Tom Kertes

Unidentified woman at protest against racism in the Kensington community of Calgary
(Image credit: Robert Thivierge)

In today’s Winnipeg Sun Mindelle Jabobs writes that immigrants and visible minorities are “complaining” and “expecting a utopia” when calling for just and equitable treatment within Canada.� According to Jacobs, in the past such people immigrated to Canada with “nothing but gratitude and high hopes,” but now they are nothing but grumps who blame Canada for everything that goes wrong, despite the open arms of the rest of the country. The desire of all in Canada to be participants in the political, cultural and social life of our society should be celebrated and advanced, not derided and belittled by writers like Jacobs.

When Jacobs denies racism in Canada she echos what I hear from many other Canadians, all of whom are white like me and most of whom were born in Canada, unlike me.� As an immigrant to Canada from a much more racist country, with an historic legacy that includes institutionalized slavery and official segregation, I see how Canada’s policy of multiculturalism and culture of tolerance can make for a better and more welcoming place.� But as an immigrant I also see how the system works against many immigrants and longstanding racial and ethnic minorities. I also experience how it favours people like myself – because of my race, language and cultural background.� I see the contradictions and the racism, and find the denials troublesome because they contribute to the problem by keeping it under the radar and by also providing space to expand and continue its harm to many people.

I moved to Canada to be part of Canada, to bring with me my own cultural background and to fully participate in the cultural and civic life of Canada. And like most immigrants (indeed, like most people), it hurts to feel excluded. It hurts to be belittled, devalued and assimilated without regard for who I am and what I can bring to the cultural life of my adopted country.� For many other immigrants, and for many First Nations people and persons from some racial and ethnic minorities, it hurts even more because such exclusion leads to denial of basic economic human rights and makes it harder to make ends meet, to have a meaningful and rewarding job and to ensure that your children have a fair opportunity in life.

Jacob’s argument represents worrisome attitudes about people’s aspirations for a more just Canada.� We should be advancing human rights values everyone – both within and beyond Canada’s borders – and should be creating a society centred on people working together to meet everyone’s needs.� I hope that anyone with these aspirations, whether an old or new Canadian, are voiced and heard because we need everyone to participate in cultural and civic life to create the kind of Canada we all deserve.

Beyond denying pervasive racism, Jacob excludes immigrants and visible minorities from society.� According to this outlook, when immigrants, First Nations people and visible minorities say how they are being treated, ask for changes and otherwise participate in civic life they are not acting as any citizen ought to act, but rather are ungrateful and complaining “others” who intrude on and expect something from “us”.

Here is how she puts it:

In a sense, permanent residency in Canada means you’ve already won the lottery. Many of you have come from countries with atrocious human rights records, widespread poverty or endemic political corruption.

Canada means a second chance in a country epitomized by a workable multiculturalism (who else does it better?), freedom of religion and the rule of law. You can say pretty much what you want and government goons aren’t going to kidnap and torture you if you vote for the opposition.

Yes, there are terrible crimes committed here but, overall, it’s still a safe country.

To be sure, life is hard for some, but there is only so much a government can do to encourage citizens to better themselves. Many new immigrants do not fare as well as longtime Canadians. That is a side-effect of starting over in a new country. Winnipeg Sun

I am glad that Canada does not kidnap and torture its residents.� That’s one of the reasons why I moved here, with my home government doing both under President Bush’s war on terror.� But not torturing and not locking up residents in secret prisons is a low standard, one to which I’d prefer we exceed by leaps and bounds.

Another reason why I moved to Canada is because I don’t think the only role of government is to “encourage citizens to better themselves”. This is a heartless and undemocratic stance that concentrates power in the hands of the few and denies human rights to the many.� Government’s job is not “encouragement” but ensuring equity through provision of a fair way to fund and provide universal education, welfare for those who need it, employment insurance to everyone, universal health care and other government programs that address power disparities between the rich and the rest of us.� Without government on our side and balancing power on behalf of ordinary people, the few born with resources and the means to consolidate and expand their power and place in society can overwhelm the rest of us and trample our democracy and all means to achieving justice for all persons.� In a democracy the role of government is to expand inclusion, so that everyone person has the means to be part of society, to have a voice and to be heard, to have a means to not only survive but also thrive.

Jacob’s vision is one of exclusion.� I am not interested in her view of Canada because I came here to be part of something that contributed to improving people’s lives and expanding human rights to everyone.� My vision is one of inclusion, even at the expense of wading through thorny issues like racism, inequity and social and political shortcomings as we attempt to abide by just and humane values as a democratic society.� I want everyone to be included, to be part of a society that aims for participation of all.� I believe that everyone has inherent worth, and think we should be expanding civic life, not contracting to the benefit of a minority and the exclusion of the rest of society.� If you call this complaining, so be it.� But that won’t stop me from calling racist exclusion and systematic denial of people’s rights anything but what it is.

Image credit: John Eben Field

Let the “home hunt” begin.

Ron and I sat down today to start planning how, when and where we’ll purchase (or rent) our next home. �Our hope is to find a place to settle down in, with our sights on a place to retire in and (if lucky enough) to eventually die in. If we end up buying, we’ll be “first time buyers”.

I’d like to have a sense of being settled, and know that I have a place for living out the rest of my life that’s comfortable and secure. �I am fortunate to be able to consider having such a home, and realize how privileged I am because I know many who live on the street, under bridges, in shelters and without any option. It is sometimes difficult to look at how unfair and unhelpful the system is to everyone – including us – when fortunate enough to have something available in a system that denies all options to many others. �But starting down this path, and knowing what will likely be ahead, I just think we can do better as a society. �The game is rigged against us, tuned to values that make no sense to people’s needs being met, and we are all in this together.

Today’s exercise was to list our goals for the home, and to lay out parameters for what kind of place we’d like. �We started with the ideal, so we can move back from it as constraints (like cost, availability, reality) enter the process. �Here’s what we came up with, which I think reflects a reasonable quality of life to which anyone should be entitled, myself included:

• We want a place where we can retire and not have to move again (we don’t want to be forced out because rent outpaces income)
• We don’t want to be trapped in a home in case we decide to move, or an emergency of some sort requires us to move (we want a home, not to make a killing on a high yield investment fund)
• We want to live in a place that is part of a community – including the community where we work and where we take part in civic life, and we want that community to be stable enough so we can reasonably expect its essential character to remain intact (to change and be dynamic, but not too quickly and not too drastically as to make it unrecognizable)
• We want to be part of a community that is diverse in many ways – by age, health and ability, kind of work, type of education, family type, level of income, family culture and language, religious beliefs and political views – diversity for the sake of a dynamic character, rich cultural life and expressed inclusiveness – we moved to Canada and Vancouver to be part of a rich multi-cultural life,
• We want our housing and neighbourhood to be grounded in equity – to reflect the values of fairness and respect for others
• We want a home that is peaceful and calm (not too noisy from neighbours or street), has two “sonic spaces” where each of us can make our own noise, has a reasonable kitchen for cooking at home, is at least 700 square feet and has adequate natural lighting and air flow, is within 5 minutes walk to rapid transit, and within 30 minutes to the urban jobs core (so that we spend no more than a total 5 to 6 hours per week commuting, and do not have to drive to and from work), and is a short walk to fresh and healthy vegetables and other whole foods, and has many nearby parks and shops

Looking at this list, and realizing how hard it will be to have our ideal home, has me realizing how poorly served we are by the politicians, banks and developers when it comes to providing people with places to live, work, play and die. The process is presented as a lonely one, one person (or one family) on their own, in a “housing market” – when in fact we are not alone. �Housing is a core part of community fabric – in our times, and for almost everyone, housing is inherently social. �Housing options available are the result of political processes, and right now I think most people are poorly served by these processes.

Our list of housing wants – stable, peaceful, healthy, near work, connected to diverse community, large enough for each of us to have some privacy – should be met with abundant options, because while not everyone defines “stable” in the same way, most everyone wants their own version of stable. �But for most people any kind of stable is as scarce as a winning lottery ticket.

In a country as rich as Canada, we should at least be aiming to provide people with housing and community that reflects a wide range of what people want. �If there are too many people who want to live in urban neighbourhoods, then we should be building more. �The fact is that these spaces are constructed – created – by design. �If built before, we can build more. �There is no reason for any reasonable desired kinds of housing to be scarce, as the range of what most people want can be constructed, so long as inherent constraints are accepted (urban cores will be city-like and dense; suburban communities will be far from jobs, less dense and more isolated, but have more space for things like gardens and yards). �People should be making these kinds of trade offs – but we are instead forced into housing based on other people’s trade offs, based on what the few who are in charge of land use, housing construction and urban planning want or care about.

What’s crazy about the “housing market” is that a few people’s values are driving the system away from what most people value – time at home, time with family, place in a community, a place to be, having stable and secure shelter. �Greedy and short sighted developers, land investment flippers and status hogs drive the market in directions that make little sense to most people, who get forced into risky investments, onto long bus rides, and into isolated spaces.

When I want a home to live in, I don’t want to be bidding against people looking to out perform a high yield stock investment. I just want a home to live in. � The fact that non-housing-need factors are driving the market is hidden. We are told that the “housing market” is driving the process, rather than deliberate political processes based on competing values against those of us who want a home for the sake of having a place to live, of being part of a community.

If having a home involved going to a “Housing Office” and applying to a committee based on some criteria, and if the neighbourhood itself was run by a “Community Council” that decided when and how food was purchased, who lived in the neighbourhood, how many people could live in the neighbourhood, then we’d know who to blame for things not being our way. �It would be the fault of the Housing Office if only rich people were allowed in a certain community, or if middle income people living in such a community were required to work an extra 20 hours a week for the privilege. � We’d blame the Community Councils when some neighbourhoods traded sidewalks for payouts to the builders, or if they made it difficult for people in a community to know each other. �We’d be more than just upset if we found out that the kind of place that most people wanted to live in was easily made available, but just not to most people, as we’d also know who to blame.

As I wrote up my list of what I wanted in terms of a home I realized that we do have a Housing Office and a Community Council because the laws and structures in place that make this system are political choices made by the government. �While they have passed the administration of this process to the banks, developers and real estate agents, the process itself is actually political and the blames rests with politicians. That’s because while the agent and the banker administer the housing system, it’s the politicians who are ultimately responsible for the options available to us.

There should be no scarcity of housing in communities, no scarcity�of thirty-minute commutes to and from work for those who want to or are willing to live in a city, no scarcity of places where people can feel connected, be part of a place. �If you are willing to trade off �having lots of space (such as living in a big house with a yard) and can deal in reality (such as living thirty minutes by public transit from work will put you in a city, and not a country cottage), then it seems that we should all be able to make these trade offs and still be able to walk to a market with healthy food, walk to a park with space for reflection and live in your own place with some decent lighting and a sense of ownership, or at least of the stability and control that ownership provides.

Unidentified woman at East Hastings near Main Street in Vancouver
(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Comparisons between countries don’t answer if there is too much poverty in one place or another (for one thing, to answer that question we would need to start by asking it there could ever be too little poverty). But comparisons do let us know whether doing better is already being demonstrated by other countries – which lets us know that more progress is possible.

If knowing we can do better is good news, then reports coming out in the past month all point to great news for Canada and BC. �That’s because most Western countries have far fewer of their residents living in poverty as a percentage of overall population. �We rank at the lowest, just above Japan and the United States. �Since the United States is almost always an outlier with Western living conditions and equity rankings, I think it’s fair to say that Canada is actually second to last, leaving a lot of room for improvement. �Here’s info, that came out in September of this year, on our latest rankings in terms of poverty, including child poverty and elder poverty:

Poverty rates in Canada� especially among children and the working-age population�are among the worst of 17 leading developed countries, according to the Conference Board�s annual ranking on Society indicators.

With more than 12 per cent of the working-age population living in poverty, Canada is in 15th place out of 17 countries�a �D� grade�ahead of only Japan and the United States. More than one in seven Canadian children lives in poverty�resulting in a 13th place ranking and a �C� grade.

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/press/newsrelease/10-21.aspx

There’s even better news for BC since we rank amongst the lowest in Canada, providing examples for how to do better both in Canada and beyond Canada. �Being a late adopter makes it easier to catch up, and also means that there’s no excuse for staying behind. �We should be looking at, and then copying, measures that reduce poverty and expand equity in Canada and other countries. And we should be also looking at the mistaken policies that result in higher poverty, both here and in countries like the US that seem committed to being the richest and the poorest at the same time.

Here’s what Policy Notes had to say about BC’s status as the lowest performer on equity measures such as the poverty rate:

So, there you have it; BC ranks as home to the highest poverty rate in Canada, which in turn ranks as among the worst in the industrialized world. The Best Place on Earth indeed.

We wrapped up most of the move over the weekend. �Here are photos of our new place with our stuff in it. �It’s about 500 square feet smaller than our place in Toronto was. �But it is much quieter and is very well organized. �My favourite feature so far is the amazing kitchen. While it’s nice to be moved in, getting done with the work gives me time to miss old friends and our last home.

Above, the view from the living space to the kitchen. �(The kitchen is the largest we’ve had in our eight years living together and the largest I’ve had since living at my mom’s.)

View from the kitchen to the living room.

My “office”.

Ron’s office and the “guest room”.

The bedroom and my 2nd office. �(Yes, the place is big enough to support three offices!)

List not to to forget:

1. Literacy: Reading the Word and the World
2. Foundations of John Dewey’s Educational Theory
3. Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care
4. The Language and Thought of the Child
5. Reinventing Paulo Freire
6. The Process of Education
7. On Knowing

Rumour has it that the movers will be here on either Thursday or Friday. �I can’t wait. Living out of a suitcase was fun in France and on the trip across Canada – but after a couple of months I’m ready for my bed, for my stuff, for my pots and pans. �I’m ready to be done with the move! Here’s the current state of things, as we wait to really “move in” to the new place: