Ruth Anne Latta

  A DISEASE (dedicated to the memory of  Dr. Deborah Gorham) “ At the time, people kept telling me, ‘If you put your little boy in day care,  he’ll catch a disease! ’” said the guest speaker to the women at the community center. In an adjoining room, for the duration of the half-hour talk,  a sitter supervised their children at play. “ But he was fine, stayed healthy and learned social skills that have served him well.” I was newly married, new to the city where my husband worked. Listening, I harboured a germ of hope. to become like this historian  with the glossy dark hair, confident air, and passion for her work. I was stunned by the social expectations that marriage had brought down on me. Everyone but my husband wanted me to find a job,  buy a house with a backyard and have babies - A.S.A.P.!  STAT! Any other path was pathological. Were wedded bliss and a vocation incompatible? Were my dreams a disease? Forty years later, the historian spoke to my...

 Ed Broadbent’s Legacy to Us I met Ed Broadbent once,  in 2003, at an all-candidates’ debate in my Ottawa  community. At Jack Layton’s urging, he had come out of retirement to run in Ottawa Centre. His performance was outstanding. Afterwards, I and other audience members went up to the front to congratulate him. Another party’s candidate, who had a TV presence, was younger and perhaps better looking than Ed, assumed that I and the others were coming to greet him, and looked crestfallen on realizing we weren’t. Meanwhile Ed looked surprised and pleased to have so many fans come up to shake his hand. On January 28th, 2024, watching his state funeral, I was moved by the inspirational eulogies about his strivings to bring about a social democratic Canada, I was pleased to hear the co-authors of his recent memoir, Seeking Social Democracy, pay tribute to him.   “Broadbent wanted to write something concerned with political ideas in the broadest sense” wrote on...