Author Archives: Jay Menard

A Fighting Chance

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By Jason Menard

As a father, I can only imagine the pain Strathroy’s John Melo is feeling today, grieving the loss of his son Joshua, who took his own life – with bullying named the catalyst for his action.

Bullying is rampant in our schools – and our schools are ill-equipped to handle it. In fact, many schools have instituted a hands-off policy, the concept of which my wife and I fully support. However, a concept and its reality can be far different things. Essentially, what educational hands-off policies encompass is a zero-tolerance approach to violence and physical aggression. One punch and you’re out.

The hands-off policy has brought a different form of bullying to the fore. Now, more than the realized action of violence, the perceived threat of violence and intimidation are the preferred tactics of bullies. What hands-off policies tend to breed is a refuge for more subtle forms of bullying: veiled threats, intimidation, implied violence, and ostracizing run almost unchecked, with little recourse for the victims of this situation. While there’s an increased awareness of the social and emotional ramifications of bullying within the school system, the current system, as it exists, ends up protecting the aggressors and further victimizing the victimized.

As adults we tend to overrationalize the problems faced by our children. What seems clear to us, illuminated by the wisdom of experience and perspective, is not so clear to our youth. While adults can understand that these threats are nothing more than a cry for attention, or braggadocio covering up the bully’s insecurities and fears, to our children these threats are real and present threats to their physical and emotional well being.

I’ve seen some kids’ frustration with their situation. Up until a certain age, kids just aren’t equipped with the mental and emotional maturity to diffuse situations with intellectual tools like negotiation, humour, or dialogue. Rather, they’re more impulsive, conflicted in their thought processes, and incapable of resolving their emotions in a mature way.

So what do they do? They either become sullen and reclusive, or they lash out – but with the hands-off policy, they are punished for striking back against their aggressors, while the bullies get off scot-free. And as much as students and administrators encourage students to come forward with their concerns and fears, few if any students will do so out of fear of being branded a “squealer” or “tattle-tale.” Parental intervention often does more harm than good as well, as the child then becomes a target for having other people fighting their battles (the irony of which is that these bullies often travel in packs, having older children as their muscle.)

Bullying also is not simply restricted to the schoolyard. While threats may not be carried out on the playground, the victims of bullying carry the fear that they could be confronted on their way home from school, in their neighbourhood, or at their park. While the hands-off policies may discourage violence on the school property, they have little effect on the outside world.

So what are we to do? If a school embraces a hands-off policy and is vigilant in its execution, it must be equally, if not more so, vigilant in the proactive curtailment of intimidation. A verbal threat must be treated with the same response as if a punch was thrown, and teachers and administrators must be increasingly vigilant about actively looking for these situations. Threatening another student should eventually result in suspensions, parents should be immediately notified about their children’s aggressive behaviour, and consequences must be set in place to discourage this type of activity.

It’s a lot of work, but it needs to be done. When I was in school, you dealt with bullies in one of two ways, you either turned tail and ran or you stood your ground and fought. There was a clear line and there were no shades of grey. Obviously a return to this type of frontier justice is neither desired or warranted.

However, if we truly want to embrace a hands-off policy and make our schools a safe haven for social and educational development, then we need to do a better job of making sure that all our students stand – pardon the expression – a fighting chance.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

‘Tis the Season to be…?

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By Jason Menard

I give up. I can’t keep up the façade any longer. It’s barely mid-month and the Christmas spirit has been beaten out of me.

The culprit – Christmas songs.

It all started so innocently. Back in November, I’d walk through a store and off in the distance I’d hear the faint strains of something holly and jolly. At the time, it struck me as odd, but I shrugged it off. After all, I love the holiday season, and these first few melodies were akin to seeing the first robin of spring – a pleasant harbinger of things to come. Little did I know that first metaphorical robin would turn into a Hitchcockian nightmare.

Little by little, the songs crept up on me: in the malls, on the radio in my car, on the canned music at work. At first, they were pleasant distractions from the everyday, but slowly, surreptitiously, they grew in number and frequency to the point where I can’t move without being exposed to another Christmas song.

And then it finally dawned on me. There are too many Christmas songs!

As a society, we need to declare a moratorium on any new holiday songs. Maybe we can set up an independent tribunal that determines whether a new submission can be added to the canon of Holiday classics.

In fact, new Christmas songs wouldn’t bother me – what drives me around the bend is the fact that every artist enjoying their 15 minutes of fame feels the need to add their distinctive stamp to holiday classics – and not so classics – of the past. And instead of having some fun, they take themselves too seriously, ululating their way through these songs as if to show that their particular vocal gymnastics have created the definitive rendition of a particular song.

Head out to the discount racks of your local music store and you’ll be able to sift through the wreckage of failed careers – consider it a seasonal cultural anthropology project! They say that every snowflake is unique – well, maybe the same concept should be extended to the music of the season. That way, we won’t be buried in an avalanche of barely distinguishable music.

Now, I’m really not old enough to state that the holidays begin and end with Bing Crosby! Or, maybe we’ll let that Burl Ives fellow slip through. But I am old enough to be confident in saying that we didn’t need Celine Dion to cover Feliz Navidad – Mr. Feliciano handled that quite nicely the first time around.

And just because people feel the need to churn out this holiday drivel, it doesn’t mean we have to listen to it! Just because our Canadian or American Idol of the moment chooses to stave off the inevitable descent into obscurity by issuing a collection of holiday “classics,” doesn’t mean that our radio DJs need to come salivating like Pavlovian reindeer to the trough!

There are just not enough hours in the day to play the overwhelming catalogue of Christmas songs. Yet, in an attempt as futile as my attempts to fasten my belt after Christmas dinner, our various music outlets continue to try and squeeze more and more bad music into the day!

We lament the lack of Christmas spirit these days. And one of the first places we point to is the mall – where angry customers clash with frustrated vendors. We are quick to blame the beleaguered sales staff without realizing that they are working in an environment where this music rotates incessantly! That’s got to have an effect on your psyche.

Christmas is a special time of year. But for more and more of us, hearing a Christmas song results less in a smile and more in an audible groan. We have CanCon regulations that strictly restrict the allowable content on our radio stations – why can we not put the CRTC to an effective use and restrict the number of holiday songs we hear in a given year.

Let’s say no Christmas carols until Dec. 15 th or after the first snowfall that sticks! No more than one song per 10 on rotation in retail and commercial environments. And no Celine Dion – but that’s more of a personal preference, nothing else.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Lest We Forget?

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By Jason Menard

Let we forget. That plaintive admonition from our forefathers seems to be getting drowned out by the din of modern society and, unless things change soon, threatens to be silenced.

As we approach Remembrance Day, our collective attention is supposed to be turned towards those men and women who fought for our beliefs and ideals in the Great War, WWII, and the Korean War. Yet, for more and more people – especially the younger generations — those conflicts are rapidly distancing themselves from our present-day reality.

In my own case, the only direct links I have to Remembrance Day observances are my grandfathers – one of whom passed away in my youth, and the other of whom I never knew. My own children have no direct experience. Will Remembrance Day mean anything to them as they grow up?

My fear is that the answer will be no, unless we do something about it. We need more than a poppy on a lapel or on a coin – we need to embrace Remembrance Day as a country and pass our passion, appreciation, and knowledge on to future generations.

Although many of our veterans survived horrors beyond comprehension, tragically we are rapidly losing them to the one battle from which there is no victory. Fewer and fewer WWII veterans remain with us today, and in the not-to-distant future it’s not hard to see that those living links to our past will be broken. And with their passing, so goes the living history that’s at the root of Remembrance Day observances.

We face a number of problems, not the least of which is that we live in a disposable society. Modern-day conflicts are lamented, and just as quickly forgotten. Horrors like the Chechen school invasion are featured on CNN for 24-hours a day, and then just as quickly forgotten when the next story breaks. How can we, as a society, expect to remember wars that many of us have no direct ties to when we can’t even remember what happened last week?

Add to that the fact that war has been sanitized and edited for broadcast on the nightly news. The horrors of sending wave upon wave of soldiers from the trench to their death is incomprehensible to those growing up with remote-control wars! The majority of Canadians just don’t have the first-hand experience of what’s it’s like to have many of their friends and family go overseas never to return.

Is this all bad? Not when you consider that the price for this disconnect has been years of peace. It’s getting harder and harder to remember conflict because we’ve been blessed with years without it directly affecting our country. But, as the old adage states, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

We need to remember the horrors of war, instead of treating it as entertainment. Movies and video games depicting ‘realistic’ warfare are proliferating, but where are the real stories of tragedy? Where is the compassion for the families that were irrevocably altered by armed conflicts? Where is the commitment to honouring the brave men and women that gave so much of their lives for us?

A couple of years back I was in Montreal for Remembrance Day. I left my office and walked the two blocks to the cenotaph for the 11:00 ceremony. There I was joined by a handful of veterans, a smattering of others, and nobody else my age. With easily over 100,000 people within walking distance, this was the best we could do.

In fact, how many of people in their 30s and below even know where the local cenotaph is? We grew up wearing our poppies, going to school assemblies to hear Taps, and making wreaths out of tissue paper. And what has that left us with?

Recent generations have gone through the motions without understanding the movement. We must change that pattern before Remembrance Day becomes simply another empty gesture that will eventually fade into the mists of time.

Where do we start? Ideally, a national holiday on Remembrance Day would be welcome. A day wherein families can participate in memorials, visit monuments, or lay a wreath at a cenotaph. But we all know that even if it was a holiday, too many would treat it with no significance – after all, how many celebrate Victoria Day compared to those that celebrate ‘The 2-4’?

We need to do a better job as parents to educate our children about our past. We need our schools to take an active role in focusing curriculum on what Remembrance Day truly is. Instead of wasting time with empty symbols, we need to learn from those precious few veterans we have left. We need to record their stories — and those of their families – so that future generations can reflect upon their sacrifices.

Most of all, we need to make Remembrance Day matter again. Our veterans’ courage, sacrifice, and passion for our country has to be worth more than a quarter with a poppy on it.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Just Let Me Talk to a Real Person

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By Jason Menard

Ah remember the good ol’ days – when we simply had to follow a labyrinth-like maze of touch-tone commands to not get the service we required. I never thought I’d see the day when I’d look back fondly on those days, but the latest round of “customer service improvements” has proven the old adage that you have to be careful what you wish for!

If you’re like me, you’ve probably called your (insert service name here – cable, telephone, retail company) and been frustrated by the finger calisthenics required to get even a most basic question answered. Perhaps your phone’s “0” button is worn down from constant bashing of it to try to get to talk to someone, anyone!

And our refrain during these days? ‘Just let me talk to a real person!’

Our service providers heard the call and have replied! But instead of providing a proper receptionist, the powers-that-be have decided to go one better and offer ‘humanesque’ service. That’s right, automated service with that human touch! All the benefits of social interaction without those unnecessary encumbrances like a heart, a pulse – or a brain!

Oh, how I miss the brain part of the equation. I consider myself fairly eloquent. I speak with no discernable accent (depending on your point of view – I speak with the general tonality, affection, and vernacular of the average North-eastern North American male), and, when I call, I have a solid idea of what I’m looking for and the capability of expressing myself accordingly.

Now, thanks to my interaction with these ‘human-lite’ directory systems I wonder if I’m the moron or is the machine? I prefer to think the latter.

Take, for instance, a recent conversation I ‘shared’ with my phone company’s automated system. In this case, I was calling to cancel a scheduled repair appointment.

PC: Hi, I’m [fake name withheld to protect the moronic]. Why don’t you tell me what your issue is and I’ll help connect you to the right department!

Jay: I’d like to cancel a service call.

PC: Hi, I’m… [apparently I need to be told twice]

Jay: I have a scheduled service call that I need to cancel.

PC: Hi, I’m… [OK, maybe it’s a particularly bad day…]

Jay: Service call cancellation

PC: Oh, you’d like to cancel your phone service! [Quite the leap of faith here. Although, may I say, at this point I was considering it…]

Jay: No! I would like to cancel a service call because we won’t be home to answer the door when a real person – unlike you – shows up to do the repairs!

PC: Hi, I’m…

At that point, I think I bruised my fingers pounding down on the ‘0’ button. Worst of all, this was not an isolated incident. In fact no matter how basic I make the commands, and at times I’ve sounded like Tarzan on painkillers: “TV No Work!” “Need Telephone To Ring!” I still can’t seem to get through to these people – oh, sorry, ‘people.’

Yes, I know I asked to talk to someone in the past, but apparently the message – not unlike the telephone directories – got mixed up in the translation. I, and others like me, want to talk to a REAL person! Someone who can understand my clear English and point me in the right direction. Or at least someone who doesn’t send me off to the farthest recesses of the company on a wild goose chase.

What these companies seem to fail to recognize is that I’m willing to accept a few problems here and there with my services. Our world isn’t perfect, so why should I expect that from my digital cable? The connection is broken? Fine, fix it so I can get back to my life.

But what I don’t want is to spend 15 minutes on the phone trying to find the secret word combination that unlocks the door to the world of good customer service! I left my decoder ring at home, please give me a break.

I’d say that 99% of us call with a complaint, but are not overly stressed about it. However, after spending way too much quality time with the ‘human-like’ answering service my inner Lou Ferrigno takes over from my original Bill Bixby state. So, when those magic words are spoken and we actually get a human response, instead of getting a mildly miffed, but willing-to-work-with-you customer on the line these companies are getting ticked-off, belligerent – and unhappy – subscribers who are now considering their options.

Give me a human or give me a machine, but never the twain shall meet!

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Our Medical System’s in Need of a Check-Up

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By Jason Menard

At least now people should be able to see the problems that lie ahead with our medical system. Ironically, it took the delisting of regular eye exams to open people’s eyes to what’s going on with our province’s medical plans. Oh well, better late than never.

Pun fully intended, the Liberal Party’s party’s platform of delisting various medical services is short-sighted, and leads out down the road to where our future generation may enjoy an even poorer quality of life than the one we now enjoy.

Worst of all, these deregulations directly impact those who may need these services the most, but can least afford it. While some of us have extended benefits plans which can make up for the shortfall, others are not so lucky. As well, these plans are getting more and more extended each day. Premiums stand to rise, ancillary fees will start to be levied, and fewer things will be covered – leaving the taxpayer with the added burden of finding funds to cover services.

But, more likely, people won’t pay – and they won’t go.

An investment in health is an investment in our future. By delisting eye exams the Provincial government is creating a scenario wherein those who must choose between food and eye care will understandably choose the former. Human nature is that people will put their money elsewhere other than spending on an eye exam. But what are the long-term costs? How many early cases of glaucoma or cataracts will go unchecked? How much more of a burden on the health care system will that be when costlier reactive medicine becomes the norm and proactive care is slowly phased out?

Chiropractic and physiotherapy care are to be delisted in the near future. I ask what’s next? I ask, how are people expected to move forward in life, when their expenses may outpace their income? How are Ontarians to become more valued members of this province? How are they to buy a house, contribute to our local economy, and fill the province’s coffers with tax dollars when all their energy is spent treading water, simply trying to make do — instead of getting ahead?

There are those who swear by chiropractic care – its treatment allowing people to stay off costly pain killers or other pharmaceuticals. But with delisting, will those who choose not to go due to the added financial burden not see their productivity drop at work? Will that not choke the economy? Will that not stifle growth? Will that not send more people to the hospital, using up those valuable — and underfunded — resources?

And what of the others who need physiotherapy to carve out a meagre level of enjoyment and mobility from their lives? They tend to be the ones who need these services the most, but can least afford it.

Where does this stop? When do the Liberal values of social responsibility stop being overwhelmed by the neo-Conservative mantra of fiscal obsession? I am a proud Canadian. However, of late, I worry that my beloved Maple Leaf is being strangled by the Red-White-and-Blue mentality. If access to universal health care is truly a Canadian ideal, should we not put a premium on its care – rather than charging a premium for essential services?

When will governments see that an initial investment in proactive, preventative medicine will end up costing far less than simply being reactionary. Wasn’t that what mom always said? Tackling a problem when it starts prevents it from becoming bigger and unmanageable?

Many rejoiced when the Provincial Liberals replaced the Eves’ Conservative, yet now we are left to wonder if we really bought a new lease on life or are simply mortgaging our future using the opposite side of the same coin? Has Liberal Red turned Conservative Blue?

We as citizens have a responsibility to our friends, family, and neighbours to make our voices heard. Inaction on our part is tantamount to tacit approval of the government’s practices. However, making our voices heard is the key. To speak without action is as worthless as an unfulfilled campaign promise, and the only currency we hold is at the ballot box.

If you are concerned about the future of your health services, don’t wait until after the fact to speak up! Call your MPP, send them an e-mail (click here to find out where they are), or write them a letter.

And when you do let them know that next election you hope your ballot will be cast in appreciation for a Party that has rediscovered its roots, and not against an organization that has lost its focus, choosing the Right way and not the right way.

Delisted eye exams or no, even our politicians will see the light if we shine it bright enough!

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved