and we all rely on it too often. This is reinforced by a certain anti-intellectual bias in our current discourse. The list of ways our current Federal Government ignores, muzzles, defunds, and otherwise hinders scientific discussion is well established. Knowledge gained from decades of scientific research is given “equal treatment” in reporting on scientific topics with the opinions of the scientifically illiterate or (worse) those who are willing to give up their scientific credibility for profit. And how are we, those who are curious about scientific idea, or want to apply scientific principles to planning (never mind regular folk trying to make our way through this increasingly complex world), supposed to tell the difference?

A perfect example arrived in the Surrey Newspaper this week. Read this Letter to the Editor, which was sent in support of a scientifically-questionable opinion piece by columnist Tom Fletcher on the recent IPCC report. This letter writer was apparently of the opinion that the entire Anthropogenic Climate Change argument was a result of the world’s scientists not being able to understand decimal points. I quote:

“Never have so many known so little about basic mathematics, physics, chemistry, history and so forth. To illustrate my point, consider that the Earth’s atmosphere is 77 per cent nitrogen and 21 per cent oxygen. That leaves two per cent for all the trace gases including carbon dioxide – currently .04 of one per cent. How can a reasonable person argue that carbon dioxide is the primary driver of climate change?”

This is (as far as formal Logical Fallacies go) called “the argument from personal incredulity”, which can be summarized as “I don’t believe/understand it, therefore it must not be true”. This is an argument wrapped in the same profound lack of scientific literacy or skeptical analysis that the letter writer is accusing others of.

One can easily attack the factual failures in this specific argument (If 0.04 % is not enough to impact the climate, how much do you suppose is required? 1%? 10%? Show me your math / Somehow 0.04% is enough to support the respiration of all photosynthesizing life on earth, yet it cannot impact climate? / Ozone makes up less than 0.00007% of the atmosphere, are you equally convinced of its irrelevance to life on earth?). A more skeptical analysis would lead one to wonder how the writer has discovered a critical flaw in Climate Science that tens of thousands of scientists who work in climate, physics, chemistry, and geosciences for organizations from NASA to NOAA to the Royal Society to every major national scientific body in the world, have somehow missed due to their stunning collective scientific illiteracy? That no-one in the >150 years since the greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide was first discovered and measured, no scientist from John Tyndall to James Hansen, ever realized that 0.04% just wasn’t enough CO2 to matter?

No, what we have here is an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. We have the bulk of the world’s scientists, who have been plugging away at this problem for a generation, saying they are reasonably certain (now over 95%) that human-caused CO2 emissions are the leading cause of the current observed warning, and you have Francis Patrick Jordan, of White Rock, 100% sure it is not possible because he doesn’t understand small numbers.

But Mr. Jordan is not to blame, his is a failure of the education system not preparing people appropriately for an information-saturated world. We live in a time when everyone is walking around with more raw data than the Library of Congress in their hand, the problem is not getting a hold of facts, it is being able to recognize what the value of a fact is. So when I complain that the graph Tom Fletcher included in his original article  dishonestly compares mid-tropospheric temperature measurements from tropical areas with modelled global surface temperature trends (see “Stage 2 – Deny We’re the Cause” here, which two months ago pointed out the falsehood of that particular graphic, complete with references and data and such stuff that a good reporter might be interested in) and even in light of this lie, still counters Fletcher’s thesis by demonstrating a measured increase in surface temperatures on the order of 0.15C per decade during an “pause” in surface temperatures that is not only fully explained by the IPCC report, but the cause of which has been discussed openly in the scientific literature for more than a decade, people should be empowered to follow the links and recognize Fletcher for the non-skeptical, scientifically illiterate, cynical bullshitter he is.

And please, I encourage everyone to treat me with the same skepticism, but be prepared to provide the refuting data and back up your claims.

In which I declare my Luongo bias

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.
I have been a Canucks fan for almost as long as I remember. Actually, I remember liking the Habs as a young kid because my Dad liked the Habs and Guy Lafleur was a fast-skating hair-flying chain-smoking badass of a hockey player, even with the paisley shirts and floppy collars. 

By the time I started really watching and loving hockey, at some point between the ’82 Cup run (with King Richard and Tiger) and the ’87 Canada Cup (or the “Gretzky-Lemieux Show” as I remember it) I became a fan of the Canucks. In good times, and (much more often) in bad. The 1994 Cup run and the hiring of Mike Keenan. The West Coast Express flying, then choking by losing 6 of 8 games in April 2006 to miss the playoffs. The “sisters” winning back-to-back Art Ross Trophies to silence the critics, the same pair leading the team to 1-7 in April 2008 to miss the playoffs, again. I remember in the late 80’s once going to a pub in Vancouver where the price of a pint of beer was equal to Kirk McLean’s GAA. I have my personal list of favourite Canucks – Tiger Williams, Cliff Ronning, Esa Tikkanen (just kidding!). I love this team.


I remember when Luongo arrived with all the hype afforded one of the best goaltenders in the League. He demanded a lot of salary, but he would fill the gap the Canucks had somewhere between Dan Cloutier’s pads and over Alex Auld’s left shoulder. However, I was wary. The Canucks had a history of bringing in an overpaid superstar to finally solve all of their problems once and for all. I present for your consideration: Mark Messier. Matts Sundin. Felix Potvin. Vladimir Krutov. OMFG, we signed Vladimir Krutov.

The difference here is the Luongo performed. He was an ironman in goal. All the talk about him having “bad games” needs to be put into the light of whom he replaced: Dan Cloutier. Lou has the best record of any Canucks starting goaltender ever. More wins (233 wins in 406 games, that beats #2 Kirk McLean by 22 wins, but McLean took 516 games to do it), best Goals Against Average (2.35 vs. Cloutier’s 2.42 and McLean’s 3.28), best save Percentage (.920 vs. Cloutier’s .906), and 2 more shutouts in 406 games as McLean and Cloutier managed combined in 724 games. There is no doubt he is the best goaltender to ever wear the Orca (or the hockey rink, or the skate going down in flames).

In 2011, he led the Canucks to the Presidents Cup, won the team’s first-ever Jennings Trophy, and was the only Canucks player to show up in the Stanley Cup finals.

Yes, I said that. He was the best player on the ice in the 2011 Final series. And I stand behind it (with a hat tip to Ashley, my staff statistician).

The Canucks scored 8 goals in that 7-game series. Luongo backstopped two shutouts. Thomas got two shutouts as well, and he got the MVP for it. Unlike Boston, however, every one of the three games Vancouver won, they did so by a single goal (meaning every single save made by Luongo in those games was “game-saving”). People point out the 4-0 shellacking in game 7, but the Canucks didn’t lose game 7 by allowing the meaningless 3rd and 4th goals, they lost by not scoring a single goal in the most important game in the franchise history.

Let us not forget the other thing Luongo did in Vancouver? He won us a freaking Olympic Gold Medal. Right here in Vancouver. When Brodeur coughed up a furball, Lou stepped in, made four saves in overtime (one of them spectacular) and gave Sid the Kid a chance to be hero. I remember a couple hundred thousand of us celebrating on the streets. For that alone, Lou should never again have to pay for another beer in this town. Ever. 

20 months later, I shook my head as Vancouver “fans” booed Luongo for a lackluster performance in a meaningless mid-season game. They got on sports radio calling him a goat, they made fun of his wife. They did all this to the guy who took the Vancouver Canucks farther than any other player has, who brought a Gold Medal to this City less than a year before. Thanks for nuthin’.


Winning seasons or losing seasons, this was the first time I was embarrassed to be a Canucks Fan. (albeit, I was too young to remember this City booing Team Canada in the ’72 Summit Series).

Even during the last bizarre year- when Lou was pushed to #2, told to get ready to pack, strung along past trade deadlines and other milestones, then finally told he was not going anywhere, Lou has handled it with class, grace, and humour. When everyone was speculating about what was happening in the back  room, he remained silent and let the teams do their negotiating. When told by his team to expect a trade, he started to pack his boxes and publicly supported Schneider. When Canucks management bungled the trades, he offered to re-negotiate his contract behind closed doors, while remaining stoic and professional to the press. When everyone in Vancouver was criticizing the Schneider trade.Lou stayed out of the limelight, and let the dust settle a bit – for the good of the team and management. When the dust settled, Lou gave an extended interview, talked about the events of the summer (without laying criticism or blame on anyone), expressed his range of emotions though it all, and how he was looking forward to getting back on the ice and doing his job.

I cannot imagine an athlete acting more professional over such a difficult year than Luongo has, especially in a sport market where idiots like Tony Gallagher write tripe like this.

So for all those who were hoping for a trade; those foisting Schneider onto a pedestal from which you would have eventually shoved him? Get over it. Schneider is an excellent goaltender, may become a great one, and I am happy he was able to develop his skills here in Vancouver. However Lou is here, and I hope for a long time. I also hope when he skates onto home ice on October 5 against the team that swept them out of the Playoffs last year, the fans in Vancouver give him a standing ovation. For winning a Gold Medal in that building, for taking the Canucks to Game 7, and for being the best goaltender the Canucks have ever had. And for giving us fans this moment:

Rest assured, in a few more years, we will be lifting #1 to the rafters.