Candace Savage: Art lessons from birds PAGE 16

$6.50 Vol. 25, No. 1 January/February 2017

Sarah Jennings ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Extreme Ausma Zehanat Khan & Monia Mazigh makeover Speaking while Muslim Emily M. Keeler Will the multibillion-dollar Dinner-plate nationalism renovation of Parliament Hill Lev Bratishenko create a vital new capital, Environmentalism’s or a spectacular great blind spot members-only club?

PLUS: Ronald Wright on an indigenous history of London + Patchen Barss on citizen scientists + Anita Lahey on memoir-poems + Rohinton Medhora on the future of think tanks + Graham Fraser on bilingualism + Amy Lavender Harris on sex and the city

Publications Mail Agreement #40032362 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to LRC, Circulation Dept. PO Box 8, Station K Toronto, ON M4P 2G1 New from University of Toronto Press

Yakuglas’ Legacy SickKids The Art and Times of Charlie James The History of The Hospital for Sick Children by Ronald W. Hawker by David Wright Charlie James, also known by his ceremonial name Yakuglas, was a From a local hospital serving premier carver, painter, and activist underprivileged children in the Ward from the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation to a world-leader in pediatric care, of British Columbia. This beautiful the growth of SickKids is an essential and poignant book with 123 colour part of the history of medicine in illustrations examines the life and art of Canada. Charlie James.

Naamiwan’s Drum Dictionary of Cape Breton The Story of a Contested Repatriation of English Anishinaabe Artefacts by William J. Davey and by Maureen Matthews Richard MacKinnon Naamiwan’s Drum follows the Dictionary of Cape Breton English, the remarkable story of the repatriation first regional dictionary devoted to the of a water drum and other island’s linguistic and cultural history is artefacts that were given away by a a fascinating record of the island’s rich Canadian museum to an American vocabulary. Anishinaabe group that had no family or community connections to the collection.

Leading the Modern Dancing Boys University High School Males in Dance York University’s Presidents on Continuity by Zihao Li and Change, 1974–2014 With the author’s reflections on edited by Lorna R. Marsden his own journey as a professional Leading the Modern University provides dancer woven throughout, Dancing a rare viewpoint of how five successive Boys examines the largely unknown university presidents individually challenges of adolescent males in and collectively contributed to the dance. development of York University.

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Vol. 25, No. 1 • January/February 2017 EDITOR IN CHIEF Sarmishta Subramanian [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR 3 On Feminism, Islam and 19 The Muse Wore a Low-Cut Blouse Michael Stevens W.P. Kinsella’s posthumous book reveals a writer Civil Liberties in an Era of Fear ASSISTANT EDITOR Ausma Zehanat Khan in conversation with more cynical than his famous baseball novel Bardia Sinaee might suggest Monia Mazigh ASSOCIATE EDITORS Norman Snider 6 Survival of the … Noblest? Judy Stofman, Beth Haddon Why environmentalism is failing 20 Going It Alone POETRY EDITOR Moira MacDougall Lev Bratishenko The marvellous, singular, doggedly strange pas- sion of citizen scientists COPY EDITOR Madeline Koch 8 Into the Heart of Empire Patchen Barss A history of London through the eyes of CONTRIBUTING EDITORS indigenous travellers 22 Sex and the City Mohamed Huque, Molly Peacock, Ronald Wright Finding queer identities in Montreal and Toronto Robin Roger, Anthony Westell Amy Lavender Harris ONLINE EDITORS 10 Extreme Makeover Diana Kuprel, Jack Mitchell, What kind of capital city will a multibillion- 23 Not Unmarried Donald Rickerd, C.M. dollar renovation of Parliament create? A poem PROOFREADERS Sarah Jennings Richard Sanger Al Carter, Heather Schultz, Robert Simone 11 No Sense of an Ending 24 Grief and the Attentive Poet RESEARCH A poem In memoir-tinged poems about dementia and Rob Tilley Kieran Egan autistic children, we encounter the world outside DESIGN ourselves 14 The Gastronomical Us James Harbeck Anita Lahey ADVERTISING/SALES Does Canada really need a national cuisine? Michael Wile Emily M. Keeler 26 Wonk Friendly [email protected] What to expect from our think tanks DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS 15 it’s a sane thing Rohinton Medhora A poem Michael Booth Tannaz Taghizadeh 29 Double Vision DEVELOPMENT OFFICER A former language commissioner on the future Erica May 16 Beauty and the Accidental of bilingualism ADMINISTRATOR In watching birds, a writer fnds solace, and Graham Fraser Christian Sharpe lessons for the creative life PUBLISHER Candace Savage 32 Letters and Responses Helen Walsh Paul Litt, Anthony Westell, George [email protected] 17 Last Travels Elliott Clarke, Paul Wells, John Taller- BOARD OF DIRECTORS A poem Passer George Bass, Q.C., Tom Kierans, O.C., Anna Wärje Don McCutchan, Trina McQueen, O.C., Jack Mintz, C.M., Jaime Watt 18 Meanwhile, in Another Part of the ADVISORY COUNCIL Story Michael Adams, Ronald G. Atkey, P.C., Digressions, odd patterns and puns animate Q.C., Alan Broadbent, C.M., Chris Ellis, Emma Richler’s oddball novel Carol Hansell, Donald Macdonald, P.C., C.C., Grant Reuber, O.C., Don Rickerd, Liz Harmer C.M., Rana Sarkar, Mark Sarner, Bernard Schif, Reed Scowen POETRY SUBMISSIONS For guidelines, please see reviewcanada.ca. LRC design concept by Jackie Young/INK Founded in 1991 by P.A. Dutil Te LRC is published 10 times a year by the Literary Review of Canada Charitable Organization.

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January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca YOU’LL EAT THIS UP

Speaking in Cod Tongues: A Canadian Culinary Journey By Lenore Newman, foreword by Sarah Elton

“Humorous and intellectual, “A fascinating culinary tour.” poignant and celebratory, Janis Thiessen, Food Historian, theoretical and poetic . . . University of Winnipeg, and author enchanting.” Irena Knezevic, of the forthcoming Snacks: A Food Security Scholar, Carleton Canadian Food History University

2 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada INTERVIEW On Feminism, Islam and Civil Liberties in an Era of Fear Ausma Zehanat Khan in conversation with Monia Mazigh

n the west, the past year AZK: Well, as you may know, was marked by a rise in racial there was a 67 percent spike in Iintolerance, xenophobia and hate crimes against American a divisive politics about identity. Muslims in 2015, the highest in As a populist streak blazes its any period since 9/11. We’re also way through North America and seeing specifc, gendered violence Europe, Muslims in particular are because the hijab makes a Muslim feeling its efects. woman a readily identifiable Ausma Zehanat Khan and target. I think people have been Monia Mazigh have, in their writ- emboldened by the campaign ing and their academic work, rhetoric, and certainly by the out- explored questions about cultural come of the election. identity, human rights, feminism For some time now, I’ve had and faith. a sense of being besieged—not Khan, formerly the editor in just me personally, but all minor- chief of the ground-breaking ity communities—and I’ve rou- Muslim Girl magazine, has long tinely engaged in self-censorship been at the forefront of creating to adjust to it. For example, am public space for Muslim women I comfortable wearing a headscarf and girls. A British-born Canadian, on my own porch, as I normally she holds a PhD in international do if I want to sit outside and read human rights law, and has worked the Quran in Ramadan, or pray- as an immigration lawyer and ing in my house with the blinds taught at universities in Toronto open? Te answer to both those and the United States, where she questions is no. I don’t discuss my now lives. Her upcoming novel, views on current afairs in public, Among the Ruins, is the third in a mystery series many girls and moms feel that there is a place in the I’m extra careful at the airport, I don’t carry certain centred on Toronto-based detective Esa Khattak. public space for Muslim girls. books with me and, if I attend Friday prayer, I note Mazigh rose to prominence as a tireless advo- AZK: Tose were some of the most rewarding my surroundings carefully. Tat kind of vigilance cate for her husband, the Syrian-Canadian engin- years of my life. Our editorial vision essentially is fatiguing, and it’s a distraction from the very real eer Maher Arar, who was deported to Syria in 2002 came down to self-representation: telling our own work that needs to be done. and tortured and held without charge for more stories in our voices, and challenging the dominant, MM: In a way, I fnd myself going through this as than a year. An academic with a PhD in fnance, one-dimensional narrative about Muslim girls and well. When I decided to come to Canada 25 years she has remained in the public eye as an activist. young women. I think the need for a publication ago, I was looking for a country where I could live She was also an NDP candidate in the 2004 federal like it is even greater now—there’s so much more to my religion without being judged. election. Born and raised in Tunisia, Mazigh has challenge in the discourse about us. I was born and raised in Tunisia, an Arab and lived in Canada since 1991. Her novel, Hope Has And thank you for sharing Te Unquiet Dead Muslim country with a complicated relationship Two Daughters—her third book—is published this with your book club! It’s the most important and with Islam. In the 1960s and ’70s, you would sel- month by Anansi. most personal book I’ve written so far. What did dom see a woman in a headscarf in the streets Khan and Mazigh spoke with each other via you think of the background in the book where of Tunis. After independence from France, the email from their respective locations in Colorado I wrote that the Maher Arar case had galvanized headscarf had become the symbol of rural women, and Ottawa. a generation of Canadian Muslim lawyers to be linked to backwardness and oppression. My AZK: Monia, salaam! I follow your important much more vigilant about civil liberties? True or an mother didn’t wear a headscarf; neither did my work in the news, but how lovely to fnally meet exaggeration? grandmother. Ten, in the 1980s, young female you. MM: First of all, I found it funny to read about university students started wearing them. For MM: Salaam, dear Ausma. I am so happy to my husband in your book—basically he follows me some, modesty became a way to recognize the be in touch with you. We read your novel, Te everywhere, even in books! I didn’t expect at all to Islamic identity that was taken away for centuries Unquiet Dead, in our book club, and my daugh- fnd his name mentioned, but his case is no longer by colonialism. For others, it came to symbolize ter was in love with Muslim Girl magazine when “ours” only but a story for all to refect upon and political Islam—the Muslim Brotherhood and she was about ten years old. We were living in share. And yes, Maher’s case changed our attitudes the Iranian Revolution—and thus it was demon- Kamloops—I was an assistant professor at the busi- toward civil liberties. We don’t take it for granted. ized by government policies under the cover of ness school there. I had always lived in big cities Our world is changing so quickly, and I have secularism. in Canada and Kamloops was really a small town. the impression that the coming months and years When I started wearing a headscarf in 1990, I had a hard time adjusting. One day, my husband will be determining ones for our defnitions of civil I was caught in the middle of this polarized rheto- comes home with Muslim Girl, so excited. He had rights, freedom and peace. In particular, I am think- ric. My decision was solely motivated by my spiri- bought it for our daughter. We had a subscription ing a lot about Muslims in the United States. No tual beliefs. However, I became automatically in for her until the magazine stopped publishing. matter how I try to avoid reading about it, I can’t. the camp of the “dangerous Islamist.” At university, She loved reading stories of other girls like her. How are you doing? Even raising the question of a I was asked by the director of the institute to remove She didn’t feel alone in her pre-teen and teen Muslim registry shouldn’t happen, but now it is all my hijab or leave. I didn’t leave. I stayed until the struggles. You were behind this project that made over the media. end, and later decided to leave to Canada.

January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 3 So, Canada was for me a relief from this social, and children, as professionals, and so on. I am no other things I wanted to say but not about my per- mental and cultural sufocation: You can’t speak diferent. So why should I only be defned by my sonal life, rather about things around me: Muslim politics, you can’t criticize authorities, you can’t headscarf? I am a woman frst and then come other women, faith, intergenerational conficts … challenge opinion. You are either with us or against identities. My multiple identities are an advantage AZK: Let’s talk about the tensions between femi- us! and not just liabilities. I speak three languages so nism and Islam. I certainly view myself as a femi- AZK: You are describing the chilling attributes I am exposed to multiple cultures, imaginations nist. I see myself as being entitled to equal rights, of authoritarian regimes, and it’s daunting that we and horizons. I don’t understand when people talk equal opportunities, equal pay for work of equal now need to be vigilant about that in the United about their single “values” or their “identity.” Tey value, and so on. But I’m also a Muslim woman States. Te president-elect is already attempting do that in Tunisia too. Ofcial media speak of “our and I argue that that’s completely in harmony with to stife the free press by dodging the press pool, Islam” and people speak of “our food,” “our clothes.” being a feminist. threatening to broaden libel laws and personally We should go beyond these places of confnement But this is also the area where I think it’s most taking issue with criticism and dissent. I’ve been for the mind and the body. incumbent on us to be self-refective and critical. reading the comments of journalists and historians AZK: Your mother tongue is Arabic. And you Clearly, there are signifcant problems with patriar- on how slowly and insidiously authoritarianism are fuent in English and French besides. Which chal interpretations of faith that subordinate or, in becomes normalized. I would imagine—or at least language is easiest for you to write in? And when more extreme cases, subjugate women. Sometimes hope—that things are diferent in it exists in our households; some- Canada on this point—although, I am caught in the middle. No matter times it’s at our mosques and during Canada’s recent election, community centres. I’ve had I became conscious of a hostile how insistently I call myself a feminist, experiences where I haven’t been and unfamiliar new rhetoric. allowed to sit on committees or MM: Yes, things started to I am judged otherwise, and no matter where my prayer space is margin- change a decade or so ago, espe- alized. My friend Hind Makki has cially in Quebec where I lived for a how much I call myself a religious a blog called Side Entrance that while. It started with strange looks, documents the inequality of wom- rude comments. Today, after Muslim, I am also judged otherwise. en’s access to mosques around the reasonable accommodations the world—it’s eye opening. She debate in Quebec in 2007, the debate about the you were writing your memoir, were there moments was inundated with stories from Muslim women Charter of Values in 2013, the controversy around when you wished you could express your thoughts around the world—and I can attest to exclusionary the niqab during the last federal campaign and now in several languages to refect your complex and experiences in Ottawa, in Jerusalem, in Uzbekistan Kelly Leitch surfng the Trump wave with her talk of nuanced reality? and elsewhere. I can’t accept that. I don’t want to be “anti-Canadian values,” I feel like I live in another MM: All my books were written in French and marginalized in the mosque or treated like a lesser country. later translated to English. It is a bit of a dilemma spiritual being. I am super self-conscious. I am cautious in for me these days, as it was for many writers and What are your own refections on this? Has faith my talk, in my actions. I feel scared for my kids. authors in colonized countries. Why should I write been a process of growth for you? Are you comfort- Recently we learned that the Ottawa Main Mosque in the language of the oppressor? I am still thinking able calling yourself a Muslim woman and a femi- was vandalized with grafti saying “Go home.” about it. I would love to be able to share my works nist at the same time? Before that, it was a synagogue and a church with a in Arabic, but of course, I don’t have an audience MM: I grew up having a bad experience with black minister that were vandalized. in Canada. So I continue to write and express my feminists. Many feminists in Tunisia sided I can’t pretend not to be Muslim. I can’t be invis- opinions. Sometimes, I include some Arabic words with authoritarian regimes, letting down other ible from public space. My hijab defnes me, as does in my writing as I found them more natural in the women who didn’t have the same socioeconomic the colour of my skin. I live my spirituality outside context. privileges. Being a feminist was understood as and inside. I can’t hide it from people. Do you have a similar dilemma about language, being liberated from religion, and I didn’t agree AZK: Well, out of this ugliness, we’re building a or is it perhaps more around the nature of the sto- with this position. For me religion can be liberat- solidarity that we probably weren’t as conscious of ries to tell? ing and empowering; it all depends on the context before. I read Joy Kogawa’s Obasan in school and it AZK: English is my mother tongue but my books and on the level of education. Education is key. made an indelible impression on me. Now I live in explore the cross-pollination of languages and I despised those women who never denounced a state where there actually was a relocation camp cultures, given my lifelong exposure to the myriad President Habib Bourguiba’s human rights abuses for Japanese Americans—an internment camp, why infuences of the Islamic civilization. Before I set against his political opponents because he is sup- am I dressing it up? I learned more about it through out to work on any of my books, I ask myself why posed to be the “liberator” of women. For many Sandra Dallas’s beautiful novel, Tallgrass. I’m writing it. What story do I want to tell? And allies in the West, Bourguiba and Tunisia became a It seems nearly impossible to believe that after what’s the most efective way of telling it? I write beacon of women’s liberation—but which women this terrible episode in our history, the subject has because I have something to say, something I’m and what liberation? Te elite profted terribly from been raised for public debate again—this time for compelled to say about these deep divides between this simplistic discourse and it is true that many American Muslims. At its extreme end, it criminal- people, and how we might fnd a way to understand Tunisian women and girls benefted from it, as izes identity—it criminalizes the things that are each other. they went to school. But many women who were essential to how we defne ourselves. MM: I started writing long ago when I was a invested in liberation from authoritarianism, from Like me, Monia, you lay claim to multiple iden- teenager. I wrote about my life, my friends, my imperialism, from consumerism, were deemed not tities. I’m a Muslim woman of South Asian back- parents, my dreams and fears. I wrote short stories liberated enough or, rather, not patriotic enough. ground, born in England, essentially Canadian, that were never published. I wrote articles. One Later, when I read about Islamic feminism, but I’m also starting to feel like an American, and short article was published in the newspaper when I found an answer to my dilemma: can I be I just as frequently refer to myself as Pakistani, or I was 16 under a pen name! Ten I went to business Muslim and feminist? I even published an some hybrid identity that encompasses all of these. school. Later, after my husband came back from article, “Re-examining Relations between Men I negotiate these identities diferently depending prison in Syria, I decided to write about my life dur- and Women: Partnership as a New Paradigm for on the cultural context I’m in. I’ve had to do a lot of ing his incarceration, torture and disappearance. It Reading Islamic Religious Texts,” where I combined thinking about this as I continually cross the U.S.- was a selfsh action solely motivated by my desire my knowledge of fnance and Islam. Unfortunately, Canada border. I recognize how privileged both to tell what happened to me and my kids. It wasn’t these initiatives to reinterpret some sensitive issues those passports are. I have relatives and friends my husband’s story [I was telling] as much as it was in Islam are disliked by traditionalists and judged who hold diferent passports. Tere’s a stratifcation my story! I didn’t want my kids to know this story inadequate by many feminists. So I am caught in of who gets to travel and engage in free movement, from someone else. It is like when you share pain- the middle. No matter how insistently I call myself and how comfortably they’re able to do so. How ful news with your loved ones—you want to be the a feminist, I am judged otherwise, and no matter do you defne your various identities—what kinds person to do it and not others: it makes it less tragic. how much I call myself a religious Muslim, I am of compromises and negotiations do you have to Tat book, Hope and Despair, helped me tre- also judged otherwise. undertake? mendously to accept the new me, the new life, AZK: Tis labelling—whether it’s about femi- MM: We all negotiate multiple identities—as the new husband I had. It was a form of therapy. nism or being called an apostate—is aimed at dis- immigrants or transplanted Canadians, as parents Later, I decided to write fction. I had plenty of empowerment. And at silencing those who demand

4 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada change. Tere are systemic and structural injustices are so easily thrown away and forgotten. In Among that need to be defeated in many Muslim-majority the Ruins, I’m looking at Iran, but I see a lot of paral- countries, particularly when it comes to women’s lels to Maher’s situation. spiritual and legal equality. MM: People disappearing, lives taken away, kids ILLUMINATING MM: Yes, despite some intellectual disagree- assassinated, these seem to be part of the tragic ment with some authors, I am still convinced that realities of our world. Tese kinds of practices The Great Class we need to tackle the “traditionalist” interpreta- become permissible with the “ticking bomb” sce- War 1914-1918 tions of Islamic religious text, an umbrella that nario that has been shared publicly by politicians Jacques Pauwels many Muslim men have been hiding under to jus- and some prominent lawyers—the idea that if we $34.95 paperback tify oppression of Muslim women. have a suspected terrorist in our hands and the only Canadian historian AZK: We must, I agree. And there has been some way to prevent the killing of thousand of innocents Jacques Pauwels offers a revisionist account signifcant work done by Muslim women scholars is to torture this suspect, then we will do it. of the great-power to this end, work we need to build upon. And there AZK: And it’s astonishing how swiftly and easily dynamics that produced do seem to be signs of torture has been nor- and sustained the First World War. hope. In Tunisia, from malized. Think of the a distance, it seems I’m extra careful at the slew of television shows the recent democratic that depict torture as transition has been airport, I don’t carry a successful means of able to reconcile ten- certain books with me obtaining critical infor- sions between secular mation in those ticking- THOUGHTFUL feminists and religious and, if I attend Friday time–bomb scenarios. Muslims, as articulated 24 was the foremost Too Young to Die: by the new constitution example of this: the Canada’s Boy Soldiers, prayer, I note my Sailors and Airmen in and supported by both most brutal forms of the Second World War Ennahda [the leading surroundings carefully. torture yielded results, John Boileau and Islamic party] and secu- a de facto cultural jus- Dan Black lar groups in Tunisia. That kind of vigilance is tifcation, when, in fact, $34.95 hardcover Tis is a huge leap for- the Senate Intelligence Extensively researched fatiguing. and illustrated with photos, ward for Muslim soci- Committee report on maps, and letters, this eties. Perhaps it could torture in the U.S. con- volume tells the story of the Second World War serve as a model for other countries. cluded exactly the opposite: in none of the top through the experiences of MM: You are right, Ausma. Recently Tunisia 20 examples of the CIA torturing prisoners at underage soldiers. seems to have found a fragile balance to handle Guantanamo did torture yield a concrete or imme- secularism and political Islam. At least heads- diate national security beneft. carves aren’t demonized as they used to be, but MM: Te case of my husband brought a difer- this is a fne balance and it can tip to one side or ent narrative. It broke those “engineered” examples ENGAGING another at any occasion. Tere are old wounds and told the public that this is what happens when that need to heal. Just recently, the Truth and you arbitrarily arrest someone and send him to be The Trans-Pacific Partnership Dignity Commission held its frst public testimo- tortured. Today, I don’t think that this practice will and Canada: nies. Communists, nationalists, Islamists and other be used again. It is like fashion—once everyone is A Citizen’s Guide political opponents testifed about the horror of tor- on it, celebrities move somewhere else. Security Edited by Scott Sinclair ture and oppression at the hands of the government and intelligence agencies have already moved and Stuart Trew [since independence]. It was an emotional and somewhere else. Tey are using drones to conduct $22.95 paperback poignant moment for many Tunisians. Perhaps this their extra-judiciary killing. Even though President A new collection by will help the victims to forget and the politicians to Obama said that if we need to use rendition, we Canadian policy experts sheds light on how the learn from the past. Perhaps this would make us won’t hesitate to use it. fl uctuating terms of this deal could impact health write more stories and encourage other countries You know, I am reading Orhan Pamuk these care, environmental to keep this fne balance as well. days, and his A Strangeness in My Mind is an abso- protection, foreign investment, and more. AZK: Given the long battle you fought for your lute delight (no pun intended, speaking of things husband’s safe return and for accountability from Turkish). He talks in the novel about how Greeks in the Canadian government for his detention and tor- Turkey saw their buildings, businesses confscated ture, what are your thoughts on the status of these and occupied by the Turkish in 1955. Of course, issues in Canada? similar things happened in Greece as well, with the INFORMATIVE MM: I think the so-called war on terror waged by Turkish. Final Report of the U.S., after 9/11, opened the doors to new prac- Is it possible that no matter how civilized we the Truth and tices that would never be accepted otherwise. What become, we remain primitive in our frst reactions? Reconciliation is being done in the name of security to citizens or What is the importance of these laws, international Commission of refugees or people in general around the world and conventions, agreements if they will be violated Canada specifcally in the U.S. and Canada is a step ahead under the name of national security, or for the sake Volume One: Summary of the public knowledge and awareness of these of other “superior” motives? $22.95 paperback methods. Tis is why I decided to write. Writing is the only The full text of the When Maher was rendered from the U.S. to Syria thing left for me in the world as an individual. I feel Commission’s summary volume, including its via Jordan, the Canadian public didn’t know about I am privileged to have a platform such as books fi ndings and its 94 Calls the policy of extraordinary rendition. Te case of or articles to convey my views, my criticisms and to Action. my husband made it known. Other cases happened appreciations, disappointment or anger. These before him; we never heard about those men. Tey days, as a Muslim, you are not even allowed to simply disappeared in those “black hole” prisons be angry! You have to be constantly nice, polite, spread in several locations around the world. considerate, peaceful, smiling, compromising. AZK: Tis question of the disappeared and Any criticism, any expression of outrage or despair the missing has been on my mind for a long time. would be tied to your culture or religion or place of www.lorimer.ca I read human rights reports about prisoners of con- birth. So for me, writing is not only reclaiming my science, and I was thinking of all the people who voice but also reclaiming my humanity. Having the Independent. Canadian. Since 1970. right to be a human being—someone with the most don’t have family to fght for them like Maher. My Made possible with the support of the third book is on this subject: it looks at who speaks beautiful aspects of humanity, and the worst as Ontario Media Development Corporation and acts for the disappeared, and why some lives well.

January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 5 Survival of the … Noblest? Why environmentalism is failing LEV BRATISHENKO

the planet, rather than on this mounting sense a book I very much wanted to like, because under- Environmentalism of the Rich of alarm. Te longish timescale can only partly standing how any progressive movements attempt Peter Dauvergne explain it; fsh stocks are predicted to be basically cultural change and how, as they engage with the MIT Press depleted by 2050, and most people living today will mainstream, they also change are extremely urgent 217 pages, softcover see dangerous climate change in their lifetimes. questions. But the book does not ask how environ- ISBN 9780262034951 Tinking of ourselves as planetary stewards may mentalism became gentrifed, and so its anecdotes be a desirable stance or a ridiculous one (or a calm- and criticisms, however correct they are, foat apart ing one, since it imagines we are in control), but from each other waiting for a story. Te book is ince the 1970s, departments of the none of that matters when you have not had water best on subjects it returns to, such as the roles of environment have been created in govern- for two days. Biologically, we require a healthy huge environmental organizations including WWF Sments around the world; hundreds of con- planet, and the recognition of this fact is already and Greenpeace, which increasingly advocate for servation and protection acts have been passed, driving some activism, like the campaign to add a green consumerism, and the futility of pursuing thousands of hectares of land set aside from the right to a healthy environment to the Canadian environmental goals independent of economic and development, and dozens of toxic and harmful Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yet the environ- social justice. chemicals banned. Today there are more than a mentalist mainstream remains stuck in strategies If Coca-Cola promises to become a sustainabil- thousand environmental treaties in ity leader and also double servings place, and a seventh of the Earth’s The majority of environmentalist to three billion a day by 2020, and it landmass is officially protected in takes 150–300 litres of water to pro- some way. appeals rely on notions that we duce one litre of Coke, there is a prob- And still the planet is becoming lem. And yet WWF has partnered with unfamiliar. The Arctic is currently have a special responsibility as the Coca-Cola on water conservation. 20°C warmer than it should be, and From one perspective, engaging with the last time atmospheric carbon was dominant animal, or because we are one of the biggest industrial users of over 400 parts per million, humans water on the planet has great poten- were not around. A new study pre- the ones who ruined the planet. tial, since even small improvements dicts that warming will cause a feed- can be scaled up, but such arrange- back loop of carbon release from soil, equivalent to of incremental change and individual consumer ments tend to prevent more radical conclusions, adding another industrialized country the size of choice, ideas that have failed on a global scale. such as the idea that the number of Coca-Cola serv- the United States and making all the current treat- It is too late to be nice, but you will not fnd any- ings might have to decline. ies to reduce emissions irrelevant. (It is unfortu- thing alarmist or demanding in Peter Dauvergne’s Tis kind of engagement has produced a prolif- nate, given this arithmetic, that the president-elect bewilderingly reasonable Environmentalism of the eration of eco-certifcation organizations to perform has no plans to actually remove the United States Rich: the rituals of purifcation that allow unsustainable from Earth.) Temperature increases of around two practices to continue. Greenpeace helped form degrees should take about 20 years, with warm- My point is not that environmentalism of the the Palm Oil Innovation Group, a kind of environ- ing of four degrees before 2100; if you can’t wait, poor or anti-capitalism or anti-globalization mental marketing lobby for “innovative” producers. fsh stocks are plunging now as the oceans acidify or direct-action environmentalism ofer all of Fairtrade, the Marine Stewardship Council and the (although jellyfsh are doing well). Most of this will the solutions to the escalating sustainability Forest Stewardship Council (launched in 1993 as not kill us directly (except some of the jellyfsh), but crisis. But I do believe that over the past two a collaboration between WWF and Unilever) now it is all evidence for a spectacular increase in eco- decades the pendulum of environmentalism certify, Dauvergne estimates, one ffth of global logical precarity that will, eventually, kill. Climate has swung too far toward cooperation … and goods as meeting an environmental or social change will displace billions, and if the current to make more of a global diference the main- standard. Such organizations may identify better migrant crisis is a precedent for how developed stream of the environmental movement needs soy, palm oil, pulp and paper, and tuna fsh, but countries plan on handling it, this great migration to pursue more transformative, ecological, they have no interest in keeping the soy and palm will be deadly. Food shortages can come later. and justice-oriented goals. unplanted, the trees uncut or the tuna alive. Although the exact odds are hard to predict, the Tis is not to say that environmentalism as Dauvergne gently reprimands environmental- survival of hundreds of millions of humans, as well a whole has lost all of its power. ists who have pursued incremental rather than as of countless other creatures (useful, cute, scary), radical change, a “creeping moderation” of activ- is now in jeopardy because we have destabilized Tis layer cake of equivocation continues for ism expressed in deals between corporations and our shared habitat. And yet the majority of environ- 150 pages that mention all the symptoms of the non-governmental organizations like the one that mentalist appeals continue to rely on noble notions current predicament, from the growth of eco- sends 0.5 percent of every purchase on smile. that we have a special responsibility as the domin- consumerism against the relentless increase in amazon.com to WWF. In this creepy dance, the ant animal, or because we are the ones who ruined industrial development to radical versus conven- Nature Conservancy partners with Dow Chemical, tional movements within environmentalism; it Conservation International with ExxonMobil and Lev Bratishenko has written for Abitare, Canadian stops to visit places such as Nauru, strip-mined Monsanto, the Environmental Defense Fund in the Architect, Cabinet, the CBC, Disegno, Gizmodo, by empires and now renting itself to Australia as United States with McDonald’s. Te Guardian, Icon, Maclean’s, the Montreal a cage for migrants, and it contemplates the biog- Greenpeace praises Unilever, Nestlé and Proctor Gazette, Opera News and Uncube. He is co-editor raphies of spectacular environmentalists such as & Gamble as “sustainability leaders.” WWF rents its of It’s All Happening So Fast: A Counter-History Bruno Manser. Its heart is in the right place, argu- ecological brand for donations (one million gets of the Modern Canadian Environment, the book ing that the environmentalism of the rich—that you named a “Million Dollar Panda,” just like Coca- that accompanies the eponymous exhibition at the is, environmentalism that leaves standing the Cola) and receives $300,000 annually from sales of Canadian Centre for Architecture. structures of enrichment—has failed us. And it is products such as EarthChoice paper. In this way,

6 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada an ostensibly environmental organization comes luxurious from the beginning, and it was always women, immigrants, even Syrian refugees, all to gain directly from increased consumption. a political tool. Te frst Canadian national park, now aided by the federal government. Next an Dauvergne contrasts this with the intent of WWF’s Banf, was created to support a burgeoning rail- even more astonishing fgure jumps ahead of founding Morges Manifesto of 1961 (although way tourism industry, and First Nations were them: a brown pelican … Tanks to environ- anything brought down from a Swiss mountaintop banned. Te idea that you might live in a place by mental protections, it is granted higher social to save the world ought to be suspect) and 1970s engaging its ecosystem without claiming domin- status than, say, an oil rig worker. achievements in international conventions, or ance over it has never been central to western creations of many wildlife sanctuaries in the 1980s. environmentalism. It is only more recently, as part Weak mainstream support for radical environ- “Debt-for-nature” swaps are another classic of a global resurgence in indigenous cultures, that mentalism and de-growth—the kind that might WWF product that he explains. Since 1984, these such ideas are being more widely discussed and have actually nudged our path away from eco- contracts have a lending country or bank forgive experimentally applied. A former national park in logical disaster—are explained by the self-interest, some portion of national debts (or environmentalist New Zealand, Te Urewera, was recently given legal frustration and racism that seethe in this image. Te corporations raise funds, buy the debt at a discount status as a person, and although such strategies rich may believe that they are more open minded, and then forgive it) in exchange for but their ultimate interests—and various environmental conserva- fundamental fears of impoverish- tion acts by the debtor states; they Western environmentalism originated ment—are not so different; they have created nature conservancies just have more to lose and currently and national environmental endow- in 19th-century nature conservation monopolize instruments of state ments in places such as Madagascar, power. Peru and Colombia, and produced movements linked to aristocratic Masses in the developed world, about a billion dollars of funding the people with the largest eco- and debt relief from 1987 to 2010. pleasures of (owning) the land. It logical footprint on the planet, Apart from the irony of European have seen their real incomes slide powers extracting biodiversity pro- smelled luxurious from the beginning. with the decline of manufacturing tection from the former colonies that began in the 1970s (around where they used to strip-mine and the same time that environmental- trophy hunt, this collateralization of ecological have potential to transform our relationships with ism moved into the mainstream). Consumerism appendages leaves the destructive systems intact. nature, they do not appear in this book. paid for by cheap debt has softened the blow of It is similar to government fnancing schemes for Any criticism of mainstream environmentalism, globalization and the intensifying inequality in afordable housing in that neither “alternative” but especially one that looks for other ways forward, the West, and produced an anxiously consuming strategy challenges the dominant logic—a tree is has to consider the existing ecology of alternatives population. (If everybody on the planet lived like whatever somebody is willing to pay for it, a home and antagonists. Opposition to environmental- Americans, we would need four Earths.) Tis pre- is real estate and not a right. ism in North America, for example, refects the cariat is understandably suspicious of ideas that Tis critique of mainstream environmentalism movement’s history by clustering around poles appear to threaten economic stability, and they would be more efective if it attempted to explain of “the government can’t tell me what to do” and have not and will not be swayed by noble argu- how we got here. For example, whether you are “jobs are more important,” neither of which are ments. So things are going to get a lot worse. One selling environmentalism or Barbie dolls, multi- traditional concerns of the upper classes. Recently, way of understanding the gentrifcation of environ- nationals tend to have managerial cultures in com- Nathaniel Rich wrote on Arlie Russell Hochschild mentalism, and its acceptance of green consumer- mon, and these complementary institutional logics in the New York Review of Books, and I was struck ism, is as a desperate attempt to keep this majority make it easier to partner with mega corporations. by her metaphor for the political problem. Imagine engaged in any part of the movement. And any organization advocating for something the American Dream as a long line of people (with Was environmentalism ever a counterforce to as radical as de-growth will struggle for support the Tea Partiers-Trumpers somewhere in the capitalism, or was it always an epiphenomenon since its vision of the future would turn the present middle) trudging toward success and dignity just of a more fundamental movement, a questioning of upside down. Tat makes a lot of people nervous, beyond the hill; the decline of blue-collar employ- exploitation that sees no distinction between the and not only the ones on top. ment brings the line to a halt, and then, in Rich’s exploitation of natural resources and the exploita- Dauvergne does not pay sufcient attention paraphrase: tion of human beings? Perhaps the fatal error was to the political dimension or its history. Western environmentalism’s division from these larger environmentalism originated in 19th-century An even greater indignity follows: people questions, a shattering into thousands of individual nature conservation movements linked to aristo- begin cutting them in line. Many are those causes, when the real concern should have always cratic pleasures of (owning) the land. It smelled who had long stood behind them—blacks, been our physical and moral survival.

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January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 7 Into the Heart of Empire A history of London through the eyes of indigenous travellers RONALD WRIGHT

United States, whenever First Nations Indigenous London: Native Travelers are accused of getting in the way of at the Heart of Europe pipelines, clear-cut logging and other Coll Trush forms of what we deem progress. Yale University Press While indigenous diplomacy 328 pages, hardcover usually garnered little more than empty ISBN 9780300206302 promises, it did occasionally bear fruit, notably the Royal Proclamation of 1763 on which Native rights in his is one book that can North America still rest today. The be judged by its cover, which Proclamation enshrined the principle Tfeatures a startling 2012 artwork that only the Crown (now the federal by the Cherokee painter America governments of Britain’s two successor Meredith. Te image is a playful rif on states) can lawfully alienate indigenous the jacket of the Beatles album Abbey territory. When Stephen Harper’s Road. But instead of world-famous pipeline “consultations” with First British rock stars striding over the zebra Nations were recently ruled invalid by crossing in 1969, we see three Cherokee Canadian courts, it was because Harper diplomats who toured London in 1762. had turned the process over to private Te artist’s feat of time travel is both corporations. witty and unsettling, raising a host of In the early days of contact, especially questions. What are those Cherokees doing there, city and its rural hinterland. Such insights were those of the faltering Jamestown colony in so far out of place and time? What was—and is—the doubtless intended by the British; sightseeing tours the Powhatan Confederacy, there were some meaning of their presence at the heart of the British of London were propaganda contrived to impress beginnings of a reciprocal relationship between the Empire, straddling its rise and fall? foreign visitors with the empire’s might and reach, British and the Native powers. In 1614 Pocahontas, Coll Thrush’s Indigenous London: Native implying resistance would be futile. daughter of the confederacy high chief who Travelers at the Heart of Europe addresses such “Settlers” is hardly the right word for land- ruled from “Powhatan’s Tower” (likely an ancient questions in a wide-ranging exploration of the hungry whites clawing at the frontier, repeatedly earthwork) at what would become Richmond, 500-year relationship between imperial centre on the move. It was eastern North America’s Virginia, married the leading Jamestowner John and colonial periphery; between Londoners of indigenous peoples who were truly settled there, Rolfe. Two years later this couple led a delegation all kinds—kings, queens, adventurers, onlookers, who lived in towns, farmed the land, and had done to London during which Pocahontas was treated showmen, rakes, writers—and visiting folk from so since time immemorial. Many were still using almost as an equal by King James and Queen faraway lands invaded by Britain’s empire, often great earthen pyramids built by their ancestors in Anne. A portrait of the day shows her in Jacobean violently. Some of those visitors were lured or a time before Spanish marauders brought (and dress, ruf and hat, and describes her (in Latin) kidnapped; others came of their own free will in followed) the frst depopulating scythe of smallpox as “daughter of Prince Powhatan, Emperor of hopes of shaping British policy. Te latter, mostly through the Americas, as they had in Mexico and Virginia.” Trush writes that her presence at court high-ranking envoys seeking talks with royalty and Peru. Te “pioneer” was essentially parasitic, taking was “a public-relations coup.” Both sides had high ofcials, also came to gather intelligence of what over developed lands whenever the Native owners hopes for their alliance: new land for the British; their people faced. One of the 1762 Cherokees, were weakened by warfare, disruption and plague. new weaponry and other goods for the Powhatans. Utsidihi, gave a revealing demographic report when Te Plymouth Pilgrims survived their f rst winter But Pocahontas’s stay in London ended sadly—in he got home: “the numbers of warriors and people only by living in Wampanoag houses and eating the a way all too common for New World visitors: “two being all of one color which we saw in England far corn harvest left by the dead. Yet the most tenacious months later, she was dead, likely of dysentery, exceeded what we thought possible.” His journey Anglo-American myth, from that day to this, is struck down as her ship descended the Tames.” had taught him that the white tide of settlers that all “Indians” were nomads, sparse in number, One thinks of the Iroquoians kidnapped by Jacques fooding onto the Cherokee Nation came from an living only by what they could hunt in a “primeval” Cartier at Stadacona (Quebec City) in 1534: of the inexhaustible source: the slums of Europe’s biggest forest. A popular 1931 history of the United States ten he took to France, nine sickened and died. even claimed that “a squirrel might have leapt from Trush, a professor of history at the University Ronald Wright’s Stolen Continents: Conquest and bough to bough for a thousand miles and never of British Columbia (and author of Native Seattle: Resistance in the Americas, originally published have seen a ficker of sunshine on the ground.” Tis Histories from the Crossing-Over Place) has a vast in 1992, was recently reissued in Penguin Modern was not simply mistaken. It was a self-serving lie topic on his hands; it must have been hard to Classics. His other books include the Massey rooted in Biblical notions that the Earth belongs decide what to put in and leave out. His book is Lectures A Short History of Progress (House of to those who till it. By portraying the “savages” a feast of fascinating and important narratives Anansi, 2004) and the novel A Scientifc Romance as not really using America in the frst place, the involving about 40 indigenous peoples, from North (Knopf, 1997). His latest novel, Te Gold Eaters “civilized” British and white Americans bestowed America, New Zealand (or Aotearoa), Australia (Penguin, 2015), is set during the Spanish invasion on themselves the right to take it. Te same sleight and the native Kingdom of Hawai’i overthrown and of Peru. Visit ronaldwright.com. of logic is still at work today, in both Canada and the occupied by the United States since the 1890s. By

8 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada focusing on London, Trush not only unearths an ethnic groups and persons for whom Trush uses Macaulay’s point was the remarkable durability indigenous presence there that is largely forgotten, autonyms and linguistically rigorous spelling, of the Roman Catholic church, which he impishly but also gives himself a fresh standpoint from which when in most other works they appear under suggested might still be in business long after to examine the complexities of colonialism and its longstanding Englished forms. Tis practice, with England’s church and state had fallen, when “some fallout today. Some of the most moving passages its whif of overzealous correctness, is not followed traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of describe the return to London of descendants, consistently; why substitute Kanaka Maoli for a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch searching for their dead and forming modern Hawaiians, yet leave Mohawks (Kanienkehaka in of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St Paul’s.” communities within the metropolis. their own language) as Mohawks? Future editions Tat said, Trush’s review of infuences from Indigenous London seems to be written for would beneft from a glossary of correspondences. indigenous visitors on literary London is otherwise general readers as well as students and academics. Thrush’s political sensitivities, although sound. Shakespeare’s Tempest, written a few years Each chapter is followed by an “interlude,” a certainly needed to deconstruct the overweening after the founding of Jamestown, drew on reports blending of poetic imagination with primary ethnocentrism of imperial power, sometimes lead from Virginia and the Spanish Empire. Another sources (perhaps inspired by Eduardo source (not mentioned here) was Galeano’s technique in Memory of Shakespeare’s Tempest, written the brilliant essay On Cannibals by Fire). Mostly these vignettes succeed, Montaigne, a founder of cultural although some strive too hard for a few years after the founding of relativism avant la lettre. Three effect or need more explanation. Tupinambá visitors from Brazil told Newcomers to North American Jamestown, drew on reports from him they were mystifed by the gulf history and ethnography may feel a between rich and poor in France: want of background on the various Virginia and the Spanish Empire. “some men gorged to the full with cultures from which indigenous things of every sort while [others] were travellers came. Tis is easily found elsewhere, him astray. Among the book’s illustrations is a beggars at their doors.” Tis is sometimes dismissed although there are pitfalls for the unwary. As striking 1872 image by Gustave Doré called Te as the essayist’s own social rhetoric, not reportage. the settler-versus-nomad myth illustrates, North New Zealander. Tis shows a robed man, probably Yet many similar observations made by the visitors American history is highly politicized and always a Maori, sitting on fallen stones beside the Tames. in Trush’s book bear out Montaigne’s truthfulness. has been. Te past is endlessly rewritten for the Te fgure seems to be holding a sketchbook and Te Mohegan author and minister Samson Occom, present, mainly by and for the winners. Even gazing at the broken dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, who spent some years in London during the 1760s, pre-contact population estimates are still bitterly which presides over a future London as ruined as later told the Oneida that the English nobility “keep contested—all the more so because the evidence ancient Rome. Taking the picture as a visual “lie” the rest of their Brethren under their Feet, they has been swept away by the invaders’ roads and (albeit inverted) sustaining the colonial prejudice make Slaves of them.” Likewise, the Mohawk poet cities. Nothing remains of Powhatan’s Tower at that “urban and Indigenous realities cannot and celebrity Tekahionwake (Pauline Johnson) who Richmond; and when people remember that coexist,” Trush rips Doré for ignoring the fact that visited in the 1890s and early 1900s: “With slums the place was once a capital, it is a more recent Maori had been coming to London for decades by like this in the heart of London, they’ll dare to send confederacy that springs to mind—the Confederate 1872. Unfortunately, he seems unaware that Doré missionaries to our Indians in Canada!” States of America. was merely echoing a then-famous passage from an Te voices of Indigenous London often speak as A minor but of-putting problem for readers 1840 essay by Tomas Macaulay, who had himself eloquently to the world today as they do about the new to the subject will be identifying well-known lifted the idea from a 1774 letter by Horace Walpole. past. freedom to read week

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FTRW2017_jan-feb2017_half.indd 1 2016-12-07 2:12 PM January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 9 ESSAY Extreme Makeover Will the multibillion-dollar renovation of Parliament Hill create a vital new capital, or a spectacular members-only club? SARAH JENNINGS

chapter in Design of Cities, By the time the work is com- by urban planner, architect pleted—it is already ten years in Aand author Edmund Bacon, and slated to occur over 25 years is entitled “Glory of Exuberance.” In at a cost of billions of dollars—the it, Bacon cites Canada’s Parliament questions of who will beneft, what buildings and their governmental it represents in terms of our national environs as “one of the fnest expres- government, and whether it enhances sions of Victorian exuberance in or adds to our sense of Ottawa as our the world.” Te glory of the work he national capital will become evident. noted is marked not only by its mostly Certainly, those who have planned it neo-Gothic style architecture but and are now in the process of execut- also by its magnifcent artisanship, ing this giant reno see their duty and particularly the hand-hewn masonry objective as the protection of the emblematic of the work of the skilled most important national symbols in Scottish masons who helped build so Canadian public life. Unfortunately, many of the grand edifces of early modern-day conditions—the impli- Canada. Over the decades these 19th- cations of an unsettled world and and early 20th-century buildings have its concomitant response by secu- weathered and aged, their sand lime rity officials—will inhibit ordinary mortar washing away in places and Canadians’ access to the renewed other aspects of their construction buildings, and it will be a struggle giving in to decay. Tus it was that to ameliorate this impact as difer- in the mid 1990s a committed group ent factions debate what is best for of government architects and plan- Canadian visitors when they come to ners moved to ensure that those buildings would Te timetable is pressing, since this giant rework- physically visit “their government.” be restored and fully modernized, not only their ing of its facilities is intended to accommodate the Besides the general Canadian public, citizens of walls and roofs repaired but their internal workings new “temporary” home of the House of Commons Ottawa have also remained largely unaware of what brought up to the most advanced standards of heat- when that chamber moves out of the Centre Block has been occurring, despite sufering street disrup- ing, lighting, communications and other technolo- next year. Te deadline is the frst session of the next tions and seeing old buildings suddenly become gies. Few either inside or outside Ottawa have really Parliament, which will be held in the West Block in construction sites. Some familiar landmarks, albeit known or understood what has been happening, September 2018. federal ones, such as the Museum of Photography, but it is becoming clearer as some of the buildings Tese are the most important buildings in our adjacent to the famous Château Laurier Hotel, have are fnished or near completion. nation’s life and their renewal is a long-term proj- been displaced and sent elsewhere in order to meet ect. Te aim is to bring the buildings into the 21st the needs of parliamentarians. But neither the local t’s one of those exceptional sunny days in Ottawa. century and ensure their endurance for the next citizens nor Canadians have had any direct say in IAir crisp, a bright blue and cloud-free sky. On hundred years, along with various other buildings these Ottawa upgrades. Wellington Street in front of Parliament, a sideways in that sector of Ottawa commonly known as the glance upward spots a building corner of soft yellow Parliamentary Precinct. Te results will see a vast he concept of a long-term vision for Canada’s sandstone, then a shiny strip of new copper roofng. array of new members’ of Parliament and sena- TParliamentary Precinct has been gestating It is a coup de feu—Parliament Hill’s West Block, tors’ ofces, committee rooms, entertainment halls since the 1990s. (Te precinct stretches all the way coming out from behind construction tarpaulins and other brand-new facilities created to serve our from Parliament Hill westward to take in the judicial that have covered it for years. Te work has involved political representatives and their teams when they sector, including the Supreme Court and a future a massive overhaul of this iconic building. For come to Ottawa. It is an exercise in modernization federal court, and also encompasses the buildings almost a decade it has been under wraps, enclosed for the beneft of the politicians, to be sure, but also along Wellington Street just south of Parliament.) It in scafolding, surrounded by construction cranes, supposedly for “the greater whole,” those for whom is a renewal plan that successive governments and the sort of gold-plated project seldom seen, if ever, the occupants of these buildings toil. all federal political parties formally endorse, a rare in the private sector. Despite the size of the undertaking, few case of those in charge in Ottawa taking the long It is the frst time we have seen the West Block Canadians realize that Parliament’s Centre Block, view—perhaps not since Lord Dalhousie, then gov- since its dirty grey soot-stained façade disappeared the home of government in most Canadians’ ernor general and commander-in-chief of British behind those construction shrouds, and it will be minds, will empty at the end of the present parlia- forces in Canada, had the foresight in 1826 to secure some time yet before all the work is completed. mentary session. Te Senate, too, will move else- the land on Parliament Hill for “future government where while our country’s centrepiece takes its turn buildings.” Sarah Jennings is an Ottawa-based political/cul- to be updated. Te domino efect of these changes, Those original government buildings were tural journalist and writer, and author of Art and along with the expanding number of parliamentary started in 1859 and intended to be the seat of gov- Politics: Te History of the National Arts Centre members, has led to this succession of building ernment when Upper and Lower Canada united. (Dundurn, 2009). restorations. Te handsome progress of the partly built neo-

10 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Gothic development struck the Fathers the oversight of Congress so that visi- of Confederation when they “sailed tors today know clearly that they are up the river from Montreal on a lovely in their country’s capital. In Berlin, autumn day” in 1864 to view the site. It No Sense of an Ending according to Berlin Philharmonic helped them decide that Ottawa might conductor Simon Rattle, it is a natural be an appropriate capital, if and when We are stories that set out one morning thing to see Chancellor Angela Merkel a dominion of Canada was created. (It And walk straight into wintery evening. and her fellow politicians regularly was Queen Victoria, on the advice of The end is upon us without warning. attending concerts (and paying for her governor general, who made the Our world has turned yet we lack seasoning. their own tickets, says Rattle). In formal choice.) Despite some early We rose and dressed, in lighted rooms took tea, Ottawa, it is less common if not a rare attempts to enhance Ottawa as a capi- woke during anxious nights, stretched in the sun, occurrence to see Canadian politi- tal—with the exception of the post-war cians turn up at performances at the we planted seeds, ate pig, looked at the sea 1950 Greber Plan (the dominant force National Arts Centre, except for special in wonder, laughed with friends, left much undone. in the shaping of Ottawa’s growth for occasions. There have been recent the subsequent five decades)—the At night we come to the departure dock. exceptions. Sophie Grégoire Trudeau current recent renewal project is one Lights on the water, but there is no boat. has been sighted on several occasions of the few times in Ottawa when plans Strange silence after all the words and talk at regular performances, sometimes have not been chopped or truncated or and all the meanings that were too remote. with the prime minister in tow. But redesigned to serve practical political Ah, it comes to us and goes without warning. generally in Ottawa, the separation objectives rather than governmental We were short stories that set out one morning. between “Town and Crown,” as identi- needs. fed by Queen’s University professor Te comprehensive strategy known Kieran Egan David Gordon in his book by that title, as the “Long Term Vision and Plan” remains clearly evident. Te renewed was ofcially endorsed in 2001. It iden- facilities will not diminish this. tifed a series of projects that included Kieran Egan is a novice poet, born in Ireland, brought up both the buildings on Parliament Hill in England, living in Vancouver. His previous publications wo major buildings, part of the and also properties designated heri- include Building My Zen Garden (Houghton Mifin, 2000) and Tplan, have recently been com- tage and acquired by the federal gov- 20 books about education, with translations into 20 other lan- pleted and turned back to Parliament. ernment across the street that would guages. His poetry reading recently has been enriched by Tomas Both are south of Parliament Hill, just be reftted for government purposes. Tranströmer’s Selected Poems and by Sean O’Brien’s Collected across the street; both were originally Te success of the LTVP so far is Poems. monuments to corporate power in the that it was developed with the whole life of Canada. Te frst to go back into range of governmental authorities service has been the Art Deco/Beaux with an interest in the work, no simple Arts–style Bank of Montreal. Built task in Ottawa. Among these were the National bers connect to the city that is Canada’s capital. In between 1930 and 1932 during the Depression, Capital Commission (NCC), which has its own fact, it is perfectly possible now for an MP never the construction created hundreds of jobs by the vision for the National Capital, Parks Canada and to set foot in the city proper, except to go home to time it was completed. Until the Bank of Canada the Department of Public Works (now Public Works bed. Amenities have expanded on the Hill to serve was created in 1935, the Bank of Montreal was the and Procurement Canada), which is responsible for our representatives and include dining facilities, Dominion Banker. For “more than a century this the actual care and maintenance of most federal a laundry, a post ofce, banking, gymnasiums—a building exemplifed grandeur and dignity” writes buildings. As buildings aged or were acquired, a private one for the politicians and another one for one contemporary critic, and this has not been lost slew of individual projects sprang up. It was essen- general staf—and a daycare centre for the children in the conversion. At a cost of $99.5 million, it is tial that the overall work be coordinated. of fee-paying parliamentarians and staf that is con- now essentially an entertainment facility for par- Missing at the outset was the representative sidered to be one of the best in Ottawa. It is a special liamentarians, replacing the Confederation Room of “the client,” in efect the parliamentarians and world connected in some places by underground in the temporarily decommissioned West Block, their stafs who would use the renewed buildings. tunnels and known generally only to its users, demolished while that building is being reworked. Tis was remedied when the House of Commons including the parliamentary press. As the num- Much of what has emerged is outstanding. appointed its own chief architect to speak for ber of ofces for MPs and senators has expanded Te grand hall of the old bank is an awe- “the users.” Tat resulted in politicians helping to beyond the Hill to nearby buildings, small buses, inspiring space, its long windows velvet draped, set the requirements in what became a magnificent decorated ceiling termed as “Building the Future.” refreshed and the crafted ironwork on Evidently, it was to be frst class. It is perfectly possible now for an MP the exterior of the building renewed Physically, the work got under and gilded. A small patch of exquisite way in 2007 with the enclosing of the never to set foot in the city proper, original parquet flooring remains West Block and the stripping out of except to go home to bed. at the entrance of what was once both the Met Life Building and the the bank manager’s ofce. Tere is Bank of Montreal along the south a subtle new and elegantly simple side of the precinct. Tings have held fast since formerly green but now white, rotate around the glass annex attaching itself to the main building, then with one notorious exception. Tat was the district through the day, ferrying parliamentarians providing additional smaller reception rooms and sudden imposition by Harper cabinet members and their staf members to and from meetings and magnifcent views of Parliament. Stringent security John Baird and Shelley Glover of the monument to sessions in diferent locations. Other than for politi- measures, introduced since the tragic 2014 murder anti- communism on one of the choicest pieces of cal business, which is, of course, the reason that of Corporal Nathan Cirillo and the killer’s subse- land in the district, which had already been desig- these individuals are in the city, it is easy to live a quent dash into Parliament itself, are now imposed nated for a new federal court. After a furious public cloistered existence away from regular city life, a life on all federal buildings, and there is allowance here battle that raged on for over a year, this decision that is “all politics all the time.” at a new entrance for their onerous needs. Despite was reversed by the incoming Liberal government It is in sharp contrast to some other capital this cumbersome manner of entry, the grandeur and the monument will go elsewhere. Tis unfor- cities such as London or Paris, both of which are and impressiveness of the former bank remains tunate episode, intense though it was, has been the the commercial and cultural capital of their coun- clearly evident in the building’s reuse. only deviation so far from the extended long-term tries in which the seat of government is embed- Adjacent, just down the street, is another monu- plans that the LTVP laid out. Te scale of the work ded. In London, one is as likely to meet an MP in ment to corporate Canada, this one expropriated is monumental, and no expense has been spared a nearby pub—although this is occasionally pos- by the Canadian government in 1973. Te Met as it proceeds with budgets approved by changing sible in Ottawa, too—as in the bar at the Palace of Life building was once the Canadian headquarters governments regardless of political complexion. Westminster. Even Washington, which until 1900 of the largest insurance company in the world. Over the years there has been a perceivable shift was perceived as a shambolic city, was fnally Built between 1925 and 1927 and added to in in the manner in which Parliament and all its mem- organized and planned into a proper capital under later decades, it covers fully half the block facing

January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 11 Parliament and backs onto Spark Street. It was once a dominant element in Ottawa’s commercial life. Now, after more than three years of renovation at a cost of nearly half a billion dollars, it provides ofce suites for 70 MPs as well as state-of-the-art commit- tee meeting rooms. A handsome research library, an outpost of the Parliamentary Library, is at the centre of the building for MPs’ research purposes. It is lit naturally by a large overhead skylight and has an artist-designed wall of copper cones using material recycled from the original copper in the building. It would be difcult to overstate the richness with which this building has been restored, from the fne wood panelling used throughout to the reinstatement of its beautiful tall windows that once again bring in light and ofer gorgeous views. Over the main entrance facing Parliament is a steel and glass canopy, resurrected and reinstalled. Just inside, in the outer foyer, a magnifcent gold- Artist’s rendering of the House of Commons chamber in the rehabilitated West Block touched glass-tile mosaic has been refurbished. (Image courtesy of Public Works and Government Services Canada) First installed by the insurance company, it was intended to evoke the company’s values of health for the rest of us. A future visitors’ centre now under development and enhance the idea of a capital. Te and well-being. Tis mural is outside the perimeter construction on Parliament Hill designed to fnesse fact is the federal presence has provided Ottawa of the building’s security ring so that passersby can this problem will not be available for some time and with its most beautiful urban and architectural actually step in and look at it. certainly not for this new anniversary year, which is features. Yet the relationship between town and Unfortunately, public access to nearly all of this expected to bring tens of thousands of Canadians to crown has been marked with missed opportuni- will be severely restricted, which is and will be the Ottawa to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday. ties as far back as 1859, when work on the frst issue for much of the overall work. Heavy security is One other project on the periphery of the Parliament Buildings began. Once the locals had now a major feature in the Parliamentary Precinct, Parliamentary Precinct is also an essential com- secured Ottawa as the capital, they showed little with every access covered by an army of guards in ponent. Tat is the retroftting of what was once further interest in developing its features as the seat bullet-proof vests, bomb-proof glass cubicles for Ottawa’s main railway station before it was trans- of national government, but resorted to money- the examination of credentials, and airport-style formed into the Canadian Conference Centre making local development and land speculation. metal detectors for ordinary citizens who wish to and then virtually abandoned for public use after Some of Ottawa’s most beautiful features—the tour or visit their parliamentary representatives. the disastrous failures of the Meech Lake and Chaudière Falls, the shorelines of its two rivers on High-tech streamlined solutions are provided for Charlottetown accord talks, which occurred on its both sides—were mostly lost to heavy industrializa- regular users of the buildings, but visiting our own premises. After years of neglect and eforts to fnd a tion and (often foreign-owned) private enterprise. government and its facilities will not be as simple new use, it is now to be the temporary home of the Complicated eforts are now under way to change Senate of Canada when senators leave the Centre all that. Just fled is an Algonquin claim to all the Block in just over a year. Te renovation is on a tight land under the Parliamentary Precinct. schedule. Te new Senate Chamber in the old rail- Te Parliament buildings, the city’s most out- way station must be ready by 2018 when the Senate standing feature—its Victorian gothic skyline moves in. Te current work is engaged in peeling created on its high bluf so eloquently described back the neglect of decades and maintaining, where by Edmund Bacon—came under heavy assault possible, some of the hidden heritage treasures that in the 1960s when developer Robert Campeau have emerged. Tese include the tunnel under the aggressively challenged the height limits in the road in front, which once gave train passengers easy downtown area designed to protect those views. access to the Château Laurier. Closed for years, it City Hall fast footwork led to his and subsequent will now reopen to allow senators to cross the street developments that have resulted in the faceless, without braving the elements. characterless flling-in of Ottawa’s downtown with Te design architects for this enterprise are the anonymous ofce buildings that have followed. intensely mindful of the early history of this former These struggles continue, although the battle railway station and the host of memories that it for downtown Ottawa is probably lost to greed. evokes. As for the public works department, which Corporate Canada has its share of the blame in is responsible overall, it seems as if it has got reli- this unimaginative construction, having frequently gion when it comes to old buildings in Ottawa. challenged or ignored municipal measures and Where once they would have been torn down and bylaws designed to improve the downtown, such tossed away to make way for new construction, the as eforts to control street-level wind environment, emphasis now is for this loving restoration and con- the animation of streetscapes, the development of version that we are now witnessing. A whole new a downtown arcade and attempts to contain build- strand of heritage architecture is fnding a place in ings within height restrictions. Canada, along with the skilled artisans needed to For its part, the federal government over the last do the job. several decades has progressively sterilized the area around Parliament Hill. Tis has included taking ow does all this massive amount of construc- over the once highly successful Sparks Street Mall, Htion ft into the City of Ottawa and its desire, described as one of the most successful pedestrian or not, to be the capital city of Canada? Despite malls in North America in its early decades. Te municipal governments since the earliest days that government gradually took over leases and man- have touted this claim, the relationship between aged the properties without deference to the needs local and federal governments has always been of commerce and small enterprise that had enliv- uneasy. Te two have been on good terms when the ened the street. Its vitality lapsed and its demise federal government has provided monies for such was hastened by a transfer of energy caused by the basic things as much-needed sewers, while other construction of a suburban-style shopping mall, times the feds have been labelled patronizing and the Rideau Centre, in the city’s core. While pres- heavy handed when trying to infuence the city’s ent ofcialdom seeks to reverse this trend and put

12 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada people and life back into this pedestrian way so While local politicians have milked the relation- To stand in this space, which will be the true seat close to Parliament, the long-ago compromises ship for all its worth, through the decades there has of government in our country, is powerful. It is a trib- and disconnection make it a challenge for this to never been an overall commitment to a national ute to its design architects and the many teams and occur. Despite good intentions and lip service to vision. Te limited precinct of parliament must dozens of subprojects on the site. Tey range from protect the city’s older fabric, compromises have serve this purpose. the modern-technology engineers installing top- led to ever higher structures in the downtown at And what is its impact? Standing now inside of-the-line communication devices to the contem- the cost of clear access and certainly of any views the enormous stone edifce that is the West Block, porary stone masons who have repaired the original of the Parliamentary Precinct, except from expen- originally built to house departments that served 19th-century structure using the very stone (brought sive private penthouse suites now on ofer. In short, government and now being redesigned to house once again by rail from the original stone quarries in municipal and federal authorities have never had government itself, is afecting. It is moving and Ohio, Southern Ontario and locally) with the same the same vision or interests when it came to creat- evocative to be in the very space that, within a methods as the Scottish masons who frst built it. ing a capital for the country. few scant months, will be the temporary House of Many echoes of that era remain intact, down the What, then, will all this vast and costly reworking Commons, perhaps for several decades to come. long corridors where the prime minister will have of our most famous and iconic buildings mean to Inspired by Oxford’s Museum of Natural History, his quarters and other ofces that will house the the capital city and to us as Canadians? In the view directly infuenced by the writings of the 19th- most senior MPs. Adapting this old building to a of experts such as Gordon, the importance of a fed- century critic John Ruskin, the open courtyard of new age is an incredible challenge, and it is no eral capital as exemplary of a country is essential. the West Block has been covered over with a new accident that the budget comes in at just under We must have national symbols and these build- and modern glass roof using steel forms that echo $1 billion. It is the work of a lifetime for the public ings are it. Canada undoubtedly benefted from the branches of a tree. It creates a chamber below, servants in Public Works and Procurement Canada the incredibly picturesque site that was originally fanked by the wings of the old building, that mir- who have the good fortune as well as the heavy selected, and the elegant choice of neo-Gothic rors the shape and size of our current House of responsibility of dedicating their working lives to this and other classic architectural forms that echo in Commons. All the furniture, from MPs’ desks to the Parliamentary Precinct project. Gold plated it is, but subsequent federal structures leave a lasting and Speaker’s Trone, will be transferred over from it is exemplary too of ideas and values that still seem impressive impact. the old House as soon as the building is ready. to pertain in this wealthy and indulged country.

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January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 13 The Gastronomical Us Does Canada really need a national cuisine? EMILY M. KEELER

Speaking in Cod Tongues: A Canadian Culinary Journey Lenore Newman University of Regina Press 288 pages, softcover ISBN 9780889774599

very animal needs to eat, but no human being can, as the Old Testament has it, live Eon bread alone. We require more than mere calories. We require narrative, meaning, signif- cance. What we eat (not to mention when, where and with whom) is more than fuel for persisting as an organism—it is foundational to who we are. And who are we, then? According to Lenore Newman, Canada Research Chair in food secur- ity and professor of geography at the University of the Fraser Valley, we Canadians are—wait for it—people who learned to eat in a manner that makes it a little less horrible to live in a place where it is cold pretty much all of the time. In Speaking in Cod Tongues: A Canadian Culinary Journey, Newman travels across the country to examine how this vast land and its history have infuenced our national relationship to the rituals of the meal. Her Brown’s diaries of the diplomatic mission toward by population density, but the fnal of these chap- research leads her to advance a tentative notion of confederation, Newman describes how their trip ters especially betrays the perfunctoriness of the a Canadian cuisine, primarily as a food culture built up the St. Lawrence river “seemed to be more like project’s scope. Electing to write here primarily from “wild food, seasonal food, and multicultural a culinary cruise than a serious round of nation about commercial dining experiences rather than aspects of our society.” building.” Te anecdote is charming, but consid- home-cooked meals, she ends up favouring regions “Cuisine” is a loaded concept, a piece of ering that the foods served then were prepared with large urban centres with robust dining scenes nationalist mythmaking and a means of draw- according to French culinary methods, and the that plainly ofer more to write about (and to eat!). ing boundaries and borders across our plates. best meals to be had in Canada today range wildly Examining the idea of cuisine primarily Newman borrows her defning terms from noted from top-notch Filipino restaurants in Toronto, through regional dishes in professional kitchens French 18th-century gastronome Jean Anthelme Greek-Turk–inspired donair kebab in Halifax and makes a certain kind of sense—restaurants being Brillat-Savarin (“food is all those substances innovative luxury sushi experiences in Vancouver, one conduit for culture, especially in cities. And which, submitted to the action of the stomach, it’s hard to square this nice bit of myth with a rela- yet it feels like a missed opportunity. Newman’s can be assimilated or changed into life”), and from tionship to a living and proud tradition of specifc- academic research elsewhere examines the pres- Columbia University sociologist Priscilla Parkhurst ally Canadian cooking. sures that rapid urbanization put on Canadian Ferguson (“cuisine is the formal and symbolic Newman details her adventures eating her way farmlands. While she hints at this work in Cod ordering of culinary practice”). from coast to coast: wild salmon in Vancouver, Tongues, describing Canada as a country with “one But she never quite makes the case that these heartland Saskatoon berries and Québécois tour- of the lowest rural populations percentages in the terms can be stretched across a country as new or tière, and the titular cod tongues (which are, if developed world,” the book barely touches on how broad as ours. Opening with a consideration of the you are a stickler for anatomy, actually the tender Canadian farming and fshing are changing, or lavish meals served aboard the Queen Victoria at little muscle from the jowl area of the fsh’s neck) worse, disappearing, because of rural population the Charlottetown Conference of 1864, draw- on Fogo Island. Newman’s culinary tour seems decline. ing on founding father (and early foodie) George to leave few regional delicacies unsampled. Te Similarly, Newman sustains only a shallow dis- middle section of the book tackles regionality in cussion of the exclusionary practice of asserting Emily M. Keeler is the vice president of PEN three chapters, “Quebec and Ontario,” “Alberta and a Canadian cuisine throughout, referring to the Canada. Formerly the books editor of the National British Columbia” and “Te East Coast, the Prairies ways that First Nations food cultures have seldom Post, she founded Little Brother, an award-winning and the North”—a sort of “East, West, Te Rest” received larger recognition in the country’s culinary literary magazine in 2012. She is the editor of approach that underscores the absurd futility of imagination and, yes, citing the multicultural and Exploded Views, a series of punchy non-fction comparing regions so geographically and socio- multi-ethnic make up of our general population. books from Coach House Books. Her most favourite logically diverse as these. Te generous reading Still, it seems as though these observations take Canadian dish is probably fapper pie. would be that Newman has arranged her analysis on the role of mere quibbles; the base question of

14 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada why we must endeavour in the nationalist work of articulating a specifcally cross-country Canadian cuisine is seldom really engaged with in the text. Allow me to ask it here, then. Why must there be a Canadian cuisine? Newman refers through- it’s a sane thing out Cod Tongues to the ways in which the food we eat has been shaped by French and British coloni- going through the MRI tube alism, regionalism, increased urbanism, the rise was like diving in to a sea of whiskey of California cuisine and, naturally, our country’s the thoughts were vanishing farms and foodways. Due to the multiple and sus- CBC celebrity getting fred, will Olivia win? 30% risk of tained catastrophic efects of colonial settlement cancer, how to make Christmas turkey by Gordon on the First Nations of this land, our knowledge swimming to the bottom and don’t know if i want to come up of pre-settlement cuisines, including First Nations whiskey and beers they don’t make me drunk agricultural practices and indigenous crops and “these blues are gonna make me pack my trunk” plants, is incredibly limited. Newman mentions the loud noise is changing to Willie songs pemmican, a sort of old-school protein bar made of powdered bison meat and grease with a shelf from Hugh’s room life of fve years and a whopping 3,500 calories per where we fell in love over blues and scotch pound, as one known and recorded element of a for me it happened in fall pre-colonial–contact cuisine of the Cree nations in and is still the prairies, but it must be said that the food and gustatory cultures of indigenous groups do not eas- thank you, it is done, results in 10 to 15 days ily fall under the banner of Canadian cuisine—it is can i stay in the tube? simply not our right as settlers to outright claim the please. historical traditions of First Nations, even as many sites of indigenous agricultural cultivation and fora- ging have shaped regional and contemporary diets Tannaz Taghizadeh among both settler and aboriginal populations. Te regional diversity of Canadian diets and Tannaz Taghizadeh, born in Tehran, Iran, has been living in Toronto for the past eleven food cultures is well represented, but rather than years. She has translated several short stories from English to Farsi, and a collection of bolstering her argument for a nationalist pro- her translations is being published in Iran. She writes poems in English and also trans- ject describing the rituals of how and what we lates poetry from English to Farsi and from Farsi to English. She is currently reading like to eat, Newman’s snacking tour of Canada Wait Time: A Memoir of Cancer, by Kenneth Sherman, Taking Of Emily Dickinson’s undermines the notion of a nationally coherent Clothes, by Billy Collins, and Beginners by Raymond Carver. meal. Much more invigorating would be taking Newman’s account of the ways in which Canada’s foodscape is ethnically and geographically diverse, a creole of cooking styles, wild ingredients and hyper local specialties that adds up to something other than niceties and nationalist dream making. Examining the specifc and idiosyncratic elements of local food cultures and economies leads to a Subscribe! more nuanced and urgent understanding not only of the intersecting systems of policy and culture in 1 year (10 issues) *Rates including GST/HST by province preserving local food sources, but also, in the case Individuals Libraries and Individuals Libraries of Cod Tongues, to more interesting and evocative Institutions ($56 + tax) ($68 + tax) prose. Canadian addresses* $56 + tax $68 + tax ON, NB, NL (13%) $63.28 $76.84 In fact, Newman’s writing is at its most enlight- PE (14%) $63.84 $77.52 ening and persuasive when her knack for story- Outside Canada $86 $98 NS (15%) $64.40 $78.20 telling—and her deeply researched nods toward Prices include shipping and postage. Rest of Canada (5%) $58.80 $71.40 the geographic specifcities of food security and production—reveal the importance of under- standing the diversity and idiosyncrasies in our Name Suite/Apt. country’s foodways. In detailing the remarkable recent history of poutine’s rise from humble begin- Street City nings to stand in the international imagination as Province or State Country a prototypically Canadian dish, or in her nuanced portrait of how Alberta’s political economy ties Postal/Zip Code E-mail directly into the province’s reputation for Triple A beef, Newman’s writing is at its most provocative Telephone Fax and signifcant when the somewhat ham-fsted NH1701 idea of a truly national and unifed cuisine recedes. Please bill me! My cheque (payable to the Literary Review of Canada) is enclosed. Her accounting of the devastating overfshing of Charge my Visa or MasterCard. Atlantic cod in mid 20th century is afecting and Card number Expiry revealing, and Newman blends the known and reported facts with a dining tour of present-day Signature Newfoundland that works to underscore how the earlier political folly of allowing unrestricted cod Fax or mail completed form to Literary Review of Canada, PO Box 8, Station K fshing backfred in a community where the basic Toronto on m4p 2g1 • fax: 1-800-635-5255 • tel: 416-932-5081 act of eating is often underscored by loss. By hon- email: [email protected] ouring the regional distinctiveness of the condi- To subscribe online, visit www.reviewcanada.ca/sub2017. tions she is describing, Newman is able to attain If you do not wish to receive correspondence from the LRC or other organizations a level of nuance that is lacking in the conception unless it pertains directly to your subscription, please check here of the larger project of forcing as much as possible into a single nationalist pot.

January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 15 Beauty and the Accidental In watching birds, a writer fnds solace, and lessons for the creative life CANDACE SAVAGE

shuddered past, our binoculars Birds Art Life: were jolted, and our focus shifted A Field Guide to the Small to include the rusted oil storage and Insignifcant tank on the far side of the pond. Kyo Maclear Although we were thousands of Doubleday Canada kilometres distant from Toronto, we 240 pages, hardcover found ourselves in the same kind of ISBN 9780385687515 tattered “mongrel space” in which Maclear and her musician had made their birding trips. Cities, with he day after I finished their endless demand for resources, reading Kyo Maclear’s scratch their imprint onto the land Tnew memoir, Birds Art far beyond city limits. Life: A Field Guide to the Small and By rolling down the car win- Insignificant, three things hap- dows, we could hear the swans pened that took each of her themes murmuring to one another in their in turn. First, we saw the swans. By quiet, piping voices, as if noth- “we,” I mean me and my partner, ing were wrong. But we knew too Keith—although in emulation of much about what we were seeing, Maclear’s own subdued manner, about habitat loss, species decline, it might be more appropriate to global warming and all the other call him “the art historian.” Apart sorrows that beset both the swans from a brief mention in the small and us. And like Maclear, we also print of her acknowledgements, knew that the day when, “without Maclear does not identify her own our acting, the little things will take birdwatching companion by name, care of themselves” was long gone. even though they went on joint And yet, despite this burdensome excursions into the urban wilds of awareness, our hearts were light, Toronto for an entire year. Instead, and we were happy just to sit and she speaks of him obliquely as “the An illustration showing a variety of North and South American hummingbirds look. We were experiencing what musician.” I am guessing she chose (Image from Trochilidae, plate 99 from Ernst Haeckel’s Kunstformen der Natur (1904), Maclear describes as “the lift of the this greyed-out identifcation to suit via Wikimedia Commons) bird” in us. the muted pallet of her book, with its moody black-and-white photographs, whimsical funny places many of us call home.” And they were he second thing that happened after read- pen-and-ink drawings and quiet, meditative words. “suddenly everywhere,” tugging at her attention. Ting Maclear’s book was a conversation with After all, she had come to this project looking for my friend Nick. I do not know what he did in his comfort and reassurance. Her beloved father—the I could hear them in the trees and tucked in earlier life, but nowadays, in his ffties, he spends man who anchored her life as a writer—had fallen the eaves of our house: idle choirs chattering his time making bowls. If, for some of us, joy is ill, and she had fallen with him, her life out of kil- and trilling—pretty songs and ugly songs, “bird-shaped” (to borrow a phrase from Maclear), ter, unmoored. “Te act of wrangling words into songs to pass the time. A hawk perched high for Nick, it is a thin-walled vessel taking form on sentences into paragraphs into stories made me above the ice rink while I was skating with my his potter’s wheel. Although his creations are all weary,” she confdes. “It seemed an overly compli- sons one afternoon. I spied a fock of migrat- nearly identical in size and shape, they are distin- cated, dubious efort.” ing geese through a skylight while I did the guished from one another by the way he paints on And it was then, in the mysterious way that backstroke in a YMCA pool. It moved like a the glaze. Every bowl is a miniature world of land these things sometimes happen, that birds had giant cursor across the white fatness of the or sky or water. Across a table of his wares at a craft called to her. Tey were not rare and exotic spe- sky. sale, I attempted to persuade him to make diferent cies from some untouched wilderness but every- kinds of vessels to vary his stock—you’d sell more, day birds from everyday urban environments. Her Hope had appeared in Maclear’s life as a thing I said—but he brushed the suggestion aside. “I was birds scrounged in the garbage and perched on with feathers, but, pace Emily Dickinson, hope was sick this summer,” he told me. “To make these streetlights, occupying “the dirty, plain, beautiful, abashed and fragile in this tenuous world. Best to things, the clay weighs two and a half pounds; it’s keep your voice down, speak in whispers. heavy. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able—” Candace Savage has been called a “bird writer,” a And so, the art historian and I sat on the narrow He paused and, with a wave of his hand, indicated description she has decided to interpret as a com- verge of a highway, in the presence of swans. Tere his array of bowls. “Tis size is the most fun to paint. pliment. She lives in Saskatoon, where she is the were more than a hundred of them, a fotilla of I want to make them as long as I can.” He threw me founding coordinator of the NatureCity Festival whiteness, resting on a shallow marsh on the out- an impish grin and a wink. “It’s all about me, you (www.wildaboutsaskatoon.org). skirts of a beat-up prairie town. Every time a vehicle know.”

16 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada In the grand scheme of things, Nick’s craftsman- ship (like this essay, like most of our eforts) is of miniscule signifcance. Yet I could not help thinking that Maclear would have taken huge satisfaction in his intransigence. “I like smallness,” she confdes in a chapter “on the satisfactions of small birds and small art … I like the perverse audacity of someone Last Travels aiming tiny.” Come now, I dare you, fnd my secret heart. I’ll let a drop of blood, frst one, then three, If you pour everything into the tiny vessel of a song and wear out your heart, what is to lead you to the fnal, fortressed start that? Is that small or big? If you choose to put beyond the briar of veins and spinal trees. yourself out there on a small stage, singing for I’ll draw you each red step by blotted art, the small somebody inside of you, knowing incant the hidden landscape by degrees, how quickly songs wane, is that modest or unfold the self-hurt scaffolding, and chart gargantuan? your path through vast, slapped wreckage and debris. You think you have touched everything, each part, Sing like a bird. Sing through your art, knowing put fsts through every wall, forced every key. how quickly songs wane. Why then so frightened still — that sudden dart If I’d had that same conversation with Nick a day of panic? Have you failed to handle me? earlier, before reading Birds Art Life, I might just I’ve all along grown thorns here in the dark. have laughed it of. What a wit that guy is, so amus- Come now, I dare you, fnd my secret heart. ing. But one of Maclear’s gifts is attentiveness, her insistence on getting to the heart of things. She likes noticing and thinking. Whenever her experience as Anna Wärje birdwatcher ofers her a lesson, she makes the most of it. Te signifcance of small ambitions. Te Anna Wärje’s poetry has previously appeared in Room, Event, the LRC, Te Dalhousie virtue of waiting. Te importance of knowledge. Review, Descant, carte blanche, Grain, CV2 and Open Minds Quarterly, as well as Te acceptance of brokenness. It seemed that by in Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry (Mother Tongue Publishing, spending time with her writing, I had become more 2008) and On Lost Roads (Country Light Publishing, 2009). Anna holds a master’s perceptive and thoughtful myself. Her courage and degree from the UBC Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, and is curiosity had turned out to be contagious. reading Weekend, by Jane Eaton Hamilton, and Revolution, by Russell Brand.

he third thing that happened after I fnished TBirds Art Life was discovering that Maclear had published a very diferent but related text just a few months earlier. Te Liszts is a picture book for young children, created in collaboration with illustrator Júlia Sardà and released by Penguin Random House this past October. It concerns a family of compulsive list makers. “Tey made lists in winter, spring, summer, fall,” Maclear writes of them. “Tey made lists every day except Sundays, which were listless.” Without this clue, I might not have noticed that Maclear herself is a maker of lists and that, from the title page onward, Birds Art Life is flled with them. (I have taken my cue from her in structuring this review.) Each chapter of her mem- oir takes a month in its turn and is prefaced by a list of the birds that have come into view in that time. Some of her lists are poignant, such as the inventory of things she noticed but did not talk about after her father fell ill, and some are playful, such as her cata- logue of famous eyebrows—“Frida. Audrey. Greta. Groucho.”—her own having risen in a permanent state of alarm. Tere is a list of songs about roam- ing, prompted by the wandering of birdwatchers in search of midsummer action, and paired lists of “spark birds” and “spark books,” to honour encoun- ters that ignited outdoor and armchair passions. Occasionally, her fondness for catalogues makes her sentences heavy, but it keeps her thinking open Manuscripts Curated Photographs Curated to surprise. Tere is space in her branching aware- by: 4 Sellers Art Curated by: by: 3 Sellers 6 Sellers ness for contradictions and unexpected sightings. In Te Liszts, the characters are thrown into a tizzy when a visitor shows up who was not on any- one’s list. In Birds Art Life, the unwanted intruder is the shadow of mortality. Our lives are tiny, this brave book reminds us, and the world we inhabit is scarred and beautiful. “Life is just this way,” Maclear concludes. “If we’re lucky we learn by watching others make it through, still standing and smiling. If we’re lucky we learn to live in a fux of adaptation, in the ‘twoness’ between despair and hope.” We learn to listen for the song of birds.

January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 17 Meanwhile, in Another Part of the Story Digressions, odd patterns and puns animate Emma Richler’s oddball novel LIZ HARMER

Rachel believes in it, the laws of pattern for- ters and brothers, the Battle of Borodino, boxing Be My Wolff mation and how they are universal: whatever matches attended by Charles Dickens, as well as the Emma Richler she sees, crystallising, a landscape of fractals, backstories of our own characters. Richler gestures Knopf Canada of emergence and symmetry, her world falling toward realism by ofering the conceit that these 410 pages, hardcover happily into shape … For Rachel Wolf, quite are stories invented and elaborated by Rachel and ISBN 9781101946527 simply, there are patterns everywhere, she Zach. can’t help it; she is an illustrator, naturalist, Te main storyline is set in what I take to be cartographer—and her eye, a kaleidoscope. present-day Camden Town, but there are few clues ome novels are likely to be better on to the ages of our protagonists, and few cultural and a second reading. Novels like Michael Te novel is full of such ideas: patterns and fates, technological markers to give a strong sense of time SOndaajte’s In the Skin of a Lion, in which symmetries and details. Te sentences are often within the novel. Tus, these lovers are so timeless style and detail are more central than that they might also be ageless, and plot, reward rereadings, and I suspect Be My Wolf, despite its love of story, the same is true of Emma Richler’s Zach is a foundling, raised by Wolffs, has little in the way of traditional, strange new novel. An otherwise novelistic plot until the fnal 50 pages, heartbreaking love story, Be My Wolf which is just the sort of pun Richler which, not incidentally, are the most keeps the reader at a distance through engaging pages of the book. Two of its style, its interest in scientifc fact delights in throughout her novel. Puns the older Wolfs have recently died, and in folklore, and its turn always are clues to fate. and this gives the novel a sense of to some story other than the one at elegy. Teir days are not punctuated hand. While the third-person narra- by the natural rhythms of routine, tion is roving and kaleidoscopic—it jumps quickly long, sometimes unwieldy, and the vocabulary but by whimsies. In one scene, Rachel explores a into perspectives as divergent as Charles Dickens, draws on such obscure or unfamiliar lexicons— museum and has a madcap conversation with Tsar Alexander I and a rat named Rat—there is a scientifc, boxing related, Victorian English and a fsh. Te overall efect is of suspension, timeless- sense that the novel is trying to hide from itself. Russian—that the novel includes two glossaries. ness, infnitude, unreality—the feelings associated Te characters observe each other obsessively, On the next page, musing about Zach’s ear, Rachel with intense romantic love. but the real pain of their lives hides from them. It is again acknowledges that “In the end, we know so little,” a character as though one is witnessing a series of coy psycho- muses. “Scenes and moments, she thinks. And analytic sessions whose deeper meaning the reader the laws of growth and rhythm account for a song. How often [they] will burst into song. Te soul is required to connect and draw out. Conversations strange universality of forms, sensitive and in all these things, the moments and songs.” We are are derailed; nested stories are returned to; love shifting and responsive to the invisible, a tem- meant to read the novel as a fractal: a fractal has an is hiding grief, or grief is a part of love: the point plate, a pattern, the ghost of all things. infnitely complex structure and each of its parts is, further interpretation is required of the reader, Tere is a template for all things. Te laws is a replica of the whole. Russian nesting dolls are who sifts through—wades through—the detritus of of pattern formation are universal. one image used to describe this, coastlines another. these lives. Within each nested story many of the same features Be My Wolf is Richler’s third novel and her frst Rachel and Zach are not new lovers, though, are repeated: foundling boys, boxers, “scribes,” sis- in a decade. She is an actor-turned-writer living in and have in fact known each other intimately since ter-brother pairings, violinists, intelligent rats. Te London, but, as the third of Mordecai Richler’s fve they were small children. Zach was adopted into soul is somehow to be found in all these moments children, her Canadian roots are deep. Her frst the Wolf family after being introduced by a beloved and scenes, and in unfamiliar or oddball words novel-in-stories, Sister Crazy and her second novel, aunt. So Zach is a foundling, raised by Wolfs, which such as “boxiana” and “boximania,” which are Feed My Dear Dogs, both feature an eccentric family is just the sort of pun Richler delights in throughout gifts to a word-loving reader. Te fractal structure of seven whose bright children expound on histor- her novel. Puns are clues to fate, and fate is real, so and the timeless feeling the novel creates turned ical and scientifc ideas in a digressive way. Be My the characters and the roving narrator treat word- this reader into a pattern seeker, treating all things Wolf is her frst work not centring on the fctional play with the seriousness of a person in a manic as meaningfully pointing to some whole. I came Weiss family, a family with parallels to Richler’s own. psychosis. to feel deep afection for these Wolfs trapped in Te frst few pages of exuberantly loving descrip- Because Rachel and Zachariah are (non-blood- their luckless loop, because in all of its parts, Be My tion give clues to the rules of the novel. Rachel and related) siblings living as a couple, they become Wolf is an exploration of the deep, animal bonds Zachariah lie in bed together like new lovers, mar- objects of scrutiny, which becomes tragically cru- between people. velling at each other’s forms and having eccentric cial in the end. Zach was once a professional boxer For her earlier novels, Richler was both praised conversations about such things as Rachel’s feel- who quit because of injury, and they both write and criticized for her digressive style. In Be My ings about the word “loins.” Rachel explores her books while she teaches the odd art class and he Wolf, again we see Richler’s literary quirks, her lover’s scars and “old wounds”: works at a boxing gym. Meanwhile, they remember signature pattern: she continues to write digressive, their lives together as she tries to repair relations associative prose that sometimes seems to be more Liz Harmer is a National Magazine Award–win- with their father, Lev. Tese main plot points are interested in historical facts and weird vocabular- ning author whose work has appeared in Te New easily summarized, but the subplots, which careen ies than in its own characters. Tese are poetic Quarterly, Te Malahat Review, PRISM and others. through historic time, are less so. Numerous stor- instincts, rather than storytelling ones; the same Her debut novel, Te Amateurs, is forthcoming with ies are nested within the novel, including several features that make Be My Wolf at times a frustration Knopf Canada in 2018. Russian folktales involving the love between sis- also make it an astounding delight.

18 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada The Muse Wore a Low-Cut Blouse W.P. Kinsella’s posthumous book reveals a writer more cynical than his famous baseball novel might suggest NORMAN SNIDER

print runs, no Kevin Costners, no prestigious prizes Not only is she a sack artist of the frst rank, but Russian Dolls: or Academy nominations in sight. Christie is also an in-house story editor on a level Stories from the Breathing Castle Tey did not come. with Max Perkins. She tells Wylie, “I don’t want to W.P. Kinsella In the 1980s, things got worse for Kinsella when, read any more … about dancing buses.” No more Coteau Books dropping down literary league standings into the magic happenings, she decrees. And Wylie starts to 291 pages, softcover midlist of writers, publishing with major houses swing. He writes down and dirty love stories from ISBN 9781550506366365 became more difcult for him. Ten, while walking skid row East Van: he is the new Charles Bukow- on the highway, Kinsella sufered a trafc accident ski. He writes stories about interned Japanese that resulted in a head trauma that kept him on the during World War Two. He writes love stories illiam Patrick Kinsella died, at a writing disabled list for 14 years. Next, a love afair, about impoverished Ukrainian immigrants on the moment of his own choosing, with the a real car wreck, with the writer and former escort, prairies’ lower depths. He is the Maxim Gorky of Whelp of a physician in September 2016. Evelyn Lau, some 30 years his junior, who cele- Alberta. He is now a male Trilby with a street mama Back in 1982, Kinsella published his most famous brated the end of the afair with a triumphant tell- Svengali, and editors start begging for more. Kin- novel, the baseball tale Shoeless Joe. His folksy adult all article, “Me and W.P.”, in Vancouver Magazine, sella wisely quotes Robert Graves: “No one poet fantasy story was a writer’s home run. A laser shot, which took careful note of poor Kinsella’s thinning grows conscious of the Muse except by experience out of the yard. Kinsella’s book went through more hair, yellowing teeth and aging body. of a woman in whom the Goddess is to some degree than 30 printings in paperback in no time at all. Russian Dolls: Stories from the Breathing Castle, resident.” It won the distinguished Houghton Mifin Liter- a posthumous volume of fction by Kinsella, is pub- Often the narrators of the stories are “strange, ary Fellowship and was adapted into the Oscar- lished by Coteau Books, a small non-proft literary damaged girls” telling bleak tales about abusive nominated movie, Field of Dreams, starring the press out of Regina. Apparently inspired by his rela- men. Once again, Kinsella is exploiting contempor- winningly boyish Kevin Costner. Te flm grossed a tionship with Lau, it is not quite a story collection, ary liberal identity themes. But, once again, the tasty $65 million in the United States alone. Kinsella not quite a novel. Te book consists of a framing stories themselves lead to conclusions unlikely to was one Canadian writer who had left behind the story depicting an ill-fated relationship between please anyone concerned about abuse. As Wylie’s dour pessimism of his home and native land for Wylie, an aspiring writer, and his much younger love afair with Christie inevitably goes into decline, American myths of hope and redemption. muse, Christie. Within this larger story nestle, like he tells her, “You’re doing your best to get me to Build it and they will come. Russian dolls, the tales inspired by the blitzkrieg of hit you, aren’t you?” In other words, just asking Kinsella followed his big success with further their love afair. for it, right? Not an analysis calculated to please collections of baseball stories and humorous It is not certain whether Kinsella hit on a bril- women—or, in this age, many men. tales about Native people outsmarting federal liant structural concept or merely a clever market- It cannot help matters that Kinsella’s abusers are bureaucrats on the reserve. A leading light in the ing device to transform a stack of short stories, not darker-skinned men, black or Italian. Te villains rebellion against realism, he wrote with a gentle a few previously published, into something more of the framing story are a group of black gangbang- whimsy generally associated with 1960s West commercially appealing than another story col- ers wearing Oakland Raiders regalia who threaten Coast fabulists such as Richard Brautigan. A mas- lection. Wylie and Christie. Unfortunately, Kinsella has zero ter of sweet-toned, soft-boiled prose, Kinsella had It is 1979. Wylie lives in a dingy rooming house idea of either the criminal activities or the spoken an unerring eye for themes of identity liberalism. in East Vancouver he calls the Breathing Castle. idiom of the street. “We don’t want my friend to Yet, in his private persona, Kinsella was consider- As a writer, he is really getting bruised. He has a think we can’t aford to stay in a high class hotel,” ably more hard-boiled than his prose. An ardent three-inch folder of rejection slips and he supports he has one of the homeboys say. “We want him to western conservative who rocked a cowboy shirt himself by driving a taxi. In fact, Wylie is so poor think we are businessmen of solid reputation.” and string tie, he strongly supported the Reform he cannot aford a surname. He writes unsuccess- Businessmen of solid reputation? Party. To anything and anybody east of the Missis- ful stories of gentle fantasy. As he types, coloured From a gangbanger? Come on, man! sippi, Kinsella automatically afxed the adjective fowers appear on the page. Reality is too much for Finally, the Muse disappears from Wylie’s life, “snotty.” Consequently, his stories often led to con- him. telling him, “You’re no diferent from any other clusions not likely to please academic critics. Tey Christie, who often talks of herself in the third guy I ever met, except you went to school about responded predictably to Kinsella’s stories about person, is the post-truth era personifed. A foul- twenty years longer.” A john is a john, even with a Native people by accusing him of “appropriation mouthed street babe, with an ironic smile and PhD. And, after she disappears, Wylie’s stories drift of voice.” low-cut blouses, she often packs heat; she is also back to gentle sentimental whimsy. Abandoned by Just another cisgendered exploiter, as the jargon a pathological liar. She tells Wylie, “I have no idea inspiration, his imagination begins to feel like “an would have it. who my father was, all the creeps my mother hung egg that has been dropped on the foor.” Te books that followed Shoeless Joe did not out with wanted to cop a feel or get into my pants.” Te debate whether W.P. Kinsella was a literary clear the fences. Instead, there were singles and But maybe Christie is not trailer park arm candy Hall of Famer or a one-hit wonder will continue ground rule doubles. A previous collection of after all; maybe she is the of-scouring of a drop- in some circles. Only time will tell whether Shoe- Indian stories, Dance Me Outside, was made into a out aristocratic Virginian mother “who studied art less Joe is a classic or a period item. I suspect it small budget Canadian movie, and a spinof CBC history at a snotty eastern women’s college in the will stand with Bernard Malamud’s Te Natural as television series, Te Rez. Tere were no massive States.” an indispensable book for baseball fans for gen- Street rat or spawn of arrogant eastern academ- erations to come. As for Russian Dolls, whether a Norman Snider is a Toronto-based journalist ics, Christie is wildly unreliable and big trouble. stroke of structural genius or a practical publishing and screenwriter. His latest essay collection is Te But when she moves into Wylie’s squalid rooming manoeuvre, it is a welcome exploration of writing, Roaring Eighties and Other Good Times (Exile house, assuming the role of writing coach, she takes the writer’s life and his troublesome love afair with Editions, 2008). the hitch out of his swing and his stories improve. imagination.

January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 19 Going It Alone The marvellous, single-minded, doggedly strange passion of citizen scientists PATCHEN BARSS

portraits of unwilling citizen scientists— Smitten by Giraffe: people who strove to become professional My Life as a Citizen Scientist academics, were denied and devoted their Anne Innis Dagg lives to research anyway. Biologist Anne Innis McGill-Queen’s University Press Dagg’s memoir, Smitten by Girafe: My Life as 226 pages, hardcover a Citizen Scientist, and historian Ian Dyck’s ISBN 9780773547995 biography of a natural-born archeologist, Te Life and Work of W.B. Nickerson (1865–1926): The Life and Work of W.B. Nickerson Scientific Archaeology in Central North (1865–1926): Scientifc Archaeology in America, both tell stories about dedicated sci- Central North America entists who fnd themselves blithely marginal- Ian Dyck ized and excluded from professional circles. University of Ottawa Press Dagg and Nickerson, although they had 412 pages, softcover little else in common, share some singular ISBN 9780776623887 similarities. Both discovered their intellectual passion early on. Neither seems to have ever considered the possibility of shifting focus, eople—especially smart people— even when it became apparent that traditional often fall prone to the conceit that, avenues for progress would not be available Pif they just had the time, they could to them. totally write a novel, perform standup com- In 1966, Dagg, who is the daughter of edy or run for local ofce. After all, these famed political economy professor Harold jobs require only innately human skills like Adams Innis and historian Mary Quayle being able to tell a story, tell a joke or relate Innis, received her PhD in biology from the well to strangers. Curious, then, that some University of Waterloo. She published papers of these same people—smart people—tend in respected journals, had a solid network of to view science in the exact opposite way. academic contacts and colleagues—including Scientists to them seem to exist in a world her husband, Ian Dagg, a respected Waterloo far removed from everyday life, so much so physics professor. Still, she had no hope of that even heartfelt eforts to bridge the divide landing a tenure-track position. She recalls between university campuses and the broader “Dig” (1909) by Sadie Wendell Mitchell Waterloo’s dean of science telling her “he did world just leave people on both sides feeling (Image courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, not hire women, no matter how talented; their alienated. Washington DC 20540) place was in the family, raising children.” It was not always this way, and, in fact, it is Although addressing sexism at universities not this way now. Science existed before universi- grip on scientifc endeavour, promoting the Huxley- would later become a major cause for Dagg, all her ties; and tinkerers, inventors and private hobbyists esque idea that we are all innovators, researchers energy at the time went into fnding ways to pur- have been responsible for many major discoveries and creators of knowledge. “Today, it’s easier than sue the research that had frst led her to do a PhD. over the centuries. British biologist Tomas Henry ever before for anyone to organize an exploration, As the title of her memoir implies, Dagg had been Huxley famously made the case that we are all measure what they fnd, and share their discover- infatuated with girafes since she was a toddler, and scientists in his 1863 essay “We Are All Scientists.” ies with a global community,” writes Kate Wing in had self-fnanced a trip to Africa to see them up Humans are built, he says, for inductive and deduc- her “Citizen Science Manifesto.” Wing, a resident at close. Dagg recounts with unselfconscious relish tive reasoning, for observation, for hypothesizing the citizen science-driven organization Manylabs, every single detail of her observations. about the world, and for making observations and echoes Huxley in her interpretation of the move- seeking knowledge to test those hypotheses. In ment. “It’s about tapping into your own inner Each day … I wrote down the temperature, this deep, substantial way, we deploy the tools and scientist, the curious part of you that wants to dig how far the group I had been watching the methods of scientists every day as we go about our into questions bigger than one person can solve on evening before had moved during the night, business. It is a seductive idea, made more appeal- their own.” and everything each girafe in my vision was ing and powerful by intellectual titans such as In its modern form, citizen science manifests doing every fve minutes. Tis included chew- cosmologist Albert Einstein and inventor Tomas in crowdsourced projects to monitor at-risk ani- ing their cud, lying down, pacing about, or Edison, who did some of their most innovative work mal populations and help discover new species. standing looking thoughtful. outside of the university system. Citizen scientists play computer games that help Tese days, an interconnected group of move- train artifcial intelligence networks. T ey observe Her research for her doctoral thesis on the com- ments, including maker culture, hacker culture and weather patterns and document indicators of cli- parison of gaits of large mammals produced “inter- citizen science, is attempting to loosen academia’s mate change. Tey help map the surface of other esting results,” she recalls, published in two papers, planets, and join the search for extraterrestrial life. “one on slow gaits and one on fast.” Patchen Barss writes about science, research and Te movement works to complement rather than Dagg’s childhood love afair with the girafe emerging ideas. His book, Te Erotic Engine: How compete with traditional academic research. never diminished. In passage after passage of her Pornography Has Powered Mass Communication, Academia, though, is not always willing to book, she recounts odd facts, esoterica and minu- from Gutenberg to Google, was published by throw open its ivy-covered doors to welcome the tiae—girafes never trot; when walking, they shift Penguin Random House in 2010. non–peer-reviewed hordes. Two new books paint their weight from two left to two right legs (smaller

20 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada ungulates support themselves with diagonally privilege and joy for me as a citizen scientist resentful in the face of Putnam’s lopsidedly supe- opposed legs); they cannot swim. Her exhaustively to have shed light on a variety of subjects that rior resources. All of his proposals—to Putnam, detailed descriptions cover everything anyone had never before been studied or understood. and later to other funders, including the Geological would ever want to know about the world’s tallest Survey of Canada Museum, which later became animals. Tey also paint a self-portrait of Dagg, William Nickerson’s circumstances had little the National Museum of Canada—have budgets whose personality type is rare in the general popu- in common with Dagg’s, other than the fact that based on the rock-bottom minimum required to do lation, but common among university scientists: he too found himself an academic outsider. Born the work. As long as he could aford to take unpaid she fxates on learning everything knowable about in 1865 in New England, Nickerson came of age leave from—or quit—his current job, he was good one narrow subject. Even more telling, she exhibits when there were 29 people in North America earn- to go. an overt lack of self-awareness in how she expresses ing their living as archeologists. Nickerson spent “Archaeology had become his obsession,” Dyck her passion. She treats every new detail, experi- his life trying—and failing—to become the 30th. writes. “He accepted unstable jobs in remote places ence and fact as thought it were of equal and major He never managed to secure a permanent posi- that sometimes separated him from his family and importance. tion at a museum or university. And yet, his body sometimes left them short of funds. All the while, of research—eked out during whatever time he he was sending the results of his archaeology—a One especially memorable day … I noticed a could steal away from paying jobs in the railroad steady stream of letters, reports, maps, artifacts, group of seven girafe coming human remains, and other mate- from the opposite direction, rials—to Putnam at the Peabody heading slowly toward me What is the value in rigorously testing Museum.” as they browsed. When they Over decades, Nickerson con- were about thirty yards away, an arguably banal fact that most people tinued to cobble together time one, noticing me, stopped and money to excavate in New to stare. She didn’t snort to believed to be true, only to determine England, the American Midwest alert the others but instead that it is, in fact, true? and, starting in 1912, the Canadian gazed intently at this intruder. Prairies. Even at this late stage Gradually, the others noticed in his career, Nickerson was still her posture and then my presence. Tey industry—became posthumously infuential in the delayed and hampered waiting for his employer to remained tense and immobile for perhaps fve development of institutional archaeology on this fnd someone to take over his job on the railroad for minutes, then drifted of. continent. a few weeks so that he could get away. Dyck’s biography of Nickerson tells the story Still, he was starting to get contracts measured in Dagg is awestruck precisely as much by this of a man who, for unknowable reasons, only ever the hundreds of dollars rather than tens. Nickerson snortless, action-free communication as she is by wanted to devote his life to digging for artifacts and might actually have forged a path into the world a sparring match between two males or a mother reconstructing history. By the age of 18, he had professional archaeology, were it not for the social girafe suckling her calf. “I wrote up this event along mastered technical drawing and topography. He and economic upheaval wrought by the First World with every other one in my notebooks,” she writes. knew how to recognize potentially fruitful dig sites, War. Archeology funding dried up and, between Dagg continues to teach university courses, but and to situate found artifacts in historical and cul- 1917 and his death in 1926, Nickerson’s unrelenting is denied the full professorship that would allow tural contexts. And he was already writing reports eforts to build on his painfully slow ascent yielded her to pursue her research agenda as a career. In and sharing his discoveries with a broader research only disappointment. 1978, she takes a position at Waterloo’s indepen- community. Nickerson’s contributions to the feld had more dent studies program, which allows her to guide In 1885, he worked as a volunteer student assis- to do with his methods than his actual discoveries. students on their research projects. With very little tant for Frederic W. Putnam, the curator of Harvard He produced beautiful topological drawings and in the way of funding or other support, she contin- University’s Peabody Museum of American refned meticulous, grid-based excavation methods ues to study mammalian movements, then expands Archaeology and Ethnology. Putnam was a titan that are now the standard for modern archeology. that work to compare how animals swim. She uses of 19th-century North American archeology. For Tese two books problematize the democratiza- her own and other people’s flm footage, and stud- 26 years, he served as a mentor to Nickerson, tion of science. While Huxley might be correct that ies animals closer to home—returning to Africa ofering him regular encouragement and practical human beings have the capacity to do the kinds is out of the question at this time. She publishes. advice, occasional meager sums of money to carry of things Dagg and Nickerson did, most of us do Applies for positions. Is rejected. She analyses the out short-term digs, and rare job references and not have the single-minded interest and almost walking gaits of birds. She graphs the hourly activity recommendations that consistently led nowhere. irrational persistence to do so. And yet, these sto- of squirrels collecting chestnuts, correlating it with Dyck, an archeologist and former curator of ries also serve as a reminder that academia should daily temperature, sunshine and rain. the Saskatchewan Museum of Natural History, not have sole proprietorship over doing real sci- Her primary idée fxe remains the girafe: “Using recounts in exhaustive and sometimes exhaust- ence. Whether it involves sending one’s occasional the limited literature on girafe, I had noted that ing detail Nickerson’s lifelong tug of war between birdwatching notes of to the Audubon Society, or male skulls were thought to be heavier than female the many railroad jobs that paid his bills and his devoting every spare nickel and moment to pursu- skulls. To test this out, I visited several museums … cobbled-together shoestring operations to exca- ing the one esoteric question that fascinates you, weighed the girafe skulls in their collections, and vate pre-European burial mounds and villages. citizen science plays a key role in pushing back the found that it was indeed the case.” Nickerson continually reached out to Putnam, frontiers of human knowledge. What is the value in rigorously testing an argu- asking advice, proposing projects, seeking funding. It is not always easy to grok the deep motivations ably banal fact that most people believed to be Putnam made encouraging but insubstantial noises of citizen scientists such as Dagg and Nickerson. true, only to determine that it is, in fact, true? Why for years on end. It never seems to have occurred to Both become much more intuitive, empathetic publish a paper on the subject? Why then publish Nickerson that Putnam might be merely humour- characters when they turn their doggedness to a layperson’s version of the study in your memoir? ing him. He never considered resigning himself activist causes—Dagg to environmentalism and If you fnd yourself asking these questions, you to just stick to his day job. Ten, in 1899, Putnam feminism, Nickerson to socialism. (Nickerson’s are not a scientist. Not in the way Dagg is. Dagg’s fnally came through with a cheque for $75 to fund socialist values emerged from his work on the rail- tenacity is both sympathetic and admirable, mar- a few months’ archeological work. roads, where he felt ill treated and disempowered. vellous and genuinely strange. She rises to become Even when Putnam fnally found a way to sup- His frst declared his commitment to the cause in a world-renowned expert on the girafe, writing port Nickerson’s work with actual dollars, his words letters to his father and brother, who castigated books and giving lectures around the globe. And of encouragement highlighted the divide between him for it. He went on to write many essays for the when she looks back on her career, she now focuses the two men. “I think it advisable for you to spend Chicago Daily socialist newspaper.) But the drive to less on having been denied a professorship, and a few dollars on a tent,” Putnam wrote. “I have a do science—to really do science, to let your curios- more on how lucky she was to spend a life doing lot of tents, but they are in diferent parts of the ity subsume every other motivation and concern, science anyway. country, and it would cost more for me to get one to ignore all the signs practically screaming at you to you than for you to buy one at your place. Ten to do something else with your life—is something Troughout my lifetime I have been able to you could keep it for use from time to time as you strange and rare. Tese two books celebrate that pursue scientifc problems that interested have occasion.” spirit, as well the glorious minutiae in which it fnds me and that seemed important. It has been a Nickerson seems neither discouraged nor sustenance.

January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 21 Sex and the City Finding queer identities in Montreal and Toronto AMY LAVENDER HARRIS

the House of Commons at the end of 2016—half a a stolen tombstone with the same initials as his The Jane Loop century later, queer fction has become part of the son’s, a “memento mori” he installs in the hallway Graham Jackson country’s literary mainstream. outside Neil’s bedroom. Someone has been break- Cormorant Books Two new novels are products of this long transi- ing into nearby houses and trashing them, leaving 396 pages, softcover tion. Te frst, Graham Jackson’s Te Jane Loop, is Neil’s family fearful they may be hit next. Finally, ISBN 9781770864801 a gay coming-of-age story set in suburban Toronto Neil’s sexual orientation leaves him vulnerable in 1962. Jackson is an analytical psychologist and to gay bashing, and indeed, one evening after he Five Roses the author of two non-fction books on male inti- gets of the bus, a car pulls up alongside, its driver Alice Zorn macy from a Jungian perspective: Te Secret Lore issuing taunts before getting out, knocking him Dundurn of Gardening and Te Living Room Mysteries. Alice down and pulling his belt open before a neighbour 316 pages, softcover Zorn’s Five Roses is her second novel (the frst was intervenes. Te terror of discovery and its conse- ISBN 9781459734241 Arrhythmia in 2011), a contemporary story about quences—violence, expulsion or both—have made people who meet in Montreal’s working class Neil guarded and secretive. Pointe St. Charles neighbourhood at a time when Te place of promise in Neil’s life is the Jane n December 1967, Pierre Trudeau, who gentrifcation is beginning to alter its gritty streets. Loop of the novel’s title: a streetcar terminus at the was then minister of justice, uttered a simple In Jackson’s novel, a young gay man’s struggles to corner of Bloor and Jane streets, the “doorway to Iproposition that immediately became famous: come to terms with his sexuality form the central real life” marking the boundary between suburb “Tere’s no place for the state in the and city and, ostensibly, serving as the bedrooms of the nation.” By the time he The place of promise in Neil’s life fulcrum in Neil’s life. On the city side said it, in the course of announcing the are Neil’s job as a page at the nearby proposed decriminalization of homo- is the Jane Loop of the novel’s Runnymede Library (and all the expos- sexuality as part of sweeping changes ure to ideas and culture it supplies); his to the country’s Criminal Code, aware- title: a streetcar terminus at the homo-erotic friendship with Tony, a ness if not necessarily acceptance of gay more-or-less straight boy who works at sexuality had already been galvanized by corner of Bloor and Jane streets, Parma Fruits and Vegetables on Bloor; the publication of Scott Symons’s Place and a number of charged encounters d’Armes at the beginning of the same the “doorway to real life.” with men who seem invariably to iden- year. Canada’s frst openly gay novel, tify the closeted young Neil as a fellow Place d’Armes is a scathing, ribald, textual palimp- narrative; in Zorn’s, sexual orientation is presented “Friend of Dorothy.” On the suburban side is Neil’s sest of narrative, diary and feld guide in which as only one of numerous identities—among them closeted and therefore somewhat claustrophobic the (nominally heterosexual) protagonist’s homo- culture, class, language, professional—her pro- life with his parents. sexual explorations are meant as a metaphor for tagonists wrestle with. Both novels show a striking As a fctional device, however, the Jane Loop English Canada’s need to connect with its French engagement with place. Negotiations of sexual seems underdeveloped, marking a major weak- partner in Confederation. and other identities occur in rapidly shifting urban ness in the novel. At one point, Neil’s friend Tony, a At the time of the book’s publication, critics were landscapes in ways that underscore the complexity talented artist, shows him sketches of the streetcars not kind to Symons. In a review titled “A Monster of social change. and buses they both love entering and exiting the from Toronto,” Robert Fulford called Symons’s Neil Bennett, the 16-year-old protagonist of Te Jane Loop, but their signifcance—joining? parting? protagonist “the most repellent single fgure in the Jane Loop, lives in a suburban post-war community both?—is never fully explored. Even as an imagina- recent history of Canadian writing.” Despite this just west of Toronto. Neil’s neighbourhood seems tive line distinguishing the halves of Neil’s life, the inauspicious beginning, however, Place d’Armes drawn straight from the set of a mid-century sit- Jane Loop seems to come up short, especially given won the Beta Sigma Phi Best First Canadian Award, com, right down to its “arid grid of streets lined with that the most critical encounters of the novel— then a major literary prize, and as Charles Taylor lookalike houses” and the “formidable expansive- with the gay-basher who subsequently becomes a reported in a fascinating essay on Symons included ness” of his father’s “perfectly mowed lawn.” Neil’s lover, the break-ins that eventually reach Neil’s own in Six Journeys: A Canadian Pattern, became an family seems composed of suburban clichés, too: doorstep, the increasingly strange behaviour of his infuential model for subsequent Canadian writing. his incipient-alcoholic father; his distant, emotion- father—occur on the suburban side. Tese encoun- In the spring of 1969, Trudeau’s legislation became ally suppressed mother; and an older sister who ters, too, deserve more development: we never law. becomes pregnant out of wedlock and is summarily learn, for example, what drives Neil’s father to his Although sexual equality in Canada progressed shipped of to live with relatives. Neil also seems pranks; similarly, the motives behind the break-ins slowly from then on—homophobia persisted to come from central casting: the good son with are never established satisfactorily. Still, Jackson’s nearly unchecked through the gay-bashing, bath- an unspeakable secret, he papers his basement mannered depiction of early 1960s Etobicoke is house raid–flled, AIDS crisis–dominated decades bedroom with glossy prints of Audrey Hepburn and deft, and his characterization of Neil’s sexual awak- that followed, marriage equality was entrenched postcards of muscular men, and has a propensity ening is sensitive and eloquently expressed. nationally only in 2005, and a federal law prohibit- for playing the soundtracks from popular musicals As a gay coming-of-age novel set in the era ing discrimination on grounds of gender identity on his phonograph. before homosexuality was decriminalized in and expression was still winding its way through Beneath the “sphinx-like mystery” of Neil’s Canada, Te Jane Loop flls an interesting niche. neighbourhood are real dangers, however. His It is not alone in this category, however: in addi- Amy Lavender Harris is the author of Imagining father is known for pranks ranging from the Pollock- tion to Scott Symons’s Place d’Armes are Edward Toronto (Mansfeld Press, 2010). Her next book, a inspired paintings he foists upon the neighbours to Lacey’s Forms of Loss, considered the frst book of novel called Acts of Salvage, is forthcoming. faking his own death. At one point, he brings home openly gay poetry published in Canada, and John

22 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Grube’s short story “Geoffrey” (in never kissed me. He never even tried,” I’m Supposed to Be Crazy and Other and thinks, “He wasn’t interested Stories), which describes gay encoun- in sex.” Later, Leo observes, “I don’t ters in 1958 Toronto. Together, these Not Unmarried think he’s interested in girls” and she works offer insight into the lives of gay mulls over that possibility, too: “Rose men in an overlooked era. Not unmarried, no, just a little dis — considered what she knew of Kenny. Alice Zorn’s Five Roses begins, You smile — connected. Oh? Your eyes meet hers, How happy he always sounded about startlingly, at a Pointe St. Charles Dip, then slip away, down cheek and blouse, scared seeing Jerome. And did Jerome … rooming house from which a woman To see what they might say. How to explain this? like Kenny, too? There was a new abducts a baby whose distracted, Last night the sheets like a glacier lay thought.” For Rose, friendship is a fragile, drugged-up mother cannot manage Between me and the one who shares my bed. to care for her. Two decades later, that risky thing. She thinks of her life at the Her eyes have fixed on you, you feel the glare abducted baby, now a young woman cabin: “She’s watched animals in the And daren’t look back. Not yet. It was too late named Rose, moves to Montreal woods—rabbits and deer—freeze from a remote Quebec cabin, takes a To set out, to risk another rebuff. with their snouts lifted, smelling a job as a hospital orderly and begins The sun’s last rays still reached — What can she think? — stranger. Friend or foe? But how did hesitantly to acclimatize to the The high, forbidding peaks and in the folds below people know? How did they decide?” strangeness of an urban life she has The night turned blue. Should you raise your eyes up? Still, Leo helps Rose decide that no reason to recall, and people she You do. She laughs. She hasn’t heard a thing. Kenny can still be a friend, and in turn believes she has no reason or wish to She toys with her wine, and now toys with you. Rose creates a safe space for Kenny’s understand. relationship with Jerome, telling him The Pointe, “the original, working- Richard Sanger he is welcome to stay at the cabin class heart” of Montreal, is dominated without her there. Similarly, when by a giant sign reading FARINE FIVE Rose’s roommate Yushi moves in ROSES that juts above an industrial Richard Sanger is the author of two collections, Shadow Cabinet with Maddy to start a pastry business, building on its derelict waterfront. (1996) and Calling Home (2002), both published by Signal Maddy tells Rose, “You can always Unbeknownst to Rose, this sign is the Editions. This poem is from his new collection, Dark Woods. He is come visit Yushi at my house. I won’t source of her name; like the Pointe currently reading Thomas Hardy’s Collected Poems and Martin always be there. You can come see itself, it casts a long shadow over the Hunter’s last volume of memoirs, Done Hunting. He recently Yushi when I’m not home.” Leo and secret origin of her existence. And enjoyed Nyla Matuk’s Stranger and Larry Tremblay’s L’orangeraie. Rose make space for one another, before long, the Pointe draws Rose in too: when Leo agrees to move in with when a work colleague, Kenny, finds Rose provided their apartment is near her studio space in a warehouse loft enough to his watchman’s tower that large enough to accommodate the he can still sometimes retreat there loom she wishes to retrieve from the cabin she has first brought her here. He’d talked and talked, to sleep, he adds, “You can come, too,” to this aerie left behind. At first Rose finds the district jarring, but she hadn’t understood how his stories perched high above the Pointe. In the end, the with its “old brick buildings. Silos tattooed with graf- from the past explained the present. people Rose meets in the Pointe come to embody fiti. Banks of grass and trees hemmed in by asphalt.” the stories her mother once told her at the cabin, Later, however, it becomes familiar, even homey: The people she encounters in the Pointe— about a little girl whose friends, the five roses, Kenny; her roommate, Yushi; Yushi’s new business would teach her marvellous things. When Kenny had first pointed them out, she’d partner, Maddy; a homeless man named Leo who In spare yet evocative prose, Five Roses weaves seen only the decrepit shells of empty build- lives in a former watchman’s shed atop a rusted- together a tender narrative about the fragility ings, but slowly the urban metamorphosis of out tower—become far more than tour guides: they and beauty of the kinds of friendship people may reclaimed and deserted buildings was grow- also help her navigate shifts in the social and sexual share even in the face of trauma. The hard edges ing familiar. She’d begun to pick out details— landscapes around her. Socially isolated, and hav- of the Pointe—its polluted canal, crumbling fac- the gears and pulleys atop a shaft where bales ing been abused by a backwoods neighbour as a tories, the Farine Five Roses sign—come to seem or sacks must once have slid to a loading child, Rose has no idea how to handle relation- almost like shelter for the soft, vulnerable lives dock. The ten-storey zigzag of a rusted metal ships. Rose approaches Kenny sexually and, when playing out in its midst. A gentle, beautiful book, stairway against a brick wall … She frowned, he rebuffs her, is sad and puzzled. When Leo asks Five Roses shows how unexpected spaces may make remembering her ignorance when Kenny had if she is sad about a boyfriend, Rose answers, “He room for reconnection, even love.

TORONTO Books That Spur: People are exposed to more information than ever before, provided both by technology and by increasing access to Tom Nichols on education. Tom Nichols argues that these societal gains The Death of Expertise have helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided Friday, April 7, noon intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. He maintains that when ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more TOM NICHOLS than anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy. The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters explores a dangerous phenomenon and cautions about the instability of modern democracy in the Information Age. Tom Nichols is a professor of national security a airs at the U.S. Naval War College, an adjunct professor at the Harvard Extension School and a former aide in the U.S. Senate. He is also the author of several works on foreign policy and international security, and a fi ve-time undefeated Jeopardy! champion. Find tickets, and information on other events, at spurfestival.ca/toronto-2017

January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 23 Grief and the Attentive Poet In memoir-tinged poems about dementia and autistic children, we encounter the world outside ourselves ANITA LAHEY

fnally to the dog wagging its tail: “mirroring the selah, a Biblical term, may mean a musical nota- Tell Them It Was Mozart arms of other people’s children.” Schellenberg’s tion, or to praise, lift up, weigh in the balance or Angeline Schellenberg form of fragmentary telling neatly matches her sub- pause. But Gould engages with all these possibil- Brick Books ject: the panic, frustration and sorrow fused with ities, giving her long poem, so deeply grounded in 123 pages, softcover love that characterizes all parenthood, but that runs landscape and metaphor, a satisfying breadth and ISBN 9781771314428 at breakneck speed and volume for parents of chil- tonal range. Her elastic title serves as a macro meta- dren with special needs. Schellenberg distorts diag- phor for the activity under way in this poem, the Selah nostic language to powerful efect, and mercilessly work of working through, how what is required for Nora Gould animates the failures of the system. Her monotone, survival—praise, pause, assessment—can change Brick Books barely held calm in crisis mode is fawless: “I block from moment to moment. It is also breathy, open, 58 pages, softcover the door with both arms, scan / for pens, scissors, a word that admits neither closure nor clarity. For ISBN 9781771314459 free-standing shelves, anything / glass, I breathe, / what can be clear in the vicinity of dementia? Here’s I begin to speak slowly, softly, everything I know / a “weigh in the balance” moment: Stomata about hovercrafts…” Genevieve Lehr Te stakes are high in this narrator’s world, as is Not a foreign language. Brick Books the intensity of an insidious grief that must be out- 107 pages, softcover run and repeatedly wrestled into submission. Some His lost words, delays to decipher, not ISBN 9781771314480 pieces in this book read more like cathartic confes- speaking, sion or defant disclosure than poems: the author is and the odd surprise—Don’t attach documenting her reality so intently the possibility conditions. f all poems are about either love or death, of metaphor has been forgotten. I am supposed to Tell me what to do and I will do it. Don’t poetry that deals in grief may really pack a disapprove—too much poet, not enough poem— make me fgure things out. Iwallop, for, should it truly rise to the occasion, but I fnd it difcult to quibble with Schellenberg. it will cover love and death simultaneously—full She has put on record, in vivid clarity, an experi- I had said, If you are warm enough, please force, head on. Tree recent collections from Brick ence that is too easily ignored by those outside its turn down the heat. Books claim this territory, albeit in distinct ways, sphere, and she has done so in a way that makes it We were in the car, looking ahead. with a fierceness that is moving, occasionally impossible for a reader not to inhabit that sphere: claustrophobic and often joyfully expansive, even to meet its wholeness and its variegated parts, the Surrounding this moment, life at the ranch transformative. wider reality it holds. goes on. Nine fox kits are rescued (praise). Cedar Tell Tem It Was Mozart, Angeline Schellenberg’s Selah, by Nora Gould—a single, long poem in waxwings “devour” the petals of a blooming crab frst collection, inspires compulsive page turning in fragments—is an utterly diferent form of immer- apple (lift up). Te spring melt foods “old bufalo a way that poems seldom do. It features a narra- sion into a similarly wrenching reality. In an inter- wallows” and “the bee man moved his hives to tor raising two children on the autism spectrum, view on open-book.ca, Gould describes how she higher ground” (musical notation, perhaps, abiding and reads like a memoir-in-verse, one littered with writes: in tractors, out on the ranch, specifcally by the water’s rising song). At heart here is a pierc- vomit, wordplay, stuck zippers, competing diagno- “the John Deere 7810 while I pick up grain from ing sorrow over loss of intimacy, one mirrored and ses, moments of grace and wonder, and a bufet of the combine and the 4230 and 4440 when hauling amplifed by the narrator’s intimacy with her sur- terrors large and small. If this is indeed a form of bales … I grab my cloth bag—pad of lined yellow roundings, and with her daily activities—her belief memoir, why poems and not prose? It is possible, paper, pens, and water bottle—and emerge into fall in their inherent meaning. Early on, the compilation Schellenberg shows us, to isolate key moments in a air colder than the sunshine suggests. In that space, of swatches of fabric into a quilt shows how beauty plot (or a life) in ways that allow concerns and emo- the interruption of driving and climbing out and lords over uncertainty: “Dusky blues, greens, shot tions to heighten and recede, to cycle and recycle. back into another tractor cab, … phrases and words with pearly light, yellows, / rosy pinks—twilight or Metaphors emerge, grounded by a musical baseline jostle around, re-arrange, and change.” dawn, nothing is decided.” Te reader is cued that by turns melodic and jarring, wondrous and deeply Gould’s method sounds vastly more chaotic all is in fux, the narrator stricken, determined to sad. than the resulting poetry feels, but I would propose piece the pattern together while already blaming In “Te Test,” the author shimmies inside the that the physical movement allows her mind to herself for its failure to cohere. “And that one goat, emotional side efects of medical testing: “Become work away at imagery, language, impressions. Jane running—did I place both hands / on her head, the black hole / on a Fragile X researcher’s dia- Hirshfeld writes of the attentiveness required in turn her out into the wilderness?” gram, / the red question mark on your family tree.” poem making in Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of At times, the pathos evoked is intense. Gould An ache for what passes as normalcy is delicately Poetry: “By concentration I mean a particular state begins a section with, “He had misplaced my drawn in “Waving,” through the poignantly ironic of awareness penetrating, unifed, and focused, mouth / that night he wanted me. / Even I couldn’t comfort taken from monarch butterfies “on wind- yet also permeable and open.” Tis is the quality discern this…” Some lines later she closes with, whipped willow boughs” and “fapping silk knits,” of concentration that permeates Gould’s writing, “I set that night aside, / next to the candles / above through which she embeds the confusion, uncer- the pegs where we hang our jeans.” Te reader is Anita Lahey is the author of Te Mystery Shopping tainty, pain and deep loss that accompany the in the room, experiencing these excruciating mis- Cart: Essays on Poetry and Culture (Palimpsest circumstance under scrutiny in Selah: living with a connections. We see the moment shelved, to be Press, 2013) and of two Véhicule Press poetry col- husband who has dementia. drawn out and re-examined later, when a kind of lections: Out to Dry in Cape Breton (2006) and As with Schellenberg’s collection, the favour of understanding begins to coalesce. Tat “shelving” Spinning Side Kick (2011). Te former was short- memoir permeates this long poem, but it is more is later echoed in a key episode, a turning point. listed for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and contemplative, while paradoxically more raw. To “I asked him about those pails, the shelf. He said, the Ottawa Book Award. engage with the writing, you need not know that / I was in a hurry. I found no words. Perhaps // my

24 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada eyebrows. He knew I knew, I could see / he knew Lehr trusts nouns and verbs with a courage more ence in residential school (Lehr is not indigenous, and he knew that too and we didn’t speak of it / all writers ought to muster. Her command of rhythm but learned this true story from Mi’kmaq friends). winter, Charl and I, on the farm.” Gould’s rhythms and internal rhyme is exquisite. Te frst word in Te book closes with the brilliant sequence “On are hypnotic—as powerful as the need to set evi- this book is “metamorphosis,” and everything that your birthday,” which kicks of with the drowning of dence aside, to carry on, for the couple to remain, follows acts its meaning out. Lehr reports: “rose- 10,000 caribou, a horrifc event caused by the James for as long as possible, “Charl and I, on the farm.” hips lean across the path, early frost / dusting their Bay Hydro Project in 1984. A poet of Lehr’s calibre Genevieve Lehr’s Stomata is the most ambitious tufted chins. Be still, they whisper, listen: / the wind takes our grief, our utter bewilderment at the state and reaching of these books. We are still in grief’s is telling how the seed / journeyed from the desert of reality, and grinds it through the machinations of territory, but this book engages with a symphony in a fold of skin.” She asks: “Could it be that we have language, sound, metaphor, to create a new sensa- of sorrows, ranging from personal losses to those two souls, / one pulling its shoes on at sunset, the tion of wholeness. borne more universally—or those, such as the other with the corpse of a bird in its craw?” She Say that on your birthday, as Lehr proposes, “a legacy of Canada’s residential school system, that understands: “the horse / who fell in the pond will small brown goat / bound for the slaughterhouse / ought to be. Encountering work like Lehr’s presents deliquesce over winter / into coltsfoot, spring’s escaped onto New Jersey’s most dangerous / high- a reviewer with a dilemma and a challenge: how handful of green.” way, looked up, saw the universe expanding.” Lehr to parse such verse, how to isolate and highlight Lehr’s territory is border-free. She guides her wraps tidily in these lines a gift for the occasion: its moving parts, without dismantling its efect, reader over the “salt plains of Tibet”; huddles “in the convergence of stillness and motion, and, in a undoing the grace in its function? the darkness like Brueghel’s crows”; and, with deep reversal of the stomata of grief, a quick, surgical cut A stoma is a pore or an opening: one of the tenderness, re-enacts a Mi’kmaq boy’s tragic experi- of reprieve. minute pores that allow gases to permeate a plant; an opening created in a human body by a surgeon, leading to an organ such as the gut or trachea; or a mouth-like opening in one of the “lower animals.” As Gould does with her own title, Lehr puts each meaning to work. What emerges is the sense of a being or a self literally perforated by grief, but also, by some wrenching (and possibly miraculous) process, drawing sustenance through those very openings. By grief, Lehr proves, poem by poem, we come into direct contact with the world out- side ourselves. We are pierced with the essence of existence. Lehr’s dominant tone is elegiac, and elemental, and so it fts that sky and wind infltrate the whole. From the frst section of “Te latter half of the third quarter of the waning moon,” the long opening poem—“Te dog in the cloud growls, lowers itself to / the ground, turns. Goodbye, goodbye, I said…”—

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January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 25 Wonk Friendly What to expect from our think tanks ROHINTON MEDHORA

behind its ranking of think tanks, Northern Lights: Exploring is the authoritative assessment Canada’s Think Tank Landscape of the contours of the think tank Donald E. Abelson sector globally. Its numbers show McGill-Queen’s University Press that of the world’s approximately 392 pages, softcover 6,600 think tanks, about 2,000 are ISBN 9780773547643 based in the United States, and 2,100 in Europe. Te great growth region is Asia (China and India f all exposure is good for particularly) where from a negli- business, then the think tank gible base now lie over 700 think Iindustry is booming. Our fel- tanks. Canada is said to have about lows—for I head one—appear on 100. op-ed pages, in news stories and Any book on think tanks, espe- in the airwaves regularly, nourish- cially Canadian think tanks, has ing the 24-hour globalized news either to capture the attention with cycle and in turn being nourished better or at least diferent rankings by it. While media visibility is the or to drill deeper into the national most evident face of think tanks in context, that is, write compellingly the public imagination, there is a about what is a small segment of a lot more to them. thriving global sector. Te C. D. Howe Institute’s work Much to the chagrin of one of on the distributional impacts of income splitting source of information and analysis about a new and his professors in graduate school, as we are told in was at the core of an unusually public rift within underreported phenomenon that is transforming the acknowledgements section of his most recent cabinet in 2014. The Centre for International warfare. book on the subject, Don Abelson has spent a Governance Innovation, the think tank I run, is Although the world’s first think tank was career studying the “perplexing” (his word) world credited with having seeded and developed the British—the Royal United Services Institute for of think tanks from his perch in the department of concept of moving from the traditional G7 lead- Defence and Security Studies, established in 1831— political science at Western University. Most of his ers’ grouping to the more inclusive G20. Trough the concept is more properly seen to be primarily work has concentrated on the impact think tanks their work and skilful amplifcation channels in the an American one. Despite the long lineage, it is in the United States have on public opinion and 1970s, a family of conservative think tanks based in also a recent one, fuelled by the growth of popular policy, but in Northern Lights: Exploring Canada’s the United States, United Kingdom and Canada are media and its desire for punditry, and perhaps Tink Tank Landscape he turns his attention to the said to have created the broad climate that persists less appreciated but more important, the embed- Canadian arena. to this day, in which government is routinely seen ding of technocratic policy making the world over. Abelson is correct—the 100 number in the only in minimalist terms, as a problem for and not Ninety percent of think tanks today were created UPenn reports is almost certainly infated, con- the solution to societal advance. Tink tanks every- after 1950, a full one third created during the 1980s taining as it does such organizations as the where bridge the space between basic and applied alone. Canadian Economics Association (a professional research done mostly in universities and govern- Still, the key elements of RUSI’s creation and body) and several university-based research insti- ments, other decision makers such as the private development illustrate what a think tank is. RUSI tutes that no one would accuse of being think sector, and the public at large. Tey exercise infu- was proposed by the Duke of Wellington under the tanks. Te ratings, too, have contained anomalies, ence by helping to shape policy and public opinion patronage of His Majesty the King and Commander such as ignoring the C.D. Howe Institute entirely in subtle and less subtle ways. in Chief of the armed forces to study naval and until recently, and featuring Canada’s aid agency Te decline in so-called legacy media has also military matters so that these professions, in the and development research funder as ranked think presented a perverse opportunity for think tanks, words of one of its founders, “entered the lists of tanks. Te Fraser Institute has consistently bested allowing them to move into the long-form journal- science.” It housed a museum containing military the rankings among Canadian think tanks. Te ism and foreign news analysis space. Tis, plus the records and artifacts for students of the subject; section of the book devoted to profling Canadian ubiquity of digital technologies, now afords think it was meant to resemble “a strictly scientifc and think tanks (of which more later) features 25, which tanks an unparalleled opportunity to use fresh professional society, and not a club.” Some years even with quibbles about who is included and who conduits to get their message out unmediated. For later, a journal devoted to military matters was also not, is closer to mapping the reality. example, the New America Foundation’s platform launched. Neither a university nor a government It appears from this account that many of the on drone warfare is the single most comprehensive department, RUSI bore the hallmarks of the mod- challenges and opportunities Canadian think ern think tank, marshalling evidence to develop tanks face are common to their U.S.—and indeed, Rohinton Medhora is president of the Centre policy options and promote them to government global—cohort. Canada’s think tanks are embed- for International Governance Innovation and and to the public more broadly. ded in the public discourse on all manner of former vice-president of programs at Canada’s Te University of Pennsylvania’s Tink Tank and issues, struggle with funding (although on balance International Development Research Centre. Follow Civil Society Program produces an annual report American think tanks are better funded than their him on Twitter @RohintonMedhora. that, although controversial for the methodology Canadian counterparts) and seek the ephemeral

26 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada grail of being deemed “infuential” in the public to guard their privacy. Some do not wish to be pes- tinue to grapple with this and three other issues. mind. tered by other similar organizations who are alerted First, Abelson correctly notes that the literature on Change, be it in a policy or in public opinion by a selective act of philanthropy. Some ft the the subject suggests that diferences in political or the conduct of frms or groups of individuals, progressive plantation owner mode, keen to efect systems are not as important as one might think. is a complex process—everywhere. Attributing change in areas (once abolishing slavery, more Specifcally, key scholars on the subject hold that change to the work of a single organization is naive, recently legalizing or decriminalizing drugs) where the permanent civil service in Canada and other dishonest or both. In their quest for infuence and social ostracizing is a real risk. Tink tanks might parliamentary systems does not inherently make resources, Canadian think tanks walk the same fne have business reasons to keep information about think tanks less relevant here, compared with its line that their counterparts around the world do, income opaque and away from the eyes of com- more fuid counterpart in the United States and seeking to take credit for being part of a success petitors, or have a genuine belief that the afairs of Latin America. But the near wholesale change at story, collecting reams of imperfect statistics and a private entity that receives no government funds the senior and even middle levels of the bureau- anecdotes to make the point. are its own business and no one else’s. cracy after U.S. elections and the revolving door A second area of commonality for think tanks I wish Northern Lights had covered the question between U.S. administrations and think tanks are around the world is always guaranteed to gener- of funding, transparency and principle in more noteworthy. When it comes to policy impact, or at ate media attention and public debate: the extent detail in the Canadian context, for the issue extends least policy entrée, there is no substitute for hav- to which think tanks are transparent about their well past the revelations of the past year or two. Te ing a former (and future) colleague in a position of fnances and the infuence funding has on the think tank community is itself split on this question; power. Also, the to and fro with government keeps recommendations of a think tank’s research. Tere otherwise collegial meetings I have attended with think tanks vital. Compensating for the absence of have been some instances in the United States my peers become fraught when it comes to this this, along with budgets that are on average smaller where exposés in the press have than those of U.S. think tanks, puts led to an altogether overdue intro- The think tank community is itself greater onus on think tanks in spection among think tanks about Canada to engage with the policy how funding is garnered, how it is split on the question of transparency; process and the public efectively. reported and the extent to which Second, does the globaliza- protocols exist to insulate research otherwise collegial meetings I have tion of funding matter? As ever, from funders. In Canada, in the last not only do the U.S. foundations year alone, the Canadian Global attended with my peers become fraught fund research and think tanks in Afairs Institute was accused of other countries, but many, such accepting grants from the defence when it comes to this subject. as the Ford, Rockefeller and Gates contractor General Dynamics foundations justly take credit while also defending Canada’s controversial sale subject. Te think tank brand in the public eye will for having created enduring research enclaves of combat vehicles made by one of its subsidiaries be shaped by how think tanks deal with this mat- around the world, particularly in developing coun- to Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the principals behind ter. But, for Abelson, the dispassionate observer of tries. Canada’s counterpart to these funders, the Canada 2020 have been excoriated for intermin- the think tank business, does the logic driving the International Development Research Centre, also gling their think tank activities with their lobbying single star trump that behind the fve stars? belongs to this honourable tradition. and communications consulting work for clients While metrics are not everything, there is a lack U.S. think tanks have recently gone a step fur- including the Liberal government. of empirical evidence for the assertions made in ther, establishing eponymous beachheads in the Tink tanks, like most other change-driving the book. For example, Abelson clearly admires Middle East and Asia. But when the New York organizations, are driven by values, sometimes the work of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy Times revealed in 2014 that the Centre for Global disparagingly called ideology. I do not fnd it sur- and thinks it wields an outsized impact on social Development had received Norwegian fund- prising that “right wing” think tanks generate right- policy issues in Canada. Tis is my sense too, but ing to infuence U.S. aid policy on deforestation leaning results and “left wing” think tanks generate one would expect more than a set of hunches in in Indonesia, it was the foreign money, not the left-leaning results. I also believe the notion that a book-length treatment of think tanks in Canada. broader issue of money driving research conclu- funding drives biases to be simplistic; rather, the Te data appendices at the end of the book contain sions, that gave the story octane. Some years ago relationship, while complex, is likely the other way information on the budget, media citations and when it was revealed that the Koch brothers had around. Tat is, organizations, be they think tanks parliamentary appearances of think tanks. But no given money to the Fraser Institute, the institute’s or political or social groups, are founded based on attempt is made to collect these into a coherent pic- response was that it was used not for its Canadian certain principles and values, and create the public ture of infuence or impact, nor are these connected policy work but its international work. It is not clear persona that attracts funding, staf and audience to specifc assertions in the text. why foreign funding is acceptable in some cases or accordingly, thus creating a self-reinforcing cycle. In the age of the website, much of the informa- in some countries but not in others. It is especially Te Fraser Institute has spawned a cottage industry tion in the section devoted to profles of Canadian disconcerting to see the press and think tanks, who that aims to show that methodological and data think tanks (such as salient publications) is extran- mostly stand for open exchange and even global- biases in the institute’s studies always seem to work eous. Te summary of each think tank is neither ization, fudge the core issue, which should be about in the direction of demonstrating the benefts of lifted from ofcial corporate material (and thus at transparency not nationalism. free markets and the costs of intervening in their least factually correct) nor deep enough to serve Finally, and related, especially in a small open function. It does not follow that the institute’s views as authoritative outsider accounts of the evolution economy like Canada’s, the distinction between can be bought. Tink tanks, especially those at the of the organization. CIGI’s average annual budget domestic and international is blurred. Even with two edges of the political spectrum, are part of an is listed as $25 million in this section and $42 mil- globalism under siege as it currently is, the trans- echo chamber of likeminded views, people and lion in Table AI.3 (for the record, the former fgure national efects of policies and trends have not gone funding. is more accurate) and Abelson is convinced the away. Reactions to globalism are changing, and What matters is not bias, for in the public policy organization is part of a university (it is not). cooperative solutions, especially multilateral ones, space (as in research more broadly) it is pervasive, Careless research aside, the chapter on how are in the current climate not instinctively sought. but transparency. Since 2014, Transparify has pub- think tanks evaluate impact usefully lays out the Tink tanks in Canada as elsewhere must be agile lished an annual fve-point rating of the degree of several dimensions of the subject and its nuan- to internalize this phenomenon and help calibrate clarity with which think tanks portray their income. ces. How does one combine and give appropriate responses to it. Where does domestic energy policy For the four and fve star ratings, as Transparify puts weight to (say) print media citations, radio and end and foreign relations begin? it, “outside stakeholders can infer who their main TV appearances, testimony in Parliament, private Northern Lights touches more lightly than donors are” and “how much each donor contrib- meetings, public lectures and number of publica- I might have expected on many of these aspects of uted.” Te remaining three levels of rating signal tions (and the quality of each of these segments of the think tank world and comes up inconclusive greater degrees of murk. Te good news is that impact) to arrive at a coherent sense of success? on the key issues. It falls between the cracks, being average scores are rising each year, suggesting that Tis is as much art as it is science, and much lies neither a rigorous scholarly assessment of Canada’s the process of Transparifying is making think tank in the eyes of the beholder. Tis is exactly why one think tanks nor an engaging account from a think practices on their fnances more open. should be sceptical about ratings and rankings, and tank insider. It raises many questions, provides few But the seeming recalcitrants also evoke prin- yet diligently collect the underlying data. indicators of the answers and thus leaves Canada’s ciple. Some funders are genuinely modest or seek In the future, Canadian think tanks will con- think tanks as perplexing as ever.

January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 27 Coming Early 2017

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28 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada ESSAY Double Vision A former language commissioner on the future of bilingualism GRAHAM FRASER

lmost exactly ten years ago, I left the cycle of idealism and disillusionment with federal in the country. Memories of a dominant English- Toronto Star to become the commissioner language policy, and had followed how language speaking elite still linger, which make it hard for Aof ofcial languages—a move from being was spliced into the fabric of the country and its many to realize that the English-speaking com- a reporter to being an agent of Parliament, from political debates. I had read at least some of the munities that are scattered across Quebec are almost four decades of managing little more than a academic literature on French immersion, lan- poorer, less educated and less employed than their keyboard to heading an organization of 170 people. guage planning, language learning and language French-speaking neighbours. In addition, Quebec At one level, it was a huge and improbable transi- loss. Since my adolescence, language had been a is the only province that does not have a minister tion, and a fish-out-of-water story: Everything controversial issue in Canada—and I had followed and a department charged with responsibility for I Didn’t Know about the Federal Government and the controversy closely. the linguistic minority. Every other province has Forgot to Ask, or Te Front Page Meets Yes Minister. Te big gap in my knowledge of the issues was a minister of francophone afairs and ofcials On another level, though, it was smooth and my knowledge of the state of minority language with responsibility for ensuring that government logical: six months earlier, I had published a book communities across the country. So in the frst eight policies take account of the needs of those com- on language policy in Canada, Sorry, I Don’t Speak months of my mandate, I travelled to Vancouver, munities. In Quebec, the historical memory of the French: Confronting the Canadian Crisis Tat Won’t Halifax, Toronto, Montreal, Moncton, Regina, English economic power is so strong that creating Go Away. In some ways, the last such an office remains politically decade has been a ten-year book tour. difcult. Now, as the 150th anniversary of Canada became transformed from a Like the auditor general, the chief Confederation begins, and two years narrow, xenophobic country to one electoral ofcer, and the privacy and before the 50th anniversary of the information commissioners, the passage of the Official Languages that welcomed immigration through commissioner of ofcial languages Act in 1969, it is worth refecting on is an agent of Parliament. Agents of the impact that fve decades of fed- coming to terms with the fact that it Parliament are guardians of values— eral language policy has had on the from the auditor general’s checks on country. has an entire French-speaking society the value of respect for appropriate One of the questions that I was government spending to the chief asked most often, in various ways, within its borders. electoral ofcer’s protection of fair was how one could reconcile linguis- elections to ofcial bilingualism, and tic duality and cultural duality. Was Canada’s lan- Sudbury and Quebec City. Every regional repre- so on. Each ofce was created because parliamen- guage policy doomed as a result of immigration and sentative laid on a comprehensive introduction to tarians wanted an independent agent that would changing demography? I responded that, rather the key fgures, groups and institutions. play an ombudsman’s role, investigating com- than being contradictory, official bilingualism It soon became clear how diferent each com- plaints and reporting to Parliament on whether the and multiculturalism were closely related. I sug- munity was, and how it refected its historical government is living up to its responsibilities. gested—and I have argued consistently over the context. It is worth remembering that the idea of In watching how federal departments and their decade—that Canada became transformed from separate French-speaking communities across executives performed, I also came to understand a narrow, xenophobic, anti-immigrant country to Canada (with the exception of the Acadians) is that mastery of both ofcial languages is a lead- one that welcomed immigration through coming relatively recent. Prior to 1967, French Canada was ership competency. Tis is not a news fash for to terms with the fact that it has an entire French- seen as covering the whole country. But a gather- members of political parties: ever since 1968, every speaking society within its borders. In adapting ing of the États-Généraux decided that the focus of prime minister has been bilingual, not coincidently to that reality, it became easier to accommodate French-Canadian nationalism would be Quebec. because Canadian political leaders have to par- newcomers. Following that, provincial associations formed what ticipate in televised debates in both English and In addition, I suggested that the law does not was frst called la Fédération des francophones French. But it is also true for managers and execu- exist just to protect or promote bilingualism, but to hors-Québec, and then, when the idea of defning tives in the federal public service. protect the unilingual: to ensure that the four mil- themselves in terms of being Not Quebec became Since 1988, federal government employees in lion unilingual francophones have the same level of awkward, la Fédération des communautés franco- designated bilingual regions (the National Capital service from the federal government as the 24 mil- phones et acadiennes du Canada. Region, Montreal, parts of Ontario, parts of Quebec lion unilingual anglophones. An ofcially bilingual In British Columbia, well over 80 percent of and parts of New Brunswick) have the right to country is one where citizens do not have to learn a French speakers come from somewhere else. As a work in their preferred ofcial language—which second ofcial language to deal with the state. result, there is little sense of historical grievance. means that some 100,000 French-speaking public At the same time, however, this means In Saskatchewan, refecting the social democratic servants have the right to work in French: to write Canadians who become bilingual do not lose their traditions of the province, the association is demo- their documents, speak at meetings and have their language rights as a result. It is the public service cratically elected. In Manitoba, the memory of performance appraisals in French. that is required to ofer the citizen the choice of the hanging of Louis Riel is still vivid, just as the In retrospect, it was a radical act to grant that language; the citizen does not have to speak in the deportation still has powerful resonance in New right. Consider how much in a public servant’s language of the public servant. Brunswick. And in Ontario there are really three dif- working life is decided by someone else: the policy It was a debate I had followed long before ferent communities: in Northern Ontario, Eastern of the government of the day, the priority of the becoming commissioner. As a reporter, I had cov- Ontario and the southern part of the province. All of minister, the directions of the supervisor, the terms ered the debates over Bill 101; I had watched a them have made great strides over the last 20 years of the collective agreement—even the size of the as a result of provincial legislation. workspace is carefully regulated. But one thing an Graham Fraser is Canada’s former commissioner Ten there are the English-speaking minorities employee in a bilingual region can do is decide of ofcial languages and a veteran journalist and in Quebec. Tey remain, in some ways, the most what language he or she wants to work in and be author. misunderstood minority-language communities supervised in.

January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 29 It is not surprising that many, if not most, is also symbolically important. When all the signs, Certainly, that would broaden the experience on people in a minority situation—and it is just as true announcements, brochures and services—includ- the court—but Canada’s legislation is not drafted in for English-speaking employees in Quebec as for ing ads for Coke—at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Chinese, factums are not written in Chinese, cases French-speaking employees in Ottawa—choose Olympics were in English and French, it was partly are not argued in Chinese and there is no Canadian to go with the fow, and speak the language of the because French and English are the two ofcial jurisprudence in Chinese. majority rather than embarrass the manager or cut languages of the Olympics, but also because they Knowledge of French and English for a Supreme out some colleagues. are our ofcial languages. When Nik Wallenda Court justice is not just a symbol of representivity But granting that right meant that being able to arrived on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls on and inclusiveness. It is an essential professional advise, direct, manage, listen and respond efec- a tightrope in 2012, the border services agent who competency. And when the court becomes com- tively in one’s second language became a critical said “Welcome to Canada, Bienvenue au Canada” pletely bilingual, and the legal profession under- leadership skill for public service leaders as well as did not do so because she thought he wanted to be stands that bilingualism is a prerequisite, no one for politicians. Not to mention that ministers have served in French. It was a way of saying, “You are in will notice it. Success is invisible; failure is obvious. the right to be briefed in their language of choice. Canada and we have two ofcial languages.” Te proof of this was when Newfoundland judge As a journalist, I had heard a lot of complaints There was once a discussion of aboriginal Malcolm Rowe was named to the Supreme Court in about Canada’s language legislation: from anglo- languages at a panel on aboriginal issues at the 2016. His name had not been part of the specula- phones that it was discriminatory, unfair, rigid and University of Ottawa with former Grand Chief Phil tion; in fact, it was widely reported that there were unnecessary, and from francophones that it was Fontaine, Georges Sioui of the University of Ottawa no bilingual judges in Newfoundland. His appear- still hard to get the same level of service in French and Jennifer Rattray of the University of Winnipeg. ance before a parliamentary panel made it clear as in English. It was only as commissioner that In answer to a question, Rattray replied, “Unlike that he was perfectly able to respond to questions I began to meet public servants who were proud of Dr. Fontaine and Dr. Sioui, I do not speak my lan- in French, and that he was eloquent and witty in having learned their second language, and proud guage.” Te idea that a language belonged to her both ofcial languages. Whatever controversy he of working for a bilingual institution. even though she did not speak it was a powerful may stimulate as a member of the Supreme Court, And similarly, I was struck by Stephen Harper’s one. I think that, increasingly, Canadians see the his mastery of the two languages of Canadian juris- discipline in using both French and English in all presence of both languages as part of our national prudence will not be one of them. his public appearances. identity, as something that belongs to all of us— Tings have improved dramatically over the Te job is two-fold: part ombudsman, part pro- even if we are not bilingual. 48 years since the law was passed, and signifcantly motion. Or, as I put it when I frst appeared before And yet there are still areas where the idea over the last decade. Tanks to the Charter of Parliament, part cheerleader, part nag. During the that bilingualism is essential stirs up debate and Rights and Freedoms, there are minority language ten years I was in the job, we received more than controversy. Before the 2011 election, after the schools in every province. Political leaders are now 7,000 complaints from citizens whose language Opposition united to pass a private member’s bill in expected to be bilingual so they can participate in rights had not been respected—and I delivered the House of Commons that would require judges televised election debates. More than 90 percent of more than 500 speeches, explaining the policy and on the Supreme Court to be able to hear testimony the public service positions that require bilingual- encouraging public servants, students and com- in either English or French without interpretation, ism are flled by people who meet the requirement munity activists. there were cries of outrage from the Conservatives of the job. Technological innovation has meant Along the way, I reached a number of conclu- in the Senate, and conservatives in the press. Tis that Canadians can apply for passports, pensions, sions. First, it is often more efective to inspire was elevating bilingualism over legal competence, unemployment insurance online, pay their taxes respect for Canada’s ofcial languages than to many said. It was discriminatory. Unfair to the uni- online, and can check in for their fights and, in require it. Bureaucracies naturally transform val- lingual. All the arguments, in fact, that were made some airports, order their meals in their ofcial ues into burdens—rules, regulations and require- against the Ofcial Languages Act itself in 1969. language of choice. ments—and language policy becomes much more Tis overlooked a number of key elements. All So what challenges lie ahead for my successor? acceptable as a value to be embraced than as a our laws are drafted in both languages, and when To begin with, continuing public education. burden to be endured. there is a diference in nuance, the Supreme Court With 250,000 newcomers coming to Canada every It also became clear that success is invisible and needs to decide on the intention of the legislator. year, it is essential that this element of our identity failure is obvious. When both languages are present Tis is not new—in 1935, the Supreme Court ruled be explained and understood. Tere is also the con- in the public square—audible, visible, accessible on a case on the basis of the greater precision of the tinuing transformative impact of new technology. in announcements, signs, advertisements and ser- French version of the law in question. Some 30 per- Technology is transforming how we work, how we vices—they become taken for granted. cent of the provincial cases before the Supreme communicate and how we use language. Each new But the use of both languages by federal ofcials Court have come from Quebec, where they were innovation adopted by government needs to take argued in French at every stage, and where all of language into account. Ensuring that Canadians the legal factums are in French. (Tis is also true for continue to have their language rights respected Coming up in the LRC some cases that have been argued in other prov- and that English and French have equal status in inces as well; any accused person has a right to a the digital world will be a continuing challenge. trial in the ofcial language of choice, everywhere And how has the country changed? Tere is a Counting Canada in Canada.) A unilingual judge needs to depend series of small but revealing indications that the Alan Broadbent on a short summary by a law clerk, and simultane- country has become more open to diference, more ous interpretation. And a lawyer who has argued welcoming and more inclusive. Te introduction Killjoy coalition a case in French in the lower courts has to make a of bilingual signs provoked grafti and vandalism Naheed Mustafa strategic decision about how best to frame the argu- in the 1970s; when the corporate sponsors of the ment knowing that one or more of the judges will Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics advertised in John Metcalf be fumbling with an earphone for the interpreter’s French and in English, the ads were untouched. Andy Lamey interpretation. Foreign journalists marvelled to see political lead- Perhaps most importantly, the presence of a ers speaking French as well as English during Virgin envy unilingual English-speaking judge among the nine campaign stops in Vancouver and Mississauga. Diana Fitzgerald Bryden means that all the French-speaking judges are Te singing of a bilingual version of the national obliged to work in their second language. Again, anthem is now taken for granted at national events. Toronto the great this was precisely the injustice that led Prime And year in, year out, 300,000 Canadian students Colin Ellard Minister Lester Pearson to establish the Royal are enrolled in immersion—and the graduates of Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in immersion 30 years ago now fll cabinet positions A new sublime 1962, which recommended the introduction of the and senior public service jobs. Tere will be no Fraser Sutherland Ofcial Languages Act in its frst report in 1967. magic moment when the goals of the legislation are Yet when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made achieved and the struggle can be forgotten; it will Down with grown-ups it clear that bilingualism would be a prerequisite continue to be an ongoing challenge. But striving to for appointment to the Supreme Court, a distin- meet the challenge of accommodating two ofcial Barbara Nichol guished law dean suggested that it would be valu- language communities is, in itself, part of Canada’s able to have a Chinese-speaking judge on the court. identity.

30 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada a national festival of politics, art and ideas

R I S K

As we celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary, Spur asks what are the perceived and real risks facing a better future?

Geopolitics • Economy • Environment • Culture • Health • Education • Science

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Spur sits down for a conversation with Lynne Olson, New York Books That Spur: Times bestselling author of seven books of history. Her latest, Lynne Olson on Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War, is a groundbreaking account Last Hope Island of how Britain became the base of operations for the exiled Thursday, April 6, 5:30pm leaders of Europe in their desperate struggle to reclaim their Toronto continent from Hitler. A fascinating companion to Citizens of London: The Americans Who “Olson is our era’s foremost chronicler LYNNE OLSON Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour, Olson’s bestselling of World War Two politics and chronicle of the Anglo-American alliance, Last Hope Island recalls with vivid humanity that brief moment diplomacy.” in time when the peoples of Europe stood together in their ef ort to roll back the tide of conquest —Former U.S. Secretary of State and restore order to a broken continent. Publication date is late April, so Spur audiences have the fi rst Madeleine Albright opportunity to hear Olson speak and to obtain their copy of the book before anyone else.

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January/February 2017 reviewcanada.ca 31 Letters and Responses

RE: “THE TRUTH ABOUT TRUDEAUMANIA,” register the infuence of a global, youthful pas- measured, without dragging,’” he says at one point BY KENNETH WHYTE (NOVEMBER 2016) sion for greater—if undefned—“liberation” on about part of a Mahler symphony. He takes care was impressed by how the reviewer of the two the mainly English-Canadian desire to view Pierre to note that before confrming this hunch, poor Irecent books on Trudeaumania knew more Elliott Trudeau as the apostle of fower power plus Ozawa has to peek at the score. Trying to impress than about the subject than both of the authors. “constitutional renewal.” If so, such is not evident the subject is a common weakness of interviewers. I wrote one of these books, over a number of in Whyte’s review. However, if none of the above Making sure everyone knows you’ve one-upped years, and yet it turns out that he is the author- has set Trudeaumania in an international context, him is new to me, and I think probably worse. ity, putting me in my place for taking a mere “fad” I will do so again, as I did in introducing my play Still, I’m struck by Beckwith’s distinction seriously, failing to understand it and exaggerating (and opera, composed by D.D. Jackson), Trudeau: between “music” on one hand, and “how perform- its signifcance. He even gets me to “admit” that Long March / Shining Path, in 2007 and George ers treat” music on the other. Of course, they’re Trudeaumania was “not a mania in the sense A. Walker’s woodcut-illustrated 2015 biog- not synonymous, but surely there is room in the of a contagion that swept through most of the raphy, Trudeau: La Vie en Rose. former for the latter. And it makes sense that, populace.” Silly me, I thought that was my argu- So, compare snaps and flm of the campaign- when interviewing a conductor, performance style ment, not a dark secret I was hiding from the LRC’s ing PET with those of Senator Robert F. Kennedy would be the main characteristic they’d discuss. Grand Inquisitor. My main argument—that a in his battle to secure the 1968 Democratic Party For a talk about structure and harmony, we should particular demographic drove the mania and saw U.S. presidential nomination. PET’s Canadian await the book in which Murakami tries to one-up its vision of Canada confrmed through Trudeau’s crowds are just as touchy-feely as those that RFK a composer. success—he either misunderstands or ignores. attracted, though his are less erotic (i.e., kissing), About 20 years ago, Beckwith published a won- Historians, he tells us, “fnd what they want in if decidedly more messianic (i.e., clutching). Not derful history of the music faculty at the University the record.” I feel greatly unburdened of profes- only was the American media “massage” (merci, of Toronto. (In it we learn that when the faculty sional obligations by this revelation. I will pray to Marshall McLuhan) of RFK a stimulant for the was launched in the early 20th century, every fac- be endowed by some greater power with intui- Canadian embrace of PET, so were overseas events ulty member was a church organist or choirmaster, tive gifts to rival those of the reviewer. Ten I can that projected a similar ideal of, to cite philos- most in the Church of England.) Its title is Music at forego all that research, watch an Austin Powers ophe Herbert Marcuse, “kinship of the beauti- Toronto: A Personal Account. It makes few attempts movie and get the general idea. ful, the divine, the poetic, but also kinship of the to describe the structure of the music that was By the way, Robert Stanfeld was photo- beautiful and unsublimated joy.” I refer to the played there. Still worth a read, though. graphed eating a banana during the Progressive young of the Prague Spring who craved “socialism Paul Wells Conservative leadership convention in September with a human face” and I refer to the Sorbonne Ottawa, Ontario 1967, not in the federal election campaign of 1968 students who paced the barricades in Paris’s as the reviewer implies, but so what? Quartier Latin during the quasi-surrealist, revo- RE: LETTERS BY ALAN BROADBENT Paul Litt lutionary “Happening” of May 1968. I hold that (NOVEMBER 2016) AND DAVID CAY LEY Ottawa, Ontario “Trudeaumania” was (English) Canada’s as-usual- (DECEMBER 2016) progressive-conservative response to a universal read David Cayley’s letter about Lev here are a couple of points in Ken Whyte’s wish, that spring, especially in the Occident, for IBratishenko’s article on Jane Jacobs, “Tunnel Treview that need clarifcation. Love, Peace and Freedom (defned vaguely), all Vision” in the October 2016 issue, with envy— First, the famous picture of Robert Stanfeld of which, for us, back then, a sexist, once-ethnic- I don’t think I’ve ever had such a meticulous eating a banana was not taken during the election Québécois-nationalism-extolling, patrician intel- reader. But I couldn’t help feeling like its charges campaign, but at the Progressive Conservative lectual came—bizarrely, but consequentially—to of character assassination miss the point. When leadership convention at which Diefenbaker was symbolize. someone presents themselves as a voice of com- deposed and Stanfeld made leader. Te campaign George Elliott Clarke mon sense and disinterested objectivity, and their came later and produced another notable photo— Toronto, Ontario methodology relies on direct personal experi- Stanfeld dropping the football while playing catch ence, as in Jacobs’s case, then surely questions with reporters during a stopover. RE: “DANCING AROUND THE POINT,” of character and background become of primary Second, was there such a thing as BY JOHN BECKWITH (DECEMBER 2016) and not of secondary importance. “Whiteness” Trudeaumania? I suppose it depends what you bsolutely on Music: Conversations is not was no “disability” for Jacobs—can you imagine mean by the term, but I covered the election “Aa book for music lovers in the traditional a black woman getting her opportunities in the campaign for Te Globe and Mail (I was Ottawa sense,” the composer John Beckwith writes in 1940s?—nor do we have to go so far as to accuse bureau chief at the time) and I remember an event a characteristically well-informed and cordial her of racism to admit that questions about race in Victoria when Trudeau arrived by helicopter, review. “It is more a book for record collectors. dog her work for good reasons. If we choose today landing in the middle of a large crowd amid great ‘On music’ is a misleading term for a title; it is to continue ignoring the whiteness of Jacobs and enthusiasm. He few later that night to Edmonton, more like ‘on performance.’ Te talks are mostly other intellectual luminaries, it is at our peril. In where the airfeld was surrounded by crowds, and not about what the music is like (what it does) this context, Alan Broadbent’s letter noting that, it appeared to me and to other reporters that his but about how performers treat it.” in personal conversations, “both race and gender campaign was catching fre. Perhaps some people I have no particular problem with the review, were central to her own view of the world” only were maniacal, but there was certainly excitement just as Beckwith is more puzzled by Haruki reinforces the strangeness of their general absence and enthusiasm. Murakami’s book than scornful of it. Fair enough: in her work. Anthony Westell it’s a puzzling book, comprising transcripts of long John Taller-Passer Toronto, Ontario conversations Murakami had with the eminent Toronto, Ontario conductor Seiji Ozawa in 2010 and 2011. ’ve read neither Paul Litt’s Trudeaumania nor Murakami kicks the book of by making elab- Te LRC welcomes letters—and more are available IRobert Wright’s Trudeaumania: Te Rise to orate protestations of limited expertise. Ten he on our website at www.reviewcanada.ca. We reserve Power of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, but I did read spends a little too much time making a show of the right to publish such letters and edit them for Kenneth Whyte’s review in hope that analyses insider knowledge. “I seem to recall that the move- length, clarity and accuracy. E-mail editor@review - of that spring 1968 phenomenon would escape ment is labeled ‘Feierlich und gemessen, ohne canada.ca. For all other comments and queries, our provincialism. Perhaps Litt and Wright do zu schleppen,’ which translates as ‘Solemnly and contact [email protected].

32 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada NEW FROM UBC PRESS

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