Hunting For Value Through Jungles Of Inflation

House hunting ain’t what it used to be. Not even compared to, like, two years ago. Back then I was looking to buy a place with my Dad, his wife and my brother. We looked for several months, got an idea of the market, put in a few offers and finally ended up with something that satisfied our needs. Prices were creeping up, as they had been for months, maybe a bit faster than usual, but not in an unsustainable, anxiety-inducing way.

Today we see a vastly different market. Prices in the last two years have escalated by leaps and bounds, leading many to speculate on the possibility of a housing bubble that’s about to burst. I’m not even gonna touch that here.

A main reason for this surge in housing prices seems to be foreign investment, particularly from mainland Chinese. The Greater Vancouver Area has been hit the worst—about a third of Vancouver properties have increased in price by more than 50% since 2010, with some having doubled—but the Greater Toronto Area is also feeling the pressure. As foreigners introduce their bags of money into local housing markets, prices inflate to unaffordable levels, thus leaving domestic buyers out in the cold (in some cases, literally).

What’s worse, many of these foreign buyers hide the true extent of their back-home earnings from Canadian tax authorities in order to minimize the taxes they pay; or they brazenly dodge tax payments altogether. Compounding the problem, Canadian real estate law allows foreign buyers to register homes in their spouse or child(ren)’s name as a primary residence rather than as investment property; so when they sell the house, they pay no capital gains taxes. Yet many of these dwellings are obvious investment properties, bought to serve exclusively as rentals. Praveena’s colleague spoke of a neighbourhood house that was empty seemingly forever, until the day a busload of Asian girls in school uniforms was unloaded in its driveway—either a party or a sorority house (which really is just a long-term party house). At any rate, countless houses sit empty for weeks or months as junk mail piles up and lawns overgrow, basically becoming neighbourhood eyesores. But we’ve gotten way off topic. I just needed to vent, because the likelihood that these foreigners are engaging in illegal activities infuriates me. They’re cheating us out of 1) precious federal and provincial tax revenues, and 2) affordable housing. Some estimates put the consequent overvaluation of Canadian homes at twenty percent in relation to long-term economic growth. But of course there’s nothing we decent, home-buying Canadians can do about it. Yet what of this proposed 15% tax on foreign-purchased Canadian real estate, you ask? It may be a nice gesture; but in reality, what will it actually inhibit? Fifteen percent seems like a drop in the bucket for rich Chinese (any racist undertones are completely unintentional).

Anyway, if all that’s not a big (and frustrating) enough obstacle to overcome, Praveena and I are looking in a rather specific area, simply because she can’t live far from her work. And if you think the prices in Toronto are inflated, in Vaughan/Maple they verge on spirit crushing. Based on the houses we’ve seen, the expectation seems to be that buyers will pay a lot to get a little. Not so long ago—five years ago? Ten? Certainly in the period leading up to the 2008 financial meltdown—a $700,000 house was plenty big and impressive for its cost. Today the same-priced house is old, small and shabby. To put things in perspective, a buddy of mine bought a new house in Maple eleven years ago for $325,000 and sold four years ago for $600,000. Nice little profit, yes? But two years ago his neighbour sold for a million. Granted, the neighbour’s house was noticeably bigger. Still, my buddy wishes he’d held on a couple more years.

If you crave that million-dollar house you’ve always dreamed of, you’re in for a surprise. Today, a million bucks doesn’t get you much. The house may be nice and shiny and even modern, but chances are, it’s not a value buy. Too small or too old or too isolated or too something. Is there value to be found? Possibly, but finding it requires diligence and patience. And probably luck. Many of the houses we’ve seen in the last few weeks were listed in the eight-to-nine hundred thousand dollar range. But when we went to see the place, the listing agent revealed that the sellers were looking for a million-plus. Value-wise, they probably were eight-to-nine hundred thousand dollar houses. Yet the strategy is to low-ball the listing price to get people to come and see the property, and from there the hope is for all-out (bidding) war.

Yes, house-hunters, be warned: bidding wars are everywhere. Many buyers have probably lost out on several previous bidding attempts. So they panic, worrying they won’t get the place they really want, or any place, without grossly overbidding. You never know when you’re competing against wealthy Chinese.

Real estate agents don’t help the situation. They come across as pleasant and helpful, with their price-raising optimism and friendly suggestions. They all have their own ideal features in a house. Some want the walkout basement, others the corner lot. Finished basement! Spacious backyard! Great neighbourhood! In an agent’s eyes, any of these elements turns a house into a must-have, especially compared to the rest of the market shite. Make no mistake, though: while these agents may altruistically seem to have your best interests in mind, their goal is to maximize the value of the properties they are selling. Sure, they’ll warn against emotional bidding or bully bidding, but secretly they love anything that fattens that good ol’ price.

House hunting has always been a source of stress. Now, though, the competition—faceless foreigners with apparently bottomless pockets—seems downright intimidating. But all isn’t necessarily lost. Be firm with your desires and demands. Do your research. Check homes in the area and their selling prices. Have a budget. (A pre-approved mortgage helps.) And keep shopping, shopping, shopping, in hopes of finding that special bargain everyone else seems to have missed. It’s basically the shopaholic’s credo put to use on the biggest purchase you’ll ever make. Most important, remember that no matter what the agent says, no matter what the cost of the house, it’s you who decides whether you’re getting value in return for the asking price. It’s you, ultimately, deciding whether to fork over your hard-earned money.

Hopefully you find what you’re looking for. It will require patience. We’re patient, and we’re hopeful. 

Medical Emergency

Ever been caught in a subway delay? It’s one thing to be waiting for the next train—which seemingly can take an eternity, depending on the severity of the reason for the delay—and another thing entirely to be at the delay’s epicenter.

Delays are usually grouped into one of three categories: a security situation, mechanical malfunction or medical emergency. Mechanical failures are probably the most common and least interesting, while security situations are likely least common and most interesting. It could be a fire or a crime or—an increasingly worrisome possibility today—terrorism, which is like a crime on steroids.

Medical emergencies fall somewhere in between. The overhead announcement never specifies what the medical emergency is, so one is always left to wonder, and one always does. It’s the equivalent of mental rubbernecking. Is it a heart attack, or a seizure, or maybe someone just suddenly collapsed while reading their Metro newspaper or that Trebas Institute poster? Heck, on more than one occasion I’ve found out after the fact that the reason for the delay was a jumper. Yes, an attempted suicide. Grim, perhaps, but apparently not important, at least not to those stuck in the delay. Imagine all those folks stranded in the station—or worse, between stations—grumbling about the wait, that they have to be somewhere; and all the while, somewhere up ahead someone is suffering indescribable pain, perhaps clinging to life. Such inconvenience!

Anyway, I’d never been at the epicenter of a subway delay, until today. On my way home from work I arrived at York Mills station and descended to the subway platform, only to discover the subway in a holding pattern. No one getting on or off, TTC personnel attending to a passenger in the first car, mere steps from me. Without properly assessing the situation, I’d tried to get on that first car, and one of the TTC guys pleasantly but firmly motioned me to stay off the train. Well, I thought, isn’t this inconvenient. All I could see through the subway window was an older woman in some apparent distress, and someone else standing beside her, rubbing her (the older woman’s) head. An overhead announcement declared that the Line 1 northbound subway would be delayed at York Mills Station due to a medical emergency, and that shuttle buses were being deployed.

While debating whether to wait it out or head above ground and try to catch a shuttle bus, I saw paramedics wheel an empty stretcher onto the subway car. That’s when I noticed all the people that had gathered to stare at the situation on the train. People were getting off the subway and coming up to the front car to gather round the window. Others were simply moving forward on the train to get a better vantage point. Even people from the southbound side of the platform were wandering over to watch. Typical of this voyeuristic society, eh? Everyone at home watching their TV’s and computer screens, and now they're happy to watch another spectacle here at York Mills station. I’m surprised I saw no one whip out a phone and start filming. Doesn’t mean no one did.

It didn’t take the paramedics long to get the passenger onto the stretcher. I saw a couple cops who’d obviously showed up out of nowhere, doing crowd control on the train. The mass of passengers continued to crowd forward to catch a glimpse of the passenger in distress, their eyes like tongues licking every last bit of salty sauce from the dish.

Presently, the paramedics wheeled the sick passenger off the train. I saw her lolling on the stretcher. Her arm fell out of the strap. Her eyes were rolled back and glazed a thick milky colour. Had she suffered a stroke? To me, she looked dead. I work in a hospital, so I see this stuff every day. To me, it wasn’t some neat novelty or some crazy, cool thing to stop and stare at. If the person was indeed dead, it seemed to be an expected kind of dead, since the accompanying person maintained a calm demeanour and showed no visible distress. Perhaps she was a care worker.

Once the stretcher had left the scene, the crowd on the platform immediately surged back onto the train. I shrugged and followed. Moments later came an announcement overhead that the delay at York Mills station had been resolved. Business returned to normal. It was as though nothing had happened.

Back on the subway, I noticed the abandoned, personal mobility scooter on the other side of the car. The paramedics had obviously removed the sick passenger from it and left it behind, an eerie reminder of the suddenness of tragedy for all the remaining passengers to see. Before the subway doors closed, a TTC employee got on the train. As we left York Mills station, he stood, swaying with the rest of us. Perhaps he was there to accompany the empty scooter.

At Sheppard station, someone leaned through the open door and asked, What happened? What was the delay? The TTC employee said in accented English, Someone had accident, maybe heart attack. Before the doors closed, the inquisitive person—who didn’t get on the train—nodded and said, Oohhhh, as though a great mystery had been solved. And that would’ve been the end of it for everyone, except for the empty scooter that swayed with the rest of us.

Tragedy can be so personal yet so impersonal at the same time. It always seems to happen to someone else, except when it doesn’t. And that someone else is usually out of sight and out of mind, except when she’s right in front of you. What’s perhaps most disturbing is that, no matter its cause, the tragedy in question grossly inconveniences everyone involved. Of course there’s the victim. But don’t forget the victim’s unseen, fellow subway passengers, who feel even more inconvenienced, because they’re forced to wait for the situation to be resolved.

The interesting thing, though, is that the closer one is to the tragedy’s epicenter, the less that time seems to drag. Why? Because we at the epicenter have an opportunity to gawk, to try to get a good look at the unfolding scene, to lap up all the details of this novelty, this spectacle, this terrible thing happening to someone else, to someone else’s family member or friend or lover. Or maybe we gawkers are simply wondering with muted fright if this is what our own personal tragedy might one day look like.

For what it’s worth, I hope the passenger in distress is all right.

(Music) Lovers On The Beach

This past Sunday evening, the weather was perfect for enjoying music on a beach. Fortunately, Praveena and I had secured tickets for Noel Gallagher and his High-Flying Birds at Echo Beach. Praveena’s a big Oasis fan (i.e., she’s a huge Beatles fan); we also saw Gallagher’s post-Oasis project last May at one of Toronto’s premiere music venues, The Sony Centre. This was icing on the cake for her.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a huge Oasis or Gallagher brothers fan.  It’s always great to see live music, and attending a show with the love of your life is particularly special. But my favourite part of the concert was seeing Gallagher’s exquisite showmanship. (It doesn’t hurt that for an outdoor venue, Echo Beach has pretty awesome sound.)

In light of recent Canadian concert troubles—Meatloaf collapsing on stage in Edmonton, Justin Bieber falling through a Saskatoon stage (thankfully, both are okay)—I was slightly, superstitiously concerned in the leadup to the show that we might see something alarmingly similar. But the music and spectacle kept my mind limber and stress-free.

Gallagher is a professional showman, through and through. While he may play up his asshole persona to a (sometimes exaggerated) degree, it’s obvious he’s having fun, especially on stage. He certainly enjoys his expletive-laced banter with the crowd. In his between-song introductory greeting, he asked what was going on in Toronto on a Sunday (perhaps hoping someone would say he was THE EVENT of the day?). He added that the band were still touring their Chasing Yesterday album—which they’d showcased in their previous Toronto visit, last May—joking that the tour had yet to turn a profit. He later acknowledged that the setlist hadn’t changed.

The band’s music isn’t groundbreaking. But as a consummate showman, Gallagher knows how to give fans what they want—mainly, great guitar riffs, earworm melodies and soaring choruses. A three-piece brass section livened up songs like Riverman and The Death of You And Me.

He likes to change things up, as he did with a heavier live rendition of The Mexican and a jaunty, up-tempo treatment of the Oasis tune Wonderwall. He also offered a delightful acoustic version of Oasis hit (and standard crowd singalong) Champagne Supernova. Hearing its nostalgic line “Where were you when we were getting high?” transported me back two decades to an uncomfortable place that thankfully I’ve moved well beyond. Speaking of which, Gallagher playfully dedicated the High Flying Birds’ tune You Know We Can’t Go Back to all Oasis fans.

In short, Gallagher and his mates—Russell Pritchard on bass, Chris Sharrock on drums, Tim Smith on guitar and Mike Rowe on keyboard—regaled Echo Beach’s near-capacity crowd. The performance had Praveena bouncing around and shrieking like a girl at a Beatles concert…uh, wait a moment….Anyway, I loved watching her soak up the performance of one of her musical icons. Her personal fave number on the evening was The Masterplan, a majestic, emotional, minor masterpiece. She loved it not just in terms of performance, but also for the ecstatic crowd response it evoked.

Alas, the moment came when Gallagher drolly announced his favourite part of the show, “the end.” The three-song encore concluded with singalong finale Don’t Look Back In Anger, which gave the crowd the closure it’s designed to provide.

With his music and his endearing crustiness, Gallagher knows how to appease a crowd, whether casual fans like me or diehards like Praveena. And who knows? Had he fallen through the stage, he probably would have found a way to turn the moment into entertainment.

Setlist

Shoot a Hole In The Sun (pre-recorded intro)

Everybody’s On The Run

Lock All The Doors

In The Heat Of The Moment

Riverman

Fade Away (Oasis Cover)

The Death Of You And Me

You Know We Can’t Go Back

Champagne Supernova (Oasis Cover)

Ballad Of The Might I

Talk Tonight (Oasis Cover)

D’yer Wanna Be A Spaceman

The Mexican

Half The World Away (Oasis Cover)

Listen Up (Oasis Cover)

If I Had A Gun…

Digsy’s Dinner (Oasis Cover)

The Masterplan (Oasis Cover)

Encore

Wonderwall (Oasis Cover)

AKA…What A Life!

Don’t Look Back In Anger (Oasis Cover)

Eighty: Reasons To Live

Recently my Dad marked his twentieth wedding anniversary. The celebratory party packed a festive punch, with lots of family and friends coming from as far away as California, NYC, Chicago and BC. Young and old, all celebrants enjoyed the day, appeasing palates, filling bellies, meeting new people and lauding the happy couple for their matrimonial achievement.

Amy is Dad’s third wife (and he her second husband). This marriage is his longest, doubling the previous high-water mark. For me, these highlights speak to a couple things: one, that the celebrating couple have put in the requisite hours and effort to stay together (you can’t not work hard at it; no relationship worth keeping comes easily); and two, I guess it’s true what They say about age. Namely, that it brings experience, and of course experience fosters wisdom. I’m not convinced Dad would necessarily have succeeded in this marriage had he entered it earlier in life. It took the cumulative lessons of not only his previous marriages but other life experiences as well for him to finally find peace and happiness with a better half.

Like most people, Dad has learned as he’s aged. Through his failures and reinventions, he’s shown anyone willing to pay attention how to embrace age and experience as learning tools. He used to be a hothead and a showoff. Eventually accepting that those attributes get you nowhere, he gleaned new approaches to conflict resolution and dealing with success. Historically late for things, he started setting his clock ten, then fifteen minutes early. Previously a wreck when it came to finances, he learned how to better manage his money. (In all fairness, Amy is the financial wizard; so, really, he learned to let her manage their finances.)

I myself have begun to understand that age is nothing to fear, but rather something to embrace. I caught a particularly revealing glimpse of this truth at the anniversary celebration.

There are five cousins: my Dad, his sister Mary, his brother Bill, and their cousins John and Jim. With the exception of Mary (who’s ten years younger than Dad), all the others are around eighty years of age. A few years ago they started getting together one weekend every spring for a social outing. My Dad’s anniversary party gathering certainly qualified as one of those weekends; indeed, over several days in town, the quintet got together to catch up and reminisce and generally enjoy the company of the extended family they grew up with.

When I was younger, far younger, I thought eighty seemed positively ancient. Far beyond anyone’s best before date, far too late to start anything new or achieve anything of significance. I was afraid of eighty in the same way I was afraid of death.

But I’ve worked in a hospital long enough to know that eighty is by no means a death sentence, or even the beginning of the end. At work, I see a lot of sick and infirm people. Many, but not all, are north of eighty. I also see many octogenarians who present as youthful, spry and ambitious. Eighty, then, might be on the cusp of getting old. But it can still offer plenty of potential for life.

There are many ways to stave off age’s inevitable cruelties. The key seems to be to stay active—physically, mentally and especially socially. My Dad is living proof that you can survive retirement by staying active. He’s proof that even approaching eighty, you can find success and happiness, whether in marriage or anything else, so long as you believe it’s possible and work hard at it.

He’s also discovered two other qualities that go hand in hand with age and wisdom: confidence and serenity. The more you know, the more confident you feel about doing your thing, and the less you need to prove yourself, or to showboat. And the older you get, the more you realize what’s important, and the less you stress out about unimportant stuff. Over the years, I have seen firsthand Dad’s hotheadedness disappear, to be replaced by a much-welcomed serenity. I think, also, the more confidence you have, the less anxiety; and less anxiety allows more room for serenity.

And the cousins? Age be damned, they will continue to live their lives, meeting up once a year (or more, when celebrations permit) to catch up and reminisce. They will seek reasons to remain active, physically and mentally and especially socially. Heck, my Uncle Bill comes all the way from BC for these gatherings. As my Uncle John told Praveena and me, “When you’re retired, you look for excuses to get out of the house.” I took that as proof of the itch to keep living, to keep finding things to do.

One final note about the party: I saw the young cousins, my brothers’ and sister’s kids, getting to know each other and playing together throughout the day. It was a thrill to watch, like seeing the start of something new yet also the continuation of valuable tradition. I hope they continue nurturing their relationships throughout the years, hopefully well into their eighties. It will lead to a life of fun, joy and fulfillment, and a later-in-life urge to keep finding things to do, together and apart. Because that’s the not-so-secret secret to maintaining that insatiable itch to live, the closest thing we currently have to a fountain of youth, right?

Over The Hills And Far Away

My best friend texted me over the Victoria Day weekend to wish me a happy May 2-4 holiday, prefacing the text with a classic Zeppelin lyric: “Many times I’ve gazed along the open road.” I responded with “I am at a Tamil Catholic wedding. Talk about over the hills and far away!”

Yes, Praveena took me far from my comfort zone on Saturday, as she was a bridesmaid at her Tamil friend’s Catholic wedding in Brampton. I often found myself sitting there, staring in awe at things I didn’t understand. Yet while specific wedding traditions may change from culture to culture, the basics don’t. The key elements of any successful wedding are a pair of loving, willing participants and a good after-party. Fortunately, Saturday’s event offered both.

In true Canadian fashion, people of all colours were in attendance at the church: black, white, brown and yellow. I wondered if the church itself was of a Tamil Catholic denomination. The Tamil Catholic priest and Tamil-looking, red-and-white–gowned acolytes suggested as much, and the bird-decorated stained glass ceiling was something I’d never seen before. In the pews to the right of the aisle, the groom’s family sat, chanting in Tamil—Catholic words?—and fingering their rosaries. To the left sat the bridal contingent, including me. Several times I reflected on how hard the Christian proselytizers must’ve worked to brand convert the denizens of Tamil Nadu 2,000 years ago.

This wedding shared many similarities with most others I’d been to: the Jesus statues on the walls, the Bible readings, the classic vows exchanged by bride and groom, the priest’s declaration that the wedded couple raise their children according to the principles of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. But I’d never seen the groomsmen waiting for the bride in the aisle, with the groom standing closest to the altar. The Tamil Catholic priest speaking in lilting, heavily accented English (and occasionally Tamil) added another interesting flavour. And many women wore red wedding saris, lending an exotic visual flair to the proceedings.

Several Hindu traditions are incorporated into the Tamil Catholic wedding. Perhaps most notable is the marriage necklace. Similar in concept to the ring exchange (but not replacing it), the groom places around the bride’s neck a gold necklace (mangala sutra or “thali”), which the bride wears for life, identifying her as a married woman.

Held at a Brampton banquet hall later that evening, the reception embraced a collaboration of cultures. The menu foreshadowed as much, boasting a delectable buffet of Indian, Sri Lankan, Canadian and Chinese cuisines. When the wedding party entered the hall, with the bride running through a tunnel of people holding up sparklers, I dearly hoped a falling ember wouldn’t ignite the bridal dress. The couple’s mutual love and commitment were further symbolized when bride and groom each placed a flower garland around the other’s neck. And of course there was typical wedding stuff to augment the novelties: dance floor, open bar, silly games. Even a cotton candy maker was brought in to appease those with a midway-leaning sweet tooth. Everything was geared toward an outrageous but fitting celebration of life.

On more than one occasion I caught myself thinking about my own potential wedding. As the photo slide show depicted shots of the bride and groom, I instead imagined pictures of Praveena and me. I saw myself putting the thali around her neck, I envisioned both our parents sharing in the symbolic lighting of the holy lamp, I imagined each of us adorning the other with flower garlands.

Later in the evening, after Praveena had exchanged her pink bridesmaid dress for a purple-and green sari, I couldn’t stop gazing at her. I knew I wanted to share her culture and life. I knew I was lucky to be with someone so special. As if to confirm this, she soon revealed her hero side.

I was heading to the washroom out in the lobby when I saw a man on the floor with a few people gathered around him. Taking a closer look, I saw he was an older gentleman. I wondered if he was maybe passed out drunk or perhaps just resting. When someone mentioned blood, I went to get Praveena, who’s a doctor. While she assessed the situation, someone called 911. The man—an uncle on the groom’s side—had a pulse, but blood was now oozing onto the marble floor under his head.

By the time the paramedics arrived, Praveena had made sure he wasn’t in acute distress and put some towels under his head to cushion it and staunch the blood. The paramedics put him on a backboard and took him to hospital. Praveena would later surmise that he’d tried to lean against the wall, missed and went down, striking his head on the marble floor. Following up the next day, she’d find he’d been released from hospital, CT scan negative. Thus our weird, eye-opening day had a bit of a crazy ending. What’s a quintessentially Canadian celebration of life without a hint of mortality, eh?

Will Monsanto Go To Ground?

On the surface, the news that Monsanto soon may be dead and buried seems too good to be true. Indeed, German pharmaceutical and industrial chemical beast Bayer wants to buy out the American corporation for the immodest sum of $62 billion.

When I first heard the news, my heart filled with joy. To me, the pesticide- and seed-producing giant is more than just a massive, Hydra-like, comic-book-evil organization that doesn’t even bother trying to improve its public perception—specifically that it favours profit over human and environmental health. The very name “Monsanto” represents—to me—a real-life manifestation of every morally corrupt, monopolistic, money-grubbing, power-hungry company populating sci-fi movies of the last thirty years: Soylent Corporation, Cyberdyne Systems and Umbrella Corporation all wrapped up in one malignant entity.

Whether this bad reputation is earned is another story. Among its “achievements,” Monsanto basically perfected the GMO process. But contrary to what conspiracy theorists and anti-GMO factions will have us believe, evidence that GMO foods are unhealthy is inconclusive, and opinions on the subject are likely more emotional than fact-based. Nonetheless, Monsanto has managed to nurture the bad taste in the mouth left by GMO’s and the unholy stigma associated with its seed patents, if only due to newsworthy stories like its proclivities for swallowing up business competitors and suing small-scale farmers who wittingly or otherwise infringe on patent rights. The fact that it wields incredible corporate influence over government food policy assuages no fears. Who likes to see so much power concentrated in so few hands?

More recently, the debate over Monsanto’s signature weed killer product, Roundup, and the possible carcinogenicity of its active ingredient, glyphosate, has gotten very contentious indeed. I can just imagine a bunch of white-coated scientists standing in a tight circle around an unseen slugfest, chanting “Fight, fight, fight, fight!” With regards to GMO and glyphosate safety, why can’t both sides of these fights see eye to eye? For the intertwined sakes of human and environmental health, some agreement must occur between industry and anti-industry scientists, or at least between non-partisan parties. Mustn’t it? I mean, what’s the point of profit if you have no children to pass it on to once you’re gone?

Back to the possibility of a Monsanto buyout. It seems more of a glass-half-empty kind of good news. Because whatever Monsanto does to incur such acrimony—from anti-GMO and organic food activists, from environmentalists, from anti-corporate activists, from me—it certainly doesn’t operate in a vacuum. If or when Monsanto disappears down Bayer’s massive gullet, the German conglomerate will own a monopoly over the seed and industrial pesticide markets, and will surely do its best to perpetuate Monsanto’s destructive legacy. And I haven’t even mentioned Syngenta, the world’s largest seller of agricultural chemicals. If ever Monsanto as an entity ceases to exist, the evils perpetrated on this planet and its food-producing and -consuming denizens by massive corporations will doubtless continue.

The situation reminds me of that old Newfie joke, where the waiter asks the Newfie if he wants his large pizza cut into six or eight pieces. “Oh, six, please,” the Newfie says. “I couldn’t eat eight.” Whether six or eight pieces, a large pizza is still a large pizza. Bayer may sound better than Monsanto, but an agro-chemical company is still an agro-chemical company, perpetuating more environmental harm than good. (Incidentally, Bayer is the largest vendor of neonicotinoid insecticides, so the bee genocide will certainly continue.) Monsanto’s possible relegation to the land of dead companies (or at least to footnote status) is indeed too good to be true.

Living On The Edge (Of Town)

Every word I write takes me further from the city bustle. I’m on a York Region Transit VIVA Blue bus heading north on Yonge Street, formerly the longest street in the world (until it officially broke into two, Yonge and Highway 11). I’m not going to the end of the line—nowhere close—although it sometimes seems like it. I’ve always lived on the city’s outskirts. But I never imagined I’d live as far away as I do now.

Richmond Hill, officially. Unofficially, the ’burbs. The boonies. The sticks. The other day my fiancée and I were driving south on Leslie Street, north of Elgin Mills. In the distance rose a silhouetted metropolis. That’s probably the highrises at Steeles and Yonge, I said. No, Praveena said. Don’t you see the CN Tower? It’s downtown Toronto! Indeed it was, thirty kilometres to the south. I could visualize that iconic, somewhat stereotypical sci-fi image of the mushroom cloud rising over a doomed downtown core. (Seriously, though, my feelings on the burbs are nowhere near apocalyptic.)

In many ways, Richmond Hill isn’t so different from the big city. It’s certainly home to some odd ducks. On a VIVA Blue bus the other day, I saw a guy drinking a beer. This in itself isn’t so strange—I’ve seen people drinking beer on VIVA buses, as I’ve seen people drinking beer on Toronto Transit Commission vehicles. The weird thing was that this was at 6:30 in the morning on a Tuesday. Rather than coming home from an all-night bender, the drinker looked to be on his way to work. He wore green scrubs; I figure he worked in some capacity in the health-care industry. Just one seedy story from among the satellite city’s 185,000 citizens.

No, my adopted city is not sparsely populated. In particular, it boasts large Asian and Persian contingents. I get my hair cut by Persians and do much of my grocery shopping at Asian supermarkets. Seeing all the Korean and Chinese signage in these stores, I certainly feel far from the town where I grew up. Then again, coming home to Praveena every evening makes me feel right at home—more so, perhaps, than ever before.

Aesthetically and functionally, much of Richmond Hill resembles any bustling, North American metropolis: concrete and steel, asphalt and pavement, light poles and power lines, traffic and public transit. The place offers many of the same benefits of city living—maybe an American city more than a Canadian one, with its myriad strip malls and shopping centres rising on every other block. But the businesses dotting the Richmond Hill landscape are totally Canadian: Tim Horton’s, No Frills, Kelsey’s, Petro-Canada, Sporting Life. While items like clothing and groceries seem a tad pricier in the ’burbs, at least rent is cheaper.

Richmond Hill doesn’t offer all the same perks, however. In the absence of bike lanes, bicycles are best ridden (illegally, I might add) on the sidewalk, as roads such as Yonge Street function more like highways. They’re busier, with faster traffic; bicycle riding on them can be a life-threatening experience. Though compared to city traffic, suburb traffic isn’t nearly as bumper-to-bumper (although try saying that with a straight face while travelling north on Yonge Street around 6 pm).

Another annoyingly American quality of the ’burbs is how everything seems so far apart. “Next door” is a minimum five-minute trek. Even the roads are wider than what I’m used to. (Fortunately, my library’s but a seven-minute saunter from home.) Since no two points are very close together, an outing becomes “an outing,” and a trip to the city is most definitely a “trip to the city.” Consequently I spend lots of time travelling down to the city to work, to visit family and friends. But in taking public transit, I use my travel time wisely, reading and writing—like now, writing this. Alternatively, everything being so far apart is more reason to stay in with Praveena.

Maybe the biggest pleasure of living in Richmond Hill is its proximity to unabridged nature. Go a little north, to Stouffville Road, say, and you’re surrounded by fields, lakes, trails, wildlife, tree-lined horizons. My roots may have sprouted in the city, and no one will ever confuse me with Cartier or Brûlé, but I love exploring, stirring up rural dust.

Every word I write takes me further from the city bustle. Praveena and I may be somewhat isolated up here, separated from friends and family, but that just means we get to experience the joys of relying on each other for support. And we can spend lots of time together.

Bottom line? You forge your own life. It’s not where you’re living, but with whom you live, with whom you create your own experiences, discover your own pleasures, find your own solutions to problems, build your own memories. Make no mistake: living in the ’burbs is still living.