Canada’s surprising 1% PAGE 5
$6.50 Vol. 21, No. 2 March 2013
David Hornsby The South African Dream Renewing Canadian ties with the troubled power could help us both
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
Tony Burman Reporting on the Islamic world
Siobhan Roberts Are scientists blinded by beauty?
Jeff Webb Newfoundland conspiracy theories
PLUS: non-fiction Donald J. Johnston on plutocrats, bad and good + David Malone on diplomacy between unequals + Denise Donlon on Leonard Cohen + Philippe Lagassé on why naval independence is overrated + Kyle Matthews on placing blame for Haitian suffering + Christian Pearce on Canadian gun control’s origins + David Ben on Houdini in Halifax
Publications Mail Agreement #40032362 fiction Judy Stoffman on Siege 13 by Tamas Dobozy + Robin Roger on The Western Light by Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to LRC, Circulation Dept. Susan Swan PO Box 8, Station K Toronto, ON M4P 2G1 poetry David Groulx + Pamela Porter + Richard Greene UNIVERSIT Y OF CALGARY PRESS
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Wilderness and Waterpower: How Banff National Park Became a Hydro-Electric Storage Reservoir
CHRISTOPHER ARMSTRONG AND H. V. NELLES
9781552386347, 286 pp, $34.95, illustrations
This engaging book explores how the need for electricity at the turn of the century affected and shaped Banff National Park. Conservationists and energy researchers will find much to think about in this tale of Alberta’s early need for electricity, entrepreneurial greed, moving park boundaries, and more.
Shipwreck at Cape Flora: From Realism to Abstraction: The Expeditions of Benjamin The Art of J. B. Taylor Leigh Smith, England’s ADRIANA A. DAVIES Forgotten Arctic Explorer 150 pp, $49.95, illustrations, 9781552387092, October 2013 P. J. CAPELOTTI Highly respected as an Alberta artist and teacher, Taylor 270 pp, $34.95, illustrations, is best known for his representational, semi-abstract, and 9781552387054 abstract paintings of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Benjamin Leigh Smith discovered and named dozens of islands in the Arctic but published no account of his Marion Nicoll: Silence and Alchemy pioneering explorations. ANN DAVIS, ELIZABETH HERBERT, COPUBLISHED WITH THE ARCTIC INSTITUTE OF NORTH AMERICA JENNIFER SALAHUB, AND CHRISTINE SOWIAK The Fast-Changing Arctic: 150 pp, $49.95, illustrations, 9781552387078, August 2013 Rethinking Arctic Security Marion Nicoll is a widely acknowledged and important for a Warmer World founder of Alberta art and certainly one of a dedicated few EDITED BY that brought abstraction into practice in the province. BARRY SCOTT ZELLEN 410 pp, $34.95, maps, 9781552386460 Greening the Maple: International scholars and military Canadian Ecocriticism in Context professionals explore the strategic EDITED BY ELLA SOPER consequences of the thawing of the Arctic. AND NICHOLAS BRADLEY 500 pp, $44.95, 9781552385463, October 2013 Historical GIS Research in This book explores the development of ecocriticism in the context of Canadian literary studies. Selections include Canada work by Margaret Atwood, Northrop Frye, Sherrill Grace, EDITED BY and Rosemary Sullivan. JENNIFER BONNELL L’Alberta Autophage: Identités, mythes et AND MARCEL FORTIN discours du pétrole dans l’Ouest canadien 350 pp, $39.95, illustrations, 9781552387085, November 2013 DOMINIQUE PERRON Fundamentally concerned with place, and 450 pp, $39.95, 9781552385760, July 2013 our ability to understand human relation- Cet ouvrage présente une analyse discursive des récits ships with environment over time, His- identitaires albertains développés par rapport aux Published in partnership torical Geographic Information Systems with NiCHE: Network in ressources pétrolières de l’Alberta, au fil de l’histoire Canadian History (HGIS) has direct bearing on the study of moderne de la province. and Environment environmental issues and realities.
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Visit us at www.uofcpress.com Literary Review of Canada 170 Bloor St West, Suite 710 Toronto ON M5S 1T9 email: [email protected] reviewcanada.ca T: 416-531-1483 • F: 416-531-1612 Charitable number: 848431490RR0001 To donate, visit reviewcanada.ca/support Vol. 21, No. 2 • March 2013 Editor Bronwyn Drainie [email protected] Contributing EditorS 3 Return of the Robber Barons 17 Corrections (2) Mark Lovewell A review of Plutocrats: The Rise of the New A poem Molly Peacock Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, Richard Greene Anthony Westell by Chrystia Freeland Associate editor 18 The Aftermath of Polio Robin Roger Donald J. Johnston A review of The Western Light, by Susan Swan Poetry Editor 5 Canada’s Surprising One Percent Robin Roger Moira MacDougall An essay 19 Mysteries of Survival copy editor George Fallis Madeline Koch A review of Siege 13, by Tamas Dobozy Online Editors 8 The Siren Song of Independence Judy Stoffman Diana Kuprel, Jack Mitchell, A review of A Two-Edged Sword: The Navy as 20 Keeping the Dream Alive Donald Rickerd, C.M. an Instrument of Canadian Foreign Policy, by An essay ProofReaders Nicholas Tracy Rebecca Borkowsky, Mike Lipsius, David J. Hornsby Philippe Lagassé Beth MacKinnon, Robert Simone, Mike 23 Charity Gone Wrong? Lipsius, Amanda Miller, Heather Schultz, 10 Trial by Fire Rob Tilley, Jeannie Weese A review of Haiti’s New Dictatorship: The A review of Is This Your First War? Travels Coup, the Earthquake and the UN Occupation, research Through the Post-9/11 Islamic World, by Rob Tilley by Justin Podur Michael Petrou Publicity and Marketing Coordinator Kyle Matthews Tony Burman Nina Gilmour Beautiful Mistakes [email protected] 12 Neighbourhood Watch 25 A review of Truth or Beauty: Science and the Editorial Assistant A review of Canada and Conflict, by Patrick Quest for Order, by David Orrell Luca Da Franco James, and So Near Yet So Far: The Public and Siobhan Roberts Design Hidden Worlds of Canada-U.S. Relations, by James Harbeck Geoffrey Hale 27 The Handcuff King ADVERTISING/SALES David Malone A review of The Metamorphosis: The Michael Wile [email protected] 14 He’s Our Man Apprenticeship of Harry Houdini, by Bruce MacNab publishers A review of I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard David Ben Alastair Cheng Cohen, by Sylvie Simmons [email protected] Denise Donlon 28 Bogeymen Versus Sportsmen Helen Walsh [email protected] 16 White Girl on the Reservation A review of Arming and Disarming: A History of Gun Control in Canada, by R. Blake Brown Advisory Council at Night Christian Pearce Michael Adams, Ronald G. Atkey, P.C., A poem Q.C., Alan Broadbent, C.M., Chris David Groulx 30 Confederation as Conspiracy Ellis, Drew Fagan, James Gillies, C.M., A review of Don’t Tell the Newfoundlanders: Carol Hansell, John Honderich, C.M., J. Alexander Houston, Donald Macdonald, 16 Hudson’s Hope The True Story of Newfoundland’s A poem P.C., C.C., Trina McQueen, Susan Reisler, Confederation with Canada, by Greg Malone Grant Reuber, O.C., Don Rickerd, C.M., Pamela Porter Jeff A. Webb Rana Sarkar, Mark Sarner, Bernard Schiff, Reed Scowen 17 Peace Country 32 Letters and Responses A poem Poetry Submissions Matthew Mendelsohn, Mark Freiman, John For poetry submission guidelines, please see Pamela Porter Sewell
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 1 The LRC Presents … Ron Deibert on Cyber Security A leading expert explores the struggle for control of our digital world.
April 1, 2013 Ron Deibert is a professor of political science 7:00 PM at the University of Toronto and the director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies The Gardiner Museum and the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of 111 Queen’s Park Global Affairs. Widely published, Deibert is Toronto one of the authors of the Tracking Ghostnet report, which documented an alleged cyber- espionage network affecting more than 1,200 This free public discussion computers in 103 countries. His new book — (with light refreshments and a cash bar) Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace will include a talk by Deibert and — will be published in May 2013 with McClelland & Stewart. Deibert has also been subsequent Q&A. a consultant and advisor to governments, international organizations and civil society organizations on issues relating to cyber security, cyber crime, online free expression and access to information. Seating is limited, so reserve Coming up next in this series: a place now by emailing Andrew Nikiforuk, [email protected] award-winning environmental journalist and author May 6, 2013
2 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Return of the Robber Barons Can we tell “makers” from “takers” among the new super-rich? Donald J. Johnston
Freeland cites one study that Plutocrats: The Rise of the Harvard graduates who went into New Global Super-Rich and banking earn 195 percent more the Fall of Everyone Else than their classmates who chose Chrystia Freeland other professions and pinpoints Doubleday the case of Chuck Prince, then 330 pages, hardcover CEO of Citigroup, who was forced ISBN 9781594204098 to leave his corner office after the bank suffered gargantuan losses in 2008 and was the object of a huge homas Jefferson took government bailout. She opines pride in the egalitar- that “Prince deserved his pink Tianism of the fledgling slip,” but neglects to mention that American Republic he helped his severance package was worth create, as opposed to the class many millions, including an exit stratification of English society. bonus of $12.5 million. “The great mass of our population Third, there are the top-paid is of laborers; our rich, who can executives of corporate America. live without labor, either manual According to the AFL-CIO’s or professional, being few, and Executive PayWatch, in 1980 the of moderate wealth … Can any CEO pay at large American cor- condition of society be more porations equalled 42 times the desirable than this?” By the end of average blue-collar worker. In the 19th century, with the industrialization of the I read this book with mixed feelings of admira- 2010, that multiplier had increased to 343 times. United States and the rise of the so-called robber tion for some plutocrats, disdain for others, anger A good deal of Freeland’s book sets out to show barons, that romantic egalitarianism, if it ever truly at the potential collapse of the American dream, how such phenomenal inequality has occurred in existed, was long gone. a little envy, and concern for the future of healthy this third group. She finds the answer in a comment In Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global capitalism, as we watch the widening chasm by former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, who Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, Chrystia between the top 0.01 percent and the rest of society, allegedly said what the chief executive needs is “a Freeland offers a detailed account of the contem- particularly in the United States. generous compensation committee.” porary rise of plutocrats (defined as the super-rich A story as lurid as this requires villains, and These compensation committees, staffed by or 1 percent of the 1 percent) and the dangerous Freeland lets us consider three groups. First, there other corporate executives, create mutual apprecia- prospect of their emerging power in the United are the oligarchs who virtually stole the assets of tion societies that have ratcheted CEO compensa- States and elsewhere: among the Russian oligarchs, the Russian people through loans-for-shares priva- tion far beyond reasonable limits. Freeland rightly of course, and, just as notably, among the powerful tization. The author does not dwell overlong on this points out that boards of directors where owner- “princelings” of China. But the U.S. deserves a cen- cohort of skillful predators, given the attention she ship is widely dispersed “lack the time, expertise, tral role in this global analysis, because it seems to gave to its lightning rise in her previous book, Sale and gumption to weigh in on the specifics of how be leading the way in creating a democratic society of the Century: Russia’s Wild Ride from Communism companies operate” and tend to operate on the based on wealth and access to political influence. to Capitalism. Suffice it to say that by 1998, after principle of collaborative back-scratching. We need look no further than the creation of the less than a decade of capitalism, just seven men The Organisation for Economic Co-operation super PACs (political action committees) to see controlled half the Russian economy—oligarchs and Development tackled this issue in its OECD the American contribution to this dangerous trend. such as oil, banking and telecom magnate Mikhail Principles of Corporate Governance issued in 1999 Freeland demonstrates that vast wealth is Fridman, metals and oil mogul Viktor Vekselberg, by a high-level group of experts co-chaired by Sir being accumulated in fewer and fewer individual and metal and banking baron Vladimir Potanin. Adrian Cadbury and Ira Millstein: hands at the apex of the wealth pyramid. More Second, there are the Wall Street financiers significantly, within that apex, among the rarified whose incomes continue to greatly outstrip other It is considered good practice in an increasing 0.01 percent at the very top, wealth accumulation is professions despite their culpability for one of the number of countries that remuneration policy accelerating at an unprecedented rate, far outstrip- worst financial crises in history. Listen to former and employment contracts for board mem- ping that occurring among the merely rich with less labour secretary Robert Reich from a blog posting bers and key executives be handled by a spe- than $50 million in assets. in October 2012 on the aftermath of the 2008 crash: cial committee of the board comprising either “Most of us lost big … But the top 1 percent have wholly or a majority of independent directors. Donald J. Johnston is a founding partner and coun- done just fine. In the first year of the recovery they There are also calls for a remuneration com- sel to Heenan Blaikie LLP, a former secretary gen- reaped 93 percent of the gains. The latest data show mittee that excludes executives that serve on eral of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation them back with 20 to 25 percent of the nation’s total each others’ remuneration committees, which and Development and former Cabinet minister. income—just where they were in 2007.” could lead to conflicts of interest.
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 3 It seems clear that such good practice has yet to countries. The hollowing out of the middle class I am less certain. In fact, I am uncomfortable find fertile ground upon which to grow and flourish. and the concomitant loss of manufacturing jobs with two conclusions that Freeland draws from her Freeland highlights the gaping differences has been a major challenge, exploited by every wealth of detailed research and interviews. between plutocrats and the rest of us. To put the American politician who uses China as a scapegoat. First, I agree with Schmidt. We should value rapidly increasing income disparities in the United But politicians tend to ignore the impact of wealth creators over economic parasites such States in perspective, she cites a study showing that technology such as robotics in American job losses. as Russian oligarchs, financiers who engage in in 2008 the top 0.01 percent of families averaged One could also add the failure in much of the west- unethical (although not necessarily illegal) practi- $24 million while the bottom 90 percent made ern world to consider the education deficit, which ces and overcompensated corporate bureaucrats. about $30,000. has made it hard for laid-off workers to adapt, as What sources of new wealth have these groups cre- Surely, Freeland implies, this rapidly increasing the Japanese did much more successfully when ated with their own risk capital? Have they not sim- wealth and income gap in the U.S. is unsustainable much of their manufacturing suffered the same fate ply profited unduly from the capital and creativity and likely to undermine the commitment of the thanks to Korea and, latterly, China. of others who have actually produced goods, servi- lower 90 percent to current U.S. capitalism. How In this context, I was greatly troubled by a ces and jobs, and taken risks for minimal returns? long will it be before we see attempts to replace it quotation the author attributes to a Greenwich- Second, I am uneasy with Freeland’s appar- with a more populist system, more state interven- based hedge fund manager, undoubtedly one of ent inclination toward regulation, revealed when tion and, ultimately, a social democratic republic? the super-rich, who opines that “the low-skilled she (properly) assails a McKinsey study, commis- We have seen this before. American worker is the most overpaid worker in sioned by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and The growing concentration of wealth in the the world.” Senator Chuck Schumer just prior to the financial United States in the early 20th century was of great Another Taiwanese-born capitalist is quoted as meltdown, which argued that more regulation concern. saying: “So, if you’re going to demand ten times would result in New York’s decline and the City of But following the Great Depression there was the paycheck than the rest of the world, you need London’s ascension. Freeland characterizes the a major readjustment and a move away from a to deliver ten times the value. It sounds harsh, but study as a “parody of hubris.” possible plutocracy controlled by those whom maybe people in the middle class need to decide to Obviously, in hindsight, she is correct. But when Roosevelt called economic royalists. Freeland’s take a pay cut.” she says that we need “the right rules and policing work, replete with reams of statistics, illustrates This widespread insensitivity of the rich, who able to enforce them,” I disagree. this in the case of bankers with a revealing U curve: have protected themselves against the economic Is there not a better approach than more burden- bankers were highly remunerated until some regulation such as the Sarbanes- about 1930. Then remuneration declined Might this not be an opportune Oxley or Dodd-Frank acts? Might this not and they found themselves among nor- be an opportune time to revert to prin- mal corporate executives. But beginning time to revert to principles— ciples—principles from which rules must around 1980, incomes of bankers rose at flow, but only as examples? an astonishing rate, recovering in relative principles from which rules must These are debatable issues to be sure, terms to the level of the 1930s. and turn in particular on the extent to Freeland echoes the view of econo- flow, but only as examples? which regulatory bodies and courts can mists at the International Monetary be given discretion to determine whether Fund who put this down to deregulation—in par- hardships suffered by the lower 90 percent, is dis- a principle has been breached. (I would argue that ticular the tight relationship between Wall Street couraging, and does not portend well for long-term they can.) But I believe that regulatory overkill in and Washington and the inexorable pressure the social stability. It is extremely short-sighted and response to public outrage, which resulted in both former brought to bear on the latter as the 20th incompatible with the America that much of the of the aforementioned acts, can kill the goose that century progressed. Success for the deregulators world has come to admire and wishes to replicate. lays the golden eggs, namely, a well-functioning came in 1999 when the Glass-Steagall Act, intended The answer does not lie in invoking protection- and creative open market economy. to separate banking and securities activities, was ist policies of the past. Globalization, as Freeland For example, when rules are imposed, many find repealed. suggests, is irreversible. Rather, it lies in adjustment it legitimate to seek ways around the rules. We saw Arguably, deregulation in turn accelerated the policies, which means a much better educated this with the tactic employed by Lehman Brothers, replacement in the traditional conservative and workforce, and social protection for those too investigated by bank examiner Anton Valukas, who somewhat staid banking sector with Harvard men, old to adjust and recycle themselves into other reported how Lehman executives manipulated a new breed of investment bankers with access to decent-paying job opportunities. But this is a costly their balance sheet through an accounting man- other people’s money. It all changed, and not for project, and the abhorrence of the rich for paying oeuvre known as “Repo 105” that allowed them to the better. taxes makes this a serious challenge, especially in hide the company’s parlous financial condition. It Plutocrats gives a detailed description of the rise the United States. Freeland touches on all these would seem that, armed with a legal opinion, the of the super-rich. Freeland includes a fairly sharp points and properly lays great emphasis on quality perpetrators of this scheme found comfort in its piece of social commentary when she points to the education. legality. It may have been legal, but it was not right, financial benefits of the many who surf the wake of Throughout the book there are interviews with and was obviously unethical. the wealthy, such as the army of professional super- successful entrepreneurs, captains of industry and Had a principle been invoked instead of a stars including doctors, dentists, chefs, lawyers, economists, many of whom are household names, rule, perhaps this would not have taken place. For interior decorators, architects and entertainers, especially to readers with international experience. example, one can think of at least two principles among others. But the book is not simply a diatribe Freeland also taps into a new and younger genera- that might govern the behaviour of management in against the wealthy and successful in our global- tion of economists who have done, and are doing, such circumstances: the principle of transparency ized society, notwithstanding the line in the subtitle some pioneering work in the area. and the fiduciary principle that should require “and the fall of everyone else.” On the question of who is responsible for the management to act in the best interests of share- For example, Freeland references the experience fraught landscape she is describing, she offers this holders and other stakeholders such as creditors in emerging markets, especially in the emerging comment from Google’s Eric Schmidt: “I think it’s and employees. world’s two economic powerhouses. “In India and very important to distinguish between rich people As we go forward from the financial wreckage China,” she notes, “the past three decades of freer who get there by taking the economic rents of the of the past several years, I hope our systems will markets have lifted hundreds of millions of people country for their own benefit versus the people rely on and apply principles more than rules that out of poverty, a feat the previous three decades of who, in fact, create a new corporation or a new the unscrupulous can wriggle around. Even the left-leaning development economics had singularly source of wealth.” most talented of the legal profession, handsomely failed to accomplish.” Freeland seems to think that the difference is not rewarded for such wriggling, cannot ignore gov- So “the fall of everyone else” may not be a as great as Schmidt suggests. She writes: “Economic erning principles. fair description. Globalization has created win- elites … are driven by the same imperative to make With those personal reservations, I believe ners and losers but, as Freeland’s interviews sug- money and win competitive advantage for them- Chrystia Freeland has produced a very thorough gest, the world as a whole is richer because of it. selves and their companies … The difference isn’t and thought-provoking book covering a vast range Unfortunately, that wealth has not been equitably between having virtuous and villainous business of subjects and issues. They will long be debated in distributed, especially to the detriment of the people, it is about whether your society has the the wake of the extraordinary financial train wreck middle class workers in the western industrialized right rules and policing able to enforce them.” of our era.
4 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Essay Canada’s Surprising One Percent Never have so many been paid so much to care so little. George Fallis
n the fall of 2011, the Occupy Movement and our universities. They are also the senior civil gone down since the early 1980s. Using the after- staked its claims in cities across Canada. The service and the top people in many quasi-public tax (plus transfers) rate, 9 percent of Canadians Ioccupiers declared “we are the 99 percent” and agencies. And there will be the star anchors and were below the poverty line in 2010, compared with protested the rising share of income going to the commentators from the major television networks 14 percent in 1983. Many readers will be puzzled by top 1 percent. and newspapers. The leaders of big-city museums, this claim. Surely, poverty has been going up. But it The Occupy Movement was self-consciously opera and ballet companies and symphonies are has not. We do see extreme poverty in rising food leaderless and from the soggy yurts and drum cir- also 1 percenters. In other words, the 1 percent are bank use and homelessness. But poverty overall cles was heard a jumble of incoherent complaints. the leaders in each of their sectors: the elites of the has declined. Nonetheless, the protest resonated with many business, professional, educational, health, govern- Many commentators on income inequality wil- Canadians. ment, media and cultural sectors. fully ignore this poverty indicator, an indicator we But our subsequent analyses and responses The main source of income of the 1 percent have traditionally used in thinking about inequal- have been as jumbled and incoherent as the is just like the main source of income of average ity. Certainly we can do better. And our poverty protests. Canadians: their jobs. The 1 percent work for estab- rates are higher than many European countries. Just who are Canada’s 1 per- But the steady reduction in after- cent? tax poverty is clear and is one of We immediately think of bank The main source of income of the Canada’s great accomplishments presidents and corporate CEOs of the last 30 years. with their multimillion dollar sal- 1 percent is just like the main source of And the reduction in poverty aries and stock options. But this income of average Canadians: their jobs. has been most dramatic for those is not an accurate picture. The who were most vulnerable. For best source of data to examine the example, the after-tax poverty rate highest-income Canadians is the federal personal lished organizations or are professionals. They are for unattached elderly females was about 60 per- income tax. In 2010, the cut-off for the top -1 per not entrepreneurs. cent in 1980 and by 2010 had been cut in half to cent of income tax filers was an annual income of We are paying those at the top much more com- 30 percent. The poverty rate for female lone-parent $201,400 per year. There were 254,700 people in the pared to what we pay the average worker. The pay families was 50 percent in the early 1980s and fell to 1 percent, with a median income of $283,400. of the CEO was 85 times the average worker’s pay in 20 percent in 2010. Child poverty has also declined. The 1 percent problem emerged in the early the mid 1990s; now the CEO gets 220 times more. The writers about income inequality have been 1980s. During the decades after the Second World This pattern has been repeated across all sectors, telling us that the real incomes of average people War, the share of total income going to the top although less dramatically. The hospital CEO was have stagnated while the incomes of the rich have 1 percent fell steadily. Just after the war, it was always paid much more than the nurse, but now soared. Again, this is not true. The most accur- 11 percent, falling to 7 percent in the early 1980s. the gap is much wider and growing. The down- ate measure of family income is after-tax income, Since then, the share has risen sharply and in 2010 town corporate lawyer was paid much more than adjusted for family size and composition. From the was again 11 percent. And the rising pay is concen- the general lawyer in solo practice, but the gap is mid 1980s to the mid 1990s, the real family incomes trated at the very top. The shares of income going widening; likewise, the gap between the university of the bottom 20 percent, the middle 60 percent to the 95–99 percent and to the 90–94 percent have president and the lecturer, and the gap between the and the top 20 percent stagnated. Each quintile was been steady since the early 1980s. star columnist and the reporter, between the art only as well off in the mid 1990s as it was a decade Yes, there are the bank presidents and corporate gallery CEO and the curator. before. But since then, the incomes of each quintile CEOs. But they are a small minority—they are the Since the Occupy Movement started, the talk have grown. From 1995 to 2010, the average income 0.01 percent, the “plutocrats” of Chrystia Freeland’s about the 1 percent problem has broadened to of the bottom quintile rose 25 percent; the average Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich become talk about income inequality generally. It is income of the middle three quintiles rose 30 per- and the Fall of Everyone Else. So who are the others? said that Canada has a severe and growing problem cent, and the average income of the top quintile There are many 1 percenters in the sectors provid- of income inequality—the rich get richer, while the rose 41 percent. The rising tide lifted all boats. ing services to business, such as accounting and poor get poorer, and the middle class struggles to Yes, market earnings became more unequal consulting. There are many from the professions— stay even. Again, the picture is not accurate. and after-tax income inequality rose. But market law and medicine. The lawyers will most likely be Have the poor been getting much worse off since inequality was mitigated significantly by the tax mid to late career, in large firms. Most judges are the early 1980s? This is what some writers about and transfer systems. After-tax income inequality, in the 1 percent. The doctors will be specialists income inequality have been telling us. Certainly measured in the standard way (the Gini coeffi- rather than family practitioners. The 1 percent- market incomes have become more unequal. Of cient), has risen but not by very much. Inequality ers are the senior administrators of our hospitals course, in Canada, we have a progressive income today is about what it was in the late 1960s. tax system and government transfers to mitigate Many writers, after the Occupy moment, began George Fallis is University Professor and a pro- the market trends, especially the transfers targeted from the sharply rising share of the top 1 percent— fessor of economics and social science at York to assist those with lower incomes such as Old Age and then used the (poorly substantiated) claim University. He is the author of Multiversities, Ideas Security and its Guaranteed Income Supplement of sharply rising general inequality to call for the and Democracy (University of Toronto Press, 2007) and the Canada Child Tax Benefit and its National agenda they had all along: more government initia- and the forthcoming Rethinking Higher Education: Child Benefit Supplement. tives to reduce poverty and overall inequality. This Participation, Research and Differentiation Poverty rates, measured using the after-tax low- is a perfectly fine and laudable agenda, but it is not (McGill-Queen’s University Press). income cutoff (LICO) of Statistics Canada, have what the 1 percent issue is all about.
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 5 The 1 percent—the leaders across a whole range many, hiked unemployment and left governments of the responsibilities to the general welfare that of business, government and non-profit sectors— saddled with high debts for their citizens to pay off leadership entails. have been receiving rapidly rising salaries and a in the future. Yet they have accepted no responsibil- Deploying her historically rooted common growing share of the pie. This is deeply troubling to ity—indeed, they seem unaware that they might sense, Jane Jacobs in her last book, Dark Age many Canadians. But the concern is different from bear any responsibility—and continue to be hand- Ahead, warned that we might be approaching the concerns about poverty and income inequality somely rewarded. our culture’s dead end. She argued there are five that have been part of Canadian political culture The rising salaries of the 1 percenters have not pillars of our culture that we depend on, includ- over the post-war period. And we are having trouble been caused by the forces of supply and demand. ing higher education and the self-policing of the articulating our concerns. The number of highly skilled people seeking leader- learned professions. These pillars are showing So what is the problem? ship positions in each sector has grown faster than signs of decay. Universities drift away from educat- It is not, as some might think, an issue of tax the number of such ing toward creden- fairness. Canada has a progressive income tax; the positions. Rather, tialling. Legal and top 1 percent pays a higher average rate of tax than these salaries are We no longer ask if a public accounting fraud other groups. And the average rate of tax paid by caused by a cultural increases; neither the 1 percent has remained the same. Moreover, shift: since the early policy is good or just. We profession can be Canadians on the whole do not begrudge high 1980s, there has trusted any longer to incomes that come from exceptional individual been a change in the ask only if it will improve “maintain stability, accomplishment. culture of leadership economic competitiveness honesty, and good If we have trouble with the rising share going and the culture of order for the com- to the 1 percent, it is because we have trouble with compensation. and stimulate investment. mon welfare.” the performance of the elites in all sectors. They The shift has Tony Judt, the are getting paid more but failing in their roles as been toward cast- distinguished histor- leaders, and many Canadians feel their rising share ing leaders as the personification and sole guid- ian of post-war Europe, begins his book Ill Fares is undeserved. Yet the 1 percent remains blithely ing hand of the organization. They are heroic, in a the Land: “Something is profoundly wrong with the confident of entitlement to and deservingness of literary sense: not necessarily of noble birth, but way we live today. For thirty years we have made such high salaries. bold, adventurous, going forth to contest and slay a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: The senior financial community, business press evil forces, earning honour. These bold strategic indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever and academic economists are especially undeserv- heroes must be compensated handsomely. Yet in remains of our sense of collective purpose.” Many ing. They provided the financial innovation, reality the accomplishments of most organizations Canadians agree. We no longer ask if a public policy overleveraged and reckless investment, and sham owe rather little to their leaders. Furthermore, the is good or just. We ask only if it will improve eco- theorizing that led to the 2008 financial crisis and opportunity for the leader’s accomplishment has nomic competitiveness and stimulate investment. the great recession that devastated the savings of been created not just by individual drive but also by We cannot, for example, come to grips with how others in the organization and by the collective—by our consumption is depleting the environment and the society in which the leader and the organiza- altering our climate. We all must struggle with these Coming up tion lives. questions, but the leadership of any society bears a This cult of leadership and its concomitant new special burden of recognizing our collective prob- in the LRC culture of compensation began in the business lems and articulating our common purpose. world but has spread across all sectors. This lack of genuine leadership is straining our Most obviously, as compensation shifted to democracy, although not in the way of many coun- Deciphering Canada- stock options, business leaders did extremely well. tries where donations from the 1 percent to electoral Of course, it is important to align the interests of financing have grossly perverted the ideal of polit- China relations management with the interests of shareholders. ical equality. In Canada, campaign contributions Paul Evans But the compensation shift went far beyond what funded by the top earners have not overwhelmed is needed: every banker is “exceptional” and every democracy. Indeed, the 1 percent problem in Museums built from stories banker gets a bonus, even though Canadian bank- Canadian democracy is a paradox. Despite one Kate Taylor ing is a cozy cartel, well protected and regulated, person one vote, we know leadership elites will and the main job of the leader is to mind the store play a role in our democracy. But we also know Cuba’s medical emissaries and not do anything reckless. And of course the the elites of business and government will tend to stories of corporate CEOs getting huge compensa- dominate and so we expect certain other elites will Kevin Patterson tion despite their firms doing poorly are many— offer countervailing sources of authority and power. and true. But these other elites among the 1 percenters are Cheap promises, Today the leaders across our hospitals, univer- no longer countervailing; they have joined busi- aboriginal land sities and cultural organizations carry out vision- ness and government. Chris Hedges, in Death of John Burns ing exercises and prepare strategic plans, and are the Liberal Class, with characteristic rhetorical fire, rewarded with bonuses for deliverables. “Pay for writes: “For decades, the liberal class was a defense Blood Secrets, by performance” are the buzz words. These are “trans- against the worst excesses of power. But the pillars formative” leaders who need to be paid more. Yes, of the liberal class—the press, universities, labor Nadine McInnis we need leaders and leaders are exceptionally movement, culture, and liberal religious institu- Merilyn Simonds important. But much of this strategizing and pay- tions—have collapsed as effective counterweights for-performance is cant. Strangely, in today’s over- to the corporate state. In their absence the needs Espionage in Halifax blown environment, every leader is well above the of the poor, the working class, and even the middle Wesley Wark average leader and gets a performance bonus. And class, no longer have a champion.” if after several years of their bold interventions, we To use C. Wright Mills’s term, the 1 percent are The great tobacco debacle compared their institution against others in their the power elite. Mills wrote about the political, Ikechi Mgbeoji sector, we would see they all look pretty much the economic and military circles in the United States same. We have overattributed the success of an in the 1950s. In Canada today, the 1 percent come organization to the leaders, and handsomely com- from more circles but the idea is the same: the Maclean’s and the pensated them, regardless of outcome. power elite is “an intricate set of overlapping small imperial dream But the unease goes deeper. The 1 percent pro- but dominant cliques [that] share decisions having Ramsay Cook test points to a deeper malaise. at least national consequences. In so far as national The 1 percent are highly accomplished and work events are decided, the power elite are those who Street-level politics incredibly hard; its members have achieved their decide them.” Michael Valpy leadership through a relatively open, competitive There is a deep malaise, voiced only in an and meritocratic process. Unfortunately, this very incoherent jumble, that the elites are failing us, as meritocratic process allows many to feel absolved they drift away and get paid more.
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March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 7 The Siren Song of Independence Why Canada doesn’t need a navy that can go it alone. Philippe Lagassé
Nicholas Tracy highlights in A A Two-Edged Sword: Two-Edged Sword: The Navy The Navy as an Instrument of as an Instrument of Canadian Canadian Foreign Policy Foreign Policy, the Canadian Nicholas Tracy navy’s raison d’être since its McGill-Queen’s University Press inception has been to contrib- 496 pages, hardcover ute to collective security and ISBN 9780773540514 defence efforts alongside larger, more powerful fleets. Defending Canadian coastal waters has n the summer of 2010, always been a secondary con- the Canadian government sideration, and the develop- Iunveiled the National ment of an independent naval Shipbuilding Procurement policy has never been seriously Strategy. The NSPS is meant considered. Instead, Canadian to award shipbuilding con- governments have sought to tracts worth $33 billion to two make valuable and visible con- Canadian shipyards. To calm tributions to wider efforts, both the regional politics that often in peacetime and during war. In accompany defence procure- so doing, Canada’s political and ments, Cabinet ministers dele- naval leaders have aimed both to gated the selection of the yards contribute to global security and to a committee of senior bureau- to gain recognition in foreign crats, and ensured that the capitals. names of the competing firms Tracy’s A Two-Edged Sword is would be kept secret throughout the process. This to do. A second class of ship, the Arctic/Offshore a history of how this thinking has shaped the navy’s effort to avoid political interference was widely Patrol Ship, appears to be facing similar obstacles. place in Canadian international affairs. Leading up praised when the results of the competition were Originally slated for delivery in 2013, construction to the First World War, parliamentarians debated announced in the fall of 2011. Although Nova of these vessels has been pushed back by several how Canada could best contribute to an imperial Scotia’s Irving Shipbuilding and British Columbia’s years. Naval officers have admitted that it has been defence strategy led by the British Royal Navy. Seaspan Shipyards won out over the Quebec-based difficult keeping the ships’ designs from exceeding Although Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals and Robert Davie Shipbuilding, there was remarkably little budgets. Borden’s Conservatives were at odds regarding grumbling. Since then, the Conservative govern- The RCN will face this same dilemma once design how Canada should assist the Royal Navy, they did ment has vaunted the success of the strategy and its work begins on the third class of ship, the Canadian not question the underlying logic of buttressing efforts to rebuild the Royal Canadian Navy. Surface Combatant. Meant to replace the RCN’s the empire. After the war, William Lyon Mackenzie However, an important point about the NSPS frigates and destroyers, these warships will serve as King’s Liberal Party was wary of investing in the has been glossed over: no contracts to build ships Canada’s primary naval platform in maritime oper- armed forces and anxious that Canada would be have so far been signed. The RCN is still design- ations around the world. Canada’s admirals hope to forced into another conflict. Yet, when war did ing the three classes of ships that will be acquired. build a minimum of 15 surface combatants, thereby come, the senior Dominion dutifully joined the More importantly, this effort is not going all preserving the size of the RCN’s existing fleet of United Kingdom in battling Nazi Germany, and a that smoothly. While naval planners know what operable warships. Just as significantly, the RCN robust RCN played a vital role in the North Atlantic capabilities they want their future vessels to pos- will insist that these warships be equipped with during the Second World War. When relations sess, the anticipated costs of their proposals have systems that will allow them to interoperate seam- with the Soviet Union degenerated into a cold war, exceeded the amount budgeted to construct the lessly alongside allied fleets, particularly the United Canada became a founding member of the North ships. The Joint Support Ship provides the clearest States Navy. These technologies will ensure that Atlantic Treaty Organization, a collective defence example of this problem. First announced in 2005, Canadian warships can continue to be deployed as alliance meant to deter Soviet aggression against the initial request for proposals to build these ves- part of allied naval task groups. Unfortunately, these Western Europe. Naval cooperation between NATO sels was cancelled when the industry noted that the systems are expensive, as are the weapons, sensors allies deepened over the course of the Cold War, value of the contract was insufficient to build three and specialized capabilities that allow RCN vessels which saw Canada’s maritime forces growing ever ships that would meet the navy’s specifications. to play a noteworthy role in multinational deploy- closer to their American counterparts. The full Naval planners have spent four years trying to bring ments. Unless additional money is set aside for extent of this cohesion became clear at the end of the program within budget, by reducing the num- this procurement, the RCN will need to decide how the Cold War. During the 1990s and the decade ber of ships to be built and what they will be able many hulls it should sacrifice in order to preserve after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Canadian the interoperability and combat capabilities of a frigates and destroyers integrated into U.S. Navy Philippe Lagassé is a professor at the Graduate smaller surface combatant fleet. carrier battle groups and even led naval task forces School of Public and International Affairs at the Why must the RCN be interoperable with allied that included American ships. Today’s naval leaders University of Ottawa, where he teaches Canadian navies? The reason is straightforward: Canada’s are determined to preserve the RCN’s capacity to defence policy. naval strategy fundamentally depends on it. As mount such operations.
8 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada As his title suggests, Tracy is guarded about achieve themselves. Accordingly, cooperating with Simply put, deploying with allies gives Canada a the consequences of these naval policies. Without like-minded partners appears, and has always global presence on the cheap. taking away from what the navy has accomplished appeared, as the smarter and more effective This is arguably the reason why today’s Canadian over its one hundred years, he has misgivings about approach. Indeed, even in cases where Canadian military leadership will likely emphasize acquiring what successive governments have given up in and allied interests might diverge, it is unlikely that warships with high-end technologies and capabil- pursuit of allied recognition and operational-level larger powers would allow Canada’s preferences to ities, even at the cost of building fewer hulls. While influence. Above all, Tracy worries that Canada trump their own. It is difficult to grasp what Canada RCN admirals may wish that the government was sacrificed the ability to define and act according would gain from entering into such confrontations willing to invest in a greater number of ships and to its own interests in matters of international in the first place. a more capable fleet, they know it will not happen. and maritime security. A singular focus on multi- There are other arguments in favour of a greater Their only real choice is between a fleet tailored national naval cooperation, he argues, has limited investment in an independent military capabil- to domestic missions alone or one that is equally Ottawa’s willingness to make its own judgements. ity, and in the navy in particular. As Arctic waters designed to integrate and interoperate with allied Canada’s deployment of naval forces to assist the become increasingly navigable, the Canadian gov- navies on operations overseas. In the same way, if international enforcement of sanctions against ernment may be compelled to further strengthen there is a trade-off to be made between having a lar- Iraq following the Persian Gulf War provides an the RCN’s ability to operate in the Far North. This ger fleet that can make only limited contributions to example, one that clearly angers the author. The is one region where Canada may need to mount allied naval task forces versus a smaller fleet that is navy’s participation in these operations was driven a muscular defence of its sovereignty and eco- able to perform notable roles in multinational oper- by Canada’s commitment to collective security nomic interest. Yet, here again, Canada would be ations, the latter option will probably prevail. For and alliance politics, considerations that blinded wiser, both financially and strategically, to defend medium-sized countries such as Canada, experi- Ottawa to the human suffering ence has shown that the quality the sanctions caused. Worse still, How much more are Canadians willing of one’s forces matters more than Tracy believes that the navy’s their quantity when trying to enforcement of the sanctions to spend on the navy in exchange for shape alliance decision making. made Canada complicit in the It is unclear when the first of tragedy. A decade later, Canada more self-respect in international security the RCN’s new ships will be built. quietly assisted the American-led At this point, the shipbuilding war against Iraq by deploying affairs? The answer is not much. procurement process is geared warships to adjacent waters as primarily to industry’s priorities, part of an allied naval task force. The reality of the the Arctic in tandem with allies. Unsurprisingly, the not to equipping the navy. Yet when the RCN’s next Canadian navy’s tangential involvement in the Canadian government has in fact been quietly mov- generation of warships is eventually christened, war ran counter to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s ing in this direction. however few in number those vessels may be, they stated opposition to the invasion. For Tracy, these In the end, the best case for a more independ- will be deployed on allied operations in various subtle constraints on Ottawa’s ability to pursue ently minded Canadian defence policy and naval parts of the world, in keeping with Canada’s long- a truly independent foreign policy result from strategy is that it would boost national self-respect. standing approach to naval strategy. Tracy’s A Two- Canada’s traditional approach to military alliances Canada could avoid being dragged into foreign Edged Sword reminds us of the risks and rewards and naval strategy. entanglements and contentious military operations that they will bring with them as they cast off. In making this argument, Tracy is not pushing if Ottawa was less concerned with impressing its for a more pacifistic Canada or an end to a globally partners and if the Canadian Forces were deployed deployable RCN. On the contrary, he believes in with greater circumspection. Canadians might also the effectiveness of “gunboat diplomacy” and feel a greater sense of pride if their land, air and Want more in the importance of operating within a multilateral naval forces were not as dependent on allies during Canadian framework. But he does suggest that governments major operations and could undertake prolonged, should pursue maritime strategies that place the large-scale missions overseas on their own. There conversation? protection and promotion of Canada’s particular is also evidence that Canadians want their military interests above trying to gain kudos or influence to be able to independently defend Canada’s sover- The Literary Review of Canada is the allies, a goal that has never really been achieved, at eignty, particularly in the Arctic. country’s leading forum for intelligent least not at the political level. In this sense, his per- This, it seems, is what Tracy is really getting at discussion and lively debate about spective is decidedly nationalist, a viewpoint that when he outlines the consequences of Canada’s books, art, politics and ideas. Since is rarely articulated within the Canadian defence traditional, alliance-based naval strategy. He 1991, we have featured in-depth articles community these days. Typically, the Canadian wants Canada to show greater confidence and on culture and public affairs from some defence debate pits those who wish to see the self-assurance in its foreign and security policies. of the country’s most provocative think- military focus on domestic and peace-support According to the author, though, the achievement ers, critics, journalists and writers. operations against those who emphasize the of this higher level of autonomy requires intel- The LRC is now also a registered importance of maintaining combat-capable forces lectual development and institutional reform, not charity. We invite you to join the circle that can function with other NATO militaries across necessarily a better-funded navy. This conclusion of exceptional supporters dedicated the spectrum of conflict. Tracy’s work reads as a is wanting. However well refined Canadian naval to bringing the country the kind of lament for a third option, for a view that has never strategizing becomes, the RCN’s ability to serve as engaged, Canadian-focused conversa- been seriously considered: using the Canadian mil- an instrument of an assertive, self-reliant foreign tion it deserves. itary to stake out a more independent and strategic- policy will depend on a willingness to invest in ally minded position in global affairs. additional naval platforms and capabilities. Give periodically. Why has this alternative been ignored? Why not But how much more are Canadians willing leverage the armed forces in the pursuit of a care- to spend on the navy in exchange for more self- Tax-deductible donations can be fully devised Canadian grand strategy? The answer respect in international security affairs? The answer made by cheque, payable to the was provided by defence scientist R.J. Sutherland: is not much. Apart from Louis St. Laurent’s Cabinet, Literary Review of Canada at “while it would be highly advantageous to dis- no Canadian government has been willing to 170 Bloor Street West, Suite 710, cover a strategic rationale which would impart to spend considerable amounts on the armed forces Toronto ON M5S 1T9. You may also Canada’s defence programmes a wholly Canadian in peacetime. The threats to Canada and North give by credit card on our secure site at character, such a rationale does not exist and one America did not require it, and there were more reviewcanada.ca/support. cannot be invented.” pressing priorities to address than building a strong For more information, please contact Although one can always imagine scenarios military. Although governments worried about publisher Helen Walsh at h.walsh@ where the Canadian military might shape events international peace and security, these concerns reviewcanada.ca or 416-531-1483. overseas, it is harder to contemplate situations could be dealt with through collective defence Thank you for your support. where the Canadian government would be seek- alliances. In fact, increasing allied cooperation Charitable number 848431490RR0001 ing outcomes that would be markedly different and interoperability has been seen as an efficient from what its major allies would be trying to way for member states to achieve common goals.
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 9 Trial by Fire Compelling first-draft history of the chaotic decade after 2001. Tony Burman
pretending to be planning an attack to distract convinced the Ottawa Citizen to include him as part Is This Your First War? the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom of its team that was dispatched to Afghanistan. And Travels Through the Post-9/11 Islamic World the neoconservatives [in the Pentagon] saw as a this young man, still only an intern, managed to Michael Petrou greater threat.” This is revelatory new information. find his way into that country just as American and Dundurn Press Although many of the unwise decisions made in British forces unloaded on the Taliban and began 217 pages, softcover response to the 9/11 attacks were rooted in ignor- their pursuit of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda ISBN 9781459706460 ance and arrogance at the highest political and mil- fighters: “It was a surreal experience, in 2001, to itary levels, they were aided and abetted by a lazy ride horses to front lines that had barely budged in American news culture that compliantly fell into months, as though the war were unfolding a century s Barack Obama settles in for his line. It is encouraging if this is beginning to end. ago.” Petrou described one French journalist sitting second term as U.S. president, one of his We all need to better understand the momentous near him on the floor of a trench, where Petrou was Akey goals is to turn the page on the disas- events that led to, and followed, 9/11. “still catching my breath from the bombs that had trous decade that followed 9/11. Many Americans It is in this context that a new book by Canadian landed so close.” With “a perfect Parisian sneer,” the seem to share his wish. It was striking how low journalist Michael Petrou—Is This Your First War? journalist asked, “Is this your first war? ... I can tell key were the ceremonies last because your face is so white.” September marking the 11th anni- I am often asked by aspiring young Before I began reading the versary of the attacks. It was as if book, and somewhat influenced history was finally trying to com- journalists how they should “kickstart” by its title, I worried this would prehend the wider picture. For be a modern-day journalistic ver- many people, it seemed, maybe their careers. From now on, I will cite sion of Gidget Goes to Rome (Mr. for the first time, September 11, Petrou Goes to War: Whom did he 2001, no longer symbolized only Michael Petrou’s experience as a model. drink with? Whom did he sleep the horrific events of that one with? Whom did he bribe?). But it awful day, but also the horrendous legacy of the Travels Through the Post-9/11 Islamic World—is so is far more revealing than that. This man obviously many awful days that have followed. These have valuable and engaging. It is a vivid story of a young went to war with an inquiring mind, a multitude been the days when more than 7,000 American journalist’s remarkable connection with the decade of notebooks and an extraordinary recollection military men and women, and hundreds of thou- of turmoil that flowed from the 9/11 attacks. With of detail. And his book has a greater ambition: sands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, a PhD in modern history from the University of although told as a personal journey of discovery have fallen. Oxford, he found himself travelling in the tribal with many engaging anecdotes, it tries to makes Thankfully, the story of the decade or so since areas of Pakistan a year before 9/11. He returned to sense of this early part of the 21st century where the 9/11 is gradually being rewritten as new informa- the region, including Afghanistan, as an intern at power of religious and ethnic nationalism, the force tion emerges. This is particularly important given the Ottawa Citizen a month after the September 11 of western military intervention and the spectre the efforts, still, of political and military people on attacks. Since then, as a senior writer at Maclean’s, of Islamic extremism all seem to be combining to all sides to distort and obfuscate the true history of Petrou has covered wars and conflicts in Africa, the define our age. All need, urgently, to be understood. this period. For example, how avoidable were the Middle East and Central Asia. Beyond describing Petrou’s explorations since the year 2000 have attacks by al Qaeda on the United States on that his personal journey over the past twelve years, taken him from China to Pakistan, and then later to fateful September morning? Answers to that ques- which he recounts in entertaining detail, Petrou’s Africa, Iran, Israel and the rest of the Middle East. tion have always been shrouded in official secrecy. well-written book weaves together many of the But in his book, they begin and end in Afghanistan But in September, on the eve of this year’s 9/11 complex and dramatic threads in an unfolding with the crimes of al Qaeda and, eventually, anniversary, respected author and journalist Kurt post-9/11 world that continually challenge even the across the border in Pakistan, with the demise of Eichenwald reported in The New York Times that most informed. It is also insightful about present- bin Laden. Petrou is a wonderful storyteller and several classified briefings given to U.S. president day topics such as Iran, Israel and the Arab Spring. the book is replete with intriguing vignettes of the George W. Bush in the weeks immediately prior I am often asked by aspiring young journalists multitude of people he worked with, and against. to September 11, 2001, indicated that a “dramatic” at Ryerson University how they should “kickstart” Once, after arriving at the Afghan front, shells al Qaeda strike in the U.S. could be “imminent.” their careers. From now on, I will cite Michael whistled over his head and he asked one of the This was rejected by Bush and his high command, Petrou’s experience as a model. In 2001, he joined teenagers what he was fighting for. His translator who argued that Osama bin Laden “was merely the Citizen as an intern and, eight months into replied: “He says Taliban very, very bad … If he sees his internship, had the good fortune to be at the one, he will kill him.” Petrou writes: “I scratched Tony Burman, the former head of Al Jazeera newspaper on that fateful day, September 11, 2001. in my notebook. Not a bad quote, I thought. Vivid English and CBC News, has produced news and He thought he was well regarded by editor-in-chief stuff. ‘How long have you been here?’ I asked. documentary programs in 30 countries. He now Scott Anderson—“I wore a shirt and tie. I wrote ‘Taliban very, very bad,’ came the response by way teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism well, and quickly”—but it was his familiarity with of my translator. ‘He will kill them.’” It then dawned and writes a weekly world affairs column for The the tribal areas of Pakistan that caught Anderson’s on Petrou that these were the only English words Toronto Star. attention. A month after the 9/11 attacks, Petrou his translator knew.
10 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada In the book’s final chapter, “Return to supporting one. We can’t remake the world in our sacrifice as an effort to forestall a looming world Afghanistan,” the author recounts his first visit back image. But we can recognize that our truest friends war between fascism and democracy. Their critics since October 2001. It was 2011, and there were in the region are those who share our values, and dismissed them as communist stooges. now more than 100,000 foreign soldiers battling we can stand unapologetically and unflinchingly As I read Petrou’s book about his travels through the still-resilient Taliban. Petrou left just before the beside them.” the post-9/11 Islamic world, I thought of that earlier last Canadian combat soldiers did, and like so Michael Petrou’s optimism about the future struggle. In 1986, I worked with the distinguished many who have experienced the fascination of of this post-9/11 world, which I share, inevitably CBC foreign correspondent Joe Schlesinger on a Afghanistan, he came away with conflicting feelings flows from his sense of the moment. This isnot feature documentary, The Last Great Cause, for about the road ahead. He acknowledges that “large easy because we are in the middle of it. History is CBC’s The Journal, marking the 50th anniversary numbers of foreign soldiers are counterproductive on the run, our noses are still pressed against the of the start of the Spanish Civil War. Our focus was in a fight against the likes of al-Qaeda,” but believes glass. None of us yet has the benefit of distance to also on the involvement of Canadians. This that western countries have an obligation to help know precisely how all of this—9/11, Afghanistan, was 20 years before Petrou did his research, so we Afghans with nation building. “There is an ethical Iraq, al Qaeda, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the were able to interview many of the same Canadian case for staying. We can’t inter- veterans he did in 2006. But vene everywhere. Millions die there was an intriguing differ- through violence or neglect all This man obviously went to war with an ence. With us in 1986—in a over the world, and we don’t world deeply embedded in the have the will or ability to do inquiring mind, a multitude of notebooks U.S./Soviet tensions of the Cold anything about it. But we do in and an extraordinary recollection of detail. War—these veterans were still Afghanistan.” idealistic and feisty, deter- In a concluding summa- mined to convince an unknow- tion of the decade, Petrou makes several important Arab Spring—will appear to historians and to the ing Canada that they had been in the right place points. He writes: “Despite the ongoing clash of world 10, 20 or 80 years from now. Except, perhaps, at the right time. In contrast, the tone of several modernity and tradition in many Muslim countries, that it will most certainly appear different. Petrou of their interviews with Petrou in 2006 was more and despite the thousands murdered by Islamists in undoubtedly understands this more than most of melancholy and doubting. Perhaps this was due the last two decades, radical Islam’s strength, one us. This was evident in his first book, Renegades: to age, or possibly distance. Or maybe, as these old cautiously predicts, is fading.” Osama bin Laden Canadians in the Spanish Civil War, which began and ailing veterans scanned the wreckage of the was “isolated and ignored by most of the Muslims as his doctoral thesis in 2006 and developed into 20th century, they were more uncertain about what he sought to inspire.” Al Qaeda’s “bitter war against a rich and revealing exploration of a fascinating enduring legacy their sacrifice actually left. Eighty democracy never materialized.” He views the but largely ignored chapter in modern Canadian years from now, when the fullness of this 21st cen- wave of revolutions throughout the Arab world in history. Between 1936 and 1939, more than 1,600 tury is known, how will historians assess the mean- the direction of democracy as positive, however idealistic Canadians defied their government and ing of the turbulent “post-9/11 world” in which we imperfect. “Democracy and governments that volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War against now live? For those of us who cannot wait for that, uphold the basic freedoms and human rights will the fascist Franco regime. More than 400 of them Michael Petrou’s first draft of the history of this per- eventually flourish in the Middle East and Central died, while most of the rest returned to Canada, iod provides an excellent early glimpse of where we Asia,” he says. “The West has a role, but it will be a often injured, vilified and alone. They saw their appear to be headed.
THE WEST THE VS. REST
“One of the fi rst authoritative looks at the struggle over resources with the Rest of Canada that has plagued the West since the mid-nineteenth century. This is an important book that explains so much of today’s debates.” The Honourable Peter Lougheed, former premier of Alberta
“This extensively researched and highly “Entertaining and informative.” readable historical account. . .neatly The Globe and Mail combines scholarly depth with broad public appeal.” Literary Review of Canada
UNDERSTAND THE THIRD SOLITUDE www.randomhouse.ca
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 11 Neighbourhood Watch Bracing insights into Canada’s always uneasy relationship with our closest friend. David Malone
in terms of Canada’s defence Canada and Conflict policy—quite a lot, as he sum- Patrick James marizes, perforce over-briefly, Oxford University Press at the outset of Chapter 5. 156 pages, softcover We are plunged right away in ISBN 9780195432206 medias res, a jarring experi- ence for one who grew up So Near Yet So Far: The with many earlier iterations Public and Hidden Worlds of of Canadian defence policy Canada-U.S. Relations prior to the 1990s. The author Geoffrey Hale kicks off with three chapters University of British Columbia on Canada and Afghanistan, Press with no full justification of why 426 pages, softcover this particular episode, linked ISBN 9780774820424 to the events of 9/11, redefines in an entirely new and last- ing way Canada’s defence hese two very dif- policy and relations. Just as ferent books—Patrick Iraq and Afghanistan proved TJames’s Canada and an exceptionally expensive Conflict and Geoffrey Hale’s So and unproductive detour for Near Yet So Far: The Public and the United States into regime Hidden Worlds of Canada-U.S. change and nation building in Relations—make a useful con- regions of which it knows little, tribution to the literature, situating themselves at both countries and who today serves as a profes- so might Canada’s adventure in Afghanistan prove opposite ends of the scale of ambition and of price. sor of international relations and director of the little more than a politically convenient, tactically Each provides an excellent opportunity to reflect on Center for International Studies at the University misconceived campaign that represented the path Canada-U.S. relations, a topic most of us believe we of Southern California, contributes this short but of least political resistance for the Chrétien and know a lot about and understand reasonably well. thoughtful book on Canada-U.S. relations since ensuing Canadian governments. Far from provid- Mostly we do not, of course, know nearly enough the events of September 11, 2001, to the Oxford ing evidence that Canadians lust for war, or at least about one of the world’s largest, most complex University Press “Issues in Canada” series. It is a more robust defence stance, Afghanistan—once and intertwined economic relationships, as the attractively produced, features a useful index and sufficient Canadian casualties had been absorbed authors subtly make clear. It is a relationship that solid bibliography, and is available at modest cost. in the Kandahar theatre of engagement that our plays out at several levels of government, through This expanding series of primers on topics such as country was insufficiently staffed and equipped to our respective private sectors and, to a degree, also racism, child poverty, problem gambling, energy master—suggests that Canadians can assess the involves civil society on both sides of the border at and climate change, all focused specifically on costs of failure less sentimentally than some others. times (think indigenous rights, energy policy and Canada, translates a desire by publishing houses to For those doubting Stephen Harper’s political skills climate change, sometimes all three). Both authors court readers rather than authors. as a minority government leader, no more compel- also deal bracingly with the geostrategic cousin of James’s prose style is unembellished, but he con- ling example exists than how he managed to extract economic links: the widely encompassing defence veys facts and views clearly. He covers a great deal Canada from Afghanistan first among major NATO relationship between the two countries, defined of ground in the volume’s seven chapters, culmin- participants, with wide support in Parliament, continentally but also intermediated by our mem- ating in a discussion of Canada as an aspirational adopting recommendations of an eminent persons’ berships in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization “model citizen” on the world stage. His volume panel he had convened that was led by a widely and the United Nations (among other multilateral includes a number of minor glitches. (For example, admired Liberal political figure, John Manley. clubs). Trudeau did not “compare Canada to a mouse The book contains an interesting chapter on Patrick James, a Canadian-born scholar whose sitting next to a US elephant.” More piquantly, Canada-U.S. relations in the sphere of defence, career has spanned academic institutions in Trudeau described Canada’s predicament as: “in including an insightful appraisal of the North some ways like sleeping with an elephant,” adding: American Aerospace Defense Command and of David Malone, a former Canadian foreign ser- “No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the the costs and (mainly) benefits of such an unequal vice officer and occasional scholar, was recently beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every partnership. James notes that Canada has often dis- president of Canada’s International Development twitch and grunt.”) Never mind. agreed with the United States on geostrategic pri- Research Centre. He has lived in the United States The short-format constraint that exacts the orities, notably on Iraq in 2003 and ballistic missile three times, working twice in its think tank world, heaviest cost lies elsewhere: the author is never able defence under Paul Martin. To these episodes he and taught most recently at New York University’s to situate his topic in a wider perspective. There is adds “twisting the eagle’s beak” on the issue of the School of Law. no introductory chapter on what preceded 2001 Arctic under Canada’s current government. Indeed,
12 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada he is very interesting on the Arctic, where Canada perhaps results from a professional background deliver anything much to its international partners. will never have the firepower to impose its will on unusual in the Canadian academic world: while in And while the Obama and Harper teams are hardly the U.S., but where, nevertheless, an accommoda- recent years a professor of political science at the a match made in heaven philosophically (the affin- tion may well be reached at some stage relative to University of Lethbridge, Hale, initially a tax policy ity of Conservative party staffers for Republican the two countries’ conflicting maritime boundary expert, for many years worked within such organiz- think tanks has been noted in Washington), the U.S. claims—as they have been in the past over issues ations as the Canadian Federation of Independent election year of 2012 hardly brought out the best in that were even more politically fraught. James Business, the Canadian Organization of Small either: the administration’s über-political decision does not fault Canada for defending its interests Business and the Small Business Branch of Ontario’s to block the Keystone pipeline from Alberta south- and perspectives, but, like many others, is critical Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology, thus ward, however temporarily, on environmental of Canada’s style at times in advancing them in indulging his taste for public policy. His analysis grounds, elicited analyses by commentators close Washington and of the tendency of Canadians to is rooted primarily in the political economy of the to the Ottawa government blaming the Obama project onto the U.S. capital fantasies of Canada Canada-U.S. relationship, but he is very much at administration exclusively for problems between that political and bureaucratic actors there simply home in its many other dimensions. the two capitals. With Obama’s decisive win, this do not entertain. Our achievements, assets and Among the valuable services Hale’s volume ren- dynamic is now likely to be retired. There remains a problems are rarely a first order preoccupation ders is a deconstruction of the multi-layered game great deal to be cooperated on. there. Both books eschew inter- James argues in his very James is critical of the tendency of Canadians national relations theory, summary conclusions that except for some pro-forma Canada in the years since to project onto Washington fantasies of discussion by James, late 2001, which have trans- in his volume, of the tug formed it “and almost cer- Canada that political and bureaucratic actors between realism and liberal- tainly for the better,” is “more ism (with a lower case L) in balanced in its engagement there simply do not entertain. Canadian policy. James, no with the world.” I am not sure slouch in the world of inter- I agree, as Canada’s overall stance today is one of that Canada U.S.-relations constitute once the fed- national relations theory, has here obliged Oxford single-mindedly pursuing its (primarily economic) eral nature of each country is factored in, both in University Press by offering up accessible ideas objectives and projecting its values globally without regional terms within each country but also given and prose, although Hale has more scope for deft demonstrating much interest in those of others. the cross-border ties between many Canadian stylistic sallies. Each volume would be very useful Results are bound to be mixed. provinces and U.S. states. He addresses with to practitioners (for example, the next U.S. envoy His chapter on an evolving Canadian identity great sophistication, and amusingly, the political- to Canada) and Hale’s is a “must read” for any new may also suggest premature conclusions. While strategic, trade-commercial and the psychological- provincial premier in Canada (and relevant polit- a project to shift our sense of national identity is cultural dimensions of a relationship that has ical and bureaucratic colleagues). Each will provide clearly under way, the polling I have perused does always risked inspiring fear and loathing in Canada useful substantive foundations for theorizing by the not suggest a significant shift in public sentiment. and indifference and neglect in the United States. authors and by others. The political success of the Conservative Party may He is excellent on the challenges Canada faces in Taken together, they represent a striking—and result principally from a strong leader, sharp tac- engaging key U.S. actors, including the administra- welcome—break with the drift of the academic tical skills and a fragmented, unconvincing oppos- tion of the day and Congress, and the instruments sub-discipline of international relations toward ition, the vaunted achievements of the Canadian Canada has developed to promote its interests in theological debates over matters theoretical and, economy in recent years having been somewhat the United States including lobbying (Washington’s even more so, into quantitative methods, the latter dented by 2012’s economic figures. ultimate contact sport) and the use of networks of suggesting that if economists suffer from “physics Canada and Conflict sketches an argument that influence. He also engages with sectoral challen- envy,” those professing political science even more Canada’s defence policy is significantly improved. ges for Canada (energy writ large, commodities) fancifully wish to “demonstrate” mathematically But for what challenges? In what parts of the world? and the vexed issue of public and cross-border their propositions rather than merely defining, situ- Canada’s meaningful contribution to NATO’s role security, which has seriously inhibited the achieve- ating and discussing them. (When results turn out in protecting Libyans from the exactions of Gadhafi ment of the full range of free trade benefits the two poorly, faulty data is always blamed. There is rather has not translated into much of a post-conflict role countries had anticipated until the events of 9/11. a lot of it!) Indeed, political science (particularly for Canada, nor to a leading part in the drama of The impression that he leaves is of a United States international relations) in North America appears Syria’s civil war. Neither need trouble us, but it muddling through on the Canada front as it copes to be engaged in a reductive methodological spiral would be delusional to think that our capacity to with a vast array of global and domestic challenges, of interest only to those involved. This is a pity. make a significant difference in the world through while Canada needs to (and does) fight hard for its Politics debated at the intersection of history, law, military means is today greatly enhanced. Nor is corner. political philosophy and economics, more preva- this—pace James—necessarily a top priority of Each book posits anti-American sentiment in lent in Europe today, has so much to offer “the edu- many Canadians. Canada as a prime factor Canadian governments cated reader.” Hale and James each demonstrate The risk for any writer in tackling contemporary contend with in calibrating their policies and tac- how this can be so. issues and policy, as I often do, is inevitably that of tics toward Washington. This has certainly been myopia. So, while in some of his judgements James true for most of my life. I may well be wrong, but in may prove right, time almost inevitably will reveal recent years I have sensed this is less the case. With Errata him wrong on others. But he provides an engaging the self-inflicted disaster of Iraq leaving no win- Ray Conlogue’s essay “Why Did They Strike?” read, in a volume that should be of real interest not ners, internationally or domestically (in the United in the November 2012 issue of the LRC should only to generalists but also to university instructors States), the disappointments of Afghanistan, the have read: “Partly for this reason, and partly looking for high-quality material for students on ideologically tinged economic meltdown in the U.S. because federal Supreme Court rulings say Canada-U.S. relations, Canada’s defence policy, in 2008 followed by ever more bitter partisanship that the children of immigrants can choose to Canada’s international positioning and also some leading to acute political dysfunction, Canadians attend college in English in Quebec, the use of international dimensions of the country’s Arctic today strike me as more worried about our neigh- French on the island of Montreal is now at least policy. The book’s studied effort to avoid disciplin- bour to the south than reflexively inclined to slag it. 55 percent.” ary jargon and complex theoretical arguments will Students of Canada’s international relations In Gary Shupak’s review “Occupy the be its best friend in finding users, even in the aca- might have imagined a Conservative government Bookshelf” in the January/February 2013 issue demic sphere. cozying up to Washington, but this has not been should have read: “This phrase appears above Geoffrey Hale’s volume suffers from none of the case. While the two countries always have a two images that combine to bludgeon us with the constraints imposed on James. He may also strong interest in cooperating with each other, the answer: one photo is of a sterile-looking have had the luxury of more time to explore his their partisan politics are rarely synchronized (the suburban home and the other is of smiling, vast topic. The result is outstanding. His research Reagan/Bush and Mulroney years being a recent shirtless Bangladeshi children playing soccer is comprehensive and his understanding of both exception). When Harper came to power in 2006, in front of a shanty.” countries impressive, his drafting crystalline and at George W. Bush’s administration was already times engagingly witty. The volume’s broad appeal discredited in the United States, no longer able to
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 13 He’s Our Man It takes a combination of head and heart to capture the great Canadian troubadour. Denise Donlon
his search for spiritual sustenance in Judaism, United Kingdom and the United States a full seven I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen Buddhism and Scientology is a recurring narra- years before it was finally released domestically in Sylvie Simmons tive thread through the book. Leonard’s seemingly Canada. Well, that’s us Canadians. We always did McClelland and Stewart lifelong struggle to square the private self with love an “expert from out of town.” 570 pages, hardcover the public self is examined and the reader gets a Leonard’s long career in books and music has ISBN 9780771080401 profound sense of how difficult it is to thrive in had its share of ups and downs over five decades disparate artistic worlds: one that requires quiet and the book is tender in chronicling those times seclusion to create, and the other that demands when Leonard lost his faith, either in his own arly in this Leonard Cohen biography, the big communal gestures of the touring per- creative abilities or the abilities of those who were the writer Sylvie Simmons quotes Virginia former. It is all very left-brain right-brain, and the tasked with representing him. Perhaps it was a bit of EWoolf, who said, “A biography is considered book explores how complicated this duality is for serendipity, then, that the world conspired to urge complete if it merely accounts for six or seven Leonard, his lovers, his family, his friends and how him on. Simmons does a splendid job of detailing selves, whereas a person may well have as many his answer to the demands of commitment is often the enormous success of his song “Hallelujah.” That thousand.” It struck me as a bit of disclaimer as, to immerse himself in the solitary routines of the song, which was originally released (and almost even at 570 pages, I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard would-be monk. That he has navigated this creative forgotten) on the aforementioned Various Positions Cohen is a comprehensive but not exhaustive biog- life through the challenges of being true to his album, has now been covered by more than 300 art- raphy. Mind you, given Cohen’s extraordinary life artistic spirit while succeeding in an often callous ists around the world, from Jennifer Warnes to k.d. to date, I doubt even someone with the patience of business is a testament to his longevity as a poet lang, from Jeff Buckley to Bono to Bob Dylan. Add a Talmudic scholar and the promise of a boxed set and performer. up all the covers, not to mention the placements in could hope to approximate the complete story. Given my professional history with Leonard (as movies and TV shows from The West Wing to The This biography is a definitive work, masterfully president of Sony Music Canada guiding the release X Factor to all the weddings and funerals of ordin- told. It is a rollicking good read packed with hair- of Ten New Songs, among other albums), I could ary people, and you could certainly pronounce raising anecdotes, broad history, fine attention to not help applying a personal litmus test to how the “Hallelujah” to be a massive hit song. Just not in the detail and big-hearted humour that profiles the life business of being his record company is handled. In way the charts typically tot up the hits. of an extraordinary artist who would seem to have that regard, this is not the most expansive account; I’m Your Man ends appropriately in the present embodied scores of those thousands of creative many people who were instrumental in launching day, where Leonard at 78 is enjoying a massive selves. and promoting Leonard’s talent and records over renaissance of reverence. Forced onto the road by The book adopts a linear timeline and chron- the years are barely mentioned, if at all. The con- financial damage from his former manager, who icles Leonard’s early childhood as a babe in arms, tribution of Mary Martin, for instance—one of his drained him of millions, Leonard is now touring the his family history, his school days and summers at earliest and most significant boosters in the United world to sold-out arenas and adoring fans, joking camp. We see the beginnings of his love of language States—is, to my mind, understated. Perhaps the that he could not afford to retire and wryly reflecting and there are charming tidbits about early inter- industry folks were not as useful as media archives, on the karma of it all. Despite a lifetime of conflicted ests. Simmons describes his voyeuristic prowling or maybe a “non-disclosure” got in the way, or it is resistance to touring, he appears to be loving every of the streets of Montreal after dark and pinpoints just my singular point of view. minute of it now, bowing and humbly thanking all. his interest in hypnotism, for example, when he Still, there are lots of remarkable moments It is a tricky thing to write about Leonard successfully puts the family’s maid into a trance recounted. The book does include that fabulous Cohen—he who honours the word so reverently and then has her remove her clothes. It reads as an quote from Walter Yetnikoff, president of Columbia and treats language almost liturgically. When innocent story, but, given the tales of his legend- Records, who, when presented with the Various I would email Leonard in my capacity as his record ary power over women, especially in his later days, Positions album in 1984, commented: “Leonard, company executive, I would often save the note singularly and in concert, it is a mesmerizing (pun we know you’re great, we just don’t know if you’re in draft for hours before pushing “send,” worried intended) glimpse into the boy inside the man. any good.” The label then proceeded not to release a word or phrase out of order might be imprecise The biography settles nicely into a youthful com- the record in the U.S. even though it was available or awkward. It was silly, of course, as Leonard’s munity in Old Montreal with Mordecai Richler and everywhere else in the world. And the biographer’s Buddhist training has provided him a sanguine Pierre Trudeau, and Leonard’s enduring friendship sense of humour shines when she comments on grace. But imagine you are a writer, writing about with Irving Layton, providing a glimpse of bohem- the eventual release of Various Positions in the an artist who is an exacting wordsmith willing to ian Canadiana not often studied by non-residents. United States in 1986 that it “did not trouble the work on poems and lyrics for years before pronoun- As you might expect, there is a great collection of U.S. charts.” cing them finished to his satisfaction. Imagine also stories about Marianne, Suzanne, Bob Dylan, Judy Artistic turbulence throughout Leonard’s life that you are writing about a man with a labyrinthine Collins and Phil Spector, among others, which are was not limited to the recording industry. The life story and an army of ardent fans so devoted that deeply sourced from personal interviews, fellow book includes similar tussles in the book pub- the slightest inaccuracy would be ferreted out and musicians and media collected along the way. lishing world. Of particular interest to Canadian displayed online for the world to see. It makes the Simmons describes the artist’s battles with depres- readers will be the inclusion of often testy letters idea of a comprehensive biography fairly daunting. sion and pharmacological self-medication, and between Leonard and his publisher at McClelland So choosing to write Leonard Cohen’s life story took and Stewart, Jack McClelland. Like Yetnikoff, real courage. Happily, Simmons brought a caring Denise Donlon is a former president of Sony McClelland occasionally struggled with Leonard’s heart to the task as well. She, like so many women, Music Canada, vice-president of MuchMusic and work, trying to balance what he recognized as is charmed by Leonard. It is not a bad thing for MuchMoreMusic, and executive director of CBC genius with the commercial vagaries of the market- this biographer, as it is precisely her combination English radio. She is currently producing a new TV place. Leonard’s novel The Favourite Game had to of heart and head that makes the book significant, show that will debut in May 2013. seek validation elsewhere and was for sale in the captivating and well worth reading.
14 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada CANADA - CHINA Opportunities in Transition O P P O R T U N I T I E S I N T R A N S I T I O N This is a premier event in Canada on our evolving relationship with Conference, Friday, March 22, 2013 our second largest economic partner. The conference looks at the Château Laurier Hotel, Ottawa opportunities and challenges from a Canadian perspective but also with significant Chinese participation. The conference is followed by a reception at the Chinese Embassy, by invitation of the Chinese Embassy.
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March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 15 White Girl on the Reservation at Night
You shouldn’t be out here at night White girl you don’t want to learn life here Hudson’s Hope This place is guarded by Windigo and street gangs Her loneliness said return, but by then the dam covered the canyon down Walk-house Bay with its dark cloth. Standing on the precipice, she remembered everything: and up to the sewage treatment plant how once, she was a girl who lay on her back in a barn, and the canyon filled with sky, a sea whose fish were named sparrow, swallow, osprey, owl. Bearwalkers are set for revenge An old man opened his door and she walked in. over some past wrong you don’t wanna be here How the windows broke the sky into pieces. How daisies’ hard spines here White girl cracked the dirt, and their faces peered over the sill. the rebellion is still goin on The kitchen clock’s two stiffened fingers. The tractor whose colour the wind stole, its wheels filled with mice and straw. Go with the old women Sparrow’s tracks in snow. The pile of field stones. closed up in their shacks And he, bitten thin by weather. repairing their fish nets And she thought of their two hearts, horse and man, buried for the dawn under the new sea. The fractured steps he stumbled down at the end. The moon, too, drowned. Only its light rising from the water. Go with some tea and pouch of tobacco roll the old women’s cigarettes And if the old man was hungry or thirsty, he could tell no one but the thousand mouths of stone. He, the night watchman Go before the bodies rise of his own small room, his pine box bed. and the moon is high Each noon and night he’d left the fist of his napkin on the plate. and the dogs roam She listened for the hay fork standing by the barn, for the small in packs silent boats of birds, but could hear no song. She wondered if fallen apples could rise like a question. Don’t the refuse the lard and scone In the days that passed she dreamt herself underwater, curtains My grandmothers give you billowing over her bed, the willow waving in the yard. Back then, she thought they were poor. Then she remembered Go before the night how lilac bloomed among barbed wire. begins grasping for its breath Once, she was a girl.
Listen to my grandmothers gossip Pamela Porter and their superstitious Shaaaaa ehhhhhh
Curl up with quilts on the couch White girl and listen to the layers of darkness coming over this place David Groulx
David Groulx was raised in the Northern Ontario mining community of Elliot Lake. He is proud of his aboriginal roots—his mother is Ojibwe Indian and his father French Canadian. David’s poetry has appeared in more than 140 publications in twelve coun- tries. He lives in Ottawa. David’s sixth book of poetry, Imagine Mercy, will be out next year. He is currently reading Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto and The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
16 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Peace Country
Nearly May and snow holding to the north side of the barn, grass Corrections (2) sodden with melt, her boots soaked through to bone. And beside, an open shed tumbling out grey wood, First thing in a new day, an inmate’s cheek and the drowning-pond’s treacherous ice gauzed over a stitched hole. “I was too long covering its own darkness on the phone, so he smashed my head on the wall below the vista of budded birch and fir, the barn windows and I bit his lip in self-defence. Then he bit spilling their damp breath. me — you can see it under the bandage.” In the distance the coal cars humped down the tracks And a piece of cleverness: a new kind of shank where the land had been slashed and sutured, a wound discovered when they turned out a cell, that scared her more because she knew it was her life fibreglass given a flaying or flensing edge refusing to heal. She’d thought finding him would be enough, in the workshop, then hidden in a shoe, enough to declare she was his daughter, meaning to be carried past the metal detectors acceptance, a fact. in all innocence. The officers wear with But there was more she’d have to prove, and lay misgivings a stabbing vest, knowing what on her back in the hay, inhaling its hay smell their charges know, a slash to the throat while swallows mudded the walls of their houses or the femoral artery will kill as surely in expectation for the life to break open, as a straight thrust. They learn some rolling the small hard beaks’ relentless tapping. aikido motions to throw off an attacker but know then to run fast and far from a fight And she reckoned he thought in lamplit evenings how that ends in swarming and a zippered bag. a daughter was burden, a burlapped load. In a broken The phone: “Get over here, an inmate’s down.” piece of mirror she saw a torn girl, Late sixties, this prisoner has fallen on the range. a mustang without brand. To belong — His heart has been stopped five minutes the age in him a solid thing, like wood, his years and his body is grey. They work his chest heavy enough to lean on, but it might turn out to drive the death out of it, but it stays. he’d drop her out back like an old sofa, The paddles come and shock after shock a life instantly simpler for the act, she pondered merely confirms what you can see in his skin. while her fingers combed her hair like a mane. “Yeah, he’s dead.” At once, there is a cough and a pulse. She had chosen him, and waited. Strange recidivist, the fellow is back. A few hours in hospital and he is filthy A heart’s all creaking doors and peeling paint with rage. “I signed a fucking DNR.” and rusted latches, windows staring in stunned wonder. And sure enough, the file reveals She’d do what she could — forgive herself her poverty a long-expired wish to die. The lawyers and knock, quiet, on his rattling door, listening are called, and this case is going back to court. for his breathing inside, his hands in his pockets, and behind her the pond like a moon fallen to the grass Richard Greene and Spring working its slow determined will.
Pamela Porter
Pamela Porter’s poems have won the Vallum Magazine Poem of the Year Award, Richard Greene has published three books of poetry of which the the Prism International Grand Prize for Poetry, the FreeFall Magazine Poetry most recent, Boxing the Compass (Signal Editions, 2009), won Prize and the Malahat Review 50th Anniversary Poetry Prize. Her third book of the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2010. A new collection poetry, Cathedral (Ronsdale Press, 2010), was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther of his work, Dante’s House, including a long poem in terza rima, Award. She lives in rural British Columbia with her family and a menagerie of will be published in the coming year by Signal Editions. He has rescued horses, dogs and cats. also written a widely admired biography of Edith Sitwell and is currently writing a biography of Graham Greene. At the moment, he is reading War and Peace and Patrick O’Brian’s The Far Side of the World.
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 17 The Aftermath of Polio Portrait of a clever young girl with many strikes against her. Robin Roger
allows Mouse to incrementally accept the depriva- insane, Mouse finds the perfect object of preteen The Western Light tion that will always be hers. “Who would like you? infatuation. Pilkie’s glorious career with the Detroit Susan Swan You’re short and skinny, and you walk like a duck,” Red Wings took a disastrous turn the year they won Cormorant Hindrance tells Mouse, with a cruelty that hardly the Stanley Cup after he sustained concussions 358 pages, hardcover seems necessary. But Mary proves herself able to when he was thrown head first into the boards ISBN 9781770862227 consider this truth. “Maybe Hindrance had a point,” more than once. His subsequent erratic behaviour she observes. The interplay between Mouse and included allegedly murdering his wife and child. Hindrance ultimately creates a young woman with Pleading insanity has spared him a murder convic- eep compassion is not the normal a maturity that the adults around her lack, and a tion but has legally backfired: sane criminals are reaction to Garth Drabinsky, but I found character who does not manage her handicap by eligible for parole, but those declared mentally ill Dhis comments about prison isolation cultivating compensatory grandiose notions of are denied the possibility of release even if their genuinely moving. “It was devastating,” he said of herself. symptoms go into remission. Known in Madoc’s his experience in Beaver Creek Landing as the lighthouse keep- Institution. “I hadn’t experienced Mouse alternates between expressing er’s son, whose life was saved anything like that since I was three when Doc Bradford instructed years old when I was moved to need and trying to eliminate the mere his parents on how to remove his isolation and quarantine when ruptured appendix over a ship-to- I first had polio … Every time acknowledgement of need. shore radio, Pilkie cuts a dashing that door slammed shut … I was figure, wearing a raccoon coat and overwhelmed.” It is not the anguish of his current Life has handicapped Mouse in three other charming nearly everyone he meets with a gallant isolation that Drabinsky laments, but the return ways. Losing her mother to a brain tumour in 1952 showmanship. Mouse and her father share the of the terror and despair of a three-year-old torn at age four, the year before losing her mobility in conviction that Pilkie is not a threat and deserves to from the security of home and love. Much more 1953, has deprived her of maternal love, and the have his case reviewed. is known today about the lifelong psychological round-the-clock demands on her father, a surgeon Even from his confinement at the “Bughouse” impact of this kind of rupture at an early age than and general practitioner, prevents paternal love (based on the Waypoint Centre in Penetanguishene, was understood in 1953 when Drabinksy suc- from filling the gap. It is not just her father’s pun- Ontario), Pilkie manages to pay more attention cumbed to the epidemic. Survivors of childhood ishing schedule—from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. and on to Mary than anyone in her household does. He polio often carry a bottomless emotional insecurity call the other eight hours of the day—that deprives rescues her from a humiliating rape-like attack by through their lives that can hit them hard when they Mary. It is his almost complete lack of interest in her local bullies and gives her epistolary hockey coach- least expect it. even when he is around. “My father never asked me ing, assuring her that she can master the skills In her evocative novel The Western Light, much about my life,” observes Mouse at the outset despite her leg. To Hindrance’s deflating realism he Susan Swan portrays the complexities of character of her tale. Her basic needs are provided for, but provides an inflating optimism. “Learning to skate development in the aftermath of polio. The twelve- there seems to be little concession to the fact that is hard for everyone, no matter who they are. So year-old narrator, Mary Alice Bradford, whose nick- Mouse is a motherless child and a disabled one use your hockey stick to help you balance.” Pilkie’s name is Mouse, struggles not only with a crooked at that. That Morley Bradford fails to notice how letters inflame Mary’s infatuation, until she discov- leg and awkward gait (“a slight roll, like a sailor, disturbingly insensitive the cluster of adults is to ers that he and her aunt have been toying with because my weight sank down onto my good foot”) whom his daughter’s care is consigned—from the her feelings to create their own romantic decoy. but also a painfully uncomfortable brace con- shaming, bossy-pants housekeeper with marital Forced to recognize that Hindrance was right—a sisting of a metal bar that extends from her pelvis aspirations toward her employer, to the disgruntled cripple cannot hope for what others have—she to her foot. Perhaps it is the constant attachment maternal aunt more interested in her own romantic begins to fully register the measure of the neglect of an external device to her lower half that divides prospects than her niece’s welfare, to the interfer- and the emotional indifference to which she’s been Mouse’s sense of herself in two. She is one part ing and wealthy grandmother who bestows more subjected. Although the novel culminates with her able-bodied Mary, the other part an internal alter largesse than love—indicates the extent to which attempt to run away, resulting in an action film–like ego she calls Hindrance, her name for her with- Mary must psychologically fend for herself. chase across the frozen ice and flowing waters ered leg, whose part in their imaginary dialogue is Beyond that, Mouse has the blessing and the of Georgian Bay, Mary emerges with a grounded to harshly call Mouse back to reality. When Mary burden of being an intellectually gifted girl, sol- understanding of herself that balances between laments that “I hate it when the kids at school whis- emnly using such phrases as “per usual” and words Hindrance and Pilkie. “The next year I was ship- per, ‘Here comes Peg Leg’,” Hindrance’s response is like “S o terick.” Readers of Swan’s Trillium–award- ping out myself, heading for the city and boarding “You’ll just have to lump it, won’t you?” winning The Wives of Bath, to which The Western school, … starting a new life … in the world that Mary’s dialogues with Hindrance intrude dis- Light is a prequel, will know that Mouse has skipped I hoped was waiting for girls like me.” ruptively into the story in a way that is unpleasant two grades before hitting puberty. Which brings us Mary’s vague formulation of “girls like me” is for the reader, but this allows Swan to imitate the to her third problem: she is hovering on the border significant because it indicates her growing aware- complex oscillation of a child trying to put a defi- between pre-pubescence and pubescence, which ness that she is surrounded by girls who are not like cit and the pain it causes into perspective. Mouse leaves her in a confused state of longing with a her and never will be. Her willingness to leave the alternates between expressing need and trying to heightened curiosity about the romantic yearnings close-knit world she has always known makes her eliminate the mere acknowledgement of need. of the adults around her as well as her own tender genuinely heroic. The reader is left with the sense Hindrance’s consistent withholding of sympathy aspirations of love. that despite her disability, Mary Bradford will not When Gentleman James Pilkie, a hometown develop the kind of overachieving mania that leads Robin Roger is the fiction review editor of the LRC hockey hero, returns to Madoc’s Landing to be to excess, but will attain something all the more and a psychotherapist practising in Toronto. admitted to the local asylum for the criminally impressive for being down to earth.
18 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Mysteries of Survival Tales about the burdens carried by Hungarian Canadians after the siege of Budapest. Judy Stoffman
solve the mystery is a university student writing Lake Ontario, or Mária, never the same again after Siege 13 a thesis about the Cold War. The “facts,” however, being savagely raped by Russian soldiers in front Tamas Dobozy prove slippery, tainted by the motivations of those of her husband in the story “Days of Orphans and Thomas Allan who provide them. The narrator, caught in the Strangers.” Or József, the keeper at the Budapest 341 pages, softcover internal politics of the Szécsényi Club, ultimately zoo, trying with his friend and colleague Sándor to ISBN 9781771022040 destroys his thesis rather than have it used to keep the emaciated animals alive during the siege. give Holló the sack. “I finally understood that our József is plagued by lifelong nightmares, having car- responsibility to others sometimes requires us to ried out Sándor’s last wish that his dying body be he final denouement of the cata- bury knowledge,” he explains. fed to the starving lion. clysms of 20th-century European history The full horror of the siege of Budapest is hard Those damaged also include, in some cases, Thave a way of being played out within to imagine today. Hungary’s ruler, Admiral Miklós the Canadian children or lovers of the traumatized the immigrant communities of survivors. The delusional young Canada. Mariska, the Canadian- In Dobozy’s stories, the lives damaged man named Aces in the story “The born narrator of one of the stories Selected Mug Shots of Famous in Tamas Dobozy’s Siege 13, longs are of those who survived the siege or Hungarian Assassins” believes that to know about her disappeared the photo albums of his Hungarian mother. Around 1980, she is the Canadian children or lovers of the parents in West Vancouver are full being raised by her Hungarian- of pictures of killers, and finally born single dad, Miklos or Mike, traumatized survivors. breaks off all contact with his aged who works in a vinyl factory in father and mother. In “Rosewood Kitchener. In vain, she plies Mike for information. Horthy, had tried to sue for a separate peace with Queens,” Mike’s lover, and mother-substitute to the “It was one of the many things he didn’t speak the Allies in 1944, but was rebuffed. When Hitler, needy Mariska, is the woman the young girl calls about,” Mariska tells us in “Rosewood Queens.” “No who needed Hungary’s southern oil wells for his Aunt Rose. But Mike is so frozen emotionally that matter how hard I pressed, even when I was older war effort, learned of this, he had Horthy’s son kid- he cannot commit to Rose and breaks her heart. and confronted him head-on, saying it was import- napped to force the father’s resignation. In October Mariska grows up to be an academic who studies ant, I needed to hear about the past, my father 1944, a Nazi government under Ferenc Szálasi was the passing of trauma from one generation to the either muttered that I should drop it, or started appointed, putting the most brutal elements of next. making up stories he knew were too ridiculous to society in power. Within weeks, the Soviet army The stories inSiege 13 are personal, but not auto- believe, or grabbed me around the waist saying it was at the border, and by December 26 the encircle- biographical. They are imagined yet never cut from was time to dance a paso doble.” ment of Budapest was complete: 37,000 Hungarian whole cloth. There really was a combat unit called Tamas (pronounced Tom-ash) Dobozy’s previ- soldiers, 33,000 Wehrmacht and SS fighters, and the Vannay Batallion, referenced in the story “The ous work includes Last Notes: And Other Stories 800,000 civilians were trapped in the city in the Miracles of Saint Marx.” The fantastical Hungarian and Doggone, a novel about the dislocation of depths of winter without food or medicines or any illustrator Benedek Görbe living in New York in the Hungarian immigrants in Canada. Siege 13 brings treatment for the wounded. Hitler ordered that the opening story bears a passing resemblance to together a baker’s dozen of what are essentially city be defended to the last man, although the situa- the Hungarian-born illustrator Willy Pogány, who tales of mystery. In most of them, something tion was hopeless. died in Manhattan in 1955. unspeakable happened to a character during the Captured Hungarian soldiers defected to the A professor of English and film studies at Wilfrid siege of Budapest at the end of World War Two or in Russians and turned their guns on the young men Laurier University, Dobozy was born in Nanaimo in the years after. Frequently someone—a son, daugh- they had previously fought beside. It made no dif- 1969 and raised in Powell River, British Columbia. ter, friend—attempts years later to untangle or ference—in a cruel irony, liberation was followed His parents, toddlers at the time of the siege, fled unearth what the shameful or murderous event had by an orgy of rape and looting by the Soviet army, Hungary after the failed 1956 revolution. His father, been that has caused the life of a man or woman whose generals saw Budapest as the dress rehearsal a forestry engineer, came to the University of British to go off the rails. Dobozy peoples these dark tales for the battle of Berlin. By the time the siege ended Columbia as a student with the famous Sopron with vivid, eccentric, recognizably Hungarian on February 13, disease and malnutrition were University forestry faculty. In an interview on characters: their obsessions with the past, self- rampant, the city lay in ruins with all five bridges “The Hungarian Experience” in Canada website at justifications, evasions, bravado and sentimental blown up by the retreating Germans and dead bod- <hungarianpresence.ca>, the writer explained that nationalism ring true, as does their bitter humour. ies piled up in the Danube against the makeshift his parents took him back regularly to Budapest “The Beautician,” an intricate story, perhaps pontoons. to get to know his uncles and cousins and he the best in the book, is centred on an effeminate The liberators stayed on and became the new developed strong attachments to these relatives character who is the cook and caretaker of a club oppressors. Survival required multiple betrayals, although he found their right-wing political view- for émigré Hungarians. We are hooked right from as Dobozy depicts in his story “The Restoration of points problematic, even abhorrent. This ambiva- the opening sentence: “Of all the old dissidents the Villa where Tíbor Kálmán Once Lived.” He leads lence about Hungary serves his fiction admirably, at the Szécsényi Club, Árpád Holló wore the most us to consider what people will do to stay alive and making it more honest and multilayered than it makeup.” what that action may eventually cost. (This story might be otherwise. Who is Holló really? The narrator who tries to won him the 2011 O. Henry short fiction prize.) Dobozy’s wit, his ear for dialogue, his sense of In Dobozy’s stories, the lives damaged are history and his unflinching view of human nature Judy Stoffman, former book review editor and not only of those who survived the siege or its mark him as an exceptionally sophisticated writer. literary reporter for The Toronto Star, was born in aftermath such as the promiscuous Lujza in “The You do not have to be Hungarian to be affected by Budapest. Society of Friends,” who, in 1975, drowns herself in his stories.
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 19 Essay Keeping the Dream Alive Canada and South Africa once seemed the closest of allies. What happened? David J. Hornsby
f there was ever to be a Africa that resulted in a number of standard definition of South firsts for our emerging Dominion. It IAfrica it would likely read: the is not often realized that Cape Town Rainbow Nation; the home of Nobel was one of Canada’s first foreign Peace Prize laureates Albert Lituli, missions, being established in 1906, Desmond Tutu, F.W. de Klerk and and a pre–World War One veterin- Nelson Mandela; the country that ary research program between the institutionalized a brutal and racist Canadian Department of Agriculture system of division and oppression and the Onderstepoort Veterinary called apartheid, yet overcame it in a Institute was Canada’s first inter- peaceful return to democracy in 1994; national cooperation program. We governed by Africa’s oldest freedom were allies during the First and fighting party, the African National Second World Wars, engaging in Congress; creator of one of the most joint training initiatives as part of the progressive constitutions in the world; Commonwealth’s efforts. But these the scene of such emotional books as bonds forged have never flourished Cry, the Beloved Country and Country into a special relationship such as of My Skull and tear-jerking films as we have with other countries. This Cry Freedom and Invictus; home to is in part due to the intervention of a diversity of wildlife including the history, but also because there has besieged rhino and one of the seven never been a proper realization of the natural wonders of the world, Table Mountain; the is based on an unrealistic expectation that 60-plus strategic value that South Africa possesses in terms largest economy in Africa, a member of the BRICS years of institutionalized racism, oppression, brutal of helping Canada realize its own foreign policy club of emerging economies along with Brazil, violence and dignity-destroying policies could be objectives in the region. Russia, India and China; and the gateway to the resolved in just over 15 years of democracy. Yes, This essay details the Canada–South Africa continent in terms of trade and investment. South Africa has its challenges and deserves criti- relationship and suggests that all the foundations But South Africa also boasts a number of cism, but the post-apartheid project still exists and were built for a deep and meaningful relation- uncomfortable truths, such as being the country merits attention. ship to exist, but short-sighted policy decisions with the highest level of inequality and rates of Canada, for a long time, has been a partner in have brought it to the brink of inconsequence. violence in the world, a growing rate of corrup- this project and, on the surface, it appears that Permitting the relationship to continue its decline tion and nepotism seeping into government busi- we are the closest of allies. Canada has been an will only result in a further erosion of those ness, and an increasing rate of failure when it important provider of much-needed develop- important foundations and will have an impact on comes to providing key government services such mental assistance and investment. South Africa’s Canada’s influence in the region. as education and health. It is increasingly defined constitution was developed using the Canadian in terms of events such as the 2012 Marikana mas- Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a template. In Canada and Apartheid sacre, where the police gunned down over 30 pro- 2001, Canada bestowed honourary citizenship In the immediate post–World War Two context, as testing miners, the sexual (and financial) exploits on Nelson Mandela—an honour only given to the horrors of the Holocaust came to light, human of its polygamous president, Jacob Zuma, and the four other people in Canadian history. In 2003, rights became relevant to statecraft and were a ongoing squalor and abject poverty of much of its President Thabo Mbeki went to Ottawa and signed foundational motivation for the newly formed population. a joint declaration of intent aimed at strengthening United Nations. It is within this framework that the When one thinks about South Africa, these are bilateral relations and cooperation. And in 2006, emergence of the apartheid system (apartheid is the competing narratives that now characterize Canadian governor general Michäelle Jean made a Afrikaans for “the status of being apart”) was par- what still is a poster child for peace and reconcilia- state visit to reaffirm ties. ticularly shocking and troubling to many. It resulted tion as a powerful alternative to division and costly But behind all this, we find each other on oppos- in the exit of South Africa from the Commonwealth civil wars. But some choose to interpret the mere ing sides of important international problems. The and the cooling of its relations with many countries, existence of two sides to South Africa as meaning conflicts in Côte d’Ivoire, Libya, the International including Canada. it is a country in decline. In my view, such analysis Criminal Court arrest warrant for Sudanese However, it would not be until the 1976 Soweto president Omar al-Bashir, the political crises in student uprising and the increased brutality of David J. Hornsby hails from Elora, Ontario, and Syria and Zimbabwe, and efforts to achieve multi- the state against black communities that Canada is currently a lecturer in international relations at lateral agreements on climate change indicate the would take an active role in opposing the actions of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, differing directions that each country appears to be the apartheid state. There are surely many reasons where he researches Canada–South Africa rela- going. Indeed, the story detailed here speaks of a for Canada’s quiet role in South Africa leading up tions. He wishes to thank the participants in the relationship that once appeared strong and full of to that period, but probably the most prevalent Canada–South Africa Relations Colloquium held in opportunity but now is disconnected and difficult. relates to Cold War dynamics, where South Africa Johannesburg in 2012 for some of the information This is a particular quandary for Canadians as was a lone supporter of western capitalist values and ideas expressed in this essay. we have a long history of cooperation with South in a sea of states sympathetic to communism. As
20 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada such, South Africa was a strategic player in the Cold role that Canada would play in the ensuing days conflict diamonds and the trade-distorting effect War chess match, at one point hosting six nuclear and years in assisting the transition and reinforcing of subsidized agricultural policies. It seemed that weapons. But the increasing use of violence could key institutions of the state. Canada and South Africa were natural allies and not be condoned. Eventually, Canada ceased fur- Unlike other states that saw sustained civil con- formidable proponents for their joint causes. ther trade promotion and began imposing sanc- flict over a long period of time, South Africa had an So what happened to the Canada–South tions on particular aspects of the relationship. advanced infrastructural base that remained intact. Africa bond that has resulted in the present-day On the surface, the commitment to punishing So the need for massive investment of that nature disconnect? apartheid South Africa through sanctions sent a was simply not required. Instead, Canada, through strong message to the South African government, the International Development Research Centre The Decline of Canada–South Africa but was also important for Canada’s own efforts at and the Canadian International Development Relations enshrining cosmopolitan values of multicultural- Agency, started providing training for public ser- With the welcoming of a new millennium, there ism. For Canada, it was believed that we were the vants as well as technical support for the electoral was much hope and optimism in South Africa. The example of how integration and equal access of commission and for the first national census. country appeared to have put the worst moments opportunity for all could be a successful project, Canadian constitutional scholars arrived in South of transition out of apartheid behind it, was post- and we needed to transmit that image abroad. Africa to provide assistance to negotiators as part ing impressive growth rates between 6 percent In reality, however, business interests in South of the new constitutional negotiations taking place and 7 percent annually, and an emerging black Africa were pretty significant due to mining and through the Convention for a Democratic South middle and upper class was giving everyone hope other industries taking advantage of the cheap Africa. that systemic inequality was being addressed. But labour market and easy access to minerals and Through the 1990s, Canada’s contribution to South Africa still faced problems surrounding the other resources. This provided a counterbalance to South Africa’s development was modest, but it was emergence of HIV/AIDS and education, issues adopting any activist policy that would with which Canada sought to get directly result in far-reaching sanctions beyond The story detailed here speaks of involved. the sale of arms. Early in the 2000s South Africa It would not be until 1985 that Canada a relationship that once appeared became an epicentre for HIV/AIDS. would reconsider its role in apartheid Canadian officials seeking to act swiftly South Africa. By that time, the Cold War strong and full of opportunity but to address this horrific disease circum- was in its final stages and increasing vented Pretoria and sought to form part- human rights violations resulted in the now is disconnected and difficult. nerships at the provincial and local levels uprising of various unions within South or with any group that seemed prepared Africa. It was at this juncture that the Canadian impactful and targeted accurately. It seemed that to ignore official government policy against the use embassy in Pretoria, at the insistence of the foreign South Africa was a priority for Canada. Even as the of retroviral drugs. In retrospect, this moment cre- minister, Joe Clark, began providing assistance pro- overall aid budget was getting cut in Ottawa and ated real tension between officials in each country. grams. A former staffer at the embassy, who later amounts to sub-Saharan Africa slashed, the propor- For many in Ottawa, it seemed counterintuitive went on to become Canada’s high commissioner to tion given to South Africa grew during this period that South Africa would misjudge such a clear South Africa, Lucie Edwards, has written about how and represented a larger portion of Canadian aid and present problem, but for official South Africa, she was the liaison with the black opposition and to the region. Canadian expertise and assistance Canada was interfering in a domestic matter. labour movements in that period. She notes that made a real difference and helped the emergence There was also an emerging consensus com- in three years she visited more than 112 townships, of the new South Africa dramatically. Indeed, it was ing out of Ottawa that South Africa was well on providing assistance but also playing an important during this period that Canada and South Africa its way developmentally and there were other witness function, showing up at rallies, trials and were at their closest. countries in greater need. Indeed, South Africa even church services to watch and witness the role From a trade point of view, Canadian business had attained middle income country status and of the apartheid government in clamping down on also came to the party. Trade with South Africa tri- was beginning to focus on regional initiatives to what they considered subversive activities. It was pled with the end of sanctions in late 1993 and con- advance development not just in South Africa believed that such a function was crucial in con- tinued to grow through to the end of the decade. In but in other countries as well. As such, Canadian straining the actions of the apartheid forces. the period of 1992 to 1997 bilateral trade increased development aid began to be channelled in other Canada provided much-needed financial assist- by $500 million, reaching a total of $800 million directions. At first, the Chrétien government sought ance for the creation of community education in value. Canada and South Africa engaged in to enlist South Africa as a partner in doing this. programs and scholarships, and for community negotiations over a foreign investment protection On a trip to Canada in 2003, President Mbeki sat governance skills development. Canada was also agreement, which was largely believed to smooth down with Prime Minister Chrétien and chartered active in the independence push for what is now the path for more Canadian investment into South out the $500 million Canada Fund for Africa and Namibia. The Canadian government encouraged Africa. Canadian trade investment was considered the Canada Investment Fund for Africa, which partnerships between Canadian non-governmental integral to South Africa’s development as it brought would be directed through the New Partnership for organizations and church groups and, in the dying much needed jobs to the millions of black South Africa’s Development. Such a sum represented a days of apartheid, supported skills development in Africans looking to make a better life. real boost for Mbeki’s newly created baby and was negotiations for many of the struggle’s leaders. However, the refusal of South Africa to ratify received very well in Pretoria. However, the monies Despite Canada coming late to the anti- the FIPA in 1997 appears to have put a damper on were never fully realized, despite support for such apartheid struggle, an important contribution was things. At the time, South African officials believed an initiative from Chrétien’s successor, Paul Martin, made. Cold War dynamics and some significant the agreement’s terms were unfair and did not and ended up being a source of disappointment for business interests prevented an activist role emer- allow sufficient leeway to support emerging South South Africa. For Canada, the costs of the war in ging earlier, although there was always a consist- African–based industries. Indeed, even today Afghanistan and a move toward more focused aid ent distaste for the racist regime. But it would be Rob Davies, South Africa’s minister of trade and provision under Stephen Harper’s government has Canada’s role in the emergence of a democratic industry, recently imposed a moratorium on nego- resulted in a different path. and non-racial South Africa where the relationship tiating FIPAs with any country. The impact in 1997 The Harper government’s push for more focused matured and real goodwill was established. saw trade and investment slow markedly, despite aid has seen a dramatic increase in official direct efforts by officials to create a stopgap arrangement assistance to sub-Saharan Africa, but the share Canada in the Rainbow Nation through the Trade and Investment Cooperation for South Africa has declined sharply. In 2000 The collapse of apartheid and the transition to Arrangement. It would take another seven years, Canada gave South Africa $10.7 million out of the democracy was a defining international moment. until 2004, before bilateral trade increased a mere $217 million dedicated to sub-Saharan Africa. I remember exactly where I was when Mandela was $200 million to hit the $1 billion mark. In 2011, Canada gave South Africa $11 million released from prison. I was ten years old, but knew But this did not affect Canadian efforts to be out of $1.5 billion assigned to aid to sub-Saharan what I was watching on TV was significant. There partners with the modern, mature and responsible Africa. This amounts to a real decline in support was a sense of awareness that good had triumphed South Africa. In fact, these two Commonwealth once amounts are adjusted based on inflation over evil, that the pen was mightier than the sword cousins extended their partnership and worked and spending power. Perhaps Canada genuinely and that a positive future lay ahead for South Africa. closely to address a number of global problems believes that South Africa does not need its assist- What I did not realize at the time was the important including nuclear non-proliferation, the trade in ance as much as previously. But HIV/AIDS, income
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 21 inequality, and poor primary and secondary educa- In fact, Canada has not grown as an export and increasing reports of government corruption tion, among other issues, still plague this country. destination for South Africa since 1994, in the scare off many Canadian investors. But it is also Indeed, South Africa received $1.2 billion immediate aftermath of sanctions being lifted. clear that the populist tendencies of Jacob Zuma in foreign aid globally in 2011, of which the This helps explain why, despite trade between the are not helpful. He recently caused an uproar with Canadian contribution of $11 million was a drop two countries increasing steadily since the end of his call to business to financially support the ANC: in the bucket. For Canada, reducing its support sanctions, Canada’s position as an export market “Everything you touch will multiply. I’ve always at the exact moment that South Africa has needs, for South Africa has slipped from 22nd place in said that a wise businessperson will support the and others recognize those needs, is confounding, 1999 to 30th in 2010. According to an analysis by ANC … because supporting the ANC means you’re particularly given the track record of success that Martin Nicol, a former South African trade consul, investing very well in your business.” That said, it many Canadian-funded programs maintain. But in 2010 only 0.7 percent of South African exports appears that the ANC’s commitment to the liberal what is particularly striking is that little has been came to Canada. If one looks back to the bilateral economic order persists, in spite of Zuma’s rhetoric, occurring to offset the decline of Canadian support. trade relationship in the 1970s, before sanctions and many are hopeful that the election of billion- Canada’s contribution to regional initiatives such as and economic boycotts became an issue, Canada aire businessman Cyril Ramaphosa to the position the African Development Bank has been declining, was the destination for 2.6 percent of total South of deputy president will ensure South Africa is commitments to supporting NEPAD were never African exports. Canada, as an export destination open. Without the binding elements of aid and fully realized and Canada’s role in the Southern for South Africa, was more important in the 1970s trade, historical foundations diminish in import- African Development Community is virtually non- than in 2010, an amazing thing to consider in light ance and smaller points of contention simmer and existent. It appears that very little is happening to of Canada’s supposed intolerance for the apartheid fester, since there is no high-level need or desire to build on the goodwill established through Canada’s regime. resolve them. For example, Canada still maintains past contributions, commitments and support. On the imports side, Nicol also tells a story an entry visa ban against leading ANC members, In a declining development assistance context, of declining importance. In 1994, approximately which causes unnecessary delays for members of it is possible to offset changes in the relationship on 1.4 percent of South African imports came from the South African government to visit Canada and the trade and investment side of things. But looking Canada, but only 0.8 percent in 2010. This means inflicts real harm. Canada’s refugee system and its across the relationship, a decline is also apparent that Canada’s position in terms of imports to South application to Brendan Huntley, the white South here. Although Canada was an important trade Africa slipped down to 29th in 2010. When consid- African who claimed his life was at risk if he was and investment partner in the 1990s, its role in ering what is generally the impetus for close bilat- deported, has caused embarrassment for both sides the first decade of the new millennium borders on eral relations, declining trade figures hardly create a and exposed some unpleasant assumptions held insignificant. The current trade balance with South context for deepening or strengthening ties. by Canadians and reinforced by the South African Africa sits at $1.6 billion in 2011, which is a change The reasons for this decline in trade and invest- diaspora regarding the modern-day South Africa. of $400 million since 2004. While 2007 did see a ment would appear to be the problems that arise in Finally, the lack of official Canadian representation peak where it reached just over $1.8 billion, the doing business in South Africa. Three common con- at the ANC’s centenary celebrations in January 2012 global recession of 2008 and recovery in 2010 did cerns consistently get mentioned: concern exists left many in government wondering if Canada and not see a return to this level. All this suggests a small over the alliance between government and unions South Africa were really allies anymore. trade relationship exists between South Africa and as this suggests a bias in the business environment; On the Canadian side, officials often feel hurt Canada in real dollar terms. But if the value of the the costs associated with setting up a business in and struggle with being lumped in under the relationship is considered in relative terms, another South Africa remain onerous for foreign enterprises anti-western, anti-colonial rhetoric used by some story is apparent. due to the country’s heavy regulatory environment; South African government officials. As well, Ottawa felt slighted when the former South African high commissioner to Canada was seemingly rewarded with a plum post to Japan after she swept aside diplomatic tradition to criticize the Harper govern- Subscribe! ment publicly as opposed to through traditional channels. All these small issues now define the bilateral 1 year (10 issues) *Rates including GST/HST by province relationship and chip away at the important foun- (individuals) (libraries and Individuals Libraries dations that were built in the final days of apartheid institutions) ($56 + tax) ($68 + tax) and during the 1990s. Simply put, Canada–South Canadian addresses* $56 + tax $68 + tax BC, MB (12%) $62.72 $76.16 Africa relations now sit on the precipice of incon- ON, NB, NL (13%) $63.28 $76.84 Outside Canada $86 $98 sequence. Such a situation is remarkable and not NS (15%) $64.40 $78.20 really in our foreign policy interest as South Africa is Prices include shipping and postage. Rest of Canada (5%) $58.80 $71.40 an important example of democracy in the region, maintains the largest economy on the continent, Name Suite/Apt. and is an influential actor in the G20, the BRICS and among other African states. Street City It appears that the Harper government is slowly Province or State Country coming around to the importance of South Africa. Signposts such as the intervention by immigration Postal/Zip Code E-mail minister Jason Kenney in the ANC visa issue and in the Brendan Huntley affair (although he is still Telephone Fax in Canada) are efforts the Canadian government NH1303 are making to repair the relationship. Likewise, Please bill me! My cheque (payable to the Literary Review of Canada) is enclosed. the South African government, with the appoint- Charge my Visa or MasterCard. ment of former ANC labour minister Membathisi Card number Expiry Mdladlana to the position of high commissioner, a person who has direct access to Zuma and to the Signature executive structure of the ANC, is sending a clear signal that it wants to get relations with Canada Fax or mail completed form to Literary Review of Canada, PO Box 8, Station K back on track. Toronto on m4p 2g1 • fax: 416-932-1620 • tel: 416-932-5081 Clearly more needs to be done. 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22 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Charity Gone Wrong? A new book lays blame for Haiti’s woes squarely on the international community. Kyle Matthews
country learn to stand on its own two feet?” No Podur’s basic argument is that these aid organ- Haiti’s New Dictatorship: The Coup, the doubt most Haitians would agree with this. izations, implanted in Haiti after the 2004 coup Earthquake and the UN Occupation But there is a much more radical version of that saw Aristide flee the country, further acceler- Justin Podur events, one that lays all of Haiti’s misfortunes ated their presence by taking advantage of the Between the Lines squarely at the feet of international governments devastating earthquake that struck in 2010. In his 192 pages, softcover and humanitarian organizations and demands words, “the Haiti coup of 2004 and the coup regime ISBN 9781771130332 that they now get out of the country forever. This of 2004–2006 were experiments in a new kind of is the position taken in the book under review imperialism … What was new was how successfully here. In Haiti’s New Dictatorship: The Coup, the ‘human rights’ communities, progressives and rad- rom an economic and political perspec- Earthquake and the UN Occupation, Justin Podur, icals were co-opted into this violent coup by a few tive, Haiti is a basket case, dangerously a York University academic, examines the country’s thousand dollars and some cheap rhetoric. These Fclose to becoming a failed state. The United post–Cold War trajectory up to the present day, and progressives ended up supporting a coup and occu- Nations’ most recent annual development report does not like what he sees. The main thrust of his pation that was, by every single standard, far more reveals some startling facts: Haiti is brutal than the regime it over- the poorest country in the western Podur advances the theory that the entire threw. If they can look at this his- hemisphere, with only 22.5 per- tory and recognize that they were cent of females and 36.5 percent of global humanitarian world is a sham. duped, perhaps they can be on the males over the age of 25 having a right side the next time this sort of secondary education, figures equal to those across argument is that Haiti’s current woes are all due to thing is attempted.” These are serious accusations. sub-Saharan Africa. Official unemployment stands external factors, not internal ones. Podur assails the responsibility to protect doc- at 40 percent, although many in the workforce are The book is a cri de coeur for social justice for trine, comparing it to Rudyard Kipling’s “white underemployed. The World Bank observes that Haiti’s poor. It begins with a short review of Haiti’s man’s burden” and referring to it as “the notion that Haiti has a per capita gross domestic product of successful struggle to break free from its colonial some peoples cannot govern themselves and need $725, with over half of the country’s population liv- overlord, France. Podur taunts the French coloni- to be controlled externally for their own good.” The ing on less than $1 a day. Of the 1.5 million Haitians alists for having monopolized the economy. Once author suggests that various countries at a meet- who were rendered homeless by the 2010 earth- Haiti gained its independence, he notes disapprov- ing in Ottawa in 2004 agreed to overthrow Aristide quake, 300,000 are still living in tents. Things could ingly that the United States and Europe began to using R2P as a justification for regime change. hardly be worse. industrialize in the 19th century, but excluded Haiti According to the author, the “R2P doctrine was But while there is consensus that Haiti needs from this process. developed as an argument that national sovereignty help, there is profound disagreement over the But it is really contemporary Haiti that the author should not be allowed to trump human rights.” root causes of the country’s problems, who should tackles with passion. Strong words are directed at While I do find Aristide’s resignation and swift assume responsibility and how we should move the United States, France and Canada, the three departure to Africa an intriguing story that merits forward to fix it. countries he argues conspired to oust Aristide in further critique and analysis, the author hurts his Many informed and concerned observers—both 2004. Podur takes them to court for robbing Haiti’s credibility by failing to correctly explain the origins within and outside Haiti—are in agreement over a government and its people of their “sovereignty.” and scope of the R2P doctrine. R2P was developed few issues. One is that Haiti’s governing system is International financial institutions are described as to rectify the international community’s horrible very dysfunctional and needs to improve. Second, predatory, while the UN’s peacekeeping mission is track record in preventing and interdicting mass regardless of how awful the country’s early his- labelled an “occupying” force. atrocity crimes (genocide, crimes against human- tory was, harping on the past will not change the While many books have been written that ity, ethnic cleansing and serious war crimes). It future. Third, it is up to Haitians now to unify and lionize Aristide and the Lavalas movement, what came about primarily because of the 1994 Rwandan build a country that works, with as much external Podur produces moves into uncharted territory. He genocide. The idea that sovereignty entails respon- assistance as needed. David Malone, the outgoing advances the theory that the entire global humani- sibility for human rights belong to Francis Deng, president of Canada’s International Development tarian world is a sham. In effect he accuses the UN a South Sudanese scholar and diplomat, and was Research Centre, reviewed two books about and international non-governmental organizations supported by Kofi Annan, an African from Ghana. Haiti for the LRC a year ago and had this to say: of operating on behalf of western imperial inter- Far from being a western-constructed concept, its “Ultimately … Haitians—particularly the Haitian ests in Haiti. Because some of these organizations origins are African and it was only endorsed by all political class—need to assume full responsibility receive funding from the U.S., Canada and France, countries at the UN in 2005, one year after Aristide for the country’s destiny, with international actors he claims, they are only working to advance the left office. playing a clearly secondary role. How else will the foreign policy interests of those governments, not Unfortunately, many of the assertions laid out in the people they are meant to be helping in Haiti. Podur’s book are not evidence-based. The author Kyle Matthews is the senior deputy director of He does support Cuba’s assistance, but does not draws wide assumptions that leave the reader with the Will to Intervene Project at the Montreal explain why one government’s aid is more favour- the notion that the entire world was focused on Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies able than others in the Haitian context. An analysis Haiti alone, without explaining what each country’s at Concordia University. He has worked as an of which NGOs received funding from which gov- interests in Haiti were. As someone who has worked aid worker for CARE Canada and for the United ernments would have been useful, as would some for a large-scale humanitarian NGO, as well as in Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He is also discussion of which NGOs in country were operat- the UN system, I was struck by the fact the book a new leader at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in ing without any governmental funds at all, such as simplifies the complex and skirts around some very International Affairs. Doctors Without Borders. important questions.
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 23 For example, there are gaps in the author’s many people, including Canadians, were killed), U.S. government wanted to keep Haiti as an export discussion of U.S. policy and interest in Haiti. Did the world’s disaster response machinery was kicked market for its surplus rice production. Later he Washington want to keep Haiti stable to prevent into high gear. Strained at the time by other large- details the case of a number of female political internal conflict that would result in migration to scale conflict-induced humanitarian operations prisoners who died of malnutrition in prison. Not the United States? Or was the U.S. simply fearful such as Darfur, the Democratic Republic of the wanting to criticize the Haitian prison and justice of Haiti falling under the spell of Venezuela and Congo and Somalia, the international commun- system, he argues that the deaths of these Haitian Cuba? Or, as the book sometimes implies, did the ity nonetheless responded quite efficiently to two prisoners were most likely due to “vitamin B defi- U.S. see Haiti as a destination for its agricultural serious natural disasters: the tsunami that struck ciency linked to U.S.-processed rice, where Haitian surplus and a place to set up low-cost garment Asia and the earthquake that levelled and paralyzed rice might have kept people alive.” Statements like manufacturing plants? Were Canada and France’s Haiti. Both massive responses were bolstered by these makes it difficult to take his book seriously interests completely aligned with the those of the civil society groups that managed to captivate the and taint many of the other points he raises that are United States? Part of the problem is the author’s world’s attention and in many ways led govern- not backed by references or credible sources. Also over-reliance on secondary sources. I waited to ments to mobilize resources above and beyond distasteful is his overuse of the word “coupster” to find the smoking gun, such as a government docu- what they have customarily done in the past. describe the post-Aristide government, the Haitian ment—Canadian, American business community, the UN or French—outlining a plan Haiti’s real problems will not be resolved if and the NGOs. to form an empire on the back Haiti’s real problems will of Haiti’s people. If there was the international community leaves, as Podur not be resolved if the inter- such a document of proof, national community leaves Podur does not provide it in calls for. In the age of globalization, self- the country, which is what his book. Podur is calling for. In the According to the author, reliance is not a development option. age of globalization, self- well-established groups such reliance is not a development as Oxfam, CARE, Doctors Without Borders, But to Podur, this is all part of the scam. He option. It has not worked in North Korea and it Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and implies that the international political economy of will not work in Haiti. This analysis reflects poorly international organizations such as UNICEF form disaster response (and international relations in on the author’s judgement and demonstrates a Haiti’s “new dictatorship.” Podur writes, “instead general) is all fixed. In other words, all actors (and failed understanding of how the world functions of Tonton Macoutes and the cult of personality of most other national governments) are in agreement and which paths to reconstruction and develop- the Duvaliers, the symbols of this dictatorship are and submit to the desires and wishes of the capital- ment poverty-stricken countries like Haiti need the blue helmets of MINUSTAH and thousands of ist West, led by Washington, Haiti apparently prov- to consider. Podur dismisses tourism as a viable NGOs.” In other words, he compares the UN and ing this. The power politics that plays out among economic activity because it “leads to the displace- international aid groups to a notorious regime that members of the UN Security Council is dismissed. ment of local cultures.” was responsible for serious human rights abuses The Haitian diaspora in the West is not analyzed at The book makes wide sweeping statements such as extra-judicial killings and the forced dis- great length. The author cites a student’s analysis that are not backed up by facts. Haiti faces serious appearance of civilians. Again, the author provides of The Globe and Mail’s coverage of Haiti to deduce challenges all related to public administration: little to no empirical evidence to back up his claims. that the entire media industry across the western a broken justice system, poor health and educa- International development assistance is not a world was in cahoots with this plot to dominate tional services, corruption, poorly trained police zero sum game. Podur states early on: “Everybody Haiti. officers and a lack of a national development plan. involved with Haiti says they want to help, but Also puzzling is Podur’s criticism that immedi- No magic wand exists to remedy these problems those two stories are irreconcilable: if you are help- ately after the earthquake struck Haiti, the emer- overnight. Most likely they will take generations ing according to one, you are hurting according to gency clearance of the rubble-blocked streets of to improve and if Haiti is to move forward it will another.” It would have been interesting if he had Port-au-Prince was carried out by the U.S. govern- continue to require external financial and technical drawn comparisons to the international response ment using heavy equipment. In spite of the fact assistance. to the tsunami that devastated parts of South Asia that virtually every road and transportation artery in late 2004. Did the international community save was impassable, Podur advocates that an “econ- Related Reading lives and help disaster-affected communities, or omy” could have been built around street clear- were they just “helping themselves” and hurting ance by giving the task to individual Haitians to do The World Is Moving Around the victims? Comparisons are useful in that they it with wheelbarrows. How much longer it would Me: A Memoir of the Haitian reveal nuances. have taken to accomplish the road clearance, to Earthquake But it is on the response to the massive 2010 say nothing of how a traumatized population could Dany Laferrière earthquake that Podur himself and his new speed-jump such an initiative just as they were Translated by David Homel, with a “imperialism” theory steps onto shaky ground. burying their loved ones and had been rendered foreword by Michaëlle Jean The earthquake that struck Haiti was unexpected instantly homeless, is not explained. Arsenal Pulp Press and unannounced. As the Haitian capital of For those readers who are in search of anti- 192 pages, softcover Port‑au‑Prince was flattened (including many gov- Americanism, Podur provides some interesting ISBN: 978-1551524986 ernment buildings and the UN headquarters where musings. The author argues that in the 1990s the On a visit to Haiti in January 2010, 2012-2013 CONCERT SERIES celebrated novelist Dany Laferrière was eating dinner in a Port-au- FUJII Prince restaurant when the earth- quake struck. He lived through PERCUSSION the disaster that killed hundreds of thousands and left many more AND VOICES homeless, making it out with his Japan’s Fujii Trio and the Toronto Children’s Chorus passport and notebook. This new perform classics by Vivier and Takemitsu and a new work volume is based on his eyewitness by Michael Oesterle. experiences, and vividly evokes the devastating quake’s aftermath. It MARCH 5, 2013 AT 8:00 PM Pantone version Koerner Hall, TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning captures scenes from tent cities to For tickets call 416.408.0208 or visit soundstreams.ca a reopened disco, including reflec- CMYK version tions on everything from aid, cor- ruption and survivor’s guilt to the Black ethics of writing about catastrophe. Black & White version
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24 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada
Pantone Beautiful Mistakes The trouble with elegant science, from Pythagoreanism to string theory. Siobhan Roberts
and the five planets known at the Truth or Beauty: Science and time. But that totalled nine, so in the Quest for Order order to reach the harmonious ten David Orrell Pythagoras created the “counter- Oxford University Press earth,” which was opposite our 288 pages, hardcover Earth and thus out of sight. “The ISBN 9780199002085 Pythagoreans were well ahead of their time in believing that the Earth could be in motion,” writes very January, several Orrell. “Their invention of the thousand mathematicians counter-earth, on the other hand, Econverge in a convention was an early example of scientists centre for a meeting of minds, inventing a phenomenon—in this rotating through the cities of San case a planet—in order to meet Diego, Baltimore, San Antonio, the requirements of an elegant Seattle and Atlanta. This year, theory.” back in San Diego, the theme of Similarly, Johannes Kepler’s the massive Joint Mathematics geometric model for the solar sys- Society (attendees mostly com- tem, nesting the then six known prising members of the American planets within the Platonic solids Mathematical Association and in a way that inscribed their circu- the Mathematical Association of lar orbits, was beautifully simple America, plus a decent Canadian and elegant. But subsequently showing) was the “Mathematics of Planet Earth.” of Prediction and the Future of Everything and Kepler could not get the data to match his circles. Keynote talks addressed the math of climate Economyths: Ten Ways Economics Gets It Wrong). He admitted that, unappealing as it was, the orbits change and the melting polar ice caps. And the The latest subject he has chosen is one of perennial were instead ellipses, and this was the first of his screening of a new film, Darwin’s Extra Sense, interest. Other recent titles exploring this territory three laws of planetary motion. raised questions about how mathematical models include This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful From there, Orrell maps a sweeping history can help us make sense of nature’s complexity—the and Elegant Theories of How the World Works, a of the physical sciences, a history riddled with film’s title deriving from Darwin’s lament that he collection of essays by scientists edited by their the search for harmony, unity, symmetry—and had not worked harder at mathematics and gained agent John Brockman, Ian Stewart’s Why Beauty Is a search that was at times very successful. James the “extra sense” he believed mathematicians lent Truth: A History of Symmetry, as well as Truth and Clerk Maxwell’s law united the electric and mag- to comprehending the world. Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science by netic forces, which set the stage for Einstein’s That mathematics serves as the so-called hand- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Orrell sets himself E=mc², one of the most beautiful equations in phys- maiden to science rests on its power to probe apart with his use of the conjunction “or”—a small ics, unifying space, time, matter and energy. And fundamental truths. Its power, in turn, lies in its distinction that suggests his unease with truth and around the same time Emmy Noether showed that beauty—its ability to tap into aesthetic laws rooted beauty being bedfellows in science. He argues that energy conservation laws are associated with sym- in the age-old tenets of symmetry, harmony and mathematicians’ and scientists’ obsession with metry principles. Of the latter, Richard Feynman unity. beauty and with equating beauty with truth has led said, it is “a most abstract idea, because it is a math- When the mathematician Paul Erdős came upon them astray. And that our worldview—of econom- ematical principle; it says that there is a numerical a particularly beautiful piece of mathematics, ele- ics and the environment, for instance—has suffered quantity which does not change when something gant and simple, he declared, “That’s straight from as a result. happens. It is not a description of a mechanism, or The Book.” (God’s manual of creation, as it were.) Orrell charts the course of his argument by fol- anything concrete; it is just a strange fact that we Or, as John Keats suggested, “‘Beauty is truth, lowing the history of Homo sapiens’s attempts to can calculate some number and when we finish truth beauty,’—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all make sense of the world and universe around us, watching nature go through her tricks and calculate ye need to know.” starting with the ancients (yet another title on the the number again, it is the same.” The Keats quotation is how applied mathem- subject was a collection of essays published in 2006, When we arrive at the present day, however, atician and writer David Orrell opens Truth or Mathematics and the Aesthetic: New Approaches Orrell portrays the search for unity, harmony and Beauty: Science and the Quest for Order (his pre- to an Ancient Affinity, edited by Nathalie Sinclair, symmetry as, once again, not so successful. “The vious books include Apollo’s Arrow: The Science David Pimm and William Higginson). First, there problem with The Standard Model, or supersym- was Pythagoras’s Harmony of the Spheres, propos- metry, or string theory,” he says of the latest candi- Siobhan Roberts is currently a fellow at the Leon ing that the universe is based on a mathematical dates for the much coveted Theory of Everything, Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center harmony not unlike musical harmony. Ten was the “is not that they fail to achieve perfect unity, har- of the City University of New York, where she is perfect number, and so the cosmos consisted of ten mony, symmetry, and so on. It’s that they may be finishing a biography of John Horton Conway, to be heavenly bodies. There was the Earth, the Moon, trying too hard.” published by Bloomsbury in 2014. the Sun, the stars (thought to be a single outer layer) The Standard Model, for example, does not
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 25 require the addition of an extra planet or two à la Thinking back to the 2007–08 economic debacle, for a while and see where that gets us.” It is a nice Pythagoras, it requires the tweaking of about 20 par- Orrell recounts the explanation provided by chief idea. ameters to make the math work. As physicist Leon economist at the International Monetary Fund But on the other hand, Homo sapiens’s obses- Lederman put it, “the drive for simplicity leads us Olivier Blanchard: “the mainstream ‘had con- sive fixation with simplicity, symmetry, unity and to be very sarcastic about having to specify twenty verged on a beautiful construction’ to explain the harmony evolved for a reason. As Orrell admits, parameters. It’s not the way any self-respecting God economy, but now had to admit that ‘beauty is beauty is hardwired into the human brain—we seek would organize a machine to create universes. One not synonymous with truth’.” While the fascination symmetry in faces, and asymmetry is an indicator parameter—or two, maybe. An alternative way of with elegant ideas and equations has been mostly of genetic deficiency—and scientists, after all, are saying this is that our experience with the natural harmless in areas such as weather forecasting or only human. Without this aesthetic sieve, this tool world leads us to expect a more elegant organiza- genetics, in economics it has done direct damage to with which we have been endowed, we could never tion … The problem is the aesthetics.” people’s lives by helping to perpetuate a system that make sense of all the information coming at us. “This wouldn’t matter much,” comments Orrell, is unfair, unstable and unsustainable. This was the point made in various sessions at “if it weren’t for the fact that—like this past January’s massive math characters stuck in a bad novel— As Orrell admits, beauty is hardwired meeting in San Diego. Marjorie other aspects of our lives and Senechal, a mathematician from culture are being reshaped by the into the human brain—we seek Smith College, discussed her very same, rather corny aesthetic recent book, I Died for Beauty: principles.” In taking their lead symmetry in faces, and asymmetry is an Dorothy Wrinch and the Cultures from physics, other facets of life of Science, about the renowned have been cast as similarly reduc- indicator of genetic deficiency. chemical theorist. tionist, atomized and mechanistic, “The main intellectual tool we possessing component parts that can be deduced Orrell’s solution is that scientists, rather than have is to find patterns,” says Senechal (elaborating and explained. striving for simple mechanistic explanation of all after the fact by telephone)—“to find some idea In a section titled “The Standard Climate existence, should instead embrace the complex behind the complexity. Nobody wants to look at Model,” Orrell details how weather models have qualities and emergent behaviour of the universe, complexity and just say, ‘Wow, that’s so complex!’ their intellectual roots in nuclear physics and quan- which he defines as follows: “properties which Even if it is emergent, you want to find out what is tum theory. But, he counters, “rather than view emerge from the system but cannot be predicted going on. And to that end, scientists rely on a back- climate change as a kind of elaborate physics prob- using knowledge of the system’s components and-forth dialogue between beauty and truth.” lem, it would be more realistic to adopt a medical alone.” We should wholeheartedly (and with the “It’s a trial and error process,” says Senechal. analogy”—to treat it as a complex living organism. right brain, seeing as the left brain has dominated “You see the complexity, you look for meaning, you And similarly with the economy. One of the science up to now) embrace the shift from the Age find a pattern. Then you try it out to see if in fact it standard economic models is Homo economicus— of Reductionism to the Age of Emergence. has the explanatory power that a pattern should “rational economic man.” “Rationality is a sym- To this end, Orrell gives a sidebar cameo have. Usually it doesn’t, but it gets you part of the metry,” says Orrell, “because rational people with appearance to Princeton mathematician John way there, not the whole way … The dialogue begins the same preferences will make the same decision Horton Conway, but not for Conway’s lifelong when you recognize that your simple model gets given the same information. Stability is symmetry obsession with symmetry, his latest book being The you somewhere, but not all the way. That puts you in time—if markets are in equilibrium, then the Symmetries of Things. Instead he recruits Conway back facing the complexity, but at a slightly higher future looks like the past. And if market participants for his 1970 invention of the Game of Life, a uni- level than before. You’ve seen through some of it, have similar power and other characteristics, then versal constructor (a machine that can make any but you now have to deal with more complexities, that means transactions are symmetric.” machine) with emergent properties. Based on of other kinds. So it’s back and forth and back and “Using this imaginary being as the atom of the three simple laws of Conway’s creation, this cellular forth. Sometimes you hit on a real solution and economy, economists argued that in a competitive automaton replicates itself and even evolves, much sometimes you don’t.” market prices would be driven to a stable equilib- like life itself. Although the laws governing Life For the title of her book, Senechal borrowed rium via Adam Smith’s invisible hand,” says Orrell. are known, its end result is not deterministic—it from the poem of the same name by Emily “Just as Aristotle’s Theory of Everything was really is impossible to predict, given any starting config- Dickinson— a theory of stability, so mainstream neoclassical uration, what Life forms will crawl out of the soup economics is based on the idea that the complex, (such as the beehive, the blinker or the glider gun). I died for beauty, but was scarce dynamic, evolving, and crash-prone economy is Orrell notes that “the existence of emergent proper- adjusted in the tomb, best modeled by assuming it yearns towards a ties means that reductionism fails. As Aristotle said when one who died for truth was lain stable resting place.” in Metaphysics, the whole is more than the sum of in an adjoining room. its parts.” In contemplating the implications of reduc- He questioned softly why I failed? tionism versus emergence, Orrell also borrows “For beauty,” I replied. Get monthly updates from Aldous Huxley (at times Truth or Beauty “And I for truth, — the two are one; becomes a complex curiosity cabinet of quotations We brethren are,” he said. from the LRC’s that, fittingly, has an impressionistically emer- gent effect). According to Huxley: “It is fear of the And so, as kinsmen, met a night, editor-in-chief. labyrinthine flux and complexity of phenomena We talked between the rooms. Sign up online for our that has driven men to philosophy, to science, to Until the moss had reached our lips, theology—fear of the complex reality driving them And covered up our names. e-newsletter to receive a monthly to invent a simpler, more manageable, and there- Editor’s Note from Bronwyn fore, consoling fiction … With a sigh of relief and a Dickinson similarly suggests that the dialogue Drainie, with the details of new thankful feeling that here at last is their true home, between truth and beauty never really ends—it LRC pieces now online—includ- they settle down in their snug metaphysical villa is an ongoing conversation, an endless iterative ing topical full-text articles and go to sleep.” process. And from Wittgenstein we get: “Man has to Which might be what Orrell is getting at after republished from our archives awaken to wonder … Science is a way of sending all. The cover of his book features a Venn diagram: for newsletter subscribers—and him to sleep again.” a blue circle labelled “truth” overlapping a yellow other magazine-related news. And, one page later, from the Cubist artist circle labelled “beauty” with a green “or” in the area Georges Braque: “Art is meant to disturb, science of intersection. So to read the Venn interpretation, Visit
26 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada The Handcuff King Who knew that the greatest magician in the world cut his teeth touring the Maritimes? David Ben
from the author’s boots-on-the-ground approach: The author could have developed other ele- The Metamorphosis: “The police station was stifling hot this day; more ments. For example, he writes: “Bessie rarely spoke The Apprenticeship of Harry Houdini than a century later, sweat droplets from the police- of the wedding; although, she once commented Bruce MacNab men making their shift comments are still visible on privately to Dorothy Young, one of Houdini’s later Goose Lane the June 25, 1896, page of the station patrol book.” assistants, ‘I sold my virginity to Houdini for an 366 pages, softcover The book is also a biography of Dooley, the orange’.” ISBN 9780864926777 organist masquerading as a magician. MacNab’s What does that mean? research on Dooley is nothing short of ground- MacNab is absolutely correct when he writes breaking and it fills in long lost elements of his rela- that “Houdini’s greatest strength as an escape artist art biography, part travelogue, tionship, an important one, with Houdini. was his showmanship.” I would encourage read- part magic book, Bruce MacNab’s The The Metamorphosis is also a travelogue, past and ers to pay close attention to MacNab’s description PMetamorphosis: The Apprenticeship of Harry present. In describing the towns and communities of the trunk trick, Houdini’s signature routine. Houdini follows the exploits of Houdini as he laid where the players performed, the author places the Read the description, and then watch a few per- the groundwork for becoming a 20th-century icon. landmarks—the hotels, the theatres, the police sta- formances on YouTube—search under “Houdini Houdini, of course, became famous for escaping tions and the prisons—in context, but then brings Metamorphosis”—and then ask yourself who you from ropes in less time than it took to be tied up, the reader back to the present, noting which edi- would rather see—Houdini or the current crop of from handcuffs brought and placed on him by fices still exist or how they have been transformed. performers who have no understanding of the dra- others, from straitjackets used on the insane and And then there is the magic of the landscape. Here, matic arc of the effect, or how to perform it. from jail cells that housed notorious criminals. for example, MacNab describes one of the natural There is also an interesting omission in The He also exposed psychics and seers, all of whom wonders of the world. Metamorphosis, but one for which MacNab should he regarded as fraudulent. What few knew until not be held accountable. It is a subtle point, but this publication is that seeds for these sensational Given that Harry Houdini studied illusions, he an intriguing one for those interested in Houdini. stunts and services were first sown in the summer would have been awestruck by what he saw MacNab goes to great lengths to describe the of 1896 in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Quite next to the New Brunswick Provincial Lunatic stunts—the handcuff escapes and the jailbreaks— extraordinary really, considering that Houdini has Asylum. The asylum was built on top of one that Houdini pioneered. What surprised me, been profiled hundreds of times since his death in of the earth’s greatest illusions—the Reversing however, is that there is no mention of the Yogi 1926, and prior to The Metamorphosis, the coverage Falls. Twice a day, the rising tide meets Masterpiece, also known as the “Hindoo Needle of Houdini’s Maritime exploits could be counted in the mouth of the mighty Saint John River, Trick,” the feat where the performer swallows doz- paragraphs rather than pages. appearing to reverse the flow of the waterway. ens of sewing needles and a long length of thread, Why the Maritimes, and why MacNab? An early explorer, Samuel de Champlain, and then regurgitates the needles threaded. The Houdini came to the Maritimes because he and wrote that that the very sight of the reversing first description of Houdini performing this- mir his wife, Bess, both in their early twenties, had been falls frightened his seasoned crew. acle, something he did onstage and off for most of eking out a living as itinerant variety artists in the his career, is April 11, 1899, a couple of years after hinterlands of America, and had the opportunity to While his local knowledge is stellar, the same the Maritime tour. Houdini stated, however, in a join a larger show, one that would tour “internation- cannot be said of MacNab’s understanding of magic. booklet/catalogue he issued in the late 1890s that ally,” that is, to the Maritimes, organized, promoted The author goes to enormous lengths to document the feat was taught to him by “Hindoos at World’s and headlined by Marco the Magician, aka Edward the story, seasoning the tale with details from pri- Fair in 1893.” If Houdini really did learn the secret to James Dooley, an accomplished church organist mary sources, but then makes sweeping statements the feat in 1893, why would he not have performed who harboured, like Walter Mitty, the notion that about the art itself. For example, MacNab writes, it while on tour in the Maritimes? he was someone else, a master magician like the “Unlike the star magicians who used exotic birds in Finally, having toured the Maritimes at the then king of conjuring, Alexander Herrmann. their stage show, Ehrich [Houdini] could only afford start of my own professional career, I can state that MacNab, a proud Maritimer, became enamoured an ordinary bantam chicken.” The problem is that, MacNab’s description of the various theatres may be with Houdini when, as a boy, he read of Houdini’s historically, magicians did not employ exotic birds the closest you will ever come to standing on those exploits. At least he declares his bias. In his pro- in their shows until decades later. A trifle, I know, stages. The book also made me realize how little has logue MacNab confesses that he was “thrilled to except to this reader. If there were just one or two changed: it is still difficult to enter Canada—or any know that Houdini walked our streets, boarded our errors, I could let them pass. But as the inaccuracies other country—as an itinerant performer; you still steamships, and entertained our people long before mount, and there are dozens, for someone like me rely on publicity stunts and public appearances to the world knew his name.” MacNab’s enthusiasm who has spent a lifetime studying the subject, the motivate people to purchase tickets; and you still for his homeland and Houdini is infectious, and willing suspension of disbelief—essential to stories experience a rollercoaster ride of emotions as you lends the book much charm. of all stripes—disappears. move from a full house to one where the number of So the book is a biography of Houdini in the MacNab also repeats stories that are most likely people on stage may outnumber those in the audi- Maritimes. As he maps out the tour route, MacNab apocryphal, or at the very least have no provenance. ence, and then back again. identifies all of the players, even the policemen Did Houdini, for example, as MacNab suggests, The Metamorphosis is MacNab’s first book, and who cuffed Houdini, and the places where Houdini really show “astonishing determination for a child” like Houdini’s inaugural international tour, it is not performed, complete with box office reports. As by practising “for hours by hanging upside down without its flaws. But, as the scribe who reviewed one excerpt illustrates, the reader certainly benefits and picking up sewing needles off the floor with his Houdini’s performance in Moncton wrote, “give eyelashes”? It certainly made great newspaper copy him a good house tonight. His show certainly David Ben is a Canadian magician, the artistic when Houdini probably said it in the 1890s, but today merits it.” I hope that the public and professional director of Magicana, the publisher of Magicol and it simply stretches the bounds of credibility, even for magicians embrace The Metamorphosis. MacNab a fan of the East Coast. someone like me who believes in the impossible. certainly deserves it.
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 27 Bogeymen Versus Sportsmen Race, lobbyists and the ironic development of Canadian gun laws. Christian Pearce
regard to the modern gun prob- Arming and Disarming: lem and driving the need for new A History of Gun Control in gun laws. Arming and Disarming Canada reveals that we might not be so far R. Blake Brown from where we have been before. University of Toronto Press The book’s other significant 349 pages, hardcover success is in its description of the ISBN 9781442646391 Canadian gun lobby. Following the Second World War, large groups of men in this country irearms violence, in one became involved in hunting, even- form or other, rarely drifts tually joining with sport shooters Ffar from the front page. Be and gun collectors to form one it small town school disasters such of the more powerful lobbies in as Newtown or inner city street Canadian history. gang shootouts, our culture is While those who support regularly bombarded with cover- increased gun control some- age of the mayhem and horror that times label their opponents “gun come with gun violence. Despite nuts”—suggesting a measure of the countless hours spent covering madness in their position—Brown such tragedy, however, attention uses Arming and Disarming as is infrequently paid to the lengthy “an opportunity to contribute to history of firearms legislation and the Canadian literature on social how indeed we got to a place where the carnage Brown notes, “less than noble impulses motivated movements.” Whatever is to be made of their pol- can occur. most gun control measures” during the early years itics, Brown’s book demonstrates clearly that those Enter Saint Mary’s history professor R. Blake of Canada’s formation. who oppose firearms regulation in fact represent Brown, with his second book, Arming and Arming and Disarming points out that assorted a model of democratic action. Characterized by Disarming: A History of Gun Control in Canada. firearms laws were inspired partly by a ubiquitous country living, traditional masculine ideals and a Author of 2009’s A Trying Question: The Jury apprehension of the other, represented at vari- deep distrust of government, this movement has in Nineteenth-Century Canada, Arming and ous times by French Canadians, the Irish, Italians, perceived almost every firearm law as invariably Disarming unites Brown’s extensive work writing the Japanese, Chinese, Bolsheviks and, of course, part of a despotic plan by effeminate urban elites and lecturing on the history of Canada’s firearms aboriginal peoples. Capturing the general senti- to ban firearms completely and forever. Brown laws. ment, the Calgary Weekly Herald wrote of the contends that this response reflects a growing sense As academic works go, Arming and Disarming is latter group in 1885, “if this country is to be made of disempowerment experienced by rural, white, a very accessible read. Brown’s writing is detailed, habitable for white men the government must dis- working class men. To this group, the regulation of but not to a painful extent, instead providing excel- arm all the Indians.” Legislative efforts were thus guns has become a proverbial line in the sand. lent referencing for readers interested in furthering undertaken to keep firearms from those deemed It is important to bear in mind that gun control their research. Something of a primer, his book dangerous. is what has been called a “free rider,” an issue on provides essential facts about legislative develop- Brown’s analysis in this regard is particularly which the vast majority can espouse a position ments interspersed with quotes and anecdotes that poignant in view of its current relevance. He notes without actually doing anything in support of that are at once interesting and insightful. By now, for that “fear has thus motivated much of Canada’s belief. In stark contrast, the firearms lobby has done example, it is hard to imagine a time when retail- firearm legislation—politicians often invoked everything it possibly can to shrivel or kill virtually ers like Eaton’s would openly show the latest and racist, ethnocentric, and xenophobic rationales every proposed piece of gun control legislation greatest in guns. for gun control.” Indeed, following the high-profile since the 1970s. Invoking the language of rights Of greater import, Brown’s book offers compel- shooting at a BBQ last summer in Toronto, in which rooted in a sense of collective heritage, the pro-gun ling analysis on a number of fronts, chief perhaps of two people were killed and 22 others shot, Mayor movement organized meetings, delegations and which is the notion that this country has a seemingly Rob Ford called for immigration laws to be used to petitions, ran advertisements and political candi- racist history. While many political elites before and exclude from Canada those convicted of such gun dates, and wrote forests’ worth of correspondence. after Confederation believed that men of property crimes, inaccurately implying a foreign origin of Arming and Disarming observes that in 1976, when had inherited a right to bear arms, reflected partly the problem. capital punishment was still an issue, the number in the English Bill of Rights, they also held that guns Whereas in the early 20th century newspapers of letters to Parliament concerning gun control far in the hands of “suspicious groups” represented could boldly point out the Italian ethnicity of assail- exceeded those received on the death penalty. And a particular threat to established power. As such, ants in gun crimes, Ford at least understands that much like other social movements with a legacy of direct reference to the race of the culprits he has coordinated action, Canada’s gun lobby has been Christian Pearce is a criminal lawyer in Toronto in mind—young black men—would be unaccept- remarkably—albeit not relatively—effective. and co-author, with Rodrigo Bascuñán, of Enter able. Nevertheless, the mayor, other politicians The situation in the United States is an - inevit the Babylon System: Unpacking Gun Culture from and many members of the public perceive a new able point of comparison throughout Arming and Samuel Colt to 50 Cent (Vintage, 2007). “bogeyman,” to borrow Brown’s terminology, with Disarming. Fearing that we might inherit its gun
28 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada culture, Canadian gun laws have been directly Arming and Disarming quotes Liberal senator ernment—having kept its promise to undo the shaped in response to the American situation. As Frederick William Rowe, who in 1974 said, “the registry—has the clear backing of the pro-gun early as 1866, the Halifax Citizen wrote presciently, most potent single lobby in the United States today movement, it has simultaneously ramped up “our American cousins are rapidly becoming a is the National Rifle Association … [which spent] developments in Canadian gun law, opting to do so people of firearms.” Brown notes that media reports hundreds of millions of dollars, not to convey the through the Criminal Code, including the introduc- of this type highlighted the “perceived differences truth to the people of the United States, and infer- tion of various mandatory minimum sentences for between Canadian and American gun culture and entially to Canada, but to distort the truth.” The firearms offences. In my experience as a criminal regulation, and motivated appeals for new laws NRA’s potency rests on the fact that the U.S. gun lawyer in Toronto, these laws appear to be applied to cement these distinctions.” Brown identifies industry has used its ample resources to co-opt most often to young men of colour. As part of a Canada’s handgun registry of the 1930s as a signifi- what is already a powerful social movement. In tough-on-crime agenda—policies similar to those cant departure point in our comparative history rallying its millions of members and directly lob- that have failed miserably in the United States— with gun control. Partially as a result of that regis- bying U.S. politicians, the NRA is unlike any force Canadians should be aware of, and filled with trepi- try, American society currently has approximately here. The lack of such force helps explain 1995’s dation over, the current government’s approach to 60 times more handguns overall than does our own. Liberal Bill C-68, which created Canada’s predict- gun control. What most distinguishes Canada’s situation, ably controversial gun registry. The gun registry was a political triumph for the making the passage of firearms laws comparatively Arming and Disarming presents a history of gun gun control and women’s movements in Canada, more possible, is clear. Brown observes: “The control chock-full of irony—none more so than but it was also a significant drain on resources, modest size of the Canadian gun-manufacturing Stephen Harper’s about-face on the gun registry. creating a mammoth and marginally effective industry made forming a unified Canadian gun The lone member of the Reform Party to vote for bureaucracy. Those who pushed for its creation lobby difficult. In the United States, major firearms the original legislation, believing his Calgary rid- would maintain that it succeeded in realizing its makers contributed heavily to the [National Rifle ing supported it, Harper would eventually become underlying purpose: making it more difficult to Association].” prime minister in 2006 based partly on a promise to obtain and own any type of firearm in Canada with Indeed, “modest” may even be an overstatement dismantle that same registry. the addition of more red tape. The registry, how- of the size of Canada’s gun industry. In researching Brown’s book places important events such as ever, was a political compromise. Enter the Babylon System: Unpacking Gun Culture the assassination of political figures in the United Whether for white men or aboriginal people, from Samuel Colt to 50 Cent, which I wrote with States and school shootings, including the Montreal hunting for sustenance or sport is an important Rodrigo Bascuñán, I was only able to identify two Massacre, in context, accounting for their effect on tradition in this country. While there are some Canadian firearms manufacturers of any magni- Canadian gun laws, but more recent tragedies, par- issues with the availability of any gun, there are tude, Colt Canada and Para-Ordnance, and I was ticularly Toronto’s Boxing Day shooting in 2005, go relatively few problems with access to firearms recently told by a Toronto Star journalist that the somewhat surprisingly unmentioned. (Other more appropriate for this pastime. Target shooting and, latter may have relocated completely to the United recent shootings such as the horrors in Newtown especially, gun collecting—particularly where it States. (She explained that calls to the company’s and Aurora, and the aforementioned Toronto BBQ involves handguns—is another monster altogether. listed Toronto phone number were going unan- tragedy, occurred after this book had gone to the Given the very significant threat of gun theft from swered.) Without significant financial backing from printer.) legal owners, and in view of the apparent devasta- the gun industry, Canadian organizations such as The public perception of an increase in gun tion being wrought with handguns, a complete ban the National Firearms Association have failed to violence among street gangs, however, represents on handguns represents the only safe policy for our come anywhere near the lobbying clout of the NRA. a critical turning point. While the Harper gov- society.
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 29 Confederation as Conspiracy Was Canada’s tenth province really strong-armed into the country? Jeff A. Webb
the ballot box. Malone denies Don’t Tell the that, and thus dissents from the Newfoundlanders: The True view taken by most historians. Story of Newfoundland’s He provides some undocu- Confederation with Canada mented and unverifiable third- Greg Malone hand hearsay and gossip about Knopf vote rigging. But how can the 314 pages, hardcover reader evaluate the veracity of ISBN 9780307401335 rumour? Malone offers no evidence that the returning officer, hen a book’s title Magistrate Nehemiah Short, advertises that it faked the election returns, Wis “the true story,” but he asserts it. Similarly, he I immediately suspect that it is repeats Halley’s accusations not. Greg Malone’s account is, that Joey Smallwood was guilty for the most part, not untrue. of extortion and bribery in for- The government of the United cing Ches Crosbie to disband Kingdom and the govern- the Economic Union Party. ment of Canada decided that You cannot libel the dead, and it would be best for all con- neither Short nor Smallwood is cerned if Newfoundland joined alive to defend himself against the Canadian confederation. these charges. The two governments did what they were able, confederate in the 1940s. Until his death, Halley Besides repeating rumour and character assas- behind the scenes, to encourage the voters was the most vocal of the old anti-confederates and sination, this book contains a series of nation- of Newfoundland to join Canada. But when a cranky commentator on the ways that Canada alist shibboleths. It begins, for example, with Malone claims that “that truth was kept from the was mistreating Newfoundland. Halley handed the fishing admirals flogging planters and burning Newfoundland and Canadian public for almost torch to his younger friend, and Malone has pub- their houses, not because such stories are relevant half a century, and it needs to be acknowledged—to lished the book that Halley wanted to write but did to the topic at hand or because historians accept change minds and to improve attitudes,” he is mov- not live to finish. such myths, but to establish that Newfoundlanders ing into an area of polemic, not truth. Newfoundlanders in the 1940s, such as Halley, had always been victims of British policy. The What separates this book from the earlier histor- suspected that conversations were taking place Commission of Government, the appointed body ies of Newfoundland’s road to confederation is not between Ottawa and London behind closed doors, that administered Newfoundland between 1934 the evidence it presents, but the tone it uses. The and in the 1980s historians confirmed it. When the and 1949, was, Malone tells us, brought about by facts in this book are well known, despite its billing government records were released to the public bribery. Britain “chose to humiliate Newfoundland” as an exposé, and there is little new evidence here 50 years after the events, and especially when Paul he reports, and then went on to vandalize the legis- that has not been published previously. Where it Bridle published a large set of Canadian documents lative assembly building. Lester Pearson, readers differs from other accounts of the period is in its in 1984, the extent of Canadian and British efforts may be surprised to know, gave Quebec the rev- single-minded effort to portray events of the time to make Newfoundland into a Canadian province enue from the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project. as a conspiracy, and in the lack of judiciousness in became known. In fact, most of the evidence in The Churchill Falls contract is a different topic, but its presentation of the evidence. this book is reproduced from Bridle’s two vol- it is an example of the pattern. Malone, a founding member of the satirical umes. Malone seems to have done little of his own Part of the anti-confederate mythology was that theatrical troupe CODCO, was sensational in his archival research, but relies heavily on the Bridle Newfoundland was a prosperous country in the first impersonation of Barbara Frum, and he is equally collection, so it is not surprising that he adds little part of the 20th century. Malone tells us that “we lost sensational in his presentation of history. Not just to the account. everything when we joined Canada.” Newfoundland a comic, in recent years he has become a political The fact that the UK and Canada favoured had a budget surplus in 1948, but he does not men- activist. Through that work he befriended James confederation is one thing. We have long known tion that it also had a low per capita income and Halley, who had been a young lawyer and an anti- that Canadian and British governments gave the little prospect of maintaining a balanced budget Newfoundland advocates of confederation every if it was to improve services to anything like the Jeff Webb is a professor of history at Memorial possible advantage, and placed obstacles in the way North American average. And the country did have University of Newfoundland. Having published of those who wanted a return to responsible gov- an accumulated debt. That hardly fits the definition widely in political and cultural history, he is cur- ernment. Malone is justified in feeling that this was of prosperous. Many Newfoundlanders were opti- rently writing a book on the intellectual history of unfair. But emotional reaction aside, ultimately the mistic about their future after the Second World Newfoundland scholarship. Newfoundland people decided the matter through War, but many others thought that the economic
30 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada security of being a Canadian province outweighed sidering appointing a national convention to inves- more effective than the delegation appointed by the intangible benefit of remaining alone. Many tigate the economy and make recommendations of the elected national convention? Maybe. The terms Newfoundlanders on the ideological right have sug- constitutional options to appear on the ballot in a of union between Newfoundland and Canada still gested that it was wrong to allow the poor to vote referendum. Much later the British decided on an would have had to be consistent with the existing to join Canada so they could get baby bonuses and elected national convention, and the requirement division of powers between the federal and prov- old age pensions, rather than remaining independ- that delegates to it would be residents of the dis- incial governments as set out in the British North ent and working. As Malone puts it, joining Canada tricts in which they would stand for election. Halley America Act. Malone thinks that this argument is meant embracing a “Swedish social welfare pack- surmises that Smallwood knew these things before beside the point. Even if the terms of union were age” and “the Liberal culture of dependency.” they had been decided, and moved to Gander the same as they otherwise would have been, he These views are familiar to students of where he had a greater chance of getting elected feels that the way that British and Canadian gov- Newfoundland’s history, but Malone also makes than in St. John’s, and that the Canadians arranged ernments manipulated the process to get the out- some curious judgements about what is import- for him to move. Malone ignores the documentary come they desired was unseemly. Most reasonable ant. As the possibility of a trans-Atlantic aviation evidence that establishes the chronology of British people would concur. industry became apparent, Malone suggests, the decision making, and bases his belief upon an anti- There are two counterfactual arguments in British decided to take democracy away from confederate, Grace Sparkes, remembering looking this book. One is that Newfoundland would Newfoundland to secure their control of the out her window and seeing Smallwood visiting the have prospered more if it had been allowed atmosphere over the island. “Air supremacy was Canadian high commissioner. to develop its resources on the continental the fundamental consideration shelf, in Labrador and in the air- underlying all British policy in Where Malone’s book differs from other space over the island. The British Newfoundland from at least the handed that wealth to Canada, 1920s to the late 1940s.” It is not accounts of the period is in its single- and Newfoundlanders were left clear how this is so, or what that with welfare. The second argu- actually means, but, typically, it is minded effort to portray events of the ment is that had Newfoundlanders stated with confidence. resumed responsible government As a literary device to empha- time as a conspiracy. an elected government could size the conspiratorial tone, have appointed effective nego- Malone often reproduces the word “secret” at the If true, this would have been prophetic. In tiators and shaped the terms of union between beginning of his many extensive quotations—a 1943, the British had not firmly settled on having Canada and Newfoundland, so that Newfoundland word that prefaced diplomatic correspondence as a national convention and the decision to require would not have been a have-not province for more a kind of boilerplate. Readers are expected to reach delegates to be residents of their districts had not than 50 years. the same conclusion that Malone did. In what yet been made. The national convention was not Oral tradition and counterfactual reasoning can must have been intended to add to the reader’s announced to the public until December of 1945. raise questions worth pursuing, but we can never excitement at reading confidential documents, Malone suggests that Smallwood’s account that he know what might have been. A retired legislative he suggests that a 1943 document written by Lord moved to Gander two years earlier to pursue his librarian told Malone “it’s what’s not in the files Beaverbrook, which recommended resuming lifelong interest in operating a piggery is “psycho- that is interesting, Greg.” Malone and Halley were responsible government, was so inflammatory that logically unconvincing—unless that move was part interested in the things that no one wrote down. But it could only be released to the public in the winter of some greater political strategy.” The book would historians are in the business of weighing evidence, of 2010. But Malone’s citation for the document have been better if Malone had applied the same not speculating on what is not in the files. shows it having been published by Bridle in 1984, level of skepticism toward Halley’s views that he Canadians may be shocked that Canada and that was where Malone found it. The docu- applied to Smallwood’s motives. pursued a secret strategy of manipulating ment is consistent with everything else we know Malone suggests that the 52 percent of Newfoundland into confederation in the 1940s, about the British debating their policy options, so Newfoundlanders who wanted to join with Canada but students of Newfoundland history have known he does not really need to draw our attention to it. had to be strong-armed. “Canada obviously felt that for years. Why does Malone take such a tone Not satisfied with shocking us with the content of it had to isolate and even punish Newfoundland of moral indignation about what is in the histor- what British and Canadian diplomats were writ- before Confederation would be found palatable on ical record, and go further to give credence to the ing to each other, he suggests that secrecy itself is the Island.” He suggests that no Newfoundlanders more outlandish of the conspiracy speculations? evidence of criminality. “The conspiratorial tone wanted a national convention in 1946, so how He tells us he is motivated by more recent slights. of these communications indicates that all parties does he account for people running for election? Malone recounts his own nationalist awaken- involved were aware that they were initiating con- People were bribed into participating, he claims. ing when, in the early 1970s, he went to Toronto fidential negotiations that were constitutionally, Meanwhile, qualified Newfoundlanders were not and was treated shabbily because he was from politically, democratically, and morally wrong.” permitted to serve, he says, when the British unfairly Newfoundland. CODCO challenged Canadian Malone relies heavily on his friend Halley’s sus- required delegates to be residents of the district they perceptions of Newfoundland, and this book picions of skulduggery. Halley tells us his school represented. That sets Malone up to conclude that attempts to do the same. The Churchill Falls agree- chums at Dalhousie law school had knowledge the convention was not qualified to discuss union ment benefits Quebec and not Newfoundland and of the conspiracy, as did his colleagues when he with Canada, or to send a delegation to Ottawa to Labrador, and the government of Canada did not returned to St. John’s to practise law. Undoubtedly, negotiate terms of union. He does find it qualified, do a good job husbanding fish stocks. All history Halley’s acquaintances knew things that are not however, to reject confederation being an option is contemporary history in the sense that recent part of the public record, but how can we weigh presented to voters in the referendum. slights shape the lens through which nationalists that testimony when we do not know the context of Malone believes that a delegation from an view history as much as does the evidence from the information, or sometimes even the names elected Newfoundland government could have the past. of the people who made the claims? It is clear that negotiated with Canada “on an equal basis.” It Clearly British and Canadian policy makers were the anti-confederates’ suspicions that the British could, he implies, have gotten a better deal since he pursuing in secret what they could not do openly, favoured confederation have been subsequently suggests that the terms were not negotiated at all, and the governments were not honest brokers, but proven correct by the release of government but that Ottawa dictated them. He also asserts that the writing of history is more than just stringing documents. But what are we to make of Halley’s the British-appointed Commission of Government documents together; it is also about weighing evi- other suspicions that do not have corroborating was more concerned with satisfying Canada dence. Malone constantly uses words such as “sub- evidence? than getting good terms for Newfoundland. Yet verted,” “treason,” “criminal,” “conspirators,” “plot,” One well-known rumour repeated here not the Newfoundland delegation was aware that the “connivance,” “duplicity,” “mendacity,” “abuse” and only lacks corroboration, but is also inconsistent financial terms were inadequate, and worked hard “fraudulently.” Historians have an understanding with the evidence. Malone tells the old story about to get a transitional grant and the appointment of of our past that has more nuance and sophistica- Smallwood moving to the airport town of Gander a royal commission to re-evaluate the long-term tion than this inflammatory choice of language in 1943 because he had foreknowledge of British fiscal relationship. That was not an insignificant implies—but this book is informed by the feeling plans. In 1933, the British had promised to reinstate achievement. that Canada has been unfair to Newfoundland responsible government in Newfoundland when Would a delegation of Newfoundlanders since 1949 as much as by the evidence from the the people requested it, and in 1943 they began con- appointed by an elected government have been 1940s.
March 2013 reviewcanada.ca 31 Letters and Responses
Re: “The Western ‘Colonies,’” by Roger tory. But what to do with that victory in the future? hand and the human right of equality on the other. Gibbins (January/February 2013) What do “nation building” and “shared prosperity” Mark Freiman agree with almost every word of Roger Gibbins’s really mean in this new post-colonial context? Toronto, Ontario Ithoughtful review of Mary Janigan’s extraordin- Matthew Mendelsohn ary book, Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Mowat Centre for Policy innovation Re: “Handle with Care,” by Frances Bula Dark: The West Versus the Rest Since Confederation. Toronto, Ontario (January/February 2013) On a couple of key points, however, we apply very hose who pursue the amalgamation of muni- different lenses to recent history. Re: “Public Hostility,” by Michael Tcipalities as a way to be more efficient and/or The lens of internal colonialism is no doubt one Plaxton (January/February 2013) more equitable are deluded: that’s the argument that is important to understand Canadian history, he debate about anti-hate laws continues to made by Peter Trent in The Merger Delusion: How but contemporary debates about the oil sands and Tbedevil and to fascinate us in Canada. Swallowing Its Suburbs Made an Even Bigger Mess climate change are not echoes of a colonial frame- It is a topsy-turvy debate that separates what of Montreal. work. Rather, they reflect legitimate differences of would otherwise seem to be natural political allies. In her review, Frances Bula implies that opinion and interest on issues that are dividing Civil libertarians, who can usually be counted on Trent’s underlying concern is urban identity, public opinion across the world. to support the weak and vulnerable, maintain that particularly in the former (and resurrected) City I know no one in Ontario who thinks of the needs of a free and democratic society require of Westmount in the Montreal area, but my read- Western Canada as an internal colony, but the state to take a hands-off approach to even the ing is that Trent is much more worried about the many Western Canadian leaders still react to vilest calumnies against identifiable minorities. deluded approach of the amalgamationists. legitimate policy debates as if a rapacious Central Proponents of social equality, who are usually Trent includes lots of evidence about the Canada is ready to pounce. Reading the press in keen advocates for the rights of minorities who increased costs that mergers bring. In the case Alberta or Saskatchewan, one would think that may hold unpopular views, maintain that in order of Montreal, he says the extra costs caused by the Kyoto Accord was part of an ingenious plot to preserve an equal society hateful dissent must amalgamation amounted to $400 million a year. hatched in Toronto. The fact is, the Obama admin- be silenced. In Toronto, the extra cost was $275 million a istration did not reject the Keystone pipeline in In the United States, this debate is largely a year even though management positions were cut 2012 because of something Thomas Mulcair said. theoretical one. The protection against content- by 40 percent (as I document in The Shape of the Stéphane Dion didn’t invent the idea of carbon based interference, especially with political Suburbs: Understanding Toronto’s Sprawl). For pricing as some kind of shakedown of Alberta. speech, is understood to be nearly absolute so long both cities, provincial officials falsely promised As the book outlines, and as Roger agrees, the as it stops short of actual incitement to violence. savings in the hundreds of millions of dollars and major Western Canadian political battle of the past Jeremy Waldron’s project is to explain to a an improvement in services. century has been settled. And “the West” won. skeptical, largely American, audience that legisla- Trent is also clear about the inequities created But moving forward, the issues of environmental tion to combat hate speech is not necessarily an by the Montreal merger, showing how taxes and and energy policy, beyond provincial ownership exercise in thought control or political censorship. costs were shifted from the central city to the sub- of natural resources, do not lend themselves to As the title of his book, The Harm in Hate Speech, urbs for no good reason. In Toronto, it was exactly simple constitutional fixes. Serious discussion suggests, Waldron aims to demonstrate that such the opposite: taxes were shifted from the suburbs about energy policy is rendered nearly impossible legislation can in fact be aimed at actual harms to the central city. if Alberta and Saskatchewan leaders are outraged that must be addressed by a free and democratic Mergers are usually proposed for reasons left anytime that anyone from outside Western Canada society. unspoken. Trent argues that in Montreal the cen- tries to engage in a discussion of climate change, That characterization echoes the repeated tral city was in a deep financial hole that it could environmental regulation or the impact of the high findings by the Supreme Court of Canada that the not get out of, and amalgamation would force dollar on tradable sectors such as manufacturing. evil of hate speech is a pressing social concern, some of that burden onto suburbs’ municipalities As Roger points out, many in Western Canada capable of justifying a legislative response so long such as Westmount, where he served so well as genuinely believe that the “project” is about nation as that response is appropriately tailored to the mayor, and indeed that was its impact. In Toronto, building and creating shared prosperity. But what purpose and so long as it impairs expressive free- I believe the amalgamation was imposed (in spite does this mean in practice? Many of us see no dom to the minimal extent necessary to achieve it. of a referendum in which 76.8 percent of voters evidence that the most vocal Western Canadian Now that we have crossed that threshold, opposed it) to extinguish the political voice of the leaders are interested in a real discussion about however, the conclusion that legislation aimed at central city, a voice that was opposing Premier the impact of the oil patch on Canada’s macro- hate speech can be constitutional does not speak Mike Harris in his drastic cuts to welfare, social economy—or are prepared to acknowledge how to whether specific legislation or the manner in housing and so forth. Harris’s merger was suc- few of its benefits accrue outside Alberta and which it is implemented is in fact constitutional. cessful in his terms. Today, 15 years later, Toronto Saskatchewan. It is still necessary to ensure that the legislation or municipal governance is so damaged that some Those who now have power cannot invite a its implementation does not overshoot this valid wonder whether it will ever regain an even keel. discussion about shared prosperity and then say purpose, that it impairs expressive freedom to I believe Trent puts his finger on the serious shut up the first time anyone disagrees. Most of us the minimal extent and that it actually targets the problems with mergers and shows why they are see the oil sands as an important contributor to promotion of hate rather than the expression of delusional and damaging. The issue is not really Canadian prosperity. But Canadians are allowed to dissent. identity; instead, it is about inefficiency, inequity express a point of view different from the received For that reason, in a Canadian context, it seems and squishing of political voices despised by the wisdom from the current federal government with- of no small importance to focus on issues of design amalgamationists. out being treated as aliens with no legitimate voice and implementation. What is the nature and extent John Sewell in the national discussion. of such permissible sanctions? How do we define former mayor of Toronto The past, of course, is never really past, but “hate”? What defences are to be recognized? Who Toronto, Ontario Canada’s discussions of energy and the environ- adjudicates and on what standard of proof? ment would be helped if we began with a very Canadian charter jurisprudence is based on The LRC welcomes letters — and more are available simple truth: “the West” won the debate and balancing legitimate interests. It may well be that on our website at
32 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada SHAUGHNESSY COHEN PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING FINALISTS
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