We bought our kids one of the popular new tech items for Christmas this year. The item in question was much in demand and hard to find here in Toronto, so a couple of weeks before Christmas I ordered them online from the manufacturer.
The manufacturer provided a shipment-tracking website, and I began watching in growing amazement. On the Monday before Christmas, my kids' Christmas presents were in Shenzhen, China, a place I admit never having heard of before (it's a booming city of some ten million people adjacent to Hong Kong in what China calls a Special Economic Zone). On Tuesday they passed through Anchorage, Alaska. On Wednesday they reached Memphis, Tennessee, and later that morning they were in Mississauga. Friday morning they were at the door, and though I was out, I knew they had arrived because I checked the web-tracker and it said "delivered." Sunday morning my kids unwrapped them with delight.
The idea that we are living through a time of historic change passed through my mind. But I think we are finding ways to deal with our new global existence.
A few days before those packages started their orbit, we attended the Christmas concert of the High Park Children's Choir in a church a few blocks from our home. My elder daughter sang with that choir six years ago, and the repertoire was mostly classical. "Stille Nacht" and "Il est ne, le divin enfant" pretty much marked the boundaries of its outreach to the music of the world.
This year the repertoire being sung by these blond, pale daughters of the Toronto middle classes included rhythms from South Asia, Africa, and aboriginal Canada, quite extraordinarily beautiful even to my (mostly tin) ear. The conductor's previous employment was at a choir school in Kazakhstan.
Part way though the concert, I was feeling just a touch of disorientation. It was magnificent, but weren't there to be any Christmas songs I knew? But they ended with the audience participating on Good King Wenceslas and Little Town of Bethlehem, and I was wholly reconciled.
The world is changing. Christmas is changing. We are learning to live with it. And benefit from it.
All the best for the season and the New Year. There will be lots of history happening.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
That Democratic Deficit (#1 in a series)
I share the concerns of those who lament the “democratic deficit” in Canada. (Indeed, that concern is the subtext of my book "1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal," which in all modesty I commend to you if you care about these issues) Our political system is not serving us well. Governments are not adequately accountable to the people’s representatives. Elections do not fulfill citizens’ desires for effective participation. Parliaments and legislatures seem mostly ineffectual. The political process seems uninviting, maybe even alienating, to many who might otherwise make valuable contributions.
But I’m almost equally concerned by the pablum fed to us by pundits with easy answers and quick fixes. It’s easy to attack the existing Canadian political processes system, for much is wrong with it. But too often proposals for change are presented as if their wisdom is self-evident, as if anyone who would scrutinize them opposes democracy itself.
I'm for democracy. But I’m unimpressed by many of the solutions our pundits and political scientists put forward in its name. In this occasional series, I’m going to take them one at a time.
1. Fixed Election Dates
I’d like to acknowledge Professor Henry Milner of Montreal for starting me on this. The Globe & Mail recently publish an op-ed of his arguing that fixed election dates are a “no-brainer.” No one, he implied, could possibly oppose fixed election dates.
I can’t help thinking anyone with a brain even minimally engaged should see that the principal consequence of fixed election dates is longer election campaigns, and even more control of the political process by those with the most money to spend. When the date of an election is known four years in advance, the fine-tuning of lavish political advertising and marketing campaigns will start three and a half years in advance. Even Paul Martin’s spring 2005 promise of an election within a year has put us into non-stop campaign mode since the summer. I prefer campaigns when necessary, not campaigns for ever. The ones we have are plenty long enough.
Fixed election dates do a little good, a little damage, and should be assessed as such. (What good? Well, they do hobble the small advantage an incumbent government can draw from its control of the electoral timetable.) They don't mean much, in the end. What is troubling about the idea, deep down, is the hostility to legislative democracy. Once again, an electoral reform proposal offers another plan to remove a power from our elected representatives. Sure, our legislatures have not been serving us well. But the solution to the democratic deficit lies in making them work better, not finding new ways to hobble them.
More to come....
But I’m almost equally concerned by the pablum fed to us by pundits with easy answers and quick fixes. It’s easy to attack the existing Canadian political processes system, for much is wrong with it. But too often proposals for change are presented as if their wisdom is self-evident, as if anyone who would scrutinize them opposes democracy itself.
I'm for democracy. But I’m unimpressed by many of the solutions our pundits and political scientists put forward in its name. In this occasional series, I’m going to take them one at a time.
1. Fixed Election Dates
I’d like to acknowledge Professor Henry Milner of Montreal for starting me on this. The Globe & Mail recently publish an op-ed of his arguing that fixed election dates are a “no-brainer.” No one, he implied, could possibly oppose fixed election dates.
I can’t help thinking anyone with a brain even minimally engaged should see that the principal consequence of fixed election dates is longer election campaigns, and even more control of the political process by those with the most money to spend. When the date of an election is known four years in advance, the fine-tuning of lavish political advertising and marketing campaigns will start three and a half years in advance. Even Paul Martin’s spring 2005 promise of an election within a year has put us into non-stop campaign mode since the summer. I prefer campaigns when necessary, not campaigns for ever. The ones we have are plenty long enough.
Fixed election dates do a little good, a little damage, and should be assessed as such. (What good? Well, they do hobble the small advantage an incumbent government can draw from its control of the electoral timetable.) They don't mean much, in the end. What is troubling about the idea, deep down, is the hostility to legislative democracy. Once again, an electoral reform proposal offers another plan to remove a power from our elected representatives. Sure, our legislatures have not been serving us well. But the solution to the democratic deficit lies in making them work better, not finding new ways to hobble them.
More to come....
Monday, December 19, 2005
How to Build a Nation Builder
The Globe & Mail is running its request for nominations for the Canadian "Nation Builder of the Year" and they asked me to provide some historical perspective. Here's the piece that ran on Saturday, December 17:
If nations really were built, they would be conclusive evidence for a Theory of Unintelligent Design. What nation can anyone point to and say, yes, that’s exactly how I would have built one? Nations generally resemble sports of nature more than builders’ handiwork -- the duck-billed platypus more than anything assembled from constitutional Megablox. For Canada alone, think of all the enduring national elements no one would ever have consciously designed quite that way: constitutional monarchy, sovereignty-association, leadership conventions, the notwithstanding clause, Prince Edward Island….
Still, nations evolve faster than creatures. Individuals can get to mess with the national genetic code, and not all the changes they engineer are toxic. If we cannot provide the formula for a nation, we can at least inquire into the qualities of successful nation-shapers.
Show up and Stick Around
If you want to shape the nation, have patience. John A. Macdonald served forty-seven consecutive years in the national legislature. Mackenzie King was prime minister off and on for nearly thirty. Robert Borden was leader of the opposition for ten years and got thumped in two consecutive elections before winning the top job.
With Jean Chrétien finally retired and Ed Broadbent bowing out, this is a tough one for today’s aspiring nation builders. Today we like to put early best-before dates on politicians and leaders. But the continuing influence of June Callwood, Jane Jacobs, and, sure, Preston Manning shows we are not yet entirely immune to the wisdom of experience.
Have an Eye for Power
Like Gretzky knowing where the puck would be, successful nation-shapers knew how to move to where the power will be, even if it is not where their principles used to be. John A Macdonald opposed Confederation until almost the last minute, and then joined the parade so successfully that he is generally seen as its father. King stood foursquare against wartime conscription until it seemed vital to his hold on power. Mulroney campaigned against free trade until it suddenly seemed the strongest platform available
Paul Martin, budget-cutter turned big-spender, and Stephen Harper, prophet of firewalls and small government turned apostle of federal handouts, seems seem to be trying this route. It has worked for aspiring nation builders before.
Cultivate a Gift for Inspiration
We are suckers for inspiration in this country, and we’ll take it where we can find it. Our greatest francophone prime ministers, Laurier and Trudeau, won over English-Canada on their appeals to justice and tolerance.
Today women and minorities often have the greatest potential to shape the nation through their personal inspiration: think of Adrienne Clarkson and Michaelle Jean. Canada today could use a nation-builder from Jane-Finch, and another from Kachechewan, or others wearing turbans or chadors.
Play Well with Others
We assume nation builders ought to be heroes. But many of the great achievements of Canadian nation-building were like the double hockey golds at Salt Lake City: team victories. If Confederation succeeded in the 1860s where Meech flamed out in the 1990s, it’s partly because there were thirty-six Fathers to make Confederation and only eleven (white) guys at Meech Lake. Sometimes it takes a big room to shape a nation.
Today no situation in Canada offers greater potential for nation-building through teamwork than the backbenches of our Parliament and legislatures. In parliamentary democracies around the world, backbenchers routinely unseat prime ministers, rewrite legislation, and set national agendas. In Britain, Labour backbenchers defeated Tony Blair’s bid for excessive police powers.
It used to be that way in Canada. Exactly a hundred years ago, Clifford Sifton left cabinet for the backbenches, to lead the backbench revolt that rewrote Prime Minister Laurier’s plans for the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The admirable parliamentary resolution against honours and titles, the one that recently drove Conrad Black to renounce Canada, was a 1919 backbench initiative taken against the will of Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden
Sadly, more recent Canadian examples of nation-building from the backbench are hard to find. And our pollsters, pundits and political scientists endlessly propose new schemes to increase the irrelevance of elected legislators. But the power of the backbench remains there for whenever some courageous MPs decide to pick it up and wield it.
By that measure, the late Chuck Cadman looms large as a potential Nation Builder for 2005. It’s too bad he did the right thing for precisely the wrong reason. His constituents, he said, told him not to trigger an election when the fate of the government lay in his hands last spring. On that logic, we could save millions by replacing our MPs with pollsters. But Chuck Cadman MP did cast an independent and decisive vote in the House of Commons. That’s a rare and precious thing. If only it could become contagious.
If nations really were built, they would be conclusive evidence for a Theory of Unintelligent Design. What nation can anyone point to and say, yes, that’s exactly how I would have built one? Nations generally resemble sports of nature more than builders’ handiwork -- the duck-billed platypus more than anything assembled from constitutional Megablox. For Canada alone, think of all the enduring national elements no one would ever have consciously designed quite that way: constitutional monarchy, sovereignty-association, leadership conventions, the notwithstanding clause, Prince Edward Island….
Still, nations evolve faster than creatures. Individuals can get to mess with the national genetic code, and not all the changes they engineer are toxic. If we cannot provide the formula for a nation, we can at least inquire into the qualities of successful nation-shapers.
Show up and Stick Around
If you want to shape the nation, have patience. John A. Macdonald served forty-seven consecutive years in the national legislature. Mackenzie King was prime minister off and on for nearly thirty. Robert Borden was leader of the opposition for ten years and got thumped in two consecutive elections before winning the top job.
With Jean Chrétien finally retired and Ed Broadbent bowing out, this is a tough one for today’s aspiring nation builders. Today we like to put early best-before dates on politicians and leaders. But the continuing influence of June Callwood, Jane Jacobs, and, sure, Preston Manning shows we are not yet entirely immune to the wisdom of experience.
Have an Eye for Power
Like Gretzky knowing where the puck would be, successful nation-shapers knew how to move to where the power will be, even if it is not where their principles used to be. John A Macdonald opposed Confederation until almost the last minute, and then joined the parade so successfully that he is generally seen as its father. King stood foursquare against wartime conscription until it seemed vital to his hold on power. Mulroney campaigned against free trade until it suddenly seemed the strongest platform available
Paul Martin, budget-cutter turned big-spender, and Stephen Harper, prophet of firewalls and small government turned apostle of federal handouts, seems seem to be trying this route. It has worked for aspiring nation builders before.
Cultivate a Gift for Inspiration
We are suckers for inspiration in this country, and we’ll take it where we can find it. Our greatest francophone prime ministers, Laurier and Trudeau, won over English-Canada on their appeals to justice and tolerance.
Today women and minorities often have the greatest potential to shape the nation through their personal inspiration: think of Adrienne Clarkson and Michaelle Jean. Canada today could use a nation-builder from Jane-Finch, and another from Kachechewan, or others wearing turbans or chadors.
Play Well with Others
We assume nation builders ought to be heroes. But many of the great achievements of Canadian nation-building were like the double hockey golds at Salt Lake City: team victories. If Confederation succeeded in the 1860s where Meech flamed out in the 1990s, it’s partly because there were thirty-six Fathers to make Confederation and only eleven (white) guys at Meech Lake. Sometimes it takes a big room to shape a nation.
Today no situation in Canada offers greater potential for nation-building through teamwork than the backbenches of our Parliament and legislatures. In parliamentary democracies around the world, backbenchers routinely unseat prime ministers, rewrite legislation, and set national agendas. In Britain, Labour backbenchers defeated Tony Blair’s bid for excessive police powers.
It used to be that way in Canada. Exactly a hundred years ago, Clifford Sifton left cabinet for the backbenches, to lead the backbench revolt that rewrote Prime Minister Laurier’s plans for the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The admirable parliamentary resolution against honours and titles, the one that recently drove Conrad Black to renounce Canada, was a 1919 backbench initiative taken against the will of Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden
Sadly, more recent Canadian examples of nation-building from the backbench are hard to find. And our pollsters, pundits and political scientists endlessly propose new schemes to increase the irrelevance of elected legislators. But the power of the backbench remains there for whenever some courageous MPs decide to pick it up and wield it.
By that measure, the late Chuck Cadman looms large as a potential Nation Builder for 2005. It’s too bad he did the right thing for precisely the wrong reason. His constituents, he said, told him not to trigger an election when the fate of the government lay in his hands last spring. On that logic, we could save millions by replacing our MPs with pollsters. But Chuck Cadman MP did cast an independent and decisive vote in the House of Commons. That’s a rare and precious thing. If only it could become contagious.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
That Montreal Massacre
I don't teach much, but in December 1989 I was teaching a history class at the University of Toronto. At 9 in the morning of December 7, 1989, I was to give the class its term-end exam.
I could not help saying something about how grim and creepy it felt, to come into a classroom to give an exam, after what we had all heard on the news the night before, about some damn guy who came into an examination at the Engineeering School at the Universite de Montreal and started shooting the women.
It was the visceral, barely-spoken growl of agreement that came back to me from the students, a sort of low moan expressing strongly-shared feeling, that really brought home to me what impact this awful news was having, was going to have. We had a minute of silence. Then I handed out the exam.
Montreal massacre, school of engineering, he selected just the women -- those are all keywords in the memory banks of a lot of Canadians now, particularly women and women students, but not them only. In the Toronto subway on December 6, there were young people offering white ribbons. It's part of Canadian history now, one of those events that has made the transition from event to cultural marker.
I could not help saying something about how grim and creepy it felt, to come into a classroom to give an exam, after what we had all heard on the news the night before, about some damn guy who came into an examination at the Engineeering School at the Universite de Montreal and started shooting the women.
It was the visceral, barely-spoken growl of agreement that came back to me from the students, a sort of low moan expressing strongly-shared feeling, that really brought home to me what impact this awful news was having, was going to have. We had a minute of silence. Then I handed out the exam.
Montreal massacre, school of engineering, he selected just the women -- those are all keywords in the memory banks of a lot of Canadians now, particularly women and women students, but not them only. In the Toronto subway on December 6, there were young people offering white ribbons. It's part of Canadian history now, one of those events that has made the transition from event to cultural marker.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Michel Noel wins the Bilson
Last spring I read about fifty young-adult historical novels, the fruits of the astonishingly rich and prolific crop of Canadian writers currently ornamenting that field.
I was reading as a juror for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young readers, an annual award created in honour of the late historian and young-adult writer Geoff Bilson of Saskatchewan.
The winner we chose was a powerful and dramatic story called Good for Nothing by Quebec-based aboriginal writer Michel Noel. It's a story of kids from a traditional aboriginal community in northern Quebec in the 1960s, as industry, government, school, and social-welfare officials come pounding in to uproot the society.
In the current issue of The Beaver, I've written about the Bilson jury experience and what the flood of historical novels says about our kids and what they read. Take a look.
I was reading as a juror for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young readers, an annual award created in honour of the late historian and young-adult writer Geoff Bilson of Saskatchewan.
The winner we chose was a powerful and dramatic story called Good for Nothing by Quebec-based aboriginal writer Michel Noel. It's a story of kids from a traditional aboriginal community in northern Quebec in the 1960s, as industry, government, school, and social-welfare officials come pounding in to uproot the society.
In the current issue of The Beaver, I've written about the Bilson jury experience and what the flood of historical novels says about our kids and what they read. Take a look.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)