Christmas Letter '15

Nadolig Llawen!                     Merry Christmas!                              Buon Natale!

Christmas 2015.

From our home to yours, dear Family and Friends,

Again it is our pleasure to share a little bit of our lives over the past year at this very special time of year.  We hope you enjoy a full and restful Christmas/New Year season.  2015 has been very much a typical year for us, happy with very ordinary challenges.

Tina continues to take the occasional casual shift, nursing at VGH  while she enjoys her retirement.  She continues with cello lessons at the Delta Community Music School under the tutelage of Bo Peng, accepting gradually increasingly more challenging music to learn.  Although Tina intended to resume taking harp instruction as well, that just did not work out for this year.  Perhaps in the new year.

With exercise and prescribed medication, Ted's health continues as stable, with only occasional colds.  He continues to alternate 3 days of swimming (2500 m. in roughly 50 min.) with 3 days of cycling (nearly 14 km. in roughly 40 min.), sometimes substituting a good stiff walk (a little over 4 km. in 40 min.).  With David well moved on from the Richmond Delta Youth Orchestra and Ted’s term as immediate Past President completed at the end of August, he is no longer active with the Delta Symphony Society.

Angela’s news is most exciting as she and her friends in the Dusty Babes Collective found a studio in which to work.  One of the major British Columbia ceramic artists had retired and sold his studio property to a developer who was not developing immediately but offered the site for lease as ceramics studio space.  Angela discovered the notice and the Dusty Babes promptly took up the lease; they have it for at least a full year from last June and she now spends most Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays working her art there.  Angela continues part-time work at Spawts, a ceramic studio that specializes in ceramic family pet paw print impressions, working Mondays and Fridays.  She enjoys this work with the very small staff that includes one of her Dusty Babes friends.  In January she added another part time position as Saturday ceramics studio technician for Vancouver’s West End Community Centre.  Occasionally Angela also teaches school break concentrated children’s ceramics classes at the Delta Potter’s Association studio.  Tina and Ted both remain in wonder at the beauty of Angela’s ceramic creations which range from hand crafted ceramic buttons through cups and bowls of various sizes to large vases.

David continues his musical studies as a founding student in the new strings music program within the Music Department of Kwantlen Polytechnic University, commuting to the Langley campus.  His focus remains on his viola, giving him great success while he really enjoys his studies.  The strings program remains very small which means that no large ensemble (required by the Kwantlen Music Department) exists, so the university continues to send him and the cello student to play with the Trinity Western University Orchestra. Kwantlen and also requires music students to participate in small ensembles and we enjoyed the end-of-term recitals and concert performances by David's string trio (David, the violin student, and a piano student from Kwantlen Music’s piano program) in April and by his quintet and his duo in December.  Outside university, David also took up private study on his viola with Robert Hirschhorn Rozak and occasionally fills in with his viola for the Stradivari Ensemble.

Although studying music at Kwanten, David continues private study on piano, at the Delta Community Music school, in Garth Preston’s studio.  He also continues to play with the adult Richmond Orchestra; fortunately that orchestra’s major concert this fall did not conflict with Trinity Western University Orchestra’s major concert as it did last year.

David enjoys writing, especially fiction as he extends his imagination.  In his free time, during the summer before last, he wrote an initial draft of a novel.  As he found chances through autumn, winter, and spring into this past summer, he worked through revisions and published the book as digital copy.

Again, our year brought a few significant life events for us to mark.  Ted’s cousin David T. E. Hopkins passed earlier this month after a few month’s battle with cancer.  He rests, treasured, in Ted’s boyhood and current Internet connection memories.  Earlier in the Autumn we celebrated with Ted’s brother Norman as his son Gareth and wife Zoë left for Australia to take up a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Melbourne upon completing his PhD in Environmental Studies at Utah State University.

Looking beyond ourselves, Canada’s federal election last Fall drew our attention more intensely than ever before.  All of us have always voted in every election for which we have been eligible, keeping our political thoughts largely to ourselves.  For this election, issues were so critical that Ted just could not remain private with his thoughts and shared his views via his blog, and some e-mail messages.  The most critical issue to Ted’s mind did not get addressed properly but over all the whole family is satisfied with the election result.

We share many Canadian’s concern for the plight of the many refugees from the civil war in Syria.  Our congregation at Ladner United Church participates with many others across the country and is providing for two refugee families anticipated to arrive any day now, by year end.  The Ladner community gives enthusiastic support, participating in this project.

We took only one get-away this year, returning to Cusheon Lake Resort on Salt Spring Island for the Canada Day weekend.  As usual, we enjoyed Beddis Beach, Beaver Point at Ruckle Park, and Harlans’ Salt Spring Gelato among all else we enjoy on Salt Spring.

Catinka remains very much queen of our house, while Angela’s ducks continue to hold authority over our back yard.  Jemima and Rebeccah resumed their egg production with the new year, less heavily than last year, then slowed and stopped completely when they moulted with the end of summer.  Less frequent egg laying resumed this month.  From January to August, Tango remains convinced that he should not let any of us exit the back yard.  Adam, Angela’s red haired standard poodle, has settled in as very much a part of the family, continuing to endear himself to us all.

Ted continues to seek players to experiment with his invented team sports of Two Ball and Delta.  Lacking sufficient contact of his own among sports minded youth, he continued to approach schools as their Physical Education and intramural sport programs likely offer the best chance of drawing sufficiently large groups of players together.  This remains disappointing as no schools have taken up either game yet.  Ted also kept up a web presence for the games, having revised the site, and on Facebook.  These continued to catch attention world-wide, but he still awaits word of anyone actually playing either game.  You are most welcome to have a look and draw the games to the attention of sport minded people you may know.

And now we look forward to 2016.  Recent weeks, of course, have filled us with Christmas preparations.  We hope yours have gone well and we wish you a Merry and Blessed Christmas and all happiness in the New Year.

With our love,

Ted, Tina, David, and Angela.

P. S. That this letter arrives on Christmas Eve is entirely deliberate.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!                           Happy New Year!                          Felice Nuovo Anno!

Infinitus - What Child is This? - Beatboxing String Trio

An open letter to my newly elected Member of Parliament, Carla Qualtrough

2015, October 21.

Dear Ms. Qualtrough,

Please accept my congratulations on your election.  Through the campaign you impressed me simply as the person you are and by what you said and did.  But for your silence and the silence of the Liberal Party of Canada on the issue I considered most vital for Canada’s future, I could have readily given you my vote.

With the announcement of successful completion of TPP negotiations, none of you, your leader, nor the Liberal Party of Canada raised Canada’s participation in this agreement with its sovereignty attacking ISDS provision as the fundamental issue it should have been (although the Council of Canadians suggests that the Liberal Party actually supports TPP as negotiated).  I really do not understand why our sovereignty did not take front and centre as THE issue through the election campaign.  After all, if international corporations can sue Canada in secret when the new government takes action to correct the damage inflicted by the previous government, then we will find ourselves impotent to act. The ISDS provision in the now, unfortunately, ratified Canada/China FIPPA, in TPP and CETA awaiting ratification, and in TTIP, and TiSA still under secret negotiation, permits international corporations to sue us in SECRET if we act on any of the many other issues in a way not to their liking, as though such corporations are equals with Canada as a nation rather than the subjects of nations.  I have no problem with free trade, as such; I do see that betraying our sovereignty as entirely another matter.

The now departing so-called loyal Conservative government negotiated in secret, then signed and eventually ratified the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA) which goes far beyond simply providing for freer trade but, in effect, diminishes Canada to a resource colony of the Communist dictatorship in Beijing for the next thirty years. With the inclusion of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provision, Chinese firms (which are merely arms of the Chinese Communist dictatorship) with investments in Canadian business now have the right to sue Canadian federal, provincial, and municipal governments in secret trials by tribunals outside of our justice system if new environmental, labour, health and safety, business practice, etc. law impinges on their investment. That is to say, Canada now has to clear such new laws, regulations, and court judgements with Beijing in order to bring them into effect.

Similarly, that government negotiated in secret, then signed both the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), now awaiting ratification. It also has Canada participating in the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) secret negotiations and has signed other so-called free trade agreements, all of which include provisions for ISDS by which international corporations can turn to the International Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes (ICSID) to sue sovereign nations, Canada included, in secret trials by tribunals outside of any national judiciary to overturn new law enacted out of a nation’s sovereign right to govern itself. Canada will have to clear such new laws, regulations, and court judgements with corporate head offices in order to bring them into effect and hope to remain safe from attack.

With its secret trials and no recourse to appeal, the ISDS provision raises international corporations from the subjects of nations to, in effect, non-territorial kingdoms equal with or superior to no-longer sovereign nations while reducing participating nations, Canada included, to resource and labour colonies of those multinational corporations.  For suborning Canada’s sovereignty to international corporations through ICSID, departing Prime Minister Harper and those of his ministers involved in these negotiations should be called to answer to the charge of treason.

All through the election, Mr. Trudeau and the entire Liberal party remained silent on the evil of ISDS and that silence makes me suspicious that Liberals may be complicit with the Conservatives in betraying our sovereign right to govern ourselves. To alleviate that suspicion, I can only hope that Mr. Trudeau will do the right thing and refuse to ratify TPP and CETA unless the sovereignty destroying ISDS provision gets stripped from them and that he withdraws Canada from the secret TTIP and TiSA negotiations as long as they remain secret (after all he promises to be open with Canadians) and also contain the sovereignty deleting ISDS provision.

Instead of ISDS, Canadian operations of international corporations that find themselves at issue with our governments at whatever level should bring the matter to an open and public Canadian court within the Canadian judicial system for decision under Canadian law in the same way as Canadian corporations and Canadian citizens must do. If an issue exceeds the competence of Canadian courts, an international corporation should be required to publicly request its home nation government to pursue the matter in an open and public international court on a sovereign nation versus sovereign nation basis that clearly holds international corporations as subjects of sovereign nations and not equals with sovereign nations.

Please share your thoughts on this vitally fundamental issue, both with your leader and with your constituents.

Thank you for your attention and, again, congratulations,

Edwin M. Hopkins,

CC: The Delta Optimist

The Liberal Party of Canada

The Council of Canadians

Petition to correct the name Testalinda

Whenever Testalinda Creek makes the news, our news media misname it as "Testalinden."

I grew up on a southern Okanagan orchard in the rural neighbourhood of Testalinda, south of Oliver.  From the 1950s and 60s, I vividly recall the Department of Highways sign on Highway 97 where it crossed Testalinda Creek giving that name.  My boyhood ramblings took me all around the hills rising from that part of the Okanagan Valley, including the beautiful Testalinda Canyon.  The second orchard my father owned for a few years encircled the site of the former Testalinda Creek School, dear to the memories of some older residents still living in Oliver and the Testalinda rural neighbourhood.  Other southern Okanagan old-timers recall the school consolidation that built the Oliver-Testalinda-Osoyoos School in Oliver (OTO School, that had evolved by by childhood into the primary building of Oliver Elementary School).  To this day, southern Okanagan residents know Testalinda by its well established name and no other, feeling dismay when news media give the incorrect name.

Yet, our news media insist on reporting with the name "Testalinden."  Apparently this results from an error in the Canadian federal government registry of geographical place names.  A petition seeks to correct that error and restore Testalinda.

Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water - Madison Square Garden,...

The Single Most Vital Issue for the Current Canadian Federal Election

Many issues of great importance require close examination before we vote this October 19th:

•Issues around the environment and sustainability hold great importance but, if an international corporation can sue Canada in secret trial by tribunal outside of our justice system, and without recourse to appeal, to overthrow Canadian government actions in response to these environmental issues, efforts by any level of Canadian government will be futile;

•Issues around the economy and employment hold great importance but, if an international corporation can sue Canada in secret trial by tribunal outside of our justice system, and without recourse to appeal, to overthrow Canadian government actions in response to labour, health and safety, business practice, etc. issues, efforts by any level of Canadian government will be futile.

Thus, the fundamental issue to address during this election has to be that of Canada’s sovereign right to govern ourselves as a free and independent nation, “The true north strong and free.”

The first question every voter should ask of every candidate for election to Parliament from each riding across our much loved nation should be, “Are you Committed to Canada’s sovereignty as a free and independent nation?”

•If an incumbent candidate who supports the current government answers, “Yes,” then the only possible follow-up question must be, “If you are committed to our sovereignty, why do you support a government that suborned Canada’s national sovereignty and continues to suborn?”

-This so-called loyal Conservative government negotiated in secret, then signed and eventually ratified the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA) which goes far beyond simply providing for freer trade but, in effect, diminishes Canada to a resource colony of the Communist dictatorship in Beijing for the next thirty-one years.  With the inclusion of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provision, Chinese firms (which are merely arms of the Chinese Communist dictatorship) with investments in Canadian business now have the right to sue Canadian federal, provincial, and municipal governments in secret trials by tribunals outside of our justice system if new environmental, labour, health and safety, business practice, etc. law impinges on their investment.  That is to say, Canada now has to clear such new laws, regulations, and court judgements with Beijing in order to bring them into effect.

-Similarly, this government participates in Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) secret negotiations and has signed other so-called free trade agreements, all of which include provisions for ISDS by which international corporations can turn to the International Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes (ICSID) to sue sovereign nations in secret trials by tribunals outside of any national judiciary to overturn new law enacted out of a nation’s sovereign right to govern itself (fortunately pre-existing law as at signing an ISDS containing agreement cannot get attacked, but participating nations will have to clear such new laws, regulations, and court judgements with corporate head offices if they hope to remain safe from attack).  This provision raises international corporations from the subjects of nations to, in effect, non-territorial kingdoms equal with or superior to no-longer sovereign nations while reducing nations to resource and labour colonies of those multinational corporations.

-For these actions Prime Minister Harper and those of his ministers involved in these negotiations should be called to answer to the charge of treason.

•If a non-incumbent candidate who supports the current government answers, “Yes,” then the only possible follow-up question must be, “If you are committed to our sovereignty, are you aware that the current government suborned Canada’s national sovereignty and continues to suborn?”

•If a candidate who does not support the current government answers, “Yes,” then a possible follow-up question would be, “If you are committed to our sovereignty, what are your thoughts on so-called free trade treaties Canada has already signed which include the sovereignty destroying ISDS provision and where do you stand with regard to Canada’s participation in TPP and the secret negotiations toward CETA, TTIP, and TiSA?”

-Instead of ISDS, Canadian operations of international corporations that find themselves at issue with our governments at whatever level should bring the matter to an open and public Canadian court within the Canadian judicial system for decision under Canadian law in the same way as Canadian corporations and Canadian citizens must do.

-If an issue exceeds the competence of Canadian courts, an international corporation should be required to publicly request its home nation government to pursue the matter in an open and public international court on a sovereign nation versus sovereign nation basis that clearly holds international corporations as subjects of sovereign nations and not equals with sovereign nations.