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Lakeshore Campus

of the Lakeshore Grounds region. Submissions are encouraged both from community members and students. Artists of all experience levels are supported.

You can find out more by visiting the Lakeshore Grounds Interpretive Centre’s website at www.lakeshoregrounds.ca/upcoming-exhibitions

Beasts of the Southern Wild A First Hand Account of Automotive Culture Down South This Winter

By: Robert Iantorno

Vehicles project the paradigm of their owners -thus, car culture varies widely from place to place, and changes based on the people who inhabit the area and animate the machines. This past winter Down South was a fascinating exploration of this phenomenon.

St. Augustine Beach is a pleasant, surfy seaside strip on the North East side of Florida. It was home to the Timicua, and was then conquested by the Spanish in search of The Fountain of Youth. The long, slim strip of land is now home to a cohort of retirees from the Northeast US, mostly in search of the same. Sunsets are beautiful, people are friendly, and you can ride bicycles on the Sandy beach. Here, I saw plenty of old vans covered with kooky stickers, curtains on the windows and surfboards lashed to the roofs. All the vans were poorly maintained with squeaky brakes and dried out gaskets, but they just weren’t about that, man.

On a brief sojourn to New Orleans (I tried a Sazerac, ate beignets at Café du Monde, and found the city to be filthy and delightful), I spotted this buttercup yellow Thunderbird -ratty and fun; itself a filthy delight.

In rural Western Florida, the “No Trespassing” signs read, “POSTED”. The insinua- tion is, “This here sign is POSTED. I have POSTED it and letting you know so that I can legally shoot you on my property.” People down in this part of the world are forthcoming and unapologetic about their politics and religion, and the machines are the same.

This nasty yellow Frankenstein of a Studebaker spotted in the parking lot at Coney Island Hotdogs in Webster. This, kids, is what we call a “Deathtrap” -a tube framed, fibreglass bodied dragster on slick tires. The big, jovial owner tells me that it’s been totalled twice, sawn apart and welded together repeatedly, and that it’s currently powered by stroked 390 Chevy engine making I-don’t-know-how-many horsepower (it doesn’t matter -it’s a lot). It’ll do 0-60 in 2.1 seconds, and it sounds and smells like it wants to hurt you. The owner has grease under his fingernails, wears suspenders and has a huge smile across his face as we talk about carburetors and zoomie headers. We each said, “you got that right, Brother” more than once, then slapped high five. Then I proceeded to smash 2 foot long hot dogs and a Texas Chili burger. Things down here are straight forward.

The many RV Resorts in Florida host “Snowbirds”, a term broadly applied to transient or seasonal peoples who live in wheeled domciles. This way of life has a far reaching comaraderie and a culture of lending a hand and exchanging stories. At one of our RV resorts, I had the pleasure of attending Cars and Coffee each Wednesday with some gentlemen Snowbird gearheads, where we would sit for hours and geek out about our love of valve actuation, body lines and fuel delivery systems. My new buddy, Jim is originally from Illinois, and is a retired Master GM Mechanic with a profound connection to machines. Jim and his wife are “Full Timers”, meaning that they embrace RVing as a way of life. Doing so in this case required the humility to leave behind the physical manifestations of a love of vehicles, and instead opting to carry only the beautiful memories. Above is a spread of Jim’s personal vehicles, includ- ing Jim astride his 1987 GSXR-1100 (this is significant, as I once owned a blue ‘86), complete with matching Dainese leathers and Shoei helmet -even a period-correct moustache.

I wrote this account while pulled over in our Vixen21TD (pictured bottom left), somewhere in North Carolina. Birds are singing, there’s a light rain, and we have begun the long trek back home having added thousands of miles and memories to the odometer. So what does this peculiar 1987 fibreglass RV project about us? I guess it’s that we don’t give up, that normalcy doesn’t cut it, and that we can’t help but ramble on down the road.

Canada has made a remarkable recovery from the COVID recession. Our economic growth was the strongest in the G7, 830,000 more Canadians are employed than before the pandemic,inflation has fallen for eight months in a row, our unemployment rate is near its record low. Inshort, we are in good shape.

With these strong economic fundamentals, our Made-In-Canada Plan Budget 2023, recently tabled in the House of Commons, builds on this important progress. Budget 2023 comes at an important moment for our country - and at an important moment for the world. In the near-term, we must contend with a slowing global economy, elevated interest rates around the world, and inflation that is still too high.

At a challenging time in a challenging world, there is no better place to be than Canada.

The Budget includes initiatives on many different aspects of life and priorities for Canadians.Here are just a couple, ones that I have heard from constituents about over the last few months.

Health Care Budget 2023 investments include:

- Providing an additional $198.3 billion over 10 years, including $46.2 billion in new funding;

- An investment to provide dental care to Canadians who need it, with $13 billion over five years, and $4.4 billion ongoing, to implement the Canadian Dental Care Plan. This plan will begin to roll out in 2023; - $158.4 million over three years to support the implementation and operation of 988 with Canadians able to call or text 988 at any time to access immediate mental health support by November 30, 2023; and,

- $359.2 million over five years to support a renewed Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy.

Climate Action

Today, the world’s major economies are moving at an unprecedented pace to fight climate change, retool their economies, and build the net-zero industries of tomorrow. Canada is in an ideal place to take advantage of the opportunities of a green economy. Budget 2023 presents our Made-in-Canada plan and is underpinned by a new federal toolkit for investing in the clean economy: a set of clear and predictable investment tax credits, low-cost strategic financing, and targeted investments and programming, where necessary, to respond to the unique needs of sectors or projects of national economic significance.

Budget 2023 delivers:

- A suite of new investment tax credits designed to attract and accelerate investments in clean electricity, clean technology manufacturing, and clean hydrogen;

- Labour requirements to investment tax credits to ensure government support for businesses to grow providing workers with good wages and apprenticeship opportunities;

- $3 billion dollars over 13 years to support clean electricity programs;

- A clean electricity focus for the Canada Infrastructure Bank, with investments of at least $20 billion to support the building of major clean electricity and clean growth infrastructure projects; and,

There are many other initiatives, such as the introduction of a new grocery rebate which will deliver target relief for 11 million Canadians who need it most, or how we are helping small businesses by lowering credit card transaction fees.

You can learn more by visiting: www.budget.canada.ca