Politics

Yes We Can (Change Our Minds)

/ Lauren / 2 Comments

Q-program-image_1027091130544_16x9_620x350Like most Canadians (and perhaps some interested folk south of the border), I have been following reports of the allegations made against former CBC radio and television personality Jian Ghomeshi very closely.

There are many lessons to be learned here–lessons about what consent is, lessons about why victims of assault may choose not to report, lessons about our willingness to look the other way when it comes to a person who has star power, and lessons about how we perceive and treat victims of assault. Many of these lessons are disturbing, but necessary.

There is, however, one lesson I am actually glad to be reminded of as I watch this story unfold on social media and through conversations: we can change our minds.

When it was first announced that Ghomeshi had been fired, the CBC was not saying why, and the Toronto Star was keeping mum until its own story was ready. Several people I love and whose opinion I regard very highly are/were huge fans of Ghomeshi’s show Q, and were furious that one of their favourite media personalities had been dropped by the beleaguered public broadcaster whose continued relevance and popularity (such as it is) are due mostly to shows like his. When Ghomeshi published his version of events on Facebook (in an effort to “get ahead of the story”) these same beloved folks, along with many other die-hard fans, denounced the CBC as prude-ish and out of touch.

When the Toronto Star published the allegations they had collected, and as more women began adding their voices to these allegations (some anonymously, some publicly), Ghomeshi’s initial statement was put under the microscope. And then I got to see a beautiful thing: I got to see people examine the new evidence and change their minds. People that I know had been long-time fans of Q and its host were looking past all that and saying, “Something isn’t right here.”

This might not seem like such a big thing to you. You might say, “Well of COURSE they changed their minds! Who wouldn’t in the face of mounting evidence?”, but the fact is that changing your mind is not always that easy. One only needs to look at the case of Steubenville, Ohio, where irrefutable evidence of the 2012 sexual assault of an unconscious teenaged girl was recorded and shared by her high school football-playing assailants. There was no doubt the assault had occurred. And yet, many people of the community of Steubenville loved their high school football team, and could not change their minds about them. The victim received death threats, despite having nothing to do with either her assault or the fact that the evidence of it was willingly shared on the internet by her assailants. Had the rapist been a shady character the town had always hated, the victim may have been believed and supported, no questions asked. But Steubenville loved their football team, and could not change their minds, even after two of the perpetrators were found guilty in juvenile court.

[You’d have a point if you said that it’s harder to change your feelings about people you know personally and that is true. So I will also provide the example of Roman Polanski, celebrated film directer and convicted rapist, who plead guilty to drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl before fleeing the U.S. to avoid his sentence. He is still much loved by many, inside and outside of Hollywood.]

My point is that changing your mind about an issue, or about a person, can be unsettling, and difficult. But often it is the right thing to do. I understand the cynicism felt when certain Republicans (like Dick Cheney and Senator Rob Portman) become suddenly less homophobic upon discovering members of their own families are gay, but the important thing is that these people, who had held very firm views regarding homosexuality, can change their minds. They can think about the person they love and realize that they were mistaken.

When people change their mind in this way it gives me hope. Politicians are often celebrated for being “unshakeable” or “steadfast” in their positions, and sneered at if they are “flip-floppers”, but I’m not so sure that “steadfast” in many of these cases isn’t just another term for “stubbornly and pigheadedly holding to their view of things, regardless of evidence to the contrary”. Much bad policy has been enacted in Canada by governments who wanted to be “unshakeable” rather than adaptable, and “focused” rather than “open-minded”. It’s no secret that I have many problems with Canada’s current “Harper Government”, and much of the legislation I have issue with is a result of this kind of obstinance (scientific or statistical evidence doesn’t support your policy? Why not burn the scientific records, prevent scientists from talking to citizens, or get rid of the long-form census? That’s way better for the country than simply adapting your policies to reflect evidence-based realities!).

Changing your mind, especially if you’ve been very public about your position or beliefs in the past, is uncomfortable, sometimes embarrassing. You’d probably feel sheepish admitting you’d gotten it so wrong. And yet, a little change of mind is exactly what we need. Imagine how quickly labour disputes would be resolved if the parties could admit where they were wrong instead of waiting to break each other down. Imagine how much more respect you’d have for politicians if they said, “You know what? The policy we were pursuing no longer works. Upon examining the evidence more closely, it seems that we need to go in a different direction and we will be working towards that.” Imagine if a massive, multi-billion dollar oil company said, “The writing seems to be on the wall and fossil fuels are not the way of the future. We’ve got billions of dollars to spend and we’re going to spend it developing clean technologies.” Imagine the true progress we could make as a species if we could learn to change our ways and change our minds every now and again.

As the late John Lennon sang, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” With each good decision, each humble change of heart, we are, I hope, inching a little closer towards grace.

Happy Thanksgiving, and Good Riddance to Columbus Day!

/ Lauren / 2 Comments

1378159-colu5As much as I can’t believe it’s nearly mid-October, it cannot be denied that Canadian Thanksgiving is nearly upon is. For our neighbours south of the border, this means preparing to take Monday off work in celebration of Columbus Day.

Or not: yesterday I came across this little internet tidbit informing me that the city of Seattle, Washington, recently voted to do away with Columbus Day and start celebrating the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead.

I immediately thought three things:

  1. I didn’t know that cities could declare their own holidays, or re-designate existing ones.
  2. What a great idea!
  3. I wonder if we should do the same with a holiday in Canada?

Regarding Thought #1, I would love to be able to tell you whether it’s possible for Canadian cities to declare or re-designate holidays, but feel like the process of looking this up would be, frankly, too boring. So I won’t.

About Thought #2: I think it’s pretty obvious to most people by now that European explorers like Christopher Columbus did not “discover” anything. There had been people (i.e. full-on societies) living in both North and South America for thousands of years before these swashbuckling yahoos showed up and ruined their lives. Celebrating Christopher Columbus or any other European explorer for thinking they’ve “discovered” some place just because neither they nor anyone they knew personally had been there (despite being already populated) is almost as stupid as giving ME a holiday for “discovering” your house, robbing your family, and inviting my asshole friends to move in.

And let’s not mince words: Christopher Columbus was a TOTAL asshole. If you want to know why without having to do any boring research, enjoy this Columbus Day informational graphic courtesy of The Oatmeal.

In light of his self-righteous and greed-induced robbery, rape, mutilation, murder, and enslavement of Indigenous people in the Americas, it makes absolute and total sense NOT to celebrate this colossal shit and instead to turf Columbus Day in favour of a day that both acknowledges the historical (and ongoing) wrongs perpetrated against Indigenous people and celebrates their rich culture and heritage. So good for you for re-designating this holiday, Seattle. You rock.

And now for Canada (Thought #3, if you’re keeping count). Our upcoming secular holiday is Thanksgiving, a holiday that seems to be all about having the warm fuzzies and counting your blessings (and eating a lot of food) as autumn sets in. Sounds good to me. Remembrance Day is about the past and present sacrifices of the men and women serving in Canada’s military. All right. Family Day is about spending a day with your family. No problems with that. Generally speaking, our Christianity-based holidays are more traditional than religious, and our secular holidays are innocuous at worst and excellent times to recognize the best in ourselves and others at best.

indexExcept Victoria Day. What the heck is that about? A celebration of the birthday of Queen Victoria, a British monarch who already has two Canadian provincial capitals named after her (Regina and Victoria) and never set foot in this country. Compared to a murderous lout like Columbus she seems harmless enough, but the Victorian era was no walk in the park. Victorian society was incredibly sexually repressive, and the conditions under which Britain’s poor lived and worked were nothing short of appalling (not that this is all necessarily Victoria’s fault, but as the head of state it’s not NOT her fault either). From what I can gather, Queen Victoria seemed pretty intelligent, really loved her husband, had lots of kids, and lived a long time. And that’s great and all….but not really “get a national holiday named after you” great.

Besides,  it was during her reign that conditions in Western Canada continued to get worse for First Nations and Métis people. The Canadian Government (of which, remember, she was the head of state) was behaving like assholes. Land in the prairies (some of which was already being farmed by French Catholic and Métis farmers like Louis Riel) was being parceled out to English settlers and resistance to this (the most notable of which was the North West Rebellion) was violently stamped out. Promises to teach Cree tribes to farm in return for land and to protect them from hunger while they learned to change their way of life were ignored. In British Columbia (whose name, according to Wikipedia, was actually chosen by good ol’ Queen Vic), the Canadian government didn’t really bother with treaties at all and simply took control over the whole schmeer in 1871. Canadian history is really not my forte, but it seems that life for First Nations People in Canada didn’t seem to improve a whole lot after Confederation, despite the song and dance about how wonderful the establishment of the country was for everyone else.

Of course, I’m not saying all of this is Queen Victoria’s fault per se, but as major events that occurred in Canada during her reign, none of this is worth celebrating. What IS worth celebrating is the tenacity and courage of First Nations people throughout this oppressive history, and the unique cultures that have remained alive despite racist, violent, and systemic attempts to stamp them out.

I know there have already been attempts to re-name and re-designate Victoria Day, but so far it doesn’t seem like much has happened. Why not? Why continue to celebrate a legacy of violence and repression? Why not celebrate the fact that we get to live in an amazing and beautiful country and didn’t even have to fight a war for the privilege? Makes sense to me. (By the way, the argument that “It’s always been called Victoria Day” holds absolutely NO water since most people my age call the holiday “May Long” or “May 2-4” anyways.)

Anyways, things to think about on your hopefully happy Canadian Thanksgiving.

People’s Climate March Vancouver: I came, I marched, I blogged

/ Lauren / 2 Comments
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First we gathered at CBC Plaza

If you’ve at all been paying attention to the news lately you probably know that approximately 400 000 people marched through the streets of New York last Sunday to demand that the world and its leaders (125 of whom were meeting this week for a UN summit on climate change) to take meaningful action against climate change. What you may not have known was that this historical event (the largest climate march in history) partnered with marches in more than 130 cities all across the globe, including here in Vancouver. Though I’d received a phone call from the lovely people at leadnow.ca inviting me to take part in the upcoming march, I was feeling overwhelmed by various urgent and not-so-urgent obligations and wasn’t sure I was actually going to attend until I came across an opinion piece by Dr. Lynne Quarmby in the Vancouver Sun that morning (the piece was actually from the previous Friday; I just didn’t see it until Sunday morning). And that settled it. If you’ve ever read my blog, you’ll know that there are a lot of issues I care about. To name a few that I’ve written about at least once: I care about women’s rights and gender equality. I care about marriage equality and the rights of LGBT people. I care about the integrity of our democratic institutions. I care about the arts.

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After some speeches, we’re on the move!

Until recently, if you’d asked me if the environment was a top priority of mine I would have said no. Not because I didn’t care about the environment, but because defending it seemed impossible, especially in the face of my own complicity in the causes of climate change (I sure do love using electricity, driving cars, and buying cheap products about whose production I know nothing). I thought, “Why does this have to be my fight? Can’t it be David Suzuki’s fight? I mean, I recycle, don’t I?”. Even though I always knew I was against, for example, the proposed Northern Gateway crude oil pipeline, my reasons at first had more to do with not wanting diluted bitumen sloshing around in my backyard than about the planet as a whole.

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Gorgeous sign art by a talented marcher.

But then I realized that the crisis we are facing is so much bigger than my own backyard. It’s not just that we need to find a less controversial and more democratic way to review and approve energy projects, it’s that the oil actually needs to stay in the ground. It’s not just that Canadian ports have no business shipping the U.S.’s coal overseas (we don’t–we really shouldn’t be helping U.S. companies skirt around new American environmental regulations), it’s that the coal needs to stay in the ground. It’s not just the thousands of jobs in agriculture, aquaculture, and the tourism industry that will be lost if a pipeline leaks  or a tanker spills, it’s the thousands of human lives that have already been lost due to extreme weather events caused by climate change over the past few years. Our selfish actions, and our indifferent attitudes, are killing people.

And you know what else? We’re killing ourselves too. Do you think a drought, or a hurricane, or a flood, or an ice storm, gives a crap that you live in Canada, or work really hard at your job, or are rich, or are devout? Nope. Not at all. We’ve messed with a balance that is pretty important to our survival and now this imbalance is messing with us. We can stop it. But we need to act now. We need to stop being defeatist and thinking there’s nothing we can do. And we need to demand that our politicians stop selling the ground we stand on out from under us.

So that is why I marched. That’s why I chanted and cheered and, once or twice, cried a few tears because hope is so heartbreaking, especially hope in the face of such powerful and insidious forces.

There is no room for dismissing me or my fellow marchers around the world as radicals or foreign agents or whatever the hell Joe Oliver and Stephen Harper and Ezra Levant would have you believe. We are regular people from all walks of life who have read the writing on the wall and know that something needs to be done.

It’s not even about our children’s future anymore. It’s about ours. You don’t need to be an environmentalist or a leftist or a Democrat or a hippie to know that you can’t eat money, or drink investments, or live in a city that’s under water or buried in snow. Common sense (and the consensus of the scientific community) tells us that you can’t essentially burn down your house and still live in it.

There are a lot of things I want to achieve and fight for in my life, but none of that will matter if this fight is not won. I’m trying to save my own home. What’s so radical about that? As my favourite sign from Sunday’s march read, “There is no ‘Planet B'”.

Think about it.

P.S. Maclean’s did a great interview with Naomi Klein that is well worth a read.

The Diamonds and the Jar

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

jelly-jar1Once upon a time there was a jar with clear sides and a lid. The jar was mostly full of air but at the bottom of the jar there was a tiny heap of earth sitting in a shallow pool of water. Living on the tiny heap of earth were tiny plants. When they were warmed by the light which shone through the glass the water in their leaves rose into the air and up under the lid of the jar. At night the jar was cool and the water fell as rain. As the tiny plants died they left their nutrients in the tiny heap of earth so that other tiny plants could grow. In this way, the jar, though small, was perfect.

Living amongst the tiny plants on the tiny heap of earth were tiny tiny people. They were so small that for them, the tiny heap of earth was a world and the tiny plants were a forest that stretched as far as they could see. They ate the fruits that grew on the tiny plants and lived in their boughs, and breathed in the air that the plants breathed out. When the tiny people died their bodies left nutrients in the tiny heap of earth so that other plants could grow, and other tiny people benefit. In this way, the people, though small, were perfect. This is not to say that there was no toil, or grief, but that there was balance.

It was quite by accident that someone found the diamonds. Most of them were buried deep within the heap of earth but some had made their way to the surface over time and lay glittering in the light, scattered here and there, small as berries. The tiny people who found these diamonds had never seen anything like them before but since everything else the earth gave up was good, like the plants, they believed the diamonds were good too. As they would with a new fruit, they touched one of the diamonds to see if it would sting their skin. It did not. They smelled the diamond, to see if it was rotting or acrid. It was not. They licked the black diamond, to see if their throats closed or their bellies revolted at the taste. They did not. One of the tiny people, the bravest or perhaps the most curious, put the diamond in their mouth, and swallowed it.

It was in this way that the people who lived in the jar discovered the wonders of the diamonds. When you had eaten one of these diamonds, you were stronger, and faster. Distances that would have taken days to walk were a very small matter for a person who had eaten a diamond. “Miraculous!” the people said, “the diamonds are gifts of energy from the earth!” And they were.

Life became easier for the people in the jar. The extra energy they received from the ground meant they could spend less time on toil, and more time in leisure. They could think about, and create, things that were beautiful, not only things that were necessary. They could visit family who had married into other tribes or moved into other villages because the trip was now a matter of hours, rather than a matter of days. Children who had grown up after the discovery of the diamonds did not know a world without them–they imagined this world would be a hard, inefficient, and ignorant place.

Of course, like anything that comes from the ground and is eaten, a single diamond could provide energy for an hour or two, no more. And when the miracle of the diamond had passed, a hunger for another would begin.

Not that the people needed to eat diamonds all the time. “Of course not,” they would say to each other, “that would be silly.” They ate the diamonds only to hasten their various labours, and when they needed to travel. Diamonds were not needed during times of leisure, only times of work. And yet there were those who occasionally ate them for fun, because they loved the speed of their movements, loved the freedom and strength and grace these diamonds seemed to give them. And of course, people often ate diamonds to travel even short trips, because it was faster that way, and would save time.

In fact, it seemed that once people began to save time by eating diamonds, they realized how precious time truly was. Their predecessors had plodded through life, taking for granted that another minute would follow this one, another day would follow that. “How backwards,” the people thought now, “how erroneous, to waste time as our grandparents did! Let us always give time its due, and value efficiency in ourselves and others.”

Efficiency meant diamonds were required, but that was alright, because they were so small, and scattered in so many low places on the heap of earth (now that the people knew what to look for), and there were so many of them. But even the sands in the desert are not innumerable if you begin removing them grain by grain. Eventually there were only a few places where diamonds could be found and the people, unable to imagine a life without their gifts, began to fight over them, and to panic.

Fortunately, or so it seemed, the most clever and enterprising of the tiny people realized that like the plants that grew from roots buried deep beneath the earth, the diamonds on the surface were just fragments of the treasure to be found by digging. And so the people dug. They cut down their tiny trees and built tiny machines to harvest the tiny piece of earth on which they lived. Many of the plants were cleared away to make room for holes, and left to rot in piles. Leisure was unheard of now–diamonds must be mined, diamonds to improve the lives of the people! What did they care that the pace and scale of the work required the consumption of even more diamonds? Efficiency demanded fast work, fast work required energy, and energy required diamonds. It made perfect sense, and yet–

There were some people in the jar, strange people, but maybe wise people, whose eyes could see farther than others’, and whose memories were longer. “We used to have more trees,” they said, “we used to have better air. Can’t you tell?” But the people busy digging ignored them. “Plants grow,” they said, “and air is all around us. There is no shortage.”

But the wise people were not so sure. Once they began looking they could not stop, and the more their eyes saw the more their eyes filled with tears. It wasn’t only that the trees and plants were being depleted–made into machinery or cleared away. There was something about the diamonds themselves, something that happened when the people ate them. The air they exhaled was different from other air, harsher, heavier. People were used to coughing after eating a diamond, and called the condition “diamond lung”, but considered it only an annoyance. The wise people were not so sure. The air in villages where many people lived became thicker, heavy with their crystalline exhalations, and the weakest of the people were often ill, and sent to spend time in the forest. Somehow the plants helped.

The wise people saw this, and were worried. Eating the diamonds dirtied the air, and plants cleaned it. But people were killing the plants to mine more diamonds, and eating what they mined so that they could continue mining diamonds. “You must stop,” said the wise people, “you must let go of the gift of the diamonds.”

But it was hard to let go. People wanted to see their loved ones in distant places. People wanted to work quickly, to have time for more beautiful, pleasurable, and elevated things. They knew, of course, that the diamonds were not like the plants–they did not grow and they were running out. And yet this only increased the people’s  hunger; finding diamonds beneath the earth became imperative. “If there aren’t many left,” the people reasoned, “then it is better that we have all of them so that we can be sure we will have all we need.”

The wise people shook their heads. “Stop,” they said, “the air is being poisoned! If we stop now, we may still have a chance. The plants could grow back, the air could clear.” And a few of the braver, wiser people said, “We live in a jar, with a very tight lid. When the clean air is gone, there will be no more.”

The people were incredulous. “A JAR?!” they cried, “I have never heard anything more ridiculous! The earth is huge! The sky is immense! How can any sensible person believe that we live in a jar? We are powerful! We are important! We master the earth, we don’t live in a jar.” The ones who had suggested this were called heretics, lunatics, dangers to the good of the people. They were shunned and went into the forests by themselves, as far away as one diamond could take them, then built simple little houses, and never ate diamonds again. “A jar!” sneered the people, watching the wise ones leave, “Unbelievable!”

Nevertheless, it was true. The people were so tiny that only those gifted few could see the glass that encased their whole world. They did not know that their sky was a lid shut tight. They ate the diamonds, and dug for them, and ate them, and dug for them, all the while poisoning the air and destroying the plants that could have cleared it. They did not stop. They did not stop for a long time. They did not stop until their children woke up blind, their eyes unable to see through the crystalline fog that surrounded them. They did not stop until breathing was so difficult that the even sleep was laborious. They did not stop until the air was so thick that light could not filter through, and the remaining plants shed their leaves, and dropped their fruits, and died.

It was then that the people discovered that you cannot eat efficiency, and time cannot be saved. The faster you chase it, the more it runs out, like air in a jar whose lid is closed tight. They renounced the diamonds, cursed them, cast them in a pit and buried them, but it was too late. The small amount of time they had left was just enough to eat the last of the fruits, and to breathe the last of the air. No one, not even the ones who had been wise, could save themselves, because their world was a jar whose lid was closed tight, and there was no other.

(Good gracious, people, can’t we please try to save our jar? We still have time, but not much.)

Stop whining about the teachers, start shouting about your government

/ Lauren / 159 Comments

Disclaimer: I am not a teacher and I am not married to a teacher. I do not have children currently and have absolutely no stake in the outcome of this labour dispute, financial or otherwise. Though I was a member of a CUPE union for several years, I am no longer in a unionized position. I am, however, the daughter of teachers (in Saskatchewan) and am incredibly passionate about this issue.

Photo: Brayden McCluskey

Photo: Brayden McCluskey

Like many people in BC, I am sick and tired of the teachers’ strike. I’m sick of the anxiety underlying every news story, especially as the first day of school has come and gone and public schools in BC remain closed. I am sick of parents needing to worry about how to pay for childcare/time taken off from work. I am sick of the idea that kids are missing out on their right to education. I am sick of the mudslinging, and the politicking, and the animosity, and the general bad pissy vibes hovering in the air, dividing friend groups and workplaces and social media and turning usually cordial conversations into rants.

But you know what I’m also really sick and tired of? Ignorant people blaming the province’s teachers. Whether or not  you agree with everything the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) has asked for at the bargaining table, blaming teachers for labour disputes deliberately provoked by the BC government is completely misguided (note that when chief government negotiator Paul Straszak was asked in court whether the BC government’s objective prior to disputes in 2011 was to “increase the pressure on teachers to have them go out on a full-scale strike”, Straszak answered “Yes. I’ll say that’s correct.”, and no contradictory government testimony was offered in court).

I know a lot of people are anti-union by default, and I know from experience that it is difficult, if not impossible, to convince people who are anti-union to shift their position (though I personally think that’s nuts–if you enjoyed your Labour Day weekend, or even the fact that you get weekends at all, you have the labour movement to thank for it). I also acknowledge that it must be difficult and frustrating to miss work or have to pay for childcare or watch your child’s potential squandered because a union and the government can’t get it together.

But before you believe the government spin, or jump to anti-union rhetoric, or bad-mouth teachers in general because of that time you had a bad teacher in high school, there are some things you need to know about this dispute:

  1. The BC Liberals broke the law. Twice. In 2002, Bill 28 removed teachers’ right to negotiate class size and composition as part of the collective bargaining process. This legislation was not part of a negotiated new settlement with the BCTF. This was the government essentially ripping up a contract and deciding they would not honour parts of it anymore. After a lengthy court battle, the B.C. Supreme Court agreed that the BC government had acted in bad faith, and had violated teachers’ constitutional rights. Bill 28 was therefore unlawful and the BC government was given a year to rectify the situation. Their response was Bill 22, an essentially identical piece of legislation which was again struck down by the B.C Supreme Court. Instead of saying sorry, what the BC government is now asking the BCTF to do is simply ignore that this has happened, and sign a contract based on the other stuff (wages, benefits, etc.) while they launch an appeal. Let me put it to you this way: if YOU signed a contract that stipulated the conditions under which you’d work, and then one day your boss said, “Nah, I don’t wanna give you that stuff anymore”, would you want to keep working for them without a clear and binding commitment that the conditions and compensations you fought for would be honoured? Probably not.
  2. Teachers are highly-trained professionals with an incredibly precious resource in their care (the province’s children) and they should be paid that way. I am so bloody sick and tired of people saying, “If the teachers don’t like it, they can just quit!”. Would you really want that? If all of the teachers quit and went to work for, say, private schools, who would teach your kids? You? Do you have at least five years of post-secondary training, including training specific to education? Do you attend conventions and professional development sessions several times a year to keep up to date with advances in educational techniques and philosophies? Do you enjoy the idea of having everyone in the province know about it when you are having a dispute with your employer, or having to do without pay for weeks or months to defend the rights of other people’s children? No? Then button it. Quit your own job if you think it’s so easy to do.
  3. That said, it’s not all about the money. Yes, teachers should be paid fairly (it’s worth noting that their demands regarding wages basically keep up with inflation, and besides, the BCTF and government negotiators aren’t really that far apart on this issue), but class size and composition are a vital linchpin of this dispute and the government currently refuses to allow this issue to be a binding part of a new collective agreement. Class size and composition is all about the students. When classrooms contain 30+ students and unmanageable ratios of students with special learning or language needs, as they have since 2002, teachers simply can’t pay enough attention to all of their students. Struggling students fall through the cracks. Good students miss out on opportunities to be great students. And average students are unable to maximize their potential and discover where they truly shine. Teachers work with their students day in, day out, and have for years. Teachers know how many students of various needs they can reasonably teach. Any piece of legislation that thinks it knows better robs your children of their right to their teacher’s time and attention, and robs them of their potential for a better future.
  4. The BC government currently funds PRIVATE education to the tune of just under $300 million per year. That’s right. The same government that swears up and down that they cannot afford to abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling and reintroduce class size and composition to teachers’ collective agreements gives YOUR tax dollars to private schools so that their well-to-do students don’t have to share a classroom with your non-rich kids. Why on earth do private schools need to receive up to 50% of their operating budget from public funds? I have no idea though many are now saying the BC Liberals admire the U.S. “voucher system” and are hoping to bring the system to BC (which is frankly terrifying–there’s a reason the United States isn’t known for its great public schools). I’m not sure about this voucher system plan (I hope it’s just paranoia), but I do get the strong feeling that if Premier Christy Clark truly believed the public education system could adequately teach kids on the pittance her government wants to give it, she wouldn’t send her own son to a private school. It seems to me that the Premier believes what’s good enough for your kids is not good enough for hers. And is that attitude good enough for you?

[Update on point #4: It has been (likely rightly) suggested to me by readers that the point above may be misleading, especially the statistic that up to 50% of the a private school’s operating budget comes from public funds. This refers to up to 50% of what a public school in the same area would receive for their operating budget, according to government policy on Grants to Independent Schools. This is obviously a much smaller amount than I may seem to have been implying, and yes, I am aware that $300 million is actually not a large percentage of total education funding in the province. Even so, $300 million is still $300 million and I believe that any education funds that come from the public purse belong in public schools where EVERYONE is welcome, not only people who can either pay tuition or are part of a certain religion or speak a certain language. I apologize if the above point was misleading; that was not my intention. ]

In addition to the above points, I am also annoyed by the claim that teachers somehow “have it easy”. After working with educators (primarily public school educators) for most of my post-degree career, I feel there are some things you may not know about teachers that you should:

  • Most new BC teachers spend years on Teacher On Call (TOC) lists before landing longer-term or permanent contracts. They don’t leave their teacher education programs and start making some kind of mythical big bucks. They wake up every morning hoping they get a call telling them they have work that day. They won’t know what school or even necessarily what district that work will be in. Most of them have huge student loans to pay off and no steady source of income to pay them off with. In short, despite their education and qualifications, they are no better off than any other young person when they leave university, and are occasionally worse off since a lot of teacher education grads are older and may have young families already.
  • Teacher certification costs money. To enter the profession, new teachers must pay $245 to be certified. They must also pay a yearly fee of $80 in order to keep their certification valid (NB: these fees are entirely separate from the dues teachers pay to the BCTF). These fees must be paid whether they actually have a job or not. In the past, these fees went to the BC College of Teachers, but the BC government dissolved the BCCT a few years ago and brought in the Teacher Regulation Branch of the Ministry of Education to regulate and certify members of the profession. This means that these fees go to the government. Which means that these very same teachers who are on strike actually pay a yearly fee to their employer so they can continue to be teachers. Do you pay your employer for the privilege of being able to work for them?
  • Most teachers, especially elementary teachers, spend hundreds of dollars of their own money to make their classrooms inviting and engaging places for your children. At the end of June, many teachers decided to remove their personal belongings from their classrooms, including the classroom supplies they had paid for. The impact is startling.
  • Teachers aren’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect. Is every teacher a great one? Nope. But neither is every doctor, and doctors make a lot more money than teachers and have a lot more respect. Almost everyone I know has a tale of being misdiagnosed by a doctor, or of being shunted through the healthcare system like piece of trash, or being prescribed the wrong meds, but people seem to understand that the system is the problem, not the doctors themselves. You don’t see internet commentors virtually shouting about how doctors who point out flaws in the healthcare system should just quit already. Teachers have been working within a flawed system for years (in addition to taking years of net zero wage increases) which means that sometimes they aren’t good at their job, even when they really want to be. Besides, people in government aren’t always good at their jobs, but that didn’t stop Christy Clark from giving her top aides raises of up to 18% (these raises were pulled back one week later after backlash from the province, which just goes to show that well-directed outrage sometimes can make a difference).
  • Teachers worry about your children. They do. They are upset when bad things happen to their students, they wrack their brains trying to find ways to reach struggling or disengaged students, they are furious when the system fails a student. They hated having to short-change your kids for the past 12 years. They are trying to make it right and are going without their own wages to do so.

Again, I know I might not convince you, and if you still want to be angry at BC’s teachers it is your right. But I hope you are also angry at the BC government. Because you really, REALLY, should be–this is, after all, a government that was proven TWICE in court to have violated teachers’ constitutional rights. What makes you think they won’t come after yours someday?

Fair is fair: why straight cis people don’t need a “Pride” event

/ Lauren / Leave a comment
World Pride 2014, Toronto

World Pride 2014, Toronto

Last weekend I came across this troublesome little gem on social media, relating to fake posters for a “Straight White Guy Festival” which were plastered around an Ohio town (during the lead up to the community’s Gay Pride events). “Everyone welcome,” the fake flyers read, “Come help us celebrate our enjoyment of being straight white and male.” The author of the post, Sean Brown,  seems to think the stunt was not only funny but a legitimate shot at “leftists” whose only interests lie in protecting minority groups:

While it may be true that straight white men don’t face the same struggles as gay people do, the fact that they’re not allowed to celebrate their own sexuality in the same manner out of fear of offending someone is reprehensible. Everyone has the right to be proud of who they are, regardless of the color of their skin or who they choose to have sex with. It’s apparent whoever created this flyer did so to point out the hypocrisy in this debate.

True equality is not achieved by stifling others in order to uplift a minority group. It’s done by treating everybody exactly the same way, even if it means some people may get offended.

I hope Mr. Brown won’t mind being offended if a leftist who is interested in protecting the rights of minority groups calls his bullshit bullshit.

It’s bullshit. And this is why:

Straight, cis-gendered people like me get to celebrate and be proud of their sexuality everyday. We can marry whoever we want to and no one can say boo. We can arrange to adopt or foster a child without the extended birth family (who aren’t interested in caring for the child anyways) pulling out at the last minute because they don’t want the baby to be cared for by a gay couple. Western media constantly celebrates heterosexuality by using overtly heterosexual imagery to promote products and a “desirable” lifestyle (anyone seen a beer commercial in the last 20 years?). At home, at school, at work, our lives have been easier in every way imaginable because we were not born queer, or bi, or trans*. I’m sure if you asked an LGTB person, they’d probably take the lifetime of acceptance straight cis people currently enjoy over a pride party once a year. We don’t need a party celebrating our good fortune. Every single day we aren’t discriminated against is our party.

Funnily enough, I’m not shocked that the post’s author could acknowledge this privilege and still think that “treating everyone exactly the same way” vis-à-vis pride events for privileged people is a legitimate position. I remember once thinking the same way about a variety of issues surrounding equality (granted, I was in high school at the time, but still, it’s all part of the learning process). Why couldn’t someone formally celebrate being white/straight/middle-class, etc., I wondered. Fair is fair after all.

Here’s the thing (which I won’t have to tell you if you are interested and active in issues of racial, sexual, economic, or gender equality): fair is only fair if everyone starts from the same place and has had the same advantages.

Let’s say 10 people are running a 100 m race. 9 of these people are “straight white (cis) males”. The 10th runner is gay, a person of colour, and/or not a cis-male. All of the runners are required to start at the start line at the sound of the gun, and run 100 m to the finish line. Fair is fair, right?

Except perhaps the 10th runner was not able to attend track practice in the months before the race because the locker room atmosphere (which included their 9 competitors) was not a safe space to be. Perhaps the 10th runner did not receive adequate training during their formative years because they were overlooked by coaches throughout their life–overlooked for reasons that had nothing to do with their running ability. Perhaps for weeks prior to the race, the 10th runner was subjected to nightly death threats, and a daily barrage of “news” items and opinion pieces constantly questioning whether Runner 10 should have the right to run the race at all, or whether they even belong in polite society.

The other 9 runners, meanwhile, have been supported throughout their training by each other, by their coaches, and by society at large and are on equal footing with one another. As the competitors take their marks, one of the 9 runners gives the 10th runner a shove, completely breaking their focus as the race is about to begin. The race officials pretend not to notice because, you know, that 10th runner, always being sensitive about something, can’t ever take a joke, right?

The gun goes off. All 10 runners sprint towards the finish. Perhaps the 10th runner has managed to train on their own with the support of a close group of friends and allies and they manage to put in a decent showing. Perhaps the 10th runner has been mostly on their own and the stress of the conditions under which they’ve had to compete have taken their toll. Either way, can we really say the race was fair? Of course not.

And given that the race was not fair, can we really say that it’s tasteful for the 9 “straight white male” runners to celebrate the superiority of their circumstances? Of course not. (And don’t even get me started on the qualifiers “white” and “male” in terms of the privilege being fêted in this prank–they just add further insult to, well, insult. And injury.)

But if the 10th runner wants to party with their friends? Absolutely. They deserve as much, don’t you think?

So Sean Brown finds straight white guys “not being able to celebrate their sexuality…for fear of offending someone” to be “reprehensible”. What I find reprehensible is celebrating privilege achieved at the expense of another human being’s rights and dignity. And I don’t find my position hypocritical in the least.

Besides, are Pride events really that exclusionary? Unless you’re there to be hurtful or spread homophobia, the answer is usually no. If you’ve ever been to a Pride you’ll probably notice that people of all sexualities, genders, races, and economic backgrounds are in on the party. Even straight white guys.

Bill C-36 imposes moral judgement on consensual sex

/ Lauren / Leave a comment
Picasso

Picasso – “Nu couche et Picasso assis”, 1902, http://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net

Though I have neither bought nor sold sexual services (nor know anyone who has done so, or at least who has told me about it), I find myself incredibly concerned about the Canadian government’s proposed bill C-36, which responds to the Supreme Court’s striking down of certain parts of Canada’s prostitution law by creating a new piece of legislation that is just as restrictive, ignorant, and unsafe (if not more so) for sex workers and their customers.

In my understanding, the bill restricts sex workers to working either in their homes or on the streets (since anyone renting space to them elsewhere would be “benefiting from the avails” of sex work, which means security guards, drivers, etc. would also be breaking the law if hired by a sex worker), prohibits them from advertising their services anywhere people under 18 may reasonably be expected to see this advertising (which includes, apparently, the internet so I’m not sure how that’s going to work), and criminalizes the act of purchasing sex. To reiterate: selling sex would be perfectly legal (with the above restrictions) but buying it would not.

Which of course means that the selling of sexual services wouldn’t REALLY be a legal transaction, because all of the sex workers’ customers would become criminals.

I know there are people who are passionately for the abolition of prostitution in Canada, and I know they mean well. I know the overwhelming majority of sex workers are women, and I know poverty is a factor in many women’s decision to become sex workers. I know there are women, men, and children currently performing sex work against their will. I know there are some sex trade workers who are being exploited, trafficked, assaulted, and plied with drugs by the people who are supposed to “protect” them. And this should and must stop.

But human trafficking, selling drugs, attacking a sex worker, and purchasing sex from minors (or exploiting a minor) are already illegal. What we need are better tools to enable police and courts to enforce existing laws, and trusting relationships between the justice system and sex workers that will both keep sex workers safe and help police to root out human traffickers, drug dealers, child molesters, and johns who hurt or kill sex workers. Effectively driving the profession farther underground and into the most dangerous parts of town (as bill C-36 would do by forcing sex workers away from any area children “might” be present, and customers of sexual services to hide for fear of arrest), does nothing to create trust between the justice system and the people this legislation is supposed to protect.

As for poverty, I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in such a desperate situation that sex work became my only way to support myself and/or my family. No woman or man should be driven into sex work because of poverty. Instead of criminalizing johns, however, I would rather see our federal and provincial governments enact legislation that strengthens our social safety net and ensures vulnerable families never dip below the poverty line in the first place. It’s all well and good that the government wants to earmark $20 million for “exit services” (i.e. services that help sex workers leave the profession, though I am a little worried that most of these services may not be provided by impartial government agencies but by church groups eager to impart their brand of morality). Wouldn’t it be great if they earmarked those millions to fight poverty in Canada, so those who didn’t want to be sex workers never even had to start?

I am the first to admit that I am not the the most knowledgeable when it comes to sex work or to poverty. I also admit I personally would not like to be a sex worker. Which is why I have to trust the sex workers whose opposition to this bill I have read on Twitter and in news articles (like this one). Instead of rushing out to speak for people I do not know and whose lives I know nothing about, I have to trust what they’re saying. Yes, unsafe conditions, trafficking, drugs, and poverty are all problems in the sex trade. Problems that can be dealt with in other ways that don’t criminalize the exchange of money for sex itself. Yes, many sex trade workers are or do become victims of violent or exploitative situations, but their exploitation, abuse, and murder is already illegal, and bill C-36 won’t make those things any more illegal than they already are. I am not trying to downplay the dangers or the indignities that might befall a person working in the sex trade. BUT…

  • To claim ALL women who work in the sex trade are victims while ALL of their customers are aggressive, misogynistic criminals both patronizes women (ignoring the fact that some people do truly choose sex work), and demonizes men (and the occasional women) who turn to professionals when having sexual relationships (or indulging a specific odd kink) in their personal life isn’t possible. And there are lots of non-misogynistic reasons a person may pay for sexual services (from what I have read/heard, sometimes johns want human touch and someone to talk to, sometimes they have disabilities that make sex difficult, or their partner has a disability or illness and has given their healthy partner permission to seek sexual gratification from a professional, etc.). There are, of course, less saintly reasons a person may seek out sexual services as well, but if the sex trade worker is 100% consenting to the arrangement then that is none of our business.
  • The government’s talking points on bill C-36 have consistently referred to sex workers as being “women and children”, completely ignoring the men who also work in the sex trade. Are they too victims? Are they too being exploited by misogynists? Or can these men be trusted to DECIDE whether or not they want to receive money in return for sexual services because they’re men?
  • Bill C-36 and its advocates are being incredibly disingenuous. For example, Julia Beazley, policy analyst of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, claims that the use of sex workers is all about power, and that the government, through this bill, has “courageously challenged the belief that men are entitled to paid sexual access to women’s bodies.” (You can read more from Ms. Beazley on CBC.ca) I completely agree that no one is entitled to paid sexual access to anyone’s body unless the person whose body it is WANTS to grant paid sexual access.

This last point is something neither the government, nor Christian advocacy groups, (nor, it must be admitted, some feminist organizations) seem to be getting. It is possible to WANT to sell sexual services. It is possible to take pride in sex work (and lots of vocal sex workers and kink artists do). It is possible to make yourself a sexual object (on YOUR terms) when you want to and still believe in dignity and equality for all genders. And it is possible to purchase the services of a sex worker without being a pervert.

What the government is effectively doing with this bill is saying that not all sexual relationships between consenting adults are okay (notice I am talking about adults, not children, and situations that involve full and freely given consent, not coercion or exploitation). Consenting adults can have sex and that’s just fine with the government, but as soon as one of them pays for it, that person is a criminal and a pervert and an aggressor and a deviant. The seller of said services suddenly becomes not an equal partner in a mutually agreed upon sexual act, but a victim who lacks the agency to decide for themselves what they want to do with their bodies. Essentially, there are certain kinds of sex the Conservative government simply “doesn’t like”, or perhaps doesn’t understand, and is hiding behind the guise of protecting women to impose their tastes (while creating situations that would actually make sex work for women more dangerous and allow Robert Pickton types to murder women with a lot more impunity).

I thought we established long ago that when it comes to fully consenting adults, “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” I know Pierre Trudeau wasn’t talking about sex work then, but perhaps we should be now.

Sal Capone: a tragedy with sincerity and depth

/ Lauren / 1 Comment

Sal Capone PosterWhen I was offered the opportunity to attend Sal Capone: the Lamentable Tragedy of (presented by urban ink productions in cooperation with Black Theatre Workshop) I had no idea what to expect. I know nearly nothing about hip hop, and had no idea how it would play in a theatrical production. I thought, this will either be an incredible experience or a dud. I had never heard of Fredy Villaneuva, the unarmed youth whose fatal shooting by Montreal police inspired this play. Many new plays have called themselves tragedies, but very few have had the balls to honestly examine the complexities that create them.

It was my good fortune to discover that Omari Newton’s Sal Capone is a tragedy in the true Shakespearean sense of the word. As in Macbeth or Hamlet, one act of violence leads to others–violent emotions, violent words, violent actions. We know where this is going but the powerful emotional responses that bring us there are so skillfully wound up that we cannot look away. In this tragedy, the protagonists are not kings or princes but disenfranchised young people full of potential and talent. Their “fatal flaw” is not ambition or indecision but their anger at a system that marks them as dangerous, dehumanizing rather than protecting them.

Kim Villagante as Jewel

Kim Villagante as Jewel. Photo: Andrée Lanthier

I know I am watching a compelling piece of theatre when I cannot see the line between where the script ends and the performance begins. Tristan D. Lalla, Kim Villagante, and Jordan Waunch did exactly what excellent actors should do, inhabiting their characters (members of a hip hop group called “Sal Capone”) so completely that I never saw them working, only being. The hip hop pieces in the show are unforced, unpretentious, and incredibly powerful. I may not know much about hip hop, but I know when a performer is truly connected to what their character is doing, and these actors (who are also hip hop artists) are nothing if not genuine. I believed it. I bought it. I sent my heart out to it.

Counterintuitively, a cross-dressing sex worker narrator (played by Billy Merasty) frequently breaks the fourth wall and a little sister character (Letitia Brooks) also seems to play directly to the audience with her amusing grammatical pedantry. I personally found this contrary to the authenticity Lalla, Villagante, and Waunch create (which is not to say that there were problems with Merasty and Brooks’ performances, only that they operate, it seems, on a different level of theatricality). That said, when Merasty and Brooks enter the action not as a guides or foils but simply as people caught in the crosshairs, the “actor” masks fall away and you see every character for what they are, motivated by fear and anger, prey to a violence they participate in but cannot control. What I’m saying is that there will be times in this play when you are taken out of the honesty of the moment, into a place a little more literary, a little more theatrical, but when shit hits the fan the moment becomes real and every single performer is in it, body and soul. Sal Capone transports you into a place you’ve been busy ignoring, a place where violence isn’t just something that happens to people in gangs (as one of the characters points out, “What does ‘known to police’ even mean?”). A place where we realize that we, as a society, need to do better.

One of Newton’s greatest achievements in his script is his ability to examine violence and culture without resorting to a dichotomy of black and white, hip hop=good, police=bad. The “enemy” of the story (i.e. the police) are never even present onstage but between Newton’s sympathetic characters there is still enough fear and violence to spur the plot towards its tragic conclusion. Marginalized and misunderstood, Sal Cappone‘s characters trade in words of hate, hurting one another with “chink” and “faggot”, understanding that words are weapons, often the only weapons they have, and the only outlet for the violence they feel, fending off the physical violence that threatens to emerge.

The lesson in this tragedy, as in so many great tragedies, is that violence begets violence. People must be given a chance to break the cycle. We need to talk to one another, and do better. Sal Capone: the Lamentable Tragedy of is an incredible achievement and a powerful addition to this necessary conversation.

Sal Capone: the Lamentable Tragedy of plays at the Roundhouse Theatre until May 31. Tickets can be purchased online through urban ink production’s website.

Disclosure: I attended Sal Capone: the Lamentable Tragedy of courtesy of urban ink productions. The content of this review is my own.

 

Bill C-24 is an insult to all Canadians

/ Lauren / 7 Comments

Let me tell you a little story. The kind of story that is shared by so many Canadians it has become almost cliché. It is a story of two young people fleeing an Eastern European country (oh, let’s say Latvia) after the Second World War. They meet in England, fall in love, get married. While their first child is still a baby they board a ship bound for Canada. They settle in Toronto and have two more children. They work hard, save their money, pay taxes. They are proud of their heritage and participate in the sizable Latvian community in Toronto, but they are also proud to live in Canada and love their new home. All three children attend Canadian universities.

The first child, the one who was born in England, eventually moves to the Prairies, falls in love, gets married, and has kids.

And that is where I, and bill C-24 (the “Strengthen Canadian Citizenship Act”) come in. You see, because my mother was born in England, she, and her children, are eligible for British citizenship. Though I have been a dual citizen of both Canada and Great Britain since I was 15, I have always felt, first and foremost, that I am a Canadian. There is no other country on this planet that I would rather be a citizen of. It’s not that I think my country is the greatest nation on earth, or that the sun never sets on our gloriousness, or any other alarmingly patriotic claptrap. It’s that Canada is my home. There will never be another.

I know that my story, and my sentiments, are shared by many Canadians. A lot of us have parents who were born outside the country. The story of Canada as a safe haven and a land of opportunity for those fleeing persecution or war is as feel-good and heart-warming as its tale of the intrepid pioneers, carving out a life in Canada’s west, or its stout-hearted Maritimers, holding fast to their rocky shores and pulling their living out of the sea. It is, of course, excellent PR, a way to court both foreign investment and the immigrant vote (“Canada the Benevolent Multicultural Mosaic, now with Medicare!”).  Though these tales are always incredibly oversimplified (First Nations people, for example, are conspicuously absent in these feel-good narratives, as are other inconvenient “bumps” in the story, such as the Chinese head tax, Japanese-Canadian internment during the Second World War, and Ukrainian-Canadian internment during the First), the gist is that Canada loves its immigrants, wouldn’t be what it is today without them, celebrates their various cultural heritages, and is grateful for their contribution to the country.

Or so I thought.

canada11First introduced in Parliament in February of this year (and not yet passed by the House of Commons), several aspects of bill C-24 are giving the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers pause, and are leaving me feeling anxious, insulted, and second-class. If this bill passes into law, Canadian citizenship will be harder to obtain, but also, shockingly, easier to lose.

Currently, a Canadian can only lose their citizenship if they came by it through fraudulent means (if they lied on their citizenship application, for example). Those citizens who filed honest applications or who were born in Canada cannot lose their right to be Canadian. Under bill C-24, not only can naturalized Canadian citizens lose their Canadian citizenship if convicted of certain crimes (either here or elsewhere), any Canadian who is, or has the potential to be, a dual citizen can lose their citizenship as well.

Never, in my entire life, did it occur to me that a Canadian born in Canada could lose their right to be a Canadian. The thought makes me sick to my stomach. It’s just…wrong. It exposes some, but not all, Canadians to an additional punishment if convicted of the crimes outlined in the bill: banishment. Not only is banishment as a punishment antiquated and out of line with a modern justice system, it’s only a punishment for SOME people, i.e. people who were, are, or could be dual citizens.

According to a statement prepared by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers:

The new law divides Canadians into two classes of citizens: first class Canadians who hold no other citizenship, and second class Canadians – dual citizens, who can have their right to live in Canada taken away from them. Even if you are born in Canada, you are at risk of losing citizenship if you have dual citizenship or the possibility of dual citizenship. You may not even know that you possess another citizenship. If you have a spouse, parent, or grandparent who is a citizen of another country, you may have a right to citizenship without ever having applied for it. The proposed law would put you at risk of losing your Canadian citizenship if the Minister asserts that you possess or could obtain another citizenship. The burden would be on you to prove otherwise to the Minister’s satisfaction.

The new law will make it easier for the government to take away your citizenship in the following ways:

1. For all naturalized citizens, a federal government official can revoke your citizenship if he believes you never intended to live in Canada. This could happen if you decide to study in, accept a job in, or reside in another country. In contrast, Canadian citizens born in Canada cannot lose their citizenship by living outside of Canada.

2. For Canadians with potential dual citizenship, an official may remove your citizenship for a criminal conviction in another country, even if the other country is undemocratic or lacks the rule of law. The official may also remove your citizenship for certain serious criminal convictions in Canada, even if you have already served your sentence in Canada.

3. The power to remove your citizenship will be given to an official of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The decision may be made in writing with no opportunity for you to speak to the official. Under the current law [i.e. as it stands now, prior to the passing of C-24], to take away your citizenship, the government must make an application to a Federal Court judge where you will have an oral hearing to defend your right to citizenship.

This bill is just wrong, and cannot logically exist in a fair justice system. Let’s say both Joe Anglophone and I are convicted of espionage (I have no idea why or how I could ever be convicted of espionage but it’s an example). Joe Anglophone’s family settled in Ontario in the 1800s and any connections he may have to Mother Britain are so many generations back that he could not possibility apply for dual citizenship. I, of course, have a mother who was born in England and even if I hadn’t applied for British citizenship I would still have the potential. Under current law, both of us would receive the same sentence for the same crime (whatever the sentence for a conviction of espionage is, which I must say I do not know). Under bill C-24, Joe Anglophone would still receive the standard sentence for espionage, while I, as a person who has the potential for dual citizenship, would receive my espionage sentence AND be stripped of my right to be a Canadian. Joe Anglophone’s crime could even have been worse than mine, but as a dual-citizen only I would face banishment.

What Bill C-24 is saying is that there are two kinds of Canadians: Canadians who can’t ever be banished and Canadians who can. You don’t need to have done anything wrong to end up in the latter camp, vulnerable to a punishment your fellow Canadians are not. You just need to be an immigrant, the child of an immigrant, or the spouse of an immigrant. Canada’s multicultural mosaic in all its glory. Right.

I think I have outlined pretty thoroughly how bill C-24 is an insult to me and people like me (since that is the situation that is most immediate to me), but it’s not too hard to see how bill C-24 is also an incredible insult to many other people who call this country home.

  • Bill C-24 is an insult to all naturalized Canadians. Becoming a citizen of Canada if you weren’t born here isn’t like getting your driver’s license. It takes literally YEARS of commitment. There are fees, applications, a citizenship test, language proficiency exams, and dizzying layers of bureaucracy. The people I know who have been sworn in after all of this work have said it was an incredibly proud moment for them. Unlike those of us who were born in Canada, naturalized Canadian citizens had to work hard for their citizenship and to be recognized as equal Canadians in the eyes of the government. Bill C-24 essentially tells these citizens that their sacrifices weren’t good enough and that this current government does NOT consider them to be “as Canadian” as those who have no possibility for other citizenship.
  • Bill C-24 has an Anglophone and Francophone bias. Based on the different kinds of immigration embraced/allowed by the Canadian government in the last 50-60 years or so, it’s probably safe to say that today, most of Canada’s dual citizens are not Anglophone or Francophone. They may be of Eastern European descent, originally escaping Soviet and/or Nazi occupation. They may be Caribbean, their story a part of the West Indian Domestic Scheme of the 1950s, or perhaps the “liberalization” of immigration in the 60s and 70s. Canadian cities are home to a large variety of ethnic and religious communities (Asian, African, Latino, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Croatian, Latvian, etc.) and many many members of these communities are, or have the potential to be, dual citizens. Most of the “settlers” who don’t have to fear for their citizenship are the Original Whites–those of British or French origins whose family history stretches farther back into Canada’s colonial past.
  • By splitting citizenship rights where it does, bill C-24 insults the primary rights of First Nations people. If you’re going to draw a line between “real” Canadians who don’t have ties to any other country and “other” Canadians who have foreign allegiances, it’s pretty obvious where that line should be drawn. If we’re going to give some Canadians more right to call this country home than others, clearly only First Nations people should qualify. The rest of us are settlers or the descendants of settlers. C-24’s bias towards French and British settlers (who have been here longer than many other immigrant groups) privileges Canada’s colonizers and inappropriately grants them equal status with First Nations people in this regard. It’s not that I don’t think “settlers” belong here, I obviously do, but my point is that if we are going to draw these seemingly arbitrary lines through the Canadian population, there is only one “fair” place to draw them, and that’s not where bill C-24 has placed them.

Okay. So the bill insults naturalized citizens, dual citizens, First Nations people, and is biased to privilege Canadians of Anglophone and Francophone ancestry. But what about those Canadians like Joe Anglophone, who will, under C-24, have more rights to their citizenship than I will? Does C-24 insult them too, or does it, as its short title would like to suggest, “strengthen” Canadian citizenship for these people?

Well, I would like to think that any Canadian who professes to love this country and what it stands for wouldn’t like the idea that their neighbours and friends could become second-tier citizens simply due to the circumstances of their or their parents’ birth. I would like to think that granting some “safe” citizenship in this way would cheapen citizenship’s value, since it would be an additional, more iron-clad class of status based not on merit but on birth. I would like to think that these Canadians would recognize that only a few generations separate them from dual citizens like me. I would like to think that bill C-24 insults their sense of fair play and their understanding of what it means to be Canadian. I would hope that they wouldn’t appreciate the government trying to divide its citizens, when it’s so obvious that what we need more of in this country is cooperation and understanding.

I’d like to think that even citizens whose Canadian status is not threatened by this bill would still feel that being Canadian means more than divisive politics. Because it means so much more to me, and that’s why I wrote to my MP to urge her to oppose bill C-24. I encourage you to do the same.

Why both childhood vaccines AND informed consent should be mandatory

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

is-your-child-vaccinated-vaccination-prevents-smallpox-chicago-department-of-healthVaccines save lives, and protect hundreds of millions of people from the suffering caused by debilitating, often deadly, and very preventable illnesses like polio, smallpox, and measles. Vaccinating your child is not only the right thing to do for THEIR health and safety, it also protects vulnerable members of society (very young infants, immune-compromised individuals, etc.) through herd immunity. You would not be allowed to play Russian Roulette with your child, nor hand them a loaded weapon and send them to school, so you likewise should not be allowed to be so cavalier when it comes to serious and deadly viruses.

In short, I believe that protecting children and society from preventable illness through the use childhood of vaccinations should be mandatory for Canadian families.

So why do I think signed informed consent for the vaccinations administered at schools should be mandatory as well?

When I first began to consider the idea of mandatory vaccinations for children I was surprised to find that while I did not believe in parents using the health and welfare of their child as a test of the strength of their ideology/religion/pseudo-science based health fears, I was very uncomfortable with the idea of schools or other public bodies vaccinating children without at least having parents sign something saying they understand what’s going to be happening.

I know that underlying this discomfort is my ever-present and mostly unfounded general anxiety about “slippery slopes”–if power is taken from parents in this medical matter, will parents still be able to have a say in other medical issues that affect their child? We all know parents who have had a sick child, refused to accept the original diagnosis/proposed treatment given to them by a first doctor, agitated for a second opinion, and turned about to be right. In a medical system staffed by well-meaning but chronically overworked healthcare professionals, a parent’s right to fully understand (and, if necessary, question) their child’s diagnosis and proposed treatment may be the child’s best bet for a positive outcome. All this being said, as one of my friends pointed out over dinner the other night, there is a big difference between mandating safe, effective, and scientifically-backed childhood vaccinations, and just letting doctors run willy-nilly over the rights of child patients and their parents. “Slippery slope” fears are usually just that–fears.

My real reason for believing that parental consent should still be required prior to vaccinating a child is simply that kids are generally not in a very good position to advocate for themselves, or to inform health professionals about their medical history. Though I don’t agree with this BC family’s reasons for wanting to decline a diphtheria vaccine for their 14-year-old daughter, the fact that “mature minor consent” is considered enough to vaccinate a child in school is a bit troubling, simply because not all “mature minors” are aware of adverse vaccine reactions in their history (or at the very least, may require a special vaccine made using a different compound), and those who are aware of issues may not know how to declare them.

It’s not that I don’t trust 14-year-olds to be competent participants in their medical care per se, it’s that the conditions under which a 14-year-old may take the initiative to go to their doctor to privately discuss a health issue, and the rush-rush and very public conditions under which I remember being pulled from class in junior high for my tetanus booster are very different. If, as the young girl in the article claimed, the nurse did not even ask about any history of adverse reactions before administering the vaccine, how can any kind of informed consent be claimed? If the adults in control of the situation (i.e. the schools and nurses) do not take the time to ask the required questions about medical history/conditions and give young people a safe and confidential place to answer them, there are few 14-year-olds who would feel comfortable putting on the brakes and declaring concerns (and most of our laws surrounding appropriate conduct and use of positions of trust and authority when it comes to minors seem to recognize this).

But why does it matter? you may ask. Vaccines are perfectly safe and completely necessary. That is absolutely true. And yet, there are still a lot of parents (like the ones in the CBC article, and the anti-vaxxers I sometimes see protesting downtown, or misinformed celebrity parents like Jenny McCarthy or Kristen Cavallari) who, for whatever reason, are NOT comfortable with vaccinating their children. Though their beliefs and concerns are (in my and science’s opinion) crazy, even dangerous, the fact is that these parents and their views do exist. Pulling their 14-year-old out of class and vaccinating them without prior notification or taking adequate steps to ensure informed mature minor consent only serves to fuel the paranoia that vaccines are some kind of “conspiracy” by Big Pharma and the government to poison kids or control their minds or do god knows what else to them.

So what to do? How about sending a form home with students prior to vaccinations, explaining what viruses the vaccine is for, what the dangers of these viruses would be WITHOUT vaccination, listing the ingredients of the vaccine, and explaining that the levels of mercury, etc. contained in the compound are normal and safe? Then, the form can ask if there are any medical conditions medical staff need to know about or that may require the child to receive a vaccine with a different compound (for example, one that doesn’t use egg if the child has an allergy, etc.). If “mature minor” consent is to be used, the child can be given these forms instead and, now that they have been fully informed in a low-pressure situation, can sign for themselves.

We shouldn’t have to defend a safe medical tool that has saved billions of lives, but for some reason we do. And because we do, we may as well be proactive in our approach, making sure accurate information about the safety and efficacy of vaccines is in the hands of parents and kids before fear-mongering misinformation has a chance to spread.