Harry Stemp was born in Uxbridge in 1934. He started his career with the Uxbridge Times-Journal as an apprentice typesetter at age 14. He soon began writing sports for the Times-Journal and eventually owned 10 community newspapers in central Ontario including the Times-Journal. He started writing his award-winning Stemp’s Stew in 1965. The column came to an end shortly after he sold his newspaper chain in 1989, but was rejuvenated in 2006 when Harry became a regular contributor to The Cosmos.
Scams and slams
Something that has irked many Canadians for a lot of years is having immigration policies that are among the softest in the world.
Once on Canadian soil, regardless of how you manage to arrive, one is given all kinds of benefits until your case for legal entry can be settled. In many cases you receive double the benefits of those who have lived in Canada all of their lives and now draw from the Canada Pension.
So far both the Liberals and Conservatives, when in power, have done nothing to change these policies that have allowed a lot of people to fall through the cracks and stay in Canada illegally for years, often jumping ahead of immigrants who do things properly and wait in line for years, before receiving the highly regarded Canadian citizenship papers that many native born Canadians take for granted.
Recently the Harper Conservatives released plans to revoke 26 times more Canadian citizenships than all previous governments combined. Welcome news for most Canadians. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced that his department is looking to pry citizenship away from more than 2100 people he believes cheated the system. That total has climbed from 1800 when the plan was announced last July.
It's hard to believe only 80 individuals have been stripped of their citizenship between 1947 - when the Citizenship Act came into effect - and this year. Sure makes one wonder if that was the result of governments not having the intestinal fortitude to tackle the problem or fewer people were abusing the system.
It was great watching Kenney make the announcement behind a podium adorned with a large sign proclaiming “Citizenship Not For Sale”. Something that should have been in place the moment the Act was passed by Parliament in 1947.
It is hoped that this action will undermine the “crooked” immigration consultants who are helping others take advantage of the system while reaping profits that reach as high as $25,000 from a family of five. These advisers allegedly offer to help foreigners meet residency requirements and acquire Canadian citizenship without ever having to live in Canada. They help them create false proof of residency by renting them an apartment that may, or may not, exist. In one case, Kenney said investigators opened the door of one phoney address to find a brick wall.
What a breath of fresh air to hear Kenney say: “If you are a consultant involved in selling Canadian citizenship fraudulently to people and creating fake residency - we are on to you, it's just a matter of time”.
If the same Harper government can take steps to keep the boat people from stepping on our shores and being given many hundreds of our tax dollars per month, as well as health benefits, until their cases can go through the courts, Canadians will be even more pleased. Kenney's announcement is a real step forward. Let's not stop there.
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And speaking of the Harper government, one has to admit that they learn in a hurry when it comes to paying attention to public opinion, as last week they said they won't join with Austria and march down the trail of politically-corrected national anthems.
Effective January 1, the first verse of the Austrian anthem has been changed to “homeland of great daughters and sons” from “homeland of great sons”. One remembers the public hostility that was instantaneous and immediate when the government suggested that perhaps it was time to alter the lyrics of O Canada - “in all our sons command” - for something more gender neutral.
Canadians refused to go for this politically correct b-s and let the government know that the words of our national anthem were fine just the way it was written. Harper beat a hasty retreat and announced “no, this issue is not up for consideration” when asked if the government would revisit the issue in light of the Austrian move. Once bitten twice shy, seems to be the lesson learned.
While cheering on this move of strength by the Harper government let's hope we can count on the same kind of fortitude and common sense to prevail when the subject of removing the word 'God' from our anthem comes up again.
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Gotta love our neighbours to the south. The Americans are an interesting lot, especially during an election year. The TV networks are jammed with political comment and for a political junkie like me it is heaven. Hockey on one channel and politics on the other.
But there are other reasons to find them interesting. Watch comment on any international subject and it is as if the U.S. is top of the list and other countries, especially Canada, just don't exist.
Spent the weekend in New York City with wonderful friends from Niagara on the Lake who are heavily involved in the Shaw Festival. It's an annual event which involves several stage productions and some great dining spots.
The highlight, without a doubt, was attending the stage presentation of War Horse. I have seen a lot of stage productions in my many years, but when you can have two puppet horses on stage each operated by three men and minutes into the play find it hard to believe you aren't watching live animals, it boggles the mind.
But what I found irritating and predictable was a booklet I picked up prior to the show. It described what we were about to see and because it is set in World War I it gave an overview of the war.
Reading along, it described the horrors of the war that was to end all wars. An enjoyable read until they described the tremendous losses by the British and French troops. The description of the death and destruction was terrible.
Then it came to the part where the Yanks entered the war and the tide turned and, because of their arrival, victory was realized.
Not a mention of the role that Canada played in this war. No talk of the thousands of Canadian men and women who were killed or who came back and suffered through their lives from the mustard gas attacks. I thought how sad when I remembered a wonderful Uxbridge resident, the late George Linton, who was in the middle of a deadly mustard gas attack. As a young man I can recall, like it was yesterday, when George would leave his office close to the present TD Bank and suffer a coughing attack. If one was standing at the top of the hill near the post office you could hear George coughing and it was heartbreaking for the many people in Uxbridge who loved George.
So when I read the report in the theatre booklet with no mention of the fact that Canada was in that war long before the Yanks, I wanted to stand up in the theatre and yell, “Canadians fought and died in World War I too”. I didn't. I sat quietly and thought, to myself - “George, if you are looking down I am sorry I didn't stand up and defend your honour, but I hope you feel good that I wanted to.”
Such is life.
