Rethinking the Depression PAGE 29
$6.50 Vol. 22, No. 5 June 2014
Barry Kiefl Survival Strategy Can the CBC be saved?
Ken Dryden Bridget Stutchbury Matthew Mendelsohn What MPs think about Birds of many feathers The East wants in ALSO ALSO ISSUE
IN THIS IN THIS Parliament
PLUS: non-fiction Tony Burman on social media and journalism + David Malone on powerful civil servants + Yvette Nolan on Canadian ghosts + Patrick Luciani on the idiot behind the wheel + Robin Ganev on olives in human history + Kwame McKenzie on tracking the science of science +
Publications Mail Agreement #40032362 Stephen Kimber on a thwarted Caribbean coup + Judy Stoffman on Canadian art’s hidden patron Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to LRC, Circulation Dept. fiction Sandra Djwa reviews Local Customs by Audrey Thomas + Jack Kirchhoff reviews Frog PO Box 8, Station K Toronto, ON M4P 2G1 Music by Emma Donoghue poetry Seymour Mayne + Daniel Goodwin + Brenda Sciberras New from University of Toronto Press
Marshall McLuhan and Copyfight On Being Rich and Poor Northrop Frye The Global Politics of Digital Copyright Christianity in a Time of Economic Apocalypse and Alchemy Reform Globalization by B.W. Powe by Blayne Haggart by Jacques Ellul; edited by Willem H. Vanderburg This book presents the lives and works of Copyfight examines the 1996 World two of Canada’s central cultural figures, Intellectual Property Organization On Being Rich and Poor is an Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye. internet treaties from negotiation to unprecedented look at how one of the B.W. Powe combines the philosophical implementation. twentieth century’s foremost thinkers grappled with the issues of wealth, hallmarks of McLuhan’s “The medium is ‘This book is a must-read for those seeking poverty, and inequality in the modern age. the message” and Frye’s “the great code” insight into the forces that shape our to offer a new alchemy of their thought. digital environment.’ - Michael Geist, University of Ottawa
Fields of Fire Innovating in Urban Civil Justice, Privatization, The Canadians in Normandy: Second Economies and Democracy Edition Economic Transformation in Canadian by Trevor C.W. Farrow by Terry Copp City-Regions In this book, Trevor Farrow highlights This new edition of Copp’s best-selling, edited by David A. Wolfe the benefits and the negative effects of award-winning history includes a new privatization of justice in Canada and makes Innovating in Urban Economies explores introduction that reflects on the genesis recommendations for future civil justice how the social dynamics that influence of the book and its impact on our practice and reform. innovation and knowledge flows in understanding of the Second World War. Canadian city-regions contribute to transformation and long-term growth.
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Editor Vol. 22, No. 5 • June 2014 Bronwyn Drainie [email protected] Contributing EditorS Mark Lovewell, Molly Peacock, Robin 3 Changing the Channel 17 Fledgling Roger, Anthony Westell A poem A review of Digital Currents: How Technology Associate editor and the Public Are Shaping TV News, by Rena Brenda Sciberras Judy Stoffman Bivens 17 Thieving Magpie Poetry Editor Tony Burman A poem Moira MacDougall 5 Caribbean Caper Brenda Sciberras copy editor Madeline Koch A review of Bayou of Pigs: The True Story of an 18 Slavery, Jealousy and Juju Online Editors Audacious Plot to Turn a Tropical Island into a A review of Local Customs, by Audrey Thomas Diana Kuprel, Jack Mitchell, Criminal Paradise, by Stewart Bell Sandra Djwa Donald Rickerd, C.M. Stephen Kimber ProofReaders 19 Women on the Margins Heather Schultz, Rob Tilley 6 Parliamentary Discontent A review of Frog Music, by Emma Donoghue A review of Tragedy in the Commons: Former research Jack Kirchhoff Rob Tilley Members of Parliament Speak Out about Canada’s Failing Democracy, by Alison Loat and 20 On Treacherous Ground Editorial Assistant Clare Gibbons Michael MacMillan An essay Design Ken Dryden Barry Kiefl James Harbeck 8 Creating New Ghosts 23 Fifth Business in the Art World ADVERTISING/SALES A review of Canadian Gothic: Literature, A review of Harold Mortimer-Lamb: The Art Michael Wile History and the Spectre of Self-Invention, by Lover, by Robert Amos [email protected] Cynthia Sugars Judy Stoffman Director, Special Projects Michael Booth Yvette Nolan 24 The East Wants In Development Assistant 9 Risky Driving A review of Equal as Citizens: The Tumultuous Michael Stevens A review of No Accident: Eliminating Injury and and Troubled History of a Great Canadian Idea, Educational Outreach Coordinator Death on Canadian Roads, by Neil Arason by Richard Starr Mary Kim Patrick Luciani Matthew Mendelsohn publishers Alastair Cheng 11 Timeless Flight 26 Top Dog at External [email protected] A review of Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology A review of O.D. Skelton: The Work of the Helen Walsh since Darwin, by Tim Birkhead, Jo Wimpenny World, 1923–1941, edited by Norman Hillmer [email protected] and Bob Montgomerie David M. Malone Board of Directors Bridget J.M. Stutchbury John Honderich, C.M., 28 The Blessed Tree J. Alexander Houston, Frances Lankin, 12 The Science of Science A review of Olive Odyssey: Searching for the Jack Mintz, Trina McQueen A review of Mental Health Retrosight: Secrets of the Fruit That Seduced the World, by Advisory Council Understanding the Returns from Research Julie Angus Michael Adams, Ronald G. Atkey, P.C., (Lessons from Schizophrenia), by Steven Robin Ganev Q.C., Alan Broadbent, C.M., Chris Ellis, Drew Fagan, James Gillies, C.M., Wooding, Alexandra Pollitt, et al. 29 Rethinking the Great Depression Carol Hansell, Donald Macdonald, Kwame McKenzie An essay P.C., C.C., Susan Reisler, Grant Reuber, O.C., Don Rickerd, C.M., Rana Sarkar, Edward Whitcomb 16 When You Come Mark Sarner, Bernard Schiff, A poem 31 Letters and Responses Reed Scowen Daniel Goodwin Trevor Herriot, Linda L. Smith, Garrett Poetry Submissions For poetry submission guidelines, please see 16 Meditation Wilson, Jan Narveson, Michael W. Higgins,
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 1 Congratulations to the other fine nominees. These shortlisted titles received $7,500 each:
Miranda campbell for Out of the Basement: Youth Cultural Production in Practice and in Policy congratulations! (McGill-Queen’s University Press) The Donner canadian Foundation is pleased to announce the
outstanding book chosen for the sixteenth annual Donner ron ellis for Prize, the award for the best public policy book by a canadian. Unjust by Design: Canada’s Administrative Justice System (UBC Press)
Jim leech and Jacquie Mcnish for $50,000 WINNER The Third Rail: Confronting Michael Byers for Our Pension Failures International Law (Signal) and the Arctic (Cambridge University Press) gregory taylor for www.donnerbookprize.com Shut Off: The Canadian Digital Television Transition (McGill-Queen’s University Press) Books that Will change Your MinD aBout canaDa
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Bivens examines how TV Digital Currents: newsrooms—traditionally a How Technology and the Public change-averse bastion of “long- Are Shaping TV News established news production Rena Bivens routines”—are becoming more University of Toronto Press open to new sources of informa- 321 pages, softcover tion: “This explosion of [user- ISBN 9781442615861 generated content] has ushered in a shift in mainstream media— they are making space for this he future of “news” in unconventional news production the 21st century—how within newsrooms.” Her research Twe consume it and how explores the various ways in we produce it—is heading into which the public is now having exciting but entirely uncharted its influence felt. They include territory. The explosion of new taking pictures of breaking news technology and the growth of events and sending them to news social media are gradually rewrit- organizations or posting them on ing the rules. As a consequence, social networks, discovering new the public is edging ever closer stories and topics through social to the centre of the process, and media, and pushing new direc- the implications of this are poten- tions and angles to current stories tially profound. by adding comment and context in I learned this with great clarity when I worked Jazeera journalists were being targeted and driven sufficient volume. The reason much of this is grow- in the tiny desert kingdom of Qatar, overlooking underground or arrested or killed by the dictator- ing in impact within newsrooms is that many more the Persian Gulf. It is there where the influential ships in power, relying on the public as genuine journalists themselves are becoming active social Al Jazeera international news network is head- partners in telling their story was even more essen- media and internet users. quartered, and it was Al Jazeera—during the Israeli tial. A lesson we learned at Al Jazeera at that time It is in the coverage of major breaking news invasion of Gaza in 2009 and the subsequent was one that journalists everywhere have come to where this has been most dramatically evident. Arab Spring revolutions that began in Tunisia in learn in this new 24/7 media age: running out of Two examples cited in the book are the horrific December 2010—that most dramatically tapped options certainly focuses the mind. South Asian tsunami in December 2004 and the into the public’s yearning throughout the Arab The increasing power of the public in influen- subway bombing in London in July 2005. In both world to write its own history. For the first time, cing today’s news agenda affects the heartbeat of disasters, news organizations were flooded with the Arab public finally made some progress in any modern democracy, and this is an import- an unprecedented volume of images and video accomplishing that, and it was largely Al Jazeera’s ant public policy issue to study and understand. from cell phones, emails and text messages that use of new technology and social media that made That makes this excellent new book by Carleton completely defined how the public witnessed these it happen. University communications scholar Rena Bivens, events. In the London bombing, the BBC received Between 2008 and 2010, I was managing director Digital Currents: How Technology and the Public the first pictures from an eyewitness eight minutes of the Al Jazeera English network, based in Qatar, Are Shaping TV News, so timely and substantial. after the first bomb went off. That was before the and I know that Al Jazeera’s success in using the Having interviewed more than 100 journal- news media even knew of the disaster, let alone had tools of social media to cover the historic changes ists and news executives in Canadian and British the opportunity to send TV crews to the scene. “It’s in the Arab world was no accident. It was a gradual networks, Bivens draws a detailed, even exhaust- the first time we’ve done a television news package but radical transformation for a news culture that, ive, behind-the-scenes portrait of how TV news solely using pictures from people’s mobile phones,” until 2008, was largely indifferent to how the inter- organizations are riding the social media wave. She one BBC editor told Bivens. “There were no TV pic- net, cell phones, tiny cameras, and social media captures the ongoing challenge within traditional tures of that, ever,” added another. “Those were the such as Twitter and Facebook could reshape its newsrooms to embrace the public’s newfound par- only pictures.” work. A defining moment came during the Israeli- ticipation in news while still protecting the integrity Bivens, who is currently a Banting Fellow at Gaza conflict in early 2009 when we realized as a of professional journalism. Carleton’s School of Journalism and Communi journalistic team that these new technologies were In today’s digital media environment, the growth cation, completed her PhD at the University of the only way of effectively covering the story. Later of user-generated content and citizen journalism is Glasgow in Scotland while also working with the on, during the Arab revolutions in 2010–11 when Al having a significant impact on news production. distinguished Glasgow Media Group. Perhaps But it is more than a never-ending stream of tweet- influenced by her work there, Bivens wisely chose Tony Burman, former head of CBC News and ing, blogging and live hits. It also cuts to the core of to examine networks in the United Kingdom and Al Jazeera English, is the Velma Rogers Graham how our news agenda is determined. Bivens’s book Canada—and not in the United States—for the Research Chair in News Media and Technology at places a spotlight on the increasing role of the pub- book. To a Canadian reader, the UK examples pro- Ryerson University in Toronto. lic in determining how news decisions are made. vide a fascinating contrast with our own. Ever since
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 3 I lived in London in the 1980s—with its vibrant, Columbia University sociologist Herbert J. Gans, have traditionally directed our gaze.” But my sense diverse media culture—I have thought it is lament- titled Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening from her visits to these eight news organizations able in media terms that, as a country, Canada finds News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time. It is that this is slowly happening, although perhaps itself located beside the United States—and not the was critical of American news organizations at the much too slowly. United Kingdom—with America’s smothering com- time for being overly focused on government and Digital Currents is no breezy summer read. It is mercial broadcast environment. authority, and called for more diversity and open- more like a probing forensic examination of today’s In Britain, Bivens examined the major net- ness toward all segments in society in “deciding news culture that will be appreciated by media works—BBC, Channel 4, Sky and ITV—and the what’s news.” scholars and journalists as well as individuals and APTN international news agency. In Canada, I remember this book vividly because it groups that want to understand better how the her fieldwork was at CTV, Global and the CBC. was published in 1979 just as many of us at the media works. Apart from providing a thorough Although it feels like a lifetime ago (2006), I was the CBC were preparing for the introduction of CBC analysis of existing research, this book is also strik- CBC’s editor-in-chief at the time and, along with Television’s exciting new 10 o’clock news hour—The ing in its effort to open this debate to the public. Too several of my colleagues, Bivens interviewed me. National and The Journal. I recall that the eloquent often, journalists monopolize the discussion about Reading the excerpts in the book of what we said appeal by Gans for more diversity in news decision the future of news. And they—or is it still we?— are to her then, I was reminded that—eight years ago— making became our mantra for the new National. then able to control and frame the debate. That is there was still some questioning within the wider The suggestion in Bivens’s study is that this not healthy. Although I cling to the belief that, as CBC community about how enduring and radical traditional narrative may no longer apply—if it journalists, we are still loved by our children, I have the impact of new technology, the internet and ever did—and that the newsroom dynamics have come to see that, as a headstrong cohort, we are social media would be in the years overly defensive, self-absorbed and ahead. There is no questioning of that incapable of detached self-regulation. anymore, nor should there be. This book is no breezy summer read. Just like everyone else in society. Much of that has to do with today’s As a journalist for nearly 40 years media economy. Not only has the It is more like a probing forensic working inside various large news introduction of new, less costly tech- examination of today’s news culture. organizations, my experience in nology made it possible for more the past three years contributing people to “do” journalism than ever to Ryerson University’s School of before, the economic context for news organ- become more nuanced in this 21st-century digital Journalism has been a revealing one for me. I have izations has changed. Advertising has dropped, age. Journalists today often do seem to exhibit more come to admire the efforts by journalism and budgets have been cut and journalists are facing autonomy. News organizations often do appear communication scholars in Canada to help us all wave after wave of layoffs. When I was working more open to the input and influence of non- better understand the road ahead. This book by abroad as a CBC senior news and documentary traditional sources and “unconventional actors.” Rena Bivens is an important addition to that body producer in the 1980s, there were many journal- And “public participation in mainstream news of work, ists from Britain, Canada and the United States production,” made easier by social media such as Way back in the 20th century, when I was not covering the world’s major stories. Now, the three Twitter and Facebook, often does seem to be widely obsessing about what Herbert J. Gans actually large American networks have fewer than half the accepted. meant or wistfully wishing that Canada was a next- staff they had in 1980. Canadian foreign bureaus Up to a point, that is. As Bivens reflects in her door neighbour of Britain so I could rip off the BBC have also been reduced dramatically. Yet, in 2014, book, there still is considerable debate within signal free of charge and make quick weekend trips it has become a crowded and competitive media newsrooms that “Twitter isn’t journalism.” For all to London, I kept thinking about something serious marketplace, in spite of its financial challenges. No of the occasions when 140-character messages on that famed American journalist Walter Lippmann longer are there simply a few major media brands. Twitter actually broke major news—such as the once said. The press, he wrote in 1922, should be There are numerous new news sources that can 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China, and the 2011 “like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly either astonish or appall, most tellingly—it seems— assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan—the about, bringing one episode and then another out the public. ubiquitous nonsense of Twitter feeds by celebri- of darkness into vision.” Throughout my profes- Although Bivens is careful not to exaggerate ties such as Justin Bieber often seems to suck the sional life, I have always embraced that sentiment. its impact, she writes “in conjunction with these oxygen out of the debate. Bivens quotes New York But I have felt that, ultimately, we as trained jour- digital media tools, the public has come out of Times columnist Maureen Dowd as writing in 2009 nalists are the ones who should determine in what their relative obscurity to inhabit digital spaces that she would prefer to be “tied up to stakes in direction that searchlight is directed. I am humbler and publish information that is widely available to the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me now. In the 21st century, as this book shows us, their selected networks and beyond.” As a focus of and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter I believe that we need to rely more closely on the her book, she goes on to ask this question: “Within account.” But that was yesterday, and today is public to get that direction right. the confines of professional, mainstream television today: since then, of course, Maureen Dowd has news organizations, what are the implications of opened a Twitter account. the public’s arrival for traditional journalism?” Although suggesting that this debate will likely Get monthly updates Bivens sets out to explore this question by exam- never be truly resolved, Bivens reminds us that ining in considerable detail the various stages of the “the reception of new technologies has a long his- from the LRC’s news process. She looks at how ideas are gathered, tory.” She quotes a prominent Greek personality stories are assigned and decisions are made and who undoubtedly would have grated under the editor-in-chief. at how power in the news organization is actually 140-character limit imposed on his Tweets: “This wielded. The book does a very effective job in out- discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the Sign up online for our e-news- lining how today’s news organizations are trying learners’ souls, because they will not use their to navigate through the various minefields that memories … They will be the bearers of many letter to receive a monthly this digital age has created. How does news today things and will have learned nothing … They will Editor’s Note from Bronwyn happen? Does it flow from the structures and pro- be tiresome company.” That was Socrates speaking Drainie, with the details of new cesses of the industry? Or do journalists themselves more than 2,500 years ago in reaction to the inven- LRC pieces now online—includ- have the ability to put their own stamp on what is tion of writing. ing topical full-text articles produced? In her book, Bivens is certainly clear about the Bivens examines the “traditional narrative of news media’s role in today’s society: “The main- republished from our archives journalism practice” as reflected in several ground- stream news continues to operate as the main stage for newsletter subscribers—and breaking TV news production studies done in for the ongoing war over images, fought by public other magazine-related news. the 1970s and ’80s—“the view from the twentieth relations professionals and governments spokes- century.” They largely described a media world in people every day. Many consider this struggle to be which “news is manufactured and therefore a mere as vital a war as those that take place physically.” Visit
4 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Caribbean Caper A wild Dominican coup conspiracy, bred by the U.S. obsession with Cuba. Stephen Kimber
romp of a book about a motley collection of cross- In the end, Perdue’s failed coup—which “united Bayou of Pigs: dressing, white supremacist, neo-Nazi soldiers of right-wing North Americans and Caribbean left- The True Story of an Audacious Plot to Turn a misfortune who, in 1981, tried to overthrow the ists; white nationalists and black revolutionaries; Tropical Island into a Criminal Paradise government of Dominica, a “little nation of shan- First World capitalists and Third World socialists” Stewart Bell ties, volcanic peaks and old colonial plantations”? and was stage-managed by a man “who believed in HarperCollins Well, because Cuba—or more precisely, nothing at all”—was really about the get-rich pos- 344 pages, softcover Washington’s unrequited obsessive compulsion sibilities of Caribbean gambling casinos, although ISBN 9781443427647 with ridding the world of the Castro brothers and none of those involved would have characterized their communist Cuban government—is what it that way. made these peculiar whack jobs and their improb- They talked instead about Cuba. n early April, the Associated Press reported able, quixotic, crazy-assed coup attempt not only The plotters obsessively read overwrought CIA that USAID—the United States Agency for possible but also almost inevitable. assessments: “Cuban prospects [to spread com- IInternational Development, whose website munism] have increased dramatically,” noted advertises its lofty goal “to end extreme global uthor Stewart Bell is a reporter for the one, “because of the changes of government in poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies ANational Post. He specializes in foreign Grenada, Dominica, St. Lucia, and the Netherlands to realize their potential”—had concocted a hare- affairs and national security issues, and also Antilles.” They made their own self-justifying links: brained scheme to create a stealth Cuban version of writes—as he puts it on his own Twitter account— Dominica’s prime minister, Perdue incorrectly Twitter using “a byzantine system of front compan- “about Canadians who do stupid things in the lectured an undercover U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco and ies” in Spain and the Cayman Islands. “There will be name of their causes.” In Bayou of Pigs: The True Firearms agent, “has really made some ties with absolutely no mention of United States government Story of an Audacious Plot to Turn a Tropical Island communist Cuba.” They imagined they were doing involvement,” AP quotes one contractor insisting into a Criminal Paradise, Bell has tapped into a God’s—or at least Ronald Reagan’s—work. Like in a 2010 memo. “This is absolutely crucial for the motherlode. several others, Don Black, a former American sol- long-term success of the service and to ensure First, a quick plot summary: In 1981, a self- dier, signed up because he believed the coup was the success of the Mission.” styled American ex-marine mercenary named actually a U.S. government operation “in conform- The mission? To topple the Cuban government. Mike Perdue came up with a scheme to overthrow ance with the Reagan administration’s policies on The idea was to lure unsuspecting Cubans to Grenada’s new Marxist government. Quickly realiz- containing communism throughout the world, but sign up for the service—known as ZunZuneo, ing that would require too many men and too much particularly the Caribbean.” Cuban slang for a hummingbird’s tweet—so work, Perdue set his sights instead on overthrowing Even FBI and ATF agents involved in foiling the they would share their latest news and views on the democratically elected, pro-American govern- actually far-off-the-Reagan-rails plot understood everything from baseball to the weather to … pol- ment of Dominica. its mother’s-milk connection with Cuba. “‘This itics. ZunZuneo’s American puppet masters then To assist him, he enlisted the aid of such lumi- is like the Bay of Pigs,’ one of the ATF agents said planned to mine those messages for personal naries as David Duke, the former Grand Wizard during an operational planning meeting. ‘More information as well as hints about the tweeters’ atti- of the Ku Klux Klan, who put him touch with Don like the Bayou of Pigs,’ another agent cracked. tudes toward their government. Once the network Andrews, the “cult-like” Toronto-based leader of The name stuck.” The undercover sting operation “reached a critical mass of subscribers,” the AP the neo-Nazi Western Guard, who hooked him up officially became known as the Bayou of Pigs inves- investigation concluded, “operators would intro- with Wolfgang Walter Droege, the German-born tigation. duce political content aimed at inspiring Cubans Canadian white-supremacist founder of the infa- Although Bell’s manuscript is dotted with more to organize ‘smart mobs’—mass gatherings called mous Heritage Front. dot-connecting Cuba references than I could at a moment’s notice—that might trigger a Cuban Ringing any bells? Reading Bayou of Pigs is like count, Bell himself does not spend a lot of time Spring.” taking a trip down out-there 1970s Canadian radi- analyzing them or examining how America’s other- Aside from the use of social media, there is noth- cal memory lane. Bayou even offers cameo appear- galaxy obsession with regime change in Cuba has ing new here. The United States has been actively ances by Grant Bristow, the too-hard-working CSIS adversely affected its policies toward, and current promoting regime change in Cuba since—well, mole inside Droege’s Heritage Front, and Rosie relations with, virtually every country in Latin since the regime changed from American puppet Douglas, the Dominican revolutionary who spent America. to Cuban communist back in 1959: the Bay of Pigs, 18 months in prison for leading the 1969 occupa- That is not a criticism. There are other poisoned cigars, exploding seashells, Havana hotel tion and destruction of the computer centre at books—from former American diplomat Wayne bombings… Montreal’s Sir George Williams University (now Smith’s The Closest of Enemies: A Personal and This particular effort, which lasted from 2010 to Concordia) before becoming a more conventional Diplomatic Account of U.S.-Cuban Relations Since 2012 and cost American taxpayers $1.3 million, was politician back in Dominica in the 1980s (he would 1957 to academics Daniel P. Erikson’s The Cuba equally fruitless. Only about 40,000 Cubans—far eventually become its prime minister). Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States and the Next from that critical mass—signed up. But I digress. There is also Eugenia Charles, Revolution and Lars Schoultz’s That Infernal Little And so it goes. the black pro-western Dominican prime minister Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Why am I telling you all of this in what is sup- whom Perdue and his none-too-bright misfits Revolution—that fill that bill. posed to be a review of a wickedly fun and funny wanted to overthrow, and Patrick John, the equally Bell does what he does best: weaves a fascin- black but populist leader of the left-leaning Labour atingly improbable but true tale about a group Stephen Kimber is a professor of journalism at the Party they inexplicably wanted to replace her. And of crazy Canadians and Americans doing stupid University of King’s College and co-founder of its then there are the Dreads, Dominica’s hardcore things in the name of their causes, which, in this Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction program. Rastafarian revolutionaries, who opposed all forms case, is America’s Cuba obsession inevitably gone His latest book, What Lies Across the Water: The of colonial oppression but were willing to cut a deal rogue. He does that entertainingly and well. We can Real Story of the Cuban Five, was published in to become Perdue’s muscle in exchange for the new connect the rest of the dots ourselves. 2013 by Fernwood. regime’s marijuana-growing franchise.
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 5 Parliamentary Discontent Many MPs leave politics disillusioned—but what does that really mean for our democracy? Ken Dryden
The authors write about the Tragedy in the Commons: experience members of Parliament Former Members of Parliament have when they are newly elected. Speak Out about Canada’s Failing The MPs arrive in Ottawa full of Democracy excitement. They stand for what Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan their party stood for in the election; Random House they stand for what they promised 288 pages, hardcover their fellow citizens and neighbours ISBN 9780307361295 in the riding. Almost without excep- tion, they have no idea what they are getting into. They do not know the lison Loat and Michael life. They do not know its impact on MacMillan, like many their families. They do not know how ACanadians, see a problem things work. (They do not even know with our political system. In 2009, that when they stand to ask or answer with MacMillan’s life experiences and a question during Question Period, financial means (he was co-founder they have 35 seconds to do it—the of Atlantis Films and CEO of Alliance standing, the applause from party- Atlantis), and with Loat’s talent and mates, the speaking, all in. I got cut promise, they founded the charity off about halfway through my care- Samara, “a think tank,” as they put it, fully written, thoroughly rehearsed “dedicated to raising the level of polit- maiden-answer). ical participation in Canada.” They come from backgrounds With colleagues, they began more varied than the authors interviewing recently defeated or assumed. Many are teachers, more retired members of Parliament. are from business, some worked in “Conventional wisdom,” they rea- the public sector, for non-profits or soned, “holds that the best ideas for unions. Not many, to their surprise, improving an organization reside in the minds and Brooks, population 10,000, about one sixth that of are political “lifers.” But no matter their calling, experiences of those closest to it.” Talking to MPs Medicine Hat, an hour away. He had little chance almost all are known and respected in their field, “would illuminate how Canada’s democracy works, to win. His supporters came by chartered school often in their community. They are used to being right at its front line.” Each interview lasted two to buses. The day went on and on. First ballot results seen and treated as special. They are not used to three hours. They did 80 in all. The result isTragedy were announced at 10 p.m. No candidate received being told what to do. Now they belong to a party. in the Commons: Former Members of Parliament a majority. There was another ballot. People began A party that stands for this, and never for that. A Speak Out about Canada’s Failing Democracy. to straggle out. Except that Solberg’s supporters, party that has no chance ahead of time to decide The former MPs gave them an earful. having come by bus, could not leave. Solberg won whether it stands for hundreds of other things that The book is organized in the rough chronological on the third ballot by two votes. life, and political life, throws up. How many of us, order of an MP’s life, beginning with his or her nom- Imagine if all ridings were like that, Loat and as accountants or car dealers, know much about ination as a candidate. A riding nomination is dem- MacMillan speculate. Politics would feel so close free trade with Colombia or mandatory sentences? ocracy at its most grassroots level. Virtually anyone and real to so many people. It would be fun. They Private sector companies with a roster of 160 (the over the age of 18 can throw a hat in the ring. would want to take part. Instead, the parties get number of seats the Conservative government now Virtually anyone in a riding can vote. It is a chance in the way (a recurring theme in the book). The holds), or 99 (the NDP) or 35 (the Liberals), have a to get involved in the process, feel the excitement parties want an open process, they say, but only as core business. Their employees may disagree inter- of a campaign, believe in something and someone. long as it produces the candidate they want. So they nally about what that is, but then they decide. Those Feel Canadian. Monte Solberg, former Reform and “encourage” a candidate—word gets around—and who do not agree leave, or work with others to Conservative MP and Conservative Cabinet minis- discourage all the others. For most people in a rid- achieve those goals and present a united front pub- ter, tells the authors about that night in Medicine ing then—candidate, campaign worker or voter— licly. MPs seem not able to accept this. Yes, it is hard Hat. Solberg was manager of the radio station in why get involved? Why charter buses? Why feel to support a position you do not believe in. Yes, it anything but cynical about politics? is embarrassing in front of neighbours and friends. Ken Dryden was a Liberal member of Parliament Loat and MacMillan are right. Politics would Those used to calling their own shots do not like it from 2004 to 2011. He played goal for the Montreal be better if party nominations were open. (In York when they have to decide with others on what those Canadiens during the 1970s. He is also the author of Centre, Art Eggleton retired about a week before shots are, or when others call those shots for them. six books, including The Game, and most recently, the writ was dropped for the 2004 election. At that On questions like gun laws or same-sex marriage, Becoming Canada: Our Story, Our Politics, Our moment, I presented myself as a candidate. There MPs as citizens may have held strong vocal opin- Future. He now teaches at McGill University and was no open riding election; I was appointed at the ions for much of their lives. If their party decides a the University of Calgary. direction of the prime minister, Paul Martin). different way, do they go with the party, or as is said
6 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada on Parliament Hill, do they “swallow themselves need to change “the narratives they use to describe of engagement, from participation in community whole”? Loat and MacMillan seem sympathetic. themselves.” If they do not believe in what they are groups to the internet. Politics, voting trends, are The party, again, is the bogeyman. doing, why should anybody believe in them? not the only measure of our democracy. Indeed, To feel themselves more than just cogs in a It does not seem to occur to Loat and MacMillan evidence of its strength is that it is doing as well as large machine, MPs “freelance,” seeking out niches that this is not simple deflection or escape from it is without our politics. on issues they can make their own—in their own embarrassment. It does not occur to them that for There is no doubt that much of what the authors mind, and in the minds of their colleagues and all but a few years of their lives these MPs were suggest, if implemented, would make the life and constituents. The price of gas, ATM charges, the teachers and business people, not politicians. That role of the MP, and the functioning of Parliament, Armenian genocide. They sponsor private mem- for most of them, it was in trying to make the school better. Of course, the key words are “if imple- bers’ bills that will never pass, that they know will system or economic system better that they realized mented.” Identifying problems is easy. Those who never pass; but when it is hard to explain what they they needed to move outside the classroom and identify them assume that by making them visible are doing to a constituent, or to themselves, such office, to have bigger, broader influence. To go into change follows quickly. Of course, it does not. The actions can be made to seem like achievements. politics. Politics was a tool, not a life. Not an iden- problems exist for reasons that have to be over- Loat and MacMillan also relate MPs’ stories tity. Indeed, the authors themselves note that most come. But the book’s expressed purpose is not to about House of Commons com- examine the life and role of the MP mittees. Committees provide a and the functioning of Parliament. chance for MPs to call expert wit- The new MPs arrive in Ottawa full of It is to raise the level of political nesses, to ask them questions, to excitement. Almost without exception, participation in Canada. The ques- get into big issues deeply. Some tion is that if all these changes MPs tell of their work that changed they have no idea what they are getting were made, what would be differ- legislation or government direc- ent. Would the level of political tion. More tell of how, no matter into. They are used to being seen and participation rise significantly? how deep they delved, nothing Not likely. changed. The government did treated as special. They are not used to Political participation is about what it wanted to do. citizens and their lives. Exit inter- Loat and MacMillan are right. being told what to do. views with MPs are about polit- It would be good if newly elected icians and their lives. This book is MPs underwent a political “boot camp” to help who pursue politics for politics’ sake do not win looking in the wrong place. What is it that citizens them be more effective sooner at their new life. elections. They have too slight a record of achieve- are looking for? Very few want a regular dialogue MPs’ skills can be better utilized. Committees can ment. The public sees through them. Would things with their MP. Who has the time? What would make be more effective. They are also right that while be better if politicians were preoccupied through them feel less isolated, disconnected from some- Question Period arguably makes a government their adolescent and young adult lives with politics, thing they know matters, that affects their life? What more accountable, inarguably it makes MPs look not teaching or business? If they were “lifers”? is possible, and therefore to them seems right? unserious, inane and worthy of disrespect. This is but one example of the problem of the Once national politics could only be conducted at The authors are wrong, however, about a point methodology the authors employ. They interviewed a distance. The spaces were great. The technolo- they make early, and often. “Ask people who work at a lot of people, but they did not talk to them long gies to connect us—buggies, trains, cars, planes, demanding, stressful occupations,” they argue, “and enough to know them well. The authors believe our phones, computers—were absent or insufficient. many will say they could never do anything else. political system is not working. They are embar- We had to elect people to represent us because we Doing what they do was a lifelong goal.” “Not the rassed by much of what MPs do, or are asked to do. could not represent ourselves. We created systems MPs we interviewed,” they say. These MPs planned So they assume. and structures appropriate to what we had. What is on being teachers or business people or commun- They also begin their book with one other large possible now? To a citizen, therefore, what seems ity workers. Not politicians. Even after they were misunderstanding. They cite respected surveys of right? What systems and structures are appropriate elected, most do not identify themselves as pol- democracies around the world that rank Canada now? By focusing on the past, the authors are mis- iticians. This must be because the public holds consistently near the top, and comment that “these sing the present, and future. politicians in such low regard, the authors surmise rankings are increasingly difficult to square” with Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan are serious, (the only occupation held lower, internet bloggers our voting trends. Fewer Canadians are voting elec- capable people. It is likely that they, and Samara, in one poll they cite; psychics in another). These tion after election. “Canadians are checking out will be an important political presence in the future. MPs insist on seeing themselves as “outsiders” to of their democracy in droves,” they write. But, of Sometimes we need to look in the apparently right, politics even as they are fully engaged in politics. course, Canadians who are checking out of polit- but wrong, direction to find the right one. They have This is “ludicrous,” say Loat and MacMillan. MPs ical life are checking in to innumerable other ways much worthwhile work ahead of them.
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 7 Creating New Ghosts Settlers in a strange land need their own ephemera, it seems. Yvette Nolan
Canadian Gothic, not because Sugars talks about Many of the works cited here as Gothic were Canadian Gothic: Literature, History and the work by indigenous authors (although she does surprises to me—James Reaney’s trilogy of plays, Spectre of Self-Invention briefly in the penultimate chapter), but because The Donnellys, much of Margaret Atwood’s work, Cynthia Sugars her chronicling of the creation of Canadian Gothic poems by Al Purdy. Once I accepted Sugars’s def- University of Wales Press is a chronicling of the settlers’ response to their inition and explanation of the Gothic, I began to 325 pages, hardcover own role as settler-invaders, their complicity in col- nod about others: John Steffler’sThe Afterlife of ISBN 9780708327005 onizing, and their rejection of the idea of the land George Cartwright, Jane Urquhart’s Away, Emily and people who existed here before they arrived. Carr’s story of D’Sonoqua in Klee Wyck. Still, others Rather than embrace the spirit or spirits that pre- gave me pause: L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green ull disclosure. Not only am I not a existed here, the writers hungering for a genius Gables, that paragon of Canadian culture, as a scholar of the Gothic, but my understand- loci imposed new ones on the land, so that Gothic Gothic revisionist? Fing of the Gothic, until now, has been literature is in effect the artistic manifestation of the Chapter by chapter Sugars leads the reader almost completely intuitive, born of an abiding act of colonization. through her argument, which reflects the old chal- taste for Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Sugars uses the terms “settler” and “settler- lenge of being Canadian and being defined by what Frankenstein, a youthful devotion to Stephen King invader” throughout, which express the underlying we are not; the Canadian Gothic emerges from an and a curiosity about the Grant Wood painting anxieties not only of this literature, but also of the effort to define selves by an absence, forging a new American Gothic. I am not sure if this makes me ongoing relationship between indigenous peoples Gothic out of old forms, overlaid on a new “culture- the last person who should be reviewing Cynthia and Canadians. The book is hugely successful in less” place. Sugars’s Canadian Gothic: Literature, History and tracking and articulating the settlers’ anxieties By extension, after making the case so handily, it the Spectre of Self-Invention or the absolutely right about themselves, and about living in a land that becomes impossible to assign the Gothic labels to one. feels both vast and empty but is evidently still the people who were already here, with their ghosts Sugars’s book traces the appropriation of the peopled and alive. I did not find it an apology for and histories and landscapes. Sugars arrives finally Gothic tradition by Canadian (and pre-Canadian) colonization and the dismal relations between at the chapter about indigenous writers and their writers in the service of creating a national litera- us, but an illumination of how colonization has work (one of the many things I admire about this ture and a national identity. It is important to note affected both—or all, if we include recent newcom- book is its form, which speaks as much about the that she is using the term “Gothic” in the modern ers—peoples who live here now beside each other. relationship between settlers and the indigenous postcolonial sense: “concerned less with overt Sugars holds that a profound terror of nature people as does the content), leading us from the scenes of romance and horror” and more “with that the settlers found themselves confronting genesis of the settlers’ unease to the very root of experiences of spectrality and the uncanny.”1 She gave rise to the Gothic impulse in the early writ- their unsettlement. While the chapter “Indigenous begins her argument with the statement that two ings about pioneering in the Canadian wilderness, Ghost-Dancing: At Home on Native Land” touches of the most famous poems in Canadian literature— tracing the path from Oliver Goldsmith’s poem The lightly on the Gothic in indigenous writers’ works, Robert Service’s The Cremation of Sam McGee and Rising Village and Joseph Howe’s Acadia to the acknowledging such overtly Gothic works as Drew John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields—contain ghosts, “first overtly Gothic novel in Canadian literature,” Hayden Taylor’s The Night Wanderer: A Native challenging the oft-repeated assertion that Canada John Richardson’s Wacousta, or the Prophecy. Gothic Novel, it does not try to force all indigen- suffers from a lack of them. Sugars states that the Susanna Moodie’s 1852 book, Roughing It in the ous writers whose work includes spirits and ghosts Gothic is the response to an “anxiety about his- Bush, epitomizes this terror, showing both the influ- into the Gothic tradition. We are included here tory,” that ghosts connect the people to their history ence of the British Gothic narrative tradition of the because we were always here; the lack of the settler- in one way or another, and that if ghosts did not lone woman under threat and the imposition of invaders’ ghosts was not our lacuna, we had our exist—as Voltaire would undoubtedly say—it would the qualities of Gothic on the land she occupies: own ghosts and our own relationships with them. be necessary to invent them. The Canadian Gothic sinister, paranoia inducing, nightmarish. Later on, Like being called Indians, which we are not, there is that emerges is a result of the settlers’ anxiety of Sugars examines Margaret Atwood’s The Journals little reason to call our writing Gothic. being deracinated, living in a new country where of Susanna Moodie, in which Atwood resurrects Despite Sugars’s status as an academic whose there are none of their ancestors’ bones, where the the early poet, “giving Moodie a Gothic inflec- fields include postcolonialism and Canadian lit- land appears to them alien and dangerous. tion” effectively transforming her into a ghost of erature, I found Canadian Gothic accessible and There were of course people and stories, bones the Canadian landscape. If ghosts did not exist, it engaging, stumbling into only the occasional “epis- and ghosts, here on this land before the settlers, would be necessary to invent them. This creation temology” or “historiography.” For the most part, and Sugars addresses the settler-indigenous ques- of new ghosts, of y/our own ghosts, creates legit- she makes her arguments in clear, unambiguous tion directly and consistently throughout the book. imacy, forges historical associations that insist “we language that invites the reader to truly consider her As an indigenous artist, an indigenous reader, are here,” and invents a culture that we may feel thesis. Canadian Gothic is a book that not only makes I am usually required to practise extreme negative lacking. the reader think, but also can teach the reader how to capability, reading books that may well express There is a delicious irony that Duncan Campbell think in possibly new and more inclusive ways about a truth for mainstream readers but completely Scott, much loathed because of his assimilationist what will no doubt be an enduring issue of the 21st exclude me as an indigenous person, all the while stance on First Nations and his role in creating the century in this country now called Canada: namely maintaining my own often invisible indigeneity. residential school system, should figure so promin- our separate and collective pasts. To my great delight, I felt completely visible in ently in this book. Sugars uses poems of his such as “The Onondaga Madonna” to illustrate “wilderness Yvette Nolan is a playwright and dramaturge. Gothic,” showing in the process how Scott’s “willed Note Medicine Shows, her book about indigenous version of a diminished people” says more about 1 As explained on pages viii–ix of Unsettled Remains: Canadian Literature and the Postcolonial Gothic, edited theatre in Canada, will be published in the fall by his own fear and unease than about the indigenous by Cynthia Sugars and Gerry Turcotte (Wilfrid Laurier Playwrights Canada Press. people with whom he negotiated treaties. University Press, 2009).
8 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Risky Driving Why safer cars do not always mean safer roads. Patrick Luciani
One does not have to get far into No No Accident: Eliminating Injury and Accident to realize that the author is not Death on Canadian Roads a fan of the automobile and is a great Neil Arason advocate of walking, cycling and public Wilfrid Laurier University Press transit. He does a great job of demonizing 322 pages, softcover the auto industry, blaming it for making ISBN 9781554589630 unsafe cars, as well as for distorting our political system, violating anti-trust laws and gaining unfair government sub- ll of us who drive, or have sidies, to say nothing of damage to the been passengers in cars, environment. Arason’s case is bolstered Aremember a close call on the by the recent news that GM sat on infor- road that continues to haunt us. mation for ten years about a defective A recent incident still leaves me in a ignition switch that kept air bags from cold sweat. I was driving on the Queen deploying, killing as many as 303 people. Elizabeth Way between Hamilton and Cars and trucks have become so dan- Toronto, when I momentarily dozed off gerous they are not only a danger to driv- at the wheel. I was jolted awake by the ers and passengers, but to pedestrians vibrations of rumble strips. I pulled over and cyclists as well. As Arason states, just to get my heartbeat back to normal. “millions of Canadians fear for their Did those rumble strips save my life? I do safety, and the safety of their children, not want to know what would have hap- … a manifestation of the automobile’s pened if they had not been there. So why inimical presence in our cities.” And he aren’t these relatively inexpensive safety reminds us that over the last 25 years, features on all major highways? more than 13,000 pedestrians and cyc- Neil Arason’s No Accident: Eliminating lists have been killed by motor vehicles. Injury and Death on Canadian Roads Notwithstanding the seriousness of reminds us that Canada’s highways are Arason’s position on the damaging effect a killing field. Consider that since 1950, of vehicles on our roads, he is rather more than 235,000 people have died on selective on his use of trends and data. Canada’s roads and that from 1999 to 2008, “over the tragic fact that people make mistakes on the By any standards, traffic fatalities in Canada have 186,000 people were hospitalized due to serious road. been declining. According to Transport Canada, injuries from traffic accidents [in Canada].” Vehicle Arason makes the case that we should not use from 1990 to 2009, annual traffic fatalities have accidents are still the major cause of death for human imperfection as an excuse not to aggres- declined from 3,963 to 2,209, a drop of about young people between the ages of 15 and 24. sively make safer vehicles and better roads. After 44 percent. Serious injuries are also down from Arason’s book argues that a major reason for this all, it is being done in other parts of the world. In 25,183 to 11,451, or 55 percent. Although fatalities level of carnage on our roads is that public policy Sweden, for example, they are constantly thinking per 100,000 people were 6.6 percent in 2009, the does not make road and vehicle safety a high prior- of ways to increase the safety of their roads. Sweden highest fatalities were in less populated provinces ity. How is it that we pay so little attention to the uses what is called a Vision Zero traffic safety pro- such as Saskatchewan (14.7), New Brunswick (8.8), victims of road crashes? The author gives two main ject, an idea enshrined in law that says “in every Alberta (9.6), Northwest Territories (11.4), Prince reasons: the first is that people do not die in large situation a person might fail, [but] the road system Edward Island (8.5) and British Columbia (8.4). enough numbers at a time, and slip under the radar should not.” When people are hurt on the road, it is Ontario was relatively low at 4.1 deaths per 100,000 of national attention. Air crashes, rare as they are, the obligation of the state to find out why and figure persons. According to Statistics Canada, 1,154 of attract considerably more attention and commen- out ways to fix the problem. Australia is a leader in the 2,011 traffic fatalities in 2009 were on rural surate safety regulations. road safety, while the European Union is working roads. It seems we have a rural accident problem The second reason is that traffic accidents are toward a zero-fatality road system. American states rather than an urban one. seen as caused mainly by human error, thus dimin- such as Utah and Minnesota and cities including Here is one of the most interesting statistics, ishing the need for more regulatory controls on Chicago and Seattle are moving to decrease injuries supplied by the World Health Organization: we car safety and road design. If we do not blame the and deaths on their roads with specific goals and have about a third fewer deaths per 100,000 people intrinsic design of vehicles and roads, why bother timelines. compared to the United States. And as mentioned, with a problem we cannot fix? We simply live with Canada, on the other hand, is trailing badly Canada’s numbers have been turning around when it comes to road safety. According to Arason impressively. When we measure fatalities based not Patrick Luciani is a senior fellow at the Global we rank 20th in the world in road fatalities. But with on population but on billions of vehicle kilometres Cities Institute at the University of Toronto and co- greater political resolve we could turn the tide and travelled, we rank better than Denmark, the United author of XXL: Obesity and the Limits of Shame, “eliminate one of this country’s greatest causes of States and France, and are comparable to Germany, published by the University of Toronto Press (2011). human trauma, pain, and suffering as early as 2035.” Norway and Australia. I was surprised that none of
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 9 these comparative numbers appear anywhere in No week. Streets were chaotic, and when bicycles were of condoms. Instead, some users tend to engage Accident, if only to give an overall picture of traffic introduced, they just added to the mayhem with in riskier sex. Obesity can also be partly explained trends in Canada. fights breaking out between cyclists and wagons. by better medications for hypertension and chol- That hardly means we should do no more than The introduction of the automobile at least forced esterol, lowering the cost of carrying around more what we are doing, but let’s think about the causes some traffic sanity on a confusing and dangerous weight. When things are made safer, we tend to of the tragedies on our roads. Although Arason environment. engage in riskier activities. would like to look away from driver blame, we can- I do not wish to diminish the added tragedies Behavioural economics tells us we do not always not avoid considering human error. I believe that with the introduction of the car, but the automobile act rationally. We know that large trucks are a ignoring it weakens Arason’s overall position. brought to millions tremendous economic advan- danger on the road, but we also tend to drive reck- Let’s see what Transport Canada has to say tages in terms of freedom of mobility and prosper- lessly around them. Steven Levitt, the economist of about driver behaviour. After years of mandatory ity. All advances in technology bring risks as well as Freakonomics fame, has also shown that expensive seatbelt laws, some people simply refuse to buckle rewards; just consider the risks and deaths caused child car-seats do not work any better than simple up. Transport Canada’s objective is to get 95 per- by the introduction of coal and fossil fuels, medical lap-and-shoulder belts. Arason spoke to many cent of drivers to use seatbelts, and in the provinces innovations, along with air, rail and sea transpor- highway and health experts in his book, but I wish and territories that are below that level we see tation. We cannot eliminate all risk; our task is to he had also interviewed a few leading behavioural higher levels of fatal accidents. The worst offenders minimize the costs.1 economists. are in the Yukon, with the lowest level However, an area where we can of compliance at 78 percent. It is no All advances in technology bring make considerable progress is in road surprise the territory has the highest safety, and here Arason is on firmer levels of car fatalities. One exception risks as well as rewards. We cannot ground. One idea is better highway is Saskatchewan, with both a high design, including more divided high- level of seatbelt use and high levels of eliminate all risk; our task is to ways that separate opposite-flow traf- road fatalities. fic. What about improving the paint When I drive on our highways, I minimize the costs. and lighting markings on our roads? am still amazed by how aggressively Lines tend to disappear in a light rain people weave in and out of traffic. We know that Few would deny that automobiles are safer or snow, leaving drivers to estimate where they are. 27 percent of fatalities involve speeding and that today, with mandatory seatbelts, air bags, anti- My fondest wish is to see intelligent traffic lights the young speed more. Here is where Arason is lock braking systems, rear cameras, better crash that adjust to the flow of traffic. right about getting speeding levels under control. A avoidance systems, better headlights, crumple This leaves me wondering how Canada’s road 1 percent reduction in speed reduces the chances zones, tempered glass that does not shatter, tire engineers are spending their time, since, as men- of fatal crashes by 5 percent. And we know what pressure monitoring, and improved steering and tioned before, some European countries are way works in bringing speeding drivers to heel: cam- suspension. Cars coming on the market also have ahead of us. Arason reminds us that the UK has eras. There is plenty of evidence to back this up, yet the capacity to anticipate accidents with sophisti- been able to lower death and injury rates by simple we stubbornly refuse to use cameras more rigor- cated monitoring systems. The modern automobile measures such as anti-skid pavement, better sign- ously. During an 18-month pilot project launched would have been unrecognizable just a few years age, speed-limit changes and dedicated single-use in 2009 in the Montreal regions of Montérégie and ago. lanes. And let’s not forget those rumble-vibration Chaudière-Appalaches involving red-light cameras, So, why haven’t these safety features shown markings. I know I will not. vehicle speed declined by an average 14 kilometres up more in cutting down deaths and injuries? The Arason is a big believer in encouraging more per hour and extreme speeding was down 99 per- answer here is speed. We stubbornly continue cycling and walking and better public transit. cent. Traffic cops cannot be everywhere, but speed to drive too fast, diminishing the effectiveness of No one can argue with that, but in many of our cameras can. safety features. To understand why, we have to major cities, encouraging more bikes on roads that Let’s not forget who does the speeding: not the better understand human behaviour and how already barely meet the needs of current traffic is car, but its driver. There are those who drive under to modify it. inviting heavier congestion and more accidents. the influence of alcohol, those who use legal and There is a growing literature in the area of how The same can be said of public transit in major cit- illegal drugs, older drivers who are prone to more humans react when things get safer. What do sky- ies. We all want to get drivers out of their cars, but accidents, and a whole range of distracting devices divers do when equipment gets better? They take that cannot be done unless we make public transit and activities such as cell phones, texting while bigger risks, especially younger skydivers. We also more appealing and efficient. driving, eating while driving and so on. And how find the same phenomenon with NASCAR drivers. No Accident follows in the tradition of Ralph do we keep drivers off the road if they are fatigued Make cars safer and they choose to tailgate and Nader’s book Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In (something of which I am too well aware) or in a drive at greater speeds. It seems it is no different for Dangers of the American Automobile, written in bad state of mind? All of these take personal judge- the rest of us when we get behind the wheel. SUV 1965, but much has changed since then. Cars are ment and a sense of responsibility. drivers think they are safer, but evidence shows safer and there is not the public backlash against It is not that Arason ignores these issues, but they are not, simply because they drive faster. This an auto industry that once fought every safety he does not give them enough weight. Although he insight has come to be known as the Peltzman feature. Soon we will see a day when cars will be wants to toughen the laws against driving drunk, effect, named after Sam Peltzman, an economist self-driving, but that will not be the utopia some he concludes that “simply putting more words and at the University of Chicago who wrote about it in believe either, with another slew of unintended provisions into a traffic code and expecting that 1975. How ironic that as we feel safer in our cars, we consequences down the road. alone to achieve good results is hardly wise.” The tend to be a menace to others on the road. Another Let’s be clear, not all of us lower our level of implication is that if we cannot improve human name for this phenomenon is risk homeostasis. The safety when auto safety features are introduced. behaviour, let’s concentrate on making cars and theory here is that people have a target level of risk Behavioural adaptation challenges the founda- roads safer. and making certain activities safer leads to riskier tions of injury prevention strategies. Vehicle safety Arason essentially blames the invention of the behaviour and vice versa.2 A leading proponent of technology will increase because consumers want automobile for all tragedies on the road starting this idea is Gerald Wilde, a psychologist at Queen’s it. Industry will deliver better and safer cars, but in the early 1900s. He harkens back to an idyllic University. they cannot make driving completely accident free age before the car when “the streets had belonged Unfortunately, Arason chooses to give this line because we can never fully compensate for the idiot mostly to the people who walked and cycled on of thinking only a few lines in his book, depriving behind the wheel. them.” He even blames the car for reversing the his readers of valuable insight into why greater health gains won in fighting diseases such as safety features seem to have paid such modest Notes typhoid and diphtheria. dividends. He goes so far as to claim there is no evi- 1 The late Aaron Wildavsky, an innovative thinker in the But the world’s cities before the automobile dence that risk homeostasis even exists. It is contro- field of risk analysis, made the argument in his book Searching for Safety that risk taking actually makes life were hardly a haven of peace, health and tranquil- versial, yet economists hold that when the price of safer. His main point was that looking for too much safety ity. In the 1700s carts and coaches were named the a product or service falls, demand rises even if that may endanger us. leading cause of death in the streets of London. activity is inherently dangerous. Consider that the 2 Economist Armen Alchian once proposed that one way to reduce speed and accidents on the road was to make cars According to Tom Vanderbilt, in New York in 1867, incidence of HIV/AIDS has not improved in some very unsafe by fixing a spear to the steering wheel. All in horses were killing an average of four pedestrians a countries even with the wider use and distribution jest of course, but the point stands.
10 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Timeless Flight The extraordinary window into nature that bird watching provides. Bridget J.M. Stutchbury
of kilometres to their southern homes, survive dan- and curiosity-driven research on birds to the more Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology since Darwin gerous crossings of mountains, deserts and oceans, practical and depressing reality of bird declines and Tim Birkhead, Jo Wimpenny and Bob and return to exactly the same place they started extinctions. This is because bird declines are so well Montgomerie from. Why do they bother? How do they navigate? documented, affect so many species and point to Princeton University Press. How do young, naive birds make their first trip? a bleak future. A shocking 13 percent of all birds 524 pages, hardcover How did scientists figure out the answers to these on the planet, which amounts to about 1,300 spe- ISBN 9780691151977 questions? Birkhead, Wimpenny and Montgomerie cies, are threatened with extinction. In Chapter 11, explain that the first studies of migration were done “Tomorrow’s Birds,” Birkhead, Wimpenny and in the late 1800s at lighthouses and lantern ships, Montgomerie say “it is sad that the exponential ird watching is one of the developed where thousands of birds could be observed at growth in our understanding of the biology of birds world’s most popular pastimes because night, many falling victim to collisions with these during the last century … has been accompanied by Bthe 10,000 or so species we have left on our obstacles. Bird-banding studies began around an exponential decline in numbers.” What we would planet are amazingly diverse in size, colour, shape 1900 with the hope that birds carrying numbered now consider to be shocking was routine in the and lifestyle. This evolutionary splendour, whether leg bands would occasionally be recovered later early 1900s, including the mass slaughter of egrets perceived that way or not by birders, can be viewed in their journey, revealing migration routes and to collect feathers for ladies’ hats, industrial-scale easily in our backyards and parks, or for the removal of eggs from albatross on Laysan more adventurous, on bird-watching exped- How can we not be awed by island and hunting the flightless great auk itions. The questions of “how” and “why” to extinction. The damage would have been occur to many curious birders and have the world of the chickadee? far worse today if it had not been for early inspired hundreds of scientists, including pioneers in conservation who shut down Charles Darwin, to devote their lives to unravel- destinations. In 1907, Hans Christian Mortensen the hat trade, created the Migratory Bird Treaty ling the mysteries of how birds evolved their many banded 102 migrating Eurasian Teal on the west to protect birds, lobbied for public lands to be set adaptations for flight, reproduction and survival. coast of Denmark and two were recovered more aside as nature preserves and revealed the devas- Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology since than 1,000 kilometres away in Ireland and southern tating effects of pesticides on birds and wildlife. Darwin, by Tim Birkhead, Jo Wimpenny and Bob Spain. This needle-in-the-haystack approach is still Birkhead and his colleagues also reveal the passion Montgomerie, is a detailed review of the history hugely popular, and hundreds of thousands of birds and dedication of many present-day ornithologists of ornithology and chronicles the major break- are banded worldwide each year. whose Herculean efforts have saved individual throughs in the past 150 years and the people Bird banding set the stage for the first “dis- species from the brink of extinction—including who accomplished them. Why undertake such a placement” experiments, which moved breeding the California condor, whooping crane and kakapo lengthy and comprehensive review? First, these seabirds far from their colonies, even to entirely (a giant, flightless parrot from New Zealand). The innovative studies on birds had a broader impact novel places north of their breeding range, and book ends with a sad commentary on the future of on our understanding of nature and science dur- showed the birds could easily and quickly navigate ornithological research: “as global bird numbers ing the 20th century. Second, much of this history back. Subsequent innovations in this field often continue to decline, the pursuit of knowledge for its has been buried under an explosion of scientific came from new technology such as radar to detect own sake may seem like a bizarre luxury.” publications in the past few decades, making it dif- migrating birds, following migrating birds via air- Delving into the details of the evolution, ecol- ficult for even the most conscientious researcher plane, testing migration orientation in the lab using ogy, physiology and behaviour of birds can be to appreciate the deep history of their own field. special funnel cages that record the birds’ foot- rewarding because it empowers you to enjoy nature Birkhead, Wimpenny and Montgomerie go beyond prints, and, most recently, tracking individual birds even more. A birder watching a black-capped the usual cast of characters and find clever studies over their entire journey using satellite or light log- chickadee at a backyard feeder in winter may see a published by little-known scientists who were often ger devices. Thanks to these pioneers, we now know cute, tuxedo-clad bundle of energy. An ornitholo- overlooked or ignored by the big players even in that birds use multiple navigation systems (sun, gist would see a social network of dominant and their time. This book was written primarily for a sci- stars, landmarks, magnetic fields, polarized light) subordinate birds, well-insulated survivors who entific audience, but there is also much of interest and that much of migration behaviour is genetically use the energy-saving trick of torpor to lower their to an attentive and patient non-specialist. inherited. Even so, the amazing journeys revealed body temperature on the coldest winter nights, and Chapter 4, “Ebb and Flow,” is a case in point. via direct tracking still amaze scientists. Bar-tailed future philanderers who in spring will eavesdrop For centuries, animal migration has been one of godwits, shorebirds that breed in the Arctic, fly on the dawn chorus and sneak off-territory to mate the biggest mysteries of the natural world. It seems non-stop for 10,000 kilometres, over nine days and with better males from next door. How can we not unbelievable that little birds can fly many thousands nights, from Alaska to their winter quarters in New be awed by the world of the chickadee? There is Zealand. more to nature than attractive birds and peaceful Bridget Stutchbury is a professor at York University. Not all chapters in Ten Thousands Birds are scenery. There is a complexity and deep evolution- Since the 1980s, she has followed songbirds to their easy reading. The detail on individual studies and ary history that teach us what nature is really all wintering grounds in Latin America and back to people is impressive, sometimes several “textbook” about and why it is worth saving. their breeding grounds in North America to under- pages each, and can be daunting at times. A scholar stand their behaviour, ecology and conservation. may want to read every word, while a layperson will Related Title She is author of Silence of the Songbirds: How We want to skip around the book to find interesting Are Losing the World’s Songbirds and What We biographies and stories—there are plenty to choose Can Do to Save Them (HarperCollins, 2007), a from. Birding with Yeats: A Memoir finalist for the Governor General’s Award, and The Many of the scientists profiled in the biograph- Lynn Thomson Bird Detective: Investigating the Secret Lives of ies at the end of each chapter say they have shifted House of Anansi Press, 2014 Birds (HarperCollins, 2010). their energy and time away from the fundamental
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 11 The Science of Science How do we know whether medical research really pays off? Kwame McKenzie
makes you think. Four of the top ten prizes Mental Health Retrosight: at last September’s ceremony were health Understanding the Returns from related. For example, Brian Crandall and Research (Lessons from Schizophrenia) Peter Stahl, working at the State University Steven Wooding, Alexandra Pollitt, et al. of New York, won an IG for parboiling a Rand Corporation dead shrew, swallowing it without chew- 86 pages, PDF ing and carefully examining everything www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/ excreted during subsequent days in the aim research_reports/RR300/RR325/ to see which bones dissolve inside the RAND_RR325.pdf human digestive system and which bones do not. Likewise, Masateru Uchiyama led a team wice a year I take one for the from Japan in a study that assessed the effect team: I review grant proposals for of listening to opera on mice that had had Tthe Canadian Institutes of Health a heart transplant operation, while a team Research, Canada’s federal health research from the Netherlands and France published fund. It takes a week: five days to perform “Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beer Holder,” in detailed assessments of research propos- which they demonstrated that people who als followed by a gruelling two days during think they are drunk also think they are which I, and a group of other researchers, attractive. decide which studies we should recom- Lastly, the public health IG went to a mend for funding. If we discuss 45 research U.S.-Thai collaboration that described the proposals between us, only six or seven will surgical treatment for an epidemic of penile receive funding. It is high-pressure, unpaid amputation in Thailand, which they say work that demands a good job, and it must could be used in all cases, except where the be scheduled around all our regular duties. amputated penis had been partially eaten As many of the academic institutions we by a duck—I kid you not. belong to value the grants we bring in and In spite of the hilarity of the IGs, they the papers we write rather than whether we focus the spotlight on the question: which is sit on a review panel, it can feel like a thank- the best type of scientific study to invest in— less task. chance or design? And there is an emerging Hundreds of senior researchers take this hit product of focused research. Alexander Fleming group of researchers interested in precisely this sort every year. They do it because they believe it is fair was researching bacteria for a completely different of question, which they call the “science of science.” for your research proposal to be judged by a jury experiment and noticed that a mould was stopping Although it does not yet allow us to predict what of your peers. They also believe that the system his bugs from growing. That mould was producing would be a good bet for the next health innovation, improves research. If the weakest proposals die and natural penicillin. It was a chance finding that came it does help to narrow the odds. the strongest survive, health research will progress about because of cross-contamination between About 900 grants in Canada are funded through by a form of natural selection. labs. But, as Louis Pasteur famously said, chance the process I am involved in each year and the But the stark truth is that it probably does not favours the prepared mind: Fleming first had to average amount going to each is $600,000. If this move science forward as predictably as we think. notice that something was different, then had were a business, maximizing the potential for Health research rarely leads to innovations that to know how to investigate it. All the research he return for our investment would be a reasonable improve the country’s health. Targeted research had done before led to the development of a scien- way to decide on priorities. Economists such as may not identify the next big innovations. Many tific mind and scientific tools that allowed him to James Heckman (a proper Nobel laureate rather of the most important health breakthroughs have use the gift offered to him by chance. than an Ig Nobel laureate) have mapped the rate of come about by chance. Chance discoveries, however, are difficult for return for investment in people, demonstrating that For instance, the discovery of penicillin, the first funding panels to bank on. Furthermore, the idea investing in children in the 0-to-5 age range yielded antibiotic and an innovation that revolutionized that scientific breakthroughs are random could twice the return over school-aged kids, suggesting health care and saved millions of lives, was not a lead to the conclusion that building research skills that the rate of return decreases exponentially with may be as important as the actual research project, age. Applying that science to science, from an eco- Kwame McKenzie is a psychiatrist at the Centre for leading to studies that you hope were funded for nomic standpoint, it could be argued that health Addiction and Mental Health and a professor in their ability to produce strong researchers, rather research targeted at the early years of life (preven- the Department of Psychiatry at the University of than the question they aimed to answer. tion) may be a better investment than research on Toronto. He is president of the Canadian Mental Some of these are celebrated each year at most other age groups. Health Association Toronto and sits on the Service Harvard in a satirical ceremony, the Ig Nobel Statistical evidence on the potential for improve- Systems Advisory Committee of the Mental Health awards (commonly known as the IGs). The “win- ment of health favours researching the social fac- Commission of Canada. ning” research generally makes you laugh, then tors that lead to problems over trying to develop
12 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada treatments for the resulting illnesses. A recent U.S. States, United Kingdom and Canada over a 20-year outcomes for an illness because of that interven- study demonstrated that only 20 percent of health period. They looked through published research to tion and reduced costs (for instance, if the inter- improvement could be made through clinical identify the most important new clinical interven- vention means that you can get treatment as an interventions whereas 80 percent of the possible tions over that time and mapped what they called outpatient rather than an inpatient). But it takes a health improvement for a population will be made the “research cloud” for each. The research cloud is lot longer to move from bench to bedside for theor- through action on social factors such as living con- a new concept produced by the Retrosight team. It etical and lab-based studies. ditions, work, income inequality, pollution, and the describes all the work conducted by researchers to Others will argue against the idea that all availability of drugs, alcohol and high-calorie foods. come up with the intervention and all the research research needs to be in teams. This is because we In other words, practical research on prevention outputs: “Research clouds have the advantage of all know of truly exceptional researchers who have may be better than a hope of a cure. an approach not focused solely on grants or pub- quirky personalities. They will not be able to work But if we are going to focus on treatment stud- lications—they seek to embrace the activities of in teams, but their work is important. Although in ies—and most funders like the Canadian Institutes science itself: the inspirations, the experiments, general teams are a good thing, surely there must of Health Research are increasingly doing this— the collaborations, the chance meetings and the be place for diversity; it is not clear that Einstein there are particular types of research that may be unexpected.” Once you have the research cloud you was a great team player. more likely to yield a quick return. According to the can measure the payback for each of the interven- Lastly, they will argue that focusing funding only U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it tions, such as how much new knowledge it had on teams with a track record makes it difficult for takes up to 20 years to translate research findings produced; how well it led to the development of new groups to break into the research world. It may into routine clinical practice, from the labora- better research; whether it improved policy or led be that funding the “same old same old” is not a tory bench to the patient bedside. Research into to the development of a new product; whether recipe for long-term success since new people with how we can speed up the implementation of new there were clear benefits to the health sector such new ideas may not be funded. treatments could be a very effective and efficient as prolonging life or decreasing service costs; and, And there will be other critiques. Personally, way of spending public money. although Medical Health Retrosight Unfortunately, though, there is not is an important study and the find- enough research into the science Focusing funding only on teams with a ings move us forward, I think there of science and we are not that are some important caveats. good at translating its findings into track record makes it difficult for new Retrosight focuses on clinical changing the way we do our busi- interventions, but in any popula- ness, and consequently we have groups to break into the research world. tion only 20 percent of improve- shelves full of proven treatments ment in health comes this way. that we do not use. The other 80 percent is due to Mental Health Retrosight: Understanding the lastly, whether it led to other social benefits such as social interventions such as clean water, sewage Returns from Research (Lessons from Schizophrenia) a rise in employment. systems, good housing, stable government and provides a useful antidote to this funding con- From the research clouds the Retrosight team the rule of law. These are not clinical interventions undrum. The report covers a fascinating project concluded that schizophrenia research has led to per se and would not have been included in the funded by granting agencies in Canada, the United “a diverse and beneficial range of academic, health, Retrosight study, but they have had a much bigger States and the United Kingdom. The aim was to social and economic impacts.” Studies that were impact on health over time. identify research studies that have gone all the way considered clinical research, like the development It is also useful to bear in mind that the lens from being just a theory or a finding in a lab to the of a new form of treatment, had more impact on of looking at the past to tell us about the future is development of an intervention that has made a patient care than lab-based work such as high-tech fraught with difficulty. The world turns, societies significant contribution to improving health. The scanning studies that aimed to document the way change and our knowledge of science develops authors, led by Steven Wooding, wanted to use the that the brain functions, or theoretical research that over time. Without some measure of the context in studies they had identified to develop methods to tried to change how we think about setting up which the research cloud was formed, it is difficult help predict which scientists, or groups of scien- services. There were some common themes in the to know whether the lessons learned from the last tists, will make an important impact in their field. clouds that had the biggest impacts, and these 20 years are as applicable now as they were then. Put simply, they wanted to use “the idea that we can could form the basis of a research funder’s formula: Unemployment among researchers has increased, learn from the past to inform our current and future when researchers work across boundaries with many areas have become more specialized and the practice” to develop a formula for funding bodies to other people from different disciplines the out- ability to work across a variety of areas and so build help decide to whom they should give their money. comes and impacts of research is better; lone wolf a big cloud has diminished in many areas. One of the most important rules of research is researchers, working by themselves, are less likely There is also the question about what we need the “rubbish in, rubbish out” rule. If you do not get to be productive than people who work in teams; to know to move the field forward. Retrosight tells quality information into your study then the results and committed individuals who are motivated us about the best clinical research that has been will not be very good. Cognizant of this, the by the needs of their patients and who effectively done over the last 20 years. But it does not tell us Retrosight team spent a huge amount of time iden- champion research agendas or get research into anything about any brilliant ideas that were not tifying and assessing bench-to-bedside research. practice produce the highest impact research. funded, or great research that was funded but was They focused on schizophrenia research, because Mental Health Retrosight is compelling read- then ignored by the research community. In this they thought that doing one area well would be ing, even for someone who is not a science nerd. way the study tells us how to be more efficient more likely to give them a solid grasp of the issues. Its central message fundamentally questions how at what we are doing, but it does not tell us whether Apart from infectious diseases, mental illness has we decide who gets what in the research funding what we are doing is a good idea. If there is money the biggest impact on the world’s health. And, lottery. If we followed the science of science that it for Retrosight II, it could try to investigate how to within mental illness, depression, substance mis- offers and we wanted to maximize our potential to identify the best ideas that are out there rather than use and schizophrenia are the leading problems. improve health, we would refocus our efforts away the best way to select and fund the ideas that are “Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe and disab- from non-clinical or theoretical studies toward presented to us. It is as if Retrosight tells us how to ling disorder. It is characterised by symptoms such studies with a clear clinical intervention in mind. make the best choice from the menu that research- as hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking,” We would focus on teams of researchers rather than ers have given us, but what we really need to know they write. It has a particularly large footprint in individuals and we would give particular weight to is what is in the kitchen. And one thing that we the world of health and on the lives of those diag- people who have a body of work in the field already need is more knowledge on how to speed up the nosed and their families because it usually starts because building on their existing research cloud is movement of proven research that we already have in teenage-hood to mid twenties, and two thirds likely to produce better outcomes. from the bench to the bedside. of people have symptoms on and off for the rest of I expect resistance to these three central mes- But there are deeper questions that we may want their lives. People with schizophrenia, on average, sages. Some will say that Retrosight is biased to discuss. The science of science may help us to die 20 years earlier than the rest of the population toward clinical research. They will argue that just better select researchers or research projects, it may because of suicide, smoking, and the effects of the finding research that has had a big impact over a help us to find the best new ideas, it may even help illness and its treatment on their physical state. 20-year period is too short a timeline. Over 20 years us to move older ideas from the bench to the bed- Retrosight assembled an international team there may be returns from clinical research such side. But we are generally trying to achieve more to examine schizophrenia research in the United as the development of a new intervention, better than this in medical science.
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 13 Most research does not produce better medical interventions to improve health. It is not clear that is a problem. Much of the research that is done is for educational purposes. It is not done by people who Coming up in the LRC end up being full-time researchers but by students who may later become clinicians or who may com- pletely leave health, by people involved in patient Solving health care care and sometimes by patients and by families. Michael Dexter Most of the research will never be part of a fundable research cloud but is fundamental to the improve- The consequences of free speech ment of health services. Learning the language of Suanne Kelman research and the discipline of critical thinking can make people more likely to improve the services they offer and more likely to be able to understand, Home and heart analyze and implement research findings. Madeleine Thien But moreover, research is hope. One of the things we do as humans is try to move things for- The army’s “golden age” ward. It is important that society is seen to be doing Philippe Lagassé that. It is important for our mental health for us to aspire to taking on what life has to throw at us and Making laws about sex try to beat it. Sure, finding a cure for cancer would Amber Dawn be great, but the fact that we are looking for a cure, whether we find it or not, is essential. We need to be careful that when we are investigating the science Inuit manhood of science we do not get caught thinking linearly Qajaaq Ellsworth about the needs of researchers and funders and ignore what research is really for and the breadth of Tom Rachman’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers important outcomes that are linked to the scientific Katherine Ashenburg efforts. Medical research is about more than finding clinical interventions. Where war dead rest Retrosight is a quick and important read. It moves us forward, makes us think but, unlike the Sarah Jennings IGs, does not make us laugh. But it ends as all good science stories do by ensuring the door is left open Classic Canlitcrit for further funding since it is clear that on this sub- Nick Mount ject we need further research.
Leacock MARIPOSA STARTS HERE SUMMER FESTIVAL ORILLIA JULY22-27,2014 AUTHORS ▪ BOOKS ▪ READERS The Mysterious Death of Tom Thomson A Wordless Narrative in 109 Wood Engravings with artist/illustrator George Walker Happy Hour with Mark Kingwell Philosopher, author and social commentator Mark Kingwell reads with M.A.C. Farrant & Ann Dowsell Johnston Friday Night Humour Showcase Readings by: Terry Fallis, Kim Moritsugu & Peter Norman But Seriously... Three Leacock Medal winners read from their new ‘serious’ fiction featuring Trevor Cole, Joe Kertes & Morley Torgov and more.... leacockmuseum.com CITY OF ORILLIA - PARKS, RECREATION & CULTURE DEPARTMENT Stephen Leacock Jr. - 1925 Stephen Leacock Jr.
14 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada FERTILIZER FOR THOUGHT
Raised on a farm in rural Saskatchewan, As an insider who helped nationalize Ted (E.K.) Turner threw open the farm gate to the potash industry in the 1970s, lead the farmer-controlled Wheat Pool to its John Burton expertly integrates behind-the- greatest heights. He diversified its holdings, scenes accounts of the major players, archival taking on governments and vested interests in material, and interview sources to produce a order to do it—leading the Globe and Mail to call book that “cuts through the bull”—adding to our the Pool “one of Canada’s best run companies.” understanding of the world’s greatest fertilizer.
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JuneLRC 2014 May 2014.indd 1 reviewcanada.ca 2014-05-01 2:17 15PM When You Come Meditation
When you come to greet me, shyly, for Santiago Grigera wearing nothing but your love for me I will come to meet you halfway We like a falcon returning to your wrist. sit for And when you raise your arm, death, trembling ever so slightly, we I will alight and let you pull kneel the velvet shroud over my eyes. for eternity, Daniel Goodwin we watch birds perturb the sky.
Seymour Mayne
Daniel Goodwin is a poet, novelist and cor- porate communicator in Calgary. “When You Come” appears in his upcoming first novel, Sons and Fathers (Linda Leith Publishing), being released in September 2014. Daniel has just finished reading Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth. He is reliving his university English lit days by rereading Mordecai Richler’s Solomon Gursky Was Here, and is getting his Chilean poetry and British espionage thriller fix with Love Poems by Pablo Neruda and John le Carré’s A Delicate Truth.
Seymour Mayne’s latest collections include Brenda Sciberras is a Winnipeg writer who has Ricochet: Word Sonnets/Sonnets d’un mot been published in several Canadian literary (University of Ottawa Press, 2011) and The Old journals as well as in the anthology A Cross Blue Couch and Other Stories (Ronald P. Frye Sections: New Manitoba Writing (Manitoba & Company, 2012). Cusp, a selection of new Writer’s Guild, 2007). Her work is also forthcom- word sonnets, is being published this year by ing in the anthology I Found It at the Movies, Ronald P. Frye & Company to mark 50 years which will be published by Guernica Editions since his first collection of poetry was published in the fall. Her first poetry collection, Magpie in Montreal. Mayne is a professor of Canadian Days, will be launched by Turnstone Press also literature, Canadian studies and creative writ- in the fall. She is currently reading Ocean by ing at the University of Ottawa. He is currently Sue Goyette and The Marram Grass: Poetry and reading Letters by Saul Bellows, An Epitaph for Otherness by Anne Simpson. German Judaism: From Halle to Jerusalem by Emil L. Fackenheim and Castles in the Air by Mary Hagey.
16 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Fledgling Thieving Magpie
Her tenacious curiosity You gather all that shines finds an electrical socket bright — within her blackens her delicate fingertips. as we watch her fade before our eyes. At seven, her teacher calls to say — she’s stolen Fruit Roll-Ups You begin — from a classmate’s backpack. with her breast & she’s left with one. My time-out sanctions create Then her copper locks a cackling crescendo: fall prey & pray she does. I hate you, I want a new mom — Believes she’s chased you off. from behind her bedroom door. But, you’re a trickster — Each passing year — sneak into her skull, peck away I gather new transgressions at her spine, steal her legs — fumble in the darkness a wheelchair, her cage. of motherhood In the end — grapple with aversion you rob us — of her. to adolescent tattoos & piercings F-bombs flung Oh, lone magpie — at my it’s for your own good! where will you hide her glittering soul? When she sneaks out to a forbidden party I take her door from its hinges — Brenda Sciberras its return a Christmas present, the only item on her wish list.
At sixteen the phone rings an hour past curfew — she’s rolled her ’79 Mustang in the ditch.
I arrive to headlights beaming through the night sky upside down engine still running her first car never even makes it home from the lot —
I spare scolding overlook the heap of crumpled metal feel the heat of her life flashing before my teary eyes.
Brenda Sciberras
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 17 Slavery, Jealousy and Juju In her new novel, Audrey Thomas writes of a death on the Gold Coast. Sandra Djwa
price on my head; stood firm; the royal umbrellas; George, for example, values the work done by Local Customs the heat; success; Africa.” Freeman and the Wesleyans while the capricious Audrey Thomas Maclean represents security spiced by danger Letty dislikes him. Their dialogue, because brief, Dundurn Press and Letty fixes upon him as a potential husband. gives the impression of dramatic speech: 199 pages, softcover Yet she has subconscious misgivings in the form of ISBN 9781459707986 a nightmare, in which she sees the candle on her George: You don’t like Mr. Freeman, do work desk, and her “wax doppelgänger” at Madame you? Tussauds melting into a lump of wax. Me: Not much, he thinks he’s an udrey Thomas has an impressive body George recognizes that Letty is “a hot-house Englishman. of work, more than 16 books, several set bloom,” decorative and impractical, who will not George: He is an Englishman, born and Ain Africa. Some have provocative narra- last on the plague-ridden coast. Yet, swayed by bred in England. The fact that he’s mulatto tors, but none is as intriguing as Letitia Elizabeth pressure from Letty and her clergyman brother, doesn’t make him any less an Englishman. Landon, known as Letty, who narrates her own he asks her to marry him. In so doing he rattles Me: Haven’t you noticed how he says “we,” story from beyond the grave in Local Customs, the skeleton in his own closet—his “country wife,” all the time … He told me that he is “heart- Thomas’s latest book. “I can speak freely now that Ekosua, then awaiting his return in Africa. The broken” at [the locals’] ignorance of civilized I am dead,” she tells us. marriage sets the inevitable tragedy in motion. customs… Thomas uses some wonderfully augmented The couple leave England in July 1838 and arrive on George: Are you defending the local cus- facts from the life of the real Letitia Landon, a 19th- the Gold Coast in August. But Letty is dead within toms? Have you become an expert in four century English poet and writer. Other characters in two months. The questions are why and how. For weeks? Local Customs are also drawn from history: Captain answers Thomas directs us to local customs. George Maclean, governor of Cape Coast Castle, The backdrop to the story of George and Letty For Letty the Gold Coast is a “dream” filled with on the Guinea Coast; Brodie Cruickshank, another is the political and social panorama of Africa during picturesque characters and scenery. This idyllic Scotsman in Africa, who becomes state is left behind as she becomes Letty’s “cavalier,” and Thomas Birch aware of an undefined menace, Freeman, a Wesleyan missionary of Letty is “a hot-house bloom,” strange dolls left at her bedroom mixed race. door, a dead bat under the bed. In her afterword Thomas tells us decorative and impractical, who will Attempting to educate her about that the genesis of the book came in not last on the plague-ridden coast. the slave trade, Freeman brings her the mid 1960s when she visited the to the cellars where the slaves were Gold Coast and saw the graves of held before being sent to England. As George and Letitia Maclean. Thomas’s guide said the first third of the 19th century: British coloniza- Letty recalls, “these cells are still paved with layer she was “a famous English lady who wrote books,” tion, the slave trade, the role of the Wesleyans in upon layer of human excrement … It was shortly and that “a mystery still surrounded her death.” Abolition. Maclean is representative of the new after that I began to feel unwell.” She is tormented Letty narrates her story in a thin voice—com- British traders who attempt to make up lost slave- in the last weeks of her life by terrible dreams, an pared to some of Thomas’s past narrators like the trade profits with African gold and palm oil. As unseen presence and a mocking laugh outside her more robust Mrs. Blood (from the novel of the same governor he wants to bring justice to the Gold door. name)—but ideal for a revenant. She tells us that Coast, yet his company is still surreptitiously sup- George and Letty, initially ill matched, are— her mother was emotionally distant and her father plying rogue slavers. In the foreground, the clash of ironically—moving toward mutual love as her end feckless, a romantic adventurer who rapidly ran British Christianity and African juju is embodied by nears. Was there an unwanted pregnancy, as their through the family money. After his death, the Thomas Birch Freeman, the Wesleyan missionary, housekeeper suspects? Or was it a fever, which 18-year-old girl falls under the influence of William and the shadowy but menacing presence of Ekosua. Letty refused to acknowledge? Brodie is suffering Jerdan, editor of the Literary Gazette. In becoming The attractions of such a young woman (she once from fever when he comes to call, but Letty installs the sole support of her family by means of her pen, saved George’s life when he was suffering from a him on her daybed and cools his forehead with a she learns self-discipline: “I didn’t have time for fever) are beautifully delineated by Thomas. handkerchief sprinkled with eau de cologne. Was it sympathy. I needed to write and write and write. If When adjudicating court claims George fre- poison, and, if so, who administered it? Several of I didn’t write I should die.” quently deals with situations involving rivals where the characters discuss the juju poisons freely avail- After nearly two decades of toil punctuated by “‘a certain man had put ‘medicine’ in the plaintiff’s able at the market. Or was it simply an overdose of brief but satisfying bouts of admiration, Letty faces soup, medicine meaning poison.” Despite this, he Letty’s usual potion of prussic acid, which she had reality: She is 34, unmarried, her verse is falling out does not question his own role in a similar equa- been taking for female complaints? In Thomas’s of fashion. She despairs of finding a husband and tion when Letty receives juju threats, presumably version, the essential glass of water to dilute this attributes this problem to a shady past including from Ekosua. potion is not near the bed where Letty dies, nor can a love affair with Jerdan and an abandoned child. A further consideration in the novel is the the poison be found. She is thus predisposed to fall in love with human cost of African exploration and trade, not The reader tends to suspect Ekosua. But even George Maclean, on leave in England after putting only for the colonized but also for the colonizers. that interpretation is not free of doubt. Letty might down an insurrection in Africa: “There were words Prior to Letty’s arrival, a contingent of English mis- well be suffering from yellow fever in its third phase [in his report] which sent my blood racing: danger; sionaries died of what was almost certainly yellow of derangement, thus her final vision might not be fever. trustworthy. We cannot easily settle on any one Sandra Djwa’s biography Journey with No Maps: The novel progresses through brief expository interpretation. In this fascinating book, Thomas’s A Life of P.K. Page (McGill-Queen’s University Press, paragraphs headed by the individual speaker’s best, we find a complex portrait of a highly interest- 2012) won the Governor General’s Award for Non- name. The triumph of the novel is that each point ing woman whose better—and worse—qualities Fiction in 2013. of view is brought down to its simplest utterance. destroy her.
18 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Women on the Margins A French-flavoured 19th-century murder mystery, based on a true story. Jack Kirchhoff
P’tit Arthur, as well as her stash of emergency cash old who ran away to join the circus and became Frog Music and the proceeds from selling all of her belongings, an equestrienne. Their emigration to San Francisco Emma Donoghue including the building in which they were living. (there was apparently a large French community HarperCollins The murder is a big story in San Francisco. Jenny, a in the city in the 1870s) is given relatively short 403 pages, hardcover gatherer of frogs for San Francisco’s French restau- shrift, but it is clear the American West is good ISBN 9781443429115 rants, was well known in the city as a flamboyant for them. Blanche becomes Blanche la danseuse, eccentric, arrested every month or so for her habit performing “leg shows”—stripping while singing of dressing in men’s clothes. After the killing, we bawdy songs—and doing even better, financially, f your experience of Emma Donoghue’s follow Blanche as she does what she must to earn on post-performance “dates” with select members fiction is limited to her bestselling 2010 novel, money, gives testimony at the inquest investigating of her much-aroused audience. Madame Johanna, IRoom, arguably her breakthrough work, then Jenny’s death, attends Jenny’s funeral and burial, proprietress of the House of Mirrors, where Blanche her latest, Frog Music, will not be what you expect. and attempts to recover her son. is employed, becomes a sort of mentor. Room is a tightly focused, self-contained As well, there is the story of the relationship The path from that fateful meeting-cum-collision psychological thriller, told from the point of view between Blanche and Jenny, beginning about a on Kearny Street to the bloody murder in San of five-year-old Jack, born and raised in a small month before the murder. That summer in San Miguel Station is enriched by side trips into the San room where his ma has been imprisoned for seven Francisco, “the Paris of the West,” was blistering, Francisco justice system, the city’s notorious “baby years. (A half-dozen people, including one of my record-breaking hot, and the city was in the grip farms,” circus life in 1870s France, popular music daughters and one of my oldest friends, have told of a smallpox epidemic. In Donoghue’s retelling, around the world, smallpox, burlesque and pros- me Room was the best novel they titution, and the Bohemian life, ever read—ever. It is certainly in Jenny, a gatherer of frogs for San which Arthur and Ernest claim to my top five.) be living. Frog Music, Donoghue’s eighth Francisco’s French restaurants, was One of the many delights of novel and 15th book, is much Frog Music is the novel’s after- closer in tone and flavour to well known in the city as a flamboyant word, a collection of fascinating Astray, Donoghue’s 2012 collec- notes on the history and charac- tion of short stories, all based on eccentric, arrested every month or so for ters behind the fiction. There is historical incidents or characters also a glossary of French words from the fringes of society. Frog her habit of dressing in men’s clothes. and terms, the slangier of which Music is a murder mystery based in many cases would be unsuit- on an actual historical event: on September 14, at least, Blanche and Jenny—who pronounced her able for a family publication. Equally beguiling is 1876, notorious cross-dresser Jeanne (a.k.a. surname in the French way, Bonnay—had met the section on the romantic and bawdy ballads, Jenny) Bonnet, who had emigrated from France to when Jenny ran Blanche down in the street while traditional French and American songs, popular California as a child, was shot through the window riding a “high-wheeler,” what in another novel 19th-century tunes, minstrel-show ditties and even of a rented room in San Miguel Station, a small might be called a penny-farthing. hymns and spirituals, all of which are important town just outside San Francisco. In the room with “The lanky daredevil jumps up, rubbing one elements in the book. her at the time of the murder was another French elbow, as lively as a clown,” Donoghue writes. “‘Ça Cartwright’s stories for the Chronicle (the repor- émigrée, Blanche Beunon, a dancer and prostitute. va, mademoiselle?’ The fellow’s observant enough ter is one of the few invented characters in the The two women were on the run from Blanche’s to read Blanche’s nationality from her style of dress. book) are fantastical agglomerations of half-truths maque, Arthur Deneve, and Deneve’s ami intime, And the accent is as French as Blanche’s own. But and outright fabrications. As if the true facts—a Ernest Girard. Both men were considered suspects the voice—Not a man’s, Blanche realizes. Not a cross-dressing frog hunter! Burlesque dancers! in the shooting, and Beunon was convinced they boy’s, even. This a girl, for all the gray jacket, vest, French acrobats!—were not enough. were responsible. But the question of who com- pants, the jet hair hacked above the sunburned San Francisco itself, at least in the parts where mitted the murder, or why, was never officially jawline.” this novel is set, is sprawling, dangerous, hectic, answered. The two women eventually retire to Durand’s smelly, nasty, bloody and dirty. Donoghue does not Donoghue tells the story in several narrative brasserie, where they eat garlicky frog legs, har- shrink from giving us specifics. Arthur’s bout with streams, beginning with the primary story of the vested by Jenny that very day, drink wine and, smallpox is rendered in gruesome detail. Sex scenes murder—which opens the novel, by the way; no finally, resist the boorish advances of an obnoxious, are graphic. spoiler here—and Blanche’s desperate attempts drunken man who wants to buy sex from Blanche. It is not Room, not even close, although the over the next few days to find out exactly what hap- In the incident’s violent aftermath, the two women writing, like the writing in Room, seems more pened, who pulled the trigger and whether she, in end up back on the sidewalk along Kearny Street, aggressive, direct and faster paced than in fact, was the intended target. Also pursuing the story and a friendship is born. “Jenny’s my only friend in Donoghue’s earlier fiction. Perhaps more North are a reporter, “Cartwright of the Chronicle,” and the world,” Blanche says later. American? But having said that, Frog Music is of a Detective Bohen, from the nascent San Francisco Donoghue—born in Dublin but living in piece with her earlier historical fiction: beginning police department. Blanche wants Bohen to arrest London, Ontario, with her partner and their two with a real person or historical event, riveting, Arthur, but the maque has fled, taking their son, children—seamlessly incorporates the backstories ambitious and well executed; strong women char- of Arthur, Blanche and Ernest, who met in Paris acters in strong relationships with other women. Jack Kirchhoff is an arts writer and editor in where Arthur and Ernest were aerialists with the Emma Donoghue is a treasure, and Frog Music is a Toronto. Cirque d’Hiver. Blanche was a star-struck 15-year- gift to readers.
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 19 Essay On Treacherous Ground The CBC once flourished by abandoning pop programming. Can it do that again? Barry Kiefl
he CBC is one of Canada’s oldest and most important public institutions. But it is Tin crisis, made worse by a budget shortfall announced in April. Government funding has been cut and it has lost its most lucrative TV program- ming, NHL hockey. Undoubtedly, it will survive in some form for decades to come, but what changes are needed to ensure it best serves Canadians? Decades ago CBC was the only Canadian TV or radio station most Canadians could receive. It was a necessity, not a convenience. A handful of private radio stations existed in major cities in the 1920s; but in the 1930s Parliament created the CBC and rapidly it became the most important radio broad- caster in the country. During the 1940s and ’50s CBC Radio com- manded a dominant audience share, achieving mass audiences for many programs with ratings lar- ger than the most popular TV programs today. U.S. programs were popular and part of the CBC sched- ule: The Guiding Light had ratings as high as today’s about one in three Canadians regularly listen to tive journalism, less entertainment programming, Super Bowl and Lux Theatre had ratings equal to the CBC Radio, and CBC Radio captures about 15 per- less local programming and local news that sounds ratings of all TV stations combined. The 10 o’clock cent of all radio listening—not what it did in 1950 more and more like private radio. national news had an audience share of 50 percent. but still substantial. The 1950s was also a golden age for CBC TV Radio listening has declined somewhat in the CBC TV’s Conundrum because of its near monopoly of the television audi- last decade or so, but the current CBC share means CBC TV finds itself today in a very fragile position, ence across the country.1 that the average Canadian, including non-listeners, as desperate as radio’s was 50 years ago. Today CBC By the late 1950s CBC Radio began suffering spends about 125 hours per year listening to CBC TV is only one (two if you count its news channel) audience losses, as private popular music stations Radio. Regular listeners spend almost 400 hours of of hundreds of channels, with less and less to dis- were launched. Rock ’n’ roll, aided by the invention their year listening to CBC. tinguish it from private channels. of the transistor radio and car radios (as well as TV), Think about that—that is as much time as most Yes, CBC programs are mostly Canadian and crushed CBC’s comedy and variety programs. By of us spend at work in any three-month period. provide employment to Canadian actors, writers the late 1960s the audience numbers had so deteri- CBC Radio is by far the most successful CBC service and journalists, etc., but most programs look and orated that CBC even considered shutting down its in numerical terms. By comparison, CBCMusic.ca, sound like what one would find on any other chan- radio services. the streaming music service, is listened to by the nel. Some of the programs and personalities on Then CBC managers made some decisions. They average Canadian for about one hour per year and CBC TV are indeed from other channels, including reduced and, by the mid 1970s, got rid of all adver- cbc.ca, the CBC’s news and information website, its biggest hit, Murdoch Mysteries, which is pro- tising on radio. And they allowed some of their accounts for only about three hours per year. duced by Shaftesbury Films and ran for five seasons smart programmers to experiment. These program- Curiously, CBC Radio seems to have forgotten on CITY TV before being picked up by CBC. mers realized that a large and important audience its origins and has once again started to compete CBC airs many of the same programs one finds niche could be served with intelligent, thoughtful with private radio stations, airing pop music on its on private channels: Hollywood movies, NHL and balanced news and information, coupled with second radio network and employing a journalistic hockey, the Olympics, news and information that substantive cultural programming that revolved style that is starting to sound a lot like that of private increasingly mimic the style of private TV, and, until around literature, the arts and classical music. They radio. Commercials have even crept back in. recently, daily U.S. game shows. Most importantly, correctly surmised that there were enough Can- One explanation for CBC Radio moving away virtually all the same commercials that are aired on adians who wanted something more substantive from its well-designed strategy is that CBC has private TV also appear on CBC. than pop music, traffic reports and jocular hosts, made disproportionate budget cuts to the radio ser- CBC TV does have an audience reach much lar- interrupted by commercials. vice, weakening the service and prompting some ger than CBC Radio. About four in five Canadians unsavoury changes. More than $60 million has are regular viewers; but, according to CBC, CBC’s CBC Radio’s Success been taken from the annual budget of radio, which share of total viewing time is now on average about The experiment was so successful that much of in net terms has been given to CBC TV. Radio staff 5 percent. That is a tiny fraction of what it was in the that programming still exists on CBC Radio. Today has been cut by 20 percent, while TV has seen cuts 1960s or even the 1970s and ’80s. There are parts of of less than 4 percent. the day and seasons of the year when the audience Barry Kiefl is the president of Canadian Media These massive budget cuts have worked their share is 3 to 4 percent. Research Inc. and was director of research for CBC/ way through the radio schedule and listeners now A large number of Canadians find something Radio Canada from 1983 to 2001. have far more repeat programming, less investiga- worth watching occasionally on CBC. But few are
20 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada loyal to the service. The average Canadian spends $65 million annually via their cable bill, yet must Murphy’s segment ceased being labelled “Point only about 70 hours per year watching CBC TV, still endure commercials. Some ads require people of View” five years ago and nobody seems to have including NHL hockey and foreign programs. to call a 1-800 number for the CBC to make any noticed. When this was brought to CBC’s attention, Remove those programs and the number is only money. What effect does this have on the public the “Point of View” label was reintroduced and an about 35 hours per year. image of CBC and its journalism? apology was issued. CBC TV chose a different path from radio. Rather The kind of ad revenue CBC TV dreamed of can Another small but telling example of CBC veer- than creating a strategy to serve a substantial niche only be achieved with programs with regular audi- ing from its own journalistic policies is the case of with intelligent journalism and entertainment, CBC ences of 1.5–3 million viewers, with large numbers opinion polls. During the 1980s senior manage- TV strove to be more popular and to attract a mass of adults aged 25 to 54, the only demographic that ment grew concerned about journalists designing audience as well as advertising revenue. interests most advertisers. That is the audience and reporting on polls and the possible effect of This happened gradually over decades, but CTV and Global are able to tap with big budget U.S. polls on elections and referendums. A policy was accelerated when government began reducing programs. created to ensure oversight by the CBC research CBC funding in the 1980s and peaked in the early The only CBC programming that achieves that department and reporting standards dealing with 2000s, as detailed in Richard Stursberg’s book, The kind of audience is NHL hockey. But CBC has been survey methodology were established. Tower of Babble: Sins, Secrets and Successes Inside paying so much for rights that it has managed to The policy on polling appears to have been jet- the CBC. Stursberg described the strategy to grow lose money on hockey in recent years. The corpora- tisoned by both CBC Radio and TV. Programs such audiences and ad revenues: “It provided an alterna- tion became so desperate that one report suggested as The House, The National, Day 6, Power and Pol- tive to endless lamentation about the inadequacy it was willing to go ever deeper into the red to keep itics and regular newscasts present poll results with of government funding. Our plan, then, was to the NHL and even had Gary Bettman, commis- little and sometimes no reference to methodology. save ourselves.” He claimed that CBC TV ratings sioner of the NHL, attend a board of directors meet- Online surveys are another case in point. They are on his watch were the highest in history, but this ing in spring 2013. Fortunately Rogers saved the being used virtually every day by CBC programs in was far from the truth. In fact, according to CBC CBC from this folly and paid $5.2 billion to corner ways contrary to CBC policy. documents, just before Stursberg took control of NHL rights for the next twelve years. Online surveys are not representative of the CBC TV its prime-time audience general population, but all these share was 10 percent and never shows present their polls as if they reached that level during his ten- Here is the paradox: even though are legitimate and scientifically ure. As noted above, CBC Radio government money has been tighter, CBC calibrated expressions of Can- once had a dominant share of the adian public opinion. radio audience but Stursberg also TV has become far more dependent on CBC has taken to Twitter in a claimed incorrectly that his radio major way, incorporating tweets audiences were the highest in the taxpayers in the past 15 years. into many programs from anyone 75 years of CBC radio. who takes 30 seconds to compose Here is the paradox: even though government a 140-character thought. Twitter users are similar Ads or No Ads? money has been tighter, CBC TV has become to those who respond to radio call-in shows and Despite the success of a non-commercial radio far more dependent on taxpayers in the past who answer online surveys in that they are repre- strategy, CBC executives convinced themselves 15 years. As mentioned, in 1997–98 ad revenue of sentative of neither the audience nor the Canadian that commercials would do no harm on TV. I recall CBC English TV was $248 million; that same year population. And Twitter, used improperly, risks one program manager being proud of commercials government funding was $301 million, according undermining the journalistic reputation of CBC because it made programs look professional, like to CRTC documents. So ad revenue contributed journalists. the U.S. commercial networks with their high rat- almost 50 percent of the budget. Today CBC TV ad Weakening the brand in the pursuit of ratings ings. CBC president Hubert Lacroix echoed these revenues are $200 million, while the government has clearly not worked and the desire for the mass sentiments in a speech in 2008: “to be honest, contributes almost $450 million for the operation of audience has gone unfulfilled. The desperation we actually like the discipline these ratings impose CBC English TV. Advertising now accounts for only seems to have seeped into flagship programs such on us, because it helps us ensure that we’re deliv- about 30 percent of the total. Soon it will be less as The National, which in the 1980s appeared ering the services and programming Canadians than 20 percent. In other words, in financial terms regularly in the top-rated national programs. Not want.” CBC TV has become more of a public broadcaster so today. Commercials now appear during the pro- Current management even hired a consultant but, despite diminishing returns, expends more gram, inviting viewers to switch channels. to undertake a flawed analysis to prove that com- and more effort pursuing ad revenues. By 2014–15 A few years ago CBC hired Frank N. Magid Asso- mercials do not detract from public broadcasting. when TV ad revenues fall to about $100 million, ciates, a firm of American news “doctors,” the same The analysis went so far as to claim it would be surely the time will have come to de-commercialize ones responsible for the Eyewitness News format poor public policy to remove commercials. Veteran completely. Unfortunately, even after the April 2014 on American television. They are the reason we public broadcasters reject such an analysis on the announcement of budget cuts, CBC still seems to see Peter Mansbridge standing up delivering his understanding that running commercials means be clinging to the hope that ad revenues will be its scripts, supposedly to impart a sense of urgency to that you are treating the audience as consumers salvation. the news. Perhaps surprisingly, in spite of all this rather than viewers or listeners. The BBC, a much tinkering, surveys reveal CBC national news is still healthier public broadcaster than the CBC, made CBC Abandons Public Broadcasting held in high regard by Canadians. But for how long? the thoughtful decision to broadcast the 2012 sum- Principles? mer London Olympics without ads. While chasing elusive ratings, CBC TV and, to a How Did This Happen? The problem is more than a philosophical one: lesser extent, CBC Radio have been distancing CBC has seen government funding, which is still CBC TV’s revenue-driven strategy never delivered themselves from the basic principles of public substantial, reduced in relative terms over the past on the mass audience that was needed to sell to broadcasting. For example, CBC TV and Radio have 30 years, and management is desperate for finan- advertisers. CBC ad revenues in absolute dollars are journalistic policies dealing with the expression cial solutions to maintain the status quo. less today than they were 15 years ago. In 1997–98 of opinion. The policy states: “CBC journalists do Management and unions can be blamed to CBC English TV ad revenues were $248 million and not express their own personal opinion because some extent for not accepting that smaller budgets in 2012–13 revenues were $200 million. it affects the perception of impartiality and could should translate into a more focused CBC, perhaps In 2014–15 CBC TV will derive no money from affect an open and honest exploration of an issue.” with fewer full-time staff. According to CRTC data, ads on NHL hockey and its ad revenue overall will Yet Rex Murphy, one of CBC’s best-known the number of full-time staff at CBC, about 9,000, fall to barely $100 million. CBC TV spends almost broadcasters, offered a regular opinion segment has not changed much since the late 1990s. The that much on its sales department and promotion. on The National, with no reference to its being BBC has a budget five times larger than the CBC’s By comparison, CTV derives over $750 million commentary or opinion, implying that the well- but only about 20,000 full-time staff. annually in ad revenue. Global TV generates over known pundit represented not himself but CBC. Head office (that is, the president and board of $400 million. An inquiry to CBC in December 2013 solicited directors, based in Ottawa) can also be singled out The ad revenue of CBC’s news channel is even this response: “We make a point of labelling his for not implementing modern management infor- more meagre, only about $15 million annually. analyses as ‘Point of View’ so there is no confusion mation systems. Since about 1999 the head office Subscribers to the channel pay the CBC over among the audience.” But that was not the case: role of developing and implementing policy and
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 21 corporate strategy has been curtailed and reduced final approval from the president and the board. CBC, and now is the time for the government to act, to defending the corporation from real or perceived Sometimes they do not even seek approval. For Otherwise, a cherished part of Canada is at risk of outside “threats” from the private sector. example, Montreal came up with the ludicrous idea being diminished and the CBC will lose more than This was mostly the result of a decentralized of removing “Radio Canada” from “Ici Radio Can- Linden McIntyre, Alison Smith and Nancy Wilson. management structure introduced in the late ada” and I understand that the president learned A new funding mechanism would not only pro- 1990s. A new president, Robert Rabinovitch, gave about it at the same time the rest of us did. vide for stable year-to-year funding, but it could control of all radio and TV, in English and French The networks now determine strategy with also increase the amount of funding available for respectively, to two executives, who basically acted far less input from head office. For example, the programming to both CBC and private Canadian as the joint presidents. The head office position of networks have put much emphasis on new digital broadcasters. executive vice-president, traditionally filled by a services such as cbc.ca, CBCMusic.ca and a What kind of programming? CBC Radio could veteran broadcaster, was eliminated. Since the CBC digital radio station in Hamilton (accessible only reinstate the well-thought-out strategy that worked president is appointed by the prime minister and via the internet). As noted above, Canadians spend for almost 50 years, and cease competing for adver- is usually someone lacking first-hand experience very little time with these digital services, includ- tising revenue and audiences with pop music. in broadcasting, the position Both CBC Radio and TV could of the executive vice-president return to the journalistic stan- had been critical. In the past Public broadcasters serve the audience, dards that have built CBC’s 50 years only one president, reputation. Tony Manera, has come from while private broadcasters sell the audience. Most crucially, CBC TV within CBC. could finally get off the ratings The new decentralized structure gave the net- ing ones that have been around for a decade or treadmill. Free of the commercial albatross, pro- work heads in Toronto and Montreal ultimate longer, such as cbc.ca. This is primarily because the grammers could be more creative. CBC would be control of both radio and TV. Previously radio had competition for the audience in the digital world surprised how many Canadians crave intelligent, its own vice-president, reporting directly to head is exponentially greater than in the world of radio substantive news and current affairs and distinct- office. This change largely explains why CBC Radio and TV. ive, edgy, experimental drama and entertainment. budgets have been cut in recent years, while TV CBC acts as though the days of TV and radio Supporters of the status quo have always budgets have been maintained: the same executive broadcasting are numbered. But traditional TV and labelled this kind of plan as turning CBC TV into now controls both. radio are not going to disappear any time soon. TV “PBS North.” They point to the fact that PBS’s most Decentralization could have worked if the net- viewing levels have not been affected at all by the successful programs are often British imports. works had been totally responsible and account- new media and radio listening levels have declined While such programs might have a small place able for decision making. However, that would have only marginally. in the new CBC TV, most of the schedule would required a separation of the English and French CBC needs to experiment with new technology be devoted to innovative Canadian programming networks, with head office acting as a holding com- and internet-based services, which will continue to that would not cater to commercial imperatives. pany. But Rabinovitch did not go that far. grow in importance. But oversight from head office Programs made for viewers rather than advertisers, The dysfunctional organizational structure that once kept resources spent on new technologies which explains why HBO is so successful. I suspect means the networks have greater responsibil- in proper balance is lacking. that with intelligent and substantive programming, ity but head office remains accountable for their CBC TV might reach a somewhat smaller number decisions and depends on them for timely and CBC’s Future of Canadians on a regular basis. But the audience accurate information about audience performance, Many Canadians still cherish the CBC and support viewing share might actually increase; the average revenue, expenses, and so on. But things can easily the idea of public broadcasting. viewer would spend more time watching such a go wrong. For example, head office has gone on A public broadcaster by definition is paid for service and be far more supportive of CBC TV. record stating that commercial revenue, including by all citizens, either through a licence fee or via If politicians cannot be convinced about a new advertising, accounted for “one third” of CBC’s grants from general taxation. Citizens can choose funding mechanism, at minimum they should total budget; on another occasion it was “close to not to watch or listen, as they may choose not to use establish a CBC trust, modelled on the BBC, which 40%”; and on a third occasion it was “almost half.” libraries, but everyone pays for the public broad- would increase public accountability and perhaps The difference between one third and almost half is caster and at some point in their lives will probably raise additional funds for the CBC. With or with- about $300 million. Another example: earlier it was benefit from the service, as they will likely at some out new funding, CBC TV faces a crisis and must shown that ad revenue currently accounts for about point benefit from our healthcare system. Public find a new audience strategy, one built on high 30 percent of CBC TV’s total revenue, substantially broadcasters serve the audience, while private programming and journalistic standards, serving a less than 15 years ago, yet the president claimed in broadcasters sell the audience. substantial segment of the population and valued a recent speech that it was between “40% and 50%,” CBC depends on annual grants from Parliament. by enough Canadians to justify the expenditure of numbers that presumably came from the TV net- Canada would be better served with an annual public money. works. These conflicting statements are meant to set licence fee or a dedicated communications tax. the record straight. They do anything but, and dem- Either would provide for more direct input from Note onstrate that head office can be kept in the dark. citizens, greater independence from government, 1 These comments deal primarily with anglophone Canadi- The English and French networks are content to and less or no reliance on commercial revenue. This ans and CBC English radio and TV. develop their strategies in isolation and then seek was proposed to the Senate committee examining
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22 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Fifth Business in the Art World An unconventional collector, painter and photographer comes in from the cold. Judy Stoffman
Amos, an artist who lives in Victoria and has Mortimer-Lamb with his rimless glasses and luxuri- Harold Mortimer-Lamb: The Art Lover written seven books about that city, does a worker- ant mustache by various grateful artists. Robert Amos like job of telling Mortimer-Lamb’s story from his He opened a money-losing art gallery and photo TouchWood Editions childhood in Surrey, England; his arrival in British studio with fellow photographer John Vanderpant 177 pages, softcover Columbia at 16 to learn farming in the Fraser Valley; on Robson Street and devoted his considerable ISBN 9781771510189 his quick exit from the farm and his travels through energies to bringing in travelling exhibitions of the mining towns along the U.S. border, where work from the National Gallery of Canada, found- he founded several local newspapers filled with ing the British Columbia Art League, founding a he first half of the 20th century was mining news. This led to his lifelong work with the professional art school (forerunner of Emily Carr one of vigorous growth and development provincial and later the national mining associa- University of Art and Design) and trying to get a Tin Canadian art, without much encour- tions as their spokesman, PR person and editor of civic art gallery off the ground. agement from a conservative society. When you their publications. He was responsible for bringing Group of Seven read the standard art histories of this period, invari- One of the remarkable things about this multi- member Fred Varley to be a teacher at the new Van- ably constructed around the formation and struggle talented man was his ability to lead two distinct couver School of Decorative and Applied Arts, and of the Group of Seven, you have to ask: Why were lives, one among geologists and financiers and this had unforeseen consequences. Varley was a our painters so conventional? Did they feel they another among artists. In 1903, in recognition of his dazzling teacher, but a feckless husband and father. had to pretend to be bourgeois to make it? Where managerial and writing skills, he was named secre- Abandoning his wife, Maud, and their sons, Varley were the bohemians? tary of the Montreal-based Canadian Mining Insti- fell deeply in love with his student and frequent When members of the Group of Seven went on tute and moved his family to Montreal, where he model Vera Weatherbie, herself a talented artist. their boxcar excursions to explore the Canadian met the most exciting painters of the day including During hiking and sketching trips to the North Shore landscape, they had a “no alcohol” rule. Lawren A.Y. Jackson and the wealthiest collectors such as of Vancouver, they found a shack in Lynn Valley that Harris famously painted in his three-piece suit and William Van Horne. He formed a particularly close became their love nest; you can see it in some of tie and had to leave Toronto when he divorced his relationship with the painter Laura Muntz Lyall. Varley’s best paintings such as Dharana, in the col- wife. They seem to us like squares compared to But life in Montreal soon became turbulent lection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. (Later the rent their European counterparts. Where is our Bateau- and unhappy. His beloved young daughter, Dolly, on this dilapidated cabin was paid by Mortimer- Lavoir, our Bloomsbury painters immersed in whose ethereal childish beauty Mortimer-Lamb Lamb, as was Vera’s rent on her painting studio.) love triangles, our Pont-Aven group, our madmen had often captured with his camera, died of The tumultuous love affair with the beautiful suicides like Modigliani or Van Gogh, our artist/ measles, and his wife, Kate, unable to adjust to the Vera eventually burned itself out and Varley, the stockbroker who runs away to Polynesia to paint big city or cope with the demands of the household, wild man, went back east licking his wounds. A bare-breasted women carrying fruit? became an invalid, possibly an opium addict. She few years later, Mortimer-Lamb was widowed and There were, in fact, Canadian bohemians, lived a shadowy existence in the back rooms of the thus began the final and perhaps most remarkable although their stories are not well known. After house until she died in 1939. The household was chapter in his long life. reading Harold Mortimer-Lamb: The Art Lover, in chaos, their four boys not bathed or fed, until a At the suggestion of his housekeeper, Mary Wil- Robert Amos’s biography of the photographer, competent young housekeeper named Mary Wil- liams, who had turned down his proposal, he asked painter and art collector (1872–1970), I can tell you liams took charge of the family. Vera to marry him and to his surprise, she agreed. where they went: Vancouver. On the West Coast Longing for the West Coast, Mortimer-Lamb He was almost 70, she was 40 years younger. The they savoured a greater freedom to live and create suffered a nervous collapse and resigned from two enjoyed each other’s company for the next as they wished. his job. The family, including Mary who was now 29 years. He became a painter, even taking courses Before Amos’s book, Mortimer-Lamb put in only expecting his child, returned to Vancouver in 1920, at the art school he helped establish, while she brief appearances at the edges of Canadian art his- where a daughter, Molly—the future artist Molly gradually stopped painting to look after him. tory. He is a footnote in the biographies of many Lamb Bobak—was born. His depression cleared up In 1967, when she was in her mid fifties, Vera celebrated artists including Fred Varley, Arthur Lis- and a new and happy chapter opened in Mortimer- began to show signs of dementia; she insisted that mer, Lawren Harris, Jack Shadbolt and Emily Carr, Lamb’s life. He and Mary continued under the Tommy Douglas was hiding in her refrigerator. She whom he discovered and called to the attention of same roof but lived very separate lives, disregarding entered the notorious provincial mental hospital Eric Brown, head of the National Gallery. He photo- convention. known as Essondale, where she received a frontal graphed them in his gauzy pictorialist style, hosted His steady income (he went back to work for the lobotomy. She emerged calmer but had lost her them at his house, corresponded with them, bought B.C. mining association) enabled him to support spark. Harold Mortimer-Lamb died in 1970, age 99, their work, wrote about them in the newspapers, a family of five children, maintain a large home and Vera followed seven years later, after choking and even paid their rent on occasion. in Kerrisdale with tennis courts and a dark room, on a piece of steak. He is “fifth business” in the story of Canadian a huge garden and a barn for his Jersey cows. He Harold Mortimer-Lamb’s extensive collec- art, a minor player who nevertheless holds the key could afford to collect British and Canadian art, tion of paintings, books, photographs and objects to the whole drama. Chinese vases, Japanese tea ceremony artifacts eventually passed to and helped build the hold- and woodblock prints and still help out his painter ings of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the Judy Stoffman writes, edits and collects art in friends when they were down on their luck. The Vancouver Art Gallery. His vision of Vancouver as a Vancouver. She is associate editor of the LRC. book abounds with drawings and paintings of centre for art making has largely been realized.
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 23 The East Wants In But casting the rest of Canada as villains is not the best way to equality. Matthew Mendelsohn
sions taken over two centuries with regions other Star,” “those channeling Oliver Mowat,” “the Equal as Citizens: The Tumultuous and than Atlantic Canada in mind. For example, there Ontario Premier,” even my own “Mowat Centre,” Troubled History of a Great Canadian Idea is a strong case to be made that the federal govern- are rarely mentioned without scorn. It is as if Richard Starr ment decision that gave away the northern territo- merely pointing out that an argument was made Formac Publishing ries in the early 20th century to Quebec, Ontario in “Toronto’s Globe and Mail” serves as proof of its 312 pages, softcover and the new western provinces, with little compen- foul origins. ISBN 9781459503113 sation to the Maritimes, eventually enriched the While I enjoy a bracing slap in the face as much western provinces but left the Maritimes further as the next guy, the book’s tone suggests it is target- marginalized economically. ing an audience already converted to the author’s hen I was in graduate school—and But in Starr’s narrative, even when the Maritimes own assumptions about the Canadian narrative. later, teaching graduate students—the get what they ask for, it always comes with a Equal as Citizens might be a more exasperating Wreading lists covering Quebec nation- “yes, but…” When the federal government acts read for a broader national audience that does not alism and Western Canadian regionalism were on many of the recommendations of the Rowell- automatically accept the assumption that any refer- fat. The number of books on Ontario’s perspec- Sirois Commission, laying the foundation for ence to Ontario should be accompanied by menac- tives were sparse, but most of us concluded that the Canadian welfare state, as demanded by the ing background music. Ontario’s dominance of Canadian politics made Maritimes, this serves only as further evidence Ontario is not the only villain in Starr’s book. a uniquely Ontario perspective Neoconservatism is as well, and unnecessary: Ontario’s story was Starr situates any criticism of implicitly Canada’s. In all of this, Merely pointing out that an argument equalization within the broader Atlantic Canada, though, was an context of an ideological attack on afterthought. We studied Atlantic was made in “Toronto’s Globe and Mail” redistribution generally. The book Canada’s perspectives on the fed- serves as proof of its foul origins. documents a consistent attack on eration, but the extent to which the current structure of fiscal fed- students internalized anything eralism by conservative politicians resembling a uniquely Atlantic view was weak. of federal perfidy, this time to rob the Maritimes and neoconservative think tanks such as the Fraser Yes, we learned about a series of unfavourable Rights Movement of its mojo. The fact that in 2007 Institute, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and decisions visited on Atlantic Canada by the federal Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador were Macdonald-Laurier Institute. government at the time of Confederation and in the allowed to choose which equalization formula they And there is no doubt that this is part of the decades following. But the political science litera- wanted—the old or the new—is just another sign of contemporary debate. There is a neoconserva- ture boiled the political culture of Atlantic Canada federal deviousness. tive attack on equalization, and Starr accurately down to two key terms: “clientelist” and “paro- But this book is more than a simple retelling summarizes its main elements. The network of chial”—which meant: show us the money, and we of grievances. It places Atlantic Canadian history neoconservative think tanks divides Canada into will reward those politicians who deliver. within the context of debates over equalization “makers” and “takers,” with the makers living west In Equal as Citizens: The Tumultuous and and fiscal transfers, and reminds us that disputes of the border between Quebec and Ontario and the Troubled History of a Great Canadian Idea, Richard about fiscal federalism echo throughout our history. takers living to the east. The makers are virtuous Starr seeks to correct the gaps in our knowledge. Starr makes a persuasive case that the Canadian and hard working; the takers are lazy leeches. It is He recounts the story of Canadian history as a promise of equal citizenship falls short if provinces understandable that Starr and many from Canada’s long march of slights against Atlantic Canada, have very different fiscal resources to provide ser- eastern provinces get their backs up in the face of and particularly the Maritimes. As the book’s title vices and opportunities to their residents. such an assault. It is all the more galling to many implies, these decisions, particularly over fiscal Historically, the Maritimes have argued they in the Maritimes that these lectures often originate issues such as equalization, have undermined need more fiscal resources to realize this promise. in provinces prospering from vast natural resource equality in Canada for less prosperous provinces. When 19th-century politicians such as Joseph wealth given away without compensation to the Each chapter provides useful reminders of key Howe and Charles Tupper sought “better terms” original Maritime provinces. issues, major federal or provincial reports that for Atlantic Canada, it was figures such as George But by focusing exclusively on the most car- outlined Atlantic Canadian concerns, documented Brown and Edward Blake who resisted their toonish criticism of equalization, the author risks proposed remedies and the federal government’s demands. Starr’s recounting of the debates over becoming a caricature himself. In rising to the bait, failure to respond—demonstrating, yet again, how the financial terms of Confederation right through he merely matches every comical neoconservative the Maritimes got “the short end of the stick.” to modern-day discussions of the fiscal imbalance western grievance with one of his own. For those who never studied, or who have for- are chronicled with a “plug and play” quality that In a book so preoccupied with the concept of gotten, the pre-Confederation debates about fiscal always ends the same: Ontario and Alberta won, region, Equal as Citizens is remarkably blind to the resources and debt allowances, and later the build- the Maritimes lost—usually with “Ontario-born” regional interests of other provinces, portraying any ing of rail, pipelines and seaways in the interests of politicians cast as villains. opposition to the Maritime perspectives as a Trojan other provinces, the book is a useful primer. Starr To Starr, Atlantic Canada’s economic prob- horse for an ideological—rather than a regional— tells a persuasive story of federal economic deci- lems can be laid squarely at the feet of the federal agenda. Starr dismisses the impressive and exhaus- government, Ontario and the Atlantic Canadian tive scholarship of Thomas Courchene, which Matthew Mendelsohn is the founding director of the politicians who sold out to them. Visceral contempt documents the changing political economy of the Mowat Centre at the School of Public Policy and for the federal government, western provinces, Canadian federation, as “blaming the victim.” He Governance at the University of Toronto. He served and Ontario in particular spills from the pages. shakes his head at then Ontario premier Bob Rae’s as a deputy minister in the government of Ontario “The nobs of the Empire Club” (his term for the campaign for fairness for Ontario in fiscal transfers from 2004 to 2009. Laurentian elite), “The National Post,” “ The Toronto as having bought into the arguments of neocon-
24 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada servatives against redistribution. When the federal of our current system that are not grounded in a provided evidence that Canadians in the Maritimes government decides to reduce fiscal transfers to neoconservative framework simply perplex him, have less access to public services. While Starr Ontario in a manner that is particularly punitive, with our own Mowat Centre studies “muddying readily highlights that public funding in Maritime these actions are dismissed with a chortle: “Unfair the waters” around the simple story he wants to schools was lower than elsewhere in the 1940s, he (to Ontario)? Perhaps, but…” While Starr bemoans tell of neoconservatives who despise equality doing does not provide any compelling evidence for that Atlantic Canada’s treatment as an “all-purpose whatever they can to undermine inter-regional being the case today. punching bag,” his objection is not to punching per redistribution. But there are reasonable ways to move for- se, just that the bag should be Ontario—and the For example, one of the main design features ward, and Starr highlights some of them: more West—instead. of the employment insurance system today is a “needs-based” transfers, greater inclusion of Starr repeatedly claims that Ontario premiers redistribution of funds away from low-income, natural resource royalties in equalization calcula- want to see a one-to-one return for every dollar part-time workers in Ontario and toward seasonal tion, clawing back some portion of transfers from Ontarians send to the federal government. But he workers in Atlantic Canada. Objecting to this and wealthier provinces, national carbon pricing and never cites an Ontario premier who has said that, proposing alternatives is not driven by a hatred of an independent agency to report publicly on fiscal and as far as I am aware, no Ontario government or the less fortunate. It is driven by a desire to redesign information and imbalances. Building coalitions in premier has ever said that. In fact, Ontario premiers unemployment insurance so that it accommodates favour of any of these ideas requires an apprecia- have repeatedly stated the opposite: I have watched the new forms of labour market risk in today’s tion for the perspectives of other regions. Derision Ontario premiers specifically say that Ontario’s economy. In Starr’s chapter on unemployment and scorn rarely serve as a foundation for a com- structural concerns with fiscal fed- mon agenda built around equality eralism should not be interpreted of citizenship. as suggesting that Ontarians By focusing exclusively on the most Despite different regional nar- expect every dollar they send in ratives about the meaning of the taxes to return in federal spending. cartoonish criticism of equalization, Starr country, Canadians have been A stingy, selfish Ontario may be a risks becoming a caricature himself. remarkably good at getting along. useful straw man, but a little more This has been in part due to a commitment to the facts would Canadian political culture that have made the narrative more credible. insurance, reasonable objections to the program values consensus building. Those attracted to ideo- But the neoconservative attack is not the only are greeted not with engagement but a sneer. Even logical purity dismiss this as a cliché or bemoan it, criticism of our current fiscal arrangements. Starr’s Lloyd Axworthy (!) is added to the list of Starr’s complaining that we often just muddle through, preoccupation with Friedrich Hayek, the Koch neoconservative villains. It would have been nice limping from one cobbled-together solution to brothers, the Cato Institute and others who make up if there had been some recognition that, perhaps, another. But it is hard to imagine the country having the neoconservative idea mill in the United States once in a while, opposition to asking low-income succeeded if we did not. may have blinded him to many of the other criti- people in urban areas and small businesses to pay Starr’s perspective on our country, and the cisms of equalization and employment insurance. higher payroll taxes in order to support coastal fish- Maritimes’ place in it, is important. The Maritimes’ His rejection of the simplistic makers/takers ers might be motivated by something other than a narrative—and Starr’s version of that narrative—is labels is certainly appropriate. But he mimics the neoconservative ideology. a legitimate one. But so too are the Laurentian, New same simplistic analysis by regularly referring to Likewise, the equalization program, as currently Ontario, Quebec, aboriginal and western narra- two groups of provinces: “richer” and “poorer,” designed, cannot accomplish its core mission dur- tives. In Canada, the most important job of a federal with Alberta and Ontario being the former, selfishly ing resource booms because resource wealth is government is to find ways of accommodating dis- refusing to share their wealth with the others. not redistributed. Over the last five years, despite parate regional narratives, all the while elaborating Yet Ontario and Alberta share almost no inter- Ontario having below average fiscal capacity, the a unifying one as well. ests on issues related to fiscal federalism anymore. equalization program has made Ontario worse off, Starr has reminded us of the negative impact on They haven’t for a decade. There are at least three not better. To dismiss Ontario’s concerns about the the Maritimes of a long list of federal decisions— groups of provinces possessing very different operation of fiscal federalism as another example of from the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway to the interests on issues of fiscal federalism: the carbon- a neoconservative attack on the poor is to misun- giveaway of natural resources to Western Canadian producing provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan), the derstand the implications of the global economic provinces. Perhaps this will lead to more civilized less prosperous provinces (the Maritimes, Quebec, transformation taking place over the last three conversations about inter-regional equality ema- Manitoba) and Ontario (note that the place of decades. The Mowat Centre’s critique of the current nating from other regions of the country. But such British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador system of fiscal federalism is framed in the lan- respectful conversations require all regions to make in these alliances is evolving and uncertain). This guage of “common citizenship.” This is not, as Starr a good faith effort to understand the narratives of leaves many of us with a very different critique of would have it, a cynical ploy masking an agenda to other parts of Canada, an effort that Starr clearly is the current system of interprovincial redistribu- impoverish children in rural Nova Scotia; rather, it not up for. tion than the neoconservative one that dominates concludes that there is strong evidence that equal- Starr’s analysis. ization is not achieving its goals for Canadians in Starr is aware of this alternative critique, which Ontario. argues that the two most important forces at work Canadians value the principle of equalization. Get extra insight undermining the health of Canadian fiscal feder- They embrace the notion that less prosperous prov- alism are the growing importance of provincially inces should receive more fiscal resources. They between issues! owned natural resources, which has led to rising almost universally believe that all provinces should inequities between provinces, and the impact of have sufficient financial resources to provide good- For more of the content you care globalization and free trade agreements on the abil- quality public services. Atlantic Canadian premiers about, follow the LRC on Twitter. ity to finance inter-regional redistribution. Because can stand in front of crowded halls anywhere in We’ve overcome our future shock to natural resource revenues are not available to the the country and say “we believe in equalization” provide timely, 140-character updates federal government for redistribution, the main and risk little pushback. But simply believing in on issues and ideas that matter to cause of growing inequities between provinces— equalization—and equality of citizenship—does readers, including breaking book news, the sustained commodity boom—cannot in fact not provide easy policy solutions. be used by the federal government to moderate What happens if we assume that Starr’s interpre- cultural events and interesting writing the inequities. Likewise, it is realism—rather than tations of Canadian history are all accurate, that the from across the web—in particular, neoconservatism—for businesses that are compet- story of Canada is one of a long series of decisions work published elsewhere by LRC ing globally in open markets to be more concerned to undermine Atlantic Canada? Where is the evi- contributors. about the competitiveness of our tax system (and dence that Canadians in the Maritimes are suffer- the ability to fund inter-regional redistribution) ing from “unequal citizenship” today? It certainly is Follow us at than they were when they operated in a protected not in Starr’s book. market. Beyond making the obvious point that Alberta twitter.com/lrcmag This alternative critique does not find its way is able to provide better quality services at lower into the heart of Starr’s analysis. In fact, criticisms levels of taxation than other provinces, Starr has not
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 25 Top Dog at External Portrait of a civil servant whose power would be inconceivable today. David M. Malone
absolute and his mission in shaping O.D. Skelton: Canadian foreign policy he grandly The Work of the World, described as “the work of the world.” 1923–1941 Skelton’s scorn for a Europe that Norman Hillmer, editor had not managed to keep itself from McGill-Queen’s University Press and plunging into the Great War of 1914–18 the Champlain Society was mirrored by well-founded fears 517 pages, hardcover that it would drag Canada back ISBN 978077354273 into war soon enough. He struggled hard, not always successfully, to prevent Canada from committing .D. (Oscar) Skelton was itself to threatening positions within the seminal figure, working the League of Nations, for example Oclosely with two contrast- against Mussolini’s march of folly ing prime ministers, who shaped into Ethiopia. He also adopted a an autonomous Canadian foreign low-key approach to Canada’s pos- policy, moving Canada away from ition on Japanese aggression against a subaltern role within an imperial Manchuria, privately critical though system geared mostly to London’s he was of Japan’s behaviour. interests. His monumental tenure To read Skelton’s impassioned as undersecretary of state for exter- memoranda to the prime minister, nal affairs from 1925 to 1941 would which King often read out to Cabinet, be unthinkable today, as would his suggests both elements of continuity modus operandi. and a great deal of change since his The Carleton University–based day. editor of O.D. Skelton: The Work of the The Second World War wrought World, 1923–1941, Norman Hillmer, profound change globally, much is a doyen of Canada’s diplomatic more than did the murderous first. historians, with deep knowledge not Above all, it hastened decolonization, just of Ottawa’s archives but also of produced efforts to unify Western the workings of government, experi- Europe in what has become an enced at first hand from 1980 to 1990 expanded European Union and gen- as senior historian at the Department erated a sustained spurt of strong of National Defence. This valuable economic growth in the western volume, which reproduces memo- world, soon replicated in Japan, then randa, letters and diary entries, in the “Asian Tigers” and now in brings Skelton into sharp focus in an extensive King governments of the 1920s (interrupted by a China. New conflicts emerged, most lastingly introduction. brief Conservative interlude under Arthur Meighen) in the Middle East. The Cold War broke out, with Skelton is known partly for his central role to the very different regime of the Conservative R.B. the Soviet Union empowered by its heroic struggle in creating a Canadian foreign ministry and for Bennett (1930–35), who was much more inclined against Hitler’s aggression, and Stalin determined recruiting the government’s most famous gen- than King to cleave to London’s causes. Although to fashion a significant Soviet sphere of influence, eration of foreign service officers (including L.B. King mostly supported Skelton’s views and propos- of which Vladimir Putin’s yearning for a Eurasian Pearson). Happily, this volume focuses primar- als, at times he quailed at the relentless onslaught Union today is an echo. Economic development of ily on Skelton’s policy preferences, centred on a of his undersecretary’s advocacy. As for Bennett, the former African, Asian and Caribbean colonies meaningful role for a fully independent Canada on in spite of their very different views, he records in a became a shared international preoccupation. the global stage. On this, he saw it as his abiding 1941 note that he had grown “very fond” of Skelton. (Only years earlier, in 1944, none other than John mission to keep his prime ministers (inclined to It is a tribute to Skelton that most Canadians today Maynard Keynes had described a proposed meet- occasional emotive outpourings of support for the would agree with his key objective—in a different ing including a number of developing countries as Empire) on the straight and narrow. time, of course—of freeing this country internation- akin to “a monstrous monkey-house.”1) Skelton, a Liberal, managed his greatest tactical ally from the delusions, ambitions and schemes of Canada, at the height of its international power coup in surviving a transition from the Mackenzie waning imperial Britain. and influence in 1945, was involved in post-war Like so many highly successful figures, Skelton arrangements in Europe and to a lesser extent in David M. Malone, who did time pleasurably on and was a complex personality. While his diary entries Asia (not least through the Korean War). Skelton off at External Affairs from 1975 to 2008, is today cast him as bestriding the globe, in letters to his would have appreciated the creative role that rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo wife, Isabel, his vanities, trials, tribulations and Canadian politicians and diplomacy played in and under-secretary-general of the United Nations. ambitions leap out at the reader. His self-belief was helping to engineer Europe’s post-war prosperity
26 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada and stability through a web of multilateral institu- lionized (no matter how criminal it turns out to be) tions and partnerships. He worked hard for the while public service is seen by many primarily as deeper and more mature relations that emerged a waste of taxpayer funds. In vote-seeking mode, 18th Annual in the later 1940s and ’50s between Ottawa and politicians too often play to this prejudice. Washington, quite independent from United The drivers and the mechanics of foreign policy States–United Kingdom ties. In spite of occasional formulation are radically different in Canada today Saskatchewan sharp disagreements (for example, over Vietnam than they were in Skelton’s time. Canada was then and Iraq) aggravated by philosophical and tem- defined by two founding nations. Today, pandering peramental differences between several U.S. on foreign policy for electoral gain to any segment Festival of and Canadian leaders, Washington increasingly of Canada’s admirably diverse population is fair viewed Canada as its most reliable—if at times game for any party smart enough to figure out the irritatingly moralistic—ally beyond Britain, which it winning angles. The Liberals used to excel at this. Words often found annoyingly superior. The Conservatives have captured the ball with Skelton’s tireless work to build up External great skill. Curiously though, underpinning these INSPIRATION Affairs laid the foundations for the rapid expansion manoeuvres, at the very heart of Ottawa today lies during and after the war a strain of nostalgia INVESTIGATION of Canada’s network for and allegiance to of diplomatic missions Skelton’s relationship the Anglosphere, sym- INSTRUCTION throughout the world. bolized most promin- Several of those he with two such different ently by the monarchy recruited, who regarded prime ministers speaks but also by veneration him with admiration in for wars fought with spite of his incapacity to the importance Anglosphere comrades to delegate, went on to in bygone eras. lead this effort. prime ministers then Canadian public ser- Skelton’s relation- vice work is both similar ship with two such dif- attached to strong policy to and altogether differ- ferent prime ministers ent from what Skelton speaks to the import- advisors from within experienced and some- ance prime ministers times invented. Skelton Roche Percee, Saskatchewan then attached to strong the public service. personally wrote long Photo Credit © Ken Dalgarno www.dalgarnoart.com policy advisors from memoranda to the within the public service. His experience over prime minister on international developments 2014 Line-up 18 years rapidly provided him with unrivalled cred- and their implications for Canada. He invariably ibility. Today, deputy ministers turn over at rates recommended a clear course of action. Today, C.R. Avery that often preclude in-depth mastery and personal such advice would be de trop. For many years now, Ted Barris dominance not so much of departmental files but senior officials have hardly written at all. Rather, Anthony Bidulka of the wider field within which federal policy oper- consensus-oriented documents rise up from the Gail Bowen ates. It is not clear that anyone at the political level bowels of departments, are further diluted by inter- Beverley Brenna pays much heed to their views. (One federal minis- departmental consultation, make their way through Claire Cameron ter told me recently that the government received often stupendously bored Cabinet committees Ken Dalgarno its policy input “through other channels.”) to the status of decisions that are often unfunded So, are deputy ministers in Ottawa today irrel- and thus come to nothing. Staff rarely influences Jean Freeman evant? On the contrary, they are vital—as man- Canadian foreign policy. The prime minister always Steven Galloway agers of process and programming, implementing mattered. Now, on foreign policy, only the prime Wayne Grady policies into which they sometimes have limited minister really matters. Faith Erin Hicks substantive input. For them, systems management I suspect Skelton wrote so prodigiously largely in C.C. Humphreys is “in,” accompanied by its vocabulary, fads and order to sort through his thoughts. The self-editing Wayne Johnston vagaries. Skelton would never have made it far in process, which he valued, aims to produce clar- Mary-Ann Kirkby this world, nor would he have wanted to. ity and coherence. This has largely been lost, with Judith Krause In Skelton’s day, key diplomatic forums were platitudes, political correctness of the hour and safe John B. Lee few, the negotiators senior. Skelton spent weeks opinions replacing sharp, potentially controversial Kim McCullough abroad at a time, generally in the major European thought. Occasionally, policy entrepreneurs—and Mark Medley capitals, staying (like his foreign counterparts) in the senior public service ranks always number sev- Ruth Ohi the grandest hotels and dining with the greatest eral of them—are able to cut through the gibberish names. In those days, the work of the world was and turn it to the advantage of their own prefer- Rosie and the Riveters conducted by a select few, who lived quite large ences or the national good. But, overall, Skelton’s Merilyn Simonds when on the road and seas. approach expired decades ago. Bradley Somer Diplomacy has migrated down scale since Was he a heroic figure? He certainly was a “great Cassie Stocks then, along with public service more generally. Canadian.” Skelton’s introverted nature concealed Miriam Toews The overall cost of vastly expanded governments a seriously overdeveloped ego. But this is often Katherena Vermette today excites indignation over expenses of all sorts the case for game changers. Chance, intellectual Sara Williams among heavily taxed publics. Today, foreign service acuity and his own industry provided him with the staff and other public servants shop around for means of his ambition, for Canada and for himself. hotel deals on Expedia. As to offering hospitality to He fit ideally with his era, seized his opportunity July 17 - 20, 2014 key connections with the power to affect Canada’s and made genuinely historic contributions to our interests (often in return for hospitality received), country. This volume is an unsentimental and Moose Jaw, SK today’s dinner bill might be tomorrow’s $16 orange deserved tribute to his qualities and achievements. juice news item—an inhibiting thought. That much exchange and negotiation internationally is conducted over meals, whether Canada approves Note or not, is an inconvenient truth. In its obsession 1 Letter from John Maynard Keynes to Sir David Walley, with government waste, Canada is both particular March 30, 1944, cited in The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Volume 26, Activities, 1941–1946: Shaping www.festivalofwords.com and simultaneously part of a wider global trend the Post-War World, Bretton Woods and Reparations, in which private sector activity and leadership is edited by Donald Moggridge (Macmillan, 1980), page 42.
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 27 The Blessed Tree Tracing the roots of one of the world’s most fascinating fruits. Robin Ganev
Atlantic in a rowboat with her husband, Colin, in lots of support for this notion. It had numerous Olive Odyssey: Searching for the Secrets of 2006), Angus felt some unease at the beginning of medicinal uses in the past associated with tradition the Fruit That Seduced the World their Mediterranean trip. Being on a sailboat with a and folklore. Boiling bats in olive oil was supposed Julie Angus ten-month-old baby and no one but themselves to to cure a hernia, and a lizard boiled in olive oil Greystone Books do child care had its challenges. But fairly quickly, cured baldness. While these historical examples tell 319 pages, softcover the family not only adapted to their circumstances us more about the cultural importance of olive oil ISBN 9781553655145 but also came to enjoy the experience. Leif seems than they do about its healing properties, modern to have been a colicky baby, and the trip did him science suggests more convincing benefits such as a world of good. Stimulated by his changing sur- reducing the incidence of cardiovascular disease, had a lot of misgivings when I started roundings, he was happier than he had been at diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. reading Julie Angus’s Olive Odyssey: Searching home. The Anguses stopped at famous hubs such Unfortunately, many of us are unable to reap Ifor the Secrets of the Fruit That Seduced the as Barcelona and Cannes, but because of the nature the benefits of olive oil because of fraud and the World. The set-up seemed too much like a reality of the research they also took in a lot of remote advertising of inferior oils as “extra virgin olive oil.” show: couple with ten-month- (“Extra virgin” means oil extracted old baby sails the Mediterranean from the olives at the first press- coast. The claim that Angus had One of the most valuable insights of ing, without any extreme heat or visited “perhaps the oldest olive chemicals added to the process.) tree in the world, on Crete,” high- the book is its understanding of the The most serious example of fraud lighted in the blurb, also made Mediterranean as a region. is the toxic olive oil (containing me extremely uneasy. However, rapeseed oil adulterated with the book won me over. My native aniline, a coal tar extract) that country, Bulgaria, is not on the Mediterranean, but locations. The book contains many beautiful killed close to 700 people in Spain in the 1980s. its cuisine is deeply influenced by Mediterranean descriptions of inlets, cliffs and rugged shorelines Angus suggests some useful tips for distinguishing cooking, and olives, as well as olive oil from Greece, that seem almost untouched by human activity. the real thing from fakes, but in the end the surest are a staple. My love of these foods heightened my Because of the tourist industry we seldom imagine test remains your palate. Within the industry itself, enjoyment of the book. Olive Odyssey has many Europe this way anymore. On the one hand, Angus determining authenticity through science is still strengths: its contribution to scientific and histor- finds evidence of some of the world’s oldest civil- very difficult, meaning that professional olive oil ical research on olives, good food and travel writing, izations, but, on the other, she experiences pristine tasters are still at the forefront of deciding what is a sense of humour and an eye for detail, and a sense and preserved nature in many of these spots. good. of adventure and exploration. One of the most valuable insights of the book is Angus is a wonderful food writer—indeed, this Let’s deal with the science first, as it is the most its understanding of the Mediterranean as a region. might be a career she could explore if she needed challenging aspect of the book. Angus started with The great French historian Fernand Braudel argued a rest from some of her challenging exploration an interest in discovering where the olive tree that geography, climate and diet had a more salient projects. In one of the most memorable sections of was domesticated. A theory about this exists, but impact on culture than nation-states. Olive Odyssey the book, its opening, she describes a meal cooked scholars are not certain. The theory is that olive upholds this thesis by showing how the region is for her by her aunt and uncle in Aleppo when trees were first domesticated in the Middle East united through the olive, which, historically, was she went to visit: “Their faux-wood table with its and then brought over by Phoenician travellers to much more than a food. It was fuel, it had industrial skinny aluminum legs struggled under the weight Europe. Angus wanted to test this theory by sail- uses, it was a base for perfumes, it was used to make of pomegranate-infused lamb stew; chicken baked ing around the Mediterranean coast collecting soap, and it had religious significance for Jews, in a creamy yogurt sauce; salad topped with fried samples from ancient olive trees, both domestic Christians and Muslims. triangles of pita bread; bowls of steaming lentil and wild, and comparing the DNA of the Middle Through Angus’s journey we get a sense of the soup; and platters of cigarlike rolls of meat and rice Eastern and European samples. Because the sail- artificiality of national boundaries. There are places tightly wrapped in vine leaves, stuffed baby egg- ing season is limited, she could not sail all around in Europe that are not easily located in one country, plant, and torpedo-shaped patties of fried bulgur the Mediterranean, but she flew to the Middle East border regions with cities like Nice, islands like and ground beef known as kibbeh.” This meal was from Athens and spent time in Israel and the West Corsica, tiny countries like Monaco. National iden- the moment when she first discovered what good Bank. Angus did not do the analysis of the samples tities dissolve as the Mediterranean world comes to olive oil can taste like, and it inspired her journey herself; she passed them on to experts, but she has the fore. It is a civilization of great beauty but also and Olive Odyssey. Why, I ask myself after reading a master’s degree in molecular biology and under- great turmoil. Politics are not Angus’s focus and the of this fantastic food, do we not have more Syrian stands science well enough to figure out what types book may not intentionally be structured that way, restaurants? of samples (twigs, fruit and bark) would be valuable but one gets the impression of conditions steadily The book is well written and a pleasure to read. to researchers. In the end, DNA analysis of the sam- deteriorating as one moves from west to east. We The major flaw is that some sections read like a ples confirmed the theory that the domesticated begin with economic problems in Spain allowing Wikipedia article listing impressive facts about olive tree originated in the Middle East. Angus to buy a sailboat much cheaper than its the olive without any analysis. These passages Collecting the samples this way had the added actual value. France and Italy appear prosperous, can seem arbitrary and hard to read. Angus is at advantage of taking the Anguses and their son, but then we move to Greece, unsettled by strikes her best when describing her journey, the places, Leif, on a sailing adventure. Despite being a sea- and anti-austerity measures. We then see the West people and food she met along the way. The sig- soned seafarer (she is noteworthy for crossing the Bank, where things are much grimmer, and the nificance of the olive emerges as Angus observes intended final destination, Syria, does not even and describes its role in the actual lives of farmers, Robin Ganev is a professor of history at the make it to the book, because it is not safe to visit. scientists, writers, artists and all the people of the University of Regina. Olive oil is good for you, and the book provides Mediterranean.
28 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Essay Rethinking the Great Depression The unnecessary suffering caused by a federal political failure. Edward Whitcomb
n the 1930s, Canadians Ottawa and the provinces. suffered through the Many of the destitute were Iworst economic depres- farmers, and Ottawa spent mil- sion in their history. Up to lions of dollars on programs a quarter of the workforce to help them. It was never was unemployed. Hundreds enough, and the provinces of thousands of people lost had to step in with programs their homes, their busi- of their own. Ottawa could nesses, their hopes and have paid for all these pro- their dreams. Marriages and grams, leaving the provinces families were postponed, with more revenue to address and the phenomenal social their exclusive responsibilities. costs affected children and Similarly, the constitution did grandchildren. A large pro- not prevent Ottawa from col- portion of the population lecting more taxes to spend on had to go on welfare (relief), programs for which it clearly forced to beg for charity by had authority, such as building proving they were destitute. a Trans-Canada Highway. People ate gopher stew and Second, Ottawa demon- made clothing out of flour strably did what it wished in sacks, and a lost generation the field of relief. Welfare was of men rode the rails from city to city in a desperate Depression reduced the revenue of all governments a provincial responsibility, and when provinces search for jobs that simply did not exist. while creating enormous demand for welfare. begged Ottawa for help, hundreds of millions of Many provincial and municipal governments Exports fell drastically, producing unemployment dollars were provided. Ottawa maintained that were soon overwhelmed by the cost of welfare, and in many sectors of the economy. Ideology was an such payments were temporary, which proved to several provinces faced bankruptcy. The federal important factor, as politicians, elites and much of be untrue, and that welfare remained an exclusive government came to their aid, assuming a large the public rejected new ideas, including ones that provincial responsibility, which was hardly the case share of the cost of welfare and loaning them hun- were proving successful in the United States and since the funds clearly indicated an acceptance dreds of millions of dollars. This federal assistance several European countries. of responsibility. With the constitutional problem was never adequate, however, and two of the most Ever since the Depression a favourite explana- seemingly finessed, Ottawa proceeded to pay one important questions in Canadian history are why tion among Canadian academics is that the consti- third the cost of welfare. But if it could pay one Ottawa did not do more to deal with the suffering tution, the British North America Act of 1867, was a third, then obviously it could have paid two thirds and why it did almost nothing to address the causes large part of the problem, if not the main problem.1 or even more. Its unwillingness to do more reflected of the crisis. Interestingly, the answers academics The theory is that at the time of Confederation, political, financial, attitudinal and ideological fac- have provided reflect not only the events of the the federal government was given authority to tors, not constitutional limitations. Depression but the entire spectrum of Canadian collect taxes by any means because it had the A third flaw is the fact that under the constitu- history, from Confederation to the present day. expensive responsibilities, particularly acquiring tion, Ottawa alone had the legal power to borrow Numerous explanations have been given for the Northwest and building railways to the Atlantic theoretically unlimited amounts of money. In 1933, the suffering created by the Depression. Although and the Pacific. In contrast, the provinces were British Columbia premier Dufferin Pattullo intro- 25 percent of workers were unemployed, 75 percent limited to the least lucrative taxes to finance less duced a huge program of infrastructure projects had jobs, and they resisted paying higher taxes for important duties such as local roads. The Fathers to create jobs; Ottawa would not borrow funds to those in need. Many people believed that there of Confederation could not have foreseen that match that provincial spending and the program were plenty of jobs available and that the unem- 65 years later welfare—a provincial responsibil- faltered. Quebec’s much maligned premier Maurice ployed were just too picky or lazy to take them. The ity—would be the biggest financial challenge. Thus, Duplessis doubled the provincial debt in just three according to the theory, the constitution created a years in order to create jobs; Ottawa did not match Edward Whitcomb completed a PhD in history mismatch between federal financial strength and that borrowing and spending. Both premiers were at the University of London, England, which was excessive provincial needs. following Keynesian economics, but it was not until published by Duke University Press. He taught at This theory suffers from half a dozen serious 1938 that Ottawa deliberately borrowed money St. Francis Xavier University, Concordia University flaws. An examination of the constitution and of to stimulate the economy. In both world wars and the University of Manitoba. During a career what federal governments did or did not do before, Ottawa borrowed massively—fighting wars was in the foreign service he concentrated on political, during and after the Depression makes it very clear seen as a challenge that had to be met; fighting the strategic, security and economic analysis. He has that the constitution was an excuse for federal Depression was a problem to be avoided. That was written histories of all of Canada’s provinces, and inaction, not the cause of it. a political choice. his company, From Sea to Sea Enterprises, has sold One major problem with the constitutional Fourth, it certainly was not the constitution more than 30,000 books. He is currently writing a argument is the fact that under the BNA Act, that rendered the provinces too poor to address history of Canadian federalism. responsibility for agriculture is shared between the Depression, even though it is often argued that
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 29 the BNA Act was the cause of that problem. That made no serious attempt to counter deflation. After insurance, rather than transferring more taxation act gave both levels of government the right to 1939, Ottawa financed part of its wartime contracts room to the provinces. collect direct taxes such as those on personal and with credit created by the Bank of Canada, and the The campaign of the English-Canadian nation- corporate income, but Ottawa did not collect such Depression mercifully came to an end. alists was largely successful, and they played an taxes until the First World War. When military costs Clearly the BNA Act was not a major factor pre- important role in encouraging nationalism and plummeted after the war, the provinces expected venting Ottawa from dealing with either the effects in the resulting development of a much stronger that Ottawa would cease collecting those taxes, or the causes of the Depression. The question, then, federal government. Interestingly, though, most leaving them with the revenue needed to finance is why so many academics have said for decades of the policies and programs that have prevented their rapidly growing responsibilities in welfare, that it was. The answer to that lies in ideology, in a recurrence of the Great Depression were imple- health, roads and education. Instead, Ottawa con- attitudes so pervasive we may not even see them. mented without amendment to the constitution, tinued to collect direct taxes, sharply limiting the In 1914, English-speaking Canadians still identified reinforcing the conclusion that the BNA Act was not capacity of provinces to tap the same sources of themselves with Britain, and Canada went to war to the problem. Indeed, the recent recession revealed revenue. save king and empire. By the end of the war, many a high degree of cooperation by all three levels of The Fathers of Confederation knew that the of those people had come to see themselves as government with no discussion of constitutional provinces could not pay their obstacles to such cooperation. bills from the sources of rev- Fighting wars was seen as a challenge The Depression was, indeed, enue allocated to them. Before one of the greatest tragedies Confederation, 85 percent of col- that had to be met; fighting the in Canadian history. For ten onial revenue came from customs long years governments at all and excise taxes. In a federation Depression was a problem to be avoided. levels grappled with a crisis of such taxes had to be collected by unprecedented proportions. The the central government, with part That was a political choice. federal government came to the of the revenue returned to the aid of debt-stricken provinces and provinces for their needs. In 1867, those transfers Canadians first, and that sense of Canadian nation- people, spending perhaps one fifth of its budget on provided around 60 percent of provincial revenue alism continued to grow. Nationalism was fostered various kinds of relief, and financing over one third and accounted for almost 20 percent of Ottawa’s by Canada’s outstanding contribution to the Second of provincial spending on welfare. But while its spending. Unfortunately the formula did not take World War and to the establishment of the United spending during the Depression averaged around into account rising costs, new responsibilities or Nations, the Commonwealth, the North Atlantic $500 million a year, its wartime spending just a few greater needs, and the proportion of provincial Treaty Organization and the General Agreement on years later jumped to over six times as much. revenue provided by the transfers diminished. By Tariffs and Trade. It was reflected in the appoint- The reason Ottawa did so little in the Depression 1896, the subsidy had fallen from 60 percent to ment of a Canadian as governor general, changing reflected the attitudes of politicians and voters, around 40 percent of provincial revenue, then Dominion Day to Canada Day, turning the Royal not the constitution and its interpretation by the to around 10 percent by 1929. Ottawa’s invasion of Post into Canada Post, abandoning British military courts. The alleged constitutional straitjacket is the direct taxation field and its failure to maintain traditions, adopting a distinctive flag, restricting in considerable measure the creation of English- subsidies at 1867 levels meant that the provinces American cultural and economic influences, and in Canadian nationalists who wanted Canada to could not properly fulfil their roles even before the patriating the constitution in 1982. have a stronger central government and wanted Depression began. In the 1960s, English-Canadian nationalism welfare to be made a federal responsibility, along The fifth flaw is that there were ways for Ottawa reached full maturity, and what nationalists in with health and higher education. That is what led to wiggle out of the alleged constitutional “strait- any country want is a strong national government them to rewrite the history of what actually did and jacket.” In 1927, Ottawa launched an old age pen- to defend them from foreign domination and did not happen during the Depression, and of why sion scheme although welfare was a provincial influence and to develop national institutions, a the federal government did so little to address the responsibility, proving that the constitution did not national identity, a national culture and national causes or effects of that tragedy. prevent it from invading provincial jurisdiction. In standards for programs such as welfare and health. the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt Provincial rights, no matter how legal and logical, Note stacked the Supreme Court with justices who would often stand in the way of such national uniform- 1 The following 25 academics identify, to a greater or approve his depression-fighting New Deal legisla- ity. English-speaking academics did not live in a lesser degree, constitutional constraints on the fed- eral government’s ability to deal more effectively with tion. No such methods were used by Canadian vacuum—they were as much affected by increasing the Depression: Christopher Armstrong, The Politics governments to expand their power, and the courts nationalism as anyone and their nationalism was of Federalism: Ontario’s Relations with the Federal were actually used to prevent federal action. After and is reflected in the history and analysis they Government, 1867–1942 (University of Toronto Press, 1981), beginning at page 146; Donald Creighton, Canada’s First the Second World War, Ottawa found ways to produced. Century, 1867–1967 (Macmillan, 1970), beginning at page become involved in all the main areas of “exclusive” These academics wanted a strong central gov- 208; Donald Creighton, Dominion of the North: A History provincial responsibility. In the 1930s, those ways ernment, and that led them to take sides. They of Canada (Macmillan, 1962), beginning at page 486; Robert MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada, were known and had been used; Ottawa chose not defended federal actions and inaction, excused third revised edition (University of Toronto, 1957), page to pursue them. mistakes, and asserted that merely appointing a 122; John Finlay and Douglas Sprague, The Structure of The worst flaw in the constitutional straitjacket royal commission to study welfare and taxation Canadian History (Prentice-Hall, 1979), page 273; Roger Gibbins, Conflict and Unity: An Introduction to Canadian argument relates to the fact that Ottawa did have was a great achievement. They ignored or down- Political Life, third edition (Nelson, 1995), beginning at 310; the authority to deal with the underlying cause played the fact that the United States and a num- J.L. Granatstein, Irving M. Abella, T.W. Acheson, David J. of the Depression. That cause was a contraction of ber of other countries did find ways to ease the Bercuson, R. Craig Brown and H. Blair Neatby, Nation: Canada Since Confederation, third edition (McGraw-Hill credit, of the amount of money in circulation, and Depression. Provincial premiers were described Ryerson, 1990), beginning at page 330; J.L. Granatstein, the federal government was clearly and solely as narrow-minded, parochial obstructionists, even The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935–1957 responsible for banking, currency and credit. The when they were upholding the constitution. Court (Oxford University Press, 1982) page 273; Gérard V. La Forest, The Allocation of Taxing Power under the Canadian solution was for Ottawa to print money until the decisions that overturned provincial legislation Constitution, second edition (Canadian Tax Foundation, amount in circulation rose to a level adequate to were defended, while scorn was heaped on courts 1981), beginning at page 25; Edgar McInnis, Canada: A finance the potential level of economic activity. that declared federal legislation unconstitutional Political and Social History (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1959), beginning at page 430; Desmond Morton, A Printing money was a well-known technique to or dared to say that provinces are sovereign in their Short History of Canada, fifth edition (McClelland and pay government bills or stimulate an economy, and exclusive areas of responsibility, which is, in fact, Stewart, 2001), beginning at page 225; William Morton, that is how some European governments ended the the essential characteristic of federalism. The Kingdom of Canada: A General History from Early Times (McClelland and Stewart, 1963), beginning at page Depression well before 1939. These academics developed the argument that 457; Kenneth Norrie, Douglas Owram and J.C. Herbert The desperate Social Credit government of the constitution prevented federal action because Emery, A History of the Canadian Economy, fourth edi- Alberta tried to create credit in 1937, but Ottawa they wanted a fundamental shift in the balance of tion (Thomson-Nelson, 2008), page 127; Roger Riendeau, A Brief History of Canada (Fitzhenry and Whiteside, and the courts vetoed that legislation. The Bank of power from the provinces to Ottawa. The solution 2000), beginning at page 225; Richard Simeon and Ian Canada did create some additional credit after 1935, they saw to the imbalance between federal finan- Robinson, State, Society and the Development of Canadian but the federal government was strongly opposed cial resources and provincial responsibilities was to Federalism (University of Toronto Press, 1990), begin- ning at page 75; and Donald Smiley, Canada in Question: to such a policy—it remained worried about infla- transfer some of those responsibilities to the federal Federalism in the Eighties, third edition (McGraw-Hill tion when the main problem was deflation, and it government, especially welfare and unemployment Ryerson, 1980), beginning at page 32.
30 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Letters and Responses
Re: “Spiritual Rambling,” by Candace like someone understands me! Western alienation were as good as it is generally held to be, that Savage (May 2014) continues to be strongly felt; hopefully this article would not be obvious at all. After all, if majority andace Savage’s review of my new book is a step toward developing understanding and rule is right, then why not indulge in public Cstimulated some thoughts about the better dialogue. hangings? limitations of nature writing and the writer’s Linda L. Smith The answer is that we have rights, including reluctance to step beyond the relatively safe Edmonton, Alberta rights against arbitrary imprisonment, or boundaries of observation, science and cultural execution, or any other sort of misuse of persons. critique. s a Saskatchewanian I found Harvey Locke’s The better democracies have recognitions of As a naturalist, I love to write books about Aessay an interesting portrayal of his province, rights imperfectly built into their constitutions, nature and environmental issues from a macro- yesterday and today. However, he tells us that the as in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And political and scientific perspective. Throw in North West Mounted Police that came west in 1874 those recognitions are in turn the subject of much some nice lyrical writing and an elegiac tone, was “led by Colonel James MacLeod,” an error turmoil and cogitation. What our rights should and readers usually are happy to take your book that is rather commonly accepted in his province. be, and just what impact they have on all of us, home with them. I have done that, but analysis The force was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel but especially on the activities of governments, and lament will only get us so far. My weakness is George Arthur French. MacLeod, holding the rank and legislators, is a matter of crucial importance. that I am not willing to give up all hope yet, and of major in 1874, was assistant commissioner and You don’t settle things like that by “majority rule.” the only way I know how to account for such an succeeded French in 1876, two years after the force The majority is not necessarily right. Indeed, it unfounded thing as hope is to wander off into the arrived in the West. isn’t even very likely to be right—about much of darkness and try to find new ways of seeing. If we If Locke found his history at the Glenbow anything. Nor are the people it elects. are to live through the challenges we have ahead Museum in Calgary, he can be forgiven for A major reason is that majorities are just of us, we will have to inquire into our values and thinking MacLeod headed the force in 1874. people, and people don’t know very much. If we certainties more deeply than we can with the usual The last time I visited the Glenbow, just a are going to have “good government,” then at the rationalist-determinist toolbox that dominates few years ago, it was hard to find a reference least it needs to be well informed and the leaders everyday life. We need science, but we also need to Commissioner French. A strange bit of should be non-mendacious. Yet candidates for spiritual inquiry, which is always a groping in the revisionism, perhaps explained by the fact that office rarely know much of what they’re talking dark through landscapes where there is little in French did not remain in the West while MacLeod about, and all too often prevaricate. Affected the way of material evidence. Worst of all, those of stayed. groups need to be able to complain. us foolish enough to write about it have nothing Locke describes an Alberta of “Scottish But affected individuals haven’t got a chance, to work with but clumsy words, which are fraught thriftiness,” but that hardly squares with a province and that’s the trouble. In a democracy, numbers with much of the superstition, prejudice and myth that squandered $1.4 billion on “Ralph Bucks” in count. Little tiny numbers, like 1, don’t, much. that modernity helped us escape from. 2006 when the government of Premier Ralph Klein And you aren’t going to fix that by encouraging The Road Is How: A Prairie Pilgrimage through distributed $400 to each resident. “democratic participation” or riots. Nature, Desire and Soul may challenge people who And strange that a treatise on the socio-political Jan Narveson are reluctant to walk in the dark with an imperfect history of Alberta should fail to mention “Bible Waterloo, Ontario guide and his coarse tools, but I hope some will Bill” Aberhart, whose Depression-era Social Credit come along anyway. After a couple of days on a panacea took him to the premier’s office, the Re: “Public Peace through Private Gods,” lonely road, it becomes possible to imagine and beginning of a political dynasty that continues by Molly Worthen (May 2014) perhaps even experience a realm of meaning and with the current four-decades-and-counting olly Worthen’s review of Fighting over God: connection that does not yield to our usual forms Conservative reign. During the dirty thirties on the MA Legal and Political History of Religious of inquiry. Long walks seem to be in our genetic prairies, the search for prophets was so desperate Freedom in Canada, by Janet Epp Buckingham, coding, but I invite readers to consider that our that I sometimes think that if Aberhart had lived raises many issues of commanding relevance bipedal journeys do more than keep us physically in Regina and M.J. Coldwell and T.C. Douglas in and provides many insights of socio-historical fit; that, if we open our hearts, they may also help Calgary, the political history of the two provinces pertinence (although, strangely, she merely alights to align our cultural and spiritual coding so that we might have interchanged with them. on the legal substance of Buckingham’s text). can begin to hear and respond to the suffering of Garrett Wilson I think she is correct in making the point that the earth we walk upon. Regina, Saskatchewan the ongoing debate about religious freedom, Trevor Herriot accommodation and state prerogatives will Regina, Saskatchewan Re: “Democratic Unrest,” by Jocelyn depend, in Canada, on a temperate and Maclure (May 2014) historically nuanced pragmatism. This is in sharp Re: “The Two Albertas,” by Harvey Locke t’s hard to disagree with the general claim that contrast with the United States and its more deeply (April 2014) Idemocracy needs protest or “activism” among polarizing reality. hanks to Harvey Locke for a fantastic article. its citizenry. But it’s important to appreciate why. Her observation that “there is more continuity TIn reading it, I learned a great deal of my We need activism because democracy, frankly, is between [Maurice] Duplessis and [Pauline] Marois province’s history that I’d somehow missed despite an extremely imperfect device. Yes, it has public than meets the eye [that] both have assumed that growing up in Edmonton and spending most of recognition, and scholars and pundits all agree good citizenship requires a barrier between private my life here. I found it interesting that the National with the unwashed that democracy is the best belief and the public square [and that] both have Energy Program merited only a half-sentence, as system of government. Well, maybe. But let’s face insisted that the state should aggressively police I thought that was a huge factor in Albertans’ (well, it: democracy is essentially majority rule, and this boundary” is especially perceptive. TheChef ’s older Albertans’ now) mistrust of “the East” … but majority rule is an outrageous way to do things. war on the Jehovah’s Witnesses is essentially now I see the origin of the mistrust stems from If a majority calls for hanging you in the public similar to the recently unseated PQ premier’s long before that. Locke has also in a short essay square for the general amusement, that does not egregiously offensive charter of secular values. defended me and my views to the reader: I feel make it alright. That’s obvious—but if democracy The relegation of religion to the private
June 2014 reviewcanada.ca 31 sphere—a Kantian, subjectivist and profoundly focus on performance measures like them. But Protestant notion—can work comfortably within I also want more from my leaders than metrics, a secularist orbit, but those faiths with a strong and more from my fellow citizens than relative communitarian and sacramental constitution satisfaction with certain results. (Catholic and Orthodox) need to tread more John Degen
$16.99 paperback delicately because points of collision with a Toronto, Ontario 112 pages proscribing and reductionist secular authority are 978-1-55458-995-1 more frequent and combustive. This can also be hristopher Flavelle has provided readers with Laurier Poetry series the case with those churches that have an Erastian Ca well-documented balance sheet of Canada’s legacy, such as the Anglican and Lutheran in their economy that is extremely helpful in judging United Kingdom and European iterations. governmental performance. Other faith traditions, Judaism and Islam Flavelle might have gone further by illustrating in particular, have strong communitarian and how the greatest tax and spenders in recent covenantal features with deep organic connections North American history have been conservative The Order in Which We Do Things: to their past. Rigid circumscribing of the public governments, in name or in spirit. The most The Poetry of Tom Wayman obligations of their faith can easily result in the obvious examples are Brian Mulroney in Canada incendiary confrontations that mar the Paris and Ronald Reagan in the United States, who left Selected with an introduction by Owen Percy banlieues or the streets of Brooklyn. their countries with new taxes and historically high Wayman’s working life has always been inextricable As a consequence, the failure of state deficits. from his writing one; his poems consider the ideologi- cal underpinnings, practical realities, and subtle authorities to respect rather than fear public However, one should not dismiss as readily beauties of a life lived on job sites and picket lines, in demonstrations of religious conviction adds oil to as does Flavelle the importance of values. Rather union halls, classrooms, and offices. Percy’s introduc- the fire. American scholar Steven D. Smith’s The than values having made a “lot of sense 100 years tion explores the genesis of Wayman’s print persona Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom ago,” they are perhaps even more important in and in his afterword Wayman reflects on his more underscores his apprehension that “traditional today’s looming Orwellian world. than forty years in print as a work poet. religion and contemporary secular egalitarianism When one combines the shatteringly poor are at some deep level fundamentally economic performance of the present federal incompatible.” The current court battles in several government (its failure to recognize the economic of the U.S. states provide more than enough crisis of 2007 until pushed into belated acceptance empirical evidence to support his pessimistic by a near coup of the Opposition, followed by reading of the future. profligate tax cutting and fresh spending) with its $16.99 paperback But it need not be so. Worthen’s trumpeting almost total disdain for democratic values and 80 pages 978-1-77112-038-8 of Canadian pragmatism is a welcome sound, an parliamentary process, the Harper government Laurier Poetry series enlightened corrective. rates a failing grade on both statistical and moral Michael W. Higgins grounds. Sacred Heart University Ray Argyle Fairfield, Connecticut Toronto, Ontario Christopher Flavelle replies: Re: “Outhinking Ourselves,” by Jonathan ay Argyle warns against dismissing the Kay (May 2014) Rimportance of values, arguing that the Rivering: The Poetry of onathan Kay states that our rational mind Conservatives’ moral failings equal their economic Daphne Marlatt J“evolved only in the last 250,000 years (and with shortcomings as grounds for dismissal. That Selected with an introduction by Susan Knutson no clear evolutionary purpose). argument ignores the lesson of the last campaign: Opening doors, dreaming awake, tracing networks of Surely the reason for our rational mind is to most voters weren’t terribly concerned about what music and meaning, Marlatt’s poetry stands out as an create modern structures that advance the com- urban intellectuals decreed to be appropriate essential engagement with what matters to anyone mons and encourage a civilized life for all. democratic values and parliamentary process. writing with a social-environmental conscience. Here That we have not been that good at overriding Explaining Canadians’ recent indifference to is both a “pocket Marlatt” and an introduction to one our lizard mind is no reason to stop trying to con- the subtler norms of democracy, in a country of the best poets of our time. struct a world that does not abduct schoolgirls for whose identity is so entwined with good sale as sex slaves. government and respect for tradition, could Susan Gibson occupy a dozen doctoral dissertations. Reversing it Almonte, Ontario is a worthy task—especially for liberals, who lately seem to be in search of one. Re: “Measuring What Matters,” by But doing so will take more than 36 days. An $19.99 paperback Christopher Flavelle (April 2014) election campaign isn’t the time to redefine what 146 pages, 6 b/w illus. 978-1-77112-005-0 hile the baseball nerd in me appreciates Canadians find important; telling voters what they Life Writing series WChristopher Flavelle’s “moneyball” ought to care about, then scolding them when approach to political campaigns and truly they don’t, is a waste of that time—and insulting informed voting, I find myself wondering if such to boot. a system wouldn’t just run into many of the same John Degen equates the use of measurable problems baseball stat watchers also now face. objectives to gauge governments’ performance Having accepted the game can be more fully with sabermetrics, and says he wants more understood by respecting concrete results such as from his leaders than metrics. What, exactly? Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch on base percentage (OBP) and predictive analyses Inspiration? Rapture? A pennant? Wartime Experience such as wins above replacement (WAR), baseball We’d all like to be inspired. But government is Carolyne Van Der Meer fans all too often find themselves mired in geeky what happens after the crowd goes home, and if “Based on the recollections of the author’s mother and arguments about the accuracy or quality of any we can’t decide and measure what exactly we want other Dutch Canadians, as well as letters from and particular measure, instead of simply enjoying the our leaders to accomplish, we’re unlikely to get it, interviews with Canadian soldiers and resistance beauty of the game or the passion of a given player worsening the cycle of dissatisfaction and apathy. fighters, Van Der Meer’s book takes these accounts at a given moment. and her first-hand research to present a compelling I find myself wondering if a larger problem isn’t The LRC welcomes letters—and more are available view of what we are left with after war’s end.” –,Gina Roitman The Rover that society has reduced our electoral expectations on our website at
32 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada WOMEN’S STUDIES FROM UBC PRESS
Gendered News Defending Battered Feminist History in Canada Media Coverage and Electoral Politics Women on Trial New Essays on Women, Gender, in Canada Lessons from the Transcripts Work, and Nation Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant Elizabeth A. Sheehy Edited by Catherine Carstairs and Nancy Janovicek An eye-opening study of the differ- “Exhaustively researched and nuanced, this The first original volume in over a ences in media coverage of men and book is actually a call for reform and a decade dedicated to the broad field women in Canadian politics, and the serious overhaul of our social and judicial of women’s and gender history in barriers this poses to gender equality approach to battered women.” in political representation. Canada. – Janice Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen | | January 2014 | 978-0-7748-2624-2 | paperback July 2014 978-0-7748-2620-4 paperback February 2014 | 978-0-7748-2652-5 | paperback
Stalled Chinese Comfort Women Pinay on the Prairies The Representation of Women in Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Filipino Women and Transnational Canadian Governments Slaves Identities Edited by Linda Trimble, Jane Arscott, and Peipei Qiu, with Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei Glenda Tibe Bonifacio Manon Tremblay This is the first English-language book A pioneering look at the experiences A comprehensive analysis of why gen- to record the experiences and testi- of Filipino women in Canada’s Prairie der parity for women in political office monies of Chinese women abducted provinces. has been stalled. and detained as sex slaves in Japanese July 2014 | 978-0-7748-2580-1 | paperback January 2014 | 978-0-7748-2521-4 | paperback military “comfort stations” during Japan’s 1931-45 invasion of China.
July 2014 | 978-0-7748-2545-0 | paperback
www.ubcpress.ca thought that counts stay connected “Beautifully written”1 and “excellent and faithful”2 from MQUP
Landscape Architecture in Canada Ron Williams Cloth, full colour throughout
“Beautifully written and organized, Landscape Making Toronto Modern Speaking Out on Human Rights Architecture in Canada makes a major contribu- Architecture and Design, Debating Canada’s Human tion to landscape architecture and its related fields – architecture, planning, geography, 1895–1975 Rights System art history, environmental history, and Christopher Armstrong Pearl Eliadis environmental studies.”1 Cloth, 280 b&w photos Paper, e-book Susan Herrington, University of British Columbia “Making Toronto Modern provides an engaging “… this is the only book of its kind to be description of professional and public debate on published in Canada and provides essential architecture and urban design. The depth and information for balanced and informed comprehensiveness of Christopher Armstrong’s discussions of human rights commissions research represents a substantive contribution and tribunals in our country.” to the existing literature on Toronto, and to Sarah Lugtig, University of Manitoba Canadian architectural history generally.” Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe, University of British Columbia
Adam Buenosayres A Novel Leopoldo Marechal, Translated by Norman Cheadle and Sheila Ethier Sandino’s Nation Introduction and Notes by Norman Cheadle Paper, e-book Ernesto Cardenal and Sergio Ramírez Writing Nicaragua, The first-ever English translation of “Argentina’s Ulysses.” Bethune in Spain 1940–2012 Jesús Majada and Roderick Stewart Stephen Henighan “Adam Buenosayres is one of the most outstanding Cloth, e-book, 74 b&w photos Paper, e-book anomalies of Argentinian literature and Norman Cheadle’s translation is excellent and faithful. A recounting of Bethune’s achievements in “Comprehensive, ambitious, provocative, and It should be in any library with an important Spain and the events that led to his decision compelling, Sandino’s Nation is a monumental Latin American collection.”2 to assist the Loyalist forces. work that is certain to become a model for David William Foster, Arizona State University accomplished, lucid scholarship on Latin American literature.” Steven F. White, St. Lawrence University, author of Arando el aire: la ecología en la poesía y la música de Nicaragua
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