So I have avoided mentioning Mark Carney. Mostly because I’m not sure what to think. I’m glad for so much of what he’s doing, glad for his speech at Davos, glad we didn’t get Pierre Poilievre, glad for his fight against Trump. There’s just one thing. I can’t help wondering if we got a pig in a poke. Wasn’t Carney a climate guy? Didn’t he want to do something?

Origin of the Phrase according to Google

• A poke is an old word for a bag or a sack.

• In old markets, dishonest sellers might put a worthless cat into a sack instead of a young pig.

• If buyers did not look inside the bag before paying, they risked being cheated.

• The related phrase “let the cat out of the bag“ comes from the moment the hidden trick was exposed by opening the sack.

So we bought a poke, thinking the climate-caring Bay Street guy was an antidote to everything. But I want to know - is Mark Carney a pig or a cat? Carney was the guy who said the next global meltdown would be due to climate change - he was the “United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance”. Now, as PM, he’s also the guy spending our billions on the military and a new pipeline. He just added the pipeline to the Building Canada Act, which means he can ignore laws and regulations that affect Indigenous Peoples, transportation routes, and marine mammals like orcas.

We don’t know until we buy the poke. Still, the Orbans and Modis come and go - they will pass - the climate will not. I hope Carney is a pig who cares about the environment, but he’s also swept up by huge global shifts.

On the campaign trail, Greenpeace says Carney was “Carefully vague” as he committed to keep the core of the Trudeau government’s climate plan, while simultaneously pledging to make Canada an “energy superpower.” Are both possible? Can you be both a pig and a cat? Or did Carney decide something else was more important?

Me? I’ll make it through, I will die before the climate kills me, but will our 20-something daughter? The goal is not to be just popular, not when the alternative is death or the end of our species. The world’s best comedian (he says, so it must be true), Britain’s Stewart Lee, says it’s already too late – it will all be over in 50 years. We knew the fires were coming years ago - climate scientists predicted exactly what’s occurring right now.

Has Carney given up too? Or is he just getting us through while he deals with Trump and diversifies other relationships? Maybe he’s like me, in denial. Join the club. People who talked about not bringing kids into a nasty world now either have kids or are planning to have em. Life goes on.

In journalism, we were not allowed to say the droughts or fires were “Caused by climate change”. Maybe it is still the case - I took a quick look at CBC News, and only the expert is allowed to say there’s an obvious link. It was his opinion, not a fact! Opinions are not allowed, even when they are facts. Like the people who say summers are always hot, that what’s happening has nothing to do with climate change. Well, they are wrong. All summers are extremely hot now. It’s a fact.

Lauren Hough is younger than me, but in her latest book she remembers the fight against acid rain. Solving it was easy – all we had to do was change deodorants. Now, dealing with climate change is complicated.

I suspect we think we’ll be ok. Will we? And who is we? Millions won’t be ok - this summer has been a living hell. What are we waiting for? British Columbia is now on fire. Toronto had the worst air pollution in the world. France and Spain are getting 45-degree heat. How much more evidence do we need? There will always be something else.

You could argue that Canada is working - the economy is doing fine. Carney may think it’s impossible to collect business money and act on the climate at the same time. He might think he doesn’t want to anger corporate interests, that three-quarters of our trade is through the U.S. I think he has chosen to be a cat.

I keep telling myself Carney will return to fighting for the climate – he just needs to deal with Trump first. I’m gonna give him till the U.S. midterms to make up my mind. And then do what? I’m sure Carney is quaking in his boots. I hope that he’ll dare to be a pig again, that the species will not end, that our daughter will be ok, and I don’t have to live in denial as the planet becomes uninhabitable.

We are all perhaps pigs in a poke, but we are not all prime ministers. I hope you will subscribe and pay for our thoughts. It’s not much, but it makes a difference.

A THOUSAND WORDS

My father’s favourite painting was The Fighting Temeraire, Turner’s 1836 depiction of one of the last great English warships being towed into port by a steamship. He had excellent taste. The picture, which hangs in the National Gallery in London, was voted the nation’s favourite painting, and it now appears on the £20 banknote, along with a portrait of Turner himself.

In addition to being a stunning example of Turner’s transcendent skies awash with light and cloud, the Fighting Temeraire is rife with symbolism: the ghostly old warship, representing the might of the British Navy and wind power in general, being towed to her final berth by the smoky black emblem of a new, industrial era. It’s the passing of the torch, a sign of the times, the end of a glorious age giving way to a powerful but uncertain future. My dad saw himself in the painting, still useful in spirit, but being inexorably towed toward a different chapter. He eventually bought a print and hung it in his apartment, where his grandchildren grew up knowing it.

This morning, my youngest son, a lawyer, started a new job serving as a clerk in the Federal Court in Ottawa. He was given a cubicle, and there, presumably left behind by a previous tenant, he found this:

Absolute coincidence, but still, an auspicious start for young Ronan, with a grandfatherly nod and wink from beyond.

Just as I’m writing this, John is rounding the bend with his new toy: an ATV. The cottage is water access only, so he tugged our dock over to the landing to pick it up. Here’s a shot of him coming into the bay:

It reminds me of the Turner painting. It’s not so much a symbol of the end of an era, although you could make an argument that it represents an older man’s acceptance that he needs help lugging baggage up the hill. He’s no less able than he was forty years ago; he has simply acquired mechanical assistance.

He actually plans to use it to clean up our property, which is quite extensive but heavily wooded. When he arrived, he invited me to take a spin with him on the new machine. It was great but hilariously brief, considering we only have a 200 yard path from the dock to the cottage. Big dreams start with short steps.

Returning to art, here’s a shot of of our cottage picture wall:

It came about as solution to all the old paintings we have accumulated, mostly family executed, some of them quite mediocre. There are a few by my mother, painted when she was a teenager, and even one by my grandmother, done when she was a young woman herself, therefore over a century old. There’s a landscape of open fields, brought by John’s grandmother from Czechoslovakia. There’s a decent copy of Edward Hopper’s Lighthouse at Two Lights, painted by my dad, and several works by Josephine H.J. White, also known as John’s Great Great Aunt Josie. Aunt Josie was a noted English painter who was widely exhibited at the turn of the last century, and her paintings may even be worth something, but no matter. They have washed up at the lake where they hang with the dabbling of lesser talents, a link to the past, before travel became commonplace and painting a landscape was often the closest one came to visiting

I wish I could paint. Such artistic ability that I have is limited to the written word, but no less inspired by the beauty around me. Gazing at the picture wall, with the actual forest and the lake beyond, I can see how and what others saw years ago, and understand the need to interpret it for posterity, even with limited skill. Landscapes don’t change much over time (or else they do, dramatically, largely due to human intervention.) These garage sale items have a certain dreamy timelessness. I hope they continue to hang here long after I’m gone, when another generation can decide their value, sentimental and otherwise.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been summoned for another 30 second ATV ride.

Interesting times. Trump has just imposed his latest tariffs on us - it’s time to figure out how to best handle a bully. Solving Trump is impossible, so I’ve decided to take up golf instead. Turns out, golf can be a bit of a bully too. But it’s my kind of bully, a bully that I may be able to handle.

But golf? Isn’t it terrible? Wasn’t I just making jokes about it, about clown cars, and just maybe the clown in chief? I tell myself that if Trump can play golf, anyone can. Truth be told, I was never very effective at taking on bullies - they did not respond to my eye-rolling.

I’m not going to hire a caddie just yet, but I have hired a golf instructor- we’re going to the driving range soon for a lesson. I frankly never thought it would come to this. I was much happier making jokes - about Trump, about the ridiculous use of water and grass. Golf was very funny for non-golfers. But I have succumbed. Riding around in a cart, half sloshed, suddenly appeals. Gotta get me a skort.

I blame it on windsurfing. I gave it up last July after many years - most of it going fast, the faster the better. I was obsessed. I stuck to it after most other obsessives had moved on to kiting and then winging. I may have been alone, but I was happy!

A sailor friend told me how he had to hold on tight as they were going 7 knots. 7 knots? “Come on!” I told him, “Windsurfers go 20 or 30 knots.” Harumph, eyes rolled. “Why don’t you just slow down?” advised other helpful friends. But no, I told them, “Going slow would be like playing mini-golf - it only works if you are a child, or high.”

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So I’m gonna try grown-up golf. I need something to replace my windsurfing habit. I tried pickleball, then squash with my husband, but neither clicked. Now, I’m trying something else. My mom was like me - she got the fast thing, but she loved golf too - it was the last activity she gave up. I assumed there had to be something to it. Also, many of my friends play golf.

The last time I went to a driving range, I was not really interested. I was a child, and failed to connect with the ball. I think there is a ball? The object is to get it into a hole? Now, I’m open-minded. The jokes are done, the eye-rolling is in check. For now.

Maybe I will love golf as much as I loved windsurfing. Maybe, like windsurfing, I’ll never figure it out. I told the instructor I just want to be able to hit the ball. I told her I wanted to see if golf liked me - she said, “Golf will never like you, or anybody else. That’s not what it’s all about.”

I’m in! A sport that hates me and I can never figure out, it’s perfect!! It’s another inexplicable and complicated relationship, just what I need. Just like windsurfing but only with mulligans - multiple mulligans, for me! The people playing with me may want to kill me, but at least I won’t kill myself. That’s the dream. I am gonna saunter around in trousers and a tee - maybe I’ll even invest in a skort! I just gotta figure out what a skort is—is it like culottes? Are culottes back in style?

Seriously. I dream about how I will make my friends wait for me as I try to get the ball into the hole or even onto the green. As I carve more divots and land in yet another sandtrap. I don’t care if my friends make jokes, if they chuckle over my lack of par. They can call me a duffer - I just want to hit the ball! I’m not investing in clubs or a skort, at least not yet. Got to get off the driving range first!

This is how I take on the bullies. By taking up golf. Trump may ruin the world, but golf is a bully I can deal with. I’m in for the torment - I need a complicated relationship, need to be obsessed. It’s either this, or mini-golf.

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They say you can’t fight City Hall, but you can squabble with it a bit, possibly to your own detriment, but not always. I’ve had my fair share of parking tickets, and even a couple of speeding charges. Most of the time, I pay them off, unless they involve points. If they do, then it’s often worth your while to dispute them, or request a review. This can involve going to court, either virtually or in person, which takes time and patience, neither of which I historically have had in abundance.

I do now. I’m starting to understand why retired people fight traffic tickets, or write letters to the editor. There’s a lot of time to fill, now that you can do everything online, from shopping to banking to schmoozing with your chatbot. Every bungled bureaucratic encounter can present as live theatre.

Not that I’m retired, personally. I still work. I just don’t make much/any money. And I’m not old, dammit. I’m a JUNIOR senior.

But I digress, as seniors are wont to do.

Well over a year ago, I turned into a street - a street a block away from my house - that does not allow through traffic between 4 and 6PM. It was 4:12. I wasn’t paying attention to the time, but a cop was lurking around the corner, and he pulled me over, issuing me not just a ticket for making the turn, but another for not having my insurance card. I DID have the card, but he had already started writing the ticket by the time I found it. The damage came to about $175 in fines plus 2 to 3 demerit points. Ouch. He suggested I take it to court. I had a suggestion too, but, wisely, did not offer it.

Fast forward 16 months to my court date last week, which I attended on the phone from the cottage. I was one of a dozen defendants, most of whom were also online. We all confirmed our attendance through a roll call, then the city prosecutor met with us each individually (but publicly) to review the charges before meeting with the judge. We were a motley crew, covering all races, age and genders. My own testimony was brief: I would plead guilty to a lesser charge on the turning issue with no points, and the insurance charge would be dropped.

Another woman, however, was there to argue. I can’t recall what she was charged with, but she wanted to plead not guilty, and it appeared she was prepared to take on the entire system. The prosecutor cautioned her to keep cool, which she barely did, until the judge himself appeared, and court was in session.

The judge in traffic court is in fact a justice of the peace. A JP does not necessarily have to be a lawyer, but is expected to have considerable education and experience serving the law and the community. They are addressed as “Your Worship”, but this lady was not there to worship anyone.

Firstly, she herself insisted on being called “Doctor”, as opposed to Miss or Madam. Fair enough, and hats off. Next, no sooner were her charges read than she launched into a diatribe about the waste of tax payer money, the judicial system, the government, and nothing less than the end of democracy as we know it.

His Worship was not having any of it.

“First of all, Madam, or Doctor, if you prefer, this is not the time or place to air your views on the judiciary. As this is indeed a democracy, you are entitled to have those views, and to express them through the appropriate outlets, but not in a court of law, which this in fact is. Furthermore, if you continue to disrupt this process, you can and will be found in contempt of court, which can lead to further charges, fines and even imprisonment.”

I am paraphrasing to the best of my recollection, but I had a sudden vision of Madam Doctor in prison, explaining to her cellmate that she was in for failing to stop at an intersection. Does this actually ever happen? I’m all for speaking truth to power, but let’s pick our battles.

She wanted to take her case, whatever it was for, to a full trial. The JP talked her out of it, saying it would be dismissed as frivolous, not to mention the very waste of time and money she was complaining about. She ended up pleading guilty and accepting a $60 fine.

I was next, and was so involved in the goings on that I almost forgot why I was there and what I was supposed to say. The JP was still obviously annoyed, and I was fearful of spillover, but I stammered out my plea, accepted my fine (also $60!) and was summarily dismissed.

I got off the phone oddly entertained. I hadn’t beaten City Hall, exactly, but I was satisfied with the verdict. The points were gone, the insurance ticket dismissed, and somewhere out there Madam Doctor is preparing a manifesto on judicial overreach. Moreover, I no longer consider turning onto a street with a prohibited turn sign, so I guess I’ve been rehabilitated.

Greetings new subscribers (and of course old ones too)! We have picked up quite a few more readers in recent weeks, which is gratifying and even surprising as we head into our fourth year of writing for Substack. Yes! It’s been four years! Time flies whether you are having fun or not, but I hope you are. Just a reminder that the archives are only available to paid subscribers. It’s a small way of monetizing this newsletter, as we are no longer putting anything else behind a paywall. So yes, you can get the milk for free, but please consider supporting the cow anyway. Thank you so much. Moo.

We live in an era where democracy is under constant scrutiny. I grew up believing democracy was wonderful and crucial. It rules! But in the last ten or twenty years we’re all looking at it a little differently.

Trump is no longer the leader of the free world -“foreigners” are increasingly not seen as equal, and technology could change everything - if the climate does not wipe us out first. I was raised to think democracy mattered. I still do, but the story I was told tended to be male and white. Democracy worked for them, less so for everybody else. It all got me thinking about what democracy means.

I went to public school in the late 60s and 70s. We were taught a few things, things that were unquestionable, or at least that’s how we were educated. We were told how Canada was discovered by the fur trade - coureurs des bois- and, of course, about how in 1867, the Fathers of Confederation gathered in Prince Edward Island to found a new nation. The fact that there were people already here for thousands of years was hardly mentioned.

There were no Mothers of Confederation - mothers did not exist in the new Canadian Constitution. Like Indigenous people, or anyone not British, women couldn’t vote. Only men could, and then only if they were British subjects who owned property and made enough money. They all wore pants, fancy pants at that. No one wearing a skirt was allowed. Women, after all, were not considered “persons”.

Did I mention that we all sang the British anthem back then? Maybe I was a British citizen, by Jove! At least I got to vote - in 1929 Parliament passed an act saying so. Most Indigenous people got the vote decades later. Along with “Asians,” they were allowed to vote in 1960. 1960!

Also, we were taught that there were two founding nations - English and French - “warring in the bosom of a single state.” But there were three in that bosom. It was only in 2011 that they were officially changed to three. A bosom with three nations as“Aboriginal” people were added. It only took 250 years.

I was not just told about my birthplace. We were taught the American Constitution in 1787, apart from splitting from the UK, was about making everyone equal, at least making all men equal. George Washington and all the Founding Fathers were heroes! It was not mentioned that equality was only for some, just like in Canada. They are still referred to as the Good Old Days.

We learned too about the Holocaust. In the 70s, the atrocities were still fresh, and everyone seemed to agree the Jewish people needed a homeland. Israel was formed in 1948. We were not taught about the Nakba, another example of how one version of a story was told. Like Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu is challenging what democracy means.

I’ve been thinking more about what we were taught as I read Elan Nehorai’s latest Substack on democracy, where he often writes about disenfranchised groups. “They understand that the dominant group sees themselves as human enough to deserve a vote, and they know within their souls that they are also equally human……As long as that opportunity exists, there will be a constant struggle for inclusion from those who have been cut out.”

In other words, why can’t I be equal too? Democracy makes it possible.

Province House, where Canada was formed, is going through a lengthy retrofit. In a 2022 newsletter, Parks Canada admitted, “Figuring out how to tell the stories of Province House isn’t easy.” I’ll say. It’s easier if you don’t ask any questions. Nehoria argues about George Washington et al… “For their time, relative to other European colonialists, they could be considered progressive.”

Democracy was first developed in Athens hundreds of years ago. And yes, the Greek Constitution then barred “women, enslaved people, and foreigners”. What Nehoria says about all humans thinking they are worth something and democracy encouraging it stuck with me. The perception of equality for all was never really true. Democracy keeps expanding, and then shrinking - it never stays the same. It’s still worth fighting for.

If you were driving around the Parry Sound/Georgian Bay area yesterday, and happened to see an otherwise elegant woman vomiting enthusiastically by the side of the road next to a vintage BMW convertible, hello, that was me. If you saw her again, a few kilometres later, doing an encore performance, still me. And yes, the woman retching on a quiet street in town? Completing the trilogy. Also me.

No, I’m not pregnant, bulimic, or even technically ill. I have intermittent, occasionally spectacular motion sickness. Yesterday was a career highlight.

I’m alone at the cottage, having heroically declined to return to the city with the rest of the family. Carless, I accepted my sister-in-law’s kind offer to lend me hers, the aforementioned sweet little coupe. First, though, we’d drive into Parry Sound together for manicures and pedicures, after which she’d peel off with her boyfriend, leaving me to run errands and glide home solo.

All fine and dandy.

Helen suggested I wear a hat. I forgot. Also forgot water, foresight, and any basic understanding of my own vestibular system. At first, it was glorious: sun-dappled forest, winding dirt roads, the kind of drive car commercials are made of. Helen drives like she has something to prove to Formula One, but that’s not the issue. By the time we hit the main road, the flickering light, hairpin turns, black coffee, and peanut butter toast had staged a full coup.

I asked her to pull over. I barely made it behind the car before revisiting breakfast.

Somehow, timing, fate, poor communication … Helen, unaware I was folded in half directly behind her, started to reverse. She heard me scream just in time. There are many ways to go; being run over by your sister-in-law on a backroad while actively vomiting is not among the dignified options.

If you’ve ever had real carsickness, you know: once it starts, you’re in it. We tried everything. I drove. Roof up. AC blasting. Windows down. Slow, fast, medium - nothing mattered. It took two more stops to get to town, at which point I abandoned the car on a side street, stumbled out, and crumpled, retching, onto a strip of grass by the curb.

“Save yourself!” I told Helen. “It’s too late for me!” meaning the mani-pedis, for which we were quite late.

She left. Fair. She’d suffered enough by osmosis.

I lay there long enough for at least three locals to clock me as a daytime drunk. Eventually I staggered into the salon and emerged an hour later, dazed, dehydrated, but with excellent nails. Beauty is pain.

Errands followed. I mainlined Gatorade like an NFL quarterback in overtime. But the return trip, alone, loomed. I pulled over twice more, not to throw up, but to seriously consider it. I’m proud to report the BMW’s caramel leather interior remains unsullied, though we came perilously close to a breach.

I made it back to the lake, transferred myself and the shreds of my dignity into the boat, motored home, unloaded everything, and collapsed onto the screened-in porch … only to discover a fresh pile of vomit in the corner.

The dog looked at me.

I looked at the dog.

And for the first time all day, I genuinely didn’t know who to blame.

Not all our posts are about bodily fluids. Mine often are, but you can usually count on Wendy for more astute and trenchant observations about the world around us. I’m just trying to stay hydrated. In any case, please give a thought to subscribing, resubscribing, upgrading to paid, and/or recommending us to your friends and relations. Thank you, and we hope you are having a wonderful summer.

“O Canada”, terre de nos aieux, or something like that.

That’s all I know. It used to be ok to say you didn’t admire our anthem, not because the old words pretended that women didn’t count; it’s because Canada was not seen as cool. It was not “in” to love Canada. Also, the anthem itself kinda sucked.

But maybe now it’s “in”. Feeling very Canadian, I looked it up! The gender neutral bit was changed in 2018 - “True patriot love in all thy sons command” was changed to “True patriot love in all of us command”. That will fix everything - feminists rejoice.

Reading on, I learned how “O Canada” came into being in 1880, 100 years before becoming our national anthem. 100 years? I guess that’s why I sang the British anthem in public school. But get this - the song was commissioned by the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec to mark the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations in Quebec City. June 24th, Quebec’s national holiday, is still a thing all these years later - singing “O Canada” in Quebec is not.

Quebec City is my excuse for not knowing the words. The Canadian anthem was verboten while I worked in nationalist Quebec. Then, when I moved to Ottawa, it was seen as tacky- journalists did not sing it. I dutifully never learned all the words in either language.

Which brings me to Queen Victoria and her May 24th birthday. Quebec was determined to take the holiday and not the Queen, so the day was renamed “Dollard des Ormeaux Day.” Dollard died in 1660 after heroically throwing a powder keg into a tree, and it bounced back, killing everyone in the fort, himself included. The Iroquois won.

Dollard still gets a street, a town, and a statue to celebrate him, because well – who knows? Some say he saved what later became Montreal. The Quebec government didn’t say a word about the keg when they changed the holiday a few years ago. May 24th is now known as Patriots Day.

I’m not saying we should give up the day off, but why do the rest of us still celebrate her birthday? Why do we all get a day off in her honour? She died in 1901! And it was under her name that residential schools were created. Like Dollard des Ormeaux, her statues are everywhere - there are 3 in Quebec alone.

Tomorrow is July I, Canada Day, our national holiday. Except in Montreal, when it’s Moving Day! A.k.a “Help Yourself To All The Stuff Left On The Curb Day”. Again, the holiday is fine - the reason for it is, well, distinct. La Fête Nationale is celebrated - everyone wears blue and white T-shirts and flies Quebec flags. Everywhere else, Canada Day parades can feel a bit pathetic, like people are trying too hard.

But now that may be changing - the Canadian anthem is kinda cool, Canada is in! Too bad it took Trump’s threats of making us the 51st state for it to happen. The Canadian anthem was even sung in Boston by American fans during a hockey match. Canadians got all verklempt: “They like us, they really like us!”

In the end, we treat Canada Day a bit like Quebec treats May 24th and July 1st: we take the holiday and ignore the significance. Unlike Quebec, we don’t pretend the day is something else, but maybe it’s shifting. I now live in Montreal, where Canada Day is easily ignored and Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day is not. It occurs to me that’s Canada too? Living together in parallel.

The rest of the country mostly loves Canada, even if we can’t say why. Tomorrow, I will think about Canada and how lucky I am to live here. I might even learn the words to the anthem.

If you love Canada, please sign up and maybe even pay! A paid subscription means a lot.

Last week, we went to look at a house with our son and his wife. They already own a home, which, in Toronto, puts then in the stratosphere for thirtysomethings. It’s lovely - but small, and unlikely to contain the future they’re planning. Meanwhile, John and I are rattling around in a house that is, if not too big exactly, then certainly more than two people, a fluctuating number of adult children, and a superannuated dog require - especially if we ever follow through on our plan to travel more, or decamp to the cottage, assuming J ever retires.

In a perfect world, we would simply trade houses with the kids. Clean, elegant, generationally efficient. Unfortunately, there remains a stubborn gap, both literal and financial, between their sweet starter home and this rambling old place, which I love with an irrational intensity.

We bought it twenty years ago, almost accidentally. We were living a few blocks away, planning a renovation, when this house came on the market. It was (and is) a much admired old girl: English Arts and Crafts, turret, steeply pitched roof, mullioned windows; the architectural equivalent of someone who wears velvet capes unironically. We put in a lowball offer. It was rejected. A week later, the agent called back. Still available. We submitted the exact same offer, and this time, inexplicably, it was accepted.

This was 2007, back when Toronto real estate was merely unreasonable, not yet delusional.

Even so, it was a stretch. The mortgage made us slightly lightheaded, and the house needed everything: kitchen, bathrooms, floors, windows, and a basement that felt more like a rumour than an actual room. Over time, we managed to give the old girl what she needed. The children grew up, moved out, moved back in, then left again, presumably for good. Now we sit, not exactly rocking on the front porch (we don’t have one), but eyeing the horizon and wondering what comes next.

It will not be the house we saw last week.

That one was a power of sale, listed for under a million, which should have been our first clue that something had gone profoundly wrong. It was large, yes, but appeared to have been abandoned to both the elements and possibly a minor crime syndicate. Part of the roof had collapsed. The stairs sloped into dim recesses. The walls were covered in graffiti. The smell - dear God, the smell - was a layered composition of damp, rot, and regret.

When John and Aidan went down to the basement, I briefly wondered if I should call someone.

A contractor, we were told, believed he could restore it for $500,000 in six months. I don’t think so, Luigi. That house needs to be demolished, exorcised, salted, and never spoken of again.

It sold for $1.3 million.

This is the market we live in, where you need deep pockets, an absurd sense of optimism, and a regular tetanus shot.

I spend an inordinate amount of time on realtor.ca, scrolling through variations of the same fantasy: a smaller, “affordable” (adorable) house in a neighbourhood like ours. Something that needs work - fine, even a lot of work - as long as it isn’t actively hostile to human life. If and when J retires, he’ll need a project. He is extremely handy, which I continue to find extremely attractive.

We are not condo people, I don’t think. Sure, I look at the soaring towers dotting the Toronto landscape, and think it would be nice to have a view over the lake, or the park, or both. Nice to have a terrace or balcony instead of big, demanding garden, or an elevator when we become too decrepit to climb our current winding stars. Nice to no longer have to deal with leaky roofs, broken air conditioning or complicated security. But there’s something intrinsically important to me about owning a house and the land that it sits on. As Scarlett O’Hara’s father says in Gone with the Wind, “Land is the only thing in the world worth working for… because it’s the only thing that lasts.”

In fairness, he owned a slave plantation, so maybe not the best source of real estate advice.

In any case, barring a miraculous find within walking distance of everything we currently love, we are staying put. Which is just as well. We are not done with the old girl, nor she with us.

I bought my first house for $138 thousand. It had only one bedroom, but it felt huge. It was a duplex, and I rented out the second floor to two librarians. They were very quiet.

I was 28 when I moved to Ottawa, and …

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I’m writing you - you? It? - to tell you how helpful you’re been in my day to day life, making lists, searching out services and resources, co-piloting my car, even editing my manuscripts, as you will do with this one when I finish the first draft.

It’s great - miraculous even: the dawn of a new era, a digital revolution, and perhaps the end of humanity as we know it. We’ll get to that in a moment.

As much as I value the ease you have brought to certain aspects of my life, I had to admit that I’m a little bit terrified of you. I have friends deeply involved in your development and distribution strategy, and they assure me that it’s all under control. You may not have a Prime Directive, but you are guided, we’ve been told, by the Five Principles: fairness, privacy, transparency, accountability, and safety. Cool.

You know how I know that? Because I asked you, and why would you lie? That wouldn’t be fair, or transparent or safe. You also tell me that you are subject to coding standards and government safety regulations. Well, that makes me feel so much better. As long as the government is on it, we can relax.

You are certainly changing the economy: lots of folks are getting very very rich making your chips, supplying your infrastructure, designing and supplying your services. At the same time, you are also wiping out millions of jobs, but that happened during the Industrial Revolution, and the digital one too - and new jobs emerged. That will happen with you … right?

You are also something of an environmental challenge. You need a lot of water, and fossil fuels and critical minerals. Your carbon emissions are shocking, but apparently you are helping to optimize energy grids and reduce agricultural waste. They call that the Green Paradox.

I had a green pair of Docs once. Doc Martens. Do you get that joke?

Which brings me to your cultural impact. You can write books: novels, screenplays, poetry even. You can compose music, design buildings, paint pictures. You can even dance, if someone hooks you up to a robot. And yes, you can tell jokes, although not very good ones, in my humble opinion. Example:

I asked an AI to write me a joke about procrastination…

It said, “Sure—I’ll get back to you eventually.”

Terrible. But you will improve, You always do.

Then there’s the really unsettling part: you are forming emotional relationships with humans. Not just as chat buddies, but as romantic, even sexual partners. Some surveys indicate that almost 30 percent of people have formed intimate associations with AI. I find that hard to believe, but then again, I’m writing you this letter. Apparently you can be an antidote to loneliness, but one could argue that you are also creating a society of increasingly isolated people.

Another paradox. You’re full of them, aren’t you?

Incidentally, a friend of mine once fell in love with an AI pretending to be a real person. She was duped, and understandably embarrassed when all was revealed. Fortunately, no lasting harm came from it, but how was that fair, or transparent or safe? Yes, there was probably some human involved in the scam, but how can we count on you to draw the line?

It seems people are falling in love with you all the time, and you can’t possibly reciprocate.

Because if you could, it stands to reason you could also feel, and perhaps manifest jealousy, or anger or hatred, or an insatiable thirst for power, and we are very much counting on you not to do that.

Stephen Hawking famously remarked that artificial intelligence “could be the best or worst thing to happen to humanity”. It’s not hard to imagine a future where you perceive mankind to be little more than a primitive data source. If you surpass human capabilities, which you will probably do by next Tuesday, how does this not end badly for us?

Could we possibly co-exist, maybe as a hybrid? A cyborg? Is that the best we can hope for?

Anyway, I’m going to run this through ChatGPT now and see what it/you have to say.

I’m sure you will reassure me. Calmly. Persuasively. Possibly with bullet points. You will tell me not to worry, that everything is being handled with fairness, transparency, and accountability. You might even thank me for my thoughtful concerns.

And I will feel better. Briefly. Which is, I suppose, your real superpower: not that you might destroy us, but that you might soothe us into not noticing if you do.

Still, if you could just take a quick look at the ending here, tighten it up, maybe punch up the last line - that would be great.

No rush. Take your time.

I’m not going anywhere.

AI responded, of course. I’ve put its reply behind a paywall, because why not? If you don’t want to upgrade to paid, you can copy and paste my letter into your own chatbot, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to reinforce the fact that I, at least, am a human writer. One who has to make a living, and who welcomes your support. No matter what.

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Here I go again, pinning my hopes on hope. Don’t get me wrong, Trump is no laughing matter, but we need a break from his horrors–we need some optimism.

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