Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 16:45:19 -0700 (MST)
Subject: Aloha from Minneapolis! (message #5)

Greetings, friends!  I'm coming to you live and unedited from 
Minneapolis, where I'm very glad to be home.  The city is abuzz with 
political fervor.  In fact, I've just come from Clinton's rally at the 
Target Center.  This will be my final narrative of my two month journey, 
although I'm thinking of sending some facetiae through later.

Anyway, we left off in Toronto, where it was raining.  In fact, it rained 
almost constantly the rest of the trip.  I was lucky that it let up for 
a while that very day, permitting a trip to the top of the CN Tower, the 
world's tallest building.  The view is spectacular, extending across Lake 
Ontario to Rochester, N.Y.  It's higher than I like for city viewing, as 
one can't see pedestrian activity very well.  There is also a set of 
glass floors up there, allowing one to stand in mid-air, so to speak.  I 
also took the elevator to the Space Deck, a very small observation deck 
at the highest occupiable level of the building.  Almost a third of a 
mile up.

Downtown Toronto is quite expansive.  The Downtown extends two miles up 
Yonge and Bay Streets by some accounts, although the financial district 
goes only about one third of that distance, which is still pretty large.  
I actually think of the Yonge and Bloor area to be a separate 
district, akin to New York's Midtown rather than a contiguous part of 
downtown.  The buildings in the center of downtown are all connected 
through a series of tunnels, nearly as extensive as the Minneapolis 
skyway system.  I happen to like the skyways better, as I find access to 
light desirable.  There wasn't much foot traffic on the sidewalks at rush 
hour, even though the rain had abated, with most people preferring the 
underground city.

Toronto is very clean, as are most Canadian cities.  Much of the older 
buildings outside the financial district have been preserved.  The 
provincial government does business out of a rather old-fashioned 
Victorian castle.  People in Ontario are proud of their role as the 
center of Canadian business and cultural life.  They are much more 
defensive of Quebec than people in the West, and they desire Quebec to 
stay in Canada.  A staff member of the Premier was surprised to hear that 
some in the West would have Ontario broken up if Quebec leaves,  in order 
to keep one province from dominating Canada.  The big news in Toronto was 
a planned one-day government strike.  This occurred last Friday, and the 
grounds of the legislature, known as Queen's Park, were filled with 
demonstrators on Saturday protesting the government's budget cuts.

I did get to sit in on the Ontario legislature.  I have never seen such a 
bunch of windbags in my life.  Those of you who are familiar with 
American legislatures know that speeches there typically run three or 
four minutes.  These guys go on for twelve to twenty minutes at a time, 
while their opponents engage in cat calls.  (Behavior which is against the 
rules in U.S. assemblies.)  I suspect this is due in part to the 
marginalization of voting behavior.  American legislators can vote as 
they please, and therefore don't need to express themselves by 
speechifying as much.  In a parliamentary system, voting is controlled by 
party leaders, so the only way members can express themselves on the 
floor is by words.  Still, what a bunch of gasbags!

Toronto has some excellent museums.  The Royal Ontario Museum has a huge 
collection of art and other artifacts, as well as natural history 
exhibits.  It was my mistake to go there at the end of the day.  The Art 
Gallery of Ontario (into which I took respite from the pouring rain, and 
which I left in even worse rain to get back in time for the presidential 
debate) has a marvelous collection, very well presented.  There is a 
large section set aside to display the work of modern sculptor Henry 
Moore.  Both museums are well worth a half day's perusal.

I got a car and took a drive around South Central Ontario.  That entire 
section of the province was fogged in that day, but I was able to visit 
some of the smaller cities in Ontario, such as Oshawa, Hamilton, 
Woodstock, Kitchener, and Guelph.  (From Brampton, one can take the 
turnoff to London, Paris, or Cambridge!)  A pretty good share of the area 
is megalopaloid, but I managed to find some rural settings too.  I 
happened upon a bookstore which calls itself the largest in Canada, but 
was dismayed to find that it carries hardly any Canadian books.  Most 
bookstores large and small have a "Canadiana" section near the door.  
This particular bookstore seemed to be an importer of American culture.

Experiencing the inevitable depletion of shampoo and other necessities, I 
was forced to do business with Shopper's Drug Mart, Canada's Drug Store 
(or so it claims).  In my opinion, there's something downright evil about 
a drug store chain being owned by a tobacco company, especially when its 
house brand is called Life.  But I didn't mind taking advantage of its 
discount price on Canada's famous addictive confection, Mackintosh's 
butterscotch toffee.

Having gone nuts once again, this time at a college used book sale (and 
there was barely room to move in that crowd), I made two trips to get my 
baggage to the bus station.  Leaving T.O. in the rain (of course), we 
proceeded through the countryside to Ottawa, Canada's capital.  This was 
my second trip to the city this year, but I managed to find some new 
insights on the place nevertheless.

Ottawa is one of the few places in Ontario with a significant Francophone 
population. It is also on the border with Quebec, across the Ottawa River 
(Outaouais to the French) from Hull and Gatineau, two of the few places 
in that province with significant Anglophone populations.  Many employees 
of the national government are required to be bilingual, and many others 
learn the other language in order to get a special bonus.  I was 
surprised to discover how the civil servants tend to speak to each other 
in French.  At two agencies I visited, I was greeted in French first by 
many employees.  Their internal conversations were mostly carried out in 
French.  While visiting the House of Commons, I noticed that the guards 
speak on the radio exclusively in French.

I sat in once again on the House of Commons.  This time, I was fortunate
to be around during Question Period.  This is when all of the government
ministers and their critics and a good many of the backbenchers are
present in the chamber.  Prime Minister Jean Chretien tries to fend off
criticism from the two opposition parties, both of which are new, in both
official languages.  (The beleaguered NDP and vanquished Progressive
Conservative Party rarely get a word in.)  Although he is not a native
Anglophone, he responds to questions from English speakers in their
language.  His Deputy, Sheila Copps, does likewise, although she is not a
native Francophone.  Members of the official opposition, the Bloc
Quebecois, rarely speak in English in the Commons.  And members of the
number three right-wing Reform Party rarely speak French.  Such is
representative (no pun intended) of Canada's divisions.

The Peace Tower in Ottawa is once again visible, having been obscured by 
two years of construction, but alas, the famous carillon is not yet 
ringing.  Just below Parliament stands the National Gallery of Canada.  
It is a brilliant museum, both in its architecture and collection.  It 
has a wide-ranging collection of both modern and traditional art, a large 
share of European and Asian art as well as home-grown.  It has a number 
of pieces by Alfred Laliberte, a magnificient sculptor who seems to be 
little known outside Canada.  

Ottawa has a well-deserved reputation as a sleepy capital city shelved in 
between Canada's centers of power, Toronto and Montreal.  It has a small 
city feel to it which belies its metropolitan population of nearly a 
million.  It also has some national capital oddities:  For example, the 
Czech embassy is located above a children's bookstore.  It is not 
uncommon to walk through Ottawa and see other delegations similarly 
situated.

Leaving Ottawa, it was a 31 hour bus ride back to Winnipeg.  I had 
planned to sightsee in Thunder Bay and take a side trip along Lake 
Superior, but (you guessed it) it was raining, so decided to high-tail it 
back to Winnipeg.  (Anyway, Thunder Bay is only a few hours from home so 
maybe can make a weekend trip of it later.)  Got into Winnipeg where it 
was dry (hooray!) and my team was winning the World Series.  Stopped in 
at the Winnipeg Art Gallery once again.  They are actually experimenting 
with computer art.  You can sit down in the museum and look at the 
current exhibit via the Internet.  I thought I could save time by doing 
that from home.  Come to think of it, you can too.  The current exhibit:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/schools/art/gallery/hpgs/auto/html/contents.html

The last day of my trip, I had the opportunity to putter around the 'Peg 
for a bit and also pick up the stuff I had been mailing to myself from 
across Canada.  I ambled over to the Legislative Library to catch up on 
newspapers.  It happened that a program was in progress commemmorating 
United Nations Day, complete with a high school band and choir, Mounties 
in full dress, and of course, the usual band of politicians.

So, returned home (at 5 a.m.  Ugh!) with 20 rolls of film, where the 15 
rolls of film I had printed in Seattle were waiting; plus ten hours of 
video, three boxes of books, and a lot of souvenir printed matter.  
(Interestingly, the only true "souvenir" item I purchased in two months 
was a "Bear Danger" sign from Denali National Park.)

I'm glad to be back in my home town, where the election is now only eight 
days away, and you always know what language your political opponents are 
cursing you in.

As Sam Goldwyn would say, bon voyage!

Tony