Dumb Judge

In Calgary, there is a most unusual event occurring. An inquiry is being held to determine whether or not a judge should be allowed to continue to hear cases. This judge, during a rape trial made a few grossly inappropriate comments to the victim including  "Why couldn't you just keep your knees together?" (CBC).The inquiry is unusual in that there have only been two other cases where judges have been judged by their peers as to whether or not they are fit to be judges.

The fact that the judge made the above comment clearly indicates that his thinking is out of step with both the law and what many Canadians think. The law is clear: All that a woman needs to do to prevent rape is to say "no". For the judge to suggest anything else should immediately disqualify him for passing judgements on others. On the other hand.................

I must confess I have a tiny little bit of empathy for the judge. I don't agree with him. He should have known better but I think it is fair to say that what is allowable and not allowable in terms of sexual conduct between two adults is a bit of a moving target. The evolution of thought as to how two people should relate to each other, specifically sexually, has in the past thirty years changed in profound ways. It clearly has a long way still to go. Those values are constantly shifting - moving one would hope to a point where no one would ever feel coerced to do anything they did not want to do. But unfortunately the language and the message is not always as clear as it apparently needs to be.

The question that occasionally floats through the back of my mind is how does one know that know consent is freely given? There was a time, not that long ago, when consent was implied if the other person did not say no. We are, at least in some courts, thankfully well past that point. It is no longer enough for a person to assume that a kiss or a nice meal in a restaurant means consent for anything else. It is accepted (I hope) by many/most that partners need to validate the consent throughout at least the initial stages of a relationship. And that at any time when either of the individuals expresses discomfort or concern, the other must stop. The "no" does not even have to be explicit. I think that is clear. But my question is - in a society that is still overwhelmingly patriarchal, where power relationships are unequal, where advertisers  target the genders differently, where the expectations of behaviour and dress are clearly different - are women comfortable in saying no? Do they know that they can?

Supporting my concern is a MIT 2014 survey in which it was reported in the New York Times that       

" Large numbers of undergraduates, male and female, also agreed with statements suggesting that blame for the assault did not always rest exclusively with the aggressor. Two-thirds agreed that “rape and sexual assault can happen unintentionally, especially if alcohol is involved”; one-third said it can happen “because men get carried away”; about one in five said it often happened because the victim was not clear enough about refusing; and a similar number said   that a drunk victim was “at least somewhat responsible.”

MIT is a university full of some of the brightest young people in the USA. It is scary that they could think that the victim is at least partially responsible. As some women continue to rightly place the responsibility onto men to listen to what their partners are saying and to respond to it, other women appear to be still looking for excuses to explain men's assaultive behaviours. As long as they do so - men will use those excuses both be legitimately confused and to justify their behaviours. Unfortunately people in positions  of power such as the above judge will continue to say dumb things.

Labour Day and Our National Parks

Today is Labour Day. For many Canadians, this national holiday is just the last long weekend of the summer, for others having the first Monday of September off is a chance to catch their breath and to get ready for the start of school, fall recreation programs and the cold weather that is coming. For those who have to work, the national holiday is simply a chance to get paid time and a half. Relatively few Canadians are aware that Labour Day is a Canadian invention and that it has its roots in a strike by the Toronto Typographical Union's 1872 strike demanding a 58 ( no - that is not a typo) hour work week. Twenty seven other unions joined the protest. At a parade in April, 10,000 people marched in support of the strike. There were numerous arrest but eventually the government of the day both revoked some of the more oppressive labour laws and changed the number of hours in a work week. Far too many of us forget that some of our grandfathers and great grand fathers marched and in some cases put their lives on the line so that we might have protection from unscrupulous employers.

By coincidence I have been reading a book by Bill Waiser, a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan called Park Prisoners - The Untold Story of Western Canada's Parks, 1915-1946. Unfortunately but perhaps not surprisingly it is a bit dry, lacking in human interest stories. None-the-less it is fascinating read in that it discusses in some detail the history of how the infrastructure of some of our best known national parks in Canada got built.

During WWl there were a number of foreign nationals (people who had come to Canada to work and to live but were from countries that were allied with Germany) were interred into labour camps and forced to, under very harsh conditions, to clear bush and to build roads within the national parks. There was no indication that these men were a risk to the Canadian government. They were interred for the simple reason that they appeared to be not quite the same as others.  Some of the language of their Anglo-Saxon peers demanding that they be locked away is reminiscent of the language used by Mr. Trump and his supporters when discussing either Muslims or Hispanic/Americans.

 A decade and half later, during the Depression the Government of Canada re-instituted the program. On the surface, it seemed like a win-win proposal. The national parks would get some desperately needed work done and men who were unemployed would get the chance to work and to do something useful. In reality for many men, especially the single men who were supervised by the Department of National Defence, it was a horrendous experience. The men had very little choice. If they chose to not work in the parks, they lost the right to get welfare. The conditions in the camps (again specifically the DND camps) was horrendous with men initially spending part of the winter months in tents insulated by bales of hay. The clothing they were offered was inadequate, the food frequently insufficient and the work was physically demanding (for example - clearing a road from Golden to Revelstoke mainly by manual labour and hand tools).  While the program was successful in that a number of structures and roads were built (and are still being used today), it is clear that program's main emphasis was to get the single men out of the large cities were they were both draining the financial resources of the municipalities and talking to each other about the need to protest the lack of jobs and opportunities. The government did not want people to get together and to organize. The spectre of workers overthrowing the government as they had done in 1917 in Russia was still far too fresh in the minds of politicians and capitalists. Sending them all to remote camps seemed like an ideal solution.

It didn't work. The men did go on strike in the camps, they did talk about the need to organize and to in some cases overthrow the government. The On to Ottawa Trek and the subsequent riots in Regina in 1935 had its genesis in the labour camps on the West Coast. While neither of those two events closed down the labour camps directly, the next federal election saw the Conservative Government lose its power to the Liberals who did close down the program.

Canadian labour history is full of successful protest/strikes that changed how the companies interacted with their employees. Those changes affect how we in 2016 live. The number of hours we work each week, the conditions of employment in terms of safety, how many holidays we get and what protections we have under law to ensure that we are treated fairly are all there because someone fought for them, because someone thought it was important enough to risk something to get them.

We forget, at our peril, the hard work done by those who fought for us. As important to some people as are the sacrifices soldiers make on behalf their country, the sacrifices made by union members are equally as important. Virtually all of our employment rights are ours because someone fought for them.

We should, at least once a year, take a few minutes to give thanks.

Exceptional Needs, the community and the Government Part 2

A day or so ago I did a bit about the questions that were raised (in my mind) as I read three separate and seeming unrelated articles. All three articles had to do with the lack of supports for people who have unique needs. There is no doubt there is a sufficient level of expertise within our communities to develop the range of support programs that are needed to support all individuals who face special challenges. "However at some point someone needs to ask the question: should we do it? And if the answer is yes, then the second question needs to be why".

When in the early 1970s, at a variety of centres in Canada, people started to have a serious conversation about closing institutions and supporting everyone in the community, there were a number of assumptions made. One assumption was that it would be cheaper in the long run to close down the large facilities and to support those individuals in their home communities; a second was that those communities had the capacity to provide those supports and a third was that the individuals who were repatriated back to the community would have significantly better lives.  Those assumptions were made with no documentation, no scientific proof, no research. The truth was so self-evident that there was virtually no debate allowed. People who disagreed with the concept of de-institutionalization were at best just wrong and at worst discrimitory, uncaring and possibly dangerous people. I don't remember anyone asking the question if there was a limit in terms of costs or the communities' capacities.  The only "proof" anyone had that de-institutionalization was a good thing were the anecdotal stories told by a number of people as they travelled from conference to conference, training session to training session.

What is perhaps more concerning is that to the best of my knowledge - no one is yet questioning those assumptions.  I think professionals are too afraid to ask the question: is the amount of money and support available from the public purse bottomless? Is there a limit to how much we are willing to spend? Governments, of course, know the answer which is why they continually tweak the system trying to find ways of delivering ever more complex support systems with less money. Of course no minister of the government or senior civil servant will say "there is no more money - we can't help anymore".

While I recognize that the deeper the pot is, the more likely it is that people will demand even more supports and services - I think the pot should be near bottomless. I find it absurd that we live in a country where on one hand we give legal acknowledgement to the rights of all people and then do little to ensure that some of those people have the skills and the opportunities to access those rights. We give lip service to the concept that the community can and should support all of its citizens but have continually refused to fund those communities to an adequate level. We ask more of parents, schools and others than we ever have before - but available resources never match the need.

If our governments are unable to provide sufficient fund to ensure that parents are not forced to sell their home to provide supportive accommodation for their son or that people who live with mental health problems don't develop more problems because of the lack of appropriate and available programs or that those who want to and have the capacity to excel in post secondary can't - then the government should say so. And they should say why.

Those who continually argue that we are paying too much tax need to be part of the conversation. They need to sit across from the table with those parents or that young person who can't get support and say " we don't want to pay for it anymore". It is time we stopped blaming the faceless bureaucrats and the elected politicians for the inadequacy of services. Maybe it is time we ask the question we should have asked  over 40 years ago: how much are you willing to pay to support everyone in your community?

Exceptional Needs, the Community and the Government Part 1

In the past few days I have read three articles. Individually each article was reasonably well written but did not contain new information. None of the articles kept my attention for any longer than it took me to read it. However when read in combination with each other, the articles once again raised a question that Canadians need to address.

CBC reported on a mother and father who are planning on selling their home and then buying a townhouse so that their adult son who faces a number of challenges can have a place to live. The family hope that they can find a roommate who also needs some support so that they can create some sort of "group home" for their son when they are no longer able to support him. They are rightly frustrated that the provincial ministry cannot provide the level of support their son requires.

The second article was from the Globe and Mail who suggested that Canada's mental health system is underfunded - in fact the amount the Canadian government spends on mental health programs is near the bottom of a list of OECD countries. The argument made was that we need to do much better at supporting those who live with a mental health problem. The mental health system hopes that in the next round of health negotiations between the province and the federal government that mental health funding will be a priority.

The third article is in the September edition of the Walrus. It was an article written by a mother whose son has a learning disability and who had been struggling to get all of the needed accommodations to support him that had been agreed to by his university. The writer/mother while recognizing that there may be conflicts between supporting those with special needs within a post-secondary setting and universities maintaining it academic standards was also frustrated at how her son was treated.

All three of the issues presented by the articles could at least in part be resolved with more money. A lot more money. There is no doubt that Canada could afford to spend more than it does on providing a supports to members of the community. There is also no doubt that there is a sufficient level of expertise within those communities to develop the range of support programs that are needed. However at some point someone needs to ask the question: should we do it? And if the answer is yes, then the second question needs to be why.

My heart goes out to that family who are prepared to make (as they have done for the past 27 years) all kinds of life changes to ensure that their son has the best possible choices as he gets older. But the problem of not finding adequate or appropriate service is not a new problem. I can think of a number of families who struggled with that problem twenty years ago. Some of them explored exactly the same option as this family are doing. In the intervening years, the various governments have frequently increased the budgets of community based agencies. Community based programs in the last two or three decades have expanded both in terms their complexities and their comprehensiveness. I suspect that this family are frustrated by not only the lack of supports but also by the fact that it feels as if they have been lied to. When government operated facilities for children and adults who face challenges were closed - parents and the community were promised that there would be sufficient supports in the community. We promised fully integrated schools where young people of all levels of ability would socialize and learn together. We promised (because we believed it to be true) that there would be a range of supports available as the individual grew and as their needs changed.  We promised that the communities would be able to provide the opportunity for all individuals to maximize their potential. Those who made those promises, made those commitments were wrong.

They were wrong - not because the belief that everyone had the absolute right to be treated with dignity, and that everyone had the right to be given the chance to grow was misguided or wrong - but because we never explained (or even understood) what we were asking the community to do.

It is well past time for someone to do so.

to be continued.......................