Dawg’s Blawg

A junior employee of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency finds himself in hot water for sending a letter to the Ontario Liquor Commission of Ontario stating that wine produced in the occupied territories of Palestine is not to be labelled “Product of Israel.” The LCBO then informed its stores of the ruling.

This produced the predictable whining from the Usual Suspects. The Israeli Embassy got involved, calling it “politicization.” And a spokesman for the indefatigable B’nai Brith Canada, Marty York, demanded that the employee be “disciplined.”

Needless to say, the CFIA reversed course in a matter of hours, and stated that the employee had “made a mistake.”

The Canada Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA) allegedly permits the mislabelling. In fact, it appears to state the opposite: To qualify under CIFTA, a good must be “wholly obtained or produced entirely in the territory of one or both of the Parties.”

But wait. The definition of “territory” in CIFTA contains a cunning bit of legerdemain: it is defined, not as the formal state territory, but as the area over which a party exerts customs control. As an occupying power, it is Israel that imposes that control over the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the prison-house of Gaza, and the Golan Heights. Voilà! Israel’s “territory,” for the purposes of CIFTA, includes Palestine.

Now, in case anyone needs reminding, the West Bank and other occupied territories are not formally part of Israel. Under international law, the territories remain distinct: Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016), reaffirming numerous earlier Resolutions, calls upon all States to “distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.” Indeed, annexing all or part of these territories is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention: Article 49(6) states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies,” of which the expanding settlement program is in open defiance. Canada’s expressed position is, at least on paper, aligned with that of the United Nations.

Under the dubious cover of CIFTA, however, Canada is now effectively subverting international law by sleight of hand, permitting the labelling of products manufactured in the occupied territories as “products of Israel.” This is egregiously underhanded and wrong.

The interpretation by the “low-level employee” of CFIA, on the other hand, is squarely backed by international law. Yet he or she is the one facing possible discipline for stating the obvious. If there is to be any discipline, I would suggest that the higher-ups who countermanded his or her ruling be required to attend a remedial law course or two.

The politics here, of course, which have seemingly led Canada to flout UN resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention, are that identifying products as being from the occupied territories might make it easier for people so inclined to boycott them—analogous to some degree to the anti-labelling lobby by GMO-content food producers. But here there is a distinction to be made: the latter lobby does not demand that misleading labels be substituted. Here, contrary to the CFIA’s own written policy, which the junior employee was conscientiously applying, the order has come down to permit labelling duplicity based upon the slippery wording of CIFTA.

Those of us who have been critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories have frequently been criticized for “singling out Israel” or applying a double standard by which we allegedly judge Israel by higher standards than we do other nations. But this is the first case that I am aware of where the government agency in charge of food labelling has ordered its staff, but only in the case of Israel, to disregard a policy that applies everywhere else. There does appear to be a double standard in play here, but it’s the reverse of the one of which we have been accused.

Let’s have one standard and one standard only. Truth in labelling is too important a concept to be “politicized.” Anyone disagree?

Photocredit: Garrett Mills/Flash 90 Photo

On July 24 last year, Constable Daniel Montsion, one of the highest-paid police officers in Ontario, beat an unarmed Somalian man, Abdirahman Abdi,to death in front of horrified witnesses. He used specially reinforced gloves, the equivalent of brass knuckles, to accomplish his grisly task.

This past March 6, Montsion was charged with manslaughter, one of the rare occasions when the provincial Special Investigations Unit (SIU) finds a police officer at fault.

He has been on paid leave ever since. And now his taxpayer-subsidized vacation will continue for a further two years and two months.

To say that there is something badly amiss here would be to understate the obvious. What kind of court system delays justice to such an extent that the very concept seems meaningless? And what sort of legislation (the Ontario Police Act) allows a brutal killer to enjoy a tax-subsidized holiday for nearly three years?

If this isn’t a wake-up call about the state of “justice” in Canada—and the near-impunity of police officers into the bargain—I can’t imagine what would be. This is shameful, a travesty, an outrage, and it should give some of us pause when we point a little too self-righteously at the US. Our own backyard, it seems, needs its own tending. Hell, if this case is any indication, it needs to be dug up and re-seeded.

The rot began long ago, with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointing far-right John Crispo to the CBC Board of Directors. It accelerated with the appointment of the ridiculous Richard Stursberg, who wanted to rescue the Mothercorp from the “elites” by coarsening and cheapening its content. And CEO Robert Rabinovich played his part in the decline, drowning the CBC in freelancers and firing capable journalists like Barbara Budd.

More recently, there was solid, gray, dependable Peter Mansbridge, whose end-of-year interviews with the previous Prime Minister consisted entirely of soft lobs. Whether he afflicted the afflicted may be up for debate, but he certainly comforted the comfortable. Matters proceeded to get worse, far worse, when he and the cranky noise machine Rex Murphy started shilling for Big Oil, making small fortunes on the speaking circuit, and when others sat on big stories, or even got caught in louche conflicts of interest.

More recently, the pace has picked up even further. In a classic example of news suppression, the CBC made no mention whatsoever about the Chrystia Freeland scandal. And the Power and Politics program, in particular, has disgraced itself. There was the interview with a racist who spewed false information about First Nations people without being challenged. A half-hearted apology from the CBC after a social media uproar was remarkable: “The show did have an expert on immediately following Mr. McInnes’s appearance who challenged what the group stands for, but a more comprehensive response would have included an Indigenous representative to critique Mr. McInnes’s views,” said spokesman Chuck Thompson. Gosh—ya think?

Then there was the interview with Layne Morris, a fraudster who was blinded in that infamous Afghanistan firefight at the Khadr compound, not by shrapnel, but by pebbles. He was airlifted out of the fray well before Omar Khadr allegedly threw his grenade. But there he is, having never met Khadr, and having never been close to him in battle, allowed to blather on about him to a complaisant Rosemary Barton. She might just as well have interviewed this guy: who needs anything but a low-information opinion these days to catch the eye of Power and Politics?

And of course there was Julie Van Dusen’s unforgiveable behaviour towards some Cree elders during the Canada Day tipi protest on Parliament Hill. She didn’t want to hear their stories: she wanted them, in effect, to tell hers. “Just answer the question!” she barked, at one point. It’s hard to imagine that level of unprofessional rudeness from a CBC journo at any other presser. She sounded like the mistress of a house interrogating her servants. Decolonization, anyone?

All of this is to say that the CBC has…changed. Has it caught the infection introduced to Canadian airwaves by Rebel Media? Is the Harper-appointed Board of Directors to blame? Or the dreary succession of lightweights put in charge of the operation over the past few years? Could it be budget cuts, forcing a move from in-depth reporting to sensational, one-sided, sound-bite journalism? Whatever the cause, we’ve seen the effects.

So do we put on the brakes—or just junk the rusty old car? In fairness, there is still some content worth saving: among other programs, As It Happens continues to chunder reliably along, although its glory days are long past; Terry O’Reilly’s series on the history of advertising is a gem; and The Current makes morning radio bearable. Regional programming, at least in my city (Ottawa), is superior in quality to the competition. So I’m not giving up on the corporation I help to pay for just yet. But—to extend the metaphor—it needs more than a lick of paint. Serious bodywork, new tires, realignment and a new engine are called for, not to mention a more capable driver. Do I hear a yes?

Item: Nazis to gather at the Richview Library, Etobicoke.

On one hand, weary recognition that a grievous wrong has been partially righted. On the other, grunts, incoherent babbling, lying, much jabbering, pseudo-intellectual nitpicking, and crass political opportunism.

Which side are you on? Seems a fairly easy choice.

“This is a problem, the way you communicate,” said First Nations Elder Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail, to Julie Van Dusen, from CBC television. “You’re a guest here, and you don’t even know how to speak to us. You don’t even recognize the tone in your voice, in your delivery.”

Bingo.

This clip is hard to watch and harder to hear, but people should do both, and more than once. In particular, it should be viewed by any non-indigenous member of the media who wants productive face-time with First Nations people.

Let’s first recognize that the two women on the podium were genuinely exasperated. This was no false outrage, but all too real. Perhaps it behooves us to ask why, and to swallow our own discomfort as we do so.

From a non-indigenous, “white” perspective, Van Dusen’s question was what we expect of Parliamentary Press Gallery reporters at pressers: framing a context and probing for a sound-bite. I doubt that there was any malicious intent on her part, but her vast unknowing marked the boundaries of a chasm between her world-view and professional practice, and the perspectives of those with whom she was trying to engage.

The women called the presser, after all, to give expression to their own world-view, history and experience. Instead of being granted that opportunity, they were being forced into a corner, asked instead to fit themselves into a political context that, for them, was wildly irrelevant. Comparing Trudeau to Harper? What use was a question like that for First Nations women who take the historical long view, and (with FN people everywhere) are facing a government—a Liberal government—which has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting against equal services for First Nations children, and is continuing to do so?

It’s fair to assume that the women saw here a distinction without much of a difference. Indeed, as Wabano-Iahtail subsequently said, “”As far as how Justin Trudeau is doing, one of the things we have to keep in mind is we’re asking the United Nations to help us…Because your Liberal party was also responsible—every party, your every government that has been in power, there’s been a war conflict.”

But in any case, Van Dusen pressed on, and then she crossed the line. In answer to her initial question about Trudeau and Harper, another speaker mentioned the death of a young indigenous person in Thunder Bay. She was trying to bring the conversation back into her own reality by being concrete and specific. But Van Dusen wasn’t having that. “But how can [Trudeau] be blamed for that? You don’t think that anything he’s doing is helping the situation? Is he an improvement over Stephen Harper? Talk about his record.”

The people on the podium were aghast. They had just attempted to return the exchange to their own context, and here Van Dusen was being insistent, aggressive (“Just answer the question!”), and just a touch snide as she continued to press her point. Wabano-Iahtail began to protest, but Van Dusen kept talking.

You don’t, ever, talk over an Elder when they are speaking. It’s considered profoundly offensive to do so. And she was righteously scolded for it.

Then Glen McGregor of CTV stepped in. After being told to be respectful, he repeated Van Dusen’s question calmly enough, and he got his answer. But his immediate standing up for Van Dusen, who refused to leave after being asked, was the icing on the white cake. It looked like, and it was, a closing of ranks. The presser was abruptly terminated.

Van Dusen (and McGregor) seemed blithely unaware of the numerous transgressions that they had committed. I am certain that they felt very badly treated, and they did indeed get an earful. Many, maybe most, non-indigenous folks heard nothing but angry people attacking a couple of journos who were just trying to do their jobs. But if we start with the anthropologist’s “what is happening here?” instead of simply reacting, a few constructive lessons might be learned.

We should grant that all the participants were acting in good faith. There is no reason to believe otherwise. So, what went wrong? How could such encounters be avoided next time?

This clip is an important one for those interested in the reconciliation project. It’s going to be tough. We’re the folks, after all, who need to do the reconciling, not the First Nations/Inuit/Métis who have borne the brunt of colonial privilege, racism and economic immiseration literally for centuries. Face-to-face encounters are an essential part of that healing process; in fact, probably the main ingredient. So, if we’re going to talk with people whose collective subject-position is so extraordinarily different from our own, shouldn’t we first learn how to do it?

Consider this a training film on how not to go about having that dialogue. But we can all learn from our mistakes. Perhaps, on the 150th anniversary of the Canadian state, we should resolve to do better. Call it a Canada Day resolution.

See Joe Clark’s comment.

I was wracking my brain for a uniquely Canadian recipe to bring to a gathering of Hill-shunning celebrants this weekend, and decided to whip up a batch of an old treat from Salluit, Nunavik. We may have leftovers - let me know if you want a whaley-bag.

WHALE POUTINE RECIPE

Preparation Time: 1 hour Cook time: 40 hours Yield: 347,161 servings

Ingredients: - 1 (95, 254 kg) Whale (ensure that species is non-endangered) - 860 kg onions - 3,322 kg potatoes - 7,222 L water, lightly salted - 1,032 kg carrots - 420 kg celery - 47 kg salt (or low-sodium option for a healthier poutine) - 34 kg black pepper - 13 kg cornstarch - 18 L water - 27 kg unsalted butter - 22 kg unbleached all purpose flour (or gluten-free alternative) - 90 L beef broth - 60 L chicken broth - Pepper, to taste - 998 kg cheddar cheese curds (note that St. Albert Cheese Factory required one week advance notice for order of over 3 kg.)

Directions:

1) Place whale in a very large pot with water. Cook at 300°F for 4 hours.

2) Add onions, carrots, celery, salt, pepper. Simmer 36 hours.

3) When tender, cut whale into bite-sized chunks. Set aside, but keep warm.

4) In a small cauldron, dissolve the cornstarch in the water and set aside.

5) In a larger cauldron, melt the butter. Add the flour (or gluten free aternative) and cook, stirring regularly, for about 5 minutes, until the mixture turns golden brown. Add the beef and chicken broth and bring to a boil, stirring with a forklift. Stir in the cornstarch and simmer for 3-5 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Season with pepper. Add salt to taste. Make ahead and re-warm, or keep warm until your fries are ready.

6) Cut potatoes into 1/2-inch thick julienne sticks. Place into several large cauldrons and cover completely with cold water. Allow to stand at least one hour.

7) When ready to cook, heat oil in small tank to 300°F. Add your fries to the oil and cook for 5-8 minutes, just until potatoes are starting to cook but are not yet browned. Remove potatoes from oil and scatter on a wire rack. Increase oil temperature to 375°F. Return the potatoes to the tank and cook until potatoes are golden brown. Drain fries on a paper towel-lined high school gym floor.

8) Combine whale and fries. Season lightly with salt while still warm. Add three forklift buckets of hot poutine gravy and using tongs, toss the fries in the gravy. Add more gravy as needed to coat the fries.

9) Add the cheese curds and toss with the hot whale, fries and gravy.

10) Serve immediately. Add freshly ground pepper to taste. Hot sauce optional.

Werner Herzog speaks of the jungle, but he may as well be talking about today’s America, a latter-day Roman Empire in its disgusting decadence, where the worst of what makes us human no longer has any checks and balances, only fawning enablers.

A monstrous Id-figure, an orange Ubu Roi, now rightfully presides, a morbid symptom of a crazed and, dare I say it, profoundly evil society. America is the Sodom of the Babylonian Talmud, where justice was stood on its head: assault victims were forced to pay the assaulter for bleeding them, rape victims were compelled to live with the rapist until they became pregnant, and feeding the poor was punishable by death. Immigration was abolished: “Since there cometh forth bread out of (our) earth, and it hath the dust of gold, why should we suffer wayfarers, who come to us only to deplete our wealth. Come, let us abolish the practice of travelling in our land.”

There is nothing new about the reigning monstrosity who has already destroyed the office of the US Presidency. Here is Albert Jarry’s Ubu—sound familiar?

According to [playwright] Jane Taylor, “the central character is notorious for his infantile engagement with his world. Ubu inhabits a domain of greedy self-gratification.” Jarry’s metaphor for the modern man, he is an antihero — fat, ugly, vulgar, gluttonous, grandiose, dishonest, stupid, jejune, voracious, greedy, cruel, cowardly and evil…. “There is,” wrote Taylor, “a particular kind of pleasure for an audience watching these infantile attacks. Part of the satisfaction arises from the fact that in the burlesque mode which Jarry invents, there is no place for consequence. While Ubu may be relentless in his political aspirations, and brutal in his personal relations, he apparently has no measurable effect upon those who inhabit the farcical world which he creates around himself. He thus acts out our most childish rages and desires, in which we seek to gratify ourselves at all cost.”

This is a country that has become a human game preserve where Blacks may be murdered with impunity so long as the murderer wears a glittering hunting licence. A nation whose legislators and Executive intend to strip health care from tens of millions of people, abolish environmental protections, and allow waterways to be poisoned. After Ubu and his gibbering family are through with health care, rape victims will find it more difficult to obtain health insurance, because rape is considered a “pre-existing condition” by private health insurers. And so things progress, if that’s the right word: think of whatever can cause harm to others, and there will be a law, Supreme Court ruling or Executive Order to put it in place.

It’s sado-politics at its worst, and the people who voted for and continue to support Trump are deeply complicit. The Sodomic maxim, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours” is not only the law of the land by now, but deeply embedded in that cacaphonous, roiling mosh-pit called “American culture.”

Like many others, rubbing our eyes after that impossible 2016 election, we tried to make excuses for the people who freely chose to elevate Ubu. We talked of voter suppression (which simply abounded), and the disappointingly obtuse other candidate, who never uttered an original word or idea throughout the campaign, and whose operatives ensured that a far better candidate would be shut out, shut up and shut down.

We tried to sympathize with those who were never part of the system and so had no stake in it, who, in Michael Moore’s words, sent a gigantic “Fuck You” to Washington. People who had no hope, and no vision to inspire them, as inequality kept increasing, as good jobs became scarcer and scarcer, as unions were crushed in state after state, and precarious, miserably-paid work was all one could expect, and all their children could expect until the end of time.

The American Dream was over; they shook themselves awake, rubbing their eyes and facing a new empty day, while, far away, other people debated cultural appropriation and trans rights and safe spaces and trigger warnings, and whatnot. They found themselves in a world that, to them, appeared more and more surreal, unmoored from everything they knew. These were people kept permanently at a distance, helpless spectators. So why not vote for the circus that would at least give them a little visceral satisfaction? Voting had always been consequence-free before; why not enjoy the damn spectacle for once?

But we must not patronize from on high. We must grant these people the dignity of agency, and, by so doing, refuse to absolve them. They made a completely indefensible, irresponsible, nasty, dangerous choice, and most still refuse to admit it, even as the wreckage is piling up. They’re getting too much vicarious enjoyment right now, watching other people ridiculed, reviled and humiliated by Ubu, beaten by his roving mobs of Freikorps, stopped at the border, or simply kept in their place, both geographical and social, by swaggering, militarized robocops.

It’s all great fun. And it will continue to be so for the alienated and detached, for the stupid, and for the vicious, psychopathic monsters who always rise to occasions like this, until the jungle overwhelms their shitty little towns of rust and crumbling concrete, and their soulless urban centres, and they are forced to live, not merely watch, what they have brought down on others.

By then, of course, it will be far too late. You don’t get a do-over or a “just kidding, can we go home now?” or a “gosh, we’re sorry, please make it better.” When you declare “a warre of all against all,” and, make no mistake, you’ve gone and done exactly that, America, you can’t just head for the exits: there are none. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, folks. It’s here, and for once you’re invited.

Not content with murdering a Black man in front of his partner and her young child, the cops who pulled over Philando Castile handcuffed the terrified woman and then confined her in the back seat of a squad car, separating her from her daughter.

The quotation is from the 4-year-old kid, immediately after the execution—a witness to the casual nightmarish barbarism of American police. The audio here is simply chilling. Heartrending.

In America, 2017, the monsters are no longer under the bed.