C2C JOURNAL Fall 2019

Who Is the Federal NDP Leader? Read the full article on page 1

The Real Cost Of Trudeau’s Brownface Bombshell Peter Shawn Taylor takes a balanced look at an immense and fraught subject – blackface – and explains why

PG. 8 Trudeau’s crass campaign to save his neck does damage to culture, history, art and freedom.

Storm Clouds Loom Over Canada’s Riskiest Business Sector In this deeply personal retrospective, Gwyn Morgan writes with empathy about the existential challenges faced by

PG. 13 today’s farmers, along with a lengthy look back at the hope and heartbreak, the joy and sorrow of a vanishing way of life.

C2C JOURNAL | FALL 2019

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 page 12 Contents

PG.1 Who Is The Federal NDP Leader? During the second half of the federal election campaign, Jagmeet Singh soared in the polls. He seems nice, and millions agree. The man’s depths remain mysterious, however. The federal NDP leader professes devotion to a Sikh doctrine of “oneness” and says he’s driven by the twin imperatives of courage and belonging. Still he declares entire federal parties unfit to be heard in public and half the human race unqualified to speak on certain issues. Using Jagmeet’s autobiography, Love and Courage, as his vehicle, Gaurav Singhmar draws on his deep understanding of Western and Indic thought to perform a layered and nuanced examination of a man who hopes to become prime minister.

PG.8 The Real Cost Of Trudeau’s Brownface Bombshell ’s weird propensity to slather his face, his body and even his tongue in brown or black makeup provided ample material for low comedy, high dudgeon and genuine thoughtfulness – a teaching moment, if you will. Instead, the multiple revelations were soon hijacked by fakery: fake anger, fake apologies and fake history. There’s been nary a whisper of humour, save perhaps the wag who dubbed Trudeau Canada’s “Prime Minstrel”. Mainly, there’s been weary resignation and rationalization from Liberal supporters. Peter Shawn Taylor takes a balanced look at an immense and fraught subject – blackface – and explains why Trudeau’s crass campaign to save his neck does damage to culture, history, art and freedom.

PG.13 Storm Clouds Loom Over Canada’s Riskiest Business Sector Gwyn Morgan spent his working life in the oil and natural gas sector, much of it devoted to nurturing and growing what became Encana Corp. – for a time the nation’s number-one natural gas producer – but he never lost his connection to the family farm in rural Alberta. In this deeply personal retrospective, Morgan writes with empathy about the existential challenges faced by today’s farmers, along with a lengthy look back at the hope and heartbreak, the joy and sorrow of a vanishing way of life.

C2C Journal on PressReader Each month, C2C Journal prepares a selection of its best articles for publication in this easy-to-read, printer-friendly layout published by PressReader. For our complete lineup of stories, please visit c2cjournal.ca book received came within a week of its publication. This gives us a third reason for a sober second opinion: here is a man Who Is the in a contest to captain our ship of state, a politician cut from proudly different cloth, Federal NDP and his testament has had no careful reviewers. Leader? The book is a brisk and engaging read of 300 pages, divided into three roughly By Gaurav Singhmar equal parts on Jagmeet’s childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. (A note on names: Jagmeet says it is against the intent of his religion to use the name “Dhaliwal”, and “Singh” on the other hand belongs to every Sikh, so it names no one specific. That leaves us no choice but the ‘It would be right,’ I said, ‘to refuse handle Jagmeet, though it is unnatural and to obey, if in India an English overfamiliar.) The narration may be almost officer or judge ordered you to entirely fitted into the interlacing topics of take off your turban; but as an family, social life, and religion. officer of the Court, it would Family figures largest, and it is the have ill become me to disregard expected set of characters: parents, a custom of the Court in the siblings, and occasional appearances by province of Natal.’ uncles and aunts. They come alive openly and fully, sympathetically and without ̶ Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography resentment. Characters are woven into a clear arc of story: the course of his father’s wo years ago in October Jagmeet alcoholism and its ruinous effects. One Singh Dhaliwal won the leadership T of these effects is to throw Jagmeet, as of the federal , eldest of three siblings, into early financial becoming the first visible minority politician responsibility over his family. The reader to lead a national party of prospects in any has the feeling of a man who meets his significant western democracy. It will be obligations. remembered that in the federal election The social life of his formative years exactly a year earlier, the NDP had tenable in Windsor, Ontario is illustrated through hopes to form the government. In February episodes with a Muslim best friend, sexual of this year, the new leader took his place exploitation by a coach, and encounters in the House of Commons and, two months with an ubiquitous bigotry. Though he later, with the writ for the next federal chooses these themes, he does not paint election expected to drop in five months, himself in the meek colours of a victim. The he published his autobiography Love and pride he takes in his will and pugnacity is Courage. The memoir immediately took evident throughout, and he appears to bear off for the top of Canadian non-fiction his hardships without being overpowered. bestseller lists, and the reviews supported The episodes march towards a it. therapeutic and then a political lesson. The An expected skeptic, the National therapeutic lesson is that grievances must Post, found little to complain about, calling be reviewed out in the open, otherwise it “surprisingly intimate…compelling they turn poisonous. The extension of and mercifully light on political pablum.” this lesson to man writ large in politics Reviewers who loiter about the centre of eventually captures the narrative of politics were more completely won over. the book. As one might expect from an The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson, autobiography of a party leader, the lesson a political chronicler long in the tooth, goes on in the telling to become the declared “it took real courage to write foundation for his political life. this book,” and “it is…a political memoir If family is the bulk of the narrative and like no other” and “I have never seen its the social dynamic leads to its culmination, like.” The surprised and breathless tone religion is its keynote. Jagmeet settled of the reviewers can be explained as into devotion early, and there is hardly first impressions; the only reviews the

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 page 12 from over. On the road ahead, we would and Canadian singer Roch Voisine on the face many difficulties, but we would face other. A reader will not doubt the depth of them knowing one thing for certain: we are his attraction to the former. If he also has all in this together, because no matter what any attraction to the main English tradition, happens, we are all one.” (Page 306) from Spenser and Sidney to Eliot and Orwell and the endless polychromatism in- A political autobiography or a between, we do not hear anything about it. progressive programme with strong The only history he reviews are pietistic flavouring is by now an unfamiliar faraway episodes on British India and sort of thing, but it effectively recalls a the suppression of Sikh militancy in profounder NDP history of egalitarian free India. There is also a transparent politics built upon religious perception. piece of pandering on the struggles of Having said what the book is, let us the Québécois (who as victims of British consider what it isn’t. perfidy and as minorities in their own It is not a chronicle of inner life. The nation are, apparently, on the template of book is outwards-facing and the inner the and much akin to them). If his life is secured by religious sureness, dive into Canadian statesmanship springs unperplexed. If he lacks fitness for a from a love of the national story, he does situation – when he is a child, for example not talk about it. a page that does not carry a reflection – the lack of fitness is temporary. Pain If not nation, then surely at least party? on the advantages of his piety. This is a does not cause doubt or reveal weakness. But for a leader of the NDP, the memoir singular and unexpected note in a political Nor does the book describe an is surprisingly free of any reflection on memoir and it goes partway to explaining the disarming of political commentators If family is the bulk of the narrative and the social accustomed to politicians’ fakery. Take dynamic leads to its culmination, religion is its keynote. away Jagmeet’s role, and the memoir There is hardly a page that does not carry a reflection could find a market as a work of Sikh religious persuasion. Each problem is met on the advantages of Jagmeet’s piety. Take away his role, with a pietistic cure. What is the driver of and the memoir could find a market as a work of Sikh his father’s alcoholism? The waning of religious persuasion. his faith. What was the beginning of his political work? Founding a Sikh collective in university, and organizing public grieving intellectual path. There is very little the NDP – not its history, not its mission over the suppression of Sikh separatist argument inside, or any story about or theory, and though he walks in their militancy in a foreign state. What spring of curiosity or dilemma and how arguments shoes, not even its leaders. The narrative thought will this politician drink from? To are constructed, then rejected or take a sample: embraced. Good and bad are clear and unmixed: here on the right side stand “The founding principle [of the Sikh his mother Harmeet, his supporters, and way of life] is a belief in oneness – or Ik above all his religion, and in the darkness Oankar. It’s a belief that deep down we are over there are alcohol, India, and the all connected…A belief in the oneness of bigotry hiding in men’s hearts. In the humanity means ensuring everyone has chapters on his years at the University of justice and fairness in their lives. If we are Western Ontario, where we’d expect to all connected, then injustice against one of read about formative intellectual struggles, us is injustice against us all.” (Page 17) we hear about friendships and activism, but virtually nothing about what he read or And: studied. The book vaguely tells us of his “As a Sikh, you have a personal intention to study biology, and Wikipedia spiritual journey. And that journey includes fills in with the information that in 2001 he ensuring justice for all. It doesn’t matter if earned a B.Sc. in that subject. that person is a Sikh, Christian, Muslim, Nor is there much evidence of curiosity Hindu, or atheist – the goal is to see on cultural, historical, or political subjects. everyone around us as one.” (Page 60) He tells us briefly of his fondness for language as a door into a culture, but the And upon winning the NDP leadership, the only languages he turns out to mean are Punjabi and French, and the culture he closing thought of the book is: A young Jagmeet rose to the challenge of supporting “We had won, but our journey was far means is religious poetry on the one side, his family during his father’s descent into alcoholism.

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 page 2 shows political life The profounder truth then thrust upon a surprised turns into a political purpose, Jagmeet not far out of for although courage is a law school (at Osgoode desirable quality in a person, Hall in Toronto) by the adversity that causes it well-meaning friends. is not a desirable quality in He wins a seat in the a polity: “It takes courage to Ontario legislature in stand up to hate.” 2011 and in 2015 he We’ll set aside the is deputy leader of political purpose and ask, the provincial NDP. How is courage represented? Federal leadership, Jagmeet understands when it comes, does not courage as a psychologically

crown a career of NDP Jagmeet saw victim-parallels between Quebeckers and Sikhs dreaming of an independent enabling condition, and what activism. Khalistan. it enables is the work of The inspiration and tested against constant hostility, also brave. an underlying and prior moral source of Jagmeet’s action is entirely On the cusp of his teens he began studying certainty. Just so love – love of others within Jagmeet’s own predicament; it does oriental fighting arts. These he studied for or love of self – which in trials becomes not owe a debt to the broader stream of use in the field, but when he uses them in full of doubt, through courage regains its Canadian public life. It is as if the NDP the course of a day at his private were joining its history to his, not the other secondary school in Michigan, way around. Here, then, is a second way the response is not positive. He in which it is “a political memoir like no switches to wrestling and orients other”: it is sincere and lacks the genre’s towards self-development and false notes, but it also does not venture to confidence through competition. own and carry forward truths learned from As any reasonable adult, he the story of nation, culture, or party. comes to set aside violence, but How does Jagmeet understand his the pugnacious spirit remains predicament? To put it baldly, that he and has been transformed into is a good and noble man in a world that advocacy. He understands this tends to flow in the contrary direction. The spirit operating within him to be strongest counter-flow, so he tells us, is courage. In the closing chapter, racial prejudice. The book’s title, Love and courage is revealed as the Courage, names his strategy to face the broad personal resource he sets world’s wrongs. Of courage in particular against the two main challenges First martial arts, then wrestling helped Jagmeet to deal with what he recalls as nearly constant bigotry, and to develop his inner courage. there is a progress through the book’s of his narrative. The first challenge is his father sureness. This is how love and courage Jagtaran Singh’s alcoholism. The are bound up: love followed through habit arises during Jagmeet’s engenders courage, and courage in turn childhood, brings abuse and does the work of love. negligence into the home, degrades But this same moral certainty that for a medical career, and causes loss of him is a condition for courage becomes profession, bankruptcy, and family a chokepoint that extinguishes his ability break-up. The lesson on courage is to exercise a different sort of courage. not drawn at this point, however, but For if there is one thing Jagmeet has a few years later. For Jagtaran Singh shown himself utterly incapable of, it is the rediscovers personal purity through courage for independent and free thinking. religion. He cleans up, earns back The sufficiency of what and who he is for the trust of his profession, and is where he finds himself and what he intends admitted back into the family home. to do is never a matter of question. He For Jagmeet, the lesson here is that, assumes the justice of ancient, ancestral With NDP founder Tommy Douglas’s statue. Love and Courage all-but “It requires courage to take risks on grudges as readily as he wraps his turban, ignores the NDP’s history, ideology and even its past leaders. the people you love.” and seems unworried either that the pages. Let us take up the cure – courage The second challenge is self-oriented picture may be partial, or that there may – before we consider the condition – racial and the lesson aims at a profounder be fundamental principles to learn in the prejudice. truth: “It takes courage to love yourself new world untaught in the traditions he What does Jagmeet mean by courage? when you’ve been told your whole life grew up in. He tells us that as a child he was small but, that you’re ugly, or dirty, or a terrorist.” On the latter, surely it were a question

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 page 32 worth asking, whether the peace his provide cover for them. But it was equally an unshakeable appearance of alterity parents moved to Canada to enjoy is clear, and more damning, that he simply or weirdness, and that this weirdness built upon a different foundation from had never put any objectivity between is in counterpoise to the many invisible the systems that hold sway in the place they left. Surely that enquiry, at least, is necessary – infinitely more for a man who is contesting to be guardian of that peace – even if he eventually were to arrive where he began. But Jagmeet, morally sure and sufficient, shows no sign that this enquiry even occurs to him, and we may assume that no squaring of Canada with Rawls or Hobbes or Aristotle is required once the great light of We are all connected breaks. On the issue of partiality, the drama played out in the first scandal of his leadership. In October 2017, the CBC’s Terry Milewski invited the newly minted leader to condemn the perpetrators of the bloodiest terrorist atrocity in the history of our nation, the bombing of Air India As his father’s alcoholism worsened, Jagmeet’s religious devotion only grew – and he credits it with eventually Flight 182 by Sikh terrorists in 1985. Two- saving his dad. hundred-sixty-eight Canadian lives were extinguished, among them 82 young himself and home-spun truths about the privileges and advantages of the non-off- children, in the largest airplane-borne ancestral Khalistani cause and its heroes, white Canadian. The sacred principle is mass-killing until September 11, 2001. to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that that the testimony of the racialized cannot Unable to contemplate that a virulent Canada had become unwitting host to be denied, least of all by the non-off-white. strain of his own pietistic tradition could terrorists waging a foreign insurgency with With this sacred principle in view, we read cause the slaughter of innocents, Jagmeet Canadian casualties. the top item in Jagmeet’s list of reasons he declined to identify and condemn the We might wonder how the several waves of victims from that Khalistani undertaking failed The same moral certainty to achieve recognition under that for Jagmeet is a the broad, loving embrace of We are all one. We offer condition for courage the counterpoint of the Sikh becomes a chokepoint that lawyer and newspaper editor extinguishes his ability to Ujjal Dosanjh, later a politician exercise a different sort of who became premier of B.C. and federal Liberal cabinet courage. For if there is one minister. In the year of the Air thing Jagmeet has shown India bombing Dosanjh shone himself utterly incapable a public light on the extremists, of, it is the courage for and his courage gained him a cracked skull from the independent and free murderous attack of a Khalistani thinking. with an iron pipe. We note that Jagmeet, before he became a provincial NDP politician, entered public life: took the lead in aggressive “I thought about facing racism community organizing against throughout my life, and how it taught me Dosanjh, and we might wonder what it’s like to feel as though you don’t what kind of courage that was. belong. Young Black men, Indigenous At this point, we should youth, new – so many people Reconstruction of the ocean debris following the bombing of Air India introduce a word and a sacred were routinely made to feel they didn’t Flight 182 in 1985. principle. The word is “racialized” belong, and although each person’s perpetrators. From what followed it was and it imposes the construction that every experience was different, I could relate to clear he did not attempt to conceal and off-white Canadian begins and abides in some of that pain.” (Pages 296-297)

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 page 42 out in the lesson of, We may approach the issue in a approximately, “I was made different way, and ask about the source to feel like I didn’t belong.” of the feeling of belonging. For Jagmeet Here we note two things the feeling is caused by the generous about his view of belonging disposition of other people, and he insists – that it is a feeling, and that that one expects that generosity by right. it is dependent on others – But anyone conscious of belonging at and we take each up in turn. some depth knows how poor an account Of course belonging is this is. The obvious error is that belonging a feeling, what else could it is a relation between a person and a culture be? In a different, physical of a place, not a person and the opinions context, when we ask of a of other people. Yet Jagmeet allows the thing in relation to others, primary person-place relation to be almost “Does it belong?”, we mean, entirely eclipsed by the mediating element “Does it pick up their pattern of other people and how they’re disposed. and is it continuous with the This leads to a more fundamental, members of the collection?” qualitative error: the feeling of belonging Among things, belonging is internal, given, and persevering. It is as is a relation between a unit if a magnet in one’s mind attaches one to No love lost: Ujjal Dosanjh shown in hospital in 1985 after being attacked and a group, and the human a place. (The metaphor is from my nine- and beaten for his opposition to Sikh extremism. use works in a parallel way. year-old daughter, who has given me We round out the trinity of racialized In human terms, belonging permission to use it and much else in the and racial testimony with the concept is a relationship between a person and a discussion here.) It is not, as Jagmeet “belonging”. There is less dogma and culture. Certainly belonging is a feeling, understands it, external and contingent. more depth to this term, and Jagmeet to but it is a feeling based on an underlying The deeper that attachment, the more his credit shows a preference for analysis observation, an observation which is less robust its immunity to the hazards of any through the lens of belonging over that of racism. What does Jagmeet mean by Surely it were a question worth asking, whether the “belonging”? peace Jagmeet’s parents moved to Canada to enjoy is We first hear it discussed in the context of his decision as a child to adopt the built upon a different foundation from the systems that traditional Sikh headdress. His father does hold sway in the place they left. Surely that enquiry is not agree, and of this father we read: necessary – infinitely more for a man who is contesting “Many mornings, as I had breakfast to be guardian of that peace. before school, I’d often see him strut out the door donning an overcoat and English brogues that he had polished the night a matter of feeling and more a matter of chance person’s good will. before. My dad couldn’t control the colour fact. Underneath the question, “Do I feel The third error is a misunderstanding of his skin or his country of birth, but he like I belong?” comes the question, “Do I of the relation between belonging and could control what his wardrobe in fact belong?” right. For Jagmeet, belonging to a place is said to the world, so he made a right that is owed generally, sure his clothing never gave whence it follows that whoever anyone a reason to think he denies the feeling to another didn’t belong.” (Pages 56-57) is refusing an obligation to There is some pathos to extend a right. This is why talk this account, mixed with mild about belonging runs like a chiding at a parent’s choice bright red thread through the the child sees as flawed. pages of his book – having Jagmeet’s own posture is framed belonging as a right, more defiant. The few visceral his basic instruction in politics stories of childhood racial is to see to it that the right is shaming are not meant to upheld. generate pity – we have Just so, his signal already considered his moments in politics all orbit willingness to fight – but to the right to belong. At the establish his right to speak outset of his federal voyage, about racialized experience. and what pushed his boat While his father wore Western suits and brogues and went bare-headed, a young Jagmeet decidedly into the water, a Each of the stories bottoms opted for the Sikh headdress.

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 page 52 heckler demanded to know why he’d allow the breach is healed over time, that the Accommodation is a two-way street, Islamic sharia law to compromise the rights adjustments he must make are awkward, but the immigrant’s passage is by far the of Canadian women. The book discusses even embarrassing – like Jagtaran Singh’s harder side. The host society owes the the episode at length and explains the carefulness in dressing – but not without immigrant equity and fair-dealing. This is fault in her clumsy, misdirected anger their dignity. That embarrassment is honest legal and institutional space. When we as generating a feeling of not belonging. coin for a peace he has been invited to climb down to the daily commerce with the enjoy, but is not yet felt reality of culture, here the immigrant his by right. The must inevitably find the society resistant. process begins in This resistance comes from the tenacity pain but ends in of belonging and the right to a place and belonging, and there a culture among members of the host is no fatal harm or culture itself. Culture works along organic contradiction in it. lines and trades in terms of what is familiar. But a fatal harm As such it produces casual, everyday and contradiction interactions that fall well short of rigorously is exactly what we legal standards of equity. find in the Canadian This is the stuff produced from the bien pensant’s resistance of culture that Jagmeet eagerness to repeatedly mischaracterizes as racism. From a young age, Jagmeet has shown an unreflective sympathy for the Sikh separatist movement. obliterate the Here let us be clear: racism is a settled discomfort of the doctrine of race, not an all-too-human And what is said to underlie her anger? process. He solves the problem of attachment to what is familiar. But a She herself feels she doesn’t belong. belonging by denying that there is settled doctrine of race, we submit, is rare More recently, what is the specific evil in anything much to belong to, and thereby in Canada. And we do not hesitate to call having as Prime Minister a man whose does more than make a nonsense out of out the real racists for the vile haters of most urgent, abiding desire is to dress in the desire to belong. He deprecates the the moral substance of human beings that costumes? That it robs vulnerable people power of his culture, the culture on which they are. of the vital social bath of belonging. And rests the peace he enjoys, the peace that The growth of what is familiar is itself in what is surely a departure for the the immigrant has arrived to flourish under. a highly imperfect process, and works NDP, even the degradation at the core of Just so Justin Trudeau, the apotheosis of through channels of appearance and poverty is glossed as alienation of the right the Canadian bien pensant, says, “There community reputation. This is a known to belong. is no core identity, no mainstream in reality, and it explains why community But as a matter of fact, the right joined Canada.” leaders generally accept to keep a close with belonging does not have the character It is the Canadian of an obligation placed upon others. bien pensant upon Belonging arises organically out of lifelong whose knee Jagmeet acts of giving yourself over to a place and has learnt his ideas; a culture. Out of the fact of belonging flows no serious reader the feeling that one has a right to a place of Indic traditions – to participate in the fullness of its life, to can possibly think enjoy it and to guide it. As a matter of lived otherwise. Jagmeet experience, it is this inward-originating may do without but outward-flowing positive right that is the disguises and attached to belonging. It is not an artificial self-congratulatory construct based on a mistaken idea grovelling of a about the vulnerability of belonging and Trudeau, but his attempting a cure by force – the exaction turban is just as that everyone be provided with belonging. Canadian. No true What kind of belonging would it be, after foreign-grown, hard- all, if anyone could come along and cancel baked Khalistani Family reunited: with father Jagtaran and mother Harmeet. it by denying you their validation? buys the bien pensant’s And what kind of belonging is it that nonsense that belonging is a matter of watch over how their communities are can easily be granted out of an act of peer acceptance rather than inherited perceived. It is a reality, however, that generosity? Such quick belonging is as right to a place. One only has to consider Jagmeet refuses to accept. For him, it quickly lost. As well, it is a denial of the how doggedly that vanishing class of is an injustice that the immigrant must immigrant’s felt reality. He perceives his Indian clings to the glory of a 19th century labour under the weight of a community difference as a fact, not as an outrage kingdom and a right that supposedly arises reputation. Just so, he finds racism in the committed by the ill-intentioned. He knows out of it. cloud cast over the Muslim community

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 page 62 What Jagmeet offers as a book that defies the conventions of the genre, and cheats the media of the goods courage is naïve moral in which the trade of political commentary certainty fortified by lack is generally carried on. of curiosity, insensibility The rise and fall of politicians’ fortunes towards cultural are matters of the moment, do not hang on their freedom from contradiction, and are obligations, and errors not our business here. The charismatic about social forces such surface may carry the day in electoral as racism. It is not the politics, but the surface wraps around the courage of a statesman, real matter of culture, and in the domain of real things la vérité se venge – truth but nearly its opposite takes its revenge. We have attempted to – the pugnacity of an swim beneath the engaging surface of activist. Jagmeet’s narrative and investigate two currents of thought operating there. First, as we understand it, the courage of a working statesman lies in his capacity after 9/11 and the Sikh community after to keep his own counsel and discern at the Air India bombing. He complains at their true worth the endless claims of right length that the judgment over a community that clamour for satisfaction. The courage does not rigorously fit every particular. of a statesman rests on the autonomy and This is certainly true, but the truth effectiveness of nearly the only tool he has is partial and useless. A reputation is – his judgment. What Jagmeet offers as the inevitable judgment passed on an courage is naïve moral certainty fortified Enjoy outside community that has not yet been by lack of curiosity, insensibility towards absorbed through bonds of familiarity cultural obligations, and errors about social and love – and a reputation is hardly ever forces such as racism. It is not the courage your entirely unearned. It is, moreover, the of a statesman, but nearly its opposite – first approach to just such an absorption, the pugnacity of an activist. and the only mechanism through which Second, we explored the workings absorption occurs. Not an instrument of read? of Jagmeet’s basic premise in politics, racism, a community reputation is instead the idea of belonging. In place of the an attempt to measure how and whether a rootedness from which both the right and culture that begins from a different place the obligation of politics arises, he offers may be absorbed, without losing that most Click here and the doubtful idol of the warm social bath of precious fruit, the inherited peace. peer acceptance. The shallowness of his sign up for our What do we make of the man Jagmeet analysis may well linger as the strongest email newsletter Singh Dhaliwal? With his autobiography aftertaste of the narrative. On the basis of read, what does it tell us of the politician? this highly artificial framing of belonging, There is much that is impressive in Jagmeet has repeatedly pressed home his charisma, whole-heartedness, and his advantage as a racialized man. Now optimism. Political careers do not always that the theatre of the election is past us, take flight on such worthy wings, and in the the irony of this newest sort of privilege will daily media chew over political trajectories surely be something to savour. Jagmeet’s fortunes are considered to be rising. The rise comes as a surprise to a media confused by the sudden appearance of a turbaned man in the front rank of politics, and unable to take his measure; it has come as less of a surprise to some of us not constrained to walk in C2C JOURNAL the media’s footsteps. His autobiography both disperses IDEAS THAT LEAD and confirms the surprise. By its nature an autobiography will walk a life into the light, and Jagmeet is not a dissembler. But this same lack of pretend, grown from a thoroughly religious impulse, has given us

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 page 72 The Real Cost of Trudeau’s Brownface Bombshell

By Peter Shawn Taylor

redit where it’s due: Justin Trudeau resident Mario Labelle told The Globe. “I have always acknowledged that I come Cis very, very good at apologies. The While the results of the October 21 federal from a place of privilege, but now I need to images of the Prime Minister in face paint election remained very much up in the air, acknowledge that comes with a massive would have ended the career of nearly it appeared Trudeau had skated clear of blind spot.” any other politician in the land. And while any great damage arising from his make- the revelation did throw the Liberal Party’s up fetish. His weak performance in the First, we have an explicit campaign off the rails for a few days − and English language Leaders’ Debate has acknowledgement what he did can never be likely smudged its leader’s “diversity-is- likely hit him harder. Still, Trudeau clearly considered acceptable; this as a precursor our-strength” halo − it seems to have had remained a contender with the polls see- to saying sorry. Next, an observation that little permanent effect. sawing between predicting a minority his actions came from a different time and After several days of imaginative and government for him versus the same for thus require an understanding of context repeated apologies from Trudeau, the the Conservatives. and changing moral standards, implying Liberals were still polling in the same And yet it’s not entirely fair to say there minority government territory they were was no cost to this whole affair. It’s just that before the pictures surfaced. The campaign Trudeau isn’t the one paying the bill. quickly got back to work promising voters an unaffordable collection of goodies, paid Unpacking the apologies for with an ever-larger federal deficit. Even at a personal level, the scandal refused In order to tote up the actual damage, to stick. When The Globe and Mail ran we need to consider three distinct themes a page’s worth of interviews with voters amongst Trudeau’s many and varied in Trudeau’s home riding of Papineau public apologies. In his own words: in Quebec, the consensus was that his penchant for dressing up was no big deal, “Darkening your face, regardless of the even among visible minorities. Some even context or the circumstances, is always suggested the whole thing was just a unacceptable because of the racist history smear job by his rivals. “I would elect him of blackface.” again just to show the world that enough Trudeau’s apology express, however inconsistent and “It was something that I didn’t think was questionably sincere, seemed to have kept him in the is enough when it comes to tarnishing racist at the time.” federal election fight. reputations during political campaigns,”

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 page 82 that it used to be, or at least once seemed, school talent show, Shakespeare created acceptable – which is already a long way where he sang Harry an artistic world in from never. And finally, that his ignorance Belafonte’s well-known which most of the was the product of his own privileged song Day-O, or The roles were meant to be upbringing – which is less a genuine Banana Boat Song. played by performers apology than an evasion or excuse. We’ll In late September inhabiting another’s look at each in turn. video also surfaced of gender or race, with Trudeau at perhaps his necessary costume and Never acceptable most disturbing: painted makeup assistance. almost entirely black This concept continues The origin of this scandal rests on the – seemingly including today, albeit imperfectly. claim that photos of Trudeau dressed as even a died tongue – The 2018 season Aladdin at an Arabian Nights-themed party bewigged, apparently of the Stratford Festival in 2001 constitute an example of racist with an object in his in Stratford, Ontario, “brownface”. It seems a serious issue, trousers, clowning for example, featured with plenty of minority rights pleaders wildly at a party a surprisingly long declaring themselves dutifully shocked following a whitewater list of unconventional and appalled. The media has also done its rafting/kayaking event casting choices. part. On its front page, the National Post somewhere, sometime The title character in called that first Aladdin yearbook snap a in the early 90s. Julius Caesar was No acting allowed: This post-apocalyptic “Brownface Bombshell”. But brownface production of Othello, to be played a woman, as was But ask yourself this: prior to a few carries none of by a white woman, was shunned and Satan in Paradise Lost ultimately cancelled. Edmonton’s weeks ago, when had you even heard blackface’s fraught Walterdale Theatre, 2017. and Prospero in The history. An Aladdin costume Tempest. The leads in both actually references the “Islamic Golden Coriolanus and The Music Man were Trudeau’s apology-fuelled Age”, spanning about AD 800-1300, when played by black actors. Two of the Brontë declaration that the use of the Arab world was far more powerful and Sisters were also black. And one set of often more erudite than Medieval Europe. male twins in The Comedy of Errors was face paint is always and If anything, that particular costume is a sign played by a pair of actresses. All this was everywhere unacceptable of respect. Ergo, dressing up in brownface hailed as a great triumph of race- and entrenches the obvious shouldn’t even count as a scandal. gender-blind decision-making. hypocrisy at work when Nonetheless, Trudeau’s apology casts But while it’s true there’s nothing the widest possible net of shame. Brown particularly male about the ambition of white or male roles can and blackface are tarred, so to speak, Julius Caesar, or Caucasian about the be cast in all sorts of with the same brush. And every critic loveable rogue Harold Hill in The Music imaginative ways, but the appears quite willing to conflate brown and Man, such heterodox casting apparently same cannot be tolerated blackface simply to establish the horror of only works one way. Twice in recent Trudeau’s action. But we should be very memory Canadian theatre companies for visible minority careful with sweeping declarations that have attempted to perform Othello with the roles. It’s also completely face paint of any sort is a ghastly mistake. lead played by a white woman rather than ahistorical. Despite Trudeau’s apologia, context does matter when donning another’s costume. the term brownface? The word appeared While blackface can be only six times in the 10 years preceding crude, racially inspired the scandal in the Toronto Star, what we or aimed at perpetuating might consider the paper of record for inequality, simply declaring progressive, politically-correct Canada. both forms off-limits at all And most of these references occurred times and forever poses a in the past two years. Brownface is in fact worrisome threat to personal a newly-invented term whose apparent and artistic freedoms. purpose is to allow some visible minority Keep in mind that the groups access to the same claims of very notion of acting is historical injustice as blacks make in a process by which an regards to blackface. actor or actress imagines There is certainly an historical case themselves to be someone to be made about blackface, to which else, and oftentimes Trudeau also availed himself at a high dresses the part. William 1951’s Othello, with Orson Welles, one of the finest performances ever of this role.

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 page 92 a black man; the results have been death Thunder. Blanket bans on blackface will threats, abject apologies and immediate inevitably rob the world of many insightful cancellations. and illuminating movie performances still This is sad and misplaced for a number to come. of reasons, not the least of which is that Sadly, plenty of other works of obvious Othello was a Moor, technically someone artistic merit exploring race and racism of mixed Arab and Berber descent – would similarly be shouted into oblivion if more brownface than black. And among released today – leaving us all the poorer for history’s very best performances of the it. One good example is singer/songwriter character was Orson Welles in the award- Randy Newman’s provocative 1974 album winning 1951 movie of the same name – Good Old Boys, which delivers a bracing in which Welles didn’t even substantially but entirely relevant look at southern darken his face. American racism. It seems impossible to Trudeau’s apology-fuelled declaration imagine it could be released today without that the use of face paint is always and inciting riots. Another is folk singer Michelle

A society properly concerned with free and open End of an era: Robert Downey Jr.’s hilarious performance in Tropic Thunder was a hit with speech should be loudly defending the right of audiences and the Academy in 2008. individuals to wear whatever they want, at Halloween and during the rest of the year. Instead, we appear There is, of course, much more to minstrelsy than this brief discussion on the verge of establishing a new set of race-based allows. It is widely regarded, and with sumptuary laws, with Trudeau’s apologies making ample evidence, as a perpetuation and this situation worse. rationalization of the non-violent submission of blacks to whites. This historical reality should not be ignored. But neither should everywhere unacceptable entrenches the Shocked’s masterpiece Arkansas Traveler, we overlook Shocked’s important point obvious hypocrisy at work when white a white homage to black minstrelsy that about its many other artistic implications or male roles can be cast in all sorts of includes a controversial insert portrait of and meanings, however contentious those imaginative ways, but the same cannot her in blackface. “Why remind people of a may be today. Understanding is gained be tolerated for visible minority roles. It’s painful, shameful past?” Shocked asks in through exploration and interpretation, also completely ahistorical. The list of her liner notes. “American music today is not censorship and slavish adherence to legitimate blackface performances runs still being created from the rich traditions political correctness. to hundreds of actors, from Fred Astaire of blackface minstrelsy; like a forgotten Manufactured outrage over Trudeau’s brownface eruption is equally likely to exacerbate the tiresome debate over cultural appropriation afflicting the rest of society. Recall the incident at Yale University in November 2015 when professors Erika and Nicolas Christakis were hounded from their administrative positions in the aftermath of an email Erika wrote to students at Yale’s Silliman College urging them to dress up however they like on Halloween. She’d been responding to student complaints over a formal letter from Yale administrators, penned in an almost grotesquely politically correct style, warning students to avoid Halloween costumes with “feathered headdresses, Michelle Shocked, with and without blackface: a respectful tribute to the black experience, probably soon to be expunged from the world of art. turbans, wearing ‘war paint’ or modifying skin tone or wearing blackface or redface,” to Elizabeth Taylor, and continuing to history condemned forever to be repeated. along with numerous other cultural modern times. Here we include Robert Also, for many, putting on blackface was, admonitions. Downey Jr.’s hilariously trenchant – and and still is, an opportunity to express a Trudeau’s apology further solidifies Academy Award-nominated − blackface soulfulness their own culture couldn’t this depressing notion that no one can performance in the 2008 comedy Tropic provide.” ever dress up in the costumes of another

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 pagepage 10 2 culture, and that doing so must always happened nearly 20 years in the past.” Trudeau was responding to the be considered a racist act. And not just So either what Trudeau did back then demands of several Indigenous leaders at Halloween. In my hometown paper, wasn’t racist or, if that argument doesn’t who falsely claimed Langevin was the Waterloo Region Record, Trudeau’s hold water, “in the alternative” (as an “an architect” of the schools based on costume scandal has prompted a curious opportunistic attorney might argue in sloppy historical research by the Truth spate of spontaneous confessionals in court), Trudeau’s past transgressions and Reconciliation Commission. In which residents admit to past experiences were trifling. fact Langevin was minister of public now deemed unacceptably racist. One The message here is that, either way, works under Prime Minister Sir John A. woman’s letter to the editor revealed she had dressed up as a geisha girl many years Recognizing past standards of morality or the fullness ago at a costume party. Another said she’d of an individual’s career never cut any ice with Trudeau had a summer job painting little concrete when he was rewriting Canadian history to demonstrate statues of black boys with fishing rods that were once popular lawn ornaments. his sanctimonious progressivity, or when attacking his We can presumably expect more of this present-day political rivals. He declared them all unfit for self-abasement as a result of the stridency polite society. of Trudeau’s apologies. But to what end? A society properly concerned with free and Trudeau should be judged on the totality Macdonald; native policy was never his open speech should be loudly defending of his accomplishments rather than one file. Besides, in the late 1800s the entire the right of individuals to wear whatever (or more) unfortunate decisions from his Ottawa elite − Liberals and Conservatives they want, at Halloween and during the distant past, when things were different. alike − thought residential schools offered rest of the year. Instead, we appear on That seems fair – for the evidence a great benefit to Indigenous people. the verge of establishing a new set of overwhelmingly suggests things were It was, quite literally, a different time. race-based sumptuary law, with Trudeau’s different with respect to many behaviours Nonetheless, for the sin of failing to live apologies making this situation worse. and attitudes. Even the timing of the Yale up to modern standards of behaviour, controversy suggests that dressing up in Trudeau declared Langevin persona non A different time all those different ways had been perfectly grata in Ottawa. fine, or at least tolerable, prior to 2015 at The same h as gone for Begbie, the A second form of damage inflicted by one of America’s liberal bastions. focus of a recent C2C Journal essay. Trudeau’s apologies concerns his request But such a balanced attitude is hardly Begbie was undoubtedly the most for a free pass given his claim that “it was consistent. Trudeau has never given liberal-minded jurist in something I didn’t think was racist at the his opponents or his predecessors the during the mid-to-late 1800s. He spoke time.” Other Liberal MPs have expanded same retrospective courtesy he now several native languages, was a strong on this theme of temporal absolution. expects. Here Hector-Louis Langevin and advocate of minority rights and once even Judge Matthew Baillie supported the concept of “Indian title” to Begbie, two titans from the land. Last year, however, Trudeau Canada’s past, stand in permanently blackened the judge’s once- as our representative sterling reputation. In his eagerness to plaintiffs. exonerate six Indigenous war chiefs Langevin was a Begbie sentenced to death for murdering prominent Confedera- 18 whites following a sneak attack in 1864, tion-era federalist Tory Trudeau turned Begbie into the villain of MP from Quebec. For the story by calling his ruling an “injustice” his significant role in against native people. (In fact, the death bridging the gap be- penalty was mandatory at the time for the tween French and En- crimes in question.) glish Canada, he was In the name of reconciliation, statues once honoured with and murals of Begbie throughout the his name on the fa- province have been removed, including a mous Langevin Block, striking life-size statue of him on horseback across the street from in the Law Society of British Columbia’s

No problem with blackface costumes in this largely black city: the Zulu parade at Mardi Parliament Hill, which head office lobby. A single misconstrued Gras in New Orleans, 2005. houses the Prime Min- ruling that conflicts with how Canadians ister’s Office. In 2017, wish to view their history today has been According to the CBC, black Liberal MP however, Trudeau had Langevin’s name allowed to overshadow a remarkable life Greg Fergus said Trudeau “should be unceremoniously ripped from the building of accomplishments. judged on his ‘great record’ of promoting because he was “an individual associated This Liberal mobbing of Canadian equality and diversity, not on things that with the residential school system.” politicians is not limited to historical

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 pagepage 11 2 figures. On the eve of the current steeped in ignorance and prejudice the election campaign, Liberal MP Ralph entire time. And all this having been Goodale released a 14-year-old video revealed, their immediate reaction is to of Conservative leader Andrew Scheer request universal absolution for finally expressing his support for the traditional having the scales lifted from their eyes. concept of marriage between a man A life of privilege has its benefits, you and a woman, implying that Scheer still might say. Earning a free pass on past does not accept same-sex marriage behaviour is one of them. Bald-faced laws. Similar evidentiary claims have hypocrisy is presumably another. been made about abortion, despite Scheer’s repeated promise not to raise the issue in any future parliament if he becomes prime minister. The Liberals’ talking point: Scheer’s opinions and C2C JOURNAL actions 14 years ago continue to define him regardless of what he says or does IDEAS THAT LEAD today. And they won’t let it go, with Trudeau further hammering Scheer on the subject during the leaders’ debate. Recognizing past standards of Begbie’s demise: the Law Society of British Columbia got rid of its statue of this giant of Canadian history. morality or the fullness of an individual’s career never cut any ice with Trudeau civil rights movement. Justin’s younger when he was rewriting Canadian history brother Michel was even photographed in to demonstrate his sanctimonious the arms of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro progressivity, or when attacking his in 1976 when his parents arrived on an present-day political rivals. He declared official visit. Yet now we discover such them all unfit for polite society. Curiously, an upbringing left him blind to the casual such standards do not seem to apply to racism of his own actions? It seems a the current prime minister. complete inversion of reality. Now that it’s his own behaviour under For decades we’ve been told that the microscope, Trudeau pleads that we society’s narrow-minded, insular segments should make allowances for differences in are the true incubators and perpetuators time and judge him on the broad sweep of of racism – roundly criticized as “bitter his record rather than a small number of clingers” by Barack Obama, as a “basket of indiscretions or mistakes. deplorables” by Hillary Clinton or simply as Trumpian populists by the full force of the The incredible blindness of globally-woke progressive army. Whatever Want to privilege the term, those who see the world in us- versus-them terms are habitually fingered Read More? Finally, we have Trudeau’s remarkable as the real problem. The reason Quebec claim that these mistakes from the past passed Bill 21 – another lamentable arrive as a result of his own favoured attempt to control individual freedom Click here and sign up for upbringing. “I have always acknowledged through restrictions on clothing choice our email newsletter that I come from a place of privilege, but that deserves wide condemnation − is to now I need to acknowledge that comes protect its particular tribal vision of society. with a massive blind spot,” goes his mea In Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François culpa in this regard. Blanchet’s words at the close of the recent It is a remarkable claim considering French-language leaders’ debate, it was that Trudeau was raised in one of the to “opt for men and women who resemble most liberal/Liberal families in Canadian you.” history. He is the product of a father who There is no excusing prejudice or was prime minister for over 15 years and deliberate racism wherever it may occur. responsible for such Liberal totems as the But it comes as quite a shock to discover Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and a it’s actually the cultured and metropolitan globe-trotting, disco-dancing, free-lovin’ elite who’ve been most unaware of their mother. His was a family immersed in own embedded flaws. This group, so globalism and Big L Liberalism and in the eager to embrace a multiplicity of genders, process was exposed to a vast spectrum of cultures, pronouns, personal choices and cultures and viewpoints, including the U.S. ways of knowing, has apparently been

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 pagepage 12 2 Storm Clouds Loom Over Canada’s Riskiest Business Sector

By Gwyn Morgan

y father was a perfect example of the to go trucking each winter. grain crop cash receipts, has been banned Madage “hope springs eternal.” Despite Despite the many joys of growing up on by China. Now, farmers face the dilemma years of heartbreaking disappointments, a farm with a close-knit family, however, I of leaving their canola trapped in over- each spring he would sing happily on our decided to study engineering and pursue a flowing bins or selling at prices well below tractor while seeding wheat, barley and career in the energy sector. My sisters also production costs. Next came China’s ban oats. Then we hoped for enough sunny left the farm, to pursue nursing careers. on meat imports, eliminating a major por- days to germinate the seeds. If nature Today’s farming generation faces a tion of the $3.5-billion hog market and de- granted us that hope, I would tag along at whole new type of risk that my father’s pressing prices in all markets. dad’s side walking through fields of green decision to switch from grain to livestock Adding to that is the impact of U.S. waving in the Prairie winds. Next, we’d wouldn’t have avoided. That risk was President Donald Trump’s trade war, which eagerly watch each bank of clouds hoping summed up by this Financial Post saw China ban American soybean imports. for rain so the grain seeds would “fill.” headline on August 15: “No other sector in That cast a flood of American soybeans Childhood on our family farm taught me our economy is getting slammed as hard onto the global market, collapsing prices that farming – not high-tech, not venture as farmers in the capitalism, not even “wildcat” oil-well global trade war”. drilling – is Canada’s riskiest business. Who could Remarkably, my father managed to have imagined keep his sense of humour, quipping that that Canadian the reason he worked off the farm was so farmers would he could afford to lose money farming. But become the finally, he’d had enough of grain farming. principal victims We sold our grain farm and bought one resulting from with barns, hay fields and grazing pastures the arrest last to raise livestock. Over time, we built a December of a large herd of high-quality beef cattle, along high-ranking Chi- with pigs and milk cows. For my sisters nese technology and me, this meant hours of daily chores executive? Ca- before and after school. But it eliminated nadian canola, most of the risks we faced on our grain the nation’s larg- farm, and my father didn’t need to leave us est generator of Hope once sprang eternal on thousands of family farms across the Prairies.

C2CJOURNALC2CJOURNAL | FALL 2019 pagepage 13 2 past. Formerly bustling main streets are lined with boarded-up businesses, few younger people or kids are in sight, and the decaying towns are inhabited mainly by aging retirees who carry the memories of a bygone era. Farm consolidation will mean a more efficient and financially resilient agricultural sector. But it also means the demise of the unique Prairie culture that produced generations possessing a sound work ethic and resilience against adversity. And The author’s hometown of Carstairs, Alberta, has survived by becoming a bedroom community. Hundreds of other Prairie towns haven’t been so lucky. true community values that are becoming increasingly rare. for Canada’s third-largest cash crop. These recent events have dealt a Farmers have been urged to expand serious blow to family farms already in trade with other, friendlier countries in the demographic trouble. A Vanier Institute Asia-Pacific region, but prying open those analysis shows that in 2016, more than half markets will require many months if not of Canada’s farmer-operators were aged years of dogged effort. 55 or over, while just 9 percent were 35 or The financial hardship for Canadian under. One thing that hasn’t changed from C2C JOURNAL farmers has been traumatic. Statistics my father’s time is the need to generate IDEAS THAT LEAD Canada reports that net farm income supplementary household income, with 44 (the return to farm operators for their percent of farmers today engaged in off- labour, management and capital, after all farm work. production expenses have been paid) fell The Prairies have been subjected to by more than half in a single year – from successive waves of farm consolidation. $8.1 billion in 2017 to $3.9 billion in 2018. First came the mechanization of This drove many farmers to the edge of agriculture in the 1920s and 30s – just two bankruptcy. generations after settlement. This enabled Farmers don’t expect Ottawa to come farmers to handle more land and travel up with that amount of cash to bail them farther for supplies, but also put pressure on the smallest farms. Since the 1950s, some 100,000 family farms have been absorbed into larger operations. Making a living off the old “quarter-section” (160 acres or about 65 hectares) is a very distant memory. Today, over 50 percent of Canadian farm revenues are generated by just 2 percent of our farms. Now that geopolitics With canola banned from China, Canadian producers is added to the numerous other risks, face selling their product below production costs. consolidation of family farms into more risk- tolerant large-scale corporate operations is likely to accelerate. I grew up in an era when more than half Quebec’s dairy lobby won big compensation from Ottawa, the population of the Prairie provinces lived while the trade war with China has driven overall farm income down by 50 percent in one year, with no help in site. in rural communities underpinned by family farms like ours. My hometown of Carstairs, out, but it must be grating for them to Alberta, was full of thriving, locally owned watch the Trudeau Liberal government businesses. Few of us ever travelled to hand dairy farmers $1.75 billion in the city to buy groceries, clothing, vehicles compensation for granting American or anything else. The same could be farmers access to a minuscule 3.6 percent said for agricultural towns throughout the of the dairy market under the USMCA, the West. While my hometown’s proximity to new trade agreement. Is it a coincidence a major city allowed it to escape oblivion that meat and grain producers are mainly by becoming a bedroom community to in the West, while dairy farming is centred Calgary, many of the 500 Prairie towns in Quebec? and villages are becoming relics of the

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