A National Crime

See this link: "Over the Hump of Denial"?

Well, I am not sure; but the new report finally actually documenting some of the children who died due to the Canadian residential schools policy is yet another step in the process of re-membering.  However, we need to be reminded that the authors of the report have yet to be given access to all the government records about this time in Canadian history.

A Few Thoughts:

In hearing about this report, I was particularly struck by the fact that around 500 of the 3000 dead children so far counted did not even have their names recorded by the institutions in which they were resident and had died.  As someone who does a lot of genealogy, this seems to be a very telling indifference to the lives of these young charges. 

And one can only try to imagine the emotions of the parents -- and any siblings -- when their child was taken away and nothing was ever heard of her/him again.  There simply was no record.  We have always known that many graves were not marked, but one might presume that the children ought not to have been totally nameless.  Apparently, to the administrators, the children simply 'disappeared', just as people (albeit, often adults) in other countries around the world have 'disappeared' during various political crises. 

I am struggling with the word "missing" because it seems to me to be too benign (too denial-like) to capture the nature of what actually happened.

Some years back, I read a book by John S. Milloy, "A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879-1986".  "Crime" seems a much more direct and descriptive word than "missing".  What struck me at the time of my reading the book was how impersonal and systematic was the residential school process.  The sense I got was that the perpetrators were mostly functionaries and administrators carrying out their bureaucratic orders.  On the face of it, not particularly sinister. 

In many ways this echos the current sense I have of the functioning of the national department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development and its previous incarnations.  It seems to me that not much has changed in terms of the bureaucracy.  Death rates on Canadian reserves is much higher than the general population; suicide is epidemic; drinking water issues are endemic; drug abuse is rampant.  But, indeed, as I write this commentary, the the web site for the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, even though it includes sections called: "Top Stories" and "What's New", does NOT include mention of this most-recent report of the death's of residential school missing children.  Perhaps the department believes that death among the indigenous peoples of Canada is actually 'yesterday's news'.

Finally, with regard to my thoughts on the Canadian residential schools matter, on the deaths, and on the indifferent, bureaucratic nature of the residential school enterprise, this recent re-counting and Milloy's book reminds me of a similar sense I took many years back, from the trial for crimes against humanity of the Nazi, Adolf Eichmann. 

My impressions at that time were not so much about Eichmann as a person, but that his job -- the consequences of which were so sinster and devastating -- was essentially one of 'facilitating and managing the logistics' of mass deportation' of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others to extermination.  I think it fair to say that the Canadian residential school system was not designed so much for personal extermination as it was for cultural extermination.  However, Eichmann's administrative, bureaucratic, indifferent sensibility seems to me, not unlike the operation of the Canadian residential school system described in Milloy's book.  The work itself was/is often seen as bereft of any sense of complicity in anything like a criminal undertaking.  The events are still often rationalized away by both perpetrators and observers.  But the consequences ought not to be denied.

Wanting More Cake and Eating it Too

The Vancouver Sun newspaper, February 16th, 2013, indicates that the Coal Association of Canada has released a special report on the industry's economic impact in British Columbia.

In reading the news article, one cannot help yet again viewing the way the extractive industries (perhaps all industries) seem to feed into somewhat contradictory views of the need for industry expansion as if there is an unqualified need for ongoing, massive capacity growth for, in this case, coal extraction and shipment.

In British Columbia, for several years now, both government and the various for-profit sectors of the economy have been arguing that changing demographics -- not to mention economic expansion -- are leading to an impending crisis in employment.  Specifically, there will not be enough skilled workers in the near future to fill all the skill positions being vacated by the baby boomer workers as they retire.  While the provincial government seems slow to recognize the post-secondary educational needs, there does seem to be a general consensus that there will be a considerable shortfall in appropriately skilled employees sufficient to sustain the current levels of economic activity.

Speaking specifically of the Coal industry in British Columbia, the Vancouver Sun article indicates that existing BC coal mining and shipment activities provide substantial economic benefits to the province:

"[In 2011] the province's 10 coal mines produced 25 million tonnes of coal worth $5.2 billion and contributed $3.2 billion to the provinces gross domestic product.  Coal mining accounts for 3,800 direct jobs and contributes $298 million in royalties to provincial coffers."   The report also indicates that using multipliers, this translates into support for 26,000 jobs and total revenues to the province of $399 million.

So, it would appear -- in economic terms -- the industry is thriving.  And if the projections about skilled labour are to be believed, then the current ten coal mines (and most employers) will be challenged over the coming years to sustain an effective and skilled work force.

So, here is the uncomfortable question:  In the face of such staffing challenges and keeping in mind the kind of current economic production -- not to mention issues of climate change -- why is the coal lobby so interested in pressing for even greater increases to capacity and revenue?

I know that we used to live in a time where most of us believed that maximum economic growth was perceived to be the most sensible path for human endeavor.  But it strikes me that this assumption hardly makes sense any more; and it even may be the case that we need to pay serious attention to the fact that there may be serious problems in simply sustaining the economic on which we have come to depend.

Flatlining

I have read with interest the series of Pete McMartin's columns about the environmental review processes around several current hydrocarbon transportation initiatives, including the Enbridge pipeline proposal.  I was, however, most struck by a particular comment in his most recent column (Sat. Feb.2, 2013): 

"I'd wager the same number of us would be wondering how we could back away from that precipice [of environmental disaster] without flatlining our economy."

This, I think, is the point.  I believe that almost nobody is talking about flatlining our economy.  By most accounts, Canada already has a reasonably well-functioning economy, at least near the top of the current economic heap. 

What we ARE talking about is whether to proceed with relatively short-term, dramatic economic expansion based on hydrocarbon extraction, and whether to expand at what might be a very intemperate pace.

If all the pipeline expansion proposals were put on hold, the Canadian economy would not flatline any more than reducing excess consumption of anything would cause immediate demise.  For example, if Kinder Morgan cannot more than double its current pipeline capacity to the Lower Mainland, I doubt that the firm will go out of business.  There already has been huge expansion of the tar sands, and the product is currently being shipped.

In this debate, aside from the environmental issues, what we are really arguing about is whether it is prudent to move to the next level of resource gluttony, and how fast.   And some, I think, rightly argue that there is plenty of evidence that increasing fossil-fuel extraction may well be the most direct route to flatlining everything.