Not leadership, just bossiness

A friend sent around a petition against Doug Ford’s abrupt late-stage reduction of Toronto’s city council. Once of her friends said that she thought it was a good idea: “it will save a huge amount of money & will make governance much less cumbersome.   Savings can be redirected to more affordable housing, improved public health ,economic development initiatives/etc.  As well, don’t forget that every person in Toronto can easily meet with their council member for the cost of a cheap TTC fare – unlike most of the rest of the province. I don’t see it as an abuse of power, but rather leadership to try to get things under control here.”

Obviously, I disagreed, and responded:

I think a bit more information needs to be put in here. The salaries of the councillors cut would be a total of $2.28 million a year. This city’s budget is $11.1 billion. The TTC budget is just short of $2 billion. The salaries of the councillors cut would be equal to 0.1% of the TTC budget. And since staff would have to be hired to do some of the functions that the councillors will no longer have the time for, the savings will be even less. (Doug Ford stated that the plan would save $25 million, but he has not offered any breakdown or support for that number, and we need to remember that throughout the campaign and throughout his brief career in civic politics before that he had a considerable record of statements that were at best unsupported and at worse directly at odds with available facts. In any event, in Toronto’s budget, even $25 million is much less than it sounds, and the negative results would vitiate the savings.)

Add to that the extra cost of redoing the election on very short notice. It takes 9 months to prepare for an election. It is a very large and expensive logistical task. It is in fact unlikely that the necessary work even can be done in the time remaining; the revised deadline for councillor nominations would not even allow enough time to get the ballots printed. And since the school boards would not be redistricted, it would make future elections much more expensive and complicated than they are now.

With a council of 25, each councillor would represent a population equal to that of Thunder Bay. No other city is having such a reduction in local representation proposed. One person representing 100,000 people directly is not efficient (it also makes the ease of getting to their office moot; a councillor would not have enough time to meet with twice as many people). Saying that fewer councillors would be more efficient is like saying you can be more efficient in a busy restaurant by cutting the number of cooks or waiters in half.

Councillors do far more than just argue in council; they are responsible for quite a lot of coordination, management, and decision making. The things they make happen will not stop needing to happen. The public health and development initiatives you would like to see are much less likely to happen with half as much councillor (and councillor’s office) time per resident to help make them happen.

I should also mention that the reason we do not have more transit already is not due to there being too many councillors. The Transit City plan, had it not been killed by Rob Ford, was fully funded by city and province and was the product of a full-sized council. would already be delivering improved transit across the city. The Line 1 extension and the Eglinton Crosstown, the only two recent initiatives to go ahead, were both put in place under Miller, and the Eglinton nearly also got killed by Ford. Ford replaced a fully agreed, funded plan with an unfunded plan that never got started. John Tory then put in his own back-of-napkin plan, also unfunded, that still has not moved forward in 4 years. This is not because there are too many councillors. It is because two mayors decided to throw out plans that had already been put in place. It is an argument for a stronger council, a weaker mayor, and more control by experts. Tory has pushed through initiatives that will cost the city billions (yes, billions) in place of more efficient, cost-effective initiatives that had the support of experts. What we need is specifically not a mayor who doesn’t have to listen to others.

Beyond this, what Doug Ford is doing is a blatant violation of established principles and agreements (such as the Toronto-Ontario Cooperation and Consultation Agreement). It is a single-handed rubbishing of a decision that had been made with extensive consultation and expert analysis. It has quite obviously not been thought through. It is directly disrupting a democratic process and overriding the will of a city’s elected representatives. It shows open contempt for democracy and process, and it does so transparently in the service of score-settling against political opponents and of centralizing of power.

I find it truly distressing that any reasonable person could speak in favour of this frank abuse of power. Doug Ford’s behaviour is unworthy of an elected official and unworthy of the office he has been entrusted with, an office that is charged with representing the voice and will of the people. Single-handed overriding of a districting that was done with extensive consultation and consideration is not leadership. Bossiness, yes, but in no way leadership.

Shut up, Jordan. (or: Who can speak for First Nations)

Jordan Peterson, a professor at the University of Toronto, has made a practice of being a loud and regressive voice on subjects he doesn’t understand and can’t be bothered to learn about. One of those things is Canada’s First Nations. He claims that he can speak for them because he participated in a couple of long ceremonies and was made an honorary member of a tribe, or something like that.

I have some things to say about that. About him and everyone like him who wants to claim a voice in regard to First Nations.

Let me tell you a bit about myself, who I am, and who I am not and cannot speak for.

I grew up on the Stoney Nakoda reserve at Morley, west of Calgary. My parents are from the US, of entirely European descent (there’s talk in my mom’s family that a great-great-grandmother may have been American Indian, but that’s just talk and has nothing to do with heritage).

My parents worked on the reserve, my dad as a writer, photographer, translator, etc. for the tribe, my mom as a teacher in the school. Our family was “adopted” into the tribe—i.e., my father and mother have a Stoney family, brothers, sisters, etc., and Stoney names; my brother and I also have Stoney names. I was born after my family started living there, and so I was given my Stoney name before I was even born. It’s Îpabi Daguskan, Son of Rock or Stonechild.

I spent my childhood on the reserve. We went to I don’t even know how many pow-wows, feasts, and other events. Hundreds of hours. Can’t say how many times I fell asleep to the sound of drumming and singing while my dad talked to everyone. EVERYONE. And in Stoney. (My dad is fluent in Stoney. I regret to say that I am not. I barely know any.)

I rode the school bus with the Stoney kids. I went to school with them right through grade 9 (then went to a different high school for reasons that had more to do with the white kids in my class).

My parents don’t live on the reserve now, they live near it, but they retain their strong bonds to the community.

So. You’d think, given that my exposure to and participation in and welcoming in the Stoney Nakoda First Nation is several orders of magnitude greater than Jordan Peterson’s, I’d feel that I could speak for them or on their behalf or or or.

NO.

My parents don’t either.

All the time I was growing up, I could see that their reality, what they were subject to, how the world looked to them, was different from my experience, background, expectations, what I had to face.

I watched the cartoons on Saturday mornings, cartoons I knew the Stoney kids watched too, and in these cartoons, if there were any “Indians” at all, they were villains.

In school I learned from books that focused entirely on my culture and people like me. My mom was very frustrated as a teacher to have to use material that had no cultural meaning to the students. Opaque references.

If I went into Calgary, I was surrounded by my own cultural heritage and people who looked like me and, to the extent possible for a dorky kid who sucked at behaving himself, I could fit in. The Stoneys, in town, were looked at as “those Indians.”

I remember Moses Fox, a kid I rode the school bus with. He really picked on me a lot. Of course, kids are mean, but then you move on and grow up.

Moses didn’t. By the time I had my BFA from the U of Calgary, he was lying under cold earth. Like many other Stoney kids.

I lived my whole childhood on a reserve. My family was welcomed and was part of the reserve culture. I was given a Stoney name. I was carried around in a hand-made moss bag like any baby on the reserve. I have a picture of myself as a little kid in full pow-wow dress. But.

I rode the bus with the Stoney kids. I went to the feasts, the camp meetings and house meetings, sat through innumerable long prayers and testimonials and songs in both Stoney and English. But.

But I did not come from their heritage. And I did not carry around with me what they all carry with them, good and bad. I could move on and move in the world in places that were made for people with my face and background and not theirs.

And so I would never, ever, speak for them. Not ever. I would never, ever lecture a member of Canada’s First Nations on how to be better at being a member of Canada’s First Nations.

I do not say I am Stoney. I’m not. I know them, they are like family, but I am not them.

They and their parents and grandparents and on back were subject to theft and discrimination and suppression by, and for, and enforced by a government of, people like me and my parents and grandparents.

It’s not my job to speak for them. It’s not my job to wallow in otiose guilt either. It’s my job to try to amplify their voices, and to think about what I can do to help fix things for them and their future, and to try to do it.

If I say something about Canada’s First Nations, and a member of Canada’s First Nations says “No, you’re wrong,” I can say one thing: “I’m sorry, please tell me what’s right.” And then pass them the microphone. Which they should have had in the first place.

So. The TL;DR: I have many times more reason to claim to be able to speak for First Nations than Jordan Peterson has. But many times zero is still zero.

I have the authority to say just one thing: Shut up, Jordan.

Politicians and abortion

As a rule, I avoid talking about abortion. People just get upset when they talk about abortion, even if they all agree. Only life experience (yours or a friend’s) is likely to change a person’s position on it. In conversation, people just get more and more angry. But I have some things I want to get off my chest.

To start with: Legally, abortion is a settled issue. The Supreme Court has decided. No matter what individual politicians believe, they will not change that. No leader of a major party is putting outlawing abortion into his platform. What any given member of parliament (or, in the US, congress) believes or wants to happen or says on the stump, it will not change. You are not required to like this, and I’m not going to enter into the rightness or wrongness of legalization of abortion here (see above); I recommend listening to several women who had had or have considered abortions rather than arguing about it online. But regardless of what you would like to be the case, political means will not change it now. Focusing on politicians’ positions is barking up the wrong tree.

What this also means is that making abortion a political issue can produce effects that are not consistent with your overall values. Have a look at the politicians who are vocally opposed to abortion. Some of them have positions that are in many ways the opposite of the teachings of Jesus. “For I was hungry,” Jesus might say to them at the end, “and you called me a parasite, I was thirsty and you sold my water, I was a stranger and you turned me away, I was naked and you arrested me, I was sick and you turned me over to profiteers, I was in prison and you threw away the key.” I will not say that all politicians who are opposed to abortion have these kinds of harmful views, because I know it’s not the case. But if you vote for a party that opposes abortion and against one that believes it should remain legal, in Canada and the US right now, you are voting for a party that has a track record of exactly this kind of behaviour. It may upset you that a politician or party is pro-choice, but in real terms their stance on that issue almost certainly makes no difference. Their stance on issues affecting the poor, the hungry, the displaced, and those who need care and forgiveness, on the other hand, may make very important, real differences.

I do not think it is the right thing to do to vote for those who would do harm, or against those who would do good, on the basis of their stated position on something that is a moot point. Results are what count. Many people who are pro-life recognize that those who are pro-choice are sincerely interested in women’s rights and health, but they object that those people are causing the death of children: their good intentions are, in their view, leading them to cause harm. Well, apply that line of thought here: your best intentions opposing abortion may lead you to do something that causes real harm.

Those who are pro-choice, of course, do not see an early-term, non-viable fetus as a fully developed human, and they are far more concerned for the fully developed human female whose life may, in our society, be derailed by a pregnancy. You may say they are wrong about the fetus not being human, but you are mistaken if you deny that a pregnancy carried to term can have disastrous consequences for women in some positions. And you are naive if you think that the women can just say “No” easily or just use birth control. Talk to more women with a wider variety of experiences in the world. It simply isn’t the case.

Abortion is a decision very few people take lightly. It is traumatic. It is an act of desperation. I am not aware of anyone on either side of the issue who wouldn’t want to see fewer unwanted pregnancies – fewer women who are in a position where abortion would seem like a viable way out. It’s the lines of thought on how to get there that differ. On one side, the view is that women should simply say no, or perhaps use birth control – though many people on that side are opposed to birth control. On the other side, the view is that women should be in better positions to say no if they want to, be in better positions to use birth control. Which, as it happens, is proven to be an excellent way of reducing abortion rates (here’s more on that). I have no hesitation in advocating equality for women and full availability of birth control. Also reproductive health counselling so that young women are fully aware of their contraceptive options (see above).

So. If you are opposed to abortion, and you would like to see fewer abortions, focus on what will produce that result and will not result in harm.Saying something should be the case and feeling morally right about it means little if as a result your actions, or the actions of those you support, are inevitably producing abhorrent results.

Abortion is an issue that lets people on both sides feel very righteously angry. That doesn’t really help anything. If you want to reduce the number of abortions, start by finding women who have had abortions or have considered having abortions. Don’t talk at them. Listen to them. Find out why they were in that position in the first place. Then work on doing what it takes to help other women not to be in that position. Effective things that actually work.

Because you know what they say about good intentions and the road to you-know-where. Good results matter a lot more.

“The good thing about Rob Ford is…”

I’ve seen and heard it said that the good thing about Rob Ford is that he’s provoked a level of citizen involvement in civic politics that hasn’t been seen in decades, if ever.

Well, yes, it is gratifying to see people really getting actively involved. But I think calling that a beneficial effect of Rob Ford’s administration is like saying “Well, this flu was really good – it got my immune system working.” Or “That hurricane had the positive effect of giving the disaster relief system a good workout.”

A well-run city should not require huge amounts of grassroots involvement. Citizens are having to take on, and think about, things that they elected other people to take on and think about so they could go on doing their own parts in making the economy and cultural life of the city run smoothly.

So it’s nice to know that we have this civic immune system and it works. Now it would be great if it didn’t have to work so hard.