Fraud Fest in Waterloo Region

Catherine Fife and Debbie Chapman speaking to protesters.

It feels like we turned a dark corner in Ontario. In my hometown in particular. 

Doug Ford came to K-W to be greeted by tons of protesters including overt representation from ETFO, OSSTF, OECTA, CUPE, OBSCU, Liberals, Greens, and, of course, the NDP, which is very strong in the region. Faculty from UW, Laurier, and Conestoga College were all there, along with tons of educators. The Ontario Health Coalition the Waterloo Region Labour Council and the Environmental Defence all played a part in organizing it or advertising it. Tons of healthcare professionals were there and environmental groups and housing groups and ODSP advocates. 

Premier Ford had this exchange (0:55-1:28) with educator Ramzi Abdi,

Ford: I look at all the supporters in here. I don't worry about people being bussed in all over the place to demonstrate. [as if his opposition doesn't come from the region]

Abdi: All Ontarians too.

Ford: Absolutely, and I'll take care of them. [vaguely threatening?]

Abdi: You should do a better job of taking care of Ontarians.

Ford: We're doing a good job

Abdi: You're not doing a good job, my friend. Our schools are underfunded. Our hospitals are underfunded. You need to do a better job.

Ford: Guess what, we do, my friend. 

Abdi: I understand you think you're trying to do your best, but I know there are people in Ontario who are suffering. There are students in Ontario who are suffering.

Ford: There are people that need homes, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm building homes.

Mohawk Institute: the "Mushhole"

My class toured this historical "museum of conscience" with a survivor of the school as a guide. It operated as a residential school from 1828 to 1970. We weren't in the original building because it had been burned down and rebuilt twice. Some schools were burnt down and not rebuilt, choosing instead to ship the inhabitants elsewhere. This site persisted. The roof leaks now, so there was water damage, but Wynne promised some funds to help restore the building. They plan to furnish the empty rooms the way they were when it was operational.

There's part of me that so loves old buildings that I can divorce myself from their history enough to notice the trim work, carved pillars, and tin ceilings marred by fluorescent lights. I would gladly offer my labour to restore it, but it smelled like they might have a mould problem from the water damage that would require a professional to clean.

There was too much to see and discuss in one short visit. I suggested to my class that maybe the institute could make it an overnight trip once they have beds and desks. Then tour groups could experience sleeping in an open room with nothing but mush for breakfast (overcooked oatmeal). But I had no takers keen to spend a night in there. They had a better idea though: an audio headset for self-guided tours using the voices of a variety of survivors discussing their lives as visitors walked through different rooms:

• the front hall where children were dropped off, some with parental expectations of better days, three meals and an education, but others as virtual orphans, not to see their moms again for a decade;
• the intake room where hair was cut and a number tattooed on their little hands, their only ID for their time there; stories of older children telling the younger ones not to forget their real names;
• the dining hall and kitchen with long tables on either side, one for girls and one for boys, all with numbered chairs with siblings separated to keep them from talking their language; 
• the makeshift stage area where a bizarre man in a stuffed red costume showed up one day each year with a small present for everyone, a ruse to indoctrinate them into the Christian church;
• the cupboard under the stairs where children were locked for days with only bread, water, and some salt, in close proximity to the sleeping quarters, all the better for the children to hear the wails of the punished (without any prospect of a Hagrid coming to save the day); 
• the clothes washing room where boys would peek through the windows at the girls;
• the clothes folding room table with numbers carved beneath to show who liked whom (46 + 27) and many romances attempting to blossom without the benefit of enough contact to say hello; 
• the boiler room full of unspeakable tales; 
• the window where children would wait for their parents, day-by-day, every June, with a few still waiting as September rolled around again;
• the grounds where the youngest collected eggs that they rarely got to eat; 
• all liberally peppered with some laughs to ease the tension - stories of digging through the local landfill for boxes of candy with the cellophane broken rendering them unsellable, or the rare treat of being chosen to go mow a lawn or rake some leaves for someone in the city. 

A talk by a younger guide whose grandparents had attended brought a few surprises. Hitler had used the early reservation system and residential schools, solutions to the "Indian problem," as a template for the "Jewish problem" almost a century later. I had no idea. 

But even more thought provoking was being referred to as "you people," as in, "How long have you people been a country now? 160 some years?" That one sentence shifted my thinking considerably. After reading John Ralston Saul's Fair Country and Comeback, I had gotten a lovely impression that Canada is one big family just waiting for us to return what we stole so we can finally see that we're all in this together. But that line made me realize that, for this guide at least, being united under Canada is not an option. She's from North America, not Canada. 

I started understanding it all something like this: It's like if two siblings are sharing a place, and the brother's a jerk to the sister, and the sister gets her own place. It doesn't really matter how much the thoughtless brother apologizes, because it's not just about that. The sister has her own path that's separate - will always be separate - from her brother's path. It was a pipe-dream to think they'd live together forever. They're family, but have always been independent of one another. 

A student was offended by the comment, but I was just saddened by finally getting that we're on parallel paths that won't merge - maybe aren't really meant to merge.

And the day brought a clearer understanding of the intergenerational effects of the schools.  So many studies have found evidence of things like childhood trauma being linked to later drug and alcohol abuse, and moving during early adolescence (when teenagers on reserves are shipped off to high-school) correlating to a higher incidence of suicide. We know that a rough childhood is hard to get over. When both parents grew up restricted from forming bonds with other children, they can struggle to relate to each other much less their children. When it's suggested that people should just forgive and forget the past, just get over it already, it makes no sense to me.

On the Courage to Care

It's snowing in Australia and Alaska is on fire, but what really worries me is some police overstepping the bounds of their authority. Just on my facebook feed today, they've punched a kid with autism, barged in on a naked woman illegally, and provoked or directly caused suicides in jail, and that's on top of all the shootings, chokings, and other unnecessary uses of violence against citizens we've been hearing about over and over.

First of all, Hedges talks about the pivotally necessary moment in revolutions when the guards of the upper class refuse to protect them anymore and, instead, turn around to join the people en masse. I don't see us moving in that direction any time soon. We need the population to be educated on how the current system works against most people, but, more importantly, we need the police (and the army) to be educated as well on their part in this bigger picture.  Hedges tells a story of being arrested at a demonstration and an officer quietly encouraging him to keep fighting as he's taking him away. Always a glimmer of hope somewhere I suppose.

But secondly, we are very likely to experience many crises in the years to come, and we have to maintain an attitude of fearless compassion through to the end.  It all makes me think of Tolstoy's story, The Godson:

In a nutshell, this guy meets his mystical godfather, kills a guy in order to save his own mother, then has to atone for his sins as well as the sins of the man he murdered. The bulk of the story is about this godson trying to figure out how to stop evil in the world, and he discovers he can't stop it by chasing it or using force against it because that just adds more evil to the world in the end. Evil spreads evil. He has to be still and stand firm and make sure his heart is pure and full of compassion, and then offer only love to anyone he meets. And this is all an enormous act of courage (from the word 'heart') because it's hard to stop following the rules we've been trained by, and, once we can do that, it's hard to stop being afraid of one another and to stop acting defensively or aggressively.

It takes great courage to think for ourselves and to care about everyone else.

In class once I was discussing all the different aspects of environmental and labour injustices in the clothing industry to try to clarify the complexity of these types of issues, and I illustrated it on the board with stick figures as I spoke. Then I solicited any solutions for each of the problems no matter how idealistic. And when I got to "get a PM who will stand firm against child slavery and sweatshops," I drew an androgynous figure with giant balls of steel.

In my classroom, I have an 8 by 10 glossy of Harper, which his staff sent to me after I sent numerous letters. It's like he's Justin Bieber, and a fan wrote to complain about a song lyric - all he sees and cares about is that someone listened to him. We need leaders who listen to the people, and have the courage to be principled even if it means lasting one-term only.

And when the leaders fail us, we need more of that First Nations spirit that refuses to tippy-toe around issues and flat-out demands justice, and we need to do it without resorting to attacking one another.

Of course we can ensure there are strict consequences against each individual officer who chooses to overstep his/er rights while serving and protecting us (just like we can shut down the tar sands and ban water bottles). This is all possible if we have the courage to demand it relentlessly.

On Flag Waving

The twin-cities, Kitchener and Waterloo, have both decided to put a rainbow flag inside city hall for the duration of the Olympics rather than fly one outside the building.

From The Record:

[Coun. Frank] Etherington [who proposed the motion] was critical of the city's flag solution. "My argument was (putting the flag inside) in no way was as good as a very open, very public demonstration of the city's support for gay athletes and to protest the Russian laws which discriminate," he said. "There's no comparison between the two (flag options) … one tucked away inside the rotunda and the other flying."

Many cities have decided to fly the flag outside their city hall including Ottawa, Edmonton, Montreal, Guelph, Hamilton, and, yes, even Toronto has a flag on a "courtesy flagpole" outside city hall despite Ford's protests.

Some Mayors, like Ottawa's Jim Watson, "ordered the pride flag raised immediately."

But not us.

I'd like to address one type of comment in support of K-W's position runs along the lines of, "But the Canadian flag already supports being inclusive.  That's all we need."  Some see our flag as representative of the Charter even though the flag came out in 1965 and the Charter in 1982.

The flag is a symbol of Canada, and Canada is not inclusive.  We need to acknowledge that fact and a few raised flags might be a symbol of our effort to develop that myth of inclusivity into a reality.  I'd like to go further than the Olympic issue to see at least three flags raised until no longer necessary, until we've proven ourselves in the eyes of the excluded:

1.  The Rainbow/Pride Flag.  We just put a transgender woman in a male prison cell.  We still have way too many LGBTQ teenagers committing or attempting suicide because they can't take the bullying - much of which happens in our public school systems.  We are so much better than many countries on this front, legalizing gay marriage nine whole years ago.  But being better than some, doesn't make the slip-ups any more acceptable.  We're still working on this one even if we like to think we're done.

2.  First Nation Flags.  Do I have to say anything about the unbelievable treatment of First Nation peoples in Canada?  About the schools being inequitable even though it's right in the Constitution Act of 1982, Part III (the charter is Part I),  that Parliament and the legislatures are committed to...

"(a) promoting equal opportunities for the well-being of Canadians; (b) furthering economic development to reduce disparity in opportunities; and (c) providing essential public services of reasonable quality to all Canadians."

People often call on residential schools as the main indicator of Canada's poor treatment of the First Nations, then respond to their own concern with, "But that's all over now.  It's all in the past."  Straw man much?   We haven't stopped discriminating.  If we can't take the land, we'll use it as a garbage dump.  On it goes.  Blarg.

3.  Anti-Slavery Flags.  I'm not sure how to word this one, or what kind of flag to encourage, but we haven't stopped using slaves to do our work, we've just outsourced them to other countries.  We benefit from the work of teenagers working over 60 hours a week for token pay in China so we can have cheap products here.  We turn a blind eye to actual slavery, just as bad or worse as anything that happened in 12 Years a Slave, on cocao plantations so we can eat cheap chocolate.  Until we refuse to support slavery conditions worldwide, I can't understand how we can call ourselves inclusive.  Inclusive shouldn't be allowed to mean, "We'll be nice to you and give you equal rights and all if you're on our soil, but otherwise we'll totally screw you over for our own benefit. "

No, Canada is neither inclusive nor equitable.  I think we're trying, though.  And I hope that the one good thing Harper's government is doing is helping us find one another, find the marginalized and supporters among us who are willing to rally for real change.  Something like that.

A Little Hope is Effective...

A lot of hope is dangerous. - President Snow

This may be a little hokey, but I think Catching Fire is an important film to see right now.

And it's awesome!

I read the books ages ago, but even though I know how they each end, it didn't stop me from being on the edge of my seat.  And I was surprised by how inspirational I found the film to be.

Grist relates how the books chronicle what happens after climate change destroys the world and makes for scarce resources for the survivors to fight over.  We have a really interesting crisis to overcome for our time.  It's not us against the state - not just us against the state - but against our own conveniences.  Not enough of us have the foresight to vote out politicians who are supporting the pipelines.  That's one problem.  But a bigger one is that too many of us are sliding into complacency.

Can Animals Provoke Action?

Whenever I talk about atrocities around the world in class - slavery, oil spills, and the like, and I get the class to talk about what bothers them most or what most influences them to change, or get them to do a project on it, a good 70% of the class will focus on animals.  That could be in part to distance themselves from the effect all this has on people, but I think it's more likely that it because we actually care more about animals than people.   Animals are innocent, and people often suck.

via Forbes

In one class I showed real film footage of a 12-year-old girl being saved from almost being manipulated into prostitution slavery in the Ivory Coast, and footage of young girls working 16-hour days in factories in China.  How do we help kids like this?  Do boycotts work?  Does letter-writing work?  And the student response in that particular class was, more or less, "It's their own fault for being taken in by scams.  We shouldn't do anything to help them."  The class wasn't malicious, just so immersed in information about scams they can't imagine otherwise, and they're self-protecting by victim blaming.