Rights

I spent some of last week indoors to avoid air pollution and was reduced to watching a national joint conference of two large denominations live-streaming their sessions. Since I had been onsite at one event in the past it was interesting to see what was on the agenda.

One of the motions had to do with rights of all Canadians to clean water. No one would deny these in theory; we still have a long way to go in practice. Like many of the motions, this one had to do with social justice. It brings up a question for all of us as the last species to arrive. Is justice exclusively social justice? The eco-theologian Thomas Berry, who preferred to call himself an eco-geologian to avoid too much prying from the Roman Catholic church - especially since he was a remember of a religious order as well as a professor, asked the question. Does water itself have rights? We pretend that corporations are persons in terms of rights. Why not natural elements - soil, water, air? Berry looked at the importance of water for survival of all creatures, human and otherwise, in the Hudson Valley where he lived for many years. He also wondered about our ability to change the course of water by creating dams for our own convenience.

He would be pleased by one Canadian story.

“In February 2021, the world was introduced to Mutehekau Shipu — also known as the Magpie River — when the people of Ekuanitshit, Que. and the regional municipality made a joint declaration granting the river legal personhood and rights.”

Our first nations brothers and sisters have understood this instinctively until we took many away from the parents as children and placed them in residential schools. We act as though we have just awakened to something they have always known. It’s time for us to be their students and sit on the ground with humility.

How we live

I’m looking at an article in the New York Times. “How countries can get richer without wrecking the planet”.  Note the two parts here.  We at least know now that we are wrecking the planet just by looking out the window at the smoke from fires many kilometers or miles away. But the article takes it for granted that somehow we can have it all anyway and being richer will make us happier. Neither need be questioned.

The article goes on to state that it’s a conflict between accumulating wealth and. preserving nature. It adds our need to lift people out of poverty - as though accumulating wealth is going to do that – and that the rich will always share with the poor. Researchers at the World Bank think they have found a way.  Well good for them. Let’s see how it is to be done.

• Farming more intensively and in appropriate places

• Preserving more areas of forests that stash planet warming carbon

• Supporting biodiversity

“Suppose you used all the resources that you have more efficiently” – says the lead economist. “How much could you produce?” Countries could sequester lots of carbon dioxide without denting economic growth. Or they could increase annual income from forestry and agriculture for food needs without damaging the environment. Preserving land and water helps the economy and nature at the same time.

Producing more food on smaller plots sounds good. Was Monsanto consulted on that one and will they be happy to give up their land? Small farmers, few as they are, will like that. It continues to sound good until others warn there might be unintended consequences. Perhaps they have studied those caused by the industrial revolution. The mention how one country increased agricultural productivity but contaminated the adjacent waterways. In another case, increasing land efficiency meant that there were more land grabs of protected ones.  Reducing garbage or eating less beef were not among the efficiencies. We still want it all – and we have a master-slave relationship with nature.  That’s not something noticed in the report - or by most of us most of the time.

Tragedy - and More

The news came last night. The submersible vessel in the news suffered a catastrophic implosion that killed all its occupants. We learned this new word that means the opposite of an explosion - which a violent event of pressure spreading outward. This one had a violent pressure spreading inward. It dominated all news media for four days until we knew its outcome and we will now stop thinking about it - but we shouldn’t. It tells us something about who we are. The source of this information is an article in the morning edition of the Washington Post.

What we now know is that the hull of this vessel was composed of a lighter carbon fibre than earlier ones of its type. Those who regulate the field of submersibles were concerned about the safety of this model. The owner did not have it inspected because such an inspection was not required by law. In fact there had been previous lawsuits related to the safety of such material.

In a global world, the company was not accountable to any country’s law. It was American made and launching in our waters and did not have to report to either. Submersibles, unlike ships are treated like cargo carried aboard a bigger vessel. It was in ours waters - but we didn’t regulate its activities or pay attention until there was a problem.

The company’s CEO - who perished in the event and was driving it - thought that innovation means trying new things that disrupt previous ones. Some of us can agree with that as a theory - but might have questions about its implications for its effect on others - both human and non-human. What didn’t happen this time was that it was a vessel diving deep in US waters or carrying its flag. Inspection in that case to ensure safety standards was mandatory. The CEO thought that law was well intended but “it put passenger safety over commercial innovation”. It’s worth pausing and reflecting on his statement. Innovation was important. But so was commerce - which is making money for profit. Making money for profit was more important to this company than protecting the life of its own leader - who said that was what he thought. It cost him his life and that of four other persons. It cost millions of dollars in the search for the vessel.

The company published an article in 2019 stating that marine accidents are caused more frequently by errors of the operator - the corporate firm - it thought it avoided this issue via its own efforts and corporate culture - not mechanical failure, which is usually seen as the error that regulations and inspections are designed to protect.. A former director of the company had disagreed with that statement and was terminated. There were other concerns and lawsuits going back several years.

While there is much in the press about this story, what is not named is the amount of hubris we all share - that we are right on our own, that we don’t need to listen to the concerns of others. It’s an important learning for all of us even if may never want to see the Titanic at the bottom the sea - a previous example of the same sort of hubris as this one.

Dining with Senators

Not everyone gets to do this too often - if ever. But I had some interesting experience this weekend that is, in some ways, a truly Canadian story.

By a fortunate accident of fate, I acquired a nephew via marriage on my late husband’s side of the family. Though our lives have changed, we keep in touch for family events and these recent events were pleasant ones - watching his daughter conduct a master class with the Toronto Symphony and later conduct a world premiere of a new opera with triple affiliations to Tapestry, Soundstreams, and Luminato - all long part of the Toronto contemporary music scene. We were able to have dinner together in advance of the second event. The nephew is a Canadian senator - and he had invited one of his retired colleagues and his wife to join us for dinner. We met still another recently senator and his wife at the performance.

There was a bond shared by all three. They were all appointed in 2016 as independent senators and I was privileged then to also have an invitation to their initial seating, though I knew only one of them at the time. Working together through the years has created bonds of friendship for the three men that extends well beyond their official duties. But it is their individual histories that make their stories even more interesting.

One has served in all three branches of parliamentary democracy - executive, judicial and legislative. He also worked as a senior public servant in both the Ontario provincial and federal governments and as a federal court judge. His family fled Poland and came to Canada after spending time in Uzbekistan and relocated to a displaced person’s camp in Germany where he was born. They were eventually able to settle in Sydney, Nova Scotia when he was two years old.

Another earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Calcutta, a Masters in economics from University of Delhi and MBA (Finance) from UCLA Los Angeles. He has had a distinguished career in banking and prior to his senate appointment was Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Office of Scotiabank. He has made a contribution to the cultural life of Canada serving on the boards of major hospitals and arts organizations as well as being a founding member of the Sikh Foundation of Canada.

The third has worked on public policy issues related to Canada’s relations with Asian countries for more than 30 years. He is a former President and CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and currently a joint chair of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations and a member of the following Senate Standing Committees: Foreign Affairs and International Trade; Banking, Trade and Commerce; and Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. On June 23 he will be present for the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the Chinese Exclusion Act. something most of us know nothing about and could learn more here.

He was born in Malaysia and his family moved to Singapore shortly afterwards. After early education in and Anglo-Chinese school, he attended the Canadian United World College, Lester B. Pearson, in Victoria, which provided the Canadian connection before further studies at Cambridge and the University of London and later settlement in Newfoundland.

Three interesting Canadians - serving the country and enjoying personal friendships beyond their careers from such diverse starting positions. How grateful we all need to be for our own country and all those who settle here and work hard - both to heal our past and contribute to our future.

News - Bad and Good

The morning paper contains news of a tragic accident in Manitoba killing several seniors and wounding others. Their small community is grieving and we must join them. Hidden behind the main outline, though is another tragedy. The seniors were travelling two hundred kilometers to visit a casino - ‘for fun’.

As a senior myself, I would never suggest that seniors don’t deserve travel or pleasure. My guess is that the casino in question probably pays for the cost of the bus as they do in Ontario to lure seniors to casinos here. Sitting around a group some years ago, all of us confessed we had never been to a Casino and decided as a group to go one summer afternoon. We had agreed that our spending limit was $30 each. Among the six of us, we paid $180. One of us lucked out by winning $75. She noted that this gave a rush of pleasure, which made her feel guilty - but it didn’t occur to her to share the proceeds with the rest of us. Most of us were losers. We could, in fact, afford to lose the money on one afternoon of experiment. But what we learned was what a joyless place it was - subdued lighting, no sense of time or place, and too many vacant senior faces with no sense of joy or fun whatsoever - and less money than they came with, which most of them, unlike us, could ill afford. They had been brought in by a bus that probably cost the Casino about $300. Significantly the date was one day after old age pension cheques arrrived. To question it takes less than an ounce of moral courage to question this as a system on my part - but I do and more today than usual.

Better news came in a story about seven-year-olds learning about climate change in a school in New Jersey. The teacher had told the kids about penguins in Antarctica ; the warming of their environment meant that the penguins had to charge accordingly. What might they do?

Seven-year-olds are nothing if not inventive. Solutions ranged from penguins migrating to the US in winter to their building igloos. One thought she could keep a few in her fridge. It is the wife of the state governor who encouraged the school system to have children start to think seriously about the climate emergency, because they are the ones who will have to deal with it. Unlike others, who want to protect children from realities, this program encourages them to enter it now - not to scare them, but to become aware and to consider local solutions. While there were naturally dissenters, 70% voter in favour and the subject penetrates several curricular areas.

They are learning close to home:

“Outside, in a corner of the playground, there’s a fenced-in butterfly garden, a compost bin, and a soil bed where kids have tested which type of fertilizer, a chemical commercial variety or a natural blend, best helped plants (the natural one came out ahead).”

They are starting local and exploring a much larger framework. Would that we all did the same.