"Canadians are not safe under this minister"

That would be Lawrence Cannon, in the words of Montreal Gazette writer Janet Bagnall.

Indeed. But I would go further: Canadians, at least the darker-hued ones of the Muslim persuasion, are not safe under this government.

I was alarmed when it looked as though the vice-consul in Nairobi, Liliane Khadour, was going to take the fall for consular bungling and ministerial malevolence--and that may still happen after the ministers involved get through carrying out "investigations" of their own shops. So too do I worry that Cannon might fall on his sword for Harper and his Cabinet colleagues. That wouldn't be right.

Yet we can see the alibis already taking their ghostly shape. Stephen Harper somehow wasn't briefed. He found out about the Suaad Hagi Mohamud mess only last week, and is making suitably portentous noises. Khadour has been recalled.

But Cannon knew all about this less than two weeks after Mohamud first ran into trouble at the Nairobi airport. Peter Van Loan, Minister of Public Safety, was aware of it no later than mid-July. (And was the ubiquitous Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, blithely oblivious to all this?) Hence Cabinet demotions may be in the works, even if the "investigations" prove "conclusively" that nobody did anything wrong, and leave the ministers conducting them high and dry.

The universe will unfold as it should, in time for a possible Fall election.

Meanwhile, has anyone noticed the change in media focus, in which the names "Brenda Martin" and "William Sampson" are now uttered in the same breath as "Abousfian Abdelrazik," "Suaad Hagi Mohamud" and "Abdihakim Mohamed?" So that the pattern we are invited to discern is one of indifference and incompetence, perhaps, but certainly not racism?

Sorry, not buying it. There is a sense of desperate spin here. Yes, there was government inaction--under the Liberals--in the matter of William Sampson, who suffered grievously for it. Yes, Brenda Martin sat in a Mexican jail for a couple of years, although Harper eventually flew her home on a chartered jet. But in each case the government could at worst be accused of not doing enough.

In the case of the brown-skinned Canadians in the roster, however, the government and its officials consciously threw obstacle after obstacle in their way.

Public campaigns have been required, media outrage, court orders, an army of lawyers, not only to force the government to do the right thing but to stop them from doing the wrong one. William Sampson was not called an "impostor" after a "conclusive" investigation. Brenda Martin was not denied entry to Canada based upon a bogus exercise of royal prerogative. Neither of them was bundled off to Syria for a few bouts of torture.

What is needed is anything but a couple of internal alibi-spinning "investigations" whose results may never be released. It's not only the misbehaviour of low-level munchkins that needs an airing, but also ministerial and departmental malfeasance. In fact the whole Augean stable of government ineptitude, active malice and systemic discrimination needs to be swept clean from top to bottom and thoroughly disinfected. Nothing less than a full public inquiry will do that.

But don't hold your breath. The revelations from such an inquiry would likely prove not merely embarrassing, but fatal. Still chasing a majority, the Harper government is not about to embrace the opportunity to dig its own mass grave. Perhaps Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe and former human rights advocate Michael Ignatieff--wherever he is--might yet be persuaded to wield the shovels.

Afghanistan cynics

"Raphael Alexander" is waking up to an uncomfortable truth about Afghanistan. It's stubbornly refusing to mirror the values our troops are allegedly dying to uphold. Women were largely disenfranchised in the election just held. Women, thanks to the once and possibly future president Hamid Karzai, can now be legally starved by their husbands if they refuse to have sex with them.

The latter is too much even for the Flea.

To Raphael's moment of conscience the hawkish Mark Collins responds, with, I must observe, the admirable honesty of a Realpolitiker:

If only the same media attention were paid to any number of other Muslim countries. How odd that the media focus so much on those that, ultimately for national security reasons, Western countries are fighting in.

For Example:

“Gays flee Iraq as Shia death squads find a new target”

Let’s find a perfect country to fight a war in support of. [emphasis added]

Meanwhile a leftist article has incited the scorn and wrath of the hawks, and, it is hoped, might do something similar for most thinking progressives:

[I]f we, as avowed anti-imperialists, intend to wait around for a resistance movement that agrees with us on every issue, including the need to fight the oppression of women, gays, racial and religious minorities, etc., we'll be waiting a long time. The Taliban is the resistance in Afghanistan and we must support it, critically, but unreservedly.

I rather liked "critically, but unreservedly." But setting aside the obvious foolishness, readers will readily note a creepy resemblance between the two screeds.

No, I'm not talking "moral equivalence," although arguments could be made: I'm talking cynical equivalence. There's no room here for the critic or the sceptic, for values or morals, for humanity, in such models of geopolitics.

I never thought I'd see the day when I quoted anti-Castro poet Heberto Padilla, but as I grow older his corrosive scepticism is starting to make sense. These are his "Instructions on how to enter a new society," but they seem to apply just as easily here:

One: be an optimist.

Two: be discreet, correct, obedient.

(Do well at sports—all of them.)

And, most of all, move

like all the other members:

one step forward, and

one (or two) steps back:

but never stop cheering.

Fall in, soldiers, politicians, media, bloggers, apologists, cheerleaders. Choose your black or white, and then keep your eyes straight ahead. Make all of the necessary excuses, to others and to yourselves--if it doesn't cleanse the soul, at least it will dull the conscience. Slaughter their metaphors, crush their abstractions, bomb their ideologies, conduct a house-to-house search for their values, and take no prisoners.

Ignore the bodies.

And never stop cheering.

Who's in charge here?

As if you didn't know.

Stephen Harper didn't hear about Suaad Hagi Mohamud's plight until last week, he says. But Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon doesn't have even that implausible deniability. He knew about what had been done to her by the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi on June 12.

Yup, you read that right. About two weeks after Mohamud ran into trouble.

Her Member of Parliament, Joe Volpe, spoke to both Cannon and his parliamentary secretary Deepak Obhrai on that date. Six days later, he put it all in writing:

Marked "urgent," Volpe's letter asked:

If the arrested woman is an "imposter," where is the real Suaad Hagi Mohamud, the Toronto mother of a 12-year-old boy waiting for her to come home?

Are the foreign affairs department and RCMP looking for her?

Is she safe?

Over four weeks, with the House no longer sitting, Volpe persisted with 20 emails, faxes and phone calls to Cannon and Obhrai.

In mid-July, when the file moved to the Canada Border Services Agency, Volpe started calling Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan.

And now these two staggeringly incompetent ministers are in charge of their own internal investigations of DFAIT and CBSA? Give me--and all the other taxpayers on the hook for a wad of dough that will eventually have to be paid to the wronged Mohamud--a break.

Too bad the $2.5 million isn't coming out of the pockets of those directly responsible for this outrage. And maybe from those who were fool enough to vote for them.

[H/t Kateland, in serious danger of losing her conservative street cred. :)]

Fernando Alves rape walk: time for action

OK, we've all vented. Now, let's roll up our sleeves.

It is appropriate to lobby the decision-maker at the Crown's office with respect to a sentence appeal.

The decision-maker in this case is:

Mr. Grant B. Wong

Deputy Regional Crown Counsel

222 Main Street

Vancouver, B.C.

V6A 2S8

FAX: 604.660.4347

Mr. Wong will be returning to his office in the first week of September, but no reason to wait until then. Your comments should be in letter format (not email). Be polite and stick to the facts. Point out the public policy implications of letting admitted rapists walk free.

Such lobbying efforts can be successful. Spread the word along your networks.

[H/t Fern Hill]

None is too many

Canada isn't the only place where having a "funny name"--like Abdelrazik, Mohamud, Khadr or Arar--can get you into trouble. Try visiting Israel if you have a name like that.

Canadian and American citizens with "Palestinian-sounding names" are now routinely denied entry into Israel at Ben Gurion National Airport, and told to use the Allenby land bridge from Jordan into the West Bank. But once they get there, their passports are stamped "Palestinian Authority only," and entry into Israel is still denied.

President Barack Obama isn't any too happy with this blatantly racist treatment of American citizens. A statement from the White House reads:

'The United States expects that [sic] all American citizens to be treated equally, regardless of their national origin. We have let the Government of Israel know that these restrictions unfairly impact Palestinian and Arab American travellers and are not acceptable."

But only silence, of course, from the Harper government. Because it knows how people with those Arab-sounding names should be treated--even its own citizens.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Rodney Moore has confirmed that the government "is aware of the new Israeli practice of stamping the passport of foreign nationals with a 'Palestinian Authority only' stamp." But it's not lifting a finger.

Meanwhile Israeli Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad proudly defends the new racist policy, confirming that there is a ban in place barring all Palestinians from entering Israel, regardless of what other citizenship they have.

Mohammed Sabawi is a Canadian businessman. He has traveled regularly to Israel for 15 years without restriction, and worked with Israeli businesses. Recently, as chronicled by the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, he was forced to take the long way around, entering Palestinian territory by way of the Allenby Bridge. But he was then refused entry to Israel because of his "Palestinian Authority only" passport stamp. Read the entire story here.

To its credit, even the Canada-Israel Committee, a pro-Israel lobby group, doesn't seem happy about the new ethnic rules. "We are seeking clarification," CEO Shimon Fogel said. "We will certainly follow up with the Israelis."

As for Canadians of Palestinian origin, who have not as yet had a "P" stamped in their passports by Foreign Affairs, a spokesman is wearily aware of the Harper government's malevolent indifference:

Monir ElRayes, president of the Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians, said he was saddened but not surprised by the stark disparity between the responses from Washington and Ottawa.

“The U.S. is committed to protecting all its citizens and not allowing them to be singled out for their religion or ethnic background,” he said from Ottawa.

“The Harper government wants to disown us even though we are citizens,” he added, citing the lengthening string of cases where non-white and Muslim Canadians facing difficulties overseas were refused help by Canadian diplomats.

“Sadly, this is very un-Canadian,” Mr. ElRayes said.

"Un-Canadian?" Are you kidding? Canada's New Government has delivered the government's new Canada. Welcome to it--unless, that is, you have a funny name.

Abdihakim Mohamed heading home

For Suaad Hagi Mohamud, it was her lips. For Abdihakim Mohamed, it was his ears. You get the feeling that facial recognition training for consular officials in Nairobi has something to do with Mr. Potato Head.

The good news is that Abdihakim Mohamed is coming home after three years in exile, riding in on Suaad Hagi Mohamud's coat-tails.

One beige Canadian at a time: the line seems to be getting shorter at last, thanks to media and the courts. Next: Omar Khadr?

"Bring on your Mohawk brothers!"

That was a lippy pencil-neck from Indian and Northern Affairs, squaring off in a meeting with a delegation from Attawapiskat, a remote northern Ontario reserve where living conditions have been going downhill for years. The members of the delegation had come to ask for help.

Life is not easy in Attawapiskat. The kids there have been fighting for a new school for years--the old one was built over a contaminated site. But under the "leadership" of Minister Chuck Strahl, who wears his contempt for First Nations people on his sleeve, nothing has moved.

More recently, 90 residents, whose homes have been flooded with sewage, had to be evacuated to Chapleau on the band's own nickel because INAC won't admit that there is a problem--even though Health Canada disagrees.

Today in a press conference in Ottawa, Chief Theresa Hall described the meeting yesterday with INAC officials in Toronto, during which they put their case for badly-needed assistance:

We were putting down our short term and long term goals, of all the issues that face Attawapiskat, but when I asked for the financial assistance for the evacuees they flatly said no. And then we decided there was no use sitting there trying to go on with the meeting. And someone made reference to someone, I believe it was Greg (Shisheesh) because he has family that’s Mohawk… he has Mohawk children. He then made reference to that family, that that family can’t visit him in Attawapiskat because he doesn’t have a home. And that’s when one of the INAC officials said "Well, bring on your Mohawk brothers." [emphasis added]

Asked to repeat, the official did so.The reference to Oka and Akwesasne was clear. Given Strahl's pathetic performance as Minister, it is no wonder that his own officials now feel emboldened to abandon all pretence of professionalism, and openly mock the people that INAC is supposed to be assisting.

Know what? Maybe the Mohawks should travel north--and stop in at Strahl's office on the way. Free coffee and fry-bread at my place. You listening, Shawn Brant?

[H/t Cameron]

Contempt of court [bumped]

"Just a regular guy." That would be

It was revealed during the trial that in October 2006, a woman in her 30s woke up in Alves's bed, bruised and bleeding after an evening at a downtown Vancouver nightclub.

The married woman — who cannot be identified — said she had no recollection of meeting Alves the night before.

Medical testing confirmed she had had sexual intercourse and found traces of alcohol and sedatives in her system.

The woman told the court her will to live had been drained because of what happened to her and that she was unable to feel safe or to be intimate with her husband.

In sentencing, the B.C. provincial court judge said Alves was not pathologically dangerous but had committed a crime of opportunity. [emphasis added]

The judge ordered that Alves be placed on the sex-offender registry for the next 20 years but that he not spend time in jail.

Sweet deal for a "prominent member of British Columbia's ball hockey community." (Sounds like a sick euphemism right about now, doesn't it?) Indeed, the man seems to live a charmed life: there has been a distinctly odd pattern of botched police investigations, police mistreatment of at least one victim, and in the end a plea-bargain and a wrist-slap.

But why am I blogging about this again? Because I've been doing a slow burn about the judge in the case. It's routine for the identity of a victim of sexual assault to be kept out of the press. But, as I have already pointed out, the judge's identity has been kept under wraps as well.

It gets worse. Mysteriously, the BC Provincial Court judgement database carries entries for yesterday and the day before, but nothing at all for Monday, which was the date of sentencing. And the name "Alves" is nowhere to be found therein.

This is intolerable. No judge dispensing public justice should be granted anonymity, which appears to be the case thus far. We do not vote for judges in Canada, something I am agnostic about, but at the very least they should be held accountable in the court of public opinion.

The sentence handed down to this brutal man indicates, at least to me, that the judge is as dangerous to women as the defendant. His continued anonymity cannot be permitted. I am asking anyone with information about his identity, therefore, to email me, and we'll take it from there.

UPDATE: The presiding judge was the Honourable Justice Gregory M. Rideout (coordinates here). Further information--about his trial record--would be appreciated. Email welcome. Meanwhile, Alves is still on the executive roster as Tournament Director of the BC Ball Hockey Association.

Suppressing criticism of global warming denial?

What's up with that?

[H/t Mind of Dan]

It's the drinking water. Right? Right?

39% of Americans want their government to "stay out of Medicare"--a government program (Q3).

Only 62% believe that their President was born in the United States. 24% think he wasn't, and 14% "aren't sure." The good news? Only 7% think he was born in Kenya, while 10% believe he was born in Indonesia. Take that, birthers! Hah!

And 6% do agree that he was actually born in Hawaii--but are unaware that Hawaii is part of the US.

With Barney Frank, I'd rather argue with a dining room table. Even a stupid dining room table.

[H/t CC]

Better late than never

The case of Abdihakim Mohamed has just been discovered by the Globe and Mail, and the on-line CBC news (which is calling this a "second case" of the Nairobi Shuffle, although it pre-dates the Suaad Hagi Mohamud affair by three years or so). In fairness, the CBC radio program The Current was on this back in June, but don't their journos talk to each other?

And credit where credit's due. Kate Heartfield of the Ottawa Citizen broke this story on February 11, and it's been around the blogosphere ever since.

But enough caviling. These cases eventually do attract their media advocates, thank goodness, and circumstances do the rest--in this instance, the prominence of one case highlighted another, the Harper team has been reeling since Abousfian Abdelrazik's court-ordered return, and, smelling blood in the water, the media has acquired an appetite.

It's just disheartening--in fact, a little chilling--that the victims, too often dark-skinned Muslims, cannot depend upon the ordinary privileges of citizenship to help them out. The current government has let it be known that it will pick and choose which citizens are worthy of consular assistance, state-to-state representations, and taxpayer-funded chartered jets.

The others, too often facing obstacles deliberately placed in their way, are forced to wait until public anger reaches critical mass, the media take notice, and the government and its administrative apparatus are forced to act. Indeed, as we have seen in the Abdelrazik case, even all that can be insufficient: there it took a vigorous flogging by a federal court judge to make the Harper regime abide by the rule of law.

Kudos to those journalists who stay on the trail of these cases like bloodhounds--the Globe's Paul Koring and the Star's John Goddard spring to mind. Perhaps these and others with similar qualities should be cross-appointed to oversight positions in Foreign Affairs. Now, that would cut the numbers and the delays. And it might also allow the media to stay current.

Suaad Hagi Mohamud: Lawrence Cannon still stonewalling

If there is a way he can obstruct, trust our Minister of Foreign Affairs to find it. Here is how not to commence an investigation of the gross mistreatment of a Canadian citizen:

1) State that it could take a month;

2) Refuse to commit to making the findings of the investigation public;

3) Refuse to comment on the current status of Liliane Khadour, the vice consul of the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi on whose watch Mohamed was "conclusively" deemed an "impostor," separated from her 12-year-old son, jailed, made ill, harassed by consular officials, and finally, after 11 weeks, vindicated by a DNA test;

4) Threaten a court battle if Mohamud's lawyer, the hard-working Raoul Boulakia, wants to get a look at her confiscated passport.

What is he trying to hide? Surely even Stephen Harper can recognize the man as a liability by now.

Scratch a conservative...

...and you find a bloviating homophobe.

Check his jacket pocket

Unable to witness the event first-hand, travelling media were left to digest the photo and e-mails from the Prime Minister's staff.

"I can confirm that the Prime Minister and members of cabinet did have seal meat at lunch. The Prime Minister said, ‘I really enjoyed eating seal meat and look forward to having it again,' " read one e-mail from spokesman Andrew MacDougall.

Uh-huh. Where have I heard that story before? :)

If only the Tsar knew about this!

As the old Russian fable had it, the Tsar was a saintly man, and the injustices suffered daily by the mouzhiks, whose lot was starvation and the knout, were taking place only because his evil advisors were failing to keep him informed.

So this morning we learn that Stephen Harper found out about the case of Suaad Hagi Mohamud only last week, and boy, is he pissed.

"When we became aware of the case last week, we asked our officials in various departments to give us some information," Harper said at a news conference yesterday. "Obviously there (is) some troubling information here. It's a complex case. I have asked my officials for a thorough review of the matter ... (then) we'll decide what further inquiry we do have to do." [emphasis added]

The case has become a major embarrassment for the Conservatives amid criticism that the government is slow to assist Canadians in trouble abroad.

Privately, officials say the Prime Minister is upset at how the case has been handled and that "heads could roll" once the internal review is finished.

"Privately," eh? As in "stage-whisper?" No matter. Bring on the tumbrils by all means.

"Does he not read the papers?" scoffed Liberal critic Dan McTeague. Obviously not the Toronto Star, but you'd think someone might have brought its excellent coverage, beginning on July 1, to the master's attention.

In any case, so much for Harper's reputation as a micromanager. That one now lies in tatters.

[On a personal note, I thought I was an early riser, but Impolitical and Enormous Thriving Plants scooped me but good on this story. At 4:30 am, the Toronto Star article appeared. Impolitical posted her response at 5:40 am, and ETP put hers up at 2:12 am, at least according to her time-stamp. Either she lives in BC, or she posts faster than the speed of light, which is always possible with these hot-rodding young'uns. Can't...keep..up...]

UPDATE: One head has already rolled. [H/t Liberal Hearts and Minds.]

Marooned off-white Canadians: next!

That would be Abdihakim Mohamed. Check out today's audio clip from CBC's The Current.

He's been marooned in Kenya for three years--thanks to that same Canadian High Commission in Nairobi that's been in the news recently. Yup, Mohamed's an "impostor," too. Passport photo. You know the routine.

But now, by no coincidence, bloodied officials have decided that maybe he is who he is. Since the first CBC clip on Mohamed aired a few weeks ago, they have approached Mohamed's mother, Anab Issa Mohammed. Her Ottawa lawyer, Jean Lash, sounds optimistic. Wheels seem to be moving.

Earlier on, it was quite a different story. Abdihakim Mohamed had offered up his DNA, just like Suaad Hagi Muhamed, but no one seemed very interested. Instead, Passport Canada officials, with casual bureaucratic brutality, asked his frantic mother to tell them who he really was.

The CBC's request for interviews was refused by Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon, his Parliamentary Secretary Deepak Obhrai and Peter Kent, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs. The usual lordly arrogance we have come to expect of Harper's ministers? Quite possibly, but more likely at this point it's simply a case of avoiding the public view. To be fair, if I were those people at the moment I'd be scrambling for cover as well.

Mohamed, too, like Suaad Hagi Mohamud and Abousfian Abdelrazik, has had the benefit of media advocacy. But, as I've asked before, how many more exiles out there have not?

Annals of sexism

First it's a Canadian judge refusing to jail a thug who drugged, beat and raped a woman, claiming that the brute is not "pathologically dangerous," and calling his vicious assault a mere "crime of opportunity." (That, I admit, rather puts Justice Douglas Cunningham's recent injudicious remark about career women in perspective.)

Does anyone find it significant that the media are not reporting the judge's name? Was a court order in effect? Does he, like the victimized woman who was victimized again at his hands, require protection after his sick-making judgement? The man is just as dangerous as the rapist whose wrist he patted. We have a right to know who he is.

Then, to the south, a well-known poseur and imbecile beloved by the Right explains what he would like to do to House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi:



Which reminds me of a blogger closer to home, whose offending post was removed after a considerable outcry.

Violence against women: knee-slapping right-wing "humour." And not worth a day in jail to a sexist BC judge.

PS: Oh, heck, let's throw in a little anti-Semitism for dessert--the real thing, not the bogus "criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic" kind. Somehow I think the Right will keep stumm on this one:



UPDATE: Good grief! Reader Chet Scoville points out that the woman in question is wearing an Israel Defence Forces T-shirt (@0.59). Was gibt?

[H/t Luna and Red Tory]

The untouchables [updated]

[Originally posted on April 17] Today we are reminded, once again, how the system as a whole ensures that police can operate like lowlife thugs without any fear of serious consequences--if consequences are even suffered.

This week's poster child for the cop culture of impunity is Constable Mike Wasylyshen of the Edmonton Police Force, er, Service. Mike, the son of former Edmonton police chief Bob Wasylyshen, is still a young man--33 years old, a ten-year veteran of the EPS. But he's packed a fair bit of adventure into that short span.

There was his encounter back in 2002 with a 16-year-old aboriginal kid, Randy Fryingpan, who'd passed out in the back of a car. Mike Tasered him six times in 66 seconds to wake him up, and then knocked out one of his teeth by smashing his face on the ground with the butt of his weapon. A judge dismissed a subsequent breach of probation charge again Fryingpan, citing his treatment at Mike's hands as "cruel and unusual."

Said Judge Jack Easton:

The treatment of the accused by the application of the Taser and the use of the fist or butt end of the Taser gun to the body of the accused driving him to the ground causing a broken tooth clearly indicated to me an excessive use of force and a clear violation of the charter rights of this accused.

The witnesses other than the officers appeared disgusted by an obvious overuse of force....The scene was clearly under control and the deployment of a Taser absolutely unnecessary.

But the Crown claimed that there was no evidence to support criminal charges (which brings the Robert Dziekanski case immediately to mind), and the acting police chief at the time, Darryl da Costa, exonerated Mike completely, pointing to the Crown's decision and stating that there was no evidence that would warrant discipline against the officer. A plea by Fryingpan's mother for an outside investigation was rebuffed.

Fast-forward to 2003. Mike is dressed down by a provincial court judge for using deception to obtain a search warrant. Evidence in a drug case had to be tossed out due to Mike's "carelessness bordering on indifference." Another internal investigation. No discipline.

But this rising star was not yet at the top of his game. In 2005, off-duty and in a drunken state, he picked a fight with a man on crutches, swore at him, called him a "cripple" and beat him. He was pulled off by his buddies, but followed the man he had attacked, who by that time had been joined by two friends. They did the righteous thing and put Mike on the ground, where they proceeded to give him a taste of his own medicine. Two private security officers tried to break up the fight: Mike punched one of his rescuers and threatened to burn down the other's house.

Somehow the Crown thought that charges were warranted this time. It has taken more than three years to bring this matter to trial, but the system, by golly, delivered.

Mike has been fined $500.

Oh yes, and one of those "internal police disciplinary hearing" thingies has been scheduled, too. No doubt they'll throw the book at him.

UPDATE: (August 18). Better late than never. Thanks to the determined efforts of Fryingpan's mother, Wasylyshen will at long last face disciplinary charges for Tasering an unconscious teen. Alberta's Law Enforcement Review Board has ordered Edmonton Police Chief Mike Boyd to charge him with using excessive force, and insubordination. [H/t reader russski]

Frozen culture

Nunavut is in the news these days, as our Prime Minister takes his royal tour, and the commentary is flowing.

Here's a letter in the Globe & Mail today, reprinted in its entirety, which highlights--inadvertently--how far astray our cultural idées fixes can lead us.

How can we rationally consider investing billions of dollars for a territory such as Nunavut, populated by a mere 30,000 people? Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s $25-million “investment” for a tiny fishing community’s harbour amounts to more than a whopping $19,000 per person. You cannot magically create economic viability out of thin air. Small, remote, unskilled populations living in harsh climates have no significant history of suddenly thriving just because money was thrown at them.

Doing so will fail, and only create false hopes and a state of dependency. We should support northern communities to pursue subsistence hunting, but the idea that they have an entitlement to infrastructure development is ludicrous.

Peter Reinecke, Ottawa

Normally I would let this kind of thing pass without comment. But Peter Reinecke isn't just any correspondent. He's a public policy researcher in the federal government's Policy Research Initiative, a kind of internal strategic planning think-tank. As a policy consultant myself, I find this worrying. So should you.

How can we even think, asks Reinecke, of investing a wad of money in a desolate place populated by a mere 30,000 (actually, nearly 31,500) people. Thank goodness the Danes don't think that way.

Greenland, now a territory of Denmark that has achieved home rule and for whom actual sovereignty someday isn't out of the question, is populated by a little over 55,500 people, of whom 88% are Inuit or Inuit-European. Greenlandic (an Inuit language) is spoken by 50,000 of the residents, and became the sole official language this past June. It boasts a vibrant political culture, and a burgeoning Greenlandic literature.

Greenland's economy is based upon primary industries, especially fishing. Still dependent upon Denmark for 50% of its revenues in the form of government grants (the figure is currently 90% for Nunavut), the territory is actively developing its considerable mineral resources, air transport and telecommunications.

With a labour force of just over 32,000, Greenland's current GDP is $1.7 billion (US). Its per capita GDP is $20,000 (US), placing it at the 60th rank in the world's economies. The unemployment rate is just over 9%.

Greenland's educational system is modern and effective. It has a university in the capital city of Nuuk, and a fully functioning primary and secondary school system in which the operating language is Greenlandic. Greenland has a 100% literacy rate.

Some 2009 statistics for Greenland may be found here.

The comparison with Nunavut is frankly shattering. Nunavut is a land struggling to be born, rife with social problems arising from what was in effect imposed and poorly planned sedentarization in the 1950s and early 1960s, with chronic unemployment (28% for Inuit), a suicide rate 9 times the national average, a housing crisis and a dysfunctional educational system.

Between one-third and one-half of Nunavut children have suffered some degree of hearing loss as a result of ear infections. Teachers have to use use microphones in the classrooms.

Peter Reinecke suggests giving the Nunavummiut a few bucks to maintain subsistence hunting, but any talk of infrastructure development is "ludicrous," based upon a wrongful sense of entitlement. Clearly the notion of social and economic investment is lost on him. What we should do, he thinks, is simply freeze the Inuit culture in time, providing some funds for that purpose. For some reason I get an image of one of those snow-bottles with an igloo and a bunch of faceless people in furs. Something like the one illustrated above.

There have always been ill-informed suggestions regarding "what to do about the Inuit." Canadian anthropologist Diamond Jenness, decades ago, suggested resettling them all in the South. The dreadful Frances Widdowson thinks along similar lines today:

When the unviable character of Nunavut is recognized, the only sensible policy in the long run appears to be gradual depopulation. This does not mean forcibly relocating anyone who lives in the territory, only encouraging people to gradually migrate to larger centres. Most importantly, it means ending costly and unworkable decentralization schemes, which assume that an economic and political system can be “built” with large external rents. Nunavut, like all parasitical appendages on productive economies and societies, should be allowed to “wither away” as the younger generation seeks out a more stimulating and productive life.

Reinecke would not go that far, or at least I hope not. Rather, we should just keep up a minimal trickle of support to allow the continuance of traditional lifeways. But certainly not anything like a $25 million investment in Pangnirtung to develop the local fishing industry.

The embedded notion here is one of a "culture" that somehow remains static and timeless, a tiresome anthropological fallacy that was exploded by Johannes Fabian, for one, in his Time and the Other: How Anthropology makes its Object (1983), but still persists in the popular mind. Yet the Greenlanders, far from requiring relocation or demanding to live in a changeless past, are making use of every modern technological innovation available, working in their own language, proud citizens of Kalaallit Nunaat looking to the future. And they're doing it themselves.

There is much hope for Nunavut, although there are terrible obstacles of all kinds at present. The Nunavummiut are indeed making progress. But what is needed now more than ever is to abandon ignorance and superstition. And by that I mean ours, as exemplified by public policy researcher Peter Reinecke's ill-founded remarks.

[Disclosure: I am presently working on a thesis, when blogging and contract work don't get in the way, on the formation of Nunavut and its governance structure.]

Today in America...

"...a moderate is someone who says, 'Please don't come armed to a public meeting.'"

[H/t mattt. Another clip, no pun intended, here.]