Something Torrid This Way Comes

Unless you have been living under a rock (or more likely, the cool of your basement), you will know about the weather catastrophe occurring in the West, and, to a slightly lesser degree, in the East. People are dying at an unprecedented rate from the heat, and it is only going to get worse. As well, infrastructure that was built to cooler Canadian standards is buckling.

None of this bodes well for our future. To get a real sense of how dire things are, I would suggest you watch the following video from the beginning. If pressed for time, start at the five-minute mark and watch the two reports that ensue. 

At this late stage of things, the only real hope we have is in fortifying our infrastructure from the horrors to come, as the second of the two reports makes clear.

About That Critical Thinking Thing

Now that the internet has made everybody experts on everything, just a small, sobering reminder: expertise and critical thinking are not things you readily acquire.

But Is There A Will?

I was reading Owen's blog yesterday, in which he cites Robin Sears' view that, as Britain did during WW11, Canada needs to build back better post-pandemic. 

I am a skeptic as to the prospects of that happening. Here is the comment I made:

What I notice most about our current federal government, Owen, is their almost endless capacity for saying the right things, but the enacting of these aspirations seems mired in inertia. Any chance of 'building back better' would surely require a change in the taxation regime, but I don't hold my breath about that one. I read recently, for example, that despite large infusions of cash, the CRA has not prosecuted even one large tax evader, although they have called in a couple of them for 'a good talking to.'

I went back to the article and decided it merits further examination. It offers a devastating indictment, not only of the agency, but, implicitly, the government ethos it is reflecting.

Data from the Canada Revenue Agency shows its recent efforts to combat tax evasion by the super-rich have resulted in zero prosecutions or convictions.

In response to a question tabled in Parliament by NDP MP Matthew Green, the CRA said it referred 44 cases on individuals whose net worth topped $50 million to its criminal investigations program since 2015.

Only two of those cases proceeded to federal prosecutors, with no charges laid afterward.

The lack of prosecutions follows more than 6,770 audits of ultra-wealthy Canadians over the past six years.

It also comes amid a roughly 3,000 per cent increase in spending on the agency’s high-net-worth compliance program between 2015 and 2019 due to a beefed-up workforce, according to an October report from the parliamentary budget officer.

I believe, as does Matthew Green, that there are free passes for the rich, and severe penalties for the rest of us:

“The CRA is not pursuing Canada’s largest and most egregious tax cheats. And yet for a small mom-and-pop shop, if you don’t pay your taxes long enough — two or three years — then they will absolutely go in and garnish your wages … because they know you don’t have the ability to take it to court,“ he said.

To be fair, there is some validity in the claim that the wealthy have all manner of resources to try to thwart the CRA. Says National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier,

“The super-wealthy are able to pay for super lawyers, super tax specialists. They can do everything to get out of paying their fair share.”

Increasingly, those individuals are going to court when audited in order to withhold documents, with about 3,000 “complex” cases now ongoing, the minister said.

However, the fact that other jurisdictions have been quite successful in their pursuits of the rich suggests that  Lebouthillier's explanation holds only limited water.

And it appears that Canada prefers a less costly, gentler, more accommodating strategy: 

Settlements are much more common than criminal prosecutions, saving investigators time and money, said Kevin Comeau, author of a 2019 C.D. Howe report on money laundering.

“The problem with that is that you don’t have on the public record that these persons did not comply with the tax law. And therefore you don’t have that public shaming and you don’t have that warning to other tax cheats out there,” he said.

But the problem will not go away, and needs to be addressed as quickly and as tenaciously as possible:

… critics say the vast troves of wealth that remain untouchable to government authorities reveal the need to tighten tax rules as well as hunt down cheats.

“In former times we didn’t see tax avoidance as a crime,“ said Brigitte Unger, professor of economics at Utrecht University whose book, ”Combating Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulators,“ was published in March.

“But now we see the public sector needs money, and this is effectively stealing money from public coffers, and should be treated as such.” 

As I said at the start of this post, I, for one, will not be holding my breath awaiting remediation from a government that is far, far too cozy with the moneyed class. 

School Daze

To really understand the mindset of educational institutions today, you have to appreciate one fact: despite nonstop rhetoric to the contrary, they are inherently conservative and risk-averse. Some might even call them reactionary.

While I will get to the main basis for my post in a moment, a personal anecdote perhaps helps to illustrate this pernicious reality. Yesterday, I was talking to a neighbour across the street who retired from high-school teaching last November. A graduation ceremony was recently held in the school's parking lot for teachers, students and their parents, but she was told by a superintendent not to attend, as she is no longer a staff member. The administrator feared that "some parents might complain."

While it has been true for some years that administrators and boards have become hypersensitive to public opinion, the trend has accelerated, in my view, because teachers who advance beyond the classroom today tend to be what a friend calls "the resume-polishers," desperate to prove that they are "team players" as they climb the career ladder.

Simply put, their personal ambitions trump educational principles. They follow orders without question, and do everything in their power to avoid 'dirt' in their package.

And that is not good for society.

Shree Paradkar illustrates this fact as she writes about the craven treatment of Javier Davila by the Toronto District School Board:

Last month, after the equity educator was repeatedly attacked by a Toronto Sun columnist, and a pro-Israel advocacy group called for him to be fired, the Toronto District School Board placed him under investigation and an indefinite suspension. The action ignited an uproar from teachers, principals and other staff who framed it as an “all lives matter” approach by the board that has put a question mark on its stated commitment to anti-oppression.

Davila declined to comment to the Star. But in a Medium blog where he describes his work, he said he has received hundreds of emails over the years from teachers, principals and even directors of other school boards who asked permission to use his resources.

An educator for 16 years, Davila's job in part consists of sharing resources on matters including anti-colonialism, anti-racism and police abolition.

In recent months, he has sent bulletins on topics such as the Land Back movement, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and responses to the murder of Asian sex workers in Atlanta.

The board was so enthusiastic about his work that it directed people to his website if they weekly communications from him.

All that enthusiasm suddenly evaporated after the latest violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

Davila shared two resources for teachers, one on May 16, the other on May 19.

Within days, a Toronto Sun columnist wrote not one or two but three pugilistic columns castigating Davila for being anti-Israeli.

Indeed, much of the Jewish community is in an uproar. B'nai Brith is calling both for a full apology from the board and the termination of Davila, adding that "... no one who distributes anti-Semitic propaganda like this should work for a school board in Canada.” 

All of which has board officials quaking in their collective boots.

“During this time, the staff member will be on home assignment. We are also in the process of removing this staff member’s current and previous group mailings/newsletters from TDSB email inboxes,” a spokesperson told media.

“Home assignment” means being put on ice, cut off from his workplace and not allowed to contact his colleagues.

The board also took down the page on its website that directed educators to Davila’s newsletter.

So how are people reacting to this?

Retired TDSB educator Tim McCaskell says where formerly this might have earned a low-key talking to,

"... the board is so risk-averse now it doesn’t take much to send it into a tailspin,” he said.

 The Israeli lobby’s position was that criticizing Israel could foster anti-Semitism. Today it posits that criticizing Israel is anti-Semitism. “The conceptual framework has shifted,” he said. “Could you imagine organizing a conference on human rights in Palestine?”

Others are rallying in support of Davila:

There are no instances of anti-Semitic content within the resources,” reads a petition titled “Oppression and Censorship have no place in our schools.” It is signed by nearly 5,000 people and includes the support of unions such as CUPE and CUPW.

A group of more than 80 teachers calling themselves “concerned educators” and identified only by their initials and the name of their schools told the school board and trustees they were perturbed by the term “anti-Israel racism,” saying it would have the same effect of shutting down conversations on anti-oppression as would labelling critiques of Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people as “anti-Canadian.”

Jewish educators, parents and community members began another petition in support of Davila. “The resources that Mr. Davila shared were in no way anti-Semitic, and we’re concerned that this investigation will put a chill on TDSB staff who may fear discussing this issue or possibly other issues that are perceived as controversial,” they wrote. “As Jewish parents, we refuse the notion that Palestinian human rights are somehow oppositional to our own — in fact, the opposite is true.”

Meanwhile, the board is engaged in a surveillance protocol that would do justice to a police state.

… staff said their social media accounts were being monitored and “likes” on pro-Palestinian material meant a private conversation with immediate superiors.

“We are increasingly disturbed by the policing, criticism and silencing that some of us are experiencing when we name and create space to discuss such human rights violations,” a group of about 50 TDSB principals told the board in an open letter they signed as “anonymous for fear of reprisals.”

A school principal who was one of the letter writers confirmed to the Star they were given a talking-to by a senior board official as well as a trustee of a ward that is neither from where the principal works nor lives.

All of this leaves me angry and disgusted, but not surprised, for the reason I cited at the beginning of this post. But the final word goes to an anonymous TDSB staffer:

“People are nervous,” said the TDSB staffer. “For a lot of educators looking at Javier, we’re thinking if this is a white-passing dude who is being targeted this way, imagine if it was us.

“All of us are very afraid.”

The Value Of Police Body Cams

With increasing awareness of the wrongdoing that police sometimes perpetrate, video recordings of their interactions with the public are becoming of increasing importance, both in Canada and the United States. 

Here at home, one only has to recall the murder of Sammy Yatim by Officer James Forcillo. Had CCTV footage not recorded the officer's execution of Yatim, an official cover-up story would have undoubtedly carried the day, something along the lines of a knife-wielding drugging trying to stab the officer.

In the United States, were it not for a brave bystander's recording, Derek Chauvin would still be conducting his brutal practices, like the one that killed George Floyd.

Abuse of authority can happen in any jurisdiction, but the San Jose California Police Department seems to have perfected the art. Start the video at the nine-minute mark to learn all about it.

Protecting and serving the public entails real responsibility. In my view, bodycams should be standard issue for all police departments. 

Some Good News And Some Bad News

First the good news: Canadians as a whole are feeling pretty cheery about being part of a multicultural, diverse country.

Now the bad news: One-third of a survey's respondents say that the country is racist.

Celina Gallardo writes:

In partnership with the University of British Columbia, the Angus Reid Institute conduced an online survey of a representative randomized sample of 1,984 Canadian adults between May 11 to May 17 for a report titled “Diversity and Racism in Canada” looking into people’s perceptions of race to highlight what the population truly thinks of diversity.

Canadians tend to feel pride from living in such a diverse country:

Most respondents from across the country think that diversity is ultimately a good thing — 85 per cent of people agree that Canada is a better country because of how racially diverse its population is.

There is a big caveat to this, however, in that many others experience Canada in a less rosy light.

One-third of respondents think that “Canada is a racist country.” Of these respondents, 42 per cent are visible minorities and 54 per cent are women under the age of 35. Meanwhile, three-quarters of respondents over the age of 55 don’t think Canada is a racist country.

Some respondents, including 54 per cent of Albertans and 57 per cent of Saskatchewanians, say that exaggerating discrimination is a larger problem than not seeing it where it does exist. However, 44 per cent of Saskatchewanians agree that Canada is a racist country.

Then there is this sobering result:

Though the majority of respondents say they feel “warm” towards visible minorities (specifically those who are Black, East Asian, South Asian and/or Muslim), Muslim people received the highest amount of “cold” feelings. A quarter of respondents say they feel “cold” towards Muslims, with 42 per cent of men age 55 and older and 37 per cent of Quebecers feeling this way.

Still, 87 per cent of respondents see all races as equal, while 12 per cent think that some races are superior to others. 

All of which goes to show, there is still much work to be done.  

 

 

 

Correction: "If You Can't Afford To Live, Then Don't Live"

That is the considered opinion of Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn, as he responds to the Supreme Court ruling upholding The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

America the beautiful, eh?

CORRECTION: Well, this is embarrassing. For all my talk and writing about critical thinking, I did not verify the source of this before posting. As John B. in his comment below rightly guessed, this is satire. There is no excuse for me having made this error. Confirmation bias is a very real thing.

A Look In The Mirror

 

There is a scene in the 1960 movie, Inherit the Wind, (about the Scopes Monkey Trial) where Spencer Tracey and Frederic March, courtroom adversaries, discuss faith. March insists it is necessary for the masses to believe in something beautiful; it makes their lives more palatable. Tracy counters with a story about his childhood yearning for Golden Dancer, a rocking horse he had long coveted in a store window. With much scrimping and saving by his parents, he awoke one morning to find it at the base of his bed.

But the story does not have a happy ending. The first time he rode it, it fell apart, so poorly constructed was it, "put together with spit and sealing wax. All shine and no substance."  This story relates to the ignorance and bigotry that hides behind great displays of religiosity, as evident in a previous scene, and is a major subtext of the entire film as science, in the form of evolution, confronts biblical literalism.

That got me thinking about the power of myth, both for good and ill, which brought me around to the often destructive influence of national myths, ones that are foundational to how people see their countries and themselves. Some are obviously destructive, such as American exceptionalism and the belief in the United States as a land of unparalleled opportunity, where anyone can become anything.

Then there are those that suggest something good, like Canada being an accepting, tolerant land that welcomes all and treats everyone well. As recent events have shown, we can no longer accept such anodyne myths as approximations of truth. They conceal too much ugly reality.

Consider, for example, this:

Before the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found in British Columbia last month, two-thirds of Canadians say, they knew a little or nothing about the history of this country’s residential school system.

It’s one of the findings in a survey commissioned by the Canadian Race Relation Foundation and the Assembly of First Nations.

They polled Canadians the week after the discovery at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., was announced.

For many Canadians, it seems to have been a moment of shattered ignorance.

As Tom Parkin reports, ignoring reality was at the forefront of Jagmeet Singh's recent angry speech in the House of Commons, prompted both by the unmarked Indigenous graves and the horror that took place in London, Ontario.

“Some people have said, ‘This is not our Canada,’ ” Singh told MPs.

“But the reality is, this is our Canada. We can’t deny it. We can’t reject that, because it does no one any help. The reality is: Our Canada is a place of racism, of violence, of genocide of Indigenous people.”

Singh may be sensing a widespread mood. In an opinion poll Leger released last week, 57 per cent of Canadians said the Kamloops graves made them “question the whole moral foundation that Canada has been based on.”

Parkin says this is not a message that Canada's political and business leaders will take kindly to or promote.

The deaths and burials at residential schools were known by Indigenous families, but news media didn’t tell those stories. Nor is the frustration with ongoing racism, and fear of violent racists, new in Canada. Many Canadians live with both every day.

These are the experiences of what political science calls the “subaltern” classes of society — groups who have no say and no command in politics or business. And they certainly don’t decide the meaning of their country. Not usually, anyway.

Subaltern society is divided into identities, each pushed to the margins of political discourse, isolated from each other, and without the common networks, culture, or political language to tell a common and unifying story. That now seems to be changing.

“This is our Canada” isn’t just a demand to look objectively at Canada’s past; it’s a call to disparate people to find a new moral basis for their country. 

And it is also a call for all of us to take a good, long look in the mirror.

Confronting Reality

The other day, I posted my thoughts on the inadequacy of the term Islamophobia, opining that it seems almost euphemistic; it fails to baldly unveil what it really means: prejudice, bias and hatred against Muslims.

Toronto Star reporter Noor Javed, writing from a deeply personal perspective, offers a much better descriptor: anti-Muslim hate, a reality she has experienced throughout her life and whose incidence

have weighed down on me over the years. They have affected the career choices I have made. They have impacted my mental health. They have deeply hurt me — and still do.

When I tried to list all the incidents of hate that I have experienced since I became a journalist — both in my job and on a day-to-day basis — I hit 30 before I stopped. I could have gone on.

When I got my first barrage of hate mail as an intern at the Star 15 years ago, and turned to a colleague for support, he looked at my hijab and said: if you want to survive, you will need to have Teflon-like skin. Let the hate bounce off you. Don’t let it stick.

But the truth is, even when you tell yourself it doesn’t impact you, it still does.

Every email in your inbox with someone telling you they hate you because of your hijab.

Every letter calling you a “dirty raghead.”

Every tweet telling you to go back to where you came from.

Every person who walks by and whispers “You’re disgusting.”

Every smear campaign calling you a terrorist.

Every time someone doubts your news judgment because you are a “lying Muslim.”

Every time someone asks if you were a token hire. 

While we may not be able to fully appreciate the toll such incidents take on people, it might be useful to remember times in our own lives when we have been treated with even a small amount of unkindness. At the time of the event, our heartrates might have become elevated, our cortisol levels increased, our feelings hurt. Perhaps it becomes an indelible memory. And as much as we might rationalize a cutting comment or exclusion as being a reflection on the perpetrator, not the victim, we hardly escape unscathed. 

It is much worse for Muslims (and I am sure other visible minorities):

You look for ways to cope. But the hate slowly chips away at you and at the idea that we have been so conditioned to believe: How can this be happening here in Canada, the most accepting country in the world?

Let me tell you: It’s been happening for years. The hate is not new. And neither is the violence.

But the haters have gotten more brazen. More hateful. More organized. More dangerous.

So when the Afzaal family was killed for just being Muslim this week, it broke me.

Years of online hate, of politicians benefiting from anti-Muslim policies, of pundits spewing anti-Muslim rhetoric, of trolls questioning if our pain was even real, has done exactly what it was meant to. It turned people against us. It has led them to hate us so much that they want us dead. 

One hopes that writing the article provided a measure of catharsis for Noor Javed. But catharsis is not remediation. That is a responsibility all of us must shoulder.

 

Thought For The Day

 

H/t Theo Moudakis

UPDATED: There Must Be A Better Word

The word phobia generally connotes an irrational fear of something. A definition of the term from a mental health perspective tells us it is

a type of anxiety disorder that is characterized by extreme and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, or creature (usually insects) which is usually not dangerous. A person does not need to have direct contact with the thing they’re afraid of to experience symptoms. Even thinking about it can bring on anxiety or panic symptoms. 

Phobias run the gamut from agoraphobia (fear of open spaces or crowds) to xenophobia (fear of strangers or foreigners) to zoophobia (fear of animals). All of these definitions have one thing in common: fear or social anxiety, a form of mental illness.

And that is why the term islamophobia, even though it goes beyond fear of Muslims or Islam to include hatred of, and prejudice against, them, seems wholly inadequate, especially in light of the recent horrifying events that unfolded in London, Ontario. It is almost as if the word is a euphemism for something much darker.

It is time to confront the fact that Canadians are not exempt from the racism that has long afflicted the United States, racism reflected in the residential school system our country embraced for so long, racism that is sadly evident in the ongoing crimes against minorities, not the least of whom are Muslims.

In her searing column today, Susan Delacourt calls out federal leaders for refusing denounce the anti-Islamic nature of Quebec's Bill-21, which prohibits the wearing of religious garb for anyone who seeks to hold a public service job. This, while these same federal leaders offer expressions of sympathy and solidarity with the Muslim community. What credibility, for example, does Erin O'Toole have when his party during the 2015 election campaign promised the infamous snitch line for "barbaric cultural practices," a dog-whistle if there ever was one?

But the most damning indictment of Canadian racism comes in this story:

Jeff Bennett, who ran for the PCs in the 2014 election, recounted in a Facebook post how people in his riding were happy to see that he had replaced the former candidate, a man named Ali Chahbar. Loyal Conservatives in London told Bennett they were relieved that “his name was English and his skin was white.” Bennett remembered how Chahbar had been smeared on local talk radio with talk of sharia law and other nonsense.

Bennett wrote that he was tired of people saying London was better than what happened on Sunday. “Bullshit. I knocked on thousands of doors in the very neighbourhood this atrocity occurred. This terrorist may have been alone in that truck on that day, but he was not acting alone. He was raised in a racist city that pretends it isn’t.”

Bennett came in second in London West in 2014 and has likely abandoned any aspirations to be elected again, given his willingness to tell voters what they don’t want to hear about themselves.

Being willing and able to confront unpalatable truths about ourselves will not rid us of those truths, But, in the long road toward a better society, it has to be the first step.

UPDATE: The following, by David Doel of The Rational National, offers a wider landscape upon which to view Canada's racism:

A Clear Threat To The World

I know that I probably allot an inordinate amount of space on this blog to the United States. I wish it were otherwise, but the fact that they are the most powerful nation on earth and that we live next store to this dysfunctional giant means what happens there potentially affects not only us but the entire world.

And that giant is in real danger of becoming another failed democracy, with consequences we shudder to contemplate.

Edward Keenan writes:

The New America organization this week published a “statement of concern” signed by more than 100 democratic scholars from universities across the country. They wrote: “Our entire democracy is now at risk.”

After “unproven and intentionally destructive” allegations about the 2020 election being stolen, they wrote, the Republican party governing many states is undertaking changes to core election procedures, a transformation that will mean they “no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections.”

The threats come from former Trump flunkies like Michael Flynn, who

had to walk back comments he made this week at a Trump-supporting conspiracy conference in Dallas, Texas, in which he appeared to agree with a suggestion that a Mynamar-style coup in the U.S. should return Trump to office. 

Meanwhile, at an “America First” rally in Dalton, Georgia last week Rep. Matt Gaetz said the second amendment protects the right to bear arms specifically to allow citizens “the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government if that becomes necessary.”

At the state level, the inmates appear to be running the asylum. While not openly calling for insurrection, they are doing their utmost to ensure that democratic choice becomes just a sad joke, as they

have still embraced the lie of widespread fraud and are pushing legislation to ensure fewer Democratic supporters can vote next time around — and that Republican state legislatures can overturn the results if they do.

The most recent battle on this front is in Texas, where a bill from the Republican governor would limit forms of voting popular with Black and young voters. That measure was blocked when the Democratic minority refused to provide quorum at the end of a legislative session last week, but will return, the governor promises, in a special session later this year. Fourteen other Republican-controlled states have already passed laws this year to limit voting access, and more are proposed. Many such measures also make it easier for legislatures to overrule voters in assigning electoral college votes, as Trump urged them to do in 2020.

In short, Trump and his supporters are still fighting to overturn the last election, and Republican legislators appear to be fixing things to ensure he (or his successor) cannot lose the next one. 

Democracy has always been a fragile construct. In their lust for power, Republicans now appear ready, willing and able to obliterate it.

 

 

 

 

Toxic Nation

Recent events here have served to amply remind all of us that, as Canadians, we do not walk on the side of the angels. However, events south of the border serve as yet another reminder that the United States is a toxic nation that all of us would do well to avoid.

Some will find the language in the following offensive, but I think you will agree that the courier doing the videoing had ample provocation.

Here is the context for what ensues:

@lostsoulcollective

John’ asks me to show I.D. while I’m delivering Narcan in Pacific Heights

For those who don’t know it’s reputation, pac heights is one of the most affluent, snobby, and white neighborhoods in San Francisco. It’s a neighborhood of old money, unlike the heavily gentrified neighborhoods where new tech money has displaced historically black and brown communities. Everyone who grew up here knows that There is an invisible line drawn on the corner of Fillmore and Sutter that separates pac heights from uptown Fillmore, a line which I rarely care to cross(because this type of thing is a common occurrence in my everyday life). On this particular day I found myself on the wrong side of the line. I was doing a Narcan delivery (for the @the.d.o.p.e.project ) to the 2200 block of Clay street when a man called out to me from a 3rd story window. He asked me what I was doing, and I replied my job. He asked me who I worked for and I told him to mind his business. He then followed me to the halfway house I was delivering to and stood in my way as I tried to leave. I’ve never seen this guy before in my life. I posed no threat to his safety or his property. He threatened to call the cops on me, and after I talked some shit to him he admitted that it was an empty threat. He explained that things have come up missing in the neighborhood, so it must have been me who stole his shit. I’m guessing that in his mind I had no right to be walking down his street, and I must be looking for something to steal. I have a strong feeling that he wouldn’t have harassed me of I was of a lighter complexion, but this is an everyday thing when you’re a man of color living in America. #alwayscarrynarcan #narcansaveslives #harmreductionsaveslives #narcan @harmreductioncoalition

A Very Brave Young Lady

The following explains why:

Lake Highlands High School valedictorian Paxton Smith is going viral for a commencement speech she gave to her graduating class. She ditched her initial, pre-approved speech for one that discusses her feelings about abortion rights in Texas.