I’m back! Did anyone miss me? I hope so, because I sure missed all of you. I think this may be the first time I have gone so long without doing a blog, missing three Fridays in a row. Hopefully this doesn’t result in me losing readers, which I never actually considered. At any rate, it was nice to check out for a while and recharge the proverbial (Canadian taxpayer funded) batteries.

 

DID ANYTHING IMPORTANT HAPPEN WHEN I WAS AWAY?

 

I think not, or I would have heard about it for sure. No scandals, trade war escalation or emergent Canadian separatist movement or anything like that, right? No energy industry gyrations? OPEC announcements? No political theatre of a panel travelling across a province making a not so subtle case for independence? No by-elections with way too many candidates? Everyone realizes it’s summer and we all just want to relax, right? After all, that is why I felt it was OK to take some time off.

 

And take time off is what I did. Like I do every year.

 

And like every year I am going to revisit that time off with you my dear readers and share some pithy observations, maybe even up to ten of them, that came to me during my travels.

 

Unlike previous years, this trip was not an epic European expedition, not was it a weird Golden Triangle like the year we did Calgary to New York to Cancun to Calgary.

 

This vacation was different for a number of reasons. First and foremost is that we had to plan the trip around a kid’s participation in summer camp in Ontario and the desire of the other kid to stay home and rather than travel with mom and dad, hang out with the boyfriend and do weekend trips with him around Alberta and BC. Where did that even come from? Isn’t she still 6?

 

At any rate, circumstances dictated destination and we found ourselves planning a Canadian vacation, the vast majority of which was just the two of us travelling and hanging out together – for the first time in twenty years. Holy cow!

 

With our focal point being Stratford Ontario (camp location) we split our time between Nova Scotia and (generously defined) Southwestern Ontario (not Toronto).

 

Alright then, observation time. Some are general, some are specific. As I say every year doing this, perspective is everything and sometimes it is worthwhile to take yourself out of your comfort zone and look at things from the other side and you will find that things that you assumed to be true are not, things you held to be fundamental are not and the people you thought were telling it like it is? They most assuredly are not.

 

Before I get into my observations, I just want to say that I am forever grateful for the circumstances in my personal and professional life that allows our family to live our lives as we do. The privilege that accompanies these trips is not to be denied – I am acutely aware that in a world where housing and groceries are often becoming luxury items for whole swaths of society that my observations might grate on a few. But rest assured my lens on the world comes not from a peak, but more from peeking my head over the hedge to see what is going on. And while we do what we can to shelter our kids from the realities of inflation, economic insecurity and income inequality, I know that they take in everything they see and compare it to their own lives, even if they are reluctant to fess up to it when we ask.

 

• If you think that the transition to electric vehicles is going to be some instantaneous smooth ride over the next five years you need to get out of your bubble. Cars are everywhere. Southern Ontario is one of the most dense places in North America and everyone uses a car to get around. EV Infrastructure is there but not visibly penetrating the market – in any way. There is a difference between a couple of chargers at a service station or a few dedicated parking spots at hotels and transformational infrastructure. Has anyone who thinks EV’s are taking over the world or promoting the ridiculous Federal EV mandate actually been anywhere outside of their bubble? I would bet that maybe 5% of the cars we saw were EVs. Tesla is not in the majority. Range anxiety is actually not a thing. But access to charging is. You cannot mandate a switch from ICE vehicles without infrastructure. Gas? Diesel? Electric? Who gives a sh** when you are white knuckling on one of Ontario’s mega highways while being tailgated by a semi, stuck in a one-hour contraction delay or following the goat track Google Map instructions past mile after mile of corn-fields as long as the engine keeps running, the brakes work and you know at the end of your journey you can load up for the next leg!

 

• Lack of knowledge about energy and where it comes from is not a uniquely Canadian or American thing. And don’t think that Albertans get a pass on this either. We like to brag about our oil and gas prowess and industry, but we are woefully ignorant when it comes to the origin story of our industry, which many assume got its start in Turner Valley south of Calgary in the 1910s.

 

Does anyone even know where the first commercial oil well in North America (and thus basically the world) was “drilled”? I didn’t. But now I do. It was drilled in Oil Springs Ontario, in 1858.

 

How do I know this? Because I went there.

 

It was my own version of a pilgrimage – the Camino de Santiago for oil nerds, the Hajj for gas-heads. And there’s even a museum there. The Oil Museum of Canada. Canada! And just north of Oil Springs and Oil City is the delightful town of Petrolia (wonder where they got that name from).

So, the abridged history lesson.

 

The first oil well was a hand dug 16 ft deep hole in the ground located in a swampy bog. Buckets were used to scoop out tarry gum and a crude set of pots and boilers (that often blew up) were employed to separate the oil and useful products like lighting fuel from the goo. Sound familiar?

 

Ironically, the original use-case for this tarry muck in the Ontario “gum beds” otherwise known as bitumen, was for asphalt for roads as opposed to a fuel for lighting etc. since kerosene (a very useful by-product) had not been refined and invented yet (by a Canadian BTW).

 

The first asphalt company didn’t really succeed, but Canada’s first commercial well of 1858 was followed several years later by the first “gusher” on the same site in January of 1862 when a well was drilled (by pounding in a wooden bit, not rotary) to a depth of 158 feet tapping into an oil seam that produced a gusher that shot 20 feet high before ultimately being capped. Initial production from that well was about 1500 bpd before settling at 670. This well set off an oil boom in Ontario that continued for decades until more productive areas were set to be exploited. It is ironic of course to note that egress, market access and a lack of transportation infrastructure were significant challenges then and abandoned wells are the dominant challenge now.

 

The “Gusher”. Look how sophisticated that derrick is? And who is the angry guy?

Fun fact. The oldest and continuously operating oil company in the world is Fairbanks Oil Fields which to this day produces about 24,000 bpd of oil from Ontario wells for Imperial Oil, actually using the same technology developed generations ago.

 

Who knew????

 

Driving those flat Ontario grid roads past fields of wheat and corn dotted with still functioning pump jacks was very reminiscent of the classic Alberta prairie-scape. Funny how far apart and similar places can be. More on that later.

 

• It is worth remembering that Canada and its eastern provinces are really old. Why do I say this? Because as a relatively young province in Alberta we don’t maybe appreciate as much the history and effort required to settle even the north shore of Nova Scotia or homesteads along the Saint Lawrence River, never mind knitting together a country that stretches 5,500 km east to west and 4,600 km north to south. We do complain a lot, some legitimate grievances and power struggles, but it is safe to say that we haven’t been repeatedly fought over, had our towns burned down, been expelled, allowed back and conquered yet again. Then fought over again and threatened with invasion. All before even becoming an actual country in 1867.

 

The first suckers who came to North America were the French, followed soon after by the British. One of the flash points where the biggest initial conflicts occurred just happens to be the north shore of Nova Scotia where access to fish and land and wood was a really, really big deal.

 

I won’t go into a history lesson except to say there was no love lost between the French, the British, the American colonies, the (wanting to be neutral) Acadians (original settlers) and, of course, the First Nations.

 

Early Canadian history in a nutshell. The French were bad. The British were assholes who just wanted everyone to do what they said and would burn down your fort if you said no. The Acadians were caught in the middle and victimized and the First Nations played off one against the other and marginalized. No one was covered in glory, yet eventually we survived.

 

 

Oh, and the United States? They’ve been invading and trying to take territory from Canada since long before the Revolutionary War and us becoming a country. And for a considerable period afterward both through military force and economic coercion.

 

This Trump Tariff War and 51^st state nonsense? It’s been around since the 1700’s. Trump may be doing his thing with mean tweets, social media rage-farming and cockamamie economic theory but we have been the wee little country in the way of manifest destiny for a long time. This too shall pass.

 

• Everyone we met was super-excited to hear that we were from Calgary. There were exactly zero negative comments, even when we tried to trick people into making them. Many knew people who had moved to Alberta or had travelled to Alberta or were thinking of doing either themselves.

 

• Travelling alone with my wife/partner and best friend for two full weeks was a revelation. Who knew we got along so well? It’s easy to forget all that when you are consumed with raising kids and work and life. The time together was awesome. Well except for my penny-press machine meltdown in Niagara Falls. We have both agreed to never discuss that again.

 

• Food in the various locations we travelled to was really, really good. Whether it was “the best sandwich my wife has ever had” in Stratford, a giant sea bug on my plate in a beach side restaurant on the Atlantic, a gourmet meal cooked by my sister at her place in Nova Scotia, an award winning restaurant in Stratford, a greasy spoon breakfast in Niagara on the Lake, patio pizza at multiple wineries or dining with friends and family along the way we were treated to abundance and flavour. Sure there were some duds, but they were easily outnumbered by the good ones. Even the steaks were good and we never had to ask where they were from. Scratch that – we went to Ruth’s Chris at the airport on our last night and we had to choose between American and Canadian beef. I went Canadian because, hey. It was a Canadian vacation.

 

• It is amazing how ridiculously easy it is to travel inside of Canada. No currency conversion, no border chaos. We were able to fly from Kitchener to Halifax direct, completely avoiding the soul-sucking pandemonic hellscape that is Pearson Airport. Coming home we were a grand total of 25 minutes from our hotel to the car rental return to bag drop to security to the Air Canada lounge – and that was at Pearson! Note to savvy and non-savvy travellers. At the smaller airports, the car rental places close, often through the weekend. Oops! In case you were wondering how I finally managed to add Guelph to the list of cities in Canada I have visited.

 

• I take back everything I have ever said about Alberta needing to adopt a PST to smooth out tax revenue from oil and gas royalties. DON’T DO IT!!! If there is one single shining example of the Alberta Advantage remaining, it’s the lack of a PST. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in taxes funding government, just not this particular one. Especially when it comes to restaurants. With the average tip now being 20%, adding this to the 13% HST means that your restaurant bill a full third higher than the price listed on the menu. It’s the textbook definition of sticker shock.

 

• The rest of Canada seems to like Canada just fine. We both remarked to ourselves and each other how many Canadian flags were on proud display at houses and businesses all through our trip. The identification with Canada is quite strong and the anti-American sentiment can be palpable at times although that sentiment is directed at government, individuals are largely exempt from animosity. Maybe us Albertans can see a way to get over ourselves and join the team, especially since the leader of the opposition, a staunch federalist, is actually from Alberta and is about to be elected to a seat in one of the most hard-nosed anti-Ottawa ridings in the country. Plus, the Prime Minister grew up here. We seem to have some friends in high places, if only we could figure out how to leverage that. But what do I know.

 

• I know it’s a unifying Canadian thing to do to make endless fun of Toronto and I get it. Toronto is big, messy, crowded and to an outsider, kind of unfriendly, and weirdly narcissistic for a city. But the rest of Ontario, at least the parts we visited, was lovely. Tons of cute towns, with great restaurants, neat and tidy houses flying Canadian flags and happy welcoming people.

 

The wine in the Niagara region were higher quality than I expected and the wineries themselves were top-notch. We even went to a winery in Nova Scotia that what it lacked in super high end quality more than made up for in a spectacular setting with great food. The top 3 wines that we had came from Stratus, Big Head Wines and Between Two Lines. You can’t buy them here but with loosened intra-provincial trade rules you can order them (just watch the HST!)

 

• Final rambling point that may lose me some readers.

 

Canadians live in a ridiculous bubble of comfort and security. We are energy independent. We have glorious and copious amounts of cheap food. Notwithstanding committing to spending more in the future, our defense is guaranteed by a militaristic behemoth superpower to the south and our politics are in general petty, parochial and, quite frankly, embarrassing.

 

Our products cost less, we have no specific threats to our well-being and yet we still manage to be a flaming dumpster fire when we want to be.

 

Evidence of this?

 

We are faced with a tariff and trade war on the southern flank yet we are engaged in debating a pointless and delusional separatist movement in Alberta with the provincial government happily playing along in order to keep the loonies from breaking off and giving the provincial NDP the wedge they might need to score another upset win. Separatism in Quebec is starting to again rear its ugly head, if only because the political cycle in that province moves there once a generation.

 

It’s, to be honest, bananas.

 

Look, I get it. Lots of people don’t like the Liberals. Lots don’t like the Conservatives. Some people in the NDP don’t like themselves. We have problems and as I have said previously, all the provinces have legitimate grievances, but everything is fixable. But we continually lose sight of the spirit of compromise and partnership that knit this country together in a deluge of selfish demands, misinformed or deceptive interpretation of actual facts and political theatre and opportunism that chips away at the foundations of what we are or might aspire to be as a country. We had a brief surge of nationalism in the throes of the Federal election and the height of Trump Tariff mania, but now that the hard work has to be done, we are back to pointing fingers and blaming everyone but ourselves.

 

I read a comment the other day from a person whose  opinion I respect that really bothered me. He suggested that he thinks that younger Canadians are actually indifferent to Canada as a country, could go either way on breaking it up and that obsessing about keeping the “whole” together is really just a boomer thing. I find that hard to stomach and can’t say for sure that it’s true, but if the feeling of the largest bloc of the population towards our constitution as a country is ambivalence, then we’ve got a problem bigger than Trump tariffs. Then I wonder, is it indifference or do people just take things for granted? That this lifestyle they have, with all its warts, that is the envy of probably 80% or more the global population, is some sort of birthright that they get no matter what the borders are and that the work that was done by previous generations to fight for the land they live in, resist the relentless pressure from the behemoth to the south, drain swampy bogs to create and lead an oil boom – not once but twice in two separate provinces and eras, expand thousands of kilometers across a spectacular and unforgiving continent was really all for naught because it can be broken up at the drop of a hat because of “things”? Are we going to lose what we have to the loudest grifters in the room because we were indifferent and had other things to do? I can’t agree with that.

 

Separatist movements are at their core selfish and mean-spirited and, I’m sorry to say it, especially here. They are driven by delusions that somehow we are being held back because of the “other” – immigrants, other parts of the country, Liberals, taxes, Federal Conservatives, the health care system, pension plans, the RCMP, not enough pipelines, post exit access to the coast from “agreements” that don’t even exist. Heck, as discussed above, we don’t even own the oil and gas mythology so much of it is predicated on!

 

I grew up and lived in Quebec from 1965 to 1992. I know what separatism does. Want to know why Quebec gets so much equalization? Because they f-ing lit their economy on fire with separatism and have been playing catch-up ever since. Quebec, not Ontario, was the centre of Canada until “maître chez nous” necessitated the move of the gravitational centre.

 

Look, I didn’t set out for this to be some celebration of Canada or a take down of people’s attitudes towards whether Canada should remain a whole or not – that’s likely a series of future blogs.

 

But…

 

If all it took for me to shift my opinion about, say (and not to pick on), Ontario, was to simply go there for a few days outside of the Toronto bubble, I might humbly suggest that all of those people who want to cut the thing up or are indifferent to what is special about where we live come outside into the daylight every once in a while before they lose the very thing that allows them to feel that way.

 

Whether I am travelling abroad or inside the country, I will unashamedly point out to anyone who will listen (and have admitted to myself) that despite its many flaws we (and I) live in one of the greatest countries in the world and that being here is literally like winning the global quality of life lottery ticket.

 

We need to stop trying to mess it up and run it down. We just need to apolitically work “together” to fix the things that are broken.

 

Unabashedly Canadian, pro Energy, Anti-Stupidity – Me