Confronting Our Past: Gabor Mate Speaks

Like many blogs, mine is largely informed by the thoughts of others. To be sure, I try to make it my practice to shape and filter things through my own perspective and commentary, but on this Canada Day I reproduce in its entirety a piece by Gabor Mate in which he talks about confronting our deeply troubled past.

For Canadians to be truly strong and free, we must come to terms with our grim past

I was 13 in 1957 when, along with nearly 38,000 fellow Hungarians, refugees from a brutal Stalinist dictatorship, my family and I were welcomed with open arms by Canada. The North really seemed true and strong and free. What I didn’t know and what no one was speaking of was that in the same year, even as we were adjusting to life in British Columbia, not far from where I lived a 4-year-old First Nation child had a pin stuck in her tongue on her first day at residential school.

Her crime had been to speak her Native language in the classroom. For an hour this little girl could not put her tongue back in her mouth for fear of cutting her lips. Soon after, years of sexual abuse began. By age 9 the child was an alcoholic and later became dependent on opiates to soothe her pain. We met at a healing ceremony not long ago. Now a grandmother and years sober, she grieves to see her grandchildren suffer the throes of addiction. For her there was no true North, strong and free. Nor is there yet.

There is also no free North for the 30 per cent of Canada’s jail population that is of First Nations origin, six times their proportion in the general population. The nature of trauma being multi-generational, parents transmit their wounds and dysfunctions onto their children. Barring some healing, violence, illness and addictions follow. Very little in Canadian culture has encouraged the necessary collective healing, and there is much to inhibit it.

The depth of our capacity for denial is well-nigh unfathomable. The recently “discovered” makeshift graves near residential school sites in British Columbia and Saskatchewan are too-perfect metaphors for the truths so many of us have buried deep out of sight, mind, and heart. I use quote marks because such atrocities have long been well-known lore in Indigenous communities and etched in the historical record.

In a recent survey two thirds of Canadians owned that they knew little or nothing about the residential schools. This bespeaks not individual ill will, deliberate unawareness, or necessarily, bigotry, but systemic and structural denial on a vast scale. Any colonial system must continue to obscure he history of the Indigenous people whose people it murdered, whose culture it nearly extirpated and whose lands and resources it continues to crave. Hence the litany of broken promises to our First Nations by politicians of all hues. We have apologized to our Japanese citizens for depriving them of their property during World War II, a case of legalized larceny; but though we have apologized, too, for the residential school system, we have not yet begun to acknowledge the despoliation of Native resources because we have not yet stopped practicing it.

Emotionally, it is difficult for human beings, individually and even more so in groups, to have their cherished identities questioned. Facing the brutal realities of our history challenges mainstream Canadian self-concepts of kindness, fairness, and humanity. It can feel threatening to open oneself to disillusionment. Waking up to how things are may be extremely painful.

Painful, and mandatory. No society can understand itself nor collectively heal itself without looking at its shadow side. The shedding of illusions, though scary, is a move toward personal and collective healing. There are encouraging signs that the recent dreadful revelations will wake us up to what we, as a country, have wrought. It’s not a matter of guilt but of responsibility to ourselves, to one another, and to the generations to follow. If we are to have meaningful Canada Days in the future we have to come to terms with our past, and with its ongoing resonances in the present in the form of institutional racism in all aspects of society, from the educational system to policing, from health care through the legal apparatus to the realms of economy and politics.

The freshly identified graves of little innocents can jog us into the genuine strength and freedom that honesty bestows and healing demands. We face the challenge and the opportunity of building a North strong enough to face what’s true, and freer for it. We will be amazed, too, when we open ourselves to being informed by the transformative power of the wisdom traditions, healing practices, Earth consciousness and cultural resilience that helped First Nations peoples survive and surmount the unspeakable.

The bestselling author of four books translated into nearly thirty languages, Gabor Maté is a retired Vancouver physician and a member of the Order of Canada. His next work, The Myth Of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, will be published in 2022.

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.