Multiculturalism – Sommer Season all year

Is Canada the Best Country in the World?

A commentary on Canada

On July 1^st, Canada Day, Prime Minster (PM) Justin Trudeau, with his wife Sophie, tweeted a video of them talking about Canada. He also tweeted the words, “What makes Canada special is not that Canadians know that this is the best country in the world – it’s that we know it could be. We know our work together is not yet done.” Here is the video:

Our PM received criticism for his comments, which isn’t unusual as he, like most world leaders, are criticized for anything they say. However, the disapproval was because he implied that Canada wasn’t the best country in the world. Now this got me (#blogger #blog #somseason #YA #authors) thinking; Is Canada the best country in the world, and if it is, why? In 2020, US News ranks Canada as the second best country in the world (see Overall Best Countries Ranking). In WorldAtlas,’ Most Loved Countries In The World, Canada is ranked number one in 2020.

Asia Pacific Immigration Service, which offers expertise in immigration-related procedures and policies, has an article titled, 7 Reasons Why Canada Is The Best Country In The World, which says:

Canada is a wonderful example to the world as a leader in cultural diversity, tolerance, peaceful society, and safety. They legalized same-sex marriage in 2005 (4th country to do this), and they keep their citizens safer with the lowest crime rates that continue to decline thanks to a fair justice system, strict gun control laws, and community policing.

Could this be the reason? I set out to find evidence to prove or disprove this argument. In a report issued by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Policing the Pandemic Mapping Project, is says:

Numerous individuals who got in touch with CCLA and self-identified as racialized felt that they had been targeted by law enforcement because of their race, and multiple investigations in various jurisdictions have been launched after allegations of discriminatory actions on the part of bylaw officers. The pandemic has also been used as a justification to increase the ability of a variety of law enforcement officials to stop individuals and demand that they provide identification, a practice also known as “carding” which has been used disproportionately against people who are Black, Indigenous, who have mental health disabilities, who are experiencing homelessness, and who are otherwise racialized and marginalized

That sounds like systemic racism or systemic racial bullying (#bullying #antibullying) to me. That would disqualify Canada as “a wonderful example to the world as a leader in cultural diversity, tolerance, peaceful society, and safety.”

Alberta First Nations members from Treaty Six and The Blackfoot Confederacy have called for Alberta’s Premier Jason Kenney’s speechwriter to be fired after the discovery of an article he wrote in 2013 calling residential schools a “bogus genocide story.” Other articles with controversial remarks about transgender people, women, people of colour and the homeless community have also surfaced increasing the pressure on Jason Kenney to fire his speechwriter. (see Kenney speechwriter and More controversial articles).

Is Kenney’s speechwriter right? Are residential schools a “bogus genocide story?” Ohio State University and Miami University’s Origins, who provide historical insights on current events, has an article titled, Canada’s Dark Side: Indigenous Peoples and Canada’s 150th Celebration, which says:

Canada’s intention to eliminate any separate Indigenous identity was official Canadian Indian policy for a long time…Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Canada (1913-1932), put it bluntly in the speech he gave in 1920: “I want to get rid of the Indian problem. … Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department”…Scott’s tenure was marked by particularly coercive policies and damaging legislative constraints for Canada’s Indigenous peoples, especially in terms of cultural repression and educational subjugation.

Here is the primary source of Scott’s words: The Indian Solution. I assure you as a person who taught history for 30 plus years that residential schools are NOT a “bogus genocide story.”

The Beaverton in its article, Jason Kenney: My racist speechwriter doesn’t speak for me, merely writes the words I speak, quotes Mr. Kenney as saying in a press conference:

“Mr. Bunner does not make policy, his job is to manipulate language to present policy in a certain light, there’s simply no way his own worldview could possibly affect how he goes about doing that…I want to assure Albertans that if and when I say bigoted things, it’s because I sincerely believe them, not because some speechwriter tells me to.”

Kenney also pointed out that many of the UCP’s [United Conservative Party’s] elected officials and hired staff have long histories of espousing prejudicial views and that hasn’t had any effect on how they govern the province. Wow! Our premier admits his speechwriter is racist and that many in his government are as well. That is disturbing! I have to wonder; Is Alberta being governed by racists? Sounds like it. That would disqualify Canada as “a wonderful example to the world as a leader in cultural diversity, tolerance, peaceful society, and safety.”

A CBC News article, Nursing student in civil suit against RCMP says wellness checks need to change, describes what was seen in an apartment surveillance video. The video shows a nursing student being dragged by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer down a hallway before being stepped on during a wellness check. A wellness check, or welfare check, is an in-person call from local law enforcement to someone whose behaviour has become suspicious in some way. Ms. Wang , an Asian Canadian, says she has history of anxiety, and that she was having a panic attack. She had been in contact with her boyfriend, but when she stopped responding to his texts, he got worried and called emergency responders to check up on her. Is it normal for police officers to drag and step on people during a wellness check? I doubt it. This sounds that racial bullying to me. That would disqualify Canada as “a wonderful example to the world as a leader in cultural diversity, tolerance, peaceful society, and safety.”

When PM Justin Trudeau tweeted, “What makes Canada special is not that Canadians know that this is the best country in the world – it’s that we know it could be. We know our work together is not yet done,” he is right. Canada is presently NOT the best country in the world. Canada’s work is not yet done. Racial bullying has NOT been eliminated.

I Didn’t Know That!

A commentary on Canada’s systemic racial bullying

I (#blog #blogger #YA, #authors, #somseason) recently read an article titled, Anti-racism march in central Alberta postponed after angry backlash, in the National Post. It’s tells of a person planning to hold an anti-racism march in a small town in Alberta, the province I live in. The protest was postponed following what its organizer calls a “bigoted backlash.” What caught my attention most was in the article, it quoted a man who wrote, “I will not welcome this to our town, the entire thing insinuates we have some sort of racial problem which we do not.” This exposes the fact that at least some Canadians believe Canada is not a racist country.

It got me wondering just how bad racial bullying (#bully #antibullying) is in my country. A CTV News’s article, Racism not a big problem? Activist says survey shows Canadians ‘in denial,’ discusses a 2019 survey which says, 8 in 10 Canadians believe race relations in their own communities are “generally good” with the largest majority of positive views held by white respondents (84%), and the smallest among Indigenous respondents (69%). The survey also divulges that Canadians were more likely to view racial discrimination as the attitudes and actions of individuals, and not a systemic issue embedded in Canadian institutions. Two-thirds of respondents said people from all races have the same opportunities to succeed in life.

If most Canadians believe all races have the same opportunities, is that the truth? The Canadian Human Rights Commission says:

“The roots of anti-Black racism and systemic discrimination in Canada run deep. They are historically embedded in our society, in our culture, in our laws and in our attitudes. They are built into our institutions and perpetuate the social and economic disparities that exist in everything from education, to healthcare, to housing and employment.”

The article, “White Privilege, Systemic Racism” BUILT INTO Society: Canadian Human Rights Commission states:

Canada is a racist nation steeped in perpetual white privilege. The descendants of the colonial founders of our country have racism and bigotry “built into their brains…Canadian society is intrinsically anti-black, not to mention anti-Muslim, anti-Sikh, anti-Jewish, as well as haters of homosexuals. PM Justin Trudeau has informed society that white Canadians are genocidal toward First Nations peoples.

Wow! That hurts. I was one of those Canadians that actually believed Canada was less racist than the USA. My eyes were opened when I started learning and teaching about Residential Schools in Canada. I thought I knew everything there was to know about Canada’s racial bullying of Indigenous peoples. After all, I was a history teacher. Then I read in the Globe and Mail’s, When Canada used hunger to clear the West, which says:

…medical experimentation [was done] on malnourished aboriginal people in northern Canada and in residential schools. Rather than feed the hungry among its wards, government-employed physicians used pangs of hunger to further their research into malnutrition.

The article explains that for years, government officials withheld food from aboriginal people until they relocated to their allotted reserves, forcing them to trade freedom for rations. Once on reserves, food was placed in ration houses and was intentionally withheld for so long that much of it rotted while the people it was intended to feed fell into a decades-long cycle of malnutrition, suppressed immunity and sickness from diseases such as tuberculosis, resulting in thousands Indigenous people dying.

Now that sounds like genocide to me. Residential schools were a deliberate attempt at a cultural genocide, which I knew and taught about, but was there an attempt to deliberately starve Indigenous people? Seems like it to me. What shocked me more was to learn of the shameful experimentation on Indigenous people in the residential schools. This was new information to me, and I taught history for most of my career. How could I be a history teacher, and not know this stuff. I knew nothing about African Canadians, since there were few in Western Canada where I grew up. I taught about the US’s history of slavery, but was slavery a thing in Canada?

Ricochet uses journalism which seeks to illuminate the cultural and political diversity within Canada. Its article, A forgotten history of slavery in Canada, says:

Institutionalized for 206 years, slavery occurred in Upper Canada (now Ontario), New France (Quebec), Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick, and at least 4,000 people were its victims. French colonists initially bought slaves from U.S. colonies, and also brought them to New France from the West Indies, Africa, and Europe… “In my engagement with African Canadian history, I have come to realize that Black history has less to do with Black people and more with White pride,” writes Afua Cooper in The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal. “That is why slavery has been erased from the collective consciousness. It is about an ignoble and unsavoury past, and because it casts Whites in a ‘bad’ light, they as chroniclers of the country’s past, creators and keepers of its traditions and myths, banished this past to the dustbins of history.”

That fits with what I said in my last post, Does Canada Have a Systemic Racism Problem? In that post, I said history is a story or tale of what has happened, or may have happened, in the past. It seems to me that we Canadians have been told a tale; a myth; the myth that we are morally superior to the US. I was never taught about slavery in Canada, nor was it a part of the school curriculum. As the article says, “Too many stories have been ignored, exaggerated, or capitalized on in Canada’s history.”

It astounds me how I can grow up not knowing about the Residential Schools and Slavery in Canada until in my 50’s and later. I learned when I visited a residential school, which is now a indigenous university, just north of where I live, where a speaker told us that residents in the nearby town of St. Paul were completely oblivious as to what was happening in a school just a few kilometres outside their town. This part of our history was hidden from us.

We Canadians claim we embrace diversity and human rights as the foundation of our democracy, yet systemic racial bullying is prevalent in our country. In the article, A forgotten history of slavery in Canada, which I mentioned earlier, it states:

It is no longer racism which is the problem– it is “systemic racism”–a much more potent variety for the cultivation of punitive damages toward European-Canadians.

In my last post, I mentioned a definition of White Privilege as, “Privilege is when you think something is not a problem because you aren’t personally affected.” Those of use of European heritage must stop believing the myths we’ve been taught, start doing our own research, and realize that Canada has a dark history. Our history books fail to tell us the full truth of our past. Open your eyes, fellow Canadians! Systemic racism, or systemic racial bullying, is part of our past. It is hypocritical to condemn racial bullying in the USA when we have a racial bullying problem ourselves. It says in Matthew 7:5 of the Christian Scriptures; “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” It is time for Canadians to “get our heads out of the sand” and admit the truth that we too have a systemic racial bullying problem, and start dismantling it.

Is Hate the New Norm?

A commentary on the increase of hate crimes.

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of news reports about hate crimes; reports that I find both disturbing and alarming. Here are a few examples.

I recently read about a homophobic attack on a lesbian couple in London, England. The couple were travelling on a city bus where they were assaulted by a group of teens after they allegedly refused to kiss each other on demand (see Homophobic Attack).

The New York Times reported that in “Staten Island, the phrase ‘Synagogue of Satan’ was spray painted on a wall outside of a Jewish school. In Brooklyn, a pro-Hitler message was scrawled on a poster outside a Jewish children’s museum whose mission is to fight anti-Semitism. In Manhattan, two rainbow pride flags were set on fire outside of a gay bar.” (see Swastikas and Burning Pride Flags). Another New York Times article reports “The number of reported murders, rapes and robberies in New York is lower now [2019] than it was a year ago…These recent figures show that the drop in crime that began in the mid-1990s has largely continued…Reported hate crimes are up 64 percent compared with this time a year ago. A majority of those incidents were targeted at Jews, officials said” (see Hate Crimes Up).

In my country, Canada, CBC News reports that “the number of police-reported hate crimes reached an all-time high in 2017, largely driven by incidents targeting Muslim, Jewish and black people, according to Statistics Canada data… [saying] hate crimes have been steadily climbing since 2014, but shot up by some 47 per cent 2017, the last year for which data was collected” (see Hate crimes reach all time high).

This is just a small sampling of articles I’ve seen about hate crimes. Not only was I alarmed and disturbed, but began to wonder if hate was the new norm. One of last times hate was so prevalent on our planet was pre WWII, during a time when Hitler set out to eliminate Jews, LTQB, and other undesirables. It was also the time of the Nanking massacre in China by the Japanese. The last time the world went down a path of hate; a path lead by Hitler and other extremist leaders, WWII occurred.

I used to naively think that the human race had learned from WWI and WWII and would never make that mistake again. Now I am not so sure. One thing that strikes me, is many of those who are perpetrating hate claim to be Christians. THEY ARE NOT TRUE CHRISTIANS.

A meme recently went across my Facebook feed which is a quote from Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States.

I agree with the former US president. Homophobes are not real Christians! I saw another meme on my Facebook feed.

That sums it up. Hate is the choice. We cannot choose homosexuality no more than we can choose to be heterosexual. It wasn’t a choice for me. I was just attracted to the opposite sex. I did not choose to be Caucasian. I did not choose to be born in Canada, although I am grateful I was. I did not choose to come from European heritage. I can, however, choose to hate because I fear someone different than me. I can also choose to include and love those different from me.

Pope Francis is quoted as saying: “A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person? We must always consider the person” (see America Magazine in 2013). Pope Francis also said, “It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves the condemnation from the church’s pastors wherever it occurs.”

Where is all this hate coming from. One word answers that. FEAR. Much of that fear is propagated by extremist leaders.

Kevyn Aucoin, American makeup artist, photographer, and author, once said:

Fear is the most debilitating emotion in the world, and it can keep you from ever truly knowing yourself and others – its adverse effects can no longer be overlooked or underestimated. Fear breeds hatred, and hatred has the power to destroy everything in its path.

How true that is. Angela Merkel, former Chancellor of Germany, once said, “Hatred, racism, and extremism have no place in this country.” I agree with Ms. Merkel wholeheartedly. Hatred, racism, misogynism, anti-immigration, or anti-tolerance of any kind has no place in any country, especially my country.

The bottom line is unless humanity makes the choice to love one another, humanity is headed down perhaps another dark path like those that caused WWI and WWII. After all, Jesus commanded in John 13:34 of the Christian scriptures,

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

This is what a true Christian does!

Should We Be Worried?

A commentary on the rise of bigotry

On October 27th, yet another mass shooting occurred in the United States at a Pittsburgh synagogue. A radicalized, American born citizen expressed his hatred of Jews during the rampage, telling police officers afterward that Jews were committing genocide and he wanted them all to die. Sadly, this disturbed individual shot and killed 11 Jewish worshipers during the Jewish Sabbath service. (see Pittsburgh synagogue)

anti-hate While watching CNN, I saw an interview with a Jewish Rabbi hours after the mass shooting happened. The words uttered by the Rabbi struck me. He said, “I worry that hatred is becoming mainstream.” These words struck me because he expressed what I’ve been feeling. It seems people feel empowered to express their hatred towards people, such as visible minorities, indigenous people, Jewish people, Muslim people, immigrants, LGBT people, transgender people, and the list goes on and on. This sense of permission to express hatred is not only happening in the U. S. but in my country as well. I began to recall all the things I’ve read or heard in the news this month.

Earlier this month, CBC News reported in an article entitled, ‘Go back where Indians belong’: St. Albert mother frightened by racist letter from neighbour, that a woman living in St. Albert, a city two hours from where I live, fears for her children’s safety so has decided to move out of her rented condo.

An anonymous letter, which her 12-year-old daughter found in the mailbox, complained about children riding a scooter on driveways and playing basketball and football on the street. Then the letter said, “We don’t like your kind around here.” The tone of the letter became threatening and focused on the family’s First Nations or indigenous background. The letter told the family to, “Move out or things will escalate. Would not want to see the kids getting hurt. This isn’t a reserve. Go back to the reserve where Indians belong.” The letter ended with, “Your friendly Phase II Neighbours.”

Now I find this entire worrisome incident ironic for two reasons. First, the letter is signed “Your friendly Neighbours.” I would hardly call a letter threatening a family as friendly. The author or authors of this letter is/are hypocrites to say the least. Secondly, it is ironic that these neighbours, presumably white Caucasians, are telling an indigenous family to go back where they belong—in their minds the reserve—when indigenous people have been living on this land that we call Canada for thousands of years before the white Europeans arrived. It was our ancestors who created reserves in the first place to acquire land for the state. It seems to me that if anyone should be telling someone to go back to where they belong, it should be the indigenous people telling the Caucasians to go back where they belong. I would be willing to bet that the “friendly Neighbours” are ignorant of Canadian history.

Another CBC News titled, Indigenous man kicked out of McDonald’s after racist confrontation says he feels lucky to be alive, describes how an Indigenous man in June was kicked out of one of the city of Red Deer’s MacDonald’s restaurants following a racist and profanity-laced encounter with another customer. Zach Running Coyote, an indigenous actor from a nearby town, says he decided to confront a man who used a racial slur. Coyote said he wanted the man to say it to his face when he heard the racist say, ‘What’s your f–king problem?’ The racist customer then turned to his girlfriend saying, ‘That, “insert expletive,” little Indian know-it-all should mind his own business.'” Leaving the restaurant’s parking lot, the bigot yelled that he was sick of Coyote’s people “mooching” off tax dollars and living on welfare, spewing more profanity as he sped away. Clearly, the xenophobic is ignorant of history. If you read my post entitled, Is First Contact with Indigenous People Necessary? or do some research on your own, you will learn most of the indigenous stereotypes are based on misconceptions. To stereotypically label all indigenous people as welfare recipients simply is untrue.

Also, in the province where I reside, a story came out this month about one of Alberta’s new political parties, the United Conservative Party (UCP), claiming it does not share the “hateful views” of Soldiers of Odin, a white supremist group, after three candidates, contending to run as a UCP candidate, posed for photos with members of the extremist hate group. (see Candidates unknowingly posed).

What I find ironic, is in another CBC report, UCP nomination candidate says he knew Soldiers of Odin were coming to party’s pub night, the candidate told reporters that, ‘People have a constitutional right to voice their opinions and I’m not going to deny them that.’ In other words, he knew all along who the Soldiers of Odin were. Is this new political party attracting racists? Do its policies allow extremists to feel comfortable in their party? I have a difficult time believing any political party encourages racist extremists to join them, but sometimes actions speak louder than words.

These are just three examples of intolerance in my province. There are many more, I assure you. If this is occurring in every province, then racism seems to be rampant in my country. Hate crimes are on the increase. The National Observer reported last year that police-reported hate crimes in Canada rose in 2016 for the third year in a row, and became much more violent, according to data from Statistics Canada. With all the rhetoric coming from the current resident of the American White House bombarding the Canadian news, it doesn’t surprise me that hatred is becoming mainstream. Even some of our Canadian politicians are spouting that there should be less immigration. Maxime Bernier, a once outspoken Conservative MP who left the party and has since formed a new political party, criticized an immigration system that he said was attempting to “forcibly change the cultural character and social fabric of Canada.” (see Maxime Bernier’s rebellion) Are these politicians bigots or just ignorant? Whatever it is, I don’t want to live in a world that is divisive and exclusive.

One thing I have learned from the many years of travel and experiencing numerous cultures, is that every human being, no matter what race or culture, just wants to live comfortably, enjoy life and live in peace and safety. The late Pierre Berton, a Canadian non-fiction author and journalist, once said, “Racism is a refuge for the ignorant. It seeks to divide and to destroy. It is the enemy of freedom, and deserves to be met head-on and stamped out.” I believe that to be true. Racism comes from ignorance. Racism is a learned attitude. Racism does not belong in my world or in my country. It needs to be met head-on and stamped out. Everyone, regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation have the right to live their lives with dignity. As stated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declared in 1948,

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

The bottom line is a bigot is a bully. Bullies intimidate to get their way. There is no place for a bully in my world.

Is First Contact with Indigenous People Necessary?

A commentary on the ignorance of non-Indigenous people about Canada’s first residents

This month, CBC reported on a ‘Offensive’ online test about Indigenous Canadians. This test was being used in an Outreach school, which is a school for students who don’t fit into a traditional school. This school was using distance Learning materials which contained a multiple-choice test question which asked about the “positive effect” of residential schools. Students could choose from four possible answers such as “children were away from home” and “children became civilized.” A photo of the question was posted to social media by an offended student from the school, sparking swift apologies from the province’s education minister and school officials among condemnation from critics.

As the CBC article states, this question reflects views that are decades old; the very views highlighted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada that calls for change. With all that has been learned about the Residential Schools in recent years, it amazes me that a question like this is still in use. Clearly there is much educating and healing to be done between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people. As a social teacher who taught about Residential Schools, I assure you there was nothing positive about these schools. The only intent of these schools was cultural genocide. Or, as spoken by our first Prime Minister, Sir. John A MacDonald in 1887, “The great aim of our legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the other inhabitants of the Dominion [of Canada] as speedily as they are fit to change.” There is nothing positive about destruction of another culture.

In another CBC news article titled, Radio ad claiming to debunk ‘myths’ of residential schools draws criticism, reported this month that a two-minute ad aired across multiple private radio stations in the province of Saskatchewan. It begins with a question: “are Canadians being told the whole truth about residential schools?” It continues, “We have been told that the residential school system deserves the blame for many of the dysfunctions in Indigenous society — abuse of alcohol and drugs, domestic violence and educational failures can all be blamed on the school system which did not finally end until the 1990s,” says the ad. This ad then goes on to debunk what it calls myths, such as the myth that residential schools robbed native kids of their childhood and the myth that the harm that was done to those attending residential schools has been passed on to today’s generation.

I was appalled to learn of this. It reminds me of the Holocaust deniers who deny the genocide of Jews occurred and who claim that Nazi Germany’s Final Solution was aimed only at deporting Jews, claiming the slaughtering of Jews is a myth. Now we have residential school deniers who deny that residential schools were harmful and that the problems of the Indigenous people are unrelated to these schools.

Earlier this month my wife and I watched a three-part series on APTN (The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network) called First Contact. If you missed it, I strongly encourage you to watch it when it is rebroadcast on October 8th. I have taught Social Studies for years and thought I knew all there was to know about Indigenous people. This program taught me things I never knew and challenged my stereotypes about Indigenous people.

First Contact takes six Canadians, all with strong opinions about Indigenous People, on a 28-day journey into Indigenous Canada. These were people from all across Canada and who describe Indigenous people as alcoholics, drug abusers, welfare cheats, lazy, and entitled. They claim Indigenous Canadians are angry at white people, always get free money and handouts, are a drain to the system, and they just want people to feel sorry for them as they are victims. One participant, who lived by a reserve growing up, spoke of how she was told never to go on the reserve as it was dangerous and to never look at an indigenous person.

These six individuals left their everyday lives behind and traveled to Winnipeg, Nunavut, Alberta, Northern Ontario, and the coast of BC to visit Indigenous communities. The idea was to challenge their perceptions and confront their opinions about Indigenous Canadians.

In Episode one, the participants begin their journey in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In Winnipeg they work alongside two community driven movements; the Bear Clan patrol which works to keep Winnipeg’s notorious North End streets safe, and Drag the Red which takes on the sobering task of helping to solve cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women by searching the river, and the riverbank, for remains or other evidence. Then the group traveled over 2,000 kilometres north to the remote Inuit community of Kimmirut where they discover how difficult life on the land is for the Inuit people.

In the second episode, the group of six arrive in Muskrat Dam, one of several fly-in reserves in Northern Ontario. Let’s face it, us non-Indigenous Canadians cannot understand why aboriginal people continue to live in remote places like Muskrat Dam. While there, the participants learn why relocating isn’t an option for them as families have lived there for generations. They will also learn tough lessons about educating youth in a remote fly-in community, the impact of the legacy of residential schools, and learn that clean drinking water is unavailable there, and is unavailable in 140 other reserves across the country. The next stop takes the travellers to Alberta. With a population of over 17,000, the Maskwacis reserve has a reputation for gangs, crime, and a high suicide rate. In Maskwacis, the six attend their first Pow Wow and sweat lodge ceremony, causing some attitudes within the group to shift.

In the last episode, the group is taken to Calgary, to experience life on the streets, and then north, to an Edmonton prison to learn about life on the inside for Indigenous inmates. According to a Statistics Canada report, Indigenous people comprise about 5 per cent of Canada’s population but account for 27 per cent of the federal prison population in 2016–17. The final stop is in Ahousaht First Nation, on the west side of Vancouver Island. Historically, Ahousaht has suffered many issues, but in recent years, with strong leadership from within, the reserve has made many changes and turned the community around. Sadly, not all minds were changed. A rift began to occur in the group, ending with four of them challenging the two individuals from my home province who still held the same view of Indigenous Canadians as when they started.

One of the lines in the series that struck me was, “We are all treaty people.” Indian Treaties were agreements made between Europeans and Native Canadians used to secure alliances, and most often to acquire land from Native Canadians. None of us were present when these treaties were agreed upon. It was our ancestors who made these agreements. That is true for those of us who are descendants of European settlers as it is for Indigenous Canadians. These Treaties are still honoured today, so the statement, “We are all treaty people,” is true. Treaties do not just apply to Native Canadians.

The chief from Alberta’s biggest reserve, Maskwacis, said money for his people came from a fund. He said most non-aboriginal people don’t understand that the money they use to run their reserves comes from this fund and that the fund is a finite amount of money. I wondered what he meant by fund. The CBC article, How does native funding work? explains how funding from the federal government works. The article states,

“The federal government established each First Nation band as an autonomous entity and, therefore, provides separate program funding to each one…”

“The primary method to fund [Indigenous] services is through what’s called ‘contribution agreements.’ The agreements are renewed annually, although not always on time…that means ‘First Nations must often reallocate funds from elsewhere to continue meeting community service requirements.’ The article also says that “while the agreements state the services or actions to be provided, they do not always focus on service standards or results to be achieved…there’s no linking of funding levels to national standards for services such as in the equalization program for provinces.” The article says the growth rate of federal funding to First Nations has not been keeping pace with the growth rate in transfers to the provinces.

This must be what Maskwacis’ chief means by fund. Each reserve receives a set amount of funding from the federal government to provide services for their band. The truth is, Indigenous people do not get endless handouts from the government, as many Canadians think.

There is so much misinformation about Indigenous Canadians and stereotypic beliefs about aboriginal people . It is time that we as non-Indigenous Canadians learn the truth about residential schools and the effects of it instead of sitting comfortable in our ignorance and being arrogant with our judgemental point of views. The two individuals in the series from my home province illustrated this by their lack of openness to change their views.

Christmas Controversies 3.1

A commentary on political correctness.

Every Christmas since blogging, I’ve written about Christmas controversies and every year I keep reading about a “War on Christmas.” It appears there are people who believe the Christian festival of Christmas is under attack. Personally, I have never witnessed it nor have I talked to people who feel this way. People who believe there is a war on Christmas take all-encompassing phrases like “Happy Holidays” as insults to Christianity. They make holiday greetings and decorations into hypothetically divisive political issues.

I find it intriguing to discover, according to the Washington Post’s article, Poll: Conservatives most likely to be offended by holiday greetings, that,

“the demographic groups most offended by “Happy Holidays” include strong conservatives (21 percent) …Trump supporters (18 percent) and all men (18 percent). These are the same groups of people that tend to say there is too much political correctness in society, yielding a paradox: The folks who complain the most about political correctness are the ones who are the most offended by what they see as “incorrect” speech.

To frame it another way, conservatives [traditionalists] often caricature liberals [according to Dictionary.com, those who are open-minded or tolerant, especially free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.] as too quick to take offense over politically incorrect speech. But in the [Public Policy Polling] PPP poll, people who described themselves as “very conservative” were more than twice as likely to be offended by “Happy Holidays” (21 percent) as “very liberal” respondents were to be offended by “Merry Christmas” (10 percent).”

As I talked about in my last blog post, Christmas Controversies 3.0, Trump wholeheartedly jump on the “Christmas is under attack” bandwagon when he told a rally of his devotees in Grand Rapids, Michigan “We’re going to start saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”

Mostly of what I’ve read, this so-called war seems to be an American phenomenon, but unfortunately it is overflowing into Canada. It appears that some Canadians, or at least some of our politicians in the province of Alberta, are claiming that Christmas is under attack. Newly elected United Conservative Party (UPC) leader Jason Kenney has turned the holiday celebrating Jesus’ birth into a political issue.

Global News’ article, Twitter mocks Jason Kenney for suggesting the left thinks ‘saying Merry Christmas is hateful’, reports that Kenney was quoted as saying in a column posted by the Calgary Sun, “The problem is people on the left [those labelled liberal thinking] think saying ‘Merry Christmas’ is hateful,” and that “Those voices of crazed political correctness will not govern what is allowed.”

What I found even more captivating is Kenney reacted to the Twitter backlash of his comment by tweeting on December 21st, “It was a *joke* about the excesses of political correctness.” Most confusing to me was he said in the tweet, “But not too far off the mark at a time when songs like Jingle Bells & White Christmas are generating controversy.”

I had never heard of the classic songs of Jingle Bells and White Christmas being scandalous. What is so controversial about one of the best-known and commonly sung songs in the world? Even more surprising was to learn that the 1942, “White Christmas,” made famous by Bing Crosby; a song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas scenery, that is, a snowy Christmas. What could be contentious about that? I wanted to know, so I did some research.

According to the Guardian, in the article, Is Jingle Bells racist? Despite backlash from the right, it’s not black and white, a Fox News host told viewers that the “Newest Christmas controversy has social justice warriors claiming this classic holiday carol is racist,” warning that Kyna Hamill was urging people to “shun the jaunty tune.”

Kyna Hamill is a university lecturer who probed the origins of the popular carol, and published her findings, perceiving that during the past 160 years the song had become an example of music whose “blackface and racist origins have been subtly and systematically removed from its history”. Hamill did say much reporting of her research was incorrect and laden with “all sorts of absolutely absurd” accusations.

It seems that there are those that think the popular Christmas song, ‘White Christmas’, is a racist song as well. This controversy originated, according to Opposing Views, when country music star Darius Rucker, an African American singer and songwriter, who was asked to perform at the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the Rockefeller Center. When Rucker began singing ‘White Christmas,’ people protesting the death of Eric Garner, a black man who was killed by a white police officer in Staten Island, flooded the Rockefeller Center and the surrounding area. The public turned to Twitter to voice their objections. “The irony of watching Darius Rucker singing ‘White Christmas’ around the corner from the Eric Garner protest is mind-blowing,” tweeted a law student based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Critics of the singing of White Christmas, believe that the reference to the colour “white” by a black singer during a time of racial tensions was offensive and suggested a contempt for the feelings of other black people. Now I can only speak for myself, but that seems to be a stretch for me. Some individuals appear to look for any opportunity to create a political issue. I am still trying to wrap my head around as to why they feel the need to do so.

My conclusions: There is NO “War on Christmas.” Christmas is not being attacked. There are those that want us to believe it is, but all evidence that I’ve found says this ‘war’ is a myth being perpetrated by some for political gain.

I really like what Christopher Stuart Taylor, a Diversity and Inclusion Professional, says in his Huffpost article, If We Can’t Say ‘Merry Christmas’ in Canada, Multiculturalism Failed. Mr. Taylor wrote:

“As I returned the greeting I wondered: since when did “Merry Christmas” become a political statement especially in multicultural Canada? … Multiculturalism is a complete and utter failure in Canada when it is politically incorrect to say ‘Merry Christmas.’ …. When was the last time you told someone you didn’t know ‘Merry Christmas’ without pausing and wondering if they may or may not be offended?”

For those that do not know, multiculturalism is official policy in Canada, as it should be. The Act says, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Government of Canada to recognize and promote the understanding that multiculturalism reflects the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society and acknowledges the freedom of all members of Canadian society to preserve, enhance and share their cultural heritage.

That tells me there is no need to stop wishing people ‘Merry Christmas’. As I said in my last post, it is really about common-sense etiquette. If you know someone is a Christian who is celebrating Christmas wish them ‘Merry Christmas.’ Likewise, say ‘Happy Hanukkah’ to those you know to be Jewish. To your Hindu friends say happy Diwali when they celebrate. During Ramadan, say “Ramadan Mubarak” which means “Happy Ramadan”. If you don’t know a person’s faith, don’t worry about political correctness. Just say what feels right. When in primarily a Christian country, no one should be offended when greeted with a ‘Merry Christmas.’. If I were in Israel, I would not be offended if someone wished me a “Happy Hanukkah.” Most non-Christians would not be offended when wished a Merry Christmas in a Christian country?

The statistics appear to agree. According to the Washington Post’s article I sited earlier, “only 3 percent of respondents said they’d be personally offended if somebody said “Merry Christmas” to them. But 13 percent said “Happy Holidays” would be offensive to them. So, individuals who opt for the more inclusive, nondenominational “Happy Holidays” may end up offending more people than if they’d just said “Merry Christmas” in the first place.”

Do We Really Want to Erase History?

A commentary on how to handle controversial historical figures.

It seems there is a call for us North Americans to take another look at our history. That is a good thing. As a retired Social Studies and history teacher, I emphasized to my students that history is NOT fact since it is past events that have been interpreted by historians. In other words, historians analyze past events whereby they use diaries, archeological artifacts, and so on, to determine what happened. This is not without their biases and beliefs, or as Napoléon Bonaparte once allegedly said, “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” History is a historian’s interpretation of the past.

In the United States many people are calling for long-standing monuments that honour confederate generals to be removed. A similar debate is also developing in Canada involving the country’s first prime minister (PM), Sir. John A MacDonald. Canada’s first PM was one of our more colourful politicians as he was a notorious drinker. It is well documented that MacDonald was a regular binge drinker.

I first heard of the controversial issue of removing statues of U.S. Confederate generals in April of this year when I watched a news report of New Orleans removing a monument during the dark. Numerous statues in various U.S. cities have been removed since. So why are they being removed?

General Robert E. Lee located in Charlottesville, Virginia

The Currents, CBC Radio program, addressed the issue of U.S. Confederate statues represent ‘image of America as a white society’. The article quotes Eric Foner, the author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. Foner argues what many Confederate statues actually represent is “this image of America as a white society. That’s why people object to them, not because of a lack of interest in heritage or legacy.” Foner says, He goes on to say, “These statues actually don’t have a lot to do with the Civil War …They were put up mostly to be part of the legitimacy of white supremacy, of the Jim Crow system in the South, long after slavery.” The Jim Crow system was a system of racial segregation in the southern U.S. Foner explains that many of the statues were erected in the 1890s when the rights of black people were severely reduced.

What is the debate in Canada about? For those who don’t know Canadian history, Sir John A. Macdonald was one of the founders of the Dominion of Canada and during his terms as prime minister (1867-1873 and 1878-1891) he had a transcontinental railway built. The controversy regarding him comes from the fact that during that time, the federal government approved the first residential schools in Canada.

Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first PM

The Global News’ article, The controversy over Sir John A. Macdonald, explains that the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (EFTO), one of the teacher’s unions, is lobbying to remove MacDonald’s name from schools across the province. The union claims using Macdonald’s name creates an unsafe environment for kids to learn and work in because of what it calls Macdonald’s role as the “architect of genocide against Indigenous Peoples.”

James Daschuk, an assistant professor of history at the University of Regina and author of Clearing the Plains says. “It wasn’t just with Indigenous people. In 1885, Macdonald told the House of Commons that Canada should take away the vote from people of Chinese origin on the grounds that they were a different race than Europeans.”

It isn’t just about Sir. John A MacDonald. In July, CBC reported in its article, Statue of Edward Cornwallis, that the city of Halifax in Nova Scotia will make a decision on the fate of the city’s controversial statue of Edward Cornwallis, a military officer who founded Halifax for the British in 1749. It was Cornwallis that issued the so-called scalping proclamation, offering a cash bounty to anyone who killed a Mi’kmaq person.

So where do we draw the line? Do we stop at prime ministers? Fathers of Confederation? The Ottawa Citizen’s article, Where will it stop? refers to Michel Prévost, president of la Société d’histoire de l’Outaouais and a University of Ottawa archivist. He says some people have lobbied for the removal of Mackenzie King’s statue from Parliament Hill for Canada’s decision in June 1939 to deny entry to more than 900 Jewish refugees who had fled Germany. Already barred from docking in Cuba and the United States, their ship, the MS St. Louis, returned to Europe, where more than 250 of them subsequently died in the Holocaust.

Prévost also explains that a Father of Confederation, Hector-Louis Langevin, would have his name stripped from the Wellington Avenue building that both bears his name and houses the prime minister’s office. Langevin was one of the original designers of the residential school system.

Preston Manning, one of our conservative Canadian politician on CBC Radio’s, The Sunday Edition said,

“I think there are unsavory aspects to populism. And I think one need to deplore those, but I think one needs to focus more on the root causes of that alienation, rather that fixating on just the negative eccentricities of it.”

Most often I disagree with Manning’s views, but I agree with this one. We are fixating on the negative. It is shameful to remove those names and statues of important figures in Canadian and American history. This is not the answer. Having said that, it is important to recognize the atrocities that these people have done. We mustn’t forget that Sir John A MacDonald was the “architect of genocide against Indigenous Peoples.” or wanted to take away the vote from Chinese people. Or, that Confederate statues represent an image of America as strictly a white society. As a retired teacher, the teacher in me says these could be some teachable moments. Instead of removing the names of these historical figures from buildings and streets, or taking down statues; instead we should be using them to educate people about both their achievements and the horrific things those historical figures did.

Debate about our histories is healthy! We should re-evaluate our history. Some historians agree with me. Don Doyle, a professor of history at the University of South Carolina, (see Historians Warn) says.

“I find it very exciting and refreshing that Americans are revisiting their history and questioning just why we honor some people, some events, and not others. It is a healthy reminder that history, as the search for understanding of the past, must always challenge public history as monuments and hero worship in the public sphere.”

Perhaps people are over reacting. Instead of removing all of these controversial statues of historical figures, erasing history so to speak, let’s relocate them to museums where people can be educated on both the positive and negative aspects our history. Good or bad, these people are still a part of our histories. Perhaps a plaque could be associated with each historical figure explaining the good achieved by the figure, as well as explaining the atrocities they are associated with that historical character. These people were only following the belief system of their time period. They didn’t know any different. When I taught history, I emphasized the importance of practicing historical empathy. Historical empathy is the understanding of why people in history did what they did, as opposed to simply knowing what they did. Instead of attempting to erase the dark periods of our histories, we need to practice historical empathy and acknowledge them. We should attempt to understand why these horrific things happened in our past so that they might not happen again. Maybe then healing can occur.

We Are Not All the Same

A commentary on stereotyping

I recently saw on Facebook a video called, All That We Share. It is a video that was created in Denmark and provides a powerful message about stereotyping. To be clear on what stereotyping is, Simply Psychology defines a stereotype as “a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people.” If you haven’t seen the video, here it is.

The video discusses many stereotypes, but let’s focus on some of the common ones. First, let’s look at a big one, perpetrated by rhetoric by populist movements about immigration. A common stereotype that I’ve personally heard many times is that ‘immigrants are taking our jobs’. The reality is immigrants are usually filling job vacancies. A country that is short of skilled workers will fill them with skilled migrants. Immigrants also will take jobs that most others are not prepared to do such as housecleaning. The fact is, migrants are not taking jobs away, rather they are filling a void.

Other stereotypes I’ve heard are; Immigrants don’t contribute to society’, ‘They are costing the country money’ and ‘They send money out of the country’. Like all of us, foreign workers pay taxes, pay rent, and spend money in our local economies on supplies such as clothes and food. Even if they send some money to their home country, they are still helping out our local economies.

Another stereotype is; ‘Immigrants put pressure on the health care and education system’. It is true that helping newly arrived children with their English does add extra stress on the education system, but children from other countries have helped to save some schools from closure and expose children to cultural diversity which in turn builds tolerance. Let’s be honest; health care services could not function without the many doctors, nurses and supplementary staff from other countries. That is especially true for rural areas. I live in a rural area and all of our doctors are immigrants.

According to Migration Policy Debates (May 2014) using new and internationally comparative evidence on the fiscal impact of migration for all European OECD countries, as well as Australia, Canada and the United States:

Immigrants are thus neither a burden to the public purse nor are they a panacea [cure all] for addressing fiscal challenges. In most countries, except in those with a large share of older migrants, migrants contribute more in taxes and social contributions than they receive in individual benefits. This means that they contribute to the financing of public infrastructure, although admittedly to a lesser extent than the native-born.

Now there are other stereotypes regarding immigrants, but those are the ones I personally have had people say to me. Stereotypical remarks are not only made about immigrants, but also about aboriginals. One stereotype I often heard in my youth was the stereotype of the “drunken Indian”. It was assumed by some that if you were of aboriginal ancestry you had a drinking problem.

According to a CBC News article, employers felt justified in refusing employment to aboriginal people based on this stereotype. Landlords would not rent to aboriginal people. Some establishments, bars mostly, refused to let aboriginal people enter. Taxi drivers drove past aboriginal people on the street. The daily humiliations added up to real social and economic barriers.

Not all aboriginal people have a drinking problem. That is a fact! I can personally attest to this as I have had the privilege of working with First Nations peoples over the years. Having said that, aboriginal communities have high rates of alcohol and drug use and consequently high rates of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome among their children. The reasons why aboriginal people have struggled with addictions have been studied for years. The root causes are pretty well documented. It all connects to residential schools, the Indian Act, child welfare issues, Indian agents, geographic isolation, racism, intergenerational trauma and so on. I like the way the CBC article ends.

Let’s spend our energy in supporting the healing, rather than propping up a label that only makes the healing process that much harder.

Now let’s address the most common typecasting that is occurring in our society today; the stereotyping of Muslims. According to the Huffington Post, there are five common stereotypes.

One such stereotype that I have heard is, “Muslims hate Jews and Christians’. This is simply wrong. There are multiple chapters in the Quran that mention non-Muslims. Now the Quran, like the Christian bible is subject to interpretation and there are plenty of verses that could be interpreted as Muslims are called to reject non-Muslims. However, there are verses in the Quran stressing that justice be given to even those who show hostility and hate to Muslims. Qur’an 5:8 says; “Do not let the hatred and animosity of other people prevent you from being just. Be just! That is nearer to righteousness”. That does not sound like a hatred to me.

Another stereotype is, ‘Muslims don’t believe in Jesus Christ’. What does that mean exactly? Does that mean that Muslims do not believe that Jesus existed. What people don’t know is Jesus is actually mentioned more times in the Quran than Muhammad is. Muslims believe that Jesus is an important prophet, but they do not recognize Jesus is the son of God as the Christians do. Nor do Muslims believe that Jesus died on the cross. They believe Jesus escaped crucifixion somehow. Muslims do believe in God, but call God “Allah”, the Arabic word for God.

The most common stereotype I hear is; “Muslims are terrorists” or ‘Islam promotes groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS’. This is not so. The Huffington Post rationalizes it this way.

ISIS most closely follows the ideals of Wahhabism and Salafism, which are extremist and radical branches of Islam. By best estimates, 87-90 percent of Muslims are Sunni and 10-13 percent are Shi’a, with small numbers belonging to other sects. If we go with these statistics, it’s safe to assume that Salafism and Wahhabism are less than five percent of the global Muslim population, and most likely does not represent the beliefs, thoughts, opinions, or actions of other Muslims. Additionally, Islam was not meant to have sects. However, Islam does not promote, nor does it encourage, joining radical groups. If you see stories of how people get radicalized, it’s usually through ISIS members themselves on radical jihadist forums.

In June, a Muslim “peace march” against Islamic terrorism was held in the German city of Cologne. (see Muslim Peace March). Hundreds of marchers held banners including one that said: “Love for all, hatred for none,” and “A Muslim protects lives and does not take them”. This clearly refutes the stereotype that Muslims are terrorists. Clearly there are some who are not.

To have “a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people.” is simply ridiculous. To declare that all world leaders are ‘idiots’ based on the reported idiotic behaviour of one or two world leaders (no names mentioned) is flawed logic. There always have been some ‘idiot’ leaders and some fantastic leaders. It is wrong to lump a group of people together and think that they all act the same. Not all Christians act the same. Not all Caucasians act the same. Why would we think all immigrants, indigenous people and Muslims act the same? Ridiculous.