Happy Canada Day

Things I miss about Canada:

1. ketchup chips

2. French

3. poutine (like real poutine, none of this grated mozzarella nonsense)

4. Canadian currency (why Americans make fun of Canadian currency is beyond me. It’s beautiful, colourful, the bills are easier to distinguish, coins are more convenient than $1 bills and I will fight anyone who says otherwise, and it’s plastic to it’s basically indestructible.)

5. hockey (both the sport and the fact that I can watch it on regular cable)

6. national elections that don’t last more than a few months

7. diversity (in my [anecdotal, regionally-specific] experience cultural diversity is celebrated more north of the border [though things are far from perfect])

8. Heritage Minutes (and quoting Heritage Minutes with people who get the reference and don’t just think I’m nuts – “But I’m sure he means the houses, the village!”)

9. the quintessentially Canadian music and comedy

10. Montreal bagels (New York bagels? Please.)

PEI Makes History – Twice

The Prince Edward Island provincial elections were held yesterday and they were far more exciting than anyone was expecting. I listened to the results coming in via CBC PEI and it was announced at 8:45 pm AST that they would not turn to hockey as originally scheduled as the election results were still far from conclusive. They also commented that this was the closest election in recent memory.

In the end, the Island made history twice over. First, PEI elected its first ever openly gay premier which makes it only the second province in Canada to elect an openly LGBTQ leader. People like to mock the Island for being backwards but such insults rest on increasingly shaky ground. Not only did Islanders elect a gay man as their leader, but his sexual orientation was essentially a non-issue.

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Second, for only the second time a third party has gained a seat in the provincial legislature, and for the first time that seat is held by the Green Party. Peter Bevan-Baker, leader of the PEI Green Party, was elected in a landslide district vote following an obviously successful campaign.

Other take-aways:

Many races were very close. Several districts were won by less than 100 votes with one district electing their representative by a mere TWO votes. I expect there will be a recount in that district so that number may change but the sentiment that I expressed via Twitter last night remains valid.

https://twitter.com/m_handrahan/status/595380480016515072

Having said that, I’m not really sure who I’m yelling at in that Tweet because PEI had its highest voter turnout since 1986 with 86.7% of eligible voters casting ballot.

The NDP ran a remarkably close race in District 14 (which happens to be my district) only to lose to the incumbent Liberal at the last moment when the advanced poll results were announced. For a long time it was looking like PEI would have all four colours represented in the legislature but that ultimately did not come to pass.

The PC Party made gains but their leader failed to secure his district. He will likely ask for a recount since he lost by only 24 votes but even if the results are overturned, the PC Party is almost certainly feeling that that contest was too close for comfort. And if the count stands, the Progressive Conservatives need a new leader.

Despite the fact that the Liberals maintain a majority government, the election results seem to suggest that Islanders sought change.

Female politicians didn’t make many gains this time around. Of the 31 women who ran only five were elected which means that the female presence in the provincial legislature is down by one.

People are already talking about proportional representation (which is nothing new). The new premier has hinted that electoral reform may be on his new government’s agenda and pro-proportional representation graphics are already hitting social media. We’ll have to wait and see if this discussion goes anywhere.

Majority of Island Voters Elect No One!
PR would deliver: Liberals 11, PCs 10, NDP 3 and Greens 3 #peipoli #peivotes pic.twitter.com/wHaU3DTSt7

— Fair Vote Canada 🗳 (@FairVoteCanada) May 5, 2015

That’s the story of the PEI provincial election in a nutshell. I’d like to end on this note – how awkward is this handshake??

Congrats to @WadePEILiberal! Wade will continue to serve as a strong voice for Islanders in the years ahead. pic.twitter.com/nSwUFBg5w1

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) May 5, 2015

There’s No Place Like Home

After taking last week off to spend time with one of my best friends it’s time to get back online and figure out what I missed.

I’ll be starting with an article by John Ibbitson for The Globe and Mail called “How the Maritimes became Canada’s incredible shrinking region.” It’s been shared widely on my social media and for good reason. It’s a brief but interesting and important analysis of the economic situation in the Maritimes; a subject very near and dear to my heart and the hearts of my fellow Islanders. I’ll post something more in-depth later when I’ve had time to really delve into it but the overall sentiment described by the young woman Ibbitson interviewed resonated with me immediately. She described a strong desire to stay on Prince Edward Island but felt that she had no future there. I know so many people of my generation who feel that way. In fact, it’s exactly how I feel.

I love my little province immensely and though I’ve lived in several different places since leaving in 2007, it will always be home and I want so badly to see it prosper. Which is why I’m looking forward to doing some serious reading and thinking about it. In the meantime, check out where I’m from (and yes, it’s ok to be jealous).

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The Book of Negroes: An Excellent Mini-Series and A Reckoning for Canadians

This evening I watched the final two episodes of The Book of Negroes mini-series BET. In another blog post I mentioned that I have read the book and I provided a brief plot summary so I’ll refrain from repeating myself here. Instead, I’ll focus on the significance of the story itself. The mini-series was very well done, the acting was wonderful especially by Aunjuane Ellis and the screenplay was quite faithful to its source material.

Having said all that, the thing I like most about both the novel and the mini-series is that it highlights a relatively obscure slice of history and provides a much-needed reality check to my fellow Canadians. I have found that as a country we can be somewhat smug on the topic of slavery. Though it is true that Canada does not share the same history with slavery as its southern neighbour, we routinely fail to recognize that our hands are by no means clean. Slavery was in fact practiced in new France and some early, prominent Canadians, including the founder of my alma mater, owned slaves. Yet this history is typically glossed over in Canadian classrooms. I recall learning about Canada as a promised land for slaves who arrived there via the underground railroad but never learning about the less savoury aspects of my country’s relationship with slavery.

To a certain extent, The Book of Negroes corrects that wrong. When the main character Aminata leaves the United States to settle as a free woman in Nova Scotia she finds that the “promised land” is not all that she and her fellow Black Loyalists expected. Though they may have been free from de jure binds of slavery, they remained second-class citizens in Canada by de facto forms of disenfranchisement, discrimination, and racism. Indentured servitude was common, few owned property, and hunger was rampant. The Book of Negroes depicts the white Birchtown population as being generally hostile to the newcomers and suggests that there was little opportunity for economic prosperity or justice in the British colony.

Though it is a fictionalized account of this history, The Book of Negroes nevertheless offers an important reminder for Canadians like myself that while we may not have the same history as the United States but we are not innocent. Deep, systemic racism existed then and exists now. The Book of Negroes acknowledges this fact beautifully and hopefully this well-crafted mini-series will awaken that consciousness within Canadians.

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More On Language (And Less On PC-Culture)

Several years ago I read a fantastic book by Canadian author Lawrence Hill called The Book of Negroes. The book is about a woman named Aminata who is kidnapped from her home in West Africa and sold into slavery in the United States. When the Revolutionary War breaks out, she escapes captivity and helps the British by serving as a midwife and teacher during the war. As a reward for her service, Aminata is granted safe passage to Canada and settles in Nova Scotia as a free woman. Her story continues as she faces discrimination and various forms of hardship in her new country, attempts to reunite with her daughter and husband, and eventually returns to West Africa in search of her home.

The title of the book is derived from an actual historical document called “The Book of Negroes.” It was a book in which the British documented the names of the 3,000 so-called “Black Loyalists” – slaves who fought for the British during the American Revolutionary War and were subsequently resettled in Nova Scotia. It’s a fascinating and little known slice of history that is honoured in Hill’s book.

As I mentioned, I read the book several years ago but only recently learned that it has a different title in the US. Instead of The Book of Negroes it is called Someone Knows My Name. Apparently Hill’s American publisher was concerned about releasing a book with the word “Negro” in the title and so it was re-branded for American consumption. If there was ever a time to rage against PC-culture now would be it. In a recent article, however, Hill resists this temptation. Though he is likely confused and a little bothered by the name change (again, Hill didn’t invent “The Book of Negroes” it is an artifact of its time and central to the story he is telling) I was so impressed by his recent article in Slate where instead of lambasting whatever “political correctness” stripped his book of its intended title, he did something much more compelling and infinitely more satisfying. He asked the following: What is it with the word Negroes? How has it come to be so incendiary?

What followed was an overview of the history of the word, a discussion of how its meaning has shifted over the years and across contexts, and a look into the debate over whether the word should be condemned or embraced by the contemporary black community. As someone who believes in the power of language – coincidentally I had just written about that very topic – I was so interested by this article and enjoyed its nuanced take on how a single word can provoke different reactions.

A second thing I appreciate about the article. When it was first published, the article was titled “What I Learned About PC Culture When I Titled My Novel The Book Of Negroes.” I wasn’t a fan of the title.

https://twitter.com/m_handrahan/status/566268183305125888

https://twitter.com/m_handrahan/status/566268545021919232

So of course I was really pleased to see that Slate later changed the title. I have no idea why they did (maybe others felt similarly?) but it doesn’t matter. The new title is a much better reflection of the article’s content and I’m glad the correction was made.

https://twitter.com/m_handrahan/status/567333337664999424

I won’t re-hash the article here as I am not qualified to add anything to Hill’s discussion of the history and significance associated with the word “Negro.” But I urge you all to read it for yourselves. Trust me, it will be a much more enriching experience than yelling at each other online about “PC culture.”

The Deep Politics of Words

It’s been a couple of weeks since Jonathan Chait published his controversial and much-discussed piece “Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say” in New York Magazine. I read it – twice – and had many thoughts about it, many of which were contradictory. At the time I thought about writing a response to it but there was so much Internet noise related to the article – either blasting it or praising it – that it felt like a needless exercise. The TL;DR version of what I would have written would read something like this: I think Chait is touching on something that exists but I am not sufficiently convinced by his piece. The examples he offered weren’t very compelling to me and his meandering argument was not satisfying. I did feel, however, that there is truth buried deep in his article and I wish had been more thoughtfully teased out.

As someone who spends a lot of time (too much time) on social media I can assure you there is tons of outrage. It’s daily, it’s constant, and it’s exhausting. Determining if it’s legitimate is much trickier though. To underscore this point Slate curated a list of daily outrages for the year 2014 and it ranges from “righteous fury to faux indignation.” Many of the examples feel like moments when the benefit of the doubt could have been extended and you can’t help but feel a bit sorry for the well-meaning person being skewered by strangers on the Internet for an accidental slip of the tongue. But there are plenty of other instances where the outrage feels justified. While the 24-hour news cycle and the rise of social media can sometimes be unnecessarily unforgiving, they have also brought to light subtle but harmful examples of sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination that are seeped into the foundation of society. Finding the balance between these two poles is difficult and as someone who finds themselves in the space between the careless Chait argument and the virulent responses to his article I am glad that a debate  is happening because it is an important one to have.

Although the Internet is frequently outraged for any number of political and social reasons, often the specific dispute between the proponents and skeptics of “political correctness” is focused on language. As tense as the debate can be it’s a meaningful conversation to have because language is deeply political. If you don’t believe me, please go live in Quebec. I loved living in Montreal, I love French and am proud to be bilingual, but you can’t live there and not notice how political the relationship between Anglophones-Francophones can be. You can’t live there and walk away thinking that language doesn’t matter.

If you’re still not convinced, take a look at a recent University of Michigan initiative. The University is spending $16,000 on an “Inclusive Language Campaign” which, as MLive reports, is “an awareness program to help students be more aware of the fact that different groups around campus interpret words and phrases differently.” In recognizing the diversity of the campus, the campaign hopes to acknowledge the power of words and discourage students from using language like “fag” or “retarded” or “ghetto.” I like the initiative. In the past I have been guilty of using such words thoughtlessly and have made an effort to stop. Finding alternative language is not only more respectful it’s also, quite frankly, not that difficult. But of course, the comment section of the article is riddled with complaints that kids these days should grow a thicker skin, this is tantamount to thought policing etc.

It’s easy to dismiss this type of initiative on the basis that it’s “PC language/thought policing” but really it’s about recognizing that language matters. The campaign does not suggest or introduce mechanisms to punish use of specific language and I don’t buy into a slippery slope argument in this case. While I am wary of overdoing the outrage, there is outrage on both sides of the “PC-language” divide. Plus, I think acknowledging the power of language is valuable. How you describe people and situations says more about you and your prejudices than it does about what you are trying to describe. Asking people to think before they speak isn’t about stifling speech, it’s about encouraging empathy.

GO CANADA GO!

Only 5 hours until the puck drops for the gold medal game the 2015 World Juniors hockey tournament. There are few things more exciting, thrilling, and stressful than watching Team Canada play for hockey gold*. The great thing about the World Juniors is that, unlike the Winter Olympics, they happen every year. Unfortunately, for the past several years Team Canada has failed to win gold (and a few years even advance to the finals) which has been a sore disappoint for me and my countrymen.

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But not this year. This year we are playing for gold against the big, bad Russians**. I am simultaneously exhilarated and terrified. We’re playing on home turf so we HAVE to win. I’m schlepping to what is sure to be a deserted bar in bad weather because I don’t get the NHL Network with my cable package (why can’t Americans care more about hockey?!) so we HAVE to win. We have Connor The-New-Sidney-Crosby McDavid so we HAVE to win. We have Curtis PEW-PEW-PEW Lazar so we HAVE to win. We have Tie Domi’s offspring to we HAVE to win.

Honestly, we have to win because to lose (especially to the Russians!) would break my heart.

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So let’s go boys. Get ‘er done. Get pucks to the net, get bodies to the net. [Other Canadian hockey cliches.]

GO CANADA GO!

*Except for maybe watching the Montreal Canadiens play in the Stanley Cup finals but that hasn’t happened since 1993 when I was 4 years old. Maybe this year?!?

** Actually, I think Team Canada is, generally speaking, bigger in stature than the Russians but whatever, the bad still stands.

[Update: WE WON! WE WON! WE WON!]

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Good Job Everybody: Cuba Edition

Yesterday, President Obama announced that the United States will begin the process of normalizing relations with Cuba. This is a significant foreign policy shift away from more than 50 years of isolation.

Here is a run-down of what will change, as published by The Globe and Mail:

– “the U.S. will soon reopen an embassy in the capital, Havana

– the U.S. will ease travel bans to Cuba, including for family visits, official U.S. government business and educational activities, but will not lift its ban on tourist travel

– licensed American travellers to Cuba will now be able to return to the U.S. with $400 in Cuban goods, including tobacco and alcohol products worth less than $100 combined

– the amount of money Americans can send to Cubans will increase from $500 to $2,000 every three months

– the U.S. will unfreeze the U.S. bank accounts of Cubans who no longer live in Cuba

– U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will launch a review of Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terror”

I am not an expert on American-Cuban relations but my pro-diplomacy bias has me thinking that normalized relations are a good thing. There has been a distinct Cold War vibe to Cuban-American relations that feels awfully outdated and I disagree with pundits (ahem, Charles Krauthhammer) who suggest that talking to adversary states is tantamount to capitulation in the face of tyranny. It’s not clear if the embargo will be lifted (the President cannot do so without Congress) and the positive or negative effects of this thawing of relations remain to be seen. However, I think an experiment with rapprochement is worthwhile and long overdue.

How did this all happen? As it turns out, the United States and Cuba have been engaging in secret talks for the past 18 months – in Canada! In June 2013, delegations from both countries traveled to Canada for discussions and met seven more times in Toronto and Ottawa, according to The Globe and Mail reporting. Canada played the role of host rather than mediator but the importance of relatively neutral ground during tough negotiations shouldn’t be underestimated so I think we can give ourselves a little pat on the back here. Apparently Pope Francis and The Vatican also helped spur the reconciliation. It’s not clear to me how much of a role The Vatican played in the actual mediation, but the Pope did personally appeal to both Obama and Castro so he gets a pat on the back as well.

We can only wait and see if the consequences of this policy shift are positive but it sure seems like a small victory for progress. So good job everybody – here’s to the next 50 years of Cuban-American relations which, if nothing else, should be interesting.

I’ll Ride With You

It’s been a rough few hours for Sydney, Australia. Monday morning an Iranian refugee and self-styled Sunni cleric (with a long rap sheet) took a cafe and its occupants hostage. While the situation was unfolding, a social media movement also began to take shape. The hashtag #IllRideWithYou began trending on Twitter as Aussies offered to ride public transportation with those wearing religious attire in a preemptive counter to bigotry and Islamophobia.

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It apparently began when a woman noticed a fellow train passenger removing her hijab. She responded by reaching out to the other woman and offering to walk with her. Someone else offered to do the same on their commute and the hashtag was born. According to Twitter Australia, there were 40,00 Tweets within two hours and it has been growing since. I hope the movement isn’t purely viral and that those wanting or needing support on the streets of Australia today are finding it.

From my perspective, as I sit far away watching the news, it’s comforting to see such displays of empathy, solidarity and clear-mindedness as tragedy unfolds. It reminds me of the incident in Cold Lake, Alberta after the Ottawa shooting in October where community members came together to wash away hateful words that vandals had sprayed on a local mosque.

Of course, it isn’t the answer to radicalization or bigotry or violence. But it’s a much needed reminder that compassion exists, even in the face of such ugliness.

Talking About Torture On Twitter

This week, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a 528-page executive summary of its report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. Unsurprisingly, there has been much discussion in the media and online about the report and its findings. Twitter has been talking about it for days and #TortureReport is still trending. The beauty (and sometimes evil) of Twitter is that we are exposed to a diversity of viewpoints many of which do not reflect our own. As I have sifted through the torture report conversation, I found it curious that many of the report’s detractors dismiss its conclusions for largely the same reasons. While not necessarily representative of the opposition, two similar themes struck me as both pervasive and, quite frankly, wrong. As such, I couldn’t resist refuting them here.

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It is alarming that so many people on Twitter (and elsewhere, I’m sure) defend the use of torture on the basis that because terrorists torture people, the United States must as well. Two related arguments underpin this logic. First, a retributive argument that those tortured deserved it for their association with those that perpetrated 9/11. Second, an argument that since terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS do not hesitate to torture, the United States should not have to restrain itself from employing similar methods.

The second argument is particularly alarming because it essentially equates American morality with terrorist morality and I am astounded that those making this argument are comfortable with that. So much of the Global War on Terror rhetoric has centered on the idea that groups like Al Qaeda hate American freedoms and values. President Bush said in his address to Congress on September 20, 2001: “We’re in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them.” If we assume that American principles are vastly different from terrorist principles, it seems very odd to argue in favour of the adoption of terrorist-like principles. I don’t always agree with Senator McCain, but his speech to the Senate this week made me want to give him a standing ovation. He makes several important points, which are made all the more powerful given his previous POW experience, but perhaps his most precise rebuttal to the such logic was as follows: “Our enemies act without conscience. We must not.”

It is easier to understand the emotion behind the first argument – that those who were tortured deserved it – but the position is equally flawed. 26 of the 199 detainees who were tortured were innocent, or at least not affiliated with Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group. The report also claims that the program included “two individuals whom the CIA assessed to be connected to al-Qa’ida based solely on information fabricated by a CIA detainee subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.” The impulse for retribution even years after a horrific attack is natural but that doesn’t mean that it will achieve anything meaningful.

Which brings me to my final point. Most of the arguments in favour of torture rely on the faulty assumption that torture works. It doesn’t. Scientific evidence has demonstrated that torture is an ineffective intelligence gathering tool as extreme pain and stress impairs memory. The torture report itself casts significant doubt on whether any actionable intelligence was gleaned from the “enhanced interrogation” of detainees. Moreover, evidence (uncovered by a former professor and employer of mine) suggests that human rights violations like torture may actually increase violence.

There is no shortage of moral and pragmatic reasons to oppose torture. I always strive to be open-minded and rarely believe issues are black-and-white. But I have a hard time seeing the report’s findings as anything other than damning evidence of the inhumanity and inefficacy of torture. I should also note that while we condemn the use of torture by the United States, we have to remember that its allies are not without fault. Canada is one of 54 countries that participated in the CIA’s rendition program. Our hands are not clean and this report should remind all of us that fact.