by: Bogumil Pacak-Gamalski

My rocks. Rocks that were placed many, many years ago alongside the shore of a narrow channel separating Halifax and Dartmouth and connecting Bedford Basin with the ocean. Massive rocks, powerful, buttressing the shore against natural erosion.  Making the narrow but very deep waterway safe to navigate by small and humongous boats, ships of commerce and ships of war. When I moved to Nova Scotia with my amazing husband, we started living right on the edge of these rocks. That’s how they become ‘my’. Silent and soothing companions of my hundreds of walks, short and long ones, during day and at very late evenings, some right into the night.

My rocks. As they were. My support, my anchors; indeed my rocks. Perhaps witnesses to my last stage of my beautiful Canadian journey.  From the blue skies of the Prairies  and towering peaks of Rocky Mountains, through amazingly beautiful Pacific Coast and equally amazing city of Vancouver – home to many exhilarating years of my life journey with John, my husband and lover – to the old shores of where Canada begun. Atlantic shores of Nova Scotia, it’s Acadian past, it’s Celtic and Scottish past, it’s Black settlement past. As Vancouver is an epitome of future and rapid change, Halifax is it’s opposite: anchored in the past. And it would be sad and detrimental if it would change. The past is the most important jewel of Halifax, alongside the rugged beauty of the province’s nature.

My beautiful Canadian journey, or  journey through my beautiful Canada. Country that grew and aged , as I grew and aged. Don’t know – other that from talks with older Canadians and many, many historical books and accounts of history – any other Canada, neither colonial nor Dominion years. The country was born exactly as I came to it. At the beginning of the 1980’, when the late Pierre Trudeau finally brought the North America Act (basis of Canadian Constitution) from London to Ottawa. We become a new fully sovereign and independent nation and state. It’s hard to imagine and fully comprehend today – but all my Canadian compatriots of my age (and many thousands younger two decades) were not born in sovereign and independent state. They were born in British Dominion. I know only free Canada, independent. My home that never belonged to any other country. I belongs only to us: Canadians.

Canada – my rock. Country were I found my life’s love just few years after landing on a snowy evening in Calgary. My love to young Canadian with rich Canadian history reaching hundreds of years of his family’s roots exactly in Nova Scotia. I forgave him that he was born as a Dominion subject of foreign country, ha, ha.  We never suspected at that time, that we would ever end up in Nova Scotia. The West was his and my home. And the West was a force at that time. It was growing, expanding. We had the Rockies, powerful rivers that were originating right in our background, in the ancient icefields of Athabasca. These rivers – the only place in the world – fed three oceans! Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic.

From Alberta we went across the marvelous Rockies to Vancouver and lived there for quarter of a century. In the meantime I travelled all over Canada, eager to get to know my new homeland and its people. From Newfoundland to Yukon. I liked what I saw. I liked the people. They were warm and hardworking. Respectful. Tolerant.  For a guy, who came here from a Soviet-dominated country, who was openly gay (at that time being gay was not the most ‘convenient’ way of being …) – that meant a lot. I know what it means being persecuted or not tolerated. What it means trying to hide your own self or face scorn, perhaps violence. Canadians were not perfect, sometimes they were a bit … how to say … parochial? But they were trying to understand. They were good folks. All these years – they were. Good folks. Changing, learning along the way. Keeping up with changing times  and world oscillating from good ol’ tolerance to much more powerful and encompassing empathy. After all – tolerating someone is really not the same as accepting someone as equal.

Pictures above from years before 2022

Suddenly something happened. Something we didn’t expect. None really, nowhere.

In the United States – our neighbour and powerful cousin – Americans elected new president. Donald Trump. The world will never be the same. The world, not only US or (because of our proximity) Canada. Suddenly everything was possible. Every sewer, every swindle, lie, every vulgarity become something normal. The gutter moved to the bedrooms and the salons. To the highest Office.

America is said to have changed after 9/11. That’s true. But not as much as it has changed during and after Trump. 9/11 – as tragic and painful as it was – brought Americans together. Trump divided Americans.

Every self-serving ignorant, every self-absorbed arrogant, every fascist climbed out from under the rock and become important, loud, demanding. Or simply taking ‘his’ by force, with gun, with the power of a heavy boot. His and her freedom. No, not Freedom per se. His freedom and her freedom.

And what is freedom? Political and personal freedom? Why was it important for Canadians in the 1980 to take the full and total responsibility of Canada in Canadians hands? Why the same Americans (really at that time absolutely the same as those settling in Nova Scotia, Upper  and Lower Canadas) rebelled against the British Crown in 1812? Why in 1980 the Poles rebelled against the Soviet ‘care’ (I am proud to have taken small, but important in my region, part for that early rebellion of Solidarity)? Did we all and separately wanted to establish our own Polands, Canadas, Americas? Built on our own, personal and individual visions? No. It doesn’t work like that. Unless you are living on unpopulated island. No, we wanted to build a country based on modern democracy with fundamental rights and responsibilities. Rights and responsibilities based on the wishes of majority. Not a majority in a village, or town, or province. Majority of the entire country.  We have established Offices and Institution independent of political parties to supervise these elections. We have agreed that yes, each election time there will be victorious groups and , yes – groups of losers. Until the next election, when every political Seat of Power could be won again (or lost again). We have also established ways that each one of us can contest the results as unfair or skewed.  Again – there are non-political bodies and Offices that will look into our grievances if they merit any action. Up to and including making the entire election void and fraudulent and calling a new one. We can’t guarantee that an armed and well organized group would not organized a coup and take political and military power in their hands. Just tried to be mindful and ready for it. The same as we can’t guarantee that anyone of us would never be robbed or even murdered. Generally speaking that’s how Canadas, Polands and Americas work.  In a democratic world.  In the America they had one big hiccup at the beginning – the South wanted to leave the Union and Civil War begun. The South lost. The Union prevailed. Period.

Huge majority of Poles, Canadians, Americans, French and others accept it. I guess, one could run a lottery for government and parliamentary seats. But majority (again the bloody inconvenient majority …) decided that the risk is too big and we are stuck with the elections. That’s how it works. Or how it worked.

Until that day. The day Trump won. But especially the day Trump lost.

Because trumps don’t like to lose. They will lie, they will cheat, they will kick and scream and never accept a defeat. Churchill once roared to the Brits: we shall never surrender! But it was a war with a foreign aggressor. And Churchill won last election, was not running for new one. He was leading his entire, not divided, nation to arms against a mortal enemy.

Trump did not faced invasion of foreign armies. He faced his own nation. A nation that told him: no, thank you. Enough. He did try all the possible legal and lawful ways to claim fraudulent election. And lost in every instance as the election was fair. But trumps accept rules only when they suit them, help them. Otherwise rules  are simply an obstacle. Obstacle that needs to be destroyed. He knew that during the past four years he has awaken the self-serving ignorant, every self-absorbed arrogant, every fascist  from under the rock. He told them so many times: f..k the establishment! you are the ruler of your own dominion, you are the master (master! – their favorite name). He gave rise to the sewers and the sewers overflowed on the Capitol Hill.  Caesar Nero burned Roman Capitol Hill. Trump covered Washington’s Capitol Hill with excrement.  

If it happened in some other small country, the world would only shrugged its collective arms. And would continue going as a day before. But it was America. Country with enormous persuasion. The ignorant/arrogant sewer was awaken everywhere in North America, in Europe, in South America. Few years later that sewer spilled in Ottawa, on our Capitol Hill. Because people didn’t like wearing masks and taking vaccines! Yes, seemingly normal people (plus highly paid US-supported trumpists) decided that they are not going to be held hostage to some inconvenient sanitary rules to save thousands of lives of other fellow Canadians. That they don’t give a s…t if they spread the virus to someone, who will die. It wasn’t their problem. It was the self-arrogant and self-ignorant Canadian. The one, who listened to the conspiracy theories instead of the best medical and scientific minds of the world. No, they were not going to be some ,Muslim terrorists’ wearing masks!  I will not comment on that awful (that I have heard personally)  racist ‘Muslim’ argument. Besides – they are suffocating in these masks! Although not a single reported incident of anyone suffocating to death in these masks was reported, but … . But it was against their freedom.

What were we saying about the freedoms and responsibilities? That one exist only in tandem with the other? Hmmm. The sewer in Ottawa flew for much longer than the sewer in Washington. It ended with Canadian version of Martial Law.  Most of the cases of arrested leaders and conspirators have not gone through courts yet. Some Canadian established political leaders wanted even to capitalize on that stench of sewer and mingled among the Brigade of Destruction soldiers. Soldiers of self-righteousness, arrogance.

There was one more element introduced by Trump to the relatively normal and civil discourse. It was greed. Achieving financial gains not as a result of work, talent, prudence, but as a result of being void of any ethics – personal greed.

The pandemic has overblown it and inflation resulted from the pandemic and war in Ukraine followed. But not only. Almost all large corporations, private and public , decided to face and combat the inflation for their personal gain. Prices went up everywhere almost automatic. Well above any inflationary rates. If an owner of rented apartment paid five dollars more for a pound of carrots – next month the owner charged the tenant two or three hundred more for the rent. Just in case the carrots went up again by a dollar or two … .  Big grocery chains made millions of profits above the pre-inflationary profits. The list goes on and on.  

Canada today is not the same Canada I knew. Not the one I love.  Maybe other countries changed for the worse, too. I don’t know. If they did, it doesn’t give me any solace. I suspect not all did as much as Canada, though. The social/welfare state is much stronger in majority of European countries. Always was. Therefore I suspect the  poorest one there are still being looked after better than here. I see homelessness and downtrodden everywhere in Halifax. Much more than three or four years ago. Almost left totally to their own devices, which they have very little for obvious reasons.  With rise of poverty – other vices rise too. They affect the more fortunate also. It affects all of us. Mentally, physically. At a time, when help is very scarce.

What it has to do with my rocks? A lot. They changed too. Often, I pretend I don’t notice it. Turn my head the other way. Pretend they are as supportive as before. That they are still my buttress against the forces of nature.

I used to go on my walks always with my camera ready. Hence, on my social portals you probably have seen hundreds of photos of similar views of Halifax, bridges and Bedford taken from My Rocks. Always a bit different angle, light, detail.  But from the same trail. Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. Five years.

Well, today the camera took different pictures. From the same trail. Post-trump time. Time of self-indulgent arrogance, ignorance. Time of poverty, homelessness. And time of simply: I don’t give a s…t, it isn’t my problem. Sad.

Until it becomes your problem, until you start again giving a s…t, until you notice that personal greed does not make you richer but poorer as a person – it will not get better. There is not enough money in all of Canada to satisfy completely everyone. Just as there is only one winner in every election. 

I miss my Canada I fell in love with many decades ago.  Can we please  try to bring some of it back …

I just lost my most precious, personal love of my life. It is hard to wake up every day. But when I do get up, it would be so nice to go to my Rocks for a nice walk.  To admire the rugged beauty of the shore, the vistas of Halifax, our bridges, to reminiscence the beauty of Pacific and Vancouver, the peaks and valleys of the Rockies. Most of all to remember and admire the good people of Canada, our Canada. My folks, good folks.