STC U-Turn

I stood witness to the last Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) bus leaving the Prince Albert depot on May 31, 2017. It was bittersweet.  Sweet because I have private transportation and could stand in solidarity with the employees.  Bitter because people without public transportation are at increased health and safety risks.

Final bus from Prince Albert depot 31-Jun-2017.

How many people are now experiencing distress around getting to their next medical appointment? How many people are now risking their lives by hitching rides? It may be coincidence, but in the first week of June, I counted seven hitchhikers at intersections on highways north of Prince Albert where I normally see one or two.

The bitter has turned to blister.  I learned that the provincial government did not ask for Saskatchewan's share of federal transit funding.  It was reported to be $640 million—7.5 times the funding estimated for 5 years of STC operation.

The STC is a public transportation system cost-shared with riders.  John Thornton's investigation showed the government was headed down the right road early in its mandate. It increased ridership by lowering fares.  Then my university daughter found the STC an affordable ride home on weekends for family celebrations.  Now it is pricey.

Our government courageously admitted its mistake with the cuts to libraries.  It recognized the cuts reduced our quality of life.  Eliminating our STC may reduce the quantity of life at risk for our most vulnerable riders.  Let's tell our government to courageously slam on the brakes and pull a U-turn before we lose our wheels.

Nancy Carswell
Shellbrook, Saskatchewan

Physical or Psychological Bear?

Your brain is well-adapted to survive a bear attack--but are you really being attacked by a bear? Charlie Stewart survived a bear attack.  He credits divine intervention but it was brain intervention.  When your life is at risk, your amygdala responds with a fight-flight-or-freeze response.  Charlie says, "Next thing I know I was running again." During his response his slower thinking brain turned off so his faster feeling brain could instantaneous Fight! or Freeze! or in Charlie's case Flee!

In safe parts of Canada, we rarely need our fight-flight-or-freeze response.  Yet, there are daily possible triggers. This is problematic because our amygdala does not differentiate between physical and psychological bears.

Take this brain response to a farmyard near Biggar, Saskatchewan on August 9, 2016.  Did Gerald Stanley have a fight response to a psychological bear?  This makes him no less culpable but it does suggest a solution. We can practice priming.  When we meet individuals who are negatively portrayed in the media and elsewhere, we can intentionally think of positive examples. 

The practice of priming requires self-regulation.  Self-regulation is best wired into our brains early. Every child needs a primary caregiver who practices attunement.  Attunement is being "in tune" with the child's emotional states so they feel understood and accepted.  It is through attunement that we learn to regulate our physical and psychological states.  Once self-regulated, our thinking brain has a better chance of outrunning our feeling brain when it sees a psychological bear.  

Libraries and Librarians Feed Hungry Minds

Are you familiar with the award-winning children's story The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Another story I heard could be called The Very Hungry Mind.  There was a 12-year-old in Regina who spotted a rare bird.  When interviewed, Nick Selinger sounded perplexed when asked how he knew it was a Eurasian Tree Sparrow.  He knew because his birding book confirmed his observations. 

Like the hungry caterpillar, Nick had a hungry mind.  He became interested in owls after reading a fiction book.  He read all the owl books but he was still hungry.  He read all the raptor books but he was still hungry.  Then he started to read all the books about birds.  His local library and librarian had a central role in feeding his hungry mind.

As fields of knowledge grow, hungry minds begin to make connections that lead to innovations.  While we credit a particular innovation to a particular innovator, history shows that commonly others were making the same connections and the innovation was inevitable.    

Libraries and librarians are organized to feeding hungry minds in a way the internet cannot. The Saskatchewan government cuts to libraries risks cutting innovations.  The low hanging fruits they thought they were harvesting are the seeds we need for future innovations. Visit your local library or the Action Centre http://savesasklibraries.ca to learn how you can help reverse the cuts.

Teen Brain Would Vote for Proportional Representation

Imagine you are living in the age of cavepersons with a constant supply of water and food in your cave. Would you ever risk venturing outside? Brain research reveals there is a demographic in our cave that has a brain designed to venture outside—teens. Ironically, it is our teens' drive for reward that has become the foundation of our existence as they enthusiastically ignore consequences. Sometimes they take themselves out of the gene pool and sometimes they succeed in a "better way" that benefits all of us.

Our government has promised to replace our first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system with a better way. While some think keeping FPTP is keeping us safe, among other severe problems, it favours survival of the richest.

The Electoral Reform Committee (ERRE) is reporting in December on two options; ranked ballots and proportional representation (PR). Ranked ballots would not meet the requirements of effectiveness and legitimacy, engagement, accessibility and inclusiveness, and integrity. PR meets all of these plus we can customize it for the requirement of local representation. No constitutional changes needed.

The "teen" brain found PR is a better way in 35 other robust democracies including Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. In our Canadian cave, let's replace adversarial first-past-the-post with consensual proportional representation. Tell your MP and/or tell the Committee (http://tinyurl.com/tellerre) that PR is the better way to make every vote count.

Nancy Carswell, Co-spokesperson Fair Vote Canada Saskatchewan Chapter

Meeting No. 24 Special Committee on Electoral Reform
Evening Addition http://tinyurl.com/erreRegina 20:36:30

Dear Electoral Reform Committee,

Your mandate and my vision need proportional representation which makes this the most important two minutes in my life.

I've had fierce conversations about why civilizations rise and fall.  Author Chris Harman says civilizations rise when citizens "remold society around the values of solidarity, mutual support, egalitarianism, collective cooperation and democratically planned use of resources." 



Civilizations fall when citizens fail to maintain these values.

Let's focus on the value of "democratically planned use of resources."  As an environmentalist, I was frustrated when a wage slave would step between me and the tree I wanted to hug.  Then I realized that the tree wouldn't need hugging if the wage slave’s owners did not undemocratically use resources in ways that externalize costs on the poor and the environment and then use the profits to amplify their voices.

As citizens, we can best maintain our values if our voices have proportional representation in our House of Commons.  This gives a foundation of consensus rather than majority rule.  Countries using proportional representation have risen to the top for voter turnout, women and visible minorities in government, income equality and strong economies, and, my priority, environmental protection.

Give Canadians the opportunity to remold our society around our values.  On December 1, identify proportional representation as the electoral reform that offers effectiveness and legitimacy, engagement, accessibility and inclusiveness, integrity, and can offer Canadian-made local representation. 

Thank you.

Nancy Carswell
Senior Researcher into Happiness

Dorito Democracy

The book The Dorito Effect proposes that the cause of our obesity epidemic lies in the food industry's fixation on mouth taste. Why do I specify mouth taste? Apparently other parts of our digestion system have "tastes" too. If these other tastes are not satisfied, we experience the Dorito effect and one Dorito becomes countless Doritos.

There is a parallel here to voting When we vote, we get a taste of power. Sadly, first-past-the-post voting is the equivalent of "mouth taste. It does not satisfy the needs of our democratic system. We can vote countless times and never count.

In 2016, the Electoral Reform Committee heard 88% of its expert witnesses and 87% of the people who stepped up to the mic say they believed a system of proportional representation would satisfy our democratic system.

In 2017, let's give our democratic system the proportional representation it needs to be healthy. Connect with our new Minister of Democratic Reform Karina Gould and tell her you want to experience how democracy tastes with a Canadian-made system of proportional representation. Email Karina.Gould@parl.gc.ca or phone 613-995-0881.

After experiencing a healthy democracy for a few elections, we could ask ourselves then if we wanted to return to a Dorito democracy.

Nancy Carswell, Saskatchewan Chapter Fair Vote Canada Co-spokesperson
Shellbrook, Saskatchewan