Friends,

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.

Until recently, my country was having an election too.  

In Canada, however, we elect a prime minister, not a president, and have a queen, not a president.  

Oddly enough, the Queen of Canada doesn’t actually live in Canada.  She makes her home in London, and is more commonly known as the Queen of England.

Embarrassing, I know.      

There were five people running to become Canada’s prime minister, not two like run for the American Presidency.

Let’s start with the man who won, Stephen Harper.  The most notable part of Harper’s campaign was the sweaters he wore in an effort to convince Canadians he wasn’t creepy. Harper’s party, Canada’s government, is the Conservatives – they offer a blend of neo-conservative, regressive reform politics.

Stephen Harper

Harper won a minority of the 308 seats in Canada’ s House of Commons.  He will be asked by the Governor-General, the Queen’s Representative in Canada, to form the next government of my country. 

The main opposition candidate was Stephan Dion, the leader of the Liberal Party.  He was portrayed as a weak leader who was regularly pooped on by birds.  His English is halting.  Dion was arguably North America’s most aggressive, progressive candidate.  Or, as Harper described his ilk to an American audience some years ago, the very worst of European Socialism.  Dion led his party to its worst election defeat in two centuries. 

Stephan Dion

There was also a man named Jack Layton of the New Democratic Party (NDP).  He accused Harper of storing his hidden agenda under his sweater.  Layton looks insane and has a moustache.  Some of you would call his politics communism.  The NDP increased its share of seats in the House of Commons.

Jack Layton

All Canadians could otherwise cast a ballot for American born Elizabeth May, a lady who ran her campaign as if she was Dion’s running mate.  Unlike him, she actually speaks English and people like her.  She ran for the Green party and didn’t win her seat.  Over seven per cent of Canadians cast their vote for the party, but not one Green was elected.

Elizabeth May

Finally, for some Canadians, those living in Quebec, there’s the Bloc Quebecois – a party led by former communist Gilles Duceppe.  His party’s raison d’etre is to partition my country.  The Bloc Quebecois won more seats than expected in the election.        

Gilles Duceppe

I can’t help but notice that your election isn’t about sweaters at all.  Rather, it seems to concern itself more with the general fate of our planet.  

And while I’m just a neighbour, and you didn’t ask for my opinion, I’m going to offer it any ways.  

Put simply, Sarah Palin is (ridiculously) unqualified to be even the vice-president of the United States.  So much so that her very candidacy has made it irresponsible for any American to cast a vote for the Republican party.    

You don’t want a hockey mom one old man away from the most powerful position in the world.  Believe me,I know.  This is a Canadian blogging, after all. 

The same night as the vice-presidential debate in your country, we had an all leaders debate in English after one the night before in French.

Our neo-con candidate took it on the chin from the European socialist, the moustached socialist, the man who found purpose in working to deconstruct my country’s awkward confederation and a green Facebook widget.  Yet, Harper still won.

If I could vote in your election, I’d cast my ballot for Obama.  One, because the way he speaks make me giddy.  Two, because he’s a better candidate.  And three, because he’s the only candidate with a qualified vice president.  

(I also think his use of social media is revolutionary).

I can vote in my election and did for the Liberal candidate in my riding.  

For all the ridicule there was of Dion, I was excited when he won the Liberal ticket and excited about his campaign. I’m in the minority who thought he was terrific.  All the same, he has since been forced to give up the leadership of the Liberal party. 

Word on the street is Americans like to relate to people.  My hometown, 33,000, just lost 2,500 full-time jobs and has an ineffective civic government.  

It’s time to give audition to every other idea than those introduced over the past eight years.

Even though this last idea was pooh-poohed in the Canadian election, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for my American friends to improve our collective future.

Your neighbo(u)r,

Paul Jenkins

Conservative Party of Canada

• Facebook – 17,832 supporters; no wall; no discussion board
• Twitter – 1,123 following; 1,066 followers; 71 updates since the start of the election
• myCampaign – A virtual campaign office for Conservative supporters.  It’s an online action centre, helping spread the conservative message, raise money and recruit volunteers
• Interesting fact – Of the four photos of Stephen Harper on the Conservative Party of Canada’s homepage, the Prime Minister is only wearing a sweater in one

Green Party of Canada

• Facebook – 5,341 supporters; 905 wall posts; 47 discussion topics
• Twitter –  680 following; 691 followers; 117 updates since the start of the election
• Elizabeth May’s blog – May’s blog is front and centre on the Green Party’s website.  She’s written 129 posts since the election was called
• Interesting fact – The website has an upcoming events calendar that details where May will be each day of the campaign.  It isn’t interactive, but it is helpful

Liberal Party of Canada

• Facebook – 14,236 supporters; 4,369 wall posts; 61 discussion topics
• Twitter – 1,976 following; 942 followers; 87 updates
• Create a page – Write your own message of support, collect secure donations online, share your photos and videos.  Only 55 Liberals have participated.
• Interesting fact (thanks to Mary’s keen eye) – Right after the being nominated to lead the Liberal Party, Dion exceeded his number of Facebook friends

New Democratic Party of Canada

• Facebook – 24,736 supporters; 3,957 wall posts; 232 discussion topics
• Twitter – 1,322 following; 1,338 followers; 145 updates
• The Orange Room – The campaign’s most comprehensive social media endeavor, the Orange Room is “a one-stop shop for anyone looking to find – and share – media related to the New Democrat election 2008 campaign.”  It’s citizen-drive media, blending “the best of YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and blogs to keep you engaged.”
• Interesting fact – The NDP website has a page of blogging tools (banner ads, video, Twitter box, NDP themed blog template)

It’s a Saturday afternoon in the summer.  Paul’s in Toronto; looking to move to a place both bigger and cheaper.

Apartment hunting, he says, especially bargain apartment hunting in Toronto, is too often a fruitless endeavour.

In the search for one’s next home, Paul feels, one must wade through the crap speckling the intestines of the Toronto market.  And mark his word, there’s a lot of shit out there; he’s got his rubber boots on.

A Kafka accented one bedroom basement apartment with prison cell sized windows, anyone?  It’ll cost you a grand.

Interested in a two bedroom featuring thirty-year-old purple shag carpeting as it’s only upgrade in 100 years?  It’ll run you a cool $1,200 plus utilities.

By comparison, Paul’s lady and Paul, for example, could be paying for a mortgage in St. Thomas – his hometown, some 200 km southwest of Toronto – for what he pays in rent; or so his friends paying a mortgage and living in St. Thomas tell him.

Not only is Toronto’s rental market out of control, centrally located accommodations for purchase are similarly absurd.

Paul’s been to an open house where cellar ripened salami greased his back and more than three dozen Jesus, Mary and Joseph statues stared him down – an unrenovated house from the 1950s that would later sell for a half million dollars.

Of course, these prices are probably justified.

Why wouldn’t you pay a premium to live in a “trendy” neighbourhood where two people were shot this past week at a local pub and where a girl was shot in the adjacent subway stop last winter?

Paul responds, “you wouldn’t!”

He’s moving in a week.

* As you might have guessed this was written a while ago – as best Paul can remember, a summer Saturday.  He’s happy in his new home.

If Americans were a little more successful in manifesting their destiny I’d be living in the States right now – not the humble Dominion of Canada I instead call home.

And if I lived in the States right now, I’d take this year’s Toronto weather to Judge Judy’s court of justice and sue the damn bastard for all the sun it had.

You see, it’s raining – again.

Listen up weather, if I wanted to live in an overpriced city with relentless precipitation, I’d move to Vancouver; where at least, if the sky did clear, I’d get a pretty view.

And it hasn’t even been hot this summer, just humid.

I’ve never sweated so much in 20 degree weather – for my American readers, I believe that’s 2(5X-2Y) in your crazy Fahrenheit system.

Alas, the sky’s ceiling has sunk to my waist.

I’ve got smog dripping down my coin slot and it’s not very pleasant.

COMING SOON

CouchSurfing – (Currently Untitled) – Part II

Our Alma – Ass Backwards – Part VI

I am going to France this evening for the wedding of two of my university roommates – it’s being held in a small town in the Alps next Saturday.

Sandra, my lady friend, and I, are arriving in Paris a week before the celebration to travel our way through the country. Of course, we have no money, so we’re doing it on the cheap – renting a car and couch surfing from the capital to Orleans, Dijon, St. Etienne, Marseille and finally to Embrun – the latter a sleepy little alpine town with cheap wine and great cheese – the site of the wedding.

CouchSurfing is a social application that allows strangers to arrange accommodations with each other. It’s like Facebook, but with a more singular purpose – to bridge cultures, encourage dialogue and provide places to sleep.

It’s really quite a phenomenal social experiment. I hope our own experience will serve as testament to its idealism. Either way, I’ll let you know how it goes.

We are staying with an art teacher in Orleans because Sandra’s an art teacher and artist. We are visiting a man in Dijon whose couch surfing profile acclaims him as a good cook and connoisseur of wine. We then intend to visit a young family in Saint-Etienne before arriving in Marseille – where we’ll visit an English teacher and her boyfriend.

We’ll then retrieve my other university roommate from the airport on our way to Embrun for the wedding – where we’ve rented a home for the week. We conclude our trip with an overnight drive to Paris for our flight home.

Can knowing less be helpful?

As I start out in my career as a PR professional, I am trying to position myself as a credible authority on social media – a source of information to such questions as:
• What the hell is it?
• How can it be used?
• How has it been used?
• Is it measurable?

I’m not an authority yet, however. For one, I haven’t even broken into the profession. For two, I’m not convinced the technological proficiency of certain targeted audiences is sufficient to warrant such methods.

Communicators are not in the business of selling/teaching social media innovations, but in using them to convey key messages. Insisting on a social media solution then, risks being a futile exercise of preaching to the converted.

True, I am not an early adopter of social media, but I do know of Twitter and Seesmic, for example, and I am not yet convinced of their usefulness on a wider or even long tail scale.

It is this latter admission of reacting to trends, rather than leading them, that makes me well positioned to effectively demonstrate their application. If I don’t use, or feel comfortable using, an online tool to gather information and make choices based on that information, how can I argue an advantage to it over traditional media?

More versed experts are at risk of assuming an audience knowledge that isn’t there. Here, my ignorance is an attribute. I am a barometer of average understanding of online tools.

To truly claim the experience of a city as your own, you must first live through one of its winters. I moved to Toronto in September, 2007. I earned my T.O. patch this past winter – when the season’s old man put me in a half nelson and gave me a noogie.

In fact, it was the worst winter I’ve ever experienced. Worse than Edmonton, where it snowed near Labour Day; or Seoul, where acid would literally fall from the sky; or Sarajevo, where fog would persist in the valley city like a glacier for weeks on end.

I live in the attic of a nineteenth-century row house on Bathurst with my partner Sandra. We share about four hundred square feet of space. Our bedroom smells like stall smoke and cat pee. It fronts a 24 hour street car line – making it too noisy to keep the window open at night, but too ripe to keep it closed.

Thankfully, our overpriced pad has a prized patio. It’s reached by a metal door opening out – it’s also our fire escape. Only because of my brutish strength, did the season’s first snowfall not totally block our exit.

I phoned the landlord and asked if I could have a door that pulled in. I then asked what exactly our fire route was – as there aren’t any stairs that lead from our apartment to the ground.

He talked about the door needing to open out to meet fire regulations. Our fire route? Go out on the wooden patio and wait to be rescued. Apparently, it’s designed to withstand fire for the unspecified amount of time it would take for the firefighters to get us down.

He also assured us there wouldn’t be another snowfall that big all year.

He was right; there were two – and they were bigger. I dug us out each time with a metal dustpan. Sandra and I resigned to the fact that if a fire did occur, we would jump to the nearest fire escape three metres below.

We’re safe… for now… and moving in September.

* Two youths (15 & 16) have been arrested for the Alma College fire. Read this Globe and Mail article for details.

It’s a sad day for St. Thomas

A fire that started just after 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday quickly engulfed Alma College, reducing the former girls’ school to little more than an empty shell of its former glory. Smoke was visible as far north as downtown London and as far south as Port Stanley.

The timing of the fire came less than two weeks after the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) agreed to the combined City of St. Thomas and George Zubick (Alma’s owner) request to demolish Alma College. Early Thursday morning, Constable Anders Nielsen said “with the help of the Fire Marshal’s Office, we have determined that it is arson.” Alma College is now a crime scene.

Ironically, at the same time that fire fighters were battling the blaze in St. Thomas, petitions to save Alma College were being delivered to Ontario’s Legislative Assembly in Toronto.

Elgin-London-Middlesex MPP Steve Peters took time from the afternoon question period to lament the passing of this historical treasure.

The following text can be found online at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario’s website. Peters said:

I need to seek the indulgence of the House for a moment. I recognize that I’m probably out of order and I can’t rule myself out of order, but I lost a really good friend today, and it was a heritage building. Alma College was a historic school in my community that towered over the city. I could see it from my backyard and from my office every day. Tragically, it burned to the ground at noon this afternoon. I trust that if it was arson, they will find the culprits.

For me, Alma was a special place. First, it was incorporated by this very chamber in its beginning, and it stood as a monument for a long time. I worked at that college 20 years ago when I was a university student. It was a special thing to have a girls’ school and being the only guy that could walk through the front gates of that school and not be arrested. I say this because there have been community citizens for over 20 years who have actively tried to find a new use for the building. And in over 20 years, we’ve had various governments.

I needed to make the statement for myself and to say thank you to the people over the years who worked so hard to preserve this building. I just ask that we remember that. I hope it’s a lesson to all of us that our heritage is precious and that we need to collectively do what we can to ensure that we preserve our heritage for future generations. Once these buildings are gone, they’re gone. You can’t ever bring them back.

If nothing else, I hope that this fire today at Alma College-that all the work everyone has done over the years hasn’t been in vain, that we can learn collectively that it’s incumbent on all of us to make sure that we stand up and preserve our heritage and find ways of developing new and unique partnerships to make sure that these symbols will remain for generations to come. I thank the members for allowing me this opportunity.

Peters’ official statement is posted in the comments section below.

Reports from earlier:

AM 980 reported that “[Alma College] is literally falling down before people’s eyes. Many people are distraught... Fire crews [now] have the fire under control. The whole building was engulfed in flames.”

There was a morning event at Alma College by high school students protesting the OMB’s decision.

Sarah Miller of the Facebook group Eerie and Endangered: Celebrating the Beauty of Alma College has posted several photos of the fire.

This last photo was taken by Melissa Ravenek and posted on the Facebook group Remembering Alma College.

Nothing now remains of Alma College save its chapel and a pile of rubble.

The St. Thomas Times-Journal has posted a comprehensive series of photographs documenting the fire.

Mike Whitman produced an excellent video tribute to Alma College.

The Alma College fire was picked up by the Canadian Press and Sun Media. Stories and photos were published in the Timmins Daily Press, the North Bay Nugget, the Sarnia Observer, the St. Catharines Observer, the Woodstock Sentinel-Review, the Edmonton Sun, CBC’s National, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail.

For more information on Alma College click here. This is a list of news articles on the school.

To read the OMB’s May 16, 2008 decision click here.

I’ll be updating this post as more information becomes available.

In the meantime, have your say and comment below.

This is such a since you didn’t ask post. I present to you, Paul’s eight tips to office success – with a PR bent.

1. Try to keep most of your e-mails to 30 words or less. It takes longer to do at first, but it sharpens what you say.

2. Say yes to every task you’re assigned. I babysat 18 square feet of sod a few weeks ago as part of my internship at Habitat for Humanity Toronto.

3. Say less and act more. By taking advantage of the opportunity to learn you improve your productivity and demonstrate your value to the organization.

4. Step three, of course, requires knowing what needs to be done. I reviewed the business plan, marketing and communications plan, and asked questions of all department staff. I then took responsibility for the submission of 50 grant proposals.

5. Type quickly and write well. I was asked to craft a thousand word advertorial on garage organization to deadline.

6. Be amiable. It’s your responsibility to get along well with people. Participate fully in relationships with all colleagues. Remember names and interests, and be aware of office culture and multiculturalism.

7. Don’t underestimate the importance of maintaining and growing your professional network. Identify your talents and the talents of your peers – and then share them.

8. Make ethical decisions and be tough. It’s all about you – don’t be stubborn, but don’t compromise core values.

In the summer of 2004, I pushed a small outhouse on three wheelbarrow wheels, with an inside to hold a cooler, through eight Canadian cities selling poopsicles – frozen, fair trade, organic bananas coated with dark chocolate – for three dollars each.

I used the poopsicle project to say to as many people as possible, “excuse me, I’d like to be heard.”

It worked. I made front page in a regional version of a national newspaper, was pitied in a Montreal editorial and told to grow up and get a real job by a writer of an Edmonton daily. I was on TV – the news in Edmonton and Calgary, and MuchMusic’s Speaker’s Corner.

My key message was simple, consume crap.

Nobody understood what I meant, though. I forget to say what’s in it for you.

The poopsicle project had so little stickiness in our collective conscious, I’d be surprised to find anything except for this blog entry on Google about the topic. Believe me, I’ve checked.

What I had wanted to say is your consumption of media, materials and meat controls the fate of this planet we’re all flying on. Tough shit, my friends, you have to monitor your consumption:

1. Learn the bias of mainstream media, whatever it is – the responsibility of opinion is that inevitably, it’s all propaganda. So, be aware of those who hold your attention.
2. Learn who sews the underwear ridding up your bum. As earnest as it sounds, you have a responsibility to those making the pieces of our material world.
3. Learn where the food’s coming from on its way to your belly. This includes: food miles, farm practices and family partnerships.

The clincher is, because you are aware of this responsibility, you will now and forever, feel a little guilty the next time you make a stupid decision like considering Fox, news; shopping at Wal-Mart; or, eating slave-grown bananas.

I made fifty poopsicles each time I pushed my prone to tipping poopmobile through the streets. I sold out my first day in Ottawa – the only time on tour – during gay pride.

I drove to Montreal and slept in my van in an area popular with crack addicts, adjacent to where I once lived. I was police-escorted off Mont Royal the next day to chants of poopsicle! poopsicle!’

I wheeled around Toronto’s city hall, the Queen’s park and street, but no one was there – except for my family.

I went to my hometown, St. Thomas, and was interviewed by the National Post.

The poopsicle project made appearances at Portage and Main in Winnipeg, Whyte Avenue in Edmonton and the Red Mile in Calgary. I finished in Vancouver with high expectations, but made little connection with the city.

I then stopped, packed the poopmobile in the back of my minivan, my home for the summer, drove across the Rockies with failing breaks to Edmonton, and put it in the corner of my apartment for two years. Its current home is a suburban garage.

Of course, I had grand designs for a poopsicle world tour, but the project simply didn’t have the legs to go viral.

I’ve often wondered, why? What prevented people from whispering poopsicle to each other? Why didn’t they bother to spread the implications of my message and its call to action?

The answer is three-fold:
• I had a lousy web presence,
• Not enough money,
• And, never fully explained the idea until now.

The Poopsicle does America, 2008? One million dollars and I’m in.

You can support the poopsicle project in three ways:

• Become a Poopsicle Pal
• Tell your friends about the poopsicle project (talk, call, e-mail, Facebook status update, link)
• Monitor your consumption.