It was nighttime and I was just leaving Gamelan rehearsal at Simon Fraser University when I walked out into my first Pacific snowstorm. I guess I was the only truly surprised person in the group, as I did not know that snow on the Burnaby Mountain Campus is quite common and these snowflakes were right on schedule for this time of year. As my ride, Tony, drove down the mountain, the flakes turned into wet snow and finally drizzle. there was nothing more during the drive home. Nevertheless, by midnight, the snow had made it down to sea-level (or close to it). Not much stuck overnight, but as we looked through the clouds today at the mountains, they were mostly covered in white. Sorry that I don’t have a good photo; I’ll try and get one tomorrow, if we get a little more light (it was very overcast today, except for the clearing at sunset). It certainly looks incongruous to see the snow through our bamboo trees on the terrace. Almost like seeing Mt. Fuji from some pagoda. Maybe not.
Some Good News from Immigration
Today I had an email message from the Human Resources person at the company where I hope to work. The Immigration ‘Opinion’ that we were waiting for had been approved (thank goodness). While I jumped on this as a a sign that I’d imminently be working, she wrote back that this is just one step in a process that is still ongoing, so I’ll need to wait just a bit longer. I should know more tomorrow, but it is unequivocally a step in the right direction. After seeing that the average wait for various types of application on the Canadian Government’s Citizen and Immigration Web Site was anywhere between 38 days and 8 months, anything that is a bit more concrete is a good thing. I’m not starting work tomorrow, but we are making progress, and the wait now probably will not be 8 months.
Canadian Current Events (and what they mean to us)
So, the ‘No Confidence’ vote came down upon Canada’s Liberal Party who are currently in office. Pam and I cannot stop shaking our heads in disbelief at how big a deal is being made of the relatively small Sponsorship scandal, when you compare it to the rampant and open corruption in the US when we left; the whole scandal seems like something that Tom DeLay would do in a typical week of business in Texas or Washington D.C.
Still, it’s yet another example of the superiority of the Canadian system to the US; if the public and opposing parties have a strong enough reason (like catching them red-handed in illegal activities), a lame duck government can be swiftly voted out of power. The wait for the ‘Holiday Season election’ scheduled for January 23, 2006 (a month and 25 days from today) stands in stark contrast to the distant horizon of three long years that Bush and his fellow criminals and incompetents are guaranteed before the US can finally be rid of their stench. Three years to stick it to the poor, give handouts to rich cronies, rape more of the land, water and sky, stack the Courts with right-wing lunatics, sacrifice more lives in their meaningless and cruel war, write hate into the US Constitution and all-in-all make a mess of things.
I may be impatient for my wait of a few weeks now, but that three years feels like an eternity.