On the Charter of Values

The major political issue this week has been the release of a Charter of Values in Québec. It has ignited an explosive debate nationwide that has centred around several questions, though the discourse is rather firmly entrenched in the notion of how much society must bend for the individual or how much the individual must bend for society. While there has been a decent amount of good writing on the topic, my fear is that certain terms and concepts are not being discussed well in many forms of conventional or social media. My post today will attempt to address some of these transgressions.

Secularism refers to a political ideology where religion and government are divorced from one another. As a policy it is dominant in the United States, Turkey, and France, where these societies struggle with how religion influences politics, social interaction, and the economy. Secularism manifests itself differently in different societies. In the United States, an example with which Canadians are rather familiar, it has largely been an attack on other religions while reinforcing a deeply Christian past. In my view this is due to the fact that secularism in the United States was all about religious tolerance for different Protestant Christian groups. In France and Turkey, secularism has largely targeted all religions, in a way that it similar to what is happening currently in Québec.

As for multiculturalism, it is a policy, not a reality. Diversity is a fact of modern society and multiculturalism refers to a specific way of integrating others, and in Canada, as with the rest of the world, there are serious debates about the degree to which multiculturalism is in fact successful. Mind you a large portion of it is uninformed, xenophobic, political nonsense, but much of it is careful consideration of what other alternatives might be. Fundamentally, the idea should be that multiculturalism, while I support it steadfastedly, is not infallible. There could be something better and reasonable discourse on the matter should be encouraged rather than believing that it is outright the only way. In order to evaluate it you have to examine alternatives, and that's precisely what comparative politics is all about. To start, it's helpful to understand what other jurisdictions have multicultural policies. The sad truth is, not many. Secularism is billed as the alternative to multiculturalism, but establishing this as the binary is really useless since that barely covers the issue. Moreover, secularism and multiculturalism are not opposites.

Another concept that I feel is not being unpacked is the idea of how different Québec and Canada are, particularly in terms of identity. It's no secret that most Canadians tend to feel a sense of superiority over Americans based on the treatment of minorities. I'd argue that anglophone Canadians feel the same way about Québec in a lot of ways. It reinforces for Canadians that they are superior because an issue like this is not happening there. It allows Canadians to forget about the ways in which they marginalise others that may be less blatant.

This otherness is amplified by the limited knowledge of Québec's history by outsiders. As someone who is a Quebecer and who teaches Québec history, I can say that I have a slightly more intimate knowledge of Québec than the average anglophone. What most people tend to miss is that Québec is rather different from Canada in a lot of meaningful ways, not the least of which being that since the 1960s it has taken a sufficiently different approach to the organisation of society than Canada has. For the most part, it has actively sought to remove the church from all facets of formal power. There is an open acknowledgement among francophones of the historical role played by Catholicism, though the major current is that religion does not mix with public life. This is highlighted in the controversy about the crucifix in the National Assembly. Given that Québec (at least outside Montréal) is relatively free of cultural minorities, a secular tradition has not posed many serious problems until recently.


On a practical level, I really can't condone what Québec is proposing. Nor can I support other imperatives like the FIFA scandal from the spring. The Charter is obviously about women covering their faces, and it is therefore a clearly Islamophobic move. Division amongst society is relatively high, and that all of Québec is being admonished as on board with this troubles me. There are segments of all societies that hold attitudes that reinforce oppression. What's particularly interesting is that a wide gap has developed between so-called "conservative" and "liberal" feminists. Conservatives connect Islam to sexism while liberals grab onto the notion of choice. There are no clearly drawn lines when it comes to interpretation, and this is again why it's such a difficult element.

Lastly, I have been trying to understand this as an economic issue. It seems to be pretty far removed from the realm of the economy, though it is expressly reinforcing notions of who can and should work: the secular person. Work is a key part of economic activity, and this is therefore an important connection in a story that seems to not be talked about from the financial perspective. In a world where Québec is seldom mentioned outside of talking about separatism, this move has garnered serious attention. And perhaps it's most interesting because one of the major elements of this scandal is that, in my opinion, it is designed to be a wedge issue. The Parti Québecois has failed to gain traction amongst francophones on the economy, language, or climate change. The issue of secularism is something that has a significant power to shape the way that Québecers think of themselves. The federal government is already preparing itself for a fight, and Québec society, in many regards, seems to feel ready for it.

VMAs 2013: Media and Sexuality

On Sunday night the MTV Video Music Awards were presented, shining a spotlight on American culture. Much has been written about Miley Cyrus joining Robin Thicke onstage for the controversial summer hit "Blurred Lines". I've been busy paying attention to what's going on through social media, television, and online articles written from numerous perspectives. I want to state some things that I thought were relevant, which I'll hopefully do succinctly below.

Instead of trying to explain what happened, I'll leave you with the performance itself so that you can have an unfiltered explanation. There's a lot to take in, that's for sure. The performances were, firstly, absolutely atrocious. I found the singing and dancing to be pretty abysmal, but quality is not the primary focus, not by a longshot. The sexualised nature of the performance has drawn criticism from hundreds of millions of people.

The media reaction has been swift, and it has developed into a massive storm. Social media sites, Twitter in particular, have been inundated with posts about the VMA performance. The mainstream media has gotten in on the action, with CNN (among other guilty parties) privileging the VMA scandal over the developments in Syria where civilians were gassed. Largely, the reactions have been to the effect of slut-shaming. Twitter has been awash with statements condemning the performance and the mainstream media has joyfully jumped in, with some even going so far as to question the sanity of Cyrus. The central arguments seem to be that this was an over-sexualised act marketed to children, and that it is offensive because it is "indecent".

The feminist blogosphere, however, with sites such as Feministing and Jezebel, has countered some of the major discourses coming out of social media, print, and television. They have been quick to hit back that the performance is offensive, but not really for the reasons listed above. While the acts were sexual in nature, the problem, to many, has been the overtones and undertones or race, sexuality and gender.

We live in a society where sex is a significant part of public life. The VMAs, in my opinion, were complicit in normalising behaviour where men and women play oppositional roles and are therefore viewed through radically different lenses. Thicke's actions have not come under scrutiny thus far, and it seems likely that they will not, despite the rather expressly rapey content of his single "Blurred Lines".

I've read some great articles that also highlight the degree to which young female artists break the mould by becoming "rebels" by adopting selected parts from myriad western queer and black cultures. ThinkProgress' Alyssa Rosenberg put it nicely when she said this is common for young peformers who wanted to "demonstrate a certain kind of rebelliousness, while still remaining largely acceptable to a mass-market audience" without struggling with the loss privilege that transgressing these lines would entail.

I think that what's missing, from my perspective, is a serious discussion about agency. I won't pretend to know what's going on behind the scenes or even on stage, but I imagine there's an intricate balance between the actors we see and the actors we don't see that produces this type of stuff. Matthew Good sums it up quite well when he states that female child performers "no longer have access to the machine that made them stars, one so powerful there is almost nothing comprable in entertainment, so decisions have to be made". It's no surprise that the trajectory taken Cyrus is a well-travelled road. The larger cultural attitudes are certainly propagated by young artists, but I'd argue that they are reactions to a culture that finds it satisfying to observe and an industry that feeds off this system. Again, slut-shaming and talking about sex is more interesting to the average American than a discourse on economic inequality or human rights violations. I believe it's easy for people to have an opinion on something like this so the volume of participants is high. It helps that this is so controversial that it is no problem to sustain.

Telecommunications Breakdown

Last Friday Bell Canada published an open letter to the Canadian Government, printed in numerous national publications. The telecommunications company is appealing to the public following Verizon's attempts to jump into the Canadian mobile phone market. In the wake of this move, I'd like to make a proposition that Canadians agitate to create a more effective market, including potentially forming a co-operative to meet the needs of Canadian consumers.

Canadians have some of the most expensive cellular rates in the world. While many reasons for this are cited, it comes down to the fact that there is minimal competition in the Canadian market. For the past few decades, Canadians have had minimal choices. Bell Canada Enterprises has been the largest player in Canada, and is privileged to hold about 30 per cent of the market share for cell phones. Bell and Rogers have been competing intensely for the last decade or so. Bell being represented in blue and Rogers in red. This is commonplace branding for Canadians who encounter Bell and Rogers countless times daily.

Bell, for example, owns a substantial part of the national telephone infrastructure, the Montréal Canadians, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, and The Source. It also controls Bell Media, which includes CTV, TSN, the Comedy Network, MTV, Discovery, the Globe and Mail, and several radio stations. Not to be outdone, Rogers has similar investments in Canadian media. Shaw, which owns Global, is a third party, and Telus competes in the mobile market.

Collectively, Bell, Rogers, and Telus make up the "big three" in mobile phones. There are subsidiaries of each, but of course they do not really create more competition since they are owned and managed by the parent entities. The only independent national carriers are Wind, Public Mobile, and Mobilicity. Together these companies make up a very small share of the Canadian market (approximately 1.1 million plans or about 4 per cent). It's not by coincidence that these recent entrants to the market are small - there are two significant barriers to entry. Firstly, the CRTC regulations make it very challenging to get a license. Secondly, the capital required to run such an operation is outstandingly high.

Despite these barriers, Wind Mobile has been rather successful, taking about 2.5 per cent of the Canadian market in the past four years. However, due to unfair rules they have struggled to become true competitors. That's where Verizon comes in. An American giant, Verizon has saturated its markets and is looking for a place to expand. Verizon has massive access to capital and therefore only really needs to get past the CRTC in order to become a true competitor in the Canadian market.

If Bell was scared in 2008 with Wind attempting to join the market, this is the nightmare. The fear does not come across explicitly: the tone of the open letter is one of stirring up nationalist sentiments against encroachment from a foreign company. Bell is counting on Canadians being outraged at American money changing hands and that the public will view Bell as the little guy, which is a rather absurd proposition.

I'm not overly excited about another large multinational conglomerate coming to the market in order to increase competition. For that reason, I'd like to see something more democratic and sustainable. My hope is that Canadians could explore the feasibility of arranging a co-operative to meet the needs of wireless consumers. In the past Wireless Nomad was an internet provider arranged as a for-profit co-op and currently the Eastern Ontario co-operative Mornington Communications Ltd offers phone service. These are small companies, but are examples of the drive that Canadians have for more transparency, fairness, and sustainability in wireless communications.

I hope for more competition, but I know that meaningful changes to the market can only occur when Canadians have real options that are affordable and democratic. I support Verizon's ambitions, but I can't help but think that a co-operative is the right way to go.

Québec and the Tar Sands

Recently a train derailed in the small village of Lac Mégantic in the Eastern Townships of Québec, devastating for the local community. The details are astonishing and I'd encourage you to have a look at as many sources as possible. While it has brought to the fore some rather predictable responses, the tragedy rests precariously on some important political and economic fault lines.

Blame is currently going around, with various groups pointing to different actors and criticising their actions. Aid relief from the federal government has allegedly been slow; the provincial government has been accused of using this event as a political firestarter; firefighters, engineers, and supervisors are the subject of investigation, the role of the rail company is being scrutinised, and the regulatory systems that govern rail transportation are under attack.

Seemingly, these are all important pieces of the puzzle, and will ultimately determine the trigger for the crash as well as its larger causes. However, there seems to be minimal attention to the reason why an event like this is even taking place, and it is rather unsurprising taken in the context of larger Canadian political and economic issues.

The oil sector in Canada is a major cause of the problem. The transportation of oil by rail has increased 280 times in the past five years. While the Tar Sands are seen as a vast fountain of wealth for Canada, they are useless on their own. Oil extracted from the Tar Sands needs to be properly processed, and it is for precisely this reason that the governments of Alberta and Canada have worked so tirelessly to establish new pipeline deals. Crude oil would then be sent either to China (via the Northern Gateway Pipeline) or to the United States (via the Keystone XL Pipeline) in order to be processed.

However, there has been an incredible outpouring of support for groups that oppose these projects, namely because they oppose the Tar Sands. Where in years past people demanded that the Tar Sands be closed, the rallying cries now are that pipeline projects be stopped in their tracks. They have become significant public relations controversies given the high risks and costs, though all the while production has steadily increased in the Tar Sands. An increasing amount of oil has been sent by rail to processing plants in New Brunswick. In order to get there, oil is sent through prime agricultural land and densely populated regions of central and eastern Canada. Places like Lac Mégantic.

The Tar Sands have a massive effect on the Canadian economy, leading various governments to make decisions about fiscal issues such as taxes and services. Domestic policy in Canada is quite strikingly predicated on the Tar Sands. Decisions about whether or not scientists should be able to criticise the oil industry or whether corporations are to be held accountable and transparent are part of the grip that the Tar Sands has on Canadian society. Now rail transportation can be added to the equation.

What's perhaps most interesting is the fact that the Tar Sands were a significant part of the NDP's attack on the government after Mulcair was selected as the new leader. Mulcair argued that Canada, by virtue of having invested so heavily in the Tar Sands, had forsaken the rest of the Canadian economy. This rationale picked up serious momentum until it was pointed out that Quebec, which is the base for the NDP's support, was reliant on transfer payments from the Tar Sands.

The cries of Dutch Disease fell silent, but sadly the money that is pumped into governments across Canada from dirty oil have started people to ask a new question. Is it worth it? While financially Canada may seem to need the oil sands, the idea of externalised costs is striking. Concerns about who will pay for the rebuilding of the levelled village, how victims will be compensated, how the oil will be cleaned up, and what happens to the drinking water are now the dominant concerns of people who, for the first times in their lives, have been meaningfully affected by the Tar Sands.

It's a long distance from the advertisements that the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers have created, espousing the wondrous economic and social benefit of the Tar Sands for Québec. Presumably time will tell and people will hopefully not vote with their wallets on this pressing question for the future of Canada.

The Situation in Syria

My first post on this blog was in May of 2011, merely two months after the conflict in Syria first emerged. Despite my intense interest in the Middle East, I've shied away from commenting on it because I haven't felt that I've been able to put my thoughts into some type of coherent post. Given the rise in media attention over the past month, I thought I'd offer some brief insight.

My suspicion is that the logical starting place is around the nomenclature. It's been termed a civil war, genocide, revolution, conflict, insurgency, uprising, and numerous other labels. But what is it? To some degree it's a matter of perspective, but perhaps more importantly it's a question of not being able to characterise a movement as any one particular thing. In my opinion, it's numerous different things simultaneously, which is why I am attempting to refer to it as a conflict in order to remain rather vague about it. To frame this more historically, people are still debating whether or not the American Revolution was in fact a revolution or whether it was merely a war of independence. Historical events and processes are complicated and take on numerous labels at once.

The origins of the conflict in Syria are connected to the broader Arab Spring movement of 2011. Much unlike the other countries involved, the events in Syria were not short-lived. While other movements ended (Libya), and others have met with intermittent success (Egypt), Syria is alone in sustaining the climate of revolution and open combat. It's most certainly the most complicated of all the Arab Spring movements, and I'd argue that it's definitely the most misunderstood.

At a domestic level, the situation is difficult for Westerners to understand because the lines are not clearly drawn. While it is rather obvious who represents formal power, the enemies of the state are numerous. Some are self-fashioned Islamist groups while others are claim to be liberal secular moderates. There have been numerous attempts to unite enemies of Bashar al-Assad under a coalition, but these have failed because there are significant disagreements about what a post-Assad nation should look like.

This gets overwhelmingly complicated when the international context is added. Many of the groups fighting in Syria have received support from outside powers, while others have been labelled "terrorist organisations" by Washington and others. This has stopped countries, particularly France, Britain, and the United States, from making commitments to more participation. It is unclear how to intervene without picking allies carefully. The United States and other NATO allies have been burned badly in Iran, Afghanistan, and Libya over the past decade and are naturally hesitant to participate in another highly charged situation. From Russia's perspective, Syria has been an ally and, while Assad may not be the most likeable character, he is a safer bet that a radical pro-Western Islamic state. It's only been in the past few weeks that Moscow has changed its tone regarding Syria, though this has yet to materialise on the ground.

The fact of the matter is that the average citizens of Syria are left to deal with numerous factions fighting one another. The destruction is incomprehensible, with cities virtually destroyed, crops burned, and the innocent subjected to atrocities by all sides. The road toward a solution is complicated at best, since at this point numerous factions have been fighting for over two years. Every side has invested heavily in trying to create a Syria that is synonymous with their aspirations and values, often directly at odds with those of their enemies. It's unlikely that Syria will be at peace in the near future, and when that time does come, resentment will find other ways of manifesting itself.

Memorial Ride

Last weekend I went to Montréal for the burial of my grandmother, who passed away in March. It was a remarkable day to celebrate life and family, and it was a great experience for me to reflect on my life. I've therefore decided to write a more personal post, one that explores the grieving process.

The past six months of my life has been marked with numerous transitions, graduating from my masters, moving to Québec, and starting a career in teaching. In the midst of all those changes my grandmother went from being autonomous and healthy to her life coming to an end. During this time I battled with confusion, anger, stress, and sadness; much like anyone who experiences the loss of a loved one and time freezes. Like all the other new elements of my life, this one was simultaneously thrust upon me and painfully slow.

While the funeral offered some closure to me, I wasn't emotionally ready to handle what seemed like one in a long train of transitions. I had felt like I was able to take the changes, but given the tumultuous nature of my life at the time, it was a challenge, and one that I couldn't do while surrounded by family.

Between March and June my life has changed dramatically, and in that I have become more resilient and more focused. Heading to Montréal this time was so different. Standing in the warm sun on Mount Royal's Notre-dame-des-neiges cemetery, I realised that my life was centred and that while we all grieved the loss of an important person in our lives, we were all happy and ready to move forward as a family, which is exactly what grandma would have wanted.

That was powerful enough, but a long afternoon ride, where I joined four family members, embodied the state of my life and my grandmother's death. We rode from the West Island, out to Laval, around the Lake of Two Mountains, to Vaudreuil-Dorion, and back to Montréal. I thought about my grandmother and how her life was centred around Montréal. We had all come back to mark her death at the burial, but riding through the region allowed us to get together and celebrate her life.

I'm comforted that my grandmother's life was centred around Montréal, and while I've never lived there, my life has always revolved around it to a large degree. I'm excited about making decisions in the coming month about where I'm going to be living next, and it may very well be Montréal. My grandma would be proud.

Conservatives and the Media Bias

There have been a lot of controversies recently in Canadian politics. While the Federal Government has dealt with the prospective failure of the XL Pipeline, the potential trade deal with the European Union, and the spending scandal in the Senate. While this has been in the news every night, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has managed to surpass the Conservatives in media coverage.

It is alleged that Ford was videotaped smoking cocaine in a suburban neighbourhood of the city. The American website Gawker claims that two of its reporters saw the video and that it is "clearly" Ford, and this was picked up by the Toronto Star. The only information that the public has to go on is a picture that was provided. Attempts to secure the video have proven unsuccessful, and right now apparently the video has disappeared. The people with him were apparently involved in criminal activities and were both killed outside a nightclub earlier this year, leading many to assume that the video has been seized by police as part of the evidence in a homicide case.

Naturally, this has taken off as not only one of the top national news stories, it also briefly enjoyed exposure worldwide, much to the chagrin of Torontonians. Ford, for his part, denied the allegations about a week after they surfaced. During that period he managed to lose three members of his staff. The media storm intensified with nightly attention on The Tonight Show, The Colbert Report, and The Daily Show.

All the while, Ford's loyal supporters, who love his "don't give a fuck" attitude, have remained at his side. While he has been vilified for his inarticulateness, his malice, and his outspoken opinions, he has significant appeal for failing to waiver in the face of strong opposition. Ford's image, in fact, is based on him being rough and tumble, and smoking cocaine with criminals has not surprised many, including his supporters. Ford has had a long history of substance abuse problems, most famously getting a DUI in the United States about a decade ago.

It certainly begs the question. What's the relevance of a scandal like this? So far as I can tell, there are two significant angles. Firstly, there is no evidence against Ford. Secondly, many seem to still feel that Ford is still fit to run the city. It's worth remembering that he was fired in 2012 and managed to win his job back.

Nonetheless, Ford has hit back against the media. It's not the first time that he has attacked the press. Far from it: Ford has always claimed to be fighting against a media bias against conservatives. According to Ford, who has taken the same line as Republicans like Mitt Romney, that the "lamestream media" is run by liberals. Ford appears every Sunday on a talk radio programme where he voices his opinions directly, without the filter of any media companies.

While my first reaction is to say that of course the media is not biased against conservatives, as media often serves the dominant class, I'd argue that mass media is not necessarily partial to a party. Instead, I prefer to think of the bias as one against an ideology of public spending on programmes that resdistribute. These are usually packaged as "pro-business" which is coincidentally how conservatives tend to brand themselves.

Sadly, despite the fact that large companies in Canada such as Bell, Québecor, and Shaw control the vast majority of national media, many Canadians believe that the media is either "unbiased" or that it represents a more "liberal" agenda. This disregards the fact that, for the most part, Canadian media tend to oppose the social welfare state and take positions to uphold the status quo on important issues like women's rights, immigration, environmental protection, or employment security.