A Socialist Takes Stock | <B>Editor's Choice</B> |Axisoflogic.com

The following is an abridged version of the 2014 Symons Lecture delivered by human rights activist, professor, and former politician and UN ambassador Stephen Lewis at an awards ceremony in Charlottetown on November 21. The Symons Lecture is a national platform for an eminent Canadian to discuss the current state and future prospects of Confederation. Held each fall to mark the 1864 meetings of the Fathers of Confederation on Prince Edward Island, it provides an opportunity to reect upon Canada and its future.

... over the last decade, the culture of politics has changed. The political dynamic, the political ‘gestalt’ if you will, has altered in Canada, perhaps irreversibly.

It doesn’t make me happy; in fact, it throws me into a rage. This speech is an opportunity to disgorge views, from an unabashed left-wing standpoint, of some of the ways our country, and its politics have, in my respectful opinion, hit a nadir of indignity.

Stephen Lewis

I obviously can’t begin to cover every aspect that scars my soul, so I shall choose --- very selectively --- five subjects that illumine our present and future Confederation: the decline of parliament, the suppression of dissent, the aboriginal dilemma, climate change and international affairs. I will admit that these subjects may not resonate with some in this audience. My problem is that I have been out of the country for so much of these past few years, that I’m limited as to choice.

Almost sixty years ago, 1955 to be exact, my father, David Lewis*, delivered a public lecture titled “A Socialist Takes Stock”. In his memory, I thought I’d give this lecture the same title. I suspect he’d be pleased.

Almost at the end of his lecture, my father wrote, quote:

“The modern democratic socialist should proclaim his aims loudly and passionately. The equality of men and women is the socialist watchword; the moral struggle against injustice and inequality is the socialist’s duty; to be a strong and powerful voice for common men and women against the abuse and oppression of the privileged minority is the socialist’s function; and to forge an ever finer and higher standard of values and a richer pattern of life and behavior is the socialist’s dream.”

I love those words. They’re not some exercise in philosophic romanticism. They’re a credo worth embracing, and for me, they stand as a set of principles that should guide political life. Let me cast them, then, in the real world of political discourse, if I may.

Those principles, and the objectives they reflect, can never be achieved in a spirit of mindless atavistic hostility. I’m not suggesting that political bonhomie is necessary to get things done; you can have deep ideological rifts across the floor of the House of Commons, and still manage to effect good, positive social change. But a vital requirement is respect: vitriolic nastiness in debate does not breed respect, nor does adolescent partisanship, nor do pieces of legislation of encyclopedic length that hide contentious issues, nor does the sudden emergence of frenzied TV attack ads, nor does the spectre of a Prime Minister’s Office exercising authoritarian control.

A legislature that functions with respect accomplishes a great deal. It has a name; it’s called parliamentary democracy.

These are not mere musings: I have had first-hand experience. I sat in the Ontario Legislature for more than fifteen years. For the great majority of that time, William Davis was the Conservative Premier. I’m not going to gild the lily unduly because I know that it embarrasses him, and frankly, unsettles me. I’ve never particularly liked showering praise on Tories, but this is an exception.

William Davis was about as honourable and decent a Premier as one could face. When I look back, I recall acts of personal and political kindness, bestowed by Premier Davis that were truly exceptional. I remember on one occasion his giving me a private warning about a problem in my own caucus, simply to make sure that I wasn’t taken by surprise. I also remember, after the NDP launched a heated attack on asbestos exposure, his sending me a note across the Legislative floor, indicating that he would announce the closure of a particularly dangerous asbestos mining and milling facility in Northern Ontario, thereby saving lives. It was particularly gracious because it gave me time to prepare a response. And while these are but incidental examples, they were part of a pattern. Tom Symons knows whereof I speak ... he knew Bill Davis well.

To be sure, there were, inevitably, splenetic political exchanges: William Davis wasn’t given to angelic perfection, and I was given to hyperbole. The two were bound to clash. But whatever the heat of debate, we respected each other, and that sense of respect suffused the exchange. After the rhetoric was over, we remained good friends ... indeed, we remain friends to this day.

You see, the behavior of the Leader of the Government, the tone that is set, the messages that go out, mean everything. And if the Government Leader is contemptuous of parliament and the parliamentary processes, then the discourse grinds down into ad hominem abuse. It’s such a sad loss. The spirit of debate becomes coarse, surly, inflammatory. It also has the corollary of degrading political life, of bolstering the cynicism about politics that crushes the enthusiasm of young voters.

Too often, that’s the definition of the Federal House of Commons. How the devil does one accomplish great things in that atmosphere?

I’m not asking for a miracle ... it just doesn’t have to be that way. I remember when my dad was in the House of Commons, with Pierre Trudeau as Prime Minister and Bob Stanfield as Leader of the Opposition. The level of debate was often awesome: they disagreed profoundly, but again there was an aura of respect and, I might add, good fun. My dad could stand in parliament and say that there but for the grace of Pierre Elliott Trudeau goes God, and no one would take it amiss.

Is it too much to ask that a full-fledged effort be made to restore civilized parliamentary sensibilities. What’s happening to this country? I can’t believe that the so-called Fathers of Confederation would have approved.

Suppression of Dissent
That leads me to the second point I want to make: it involves the willful suppression of dissent. I must admit that it wasn’t until I had the privilege of working internationally over the last 30 years that I really learned to value what we call civil society. Before then, I was a shade too cavalier about NGOs.

All of that changed when I went to the United Nations, and subsequently worked for UNICEF and then turned to HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Anyone who has studied the pandemic will know that the great breakthroughs came as a result of the pressure from civil society. From drug research to the roll-out of treatment, civil society has been behind the advocacy that has made it possible to save countless lives. Take South Africa as the prime example. The Treatment Action Campaign (known everywhere as TAC) forced an obdurate and denialist government to retreat and eventually to abandon its lunatic stand. South Africa has more than six million people living with the virus, hence finally to break the barriers to treatment is a magnificent accomplishment. It was achieved by a country-wide grass-roots campaign, focused on protests, rallies, demonstrations and legal interventions when all else failed. They couldn’t be stopped. TAC emerged as the most powerful NGO on the continent.

And if you need more evidence of an empowered civil society, just look at Doctors Without Borders and its work on Ebola. Here you have an NGO that has superseded the World Health Organization. Everywhere we turn, it doesn’t matter the issue, from child soldiers to child marriage to female genital mutilation, to international sexual trafficking, the greatest advances are orchestrated not by governments, but by the force and intelligence of civil society. It is impossible to overstate the power of civil society.

But in Canada, of all perversities, civil society is anathema.

Any group or organization that disagrees with the Government, pays a price. In most instances it’s the withdrawal of funding. Sometimes it’s mindless excoriation, and sometimes it’s a brazen use of the power of the state to shut people up, as has happened with so many of the Federal Government’s scientists who now can’t give an interview without a junior communications specialist from the PMO standing by his or her side.

I can’t begin to list all of the civil society organizations that have had their government funding slashed or altogether removed. Many of them address international issues --- in particular, if you dare to disagree with the government’s support for Israel in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, then your financial days are numbered --- but it extends far beyond that**. The cuts in funding to women’s groups is spectacularly egregious. It’s truly unsettling that at a moment when Canadians --- and incidentally, much of the world --- are preoccupied with the entire panoply of women’s rights, necessarily focused on sexual violence, our government sees activist women’s organizations as expendable, or worse, as foes to be crushed.

I must emphasize when taking stock of what’s happening in Canada, that we’re not only demonizing civil society, we’re losing the tremendous intellectual and analytic contribution that civil society is capable of making to public policy.

Is the word ‘demonizing’ extreme? I think not. Just turn your minds back to the use of the word ‘radical’, employed by Cabinet Ministers when attributing a “radical ideological agenda” to environmental groups who oppose Government policy on the Tar Sands and pipeline expansion. Make no mistake about it: the phrase “radical ideological agenda” was laden with malice and threat ... it was but one brief step to accusations of eco-terrorism. And those accusations are now a matter of public record.

What in the world is happening to this country? David Suzuki and a radical ideological agenda? Just two years ago, he was a Symons lecturer for heaven’s sake ... have you allowed these hallowed halls to be infiltrated by tremors of terrorism? And what about the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada ... is she also concealing a subversive agenda, given the allegation of improper judicial behavior hurled at her by the Prime Minister no less?

It amounts to the slow, inexorable whittling away at democratic norms. And there is no shame. No shame whatsoever. There is a radical ideological agenda gripping this country, but it’s not the environmentalists or the other targeted groups committed to the quest for social justice; it’s the political leadership.

And it gets worse. Honestly, I sometimes feel as though we’re channeling Richard Nixon’s enemies list. Mind you, his phantasms were driven by paranoia; ours are driven by malevolence.

How else to describe the use of the Canada Revenue Agency as an arm of government to harass and intimidate those with whom the government disagrees? It’s called victimization by audit.

I must admit that I’ve rarely seen anything so pernicious. Nor so blatant. Left-wing progressive groups, from the Suzuki Foundation to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives are under the audit microscope, while outfits like the Fraser Institute and the C.D. Howe Institute bask in splendid immunity. The Canada Revenue Agency claims absolute independence in the choice of those whom they audit. They should have Pinocchio as their mascot. They’re not telling the truth, and because they can’t be challenged, they get away with it. It doesn’t require a cabinet minister to say ‘these are the radical ideologues you should go after’. Any fool in the CRA can discern whom the targets should be. So far as I’m concerned, it’s a complete corruption of financial integrity in the way in which the government operates and treats its citizens.

Sometimes it descends to the level of reductio ad absurdum. Do you remember the attack on Oxfam’s charter? The CRA said that “preventing poverty” was not acceptable, whereas “relieving poverty could be described as charitable”. God forbid that you should want to prevent poverty, a goal that is shared by the World Bank, the agencies of the United Nations, a majority of powerful governments and a virtual consortium of NGOs.

You can tell, I suspect, that I’m agitated about the direction our country is taking. That direction leads me to the next subject ... the way First Nations are treated.

The Treatment of First Nations
Back on September 18th and 19th last year, I had the privilege of being an ‘Honorable Witness’ at the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Vancouver. I sat immobilized in the audience, emotionally leveled by the proceedings.

Two of the three members of the Commission sat on the raised dais at the front of the auditorium as witnesses came forward to testify. I want to speak of two of them. The first was a woman in her early seventies, surrounded by a support group of family and friends. She spoke softly but clearly into the microphone with only a smattering of notes; when she choked up, her sister hugged her gently, encouraging her to continue.

The woman had been taken to a residential school in British Columbia at the age of five. Her mother had outfitted her in a new white dress with colourful ribbons in her hair. As soon as the young girl entered the auditorium of the school, the nuns brusquely stripped her of her dress, replacing it with a rough, shapeless garment. She then lined up with scores of other girls, and when she reached the head of the line, the nuns cut off her hair at the nape of her neck. She had had long flowing locks that reached to her waist ... her mother and grandmother had told her that her hair was a matter of great beauty and pride.

It’s hard to imagine anything more frightening and devastating for a child. But more there was. It became clear, in the subsequent remarks, submerged in tears, that years --- literally years --- of physical violence and rape had followed.

The next witness was a man of similar age, also joined by a clearly- devoted support group. I shall extract but one sentence from his testimony. He said, shame etched in every word “I was eleven years old when they pulled my pants down”.

I’m no sweet innocent. I’ve encountered a lot of horrific stuff in my life. But I have to admit I was stunned by the revelations that flowed from the testimony. I kept asking myself, how could this happen in Canada, my country, when so many people knew exactly what was going on? I realize that residential schools have been endlessly discussed and analyzed, but it is an awful truth that the residential school inheritance remains unresolved to this day.

Sure, there was an apology. But an apology is ultimately gratuitous, ultimately self-serving and devious if it’s not accompanied by root and branch educational reform. And as things currently stand, and as Paul Martin eloquently pointed out, the shortfall in educational expenditure per capita for aboriginal students is 20 to 30 per cent, compared to non-aboriginal students in Canada. It dooms great numbers of aboriginal kids to a flawed and fractured educational experience:

unqualified teachers, crummy facilities, dilapidated buildings, no libraries, gymnasiums or computer labs. It was ever thus.

Yes, there is a parliamentary Bill waiting in the wings. But First Nations leadership is split on its utility. In absolutely indicative fashion, the government will not compromise.

It’s not the only area where the Government holds fast despite the clamour of aboriginal voices. For me, the worst example is the refusal to establish a Commission of Inquiry into the one thousand, one hundred and eighty-one murdered and missing aboriginal women.

Every organized aboriginal group in the country has asked for an Inquiry, as have all the Provincial and Territorial Premiers. Most important, the Native Women’s Association of Canada has pleaded for an Inquiry: it takes consummate political arrogance to refuse, but dogmatic refusal there has been.

Even in the face of renewed horror, and renewed calls for an Inquiry, has obduracy ruled the day. You will recall the words of the Prime Minister on the death of Tina Fontaine: “We should not view this as a sociological phenomenon. We should view it as a crime. It is a crime against innocent people and should be addressed as such”. The Premier of Ontario called the remark outrageous.

If the RCMP had chronicled 1,181 murdered and missing non- aboriginal women, do you think the same language about a sociological phenomenon would have been employed? Not a chance. It’s selective language for selected groups.

So what are we left with? A request for a roundtable as a desperate effort to get the Federal politicians to participate. That was agreed upon two months ago, here in Charlottetown, with Premier Ghiz indicating that at least it would mean a discussion would be underway, and the wishes of aboriginal leaders marginally acknowledged. The roundtable is now scheduled for February and we will see soon enough what, if anything, it yields.

However, the demand for an Inquiry is not off the table. Should things change in the next Federal campaign, there is no doubt in my mind that an Inquiry will take place.

Let me be clear. The refusal to hold an Inquiry, the refusal to deal urgently with such a continuum of tragedy --- just look at Rinelle Harper, the refusal to recognize the singular vulnerability of aboriginal peoples in Canada, the refusal to respond to a maelstrom of physical and sexual violence ... it all runs counter to all the current priorities of the international community. It is as though Canada had decided, like some mindless national curmudgeon, to be a permanent outlier on issues of minority rights and women’s rights.

It does us damage. It does us shame.

Please don’t think for a moment that the world is unaware. It’s very aware. The world has a legion of diplomatic representation in Canada and the diplomats report back to their capitals. More, Special Rapporteurs appointed by the UN Human Rights Council write scathing reports about the situation on reserves, and those reports are widely read.

And talking of reading, go back and re-read Paul Martin. The conditions for First Nations in this country are far too often appalling: the health and welfare indicators on reserve are scandalous. You can’t write off Attawapiskat. You can’t dismiss the Idle No More movement. There is a crescendo of aboriginal resentment growing. Paul Martin is a restrained and moderate man ... when he looks at what’s happening, he invokes the word paternalism. I’m neither restrained nor moderate. When I think back to my political experience with the struggles of Treaty Nine and Treaty Three in Ontario; when I recall my post- political days helping to represent the Council for Yukon Indians in their land claims negotiations with the Federal Government, when I view the contemporary landscape for First Nations in Canada, the word paternalism does not come to mind.
For me, the applicable word is racism.

It’s a terrible mistake to devalue the strength of the aboriginal community. The fetishism around resource development and pipelines of the present government is going to have to depend heavily on aboriginal partnership. If that partnership is resisted, the government is in severe trouble and, as it turns out, that trouble, on other fronts, may be increasing with every passing day.

It leads me to my next issue: climate change.

Ignoring the Forecasts
Allow me, once again, to speak personally about another little known episode from the past.

As I was about to leave the role of UN Ambassador, Prime Minister Mulroney asked me to be involved in one last departing event (well, he didn’t really ask; he just told me what I’d be doing). He appointed me to chair the first major international conference on climate change, titled “The Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security”. It was held in Toronto at the end of June, 1988, and was addressed by an astonishing group of scientists and politicians, ranging from Dr. James Hansen, of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who came directly to the conference after testifying before a Senate sub- committee in the United States, through to Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Prime Minister of Norway, who had just completed her landmark World Commission on Environment and Development.

The conference was extraordinary. There were three hundred in attendance from 46 countries and international organizations. The discussions were knowledgeable and intense. Fascinatingly, the targets that were set back in 1988, and never reached, are in many instances the same targets we are internationally re-negotiating today.

When the conference was over, I was instructed to draft a Conference statement. I did so, along with a close colleague from the Department of External Affairs. Allow me to read an extract from the opening two paragraphs:

“Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war. The Earth’s atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate ... these changes represent a major threat to international security and are already having harmful consequences over many parts of the globe. Far-reaching impacts will be caused by global warming and sea-level rise, which are becoming increasingly evident as a result of continued growth in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The best predictions available indicate potentially severe economic and social dislocation for present and future generations ... it is imperative to act now.”

That was more than twenty-five years ago. As you know, we haven’t acted. The words crafted back then, could well have been used in the most recent and final report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

I shall not review the evidence of what our reliance on fossil fuels is doing to the planet. Surely everyone is familiar with the actual and looming consequences. It’s incomparably depressing. I teach this material at University, and I am persuaded that we’re heading for an apocalyptic event before 2050 that will eclipse every Tsunami, every hurricane, every explosive climatic onslaught we have thus far known.

The inescapable need to shift, urgently and dramatically, away from coal, oil and natural gas to renewable sources of energy seems to be recognized by virtually every country on the planet, save Canada. We are religiously devoted to the Tar Sands regardless the consequences.

This is a massive mistake in public policy for five reasons.

First, there is a resurgent climate movement underscored by the United States-China agreement, by the extraordinary response to Naomi Klein’s new book “This Changes Everything”***, by the massive divestment campaign underway and by the four hundred thousand people on the streets at the end of September when the United Nations held its climate summit.

Second, and already referred to, is the resurgent indigenous rights movement in Canada, affirmed most recently by the Supreme Court itself. The pipeline multinationals can no longer get away with unilateral trampling over indigenous lands.

Third, there is the unprecedented over-supply of oil in the United States. As President Obama has just said in response to the Keystone XL pipeline controversy, Canadian oil from the tar sands is not destined for the United States; it’s just using the US as a conduit to markets in Asia. The shale gas generated from fracking now renders the Tar sands redundant.

Fourth, renewables, whether wind, solar, biomass or nuclear, are now ready for prime time. Germany’s economy is powered 25% by renewables and growing ... China is aiming at 20% of energy supply from renewables by 2031. It may well be that at the point the tar sands are ready for increased production, the oil will no longer be wanted, even by Asia.

Fifth, the drastic drop in price makes all further tar sands development problematic. In the last number of months, expansion plans have been cancelled by Shell oil, the French company Total ($11 Billion) and Norway’s Statoil ($2 Billion). They also cite limited pipeline capacity, and they know that it’s only a matter of time before a carbon tax is levied.
But when all is said and done, there is a paramount reason to jettison the existing love affair with the tar sands. We simply cannot compromise life on this planet. We have no right to endanger succeeding generations. And that’s what the tar sands development will do; that’s what bitumen extraction will mean. No matter what the soothing rationalizations, increased production from the tar sands means increased carbon into the atmosphere, and that means we are contributing to a planetary meltdown. It may not come until 2100. But on the present trajectory, it will come, and that means that we consciously put our grandchildren and great grandchildren in mortal peril.

Who in the world wants to do that? How can we continue to allow Canada --- with the possible exception of Australia --- to be seen as the worst carbon culprit among all western nations. When international negotiators speak of the possibility of an international climate change treaty in Paris in December of next year, they have a caveat: the caveat is Canada. Will we ever sign a Treaty?

So what is the answer to all of this? Well, I do have an answer, an unpopular answer. I want to emphasize that this is a personal conviction; it has nothing to do with current NDP policy on the tar sands.

I’m waiting for the day, hyperventilating for the day, when some Canadian politician has the courage to say: LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND.

That isn’t meant to be irresponsible. It’s not meant to be done overnight. It’s meant to be phased in over a given limited period of time, with an herculean commitment to finding alternative employment in negotiations with the local unions. But as important, coincident with the phase-out, would come an equally herculean commitment to the development of renewable energy. If Germany can do it, so can Canada. We have significantly higher annual levels of sunshine, and an astronomic wind power potential. Do you know that thirty-three per cent of Denmark’s energy needs are now derived from wind power? We haven’t begun to explore the renewable energy possibilities, not to mention the exponential growth in employment that will accompany development of renewables.

But for the moment, the profits from the tar sands trump the prospects for the planet.

Would that it were otherwise, and that brings me to my final point.

Canada's Deteriorated Reputation
Canada’s position on the world stage is in free-fall. People should not assume that obsessive devotion to a militaristic culture and a sharp crack at Vladimir Putin constitutes international kudos. It may win a few points here and there among like-minded western states, but everyone understands that it’s meant for domestic consumption on the eve of an election year.

We lost our run for the UN Security Council: that was almost beyond belief. We were humiliated by Portugal: I could understand that in soccer, but this was multilateralism. The defeat reflected the adverse way in which we’re viewed by so many countries. Our position on climate change speaks directly to that perception; our obsession with trade agreements is not seen in a flattering light by developing countries; our freeze in foreign aid is bewildering to many ... there was a time when CIDA was the pride of international development assistance, now it’s an object of ridicule; our abrupt severing of aid to a number of African countries won no plaudits; our relatively paltry response to Ebola has not gone unnoticed; our reluctant embrace of family planning and refusal to deal with abortion prompts legitimate questions; our thoroughly nasty treatment of refugees, our ugly response to asylum seekers ... that raises flags about human rights in many forums; our partisanship on the Middle-East ... obviously that’s a problem.

Yes, there is some admirable support for maternal and child health, but even there it’s terribly difficult to figure out exactly what’s going on; everything lacks transparency.

Is it an ephemeral dream to think that Canada could be a voice among nations, counseling hope and principle and resources and policies that embraced the public good? Is it an ephemeral dream to think that Canada might provide peacekeepers once again instead of bombs for ISIS? We’re almost silent at the UN; we’re almost nowhere to be found. How many people in this room can tell me the name of the Canadian Ambassador? I won’t embarrass you by asking for a show of hands. It’s not his fault. He maintains a low profile because he’s only allowed a low profile.

I’m happily in my dotage. I turned seventy-seven this month. I’m not running for public office; my views and my convictions blessedly count for little.

But somewhere in my soul, I cherish the possibility of a return to a vibrant democracy, where equality is the watchword, where people of different ideological conviction have respect for each other, where policy is debated rather than demeaned, where the great issues of the day are given thoughtful consideration, where Canada’s place on the world stage is seen as principled and laudatory, where human rights for all is the emblem of a decent civilized society.

The Fathers and Mothers of Confederation would approve. Is it too much to ask? I’ll let you know after the next Federal election.

Editor's Notes (prh):
* As a young man, I worked on several elections campaigns for David
** For the record, Stephen Lewis is Jewish.
*** Lewis is Naomi Klein's father-in-law

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