tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77539596165539378522024-03-27T09:09:41.430-04:00Russell McOrmond's personal blogSharing ideas to see what others think.Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.comBlogger270125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-4030394965243725092024-03-06T17:04:00.006-05:002024-03-27T09:09:08.522-04:00Observations about (a review of)^2 Autism Employment<p>I am very thankful for articles by Jim Hoerricks. The latest is: <a href="https://autside.substack.com/p/a-deep-dive-on-the-buckland-review" target="_blank">A deep dive on the Buckland Review of Autism Employment: report and recommendations</a>.
</p><p>While I don’t live under the British Crown, I do live <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/01/canadian.html" target="_blank">under the Canadian Crown</a> which is a fork in the code (laws, worldviews, etc) that is a quite similar constitutional monarchy based on similar worldviews that grew from the unique history of Britain.
</p><p>I started to make some personal observations from nearly 4 decades in the job market, having been one of the lucky 3 in 10 Autistic adults that had <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2023/09/resignation.html">until recently been employed</a>.
</p><p>I noticed a problem.
</p><p>Several of my observations can’t be attributed to the “executive dysfunction” that is regularly discussed as part of the neurodivergent experience, but “executive dysfunction” relating to the corporate culture at a specific workplace. This made me think of the article <a href="https://criticalneurodiversity.com/2021/04/25/executive-dysfunction-as-an-expression-of-ability/" target="_blank">Executive Functioning as Ideology</a> by Robert Chapman.
</p><p>While I may no longer work there, the information silos, strict adherence to a chain of command, job title and description issues, Peter principle, and other failure patterns more specific to technology projects within the organization remain. While I may have been a “whistle-blower” or “canary in the coal mine”, my exit didn’t solve any problems other than removing the warning sounds.</p><p><br /></p><h2>Labour Market Barriers:</h2>
<p>I have never had a regular job interview, so never faced that particular barrier fellow Autistic people face. I have thus far been approached by people who knew why they wanted to hire me from previously hearing about me and my specific skills and ways of working.
</p><p>I know I would do poorly in a job interview as I’m aware my open manner of thinking and communicating doesn’t come off well as a first impression for some people. For some people, it always makes them uncomfortable and they never get used to it no matter how long they have known me. If I’m asked a question, I will offer as open, honest, and correct an answer I possibly can. I am aware that “honesty is the best policy” is a social lie, and that mismatch is a barrier to trying to survive in a neuronormative culture.
</p><p>There was one important exception: I was an employee brought over as part of a merger, and the new employer didn’t really know why I was there. I wasn’t brought into the organization because they were aware of my skills and ways of working, but kept over a merger because of a job description of “Lead Systems Engineer”.
</p><p>That job description didn’t describe what I did, but what a previous manager felt they would need to hire if I was no longer working at the organization. I generally don’t fit into any silo, and one of the reasons I have been hired over my career was specifically to collaborate across silos (including across organizations within the Free/Libre and Open Source Software movement).</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLhtXPqFsYJPmOAmSev13N_1D5VpCPSePLaImvl4_dSVuWZFFHVDls3nCYI1IO67k28JBLN44hBm7RTj0h_hN8HTxfjChFVaKqhsDo_lNFLUYuEqBRvTfj0S_PTWW4d35A_ylfR9qb2u3c7qTNoJ7NRoeoBkRRKp_rzj3LF6ISQZBFpdAGzHOdAB75fQNr/s450/Blank%20Job%20Description.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="450" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLhtXPqFsYJPmOAmSev13N_1D5VpCPSePLaImvl4_dSVuWZFFHVDls3nCYI1IO67k28JBLN44hBm7RTj0h_hN8HTxfjChFVaKqhsDo_lNFLUYuEqBRvTfj0S_PTWW4d35A_ylfR9qb2u3c7qTNoJ7NRoeoBkRRKp_rzj3LF6ISQZBFpdAGzHOdAB75fQNr/w320-h142/Blank%20Job%20Description.png" width="320" /></a></div>I had recently been asked to vacate the "Lead Systems Engineer" job description to allow someone else to no longer be in my shadow. This was in a corporate culture with a strict chain of command that treated job descriptions as exclusive jurisdiction, but what I was being asked to do (or rather, no longer do) somehow wasn’t seen as problematic by management.<p></p><p></p><p>Managers (mine and others) were complaining I wasn’t doing “my” job, and even more loudly claiming I was stepping in other peoples exclusive lanes. While Jim’s article discussed the need to “replacing woolly job specifications with focused, jargon-free descriptions“, I was in a situation of obvious stress where I had no job specifications at all. All I received were indecipherable complaints.
</p><p><br /></p><p>While I regularly noted the cost of being interrupted (a 1 minute question actually costs a 30 minute context switch), I didn’t seem to have problems with the cubicle farms or inappropriate lighting. This situation improved after 2020 when remote work became possible, and I was able to work more efficiently in an office environment I created in my home (appropriate lighting, quiet, scheduled synchronous meetings rather than random interruptions).
</p><p><br /></p><h2>Skill Mismatch and Underemployment:</h2>
<p>This was partly discussed above in relation to “job descriptions”. I had skills and experience that were not being harnessed as most of my experience was being claimed to be the exclusive jurisdiction of other employees. While I am very much an “open source” type of person who wants to share knowledge, knowledge transfer was regularly blocked as allegedly being “rude” to suggest another employee didn’t already know something.
</p><p>There were situations where I was the only employee remaining from the pre-merger organization that had specific corporate memory, but wasn’t allowed to share. I was the author of software, but wasn’t allowed to describe how it worked or how to use it. I was told not to write documentation to describe processes in other departments, and then reprimanded that this documentation didn’t exist.
</p><p><br /></p><p>I was allowed to be on an 80% contract as I had a wide variety of reasons to not want to be full time. Whenever I was allowed to work on solving a problem I easily gave more than full time hours, but also had considerable stress generated from organizational blocks to being able to work on solving technical problems.
</p><p><br /></p><p>From the report:
</p><blockquote>e.5 Autistic people have far more negative experiences of interviews, group tasks and psychometric tests. Autistic jobseekers must navigate vague, generic job descriptions, ambiguous interview questions and challenging sensory environments, often with an emphasis on social skills rather than job skills. Many feel they must mask their autistic traits to succeed. </blockquote>
<p>In the case of this employer, job skills (in my case, technical skills) were not valued, and differences in social skills were a constant source of complaint and periodic formal reprimand.</p><p><br /></p><h2>Policy and Practice Gap:</h2>
<p>I discuss this earlier in the context of <a href="”https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2023/05/workplace-harassment.html”">workplace harassment policies</a>.
</p><p>Harassment policies should be applied in an intersectional way, but the more I read the more I notice they are not. The discomfort of some individuals who represent a “majority” being faced with “different” ways of being is prioritized over the reality or even existence of other employees.
</p><p>In the case of this workplace, my Autistic Dialect was being misinterpreted as being “rude” and “condescending”, which demonstrated a lack of some pretty basic autism awareness. Individuals who felt uncomfortable with my dialect then complained to management that I was “harassing” them.
</p><p>In one case it was someone whose manager was blocking knowledge sharing. The coworker would regularly notice a mismatch between how they expected our technology to work and how the technology actually worked. They would ask what went wrong, but any attempt to explain how the software worked was claimed to be “condescending”.</p><p>We would be discussing data and data management software that I had been managing or co-managing for 9 years, but they and their manager felt I should be deferring to them on how to manage data which they hadn’t seen yet as they hadn’t learned the management tools yet (tools which I authored the bulk of the software for). I was regularly told they didn't believe I had the relevant skills and experience (because of incorrect job titles and job descriptions), even though I had been doing that specific type of work already for 9 years.
</p><p>Workplace policies and practices that weren’t neuronormative would have tried to facilitate communication between employees, rather than constantly claiming that any use of neurodivergent speech patterns at work was worthy of reprimand or claims of violating workplace harassment policies. Workplace harassment policies were in effect being used to harass neurodivergent employees.</p><p><br /></p><p>For most of my career it was not a problem for me to ask “why” and get clarification on what was being asked of me (and what priority, etc). This was not allowed in that most recent workplace. My asking "why" was regularly misinterpreted as a challenge (to authority, hierarchy, etc).</p><p><br /></p><h2>Awareness and Inclusion Efforts:</h2>
<p>I find many Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies are performative, and never adequately seek to understand “inclusion into what”. I’m not thinking narrowly about neurotypes, but all forms of diversity.
</p><p>I’ve observed “inclusion” interpreted narrowly as anyone being able to join an organization. Once hired, employees are expected to behave like every other employee, and never make so-called “normal” employees feel uncomfortable with any differences. Employees are expected to leave who they are as complex intersectional people at home.
</p><p><br /></p><p>I knew this workplace was aware of legal obligations in relation to “disabled” employees (Autism is still treated only as a disability under Ontario law), but there was no indication management attempted to learn what Autism was. There was only the all too common “there are other neurodivergent employees, and they aren’t having a problem at this moment” dismissal of the reality of equity seeking people.
</p><p>While I wasn’t fired, I also didn’t have a job to return to after being forced on sick leave for being Autistic at work.
</p><p><br /></p><p>Long before I accepted I’m Autistic, I knew one of my skills was in analysing and trying to improve systems. While I was regularly hired as a systems administrator where it was understood I would try to understand/improve/manage computer systems, I do the same for any type of system whether it be government structures/policy or corporate structures/policies. I read articles on common failure patterns for technology and other businesses, and try to help in my workplaces to avoid them.
</p><p>While my skills related to systems could have been harnessed, at the most recent workplace it was harassed. Any attempt to discuss business culture and patterns were misinterpreted as a critique about individual people. It essentially meant there was a mismatch between my skills and what was expected of me, as I was intended to silently follow a chain of command and arbitrary information silos, and to never to discuss or seek systemic improvements.
<br /><br /><br /><br />P.S.: If the subject doesn't make sense to you, read it as "Observations about a review of a review of Autism Employment". It is nerdy humour -- sorry :-) </p><p><br /><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-43681520451751790142023-11-30T10:07:00.008-05:002023-11-30T10:28:01.235-05:00Is there a religious war in Western Asia? It certainly isn’t a simple war between two “countries”.<p>
I want to encourage people to gain the context of these events rather than believing what happened this year is new or surprising.
</p><p>
The following is based on a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7133147223688695808/" target="_blank">post I made to LinkedIn</a>. I’m reposting for anyone who doesn’t have a LinkedIN account. I am also posting thoughts about the context of the violence in Western Asia <a href="https://substack.com/profile/85637482-russell-mcormond" target="_blank">on Substack</a>.
</p><p>
This is what I do: I analyze policy like I analyze software, and look for interactions between policies as well as operating systems and other aspects of the environment. I don’t blindly accept what I’m told by marketing material, but analyze the actual policy/code. I look for logical fallacies in claims being made, and try to figure out the truth under those fallacies.</p><p><br /></p><p>
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7128397275160055809/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="928" data-original-width="1308" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTweko9mDMk65M2REsnYWcatZEN9S4NXhsi9Yt-mg974IERAccEBnqM-Zo6XzhL9zwXEGR_sLf_Zj-sA4FU-lwUHmr3t010kzCCCJw28Zsi97k4H3mSbTdKlGNphxcNp65V31zj7UZ7tLouw2QDRCUly5Rm3HjPfHvtwnVx_ZUrmm39kUfBSoPYi2LsbO/s320/DoingItNow.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>A previous LinkedIN connection wanted to talk about “Hamas” and the most recent skirmish, rejecting that there could be any context required to understand what was happening. They were <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7128397275160055809/" target="_blank">responding to a post</a> that suggested, “If you have ever wondered what you would do during The Holocaust, Slavery, or the Civil Rights Movement: You’re doing it NOW.”
<p></p><p>
The previous LinkedIN connection posted: “What do you believe the appropriate response to the Hamas war crimes, as you admitted they are, should have been?”</p><p>
This is a pretty typical <a href="https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/loaded-question" target="_blank">loaded question</a> logical fallacy.
</p><p>
This is the nature of most discussions on this topic: loads of logical fallacies. There is a desire for this to be black-and-white (it isn't even close), that is is clear what "started it", for there to be "two sides" to pick from, and so-on.
</p><p><br /></p><p>
It is possible to recognize and mourn the deaths of people on both sides of today's borders between land declared the jurisdiction of a UN created UN member (Government of Israel) and those in the Gaza Strip where self-determination has been blocked by external forces.
</p><p>
Any attempt to "two sides" discussion of this centuries-on Holy War is false, as this is not a "war" between two countries, and has been ongoing since long before “Hamas” formed. While I strongly condemn the violence from all belligerents, I rightfully hold UN member states – especially those which claim to be democratic and protective of human rights – to a higher standard than angry mobs or terrorist groups.
</p><p>
I am aware that the “Change and Reform list“ that “Hamas” campaigned within was “elected” in 2006 under a Plurality Block Voting system. I have been critical of claims that brand-centered “elections” are representative of populations for a very long time. However, to claim that Gaza is currently under a democratic government, or that residents of that region (not “citizens”) should be held accountable in the same way for actions carried out under the “Hamas” brand as citizens of a “democratic” UN member state branded "Israel", is a total misrepresentation of reality.
</p><p>
I’m not a fan of the electoral system or other weak democratic institutions of Israel any more than I'm a fan of Canada’s weak democratic institutions. However, I do not believe this is about Benjamin Netanyahu or any other individual. If Israeli citizens feel their government doesn’t represent them and is inducing violence and making them less safe, they have mechanisms to fix that which residents in regions that don’t have an alleged “democratic” government claiming jurisdiction do not. If citizens of other nations recognize the Israeli government is in violation of International Law, they can push their governments to hold the Government of Israel to account (including holding governments like the US, which regularly blocks accountability, to account for regularly disrespecting International Law).<br /><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>
The previous LinkedIN connection suggested this is about “Radical Islam”. The Government of Israel was created via “Radical Zionism” and “Radical Christianity”. The then-Christian Empire dominated United Nations (formed 1945) created the Government of Israel in 1947 via partitioning British occupied Palestine.
</p><p>
In the 1970’s that government was faced with a choice between security and expansion, and it chose expansion with the help of the United States who will veto any resolutions to try to hold the Government of Israel accountable at the more modern United Nations.
</p><p>
We should discuss the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Balfour-Declaration" target="_blank">Balfour Declaration of 1917</a>. </p><p>We should discuss <a href="https://unctad.org/news/unrealized-potential-palestinian-oil-and-gas-reserves" target="_blank">oil under the Gaza Strip</a>.</p><p>We should discuss how <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/truth-many-evangelical-christians-support-israel-rcna121481" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Evangelical Christians believe Jews having exclusive control over that land</a> will lead towards the Rapture / Second Coming of Christ. From that randomly chosen article: "What happens to the Jews and Palestinians is, to put it very mildly, collateral damage."</p><p>It is obvious that the United States and other parts of the Christian Anglosphere are as much a part of the violence in the region as “Jews” and “Arabs”. This is not what we under Christian Anglosphere governments are indoctrinated to believe are the only belligerents.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-37499875620827898712023-10-06T16:35:00.006-04:002024-03-16T07:48:43.079-04:00Still spinning? My time at the Canadian Research Knowledge Network<p>(See <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2023/10/canadiana.org.html">Part 1</a>, <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2023/10/crkn.ca.html">Part 2</a>)
</p><p>After 5 years I felt I <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2023/09/resignation.html">needed to leave CRKN</a>.
</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZxXb8rPBfIs5VzFUWXy6KqHiHLpzWv-_MKomjTQKIbQU0wmdGV0kCLh2pBwCgjNEKm7vEgoKr9nH0A8CwQiRUPpOO1wvEps2zKxu5Y-RN0boFczKgzq8G9yP0HoItvOoBUFRRxNJ9P0feLy8yNh4ShOZU7AJPjmIkROnP91ZvZqbGshz_J420Ij0gNsaX/s1200/Different%20Operating%20System.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZxXb8rPBfIs5VzFUWXy6KqHiHLpzWv-_MKomjTQKIbQU0wmdGV0kCLh2pBwCgjNEKm7vEgoKr9nH0A8CwQiRUPpOO1wvEps2zKxu5Y-RN0boFczKgzq8G9yP0HoItvOoBUFRRxNJ9P0feLy8yNh4ShOZU7AJPjmIkROnP91ZvZqbGshz_J420Ij0gNsaX/s320/Different%20Operating%20System.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />I want to provide clarity for the following: While I am critical of some policies, procedures, and work practices that I felt delayed or blocked productive work being done, I am not being critical of individual people. I have noticed over the years that critique of policy is regularly misinterpreted as a critique of a person.<p></p><p>I never knew why in the past, but I have since learned this is a common miscommunication between Autistic and Allistic (non-Autistic) people. The same with the question “why?” being used by Autistic people in their constant desire to learn, while that is apparently a challenge/argument/etc for Allistics.
</p><p>While the treatment I received from management because I was “Autistic At Work” was the final straw, I felt I was constantly having to fight with the management team to be allowed to do productive work. While there was agreement in theory, in practise there was always pushback against moving away from the DIY (Do It Yourself), NIH (Not Invented Here) attitudes.</p><p>I generally did not feel my gifts or contributions were being recognized or harnessed.</p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Differences in what I was told compared to what actually happened</h2><p>Early in 2018 two different priorities were set for the small technology team: Archivematica adoption and reducing technological debt.
</p><p>Managing custom software needs to be thought of as technological debt, so reducing technological debt includes moving away from custom software. Over the past 5 years there was minimal movement on the Archivematica project, and there is now more custom software and more CRKN owned hardware in member data centers than there was in 2018.
</p><p>I’ll focus on only two specific areas to illustrate the problem.
</p><h1>Archivematica<br /></h1>
<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDFPBEW9tYwRmzUZE2GJOhnjhyphenhyphen8tq6OfOqH_sxV-fE1s54SsX_zADyZhKsWtlgUA1LlDDTXqwQS_XqGqCHexjgkpEqCqP61vGF1DZrcD74zn_1EdH5-jCmVsen52PXxSlZJXgtc_RWZhRgfBpyFuYACS9WXMF3VN897tB7otZyCaG4ZNyYsrsWkbTx87O/s4048/IMG_20190626_095040.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3036" data-original-width="4048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDFPBEW9tYwRmzUZE2GJOhnjhyphenhyphen8tq6OfOqH_sxV-fE1s54SsX_zADyZhKsWtlgUA1LlDDTXqwQS_XqGqCHexjgkpEqCqP61vGF1DZrcD74zn_1EdH5-jCmVsen52PXxSlZJXgtc_RWZhRgfBpyFuYACS9WXMF3VN897tB7otZyCaG4ZNyYsrsWkbTx87O/s320/IMG_20190626_095040.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From a UBC Campus tour, Archivematica Camp</td></tr></tbody></table>While Scholars Portal launched OLRC in 2015, CRKN is still using a custom OAIS packaging system and its own SWIFT object storage cluster running on servers that CRKN owns and manages. Even with an Archivematica Migration project being approved in 2018 and confirmed in 2019, there were always other projects granted higher priority such that resources weren’t available to the Archivematica Migration project. Projects that only started in 2022 were able to derail the Archivematica Migration project and prerequisites such as what we called “Preservation-Access Split”.
<p></p><p>3 CRKN staff people were sent to <a href="https://wiki.archivematica.org/Community/Camps/Vancouver2019" target="_blank">Archivematica Camp 2019</a>, but were never able to make use of what was learned.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA3-ujrlszhzq0p8COIEB8-s8UfZxojUeeXp34soV48Z89T4VfSheLdwJP0WoUvCZzjxOX-B3ZCi2z2G7vtA_bAQkncLxv82-UrDtOLtlsD-NhSLpPo_jTL6bejkuBCS9LChrw7TGJRec404CqhkQTJrE1aIh-O1TJxce3uYEDGP_d0uM4oGG3K3sSszVC/s4048/IMG_20180814_183405.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3036" data-original-width="4048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA3-ujrlszhzq0p8COIEB8-s8UfZxojUeeXp34soV48Z89T4VfSheLdwJP0WoUvCZzjxOX-B3ZCi2z2G7vtA_bAQkncLxv82-UrDtOLtlsD-NhSLpPo_jTL6bejkuBCS9LChrw7TGJRec404CqhkQTJrE1aIh-O1TJxce3uYEDGP_d0uM4oGG3K3sSszVC/s320/IMG_20180814_183405.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2 racks of CRKN servers at UTL<br />Many ScholarsPortal servers a close by. </td></tr></tbody></table>I kept being told that moving packaging and storage services to Scholars Portal’s OLRC was “too expensive”, but I never understood how that could be possible. They would have economies of scale, and better redundancy for staffing, training, and more. Canadiana/CRKN wasn’t a single OLRC user, but an organization offering a competing service that had many depositors that would be separate OLRC entities (separate Archivematica pipelines, separate Swift storage containers for AIPs, etc). CRKN did scanning and packaging on behalf of partners, meaning OLRC didn’t need to offer training/etc for these depositors directly.<p></p><p>Canadiana working with OLRC would have doubled OLRC’s object storage, so this was not a simple client relationship but a partnership. While managing technical services was new for CRKN, organizing broad cross-organizational collaborations and partnerships was exactly what CRKN was known to be good at.
</p><p><br /></p><h1>Custom Cataloging Rules</h1>
<p>One of the largest areas of push-back against adopting FLOSS community software was the use of custom cataloging rules by Canadiana and later CRKN’s cataloging team.</p><p><o>Understanding this requires <a href="https://www.crkn-rcdr.ca/en/history-canadiana" target="_blank">understanding some of the history</a>.
</o></p><h2>1978: CIHM<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNHwRCvChDxQFAyLMsjOPXXl-Mc6HhNvx_ZJyonO_idveJIvMHcVY3Ue0nxSpIX584sgRIl7E4SQoH5H14oE74G5wkXVGYg2Ny33sQgTzZH8soi3h0_cWJkaVZ-9d2RptfvAKUYcGQFguQIGHUs19fIYtn7gvZAV7ulUtJBvlDljiP3FXfjkVnUp9tQDf/s4048/IMG_20180726_141356.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3036" data-original-width="4048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNHwRCvChDxQFAyLMsjOPXXl-Mc6HhNvx_ZJyonO_idveJIvMHcVY3Ue0nxSpIX584sgRIl7E4SQoH5H14oE74G5wkXVGYg2Ny33sQgTzZH8soi3h0_cWJkaVZ-9d2RptfvAKUYcGQFguQIGHUs19fIYtn7gvZAV7ulUtJBvlDljiP3FXfjkVnUp9tQDf/s320/IMG_20180726_141356.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Many drawers of Microfiche...</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></h2>
<p>Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (CIHM) launched in 1978, and created the CIHM/ICMH Microfiche series.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.loc.gov/marc/" target="_blank">MARC records</a> were created for this series, using the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd490.html" target="_blank">MARC 490 field</a> to indicate which specific Microfiche in that series was being described.
</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><code>490$a</code> would say something like “CIHM/ICMH Microfiche series = CIHM/ICMH collection de microfiches”
</li><li><code>490$v</code> would say something like “99411” or “no. 99411”</li></ul><p></p><p>The identifiers were all in the CaOOCIHM namespace (<a href="https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd003.html" target="_blank">MARC 003</a> = “CaOOCIHM”) , with <a href="https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd001.html" target="_blank">MARC 001</a> indicating “99411” as well.
</p><h2>1999: ECO platform</h2>
<p>When the ECO (Early Canadiana Online) platform launched in 1999, the existing Microfiche descriptive records and the existing CIHM data model were used.
</p><p>That platform was decommissioned in 2012, and decommissioning that older service was one of the earlier projects I was involved in.
</p><h2>2012: CAP (Canadiana Access Platform)</h2>
<p>In 2012, new software was launched which had a different data model and used a different schema for identifiers. Canadiana moved beyond offering online access to scanned images from the CIHM Microfiche collection to offering access to other collections as well.
</p><ul>
<li>Identifiers were expanded to have a prefix indicating a depositor. That meant “99411” needed to become “oocihm.99411”. CIHM Numbers were deprecated, and should all have been quickly replaced with complete identifiers.
</li><li>Not everything, and not even all the images from the Microfiche collection, would be considered part of the same collection as was the case for CIHM. This meant that CIHM’s way of using the 490 field was deprecated, with the intention being to use that field in the more common way in the future (to describe collections and volumes/issues of those collections).
</li><li>We could have used MARC 001 for the full CAP identifier (not CIHM numbers), but we wanted to move from using a transparent identifier in that field to using a machine generated opaque identifier. The purpose of these records was to describe an online resource, so <a href="https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd856.html" target="_blank">MARC 856</a> was the obvious choice to put the transparent identifier (within a full URL such as <a href="https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.99411" target="_blank">https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.99411</a> )
</li></ul>
<p>While not ideal, CAP made use of a custom schema inspired by Dublin Core for issues of series called IssueInfo (<a href="https://github.com/crkn-rcdr/Digital-Preservation/blob/main/xml/published/schema/2012/xsd/issueinfo/issueinfo.xsd">Issueinfo.xsd</a> ). This is how the CAP system knew the difference between a “Title” (Series record or “Monograph” which could be described using Dublin Core or MARC) and an issue of a series (which must be cataloged using an IssueInfo record). </p><p>CAP did not make use of the 490 field, although because there was pushback from the Cataloguing team in using MARC 856 we still needed to support looking for CIHM-era identifiers being stuffed in 490$v when records were being loaded into the databases.</p><h2>2022: Preservation-Access Split</h2>
<p>After years of delay due to pushback and other projects being given priority, this was launched in April 2022.
</p><p>There were now two independent descriptive metadata databases: one for Preservation and one for Access. The same packaging tools used to manage OAIS packages were used to download as well as update Preservation descriptive metadata records.
</p><p>In the past, Preservation records needed to match what was needed by Access. This was no longer the case, allowing records to slowly migrate to use the same encoding standards used by Archivematica. Splitting these databases and the identifiers they use was a prerequisite for adopting Archivematica, with Preservation records now needing to be in Dublin Core with an eye towards migrating all custom Canadiana AIPs to Archivematica AIPs.
</p><p>On the Access side, CAP and <a href="https://github.com/crkn-rcdr/cihm-metadatabus" target="_blank">the metadatabus</a> were enhanced to support some features of the <a href="https://iiif.io/">IIIF</a> data model. Relationships between documents (including whether a document would be displayed to patrons as a monograph, series, or issue of a series) would be encoded within databases using the IIIF data model.
</p><p>This meant Access descriptive records could now all be in MARC, deprecating both IssueInfo and Dublin Core records. While working with Julienne Pascoe I became very excited by Linked Open Data (LOD), and was following the Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME) closely. While some of Canadiana/CRKN’s developers favored moving all Access records to a custom Dublin Core derived schema, I always favored the LOD aspects of <a href="https://www.loc.gov/bibframe/" target="_blank">BIBFRAME</a>.
</p><p>One of the many migration paths was to enhance records using MARC as an intermediary step. The <a href="https://newsroom.loc.gov/news/library-of-congress-launches-effort-to-transform-collections-management-and-access/s/c432d3c2-780b-4bfe-9123-bbb6c25631bc" target="_blank">Library of Congress itself set up a project to use FOLIO</a> as part of their transition, with some CRKN staff also becoming interested in <a href="https://folio.org/" target="_blank">FOLIO</a>.
</p><h1>Status of the move away from custom software and custom cataloging?</h1>
<p>Moving away from custom software requires cataloging staff to move away from custom cataloging rules, and adopt the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/taskgroup/Metadata-Application-Profiles.html" target="_blank">Metadata Application Profile (MAP)</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_model" target="_blank">data model</a> used by relevant community software. CRKN staff would no longer be creating or imposing their own custom encoding, but working with larger commuities and stakeholders.</p><p>Migration away from custom software involves transforming/refining all existing records (using automated processes) away from legacy custom MAPs/models.</p><p><br /></p><ul>
<li>Adopting Archivematica involves dropping the CIHM and CAP encoding rules and adopting the Archivematica encoding rules and data model for Preservation.
</li><li>Adopting FOLIO (for records management and publication via OAI-PMH and likely later SPARQL for BIBFRAME) requires dropping the CIHM and CAP encoding rules and adopting the FOLIO encoding rules and data model. The data model is focused on concepts from MARC and BIBFRAME, so this involves migrating all Dublin Core and IssueInfo records to MARC (and encoding document relationships using the FOLIO data model, so series, issues and monographs are understood correctly). CAP’s data model is a small subset of the data model that FOLIO uses, so enhancement of relationship data becomes possible.
</li><li>Adopting Blacklight-marc requires either custom software that would have to be maintained indefinitely, or adopting MARC for all searchable records (easily sourced from FOLIO using OAI-PMH for indexing).
</li></ul>
<p><br /></p><p>As of my last day in May 2023:</p><p><br /></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The cataloguing team were still treating the CIHM encoding rules and data model (deprecated in 2012) as current.
</li><li>"Updates" to descriptive metadata records were being sourced from a different database (Some from spreadsheets, some from Inmagic DB/TextWorks databases using CIHM era schemas, and only containing a subset of records) rather than from the Preservation or Access metadata databases. </li><ul><li>This meant any changes made directly to the Preservation or Access metaedata databases were being overwritten. </li><li>A very old problem: "Document A" is edited to become "Document B" which is then edited to become "Document C". Then someone comes along and edits "Document A" to create "Document D", meaning all the changes made for B and C are lost.</li></ul></ul><p></p><p><br /><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-955355669472164512023-10-04T11:03:00.007-04:002024-03-16T07:49:13.584-04:00Still spinning? The merger of Canadiana.org with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network(See <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2023/10/canadiana.org.html">Part 1</a>, <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2023/10/crkn.html" target="_blank">Part 3</a>)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzHSLmkOL7AkhFWc9feZ9QvDFKx6cfycK09HqMvALLIJLzLh8KFln8yg1gwO3W34gPor-nkRZAxjWdbSKBw3jd49UVXgoYFezQuTnXoxRIooDu_Etw2GJUfmY43nDF2T7PE-BgWn5HJLxrqgc5OoMjCDYERHbAH6xm7QNa3oqqICb79gG07J3QnmWRClo9/s4048/IMG_20180329_092145.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3036" data-original-width="4048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzHSLmkOL7AkhFWc9feZ9QvDFKx6cfycK09HqMvALLIJLzLh8KFln8yg1gwO3W34gPor-nkRZAxjWdbSKBw3jd49UVXgoYFezQuTnXoxRIooDu_Etw2GJUfmY43nDF2T7PE-BgWn5HJLxrqgc5OoMjCDYERHbAH6xm7QNa3oqqICb79gG07J3QnmWRClo9/s320/IMG_20180329_092145.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My cubicle on my last day at Canadiana.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<p>If you read earlier articles, you can tell I was excited about the merger possibility when I first heard about it. I looked at CRKN and it had the communications infrastructure that I felt was needed to get out of Canadiana’s DIY/NIH mindset. There were <a href="https://www.crkn-rcdr.ca/en/committees" target="_blank">committees to help make key decisions</a>, and there were partnerships with other organizations.
</p><p>My first meeting with the new CEO, and several other meetings after, indicated exactly what I wanted to hear. What I understood was CRKN’s desire to move the technical team currently providing lower-level services (what I took to mean owning and managing hardware, maintaining custom software, etc) to being involved in cross-sector collaborations (members, other consortia, etc), participating in standards setting organizations, and other activities that were much higher up the technology stack.</p><p>The new CEO spoke about overseas trips to participate at standards organizations that I might be interested in. I was very interested, and eager to transition away from DIY/NIH to free up the time to make that possible.
</p><p>While I was advocating for OpenStack SWIFT and Archivematica at Canadiana, my longer-term hope was that Canadiana (and later CRKN) wouldn’t be trying to duplicate the services of Canadiana and/or CRKN members and partners. I noticed <a href="https://scholarsportal.info/" target="_blank">Scholars Portal</a>, the technological service provider for OCUL (one of the 4 Canadian regional library consortia), launched the <a href="https://cloud.scholarsportal.info/" target="_blank">Ontario Library Research Cloud</a> in 2015 (See <a href="https://ocul.on.ca/history" target="_blank">OCUL history</a>). </p><p>It seemed obvious to me that, while Canadiana/CRKN needed to create a transition plan, the goal of the plan would be to move these services to Scholars Portal and not continue to manage that duplicate service (Archivematica packaging, large OpenStack Swift clusters, staff training, etc).
</p><p>I envisioned CRKN coordinating other technological services, possibly with COPPUL offering backup Object storage, and using COPPUL, OCUL, CAUL/CBUA and BCI cloud services for hosting all other services rather than Canadiana/CRKN owning and managing physical hardware in member data centers (Currently Dalhousie University, University of Toronto, University of Alberta, University of Victoria).
</p><p>During the merger talks there was documentation for the CRKN/Canadiana merger which I followed closely. Some of that documentation became part of a Journal article: <a href="https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v15i1.6110">“Spinning In”: the merger of Canadiana.org with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network</a>
</p><p>Excerpt:
</p><blockquote>Care will need to be taken to ensure that any work supports existing initiatives and players such as CARL, CUCCIO, Confederation of Open Access Repositories, Scholars Portal, and Research Data Canada. It is important to note that Canadiana does not compete with Scholars Portal, but provides complementary capacity focused on documentary heritage content. Given similar preservation models and the ongoing interest in coordinated Canadian digital research infrastructure, there may be emerging opportunities for future collaboration, such as linking data and supporting common TDR nodes for mutual redundant backup and access load balancing.</blockquote>
<p>This specific sentence concerned me: “It is important to note that Canadiana does not compete with Scholars Portal”.
</p><p>At an administrative level this may appear true, but given OLRC was launched in 2015 and Canadiana was providing a duplicate (if inferior) technological service, that statement wasn’t strictly true.
</p><p>I wrote the following to Jonathan Bengtson and forwarded to other members of the Canadiana and CRKN boards in summer 2017. I also sent a copy to Clare Appavoo, CRKN’s Executive Director, prior to us meeting for the first time in November 2017.</p><p>(<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q1U1NNDnbSQqcsu9QPeAoKGH9rZdgMNQn3T0wrkGUEw/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Google Docs link</a>)</p><hr />
<h1>Technological infrastructure:
CRKN, Canadiana, OCUL, Scholars Portal</h1><h4 style="text-align: left;">
Introduction
</h4><p>As CRKN and Canadiana plan for a merged organization, it is useful to look more closely at the
components of Canadiana. While Canadiana is a charity and CRKN is a nonprofit, they exist
within a larger context of services offered to overlapping institutions by other nonprofits and
consortia. We need to do a competitive landscape analysis to avoid conflict.
</p><p>I (Russell McOrmond) am the Lead Systems Engineer for Canadiana.org. I am concerned that
the relationship between Canadiana’s team of technological infrastructure providers and the
technological infrastructure providers for OCUL (Also known as Scholars Portal) is unclear, and
that unexpected consequences will result if we don’t create clarity. The merged organization
already has plans to help roll out Scholars Portal services across the country.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Teams within Canadiana
</h2><p>From the outside Canadiana might be seen as a single entity, but internally it has a series of
departments which have a focus. Understanding these departments is helpful to place them in
the larger context.
</p><ul>
<li>Officer: We currently have a single officer, the acting CEO (Previously CIO)
</li><li>Production: Currently a team of 5 people work on digitizing and describing (including
cataloguing) the resulting images, and managing other processes such as OCR and
ingest of that content into Canadiana’s TDR.
</li><li>Administration: Currently a team of 2 who handle office management, payroll, and other
financial work
</li><li>Communications & Partnerships: Currently a team of 1
</li><li>DevOps (software DEVelopment, metadata architecture, information technology
OPerationS): Currently a team of 3 people that provides the technological infrastructure
for Canadiana’s services.
</li></ul>
<p>As the Lead Systems Engineer, one of the 3 people in DevOps, I will remain focused on our
team.
</p><p>
</p><h2>What does Canadiana’s DevOps team do</h2>
<p>Canadiana’s DevOps team researches, creates and/or manages the technological infrastructure
used to provide Canadiana’s services.
</p><p>While we have historically been focused entirely on online publishing the outputs of the
production team, a few years ago we started a multi-year project to modernise our platform such
that manual intervention by the DevOps team would not be required for most operations. We
would be adopting modern platform techniques (Microservices, Docker), open standards (Such
as <a href="http://iiif.io/">http://iiif.io/</a> ), and more collaborative development with stakeholders ( <a href="https://github.com/c7a">https://github.com/c7a</a>
).
</p><p>The longer term plan was to free up time within the DevOps team to allow us to expand into
offering other services for our members. This is services beyond online publishing of
scanned/described images.
</p><h2>What is Scholars Portal</h2>
Scholars Portal is the technological infrastructure provider for The Ontario Council of University
Libraries (OCUL) <a href="http://ocul.on.ca/node/135">http://ocul.on.ca/node/135</a> . Scholars Portal is to OCUL as the Canadiana
DevOps team is to Canadiana.
<p>While providing TDR services is a big part of what Canadiana does, and thus what Canadiana’s
DevOps team has been focused on, it is a small part of what the Scholars Portal does for OCUL
members. Many of the areas of expansion that Canadiana’s DevOps team have contemplated
or proposed are already being rolled out by Scholars Portal, including Cloud storage and
computing services (OLRC), Geospacial services (Scholars GeoPortal), research data deposit
(Dataverse), born digital books and journals.
</p><h2>Clarifying relationship with Scholars Portal</h2>
Reading the “Appendix C - Reading Material Merger Background Documents” providing
summaries of Canadiana.org and CRKN, you might think Scholars Portal is a Journal TDR.
This would be similar to thinking that Canadiana is a microfiche scanner.
<p>Documentation about the merger suggests the new organization doesn’t intend to compete with
Scholars Portal. As Scholars Portal is larger than described so far, this will require close
attention to the capabilities of both technological infrastructure providers to ensure we aren’t
seen by our overlapping membership as offering competing infrastructure. This will be critical
as the new organization plans to work with OCUL to offer Scholars Portal services across the
country, so will be marketing services of both teams of technological infrastructure providers.
</p><p>A public directory of Scholars Portal staff http://ocul.on.ca/spstaff lists 28 people, and they
appear to be expanding. While not transparent to our members as we have no public staff
directory, Canadiana’s DevOps team at one time had 8 people (3 in operations, 2 in software
development, 1 metadata architect, one manager, and one coop student). We currently only
have 3 people (1 software, 1 metadata architect, 1 operations).
</p><p>If the multi-year project to modernize Canadiana’s infrastructure is successful, the technology
will be much easier to manage. This could free up resources to allow Canadiana to expand into
new service offerings, or it could be used as a justification to reduce the size of the team or
outsource the management of the technological infrastructure (Including to Scholars Portal
itself).
</p><p>In the “merger considerations and opportunities backgrounder” section of the “Appendix C”
document, there is discussion of expansion of Canadiana’s TDR platform. We need to ensure
when discussing Scholars Portal that we don’t define their TDR narrowly by discounting their
expansion of services, while presuming that any new services that Canadiana offers will be
considered part of our TDR.
</p><p>There are features of the technological infrastructure Canadiana is using to offer our TDR
services that may not exist within the infrastructure that Scholars Portal is offering. How these
enhancements are offered to our overlapping membership will need to be given adequate
consideration. This could involve Canadiana expanding our technology platform to handle new
data types, or could be Canadiana working with Scholars Portal’s to enhance their technology
platform to have features that make it more trustworthy.
</p><p>In an ideal scenario the technological infrastructure teams at Canadiana and OCUL would be
working closely together to roll out new services to our joint pan-Canadian membership.
</p><h2>Summary</h2>
<p>The opportunities described in the “Appendix C” document are all opportunities which a merged
CRKN/Canadiana would be well placed to pursue. What is uncertain from the documentation,
and thus a concern to the staff providing Canadiana’s technological infrastructure, is what role
we will be playing in the future given the potential overlap with Scholars Portal staff and
services.
</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-17605502447193283142023-10-03T16:32:00.004-04:002023-10-06T20:18:05.137-04:00Still spinning? My time at Canadiana.org prior to the CRKN merger(See: <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2023/10/crkn.ca.html">Part 2</a>, <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2023/10/crkn.html">Part 3</a>)<br />This series of articles is inspired by the journal article: <a href="https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v15i1.6110">“Spinning In”: the merger of Canadiana.org with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network</a>
<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSw6lODw89gjUA4YO1LoMParqzRCdi4TbaxQZT4Ja9hqdhDLBQKEeFOU2xuLEqEfVyrSzuOiuJwx-u0P1adkDnVTzr5iW5nxeZWYabaSjst8bsQqz6Rf0WBDOMl2zpBtGp1TFh3tOr3LYTM9BGmyaw3-6iK3cFcWAAhVwxI3s6QBo1fH2mKftW641hjTb9/s2048/SAM_0272%20(1).JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSw6lODw89gjUA4YO1LoMParqzRCdi4TbaxQZT4Ja9hqdhDLBQKEeFOU2xuLEqEfVyrSzuOiuJwx-u0P1adkDnVTzr5iW5nxeZWYabaSjst8bsQqz6Rf0WBDOMl2zpBtGp1TFh3tOr3LYTM9BGmyaw3-6iK3cFcWAAhVwxI3s6QBo1fH2mKftW641hjTb9/s320/SAM_0272%20(1).JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: start;">Leslie Weir giving me 5 year recognition</span></td></tr></tbody></table>I started working at Canadiana in 2011, and was one of the Canadiana staff that transitioned to CRKN in 2018. Prior to Canadiana I spent most of my career involved in the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS), which <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2017/02/more-than-25-years-of-free-software.html">I’ve been involved in since 1992</a>.<br />
<p></p><p>Canadiana had quite a bit of custom software, and that always made me uncomfortable. There wasn’t existing FLOSS software to fill the requirements when the custom ECO platform was launched in 1999 (decommissioned in 2012) or when the <a href="https://github.com/crkn-rcdr/cap" target="_blank">CAP platform</a> was launched in 2012 (still being used). That changed over time.</p><p>AlouetteCanada, one of the organizations that merged to form Canadiana in 2008, had created an <a href="https://wiki.accesstomemory.org/wiki/Development/Projects/DCB" target="_blank">Open Source “Digital Collection Builder”</a>. <a href="https://www.artefactual.com/">Artefactual</a> was involved in that project, and they continued to build Open Source software for the community: the most visible and widely used being <a href="https://www.accesstomemory.org/en/" target="_blank">Access to Memory (AtoM)</a> and <a href="https://www.archivematica.org/en/" target="_blank">Archivematica</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>As well as custom Access software, Canadiana was managing a custom <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Archival_Information_System" target="_blank">OAIS packaging system</a>. (Disclosure: I was the <a href="https://github.com/crkn-rcdr/cihm-ingestwip" target="_blank">primary developer/maintainer of that software</a> and <a href="https://github.com/crkn-rcdr/Digital-Preservation" target="_blank">related infrastructure</a> from 2014 until I <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2023/09/resignation.html" target="_blank">left CRKN earlier this year.</a> I had hoped all that custom software would have been decommissioned before I left).
</p><p>While authoring custom OAIS packaging software might have felt necessary in 2012, Artefactual started working on Archivematica around the same time (<a href="https://wiki.archivematica.org/Release_Notes" target="_blank">See release notes</a>). Archivematica almost immediately surpassed the functionality of the Canadiana OAIS packaging system. With a focus on digital preservation, being Open Source, and with archivists (rather than only librarians) involved, Artefactual received well deserved grants for, and community involvement with, their software.</p><p><br />I had a strong and constant urge to get rid of all the custom software I had authored and/or was maintaining as soon as possible. I started to advocate in 2015 within Canadiana to migrate to using Archivematica. Independently (mosty? I don't remember exactly.) Canadiana's Metadata Architect did an environmental scan in 2017 and also concluded we should migrate to Archivematica.</p><p><br /></p><p>Canadiana had a custom REST API for accessing objects (images, etc) from storage. While the API was inspired by Amazon S3, I was aware <a href="https://docs.openstack.org/swift/latest/" target="_blank">OpenStack Swift</a> had a module which <a href="https://docs.openstack.org/swift/latest/s3_compat.html" target="_blank">provided an S3 compatibility layer</a>. It seemed obvious to me that we should move away from any custom API to actually using a common API, enabling interoperability with other software without always having to customize.</p><p><br /></p><p>Unfortunately, Canadiana generally had a “Do It Yourself” (DIY) and “Not Invented Here” (NIH) attitude, and thought of itself as a vendor. There was often push-back from colleagues against moving away from using custom software, custom data models, custom cataloging rules, etc. It took some time to convince colleagues to move from a private subversion repository to being more open on GitHub.</p><p><br /></p><p>After years of internal advocacy, there was finally agreement on a few components:</p><ul>
<li>Move from custom Image server to a IIIF Image server. We picked <a href="https://cantaloupe-project.github.io/" target="_blank">Cantaloupe</a>, and that functionality was <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2017/12/canadiana-devops-2017-year-review-and.html">launched in 2017</a>.</li><li>Move from custom object API to OpenStack Swift. In 2019 at CRKN there was a project to set up a temporary cluster using the SwiftStack management console and consulting services.</li><li>Move from custom OAIS packaging system to Archivematica
</li></ul>
<p><br /></p><p>There was still no agreement among staff on Access software, but at least if we could complete the above there would be a better understanding organization-wide of why Canadiana should move away from other custom software (and related custom data models, custom metadata application profiles, and custom cataloging rules).
</p><p>I believed the best option for Access software to match the need was to use <a href="https://iiif.io/api/index.html" target="_blank">IIIF APIs</a> for image/manifest/collection view/navigation and page search (possibly start a new FLOSS project given the scale of the image repository), and <a href="https://projectblacklight.org/" target="_blank">BlackLight-marc</a> for document search. Blacklight closely matched the style of services that CAP offered, allowing the transition to not be as jarring to patrons as some of the other options.
</p><p><br /></p><p>By July 2016 the <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2016/07/canadianaorg-crkn-merger.html" target="_blank">conversation about a merger with CRKN</a> had been made public. At the time I saw this as an opportunity for positive policy change, including away from DIY/NIH towards coordinating enhancement of community software projects and coordinating cloud services among Library consortiums.</p><p><br />Around late 2016 or early 2017 I became aware of <a href="https://scholarsportal.info/" target="_blank">Scholars Portal</a>'s <a href="https://cloud.scholarsportal.info/" target="_blank">OLRC (Ontario Library and Research Cloud)</a> that was <a href="https://ocul.on.ca/history" target="_blank">launched in 2015</a>. This meant that the Archivematica and SWIFT object storage already existed in the larger community, and partnering with them rather than Canadiana (or later CRKN) doing any DIY/NIH was possible.<br /><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-70220372081669408032023-09-26T11:25:00.012-04:002024-03-16T07:48:10.781-04:00 End of an Era: My resignation from CRKN
<p>I have written about my resignation on social media, but since I’ve been asked what happened by people not on the socials I am posting here.
</p><p>I am also writing to encourage all employers to become more aware of and accepting of Autism and other neurotypes. Most workplaces have some neurodivergent employees even if the employer hasn’t been made explicitly aware. Autism Awareness and Autism Acceptance is critical in order to help resolve the fact that there is a huge under-employment problem for Autistic people.
<br /><br /><br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/spEj-OVKp2k" width="472" youtube-src-id="spEj-OVKp2k"></iframe></div><br />(Long form is on the podcast My Friend Autism: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxBmyiz9RPQ" target="_blank">Fired For Being Autistic - How to STOP it</a> )<br /><h1>The resignation</h1>
<p>On May 17’th I was asked to go on “Sick Leave” in a meeting with my manager and CRKN’s CEO. On September 6 I sent in my formal resignation as my last day of “sick leave” was September 7’th.
</p><p>In the view of management, my going on sick leave and resigning were choices I made. In my mind I was not given a choice, as continuing in what I considered an unhealthy work environment was never a valid “choice”.
</p><p><br /></p><p>That May meeting was the worst example of what I had been experiencing at CRKN for some time: a meeting was set up to discuss something I had communicated that was misunderstood, and CRKN management had a desire to reprimand me rather than discuss what was said and why it was said.
</p><p>There were two general themes I had been dealing with:
</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>My disclosure of my Autism was not being taken seriously, and I was regularly reprimanded for things which are well known miscommunication patterns between Autistic and Allistic (non-autistic) people.</li><li>The skills and experience I had gained at Canadiana and CRKN were being dismissed because “job titles” were being declared as exclusive jurisdiction. There were conversations that needed to happen to deal with confusion generated by different understandings of library technology, but any attempt to have a conversation with management was misinterpreted as if it was an insult toward some individual.</li></ul><div><br /></div><p></p><h1>Autism Acceptance</h1><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A1AUdaH-EPM" width="464" youtube-src-id="A1AUdaH-EPM"></iframe></div><br />(Video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1AUdaH-EPM" target="_blank">Why everything you know about autism is wrong</a> | Jac den Houting | TEDxMacquarieUniversity)<p><br />In 2018 I turned 50 and my employer flipped from Canadiana.org on March 31’st to CRKN on April 1st. When I went to work on Tuesday I was sitting at the identical desk and was in theory going to be continuing my work.
</p><p>(See also: <a href="https://www.crkn-rcdr.ca/en/history-canadiana" target="_blank">History of Canadiana</a>)</p><p>A few days later I learned that my mother only had a few more months to live. I spent quite a bit of time out of Ottawa helping my mother <a href="https://lougheedfuneralhomes.com/book-of-memories/3588629/McOrmond-Patricia-Pat/obituary.php" target="_blank">until she died in August</a>.
</p><p>I had become closer to my mother over the summer than I had been for years, and that process and her death made me start to see a psychotherapist. After seeing me for several months, in the spring of 2019 we had a conversation: had I considered I was Autistic, and did I want to get a formal diagnosis?
</p><p>Friends had been suggesting I consider this since the early 2000’s when it became known that many in the High Tech sector were Autistic. I didn’t consider it because I had internalized the pathologizing of Autism and didn’t think I had any “disorder”. It was, after all, called Autism Spectrum Disorder by the medical community who I thought of as the experts. I had internalized some of the common misconceptions about Autism as well as misconceptions about what a spectrum was (think about radio waves, microwaves and visible light all being on the Electromagnetic spectrum – never think of a single line from 0 to extreme)
</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/autiebiographical/posts/pfbid02tDXGDR8mkHEZbM8YhHRfLWSn1rjK2yszAkdJZUGmVyFnfWXr39JpN5RJwBgU6QvDl" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1254" data-original-width="3039" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOD3avP4y_7z8Fa61qkynW0gg1MhBSxbfdff72bDSnFS3lp5MOy9x2sk9xa04P8hzJ78vfW2zTABAd2BDYTDWz20totfGqDO_dxeBDOq7Bvl8Q1xnybekhHtrgpe78RLj0FIi9VsMvLjOvax0rjIbydBKaxRj3IFBIKDj2TcAoEBPidxTsp71TxmFYy846/w640-h264/A%20Little%20Bit%20Gay.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>I started to take the possibility more seriously as 2019 progressed. As I read more about Autism I saw some similarities, but still had many doubts. For instance, I doubted that <a href="https://embrace-autism.com/autism-and-camouflaging/" target="_blank">I had an “Autistic Mask”</a>. Ya, right – me pretending to be someone else or hiding my true self? I’m a terrible actor, and am told I'm very unfiltered.
</p><p>In the summer of 2022 I contracted Lyme Disease. I received the correct antibiotics in September, and the rash went away. Unfortunately, some other symptoms appeared: fatigue and quite random joint pains.
</p><p>As the fall proceeded, I started to notice a difference in my communication style and understanding of the communications styles of others. I had become much more direct, and found it harder to understand why people were ignoring facts in discussions. I then turned back to thinking about Autism and – well – it started to seem clear to me that the fatigue was making it impossible to mask. It was the absence of the mask that made me aware that it previously existed.
</p><p><br /></p><p>I tried to ask CRKN management for what I would need while I was dealing with Lyme Disease:
</p><ul>
<li>Flexible hours, as I may need to nap during the day : Granted
<ul><li>I was also already at 80% contract, and had been for many years.</li></ul>
</li><li>Flexible work location to handle naps, pain, etc : Granted
<ul><li>I was already working mostly from home, with very infrequent meetings.</li></ul>
</li><li>Understanding about a lack of energy to Autistic Mask : Denied
<ul><li>This was misrepresented by CRKN management.</li></ul>
</li></ul>
<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=620166196974809" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="It doesn't matter how thisk the mask, we will never be neurotypical. We will only ever be burned out Neurodivergents." border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="526" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHcYiPM0zmmu3_qpbWqalW66WCwCKIfxFHqlMF7IyGg3oma8vGLz1AGMUUpUkhKX1NHfGznSbnBCf9IP1AyKEP7MicXHfqMussXehiZiEIYz9B5yha_c-JfBND_MPWYydmpiEZvHhtYa4LJ-3nuZcyrl8SleY_LPtoKv93ebUJxijCNi0ar9beIxrtjNVX/w400-h400/NotNeurotypical.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p>Complicated social interactions relating to chain of command, hierarchy, job descriptions and jurisdictions only grew in spring 2023. What I considered illogical/impossible demands were being made, and I was being <a href="https://www.thearticulateautistic.com/why-does-my-autistic-loved-one-ask-why-all-the-time/" target="_blank">told I was being insubordinate if I asked why.</a><p></p><p>It <a href="https://www.thearticulateautistic.com/we-have-no-intuitive-concept-of-social-hierarchy/" target="_blank">generates considerable stress for me to be told I must perform silent obedience to a hierarchy</a>, and this is what specific members of the management team were regularly demanding.
</p><p>I was given conflicting instructions that it was mandatory that I collaborate with specific coworkers, while simultaneously told I was not allowed to communicate with them. I was being told to vacate someone else's “lane”, while simultaneously asked to enter that lane to write documentation that should have been written by that position. I made an attempt to hold out an olive branch to improve communications, but that was also misinterpreted and led to the horrible May meeting.<br /></p><p>In that May meeting and in the notes from the meeting I was being told that I was "acutely unwell" by a management team that to me had clearly not read the basics of what Autism is.<br /><br />This unhealthy management style of reprimand first, never bother asking questions, and demand silent obedience to hierarchy pushed me over the edge. I fell into full-on <a href="https://embrace-autism.com/autistic-burnout/" target="_blank">Autistic Burnout after being sent home</a>, and am still in the process of recovering.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="296" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wtcz5OkzYMY" width="511" youtube-src-id="wtcz5OkzYMY"></iframe></div>(Video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtcz5OkzYMY" target="_blank">Dr. Service explains autistic burnout, how to stop it, how to recover, and how to prevent it.</a>)<p><br /></p><p>I experienced things in May which I had only read about, and really wish had stayed as theories and not lived experiences. It did, however, remove any remaining doubt I had that I am Autistic.<br /><br />Over the summer I tried to explain my perspective of what had happened, but CRKN management suggested they wanted to continue the old conversation when I returned. None of the offensive accusations from May were rescinded.<br /><br /><br />Learning about Autism is something that the management team could have done on their own. I do not feel it is appropriate to require me to be involved in their learning the basics about Autism and other neurotypes. I have the benefit of having anti-racism and anti-colonialism as “special interests” in recent years, and have learned how those within dominant demographics always expect those with “othered” demographics to do the majority of the work towards acceptance of diversity.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am currently at <a href="https://embrace-autism.com/autism-assessments/" target="_blank">Part 2 (surveys and other forms filled out, and now waiting for the interview) of an Autism Assessment</a>. I wish I had taken the suggestion to do an assessment seriously back in 2019, but hindsight is always 20/20.
</p><p><br /></p><p>My own learning about Autism has helped me understand the previously indecipherable communications problems I was having at CRKN. The following quote from an article titled <a href="https://www.thearticulateautistic.com/your-autistic-loved-one-is-not-hurting-your-feelings-out-of-malice/" target="_blank">“Your Autistic Loved one is not hurting your feelings out of malice”</a> summarizes most interactions with at least one member of CRKN’s management team. What this person did and said made no sense to me, but I came to recognize that person didn’t understand (and didn’t spend time to learn about) my Autistic Dialect.</p><blockquote>I think this might be why when an autistic person says or does something that offends a neurotypical (non-autistic) person that many NT people will verbally strike out right away instead of attempting to understand the intention of the autistic person because they think the intention is a foregone conclusion.</blockquote><p><br /></p>
<h1>My Skills and Experience</h1>
<p>I am very thankful for the diversity of experiences I have had in my career. I have done technology work ranging from hardware repair, building networks, security audits, back-end software development (primarily), and even to consulting on business models and software licensing. I’ve been paid to write research for government departments on copyright and patent policy.
</p><p>When I started at Canadiana.org in 2011, it was for a 6 month contract starting in January to fill in for someone on maternity leave. That summer there was a posting at Canadiana for a software developer, so the systems administrator I had filled in for and I decided to take half each of the sysadmin and software developer jobs as Canadiana wanted me to stay as well.
</p><p>For those first few years I primarily did systems administration and only a bit of back-end software development.
</p><p>In 2014 there were some changes: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/russellmcormond/" target="_blank">I was promoted</a> to the title of “Lead Systems Engineer”, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-wueppelmann/" target="_blank">William Wueppelmann</a> became the CIO, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliennepascoe/" target="_blank">Julienne Pascoe</a> was hired as “Lead Metadata Architect”.
</p><p>While I still had systems related responsibilities, there were other systems administrators for me to delegate to as lead. William spent time doing knowledge transfer of his Library Systems knowledge to Julienne and I, and then Julienne and I worked closely together. While I don’t have formal training or a MLIS, working together with Julienne and William meant that I learned about Library Systems, Metadata Application Profiles (MAPs), and library related data models and encoding standards.
</p><p>I learned how to develop scripts, tools and workflows for parsing, extending, normalizing and transforming metadata records, and other related operations. Working with Julienne I was the primary developer for Canadiana’s Ingest Automation (the custom OAIS packaging system – learning more about OAIS, METS, BagIt, etc) as well as the Metadata Bus (learning about MARC, Dublin Core, AltoXML and custom schemas such as CMR, IssueInfo and TxtMap). I was actively learning from the broader community about Linked Open Data, Bibframe, IIIF and many other relevant emerging technologies in the library and archival technology spaces.
</p><p>I am very grateful for William and Jullienne for all the knowledge transfer they offered me, allowing me to participate actively in library technology.
</p><p>Julienne decided not to be part of the merger with CRKN, so left her position in fall 2017.
</p><p>CRKN posted a position to <a href="https://www.crkn-rcdr.ca/sites/crkn/files/2018-10/Metadata%20Architect.pdf" target="_blank">replace Julienne in 2018</a>, and a similar looking (but not identical) position <a href="https://www.crkn-rcdr.ca/sites/crkn/files/2019-01/Metadata%20Analyst.pdf" target="_blank">again in 2019</a>.
</p><p>The 2019 posting was filled, but the person hired was assigned duties by their manager that more closely related to the Cataloguing Coordinator/Manager that Canadiana had in the past. This generated considerable conflict between the skills/experience I had acquired and priorities I was assigned, and the "jurisdiction" and often conflicting priorities this person was assigned.
</p><p>I believe we were set up to fail by the management team. I suspect that person felt as uncomfortable with the failed communication as I did.
</p><p>I want to say this here as much as I tried to repeat at work: These are two different jobs with two different skill sets which combined is far more than any single person could reasonably be expected to do. I am not and was not critical of the individual who was given one job title and assigned different work by their manager. I was trying to draw attention to a specific resourcing problem, and only met with critique of my alleged “tone of voice”.
</p><p>The manager (not mine) who had hired this person was focused on protecting exclusive jurisdiction they felt should be within their department, and not interested in discussing or solving resourcing problems. That manager focused on new projects, regularly generating resource allocation conflicts for those of us working on pre-existing (and previously approved by committees, etc) infrastructure projects that should have been given a priority.
</p><p>As one example, the Archivematica Adoption project we had started planning at Canadiana in 2017 was first agreed to by CRKN in the summer of 2018 soon after the merger, and confirmed again formally in 2019. There was possibly a six month project, but resource allocation issues primarily (but not exclusively) caused by that manager meant this project had barely started by the time I left in May 2023.</p><p><br /></p><p>This manager was demanding I vacate the jurisdiction they felt belonged to the person they hired. With me gone there would be nobody doing the Metadata Application Profile, data model or (meta)data transformation work I had previously been doing with Julienne and had been filling in for since Julienne left. This manager had for years been blocking knowledge transfer relating to the usage of Canadiana tools and its record databases (which I had been primarily author for, and which the cataloging team wasn’t using correctly). This manager kept suggesting that even mentioning any knowledge transfer was required was somehow condescending.
</p><p>Given CRKN was still using custom software, it wasn’t possible for any new staff person to learn these details from anyone other than the staff that created and managed the software stack. It isn’t remotely condescending to be aware that no individual could already have known this custom information.</p><p><br /></p><p>This confusion about library technology and its relation to cataloging meant it was nearly impossible for me to get any of my own work done. Along with a disregard for anything <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwuhp7OON7o" target="_blank">communicated using an Autistic Dialect</a>, I was constantly targeted with odd accusations that I was being rude or condescending to individuals when I was simply trying to get productive work done in a management environment that was dismissing my experience.</p><p><br /></p><p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kwuhp7OON7o" width="474" youtube-src-id="kwuhp7OON7o"></iframe><br />(Video: The Autistic dialect | Madeline Narkinsky | TEDxVCU)</div><br />
<div>While my title was still "Lead Systems Engineer", I was also being asked to step away from Systems Administration. It was unclear what work CRKN wanted me to be engaged in as my primary areas of exptertise were being allocated as exclusive jurisdiction of other people in an environment that demanded obedience to the org chart, chain of command, and subjectively declared job titles.</div><div><br /></div>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0395 Wellington St, Ottawa, ON K1A 0N4, Canada45.420053 -75.707895920.802368628729059 -110.8641459 70.03773737127095 -40.5516459tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-92074604214692742522023-06-01T08:30:00.005-04:002023-09-07T23:17:55.993-04:00Anthropocentric Environmentalism, Anthropogenic Climate Change, and All Our Relations.I've been (or was) part of what was called the environmental movement from an early age, having a respect for plants and animals that I was told was kinda weird by family and friends growing up. I worry about the mental state of people's pets, and never felt comfortable with the idea of "owning" an animal (no judgment on anyone else -- this is only a personal discomfort).<br /><br />I eat animals, but prefer to do it in what in my mind is respectful. The closer plants and animals look like themselves the better -- fish have just always "tasted" better to me if the head and tail are still all there.<br /><br />When I moved from Sudbury to go to Carleton University, I met up with "fellow" environmentalists that connected me with the <a href="https://www.perc.ca/">Peace and Environment Resource Center</a> and from there to the Green Party, etc, etc.<br /><br /><br />Fast forward to the early 2000's and I started to not see myself in the Green parties, and started to not see myself in PERC. I saw interconnections between the Open (source, access, government, science, etc) movements and Climate Change and other "peace" and "environmental" policies which they did not.They would regularly tell me it was the wrong priority and to stop talking about anything outside narrow silos of thought.<br /><br />I had to move my activism elsewhere.<br /><br /><div>Green Party leadership would say things such as "the Economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment" and the GPO even said it would abolish the provincial Environment ministry as all of the government is subservient to the environment and those policies should be core to every operation of government and every department.<br /><br /></div><div>They would say these things, but not believe it or echo it in policies: they were apparently brand slogans, nothing more.<br /><br /><br />Increasingly in the 2000's I became depressed. I didn't think "humanity" was ever going to change, as "humans" were simply too disconnected from the real physical living reality to understand how to protect their own species, let alone any other.<br /><br /></div><div>Logically I felt the big problems wouldn't happen in my or Rina's lifetimes: we don't have children, so I simply have to stop caring about these things at all. I'll be long dead before things get really bad. It was a very hard and depressing way for me to try to think, but that is what I was actively trying to do : to distance some of my emotions from my Godkids/etc, and what their lives might be like.<br /><br /><br />Then in 2020 I finally/properly <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2020/07/canadian-systemic-racism.html">bumped into anti-racism</a>, from there <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/01/canadian.html">anti-colonialism</a>, and to learning about domestic (meaning Indigenous) nations.<br /><br />My stress levels dropped considerably. I felt hope for the first time in an extremely long time.<br /><br /><br />The "problem" wasn't humanity or human nature, but specific problematic worldviews. Worldviews can be changed by reversing ongoing colonial/genocidal policies (Save the Indian, Save the Man ; Save the Indian in the Child ; protect Indigenous languages/cultures in the Constitution/Charter rather than English or French ; etc) .<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-E5N12kAcwoJjrNBIkzdVnyZMECd4ivUt6HA-iMiVM7dpWzdLMG1deayIqiw5HqYwhhy3gcNPKzNHw1JIGk6FpWVwI1_HP2ZggjnB2euQARU266_8yBJhGgU8aBV6nODU9Jy2u7kPBsCB1ibHP4TmdsGlU1JWHre22uJFPcbKx7RDayz1Fg8YtnPgkw/s540/tumblr_inline_nytznc815J1teu7zg_540.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="540" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-E5N12kAcwoJjrNBIkzdVnyZMECd4ivUt6HA-iMiVM7dpWzdLMG1deayIqiw5HqYwhhy3gcNPKzNHw1JIGk6FpWVwI1_HP2ZggjnB2euQARU266_8yBJhGgU8aBV6nODU9Jy2u7kPBsCB1ibHP4TmdsGlU1JWHre22uJFPcbKx7RDayz1Fg8YtnPgkw/s320/tumblr_inline_nytznc815J1teu7zg_540.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />The "Conservationist" movement I had believed in was based on the notion that all humans were Anthropocentric and Androcentric, which is simply false (and is in fact part of White Supremacy).<br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I see connecting to local Indigenous Communities (such as can be found via the <a href="https://nafc.ca/">Native Friendship Center movement</a> -- <a href="https://odawafc.com/">Odawa NFC </a>for me) to be critical for any actual Climate Action. These are groups connected to peoples who have had worldviews/laws/etc that help deal with Climate Change -- and these laws were put in place on this continent long before European contact. Domestic (meaning Indigenous) law itself is a form of Climate action policy, long before Climate Change became a visible problem to anyone.<br /><br />Westerners aren't going to be leaders and should never stand in front of Indigenous peoples. We must show up and be willing to be students, followers and helpers. We still need to unlearn the very worldviews and mindsets which are the cause of existential problems such as Climate Change, and this will happen through interacting with and helping the community.<br /><br />I don't actually believe in "Anthropogenic Climate Change" as it is not "human activity" in the generic sense which is the problem, but activities originating from a very narrow set of worldviews which have been extremely colonial/genocidal in spreading across large parts of the planet.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />There is an extremely common belief that there is no way to solve this problem, or that "democracy" is too slow to deal with it. That policies to deal with Climate Change could somehow hurt "the economy" (however subjectively that term is used). Etc, etc... Over the decades I have heard so many excuses for inaction.<br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>One of the "slowest" forms of democracy is participatory democracy, where all citizens with near-universal suffrage have a say in decision making.</li><li>This is in contrast with representative democracy where a small subset of people make all the decisions.</li><li>This is in contrast with a Constitutional Monarchy where all the power is actually vested in the crown through a crown created/authorized/etc Constitution. Canada's constitution has only received minor amendments since the first of <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/primary+secondary?title=British%20North%20America%20Act">11 British North America Acts </a>was passed in 1867 by the British Parliament -- against the wishes or even awareness of the VAST majority of the relevant stakeholders on this continent.</li><li>This is in contrast with a Monarchy/Dictatorship/etc where one person (with the help of their chosen aids/etc) make all the decisions. The Westminster Parliamentary System was first designed as a debating club to advise the Crown. (And the <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2020/08/indigineous-council.html">Senate?</a> )</li></ul><div><br /></div>The <a href="https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/">Haudenosaunee Confederacy</a> is the oldest participatory democracy on the planet, with non-western scholars generally agreeing that it was likely founded in 1142 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_II_Komnenos">(</a>For comparison, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_II_Komnenos">John II Komnenos / Comnenus</a> was the Eastern Roman/Byzantine emperor at the time).</div><div><br /></div><div>The English called them Five Nations and then Six Nations when the Tuscarora joined this advanced democratic League of Nations in 1722. (which predates the European League of Nations, later called the United Nations, or the European Union, by quite a bit). Their Constitution is generally called the <a href="https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/confederacys-creation/">Great Law of Peace</a> in English.</div><div><br /></div><div>For Comparison, Britain only had comparable suffrage for its weaker democratic Constitutional Monarchy in 1928.<br /><br />When did the Haudenosaunee confederacy start advocating for policy changes in reaction to climate change? From what I've heard from a few people who are citizens of one of the six nations, their elders started in the 1970's.<br /><br /></div><div>Canada, on the other hand, is one of the <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/lets-work-to-fix-parliamentary-flaws.html">weaker forms </a>of "Democracy" as a colony with a<a href="https://learn.parl.ca/understanding-comprendre/en/canada-system-of-government/canadas-constitutional-monarchy/"> Constitutional Monarchy</a>, and still actively lobbies internationally for PRO-Climate Change Policies (policies which are universally understood to make the issue worse).<br /><br /><br />Democracy isn't the problem. In fact, if Canada more closely resembled a democracy, it would not be engaged in so many horrible activities (on this continent and beyond). These are not activities "Canadians" have approved of, but activities they aren't even accurately informed about.<br /><br /></div><div>For me, the <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2020/10/decolonizing-and-landback-they-dont.html">#LandBack</a> movement and the restoration of Indigenous self-determination (as should be protected under the UN charter as well as UNDRIP) isn't only a matter of "the morally right thing to do". It is a key policy to help protect life on this planet. Global Indigenous peoples saving themselves can serve as examples to teach those that still hold harmful/shallow anthropocentric and androcentric worldviews how to survive, as westerners have totally disconnected themselves from life itself.<br /><br /><br />Some other potentially interesting links:</div><div><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/02/canadian-democracy.html">Thought Experiment: Is Canada a democracy?</a></li><li><a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/03/alberta.html">Why I don't believe Alberta is bullied by extractive industries such as Big Oil</a></li><li>Paper: <a href="https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630">Decolonization is not a metaphor</a></li><li><a href="https://www.docip.org/en/oral-history-and-memory/historical-process/">H</a>i<a href="https://www.docip.org/en/oral-history-and-memory/historical-process/">storical process that has so far lead to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)</a>, and will continue.</li></ul></div>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-7282761565801818202023-05-22T13:33:00.162-04:002023-09-26T11:25:30.676-04:00Heteronormative sports and fitness, and workplace (sexual) harassment<p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">I have been abruptly sent on a journey of exploration and acceptance of myself. I will finally be going through a process to get an official "diagnosis" about Autism. So many people around me suspect, and so much of what I read/hear/watch resonates with me.</p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br />I am an open (source, government, access, etc) type person, and this blog is all about sharing and exploring thoughts (well -- my thoughts -- after all, it is all about me, me, me -- ya, right. Please share your thoughts in comments, as long as they aren't Austism Rejection).<br /><br /><br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiECWsFu_L12J-jR1fAOqtjmtgoASRoDFNtyAS4rIjE1tJ8OkrJUWZjt8BSsyTu6iJvR4fUwsL1bhldN-BoyMxgAZi5Qrz7yX7gAuXye3uWjectJiMjSbmnt4DP5SUt6DXRhLqRo24gyRTNCg_OirwmprBghEVx1vRJi0D-wI2bvPJOSngqmj0dXb8VGA/s956/Screenshot%202023-05-22%2014.02.42.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="956" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiECWsFu_L12J-jR1fAOqtjmtgoASRoDFNtyAS4rIjE1tJ8OkrJUWZjt8BSsyTu6iJvR4fUwsL1bhldN-BoyMxgAZi5Qrz7yX7gAuXye3uWjectJiMjSbmnt4DP5SUt6DXRhLqRo24gyRTNCg_OirwmprBghEVx1vRJi0D-wI2bvPJOSngqmj0dXb8VGA/s320/Screenshot%202023-05-22%2014.02.42.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">At the moment I am at Movati waiting for a class. The classes are amazing, but the environment regularly reminds me of how I didn't fit into specific aspects of high-school and earlier.<br /><br />I am not individually competitive, and I hate team sports as I always felt like I am causing the team to lose. I'm awkward, both in my sometimes overly expressive movements as well as my communication. I don't like watching sports as it is the fun that matters to me, so I don't care who wins or loses. I don’t see the point of picking favorite teams, brands, whatever. I enjoy watching my godchildren play -- but it is the play and their having fun that I enjoy, and I can't remotely get excited about who scored/won/etc.<br /><br />I strive to be my best self, but my concept of best most often doesn't match the concept of best or the expectations of other people around me.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I find the change rooms at these types of venues very problematic. I am aware of my cis-heterosexual privilege. So many people are walking around naked/etc, and these environments are designed based on the oddball notion of a heterosexual gender binary.</p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">I have had to train myself to accept the classes. For Zumba classes I even felt the need to ask permission of the instructor to be learning the moves from her. Other instructors will demonstrate a pose or the use of a ball/foam roller/etc on their own bodies or touching someone that they ask to be a "model". All of this is declared fine, but I have to get used to that.</p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">For Zumba I didn't want to try to learn dance moves from fellow students. Even in the co-ed section of Movati (they have a “women’s” only section), classes are female dominated. Not 50%+1, but more like 90+% women. It feels creepy to me to be looking at a female student as closely and as long as I would need to in order to learn the moves from them.</p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Some of the discomfort is the physical environment, such as the offensive cis-hetero-normative design of change rooms, bathrooms, etc.<br /><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Other aspects are social norms. My brain has a hard time figuring out the magical line someone else has drawn between being your happy friendly self in a multi-gendered environment, and what someone might consider to be sexual harassment.<br /><br /><br /><br />When I was younger I was able to help girls/women in my age range. I was a good listener, and could offer logic in response to questions. I was perfectly willing and able to tell them how beautiful they were on the inside and on the outside. In some cases I learned at a young age how many females are victims of various forms of rape. That reality of women's lives is far more common than I believe most of the general public is willing to admit.<br /><br /><br />I have a (married, family, etc) male friend that made the "mistake" of trying to do the same type of comforting interaction as an adult. A female co-worker was feeling very depressed, including feeling they were ugly. My friend mentioned that she was attractive and should feel more confident in herself. No problem in the moment, but later this became a whole workplace sexual harassment accusation. The lack of trust grew between him and his workplace, and eventually he had to leave what had become a toxic workplace for a growing number of reasons.<br /><br /><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">It was only in 2012 that I became aware of so-called "Workplace Harassment" policies. This is when Ontario added the grounds "gender identity" and "gender expression" to the human rights code.<br /><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">The closer I looked at the policies of my workplace, the more I knew I would eventually be slapped and possibly even terminated for violating that policy. And this was a full 7 years before the concept of Autism became real to me, as well as the possibility it could apply to me.<br /><br /><br /><br />Let's clear up something that should be obvious: women are treated horribly in the workplace under the "Canadian", "United States" and similar governments/cultures. I don't mean some Mad Men misogynist past, but ongoing today. Androcentrism, Capitalism and Colonialism are core to what Canada is, and I would suggest that misogyny is a core part of<a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/11/canadian-heritage.html"> Canadian identity, values, and culture</a>.<br /><br /><br />However, workplace policies rarely (if ever) take an intersectional approach. In order to harm-reduce in one area caused by Colonial Canadian culture, policies generally involve harm-increases in other areas.<br /><br />There is a whole concept of TERF, which is an acronym for<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF"> trans-exclusionary radical feminist.</a> Rather than taking an intersectional approach, we have activists focused on the needs of their specific demographic trait to the exclusion of the other. This issue is not one-sided, as some trans activists simply don’t care about the ongoing reality of misogyny and rape culture. These trans activists speak as if those issues are somehow in the past because -- well -- likely some man on the TV said so.</p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">These workplace policies are WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), which means there are subjective definitions of nearly all aspects of the policy: using the phrase "known or ought reasonably to be known" is extremely culturally specific. Who subjectively decides what is reasonable?</p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">As a likely autistic person, these "workplace harassment" policies essentially put a massive target on me. They are all effectively about rejecting people like me, and many other forms of diverse people, as valid persons in the workplace. In my case they are seeking to ensure my autistic mask remains thick to retain what some call "collegial" or "professional" work environments.. If my mask ever slips and my true Autistic self is exposed in the workplace and a non-Autistic person gets "offended", then I will be disciplined.</p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">There are ways to orient policies and workplace cultures that don't generate offense, but those are rarely (if ever) how these Western European worldview imposing workplaces are set up.</div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><br />Re<span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">commended videos:</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIdJ-IVNc_g">High Functioning Autism (It's NOT what you think!!)</a> | Paul Micallef | Autism From The Inside</li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxBmyiz9RPQ">Fired For Being Autistic - How to STOP it - My Friend Autism</a> | Orion Kelly</li><ul><li><a href="https://youtu.be/NxBmyiz9RPQ?t=1630" target="_blank">Jump to 27:10</a> if you only want to listen to the part on HR policies</li></ul><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwuhp7OON7o" target="_blank">The Autistic dialect |</a> Madeline Narkinsky | TEDxVCU</li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1AUdaH-EPM" target="_blank">Why everything you know about autism is wrong</a> | Jac den Houting | TEDxMacquarieUniversity</li></ul></div><span><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></span></div></span>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-12260236578331980452023-02-26T11:57:00.007-05:002023-02-27T06:47:22.476-05:00Why it is dangerous to use Artificial Intellegence as an editor.<p>While I'm not a fan of this Eurocentric colonial document, the so-called "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms" (part of <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11" target="_blank">Canada Act 1982</a>) lists as a fundamental freedom:<br /><br /></p><blockquote>(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;</blockquote><p><br />I received an automated message from Blogger (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogger_(service)" target="_blank">Owned by Google</a>) indicating an article titled "<a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2015/01/evidence-suggests-broadcasters-like-bbc.html">Evidence suggests broadcasters like the BBC don't want our money</a>" written in January 2015 was unpublished.<br /></p><p><br />From the email: <br /></p><p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>Why was your blog post unpublished?</p><p>Your content has violated our Spam policy. Please visit our Community Guidelines page linked in this email to learn more.</p></blockquote><p></p><p> </p><p>The <a href="https://www.blogger.com/content-policy?hl=en" target="_blank">Blogger Community Guidelines</a> contains the following:</p><p></p><blockquote><br />Spam <br /></blockquote><blockquote>Do not spam. This may include unwanted promotional or commercial content, unwanted content that is created by an automated program, unwanted repetitive content, nonsensical content, or anything that appears to be a mass solicitation.</blockquote><p></p><p><br /><br />The first paragraph is a good summary of the article I wrote:</p><p></p><p><br /></p><blockquote>Some copyright holders and their lobbyists claim the reason people infringe Copyright is because they don't want to pay, and that copyright infringement is the largest single problem reducing their revenue potential. Evidence I've seen in my decades involved in the copyright revision process suggested neither are true, and that barriers put up by the copyright holders are the largest incentive to infringe and the largest barrier to revenue potential.</blockquote><br /><br />(Full <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200813202116/http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2015/01/evidence-suggests-broadcasters-like-bbc.html" target="_blank">article with original links</a> available via the Wayback Engine).<br /><br /><br /><p></p><p>There isn't anything in that article that could remotely be considered SPAM. Sure, there were links to the BBC and their iPlayer (pages that no longer exist), but that wasn't as a promotion of their product or service but a critique of the corporation.<br /><br />To get the article back up I have done some link checking (removing broken links), and removed any links to BBC.<br /><br />I don't know if it was an employee at the BBC (or a devotee of the corporation) that flagged the content for review by a Google bot, but I have a hard time understanding the potential motivations of anyone else.<br /><br />First rule of BBC club is that you can't talk about BBC club?<br /><br /></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-3737421598075159942023-01-29T14:44:00.008-05:002024-01-20T09:48:58.328-05:00"I am Canadian", and I engage in "Nice Racism"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAuSlMjqCsLcraqMVEjd3log0TVZ29KY6q2qnELEsvkV0bGVCin6HLjH2iD1fJPU4TZhWuZ-Xv1C8mqKqkmjZP1LZ-8vgRx0LjJvOka1RSRdDjBjIub6B3G14JjyuYL_nbMUwOVsao6k6q3AQVnPMDaBlqAGPuX0t56wRpC9MINenY-Qpmk2AGdYO1pyRs/s447/NiceRacism.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAuSlMjqCsLcraqMVEjd3log0TVZ29KY6q2qnELEsvkV0bGVCin6HLjH2iD1fJPU4TZhWuZ-Xv1C8mqKqkmjZP1LZ-8vgRx0LjJvOka1RSRdDjBjIub6B3G14JjyuYL_nbMUwOVsao6k6q3AQVnPMDaBlqAGPuX0t56wRpC9MINenY-Qpmk2AGdYO1pyRs/w269-h400/NiceRacism.jpg" width="269" /></a></div><br /><br /></div>I've been reading "<a href="http://www.beacon.org/Nice-Racism-P1678.aspx" target="_blank">NICE RACISM: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm</a>" by <a href="https://www.robindiangelo.com/" target="_blank">Robin DiAngelo</a>.<p></p><p></p><p><br />As I read, I can't help but have that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Canadian" target="_blank">"I Am Canadian"</a> Molson slogan and commercial from a few decades ago in my mind.</p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader, but I support unrestricted resource extraction no matter what the harm</li><li>I don't live in an igloo, or eat blubber, or own a dogsled, and I have no concerns about the genocidal policies by Canadian Governments against the people who do. (This ramped up in the 1950's, even after Europe started to grapple with the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml" target="_blank">concept of genocide</a> in the late 1940's)</li><li>I live under a Constitutional Monarchy, not a self-determined responsible democracy</li><li>I believe it is perfectly reasonable to require someone to "swear (or affirm), That I will be faithful, And bear true allegiance" to a White Supremacist institution as a condition of becoming a <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/discover-canada/read-online/oath-citizenship.html" target="_blank">Canadian Citizen</a>, or to hold a wide variety of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Allegiance_(Canada)" target="_blank">positions of authority</a> (member of parliament, senator, etc).<br /></li><li>I partly define my identity by thinking I, as a Canadian, am better than a citizen of the United States -- That Canada is better than the United States<br /></li><li>I believe Canadians are polite people</li><li>I believe Racism is a US and not Canadian problem<br /></li><li>I believe Canada is a "just society" and respects human rights domestically and internationally, even thought I have never read the Canadian Constitution, Canadian Charter, or the reports of any Human Rights body discussing Canada <br /></li><li>I believe all Indigenous Nations on the northern part of this continent lost a war and ceded all their land to Britain and/or Canada in some distant past (that has nothing to do with today), even though nobody can name the wars, offer dates, or provide any documentation for these alleged events<br /></li><li>I believe "We are a multicultural society"</li><li>I believe "We pay respect to Indigenous people"</li><li>I believe "Canada never had slavery"</li><li>My name is Russell, and I am Canadian!!! <br /></li></ul><p></p><p></p><p><br />The last three (before my name as the expected finale) were taken from page 98 of "Nice Racism", in a chapter discussing the moves to innocence of White progressives.</p><p>As a generalization, Canadians think of themselves as more "progressive" than citizens of the USA. Rather than this being a reason for Canadians to believe this book by a US author has nothing to do with them, it is actually part of what makes this book (as a percentage of the population) more about Canadians than US citizens.<br /><br />US citizens tend to be more loud and proud patriotic people : Canadian identity includes the belief we are more "nice" and "polite".<br /></p><p></p><p>I could go through each of the bullets I threw in above, but the ones from the book are a good start.<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">We are a multicultural society?</h3><p style="text-align: left;">The Dominion of Canada is a bi-colonial (Britain, France) series of institutions.<br /><br /> During the P.E. Trudeau era, bi-colonialism was rebranded biculturalism (meaning English and French), and then dishonestly marketed as multiculturalism.<br /><br />Even the notion that Canada is a "just society" was used as a rhetorical device by the Trudeau government as part of the marketing of what was essentially racist bi-colonial policies.<br /><br />Culture is narrowly defined as food, clothing/fashion, and other more superficial things which people are allowed to maintain. When it comes to less superficial things it is made clear in the new so-called "Charter of Rights and Freedoms" passed as part of <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11" target="_blank">Canada Act 1982</a> that the official languages, worldviews and laws of Canada remain British and French.<br /><br />Even though this continent has been a polyglot for tens of thousands of years, with many nations and worldviews, two foreign European worldviews are aggressively imposed by the Dominion of Canada governments.<br /><br /> While Canadian loyalists are quick to call Quebec's Bill 96 racist, they are generally unwilling to recognize that Canada's Charter and most of the core policies of the Trudeau government are far more racist. The Charter isn't a temporary provincial bill that can easily be changed, but part of the racist Canadian legal framework that other bills (including Bill 96) are judged by.<br /><br /><br />If you have done some of the work to learn about Racism and White Supremacy (systems, not about individuals), you will notice what qualifies as "Rights and Freedoms" has a clear White racial frame that is narrowly focused on the concerns of peoples that emerged from the unique history of Western Europe (a focus on Britain and France).<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">We pay respect to Indigenous people?</h3><p>Also during the P.E. Trudeau Era, Trudeau's Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, tabled what ended up being called the <a href="https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/1969-white-paper-indian-policy-rejected-liberal-party-canada" target="_blank">"1969 White Paper"</a>. This was the then Liberal government's "final solution" to the so-called "Indian Problem". It would be a final "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" policy that wiped out any respect or recognition of Indigenous peoples.<br /><br />The Trudeau Government tried this again in the 1980's during the so-called "patriation" of the Constitution, and required the <a href="https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/constitution_express/" target="_blank">Constitutional Express</a> to ensure that the Trudeau's governments Racist/Genocidal ideology wasn't fully encoded in Canada Act 1982.<br /><br />I mention P.E. Trudeau as many Canadians believe he was a "progressive" Prime Minister. His attitude towards Indigenous Peoples, who he <a href="https://www.nfb.ca/film/dancing_around_the_table_1/" target="_blank">regularly claimed were a conquered people</a> and his support of many genocidal policies, is actually quite informative for understanding what qualifies as "progressive" by Canadians. The younger Trudeau uses more careful and "politically correct" language, but upholds the same general policy goals of his father's government.<br /><br />I was born in 1968, the same year P.E. Trudeau first became Prime Minister. I believe that P.E. Trudeau was the most <b><i>visibly</i></b> racist Prime Minister during my lifetime, as the marketing of racist policies has radically changed over my lifetime even if the overall policy goals have not.<br /><br /><br />Some individuals may have stopped openly calling for "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" genocidal policies, and some believe in "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion" of Indigenous peoples into Canadian society. They may not recognize that advocating for inclusion into colonial "Canadian" law/society is itself disrespectful, and is in fact the goal of most of Canada's "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" genocidal policies.<br /><br /><br />There are some individual Canadians who are advocating the recognition of the <b>Right of Self-Determination</b> of Indigenous peoples. This is a right recognized in the UN Charter that Canada has <a href="https://www.docip.org/en/oral-history-and-memory/historical-process/" target="_blank">aggressively opposed starting before the (Eurocentric) League of Nations</a> became the United Nations. Canada was one of the 4 offensive nations that voted against the <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html" target="_blank">United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)</a> which also recognizes the Right of Self-Determination.<br /><br />As punishment for sending a representative to the League of Nations in 1923 to have their Right of Self-Determination recognized, <a href="https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/the-meaning-of-elections-for-six-nations" target="_blank">Canada sent in the RCMP in 1924</a> to forcibly depose the Haudenosaunee Confederacy -- the oldest Participatory Democracy on the Planet. Canada still refuses to recognize the right of self-determination, or allow any responsible government to be seen to represent Indigenous nations to the Canadian government under Section 35 of Canada's own constitution. Opposing democracy and responsible governments, Canada still relies on the <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-3.html#docCont" target="_blank">fundamentally racist section 91(24)</a> of Canada's Constitution to determine who to limit "consultation" of Indigenous individuals to.<br /><br />Imagine for a second if Germany had a section of their constitution that granted Power to a specific level of government for "Jews, and Lands reserved for the Jews". Once you do, you can <b>begin to understand how Racist Canada's Constitution and laws derived from it are</b>.<br /><br /><br /> Note the "s" in peoples: This isn't related to individuals or Canada's alleged multiculturalism. This involves many different nations/peoples and not some pan-Indigenous concept. Canada was one of the Eurocentric "nations" that opposed the rights of "peoples" being protected in the so-called "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", which itself constituted a rejection of the notion that <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights" target="_blank">UN UDHR</a> is universal. Rights recognized in that declaration are focused on individuals.<br /><br />These are basic Human Right of peoples that Canada actively denies: Canada is not respectful of Indigenous peoples or their rights, and many genocidal policies are ongoing.<br /><br />Some individual Canadian genocidal policies like Residential Schools have recently (within my lifetime) ended, but the overall genocidal policy goals simply moved to the child welfare and other systems.<br /><br />Most Canadians, however, believe the myth that Canada (the system, the
governments, etc) are a force for good and justice in the world, and do not feel any personal responsibility for ongoing genocidal policies that these governments do in their name (and thus they DO have responsibilities, even if they are unaware of the harm from their individual action or inaction).</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Canada never had slavery?</h3><p><br />I have heard this my entire life, and even when growing up the dates never matched up in my head. I assumed, because of what I now recognize as Autism, that I was somehow wrong and didn't understand.<br /><br />In 1833 Britain started on a gradual project to abolish slavery. It was not made immediately illegal in the entire of the British Empire, and Britain even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/treasury-tweet-slavery-compensate-slave-owners" target="_blank">compensated so-called "owners"</a> for this gradual policy change.<br /><br />The USA claims they abolished slavery in 1865, at the end of what they called the "American Civil War", the second of such civil wars where British colonies on this continent fought each other to separate from each other.<br /><br />Britain unilaterally created the Dominion of Canada in 1867: without the permission or even awareness of the vast majority of inhabitants of the lands that were alleged to be governed by "Canada" at the time. There was then the massive violent <a href="https://atlas.gc.ca/ette/en/" target="_blank">colonial expansion of Canada on this continent</a> that happened after that date. (The gc.ca map shows the dates, but the explanations are pretty much propaganda. Canada never legally acquired "Rupert's Land and the North Western Territory", etc).<br /><br /><br />A component of the belief Canada never had slavery is that anything that these individuals or their colonial governments did prior to the passage of the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/primary+secondary?title=British%20North%20America" target="_blank">first of 11 BNA Acts</a> doesn't count. Somehow what people in these colonies thought and did magically changed between that bill receiving Royal Assent on 29th March 1867 and going into effect 1st July 1867.<br /><br /><br />The Underground Railroad went both ways across the imaginary line drawn between colonies who remained loyal to Britain and the 13 British colonies that launched the first civil war between British colonies on this continent to separate (what the USA labels a War of Independence 1775-1783).<br /><br /> The primary differences between the <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/confederate-flag-capitol.html" target="_blank">United States, Canada, and the Confederate States</a> was not morality, but economic: The economies of the most southern British colonies on this continent were more dependent on cheap labor (slavery is primarily an economic policy), while the more northern regions were moving into other industries. Where the south relied on cheap labor, the north relied on cheap resources (and thus more aggressive dispossession of Indigenous jurisdiction over land from which these resources would be extracted without concern for any future consequences).<br /></p><br /><hr /><p> </p><p>As I discuss each of these aspects of Canadian Culture, I am including myself. I have been part of and indoctrinated by Canadian Culture. It is only recently that I have become aware of and capable of questioning some of those myths.<br /><br />One of the book chapters is titled "Let's talk about shame".<br /><br />DiAngelo included a quote from an <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/shame/201305/the-difference-between-guilt-and-shame" target="_blank">article by Joseph Burgo Ph.D.</a>.</p><p></p><p><span face=""Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #2c2d30; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></p><blockquote><span face=""Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #2c2d30; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Although many people use the two words "</span><a class="basics-link" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/basics/guilt" hreflang="en" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(153, 153, 153); box-sizing: border-box; color: #2c2d30; font-family: "Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; hyphens: auto; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-break: break-word; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Psychology Today looks at guilt">guilt</a><span face=""Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #2c2d30; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">" and "</span><a class="basics-link" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/basics/embarrassment" hreflang="en" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(153, 153, 153); box-sizing: border-box; color: #2c2d30; font-family: "Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; hyphens: auto; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-break: break-word; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Psychology Today looks at shame">shame</a><span face=""Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #2c2d30; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">" interchangeably, from a psychological perspective, they actually refer to different experiences. Guilt and shame sometimes go hand in hand; the same action may give rise to feelings of both shame and guilt, where the former reflects how we feel about<span> </span></span><i style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2c2d30; font-family: "Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; hyphens: auto; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-break: break-word; word-spacing: 0px;">ourselves</i><span face=""Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #2c2d30; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span> </span>and the latter involves an awareness that our actions have injured<span> </span></span><i style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2c2d30; font-family: "Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; hyphens: auto; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-break: break-word; word-spacing: 0px;">someone else</i><span face=""Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #2c2d30; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">. In other words, shame relates to self; guilt to others.</span></blockquote><span face=""Proxima Nova Regular", Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #2c2d30; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />DiAngelo discusses how White people are often more comfortable expressing shame than guilt as guilt suggests we are personally responsible and that they need to do something (do better, be better). Shame doesn't suggest there is anything to do -- you are what you are, and that's it.<br /><br />I have realized that I don't feel shame or guilt when it comes to my Whiteness. It is possible that the way that I think might help fellow White people move away from trying to protect their personal comfort/feelings/reputation/etc and move on to helping fix structural problems.<p></p><p></p><p></p><p><br />I look at Racism and other systems/policies like I do technology.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">What I am, my phenotype including my lack of melanin in my skin, is hardware. Biology is hardware.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span>I<span style="font-family: inherit;">sms, like Capitalism, Socialism, Colonialism, Racism, Androcentrism, Anthropocentrism are software.</span></span></span></p><br /><br />I personally categorize some of these systems as malware, and societies with these systems are in need of anti-virus and other anti-malware work.<br /><br /><br /><br />I know for a FACT I'm deeply personally infected with Racism. This malware causes me to have harmed and continue to harm other people, and I have further infected other people because Racism is contagious.<br /><br />I am publicly admitting I have engaged in Racist activities. For most of my life I have actively upheld Racist policies because I had not yet recognized this set of software/policies as malware.<br /><br />It will take a long time, if it is even possible in my time remaining alive, to entirely rid myself of the impacts from the malware infection of Racism. That is not an excuse to do nothing, but a recognition that I must put considerable time into anti-malware work.<br /><br /><br /><br />These systemic/software problems are not about biology/hardware, and they are not something that we are. This is all software which can (an in the case of malware, must) change.<br /><br />We should not feel shame, and we should never feel like there is nothing we can do.<br /><br />I am quite angry with "Canada" (A set of policies, not a <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/01/canadian.html">place or a group of people</a>) which not only actively spreads and enforces malware, but seeks to make it illegal to work on anti-malware strategies. There is so much funding to spread Canadian malware, including entire <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/11/canadian-heritage.html">Canadian Federal government departments</a>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I Am Canadian, but not a loyal, patriotic or proud Canadian.<br /><br /><br />Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-49828986814262309832023-01-13T12:25:00.001-05:002023-01-13T12:28:07.794-05:00Reviewing "Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders", a book about colonialism.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347013293l/13536855.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="314" height="475" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347013293l/13536855.jpg" width="314" /></a></div>I posted a review of the book<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4056971747" target="_blank"> Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders</a> on GoodReads.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The book was informative, but not what I expected. It was frustrating to read, and I had to put it down and do something else regularly.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Imagine a book about Xinjiang (New Frontier) that spoke as if all human history on that area of land started in 1955 (When Xinjiang was made an autonomous region by PRC) and made absolutely no mention of the Uyghurs. The book would be entirely quotes and discussion of jurisdictional squabbles between individual groups of Han Chinese politicians/bureaucrats, other Chinese colonies/autonomous regions/provinces, and the central People's Republic of China (PRC) government.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">This is essentially what this book about is about, but for the British imposed colony of Newfoundland. The narrative is that Newfoundland was a "responsible government" in 1832 (a British colonial occupation is somehow claimed to be an example of self-determination), this artificial British granted legal fiction designation was rescinded in 1933, and Newfoundland became a province of the (also not self-determining, also not an example of "responsible government") Dominion of Canada in 1949.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Unlike with the Uyghurs who are relatively recent peoples to that region claimed by China, the Inuit, the Innu, the Mi'kmaq, and other Indigenous peoples have stewarded various parts of the lands some wish to call "Newfoundland and Labrador" for millennia.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The underlying policy discussed in the book is merely the British Empire consolidating debt and setting up protection of its British North American interests after the WW2, and yet this book claims there is something relating to "democracy" and "responsible government" involved.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Page 62 provides a good summary in the form of a quote from Hume Wrong:</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><p></p><blockquote style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">"considerable interest in the House of Commons in the status of Newfoundland, adding that there was a strong feeling that the present system of commission of government over a people of purely British stock was repugnant to a great many members."</blockquote><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">This book helpful in understanding what White Supremacy is, and learning about individuals that remain loyal to those worldviews, policies, and institutions.</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Newfoundland stands as a cautionary tale of why we should be concerned about what China is doing in what it calls Xinjiang, given how much more damage the British Empire (re-branded Commonwealth, FVEY, etc) is causing and has yet to be held to account in any way.</span>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-50630991850040586232022-09-17T10:37:00.012-04:002022-09-23T19:15:56.488-04:00Monday mourning : The British Monarchy still exists.<p><span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px;">The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2022/09/13/national-day-mourning-canada-honour-her-majesty-queen-elizabeth-ii" target="_blank">announced on September 13'th</a> that September 19, 2022, will be</span><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> </i><span style="background-color: white;"><span face="Open Sans, sans-serif" style="color: #333333;">a National Day of Mourning in Canada. Some Canadian provinces and some workplaces are also observing this day.</span><br /><br /><span face="Open Sans, sans-serif" style="color: #333333;">I won't be morning the death of a person, but the ongoing existence of the British Monarchy -- the symbol of the British Empire.</span><br /><br /><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: medium none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">At its height it was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires">largest empire in history</a> and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913 the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 per cent of the world population at the time, and by 1920 it covered 35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</p></blockquote><p><br />While many other monarchies have been appropriately abolished, Britain did something entirely different which was to re-brand their monarchy and colonies to claim that they were decolonizing. The "Royal Family", as well as being a corporation protected from taxes and liabilities other corporations would not, has been actively involved in that re-branding : including using the claim that it was a "Family" and had values similar to a family. This is the ongoing existence of an institution responsible for the greatest amount of colonialism and genocide our species have ever experienced, which has never been held accountable for any of its atrocities.</p><p><br />There is a claim the monarchy is only ceremonial, and doesn't have any power. This is how powerful the propaganda has been: This is a corporation whose stolen wealth is "inherited" by future members of "the firm", and which has considerable sway on the policy of many subsidiaries of the British Empire. The policy that was put in place by the Monarchy may have been signed by an individual that has been dead for centuries, but the policy and the Monarchy still exist institutionally. The monarchy is not about individuals but institutions : and it is the same institution, with its policies still enacted and promoted globally. The constitutions of several countries would have to radically change in order to ignore a royal proclamation, even at this date - creating an international policy and constitutional vulnerability that should have been closed decades or even centuries ago.<br /><br /> Queen Elizabeth II was the longest-lived British monarch, and oversaw the bulk of the re-branding. Even as an individual she was not guilt free, both for what she did and for the many things she did not do which any moral individual observing the suffering caused by that institution would work to resolve.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>German Reich was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Reich">Wikipedia)</a>. While it is discussed as having three periods, I don't hear about Germans or peoples of regions invaded by this empire celebrating it. It may be remembered that way because they lost two wars where allies from across the world were drawn in (The so-called "World Wars"). The loss of these wars is the reason for the three periods: 1871–1918, 1918–1933, 1933–1945. The fallout of the first world war lead to the rise of nationalism in Germany and multiple elections of the Nazi Party.<br /><br />Not having lost those wars doesn't excuse the ongoing existence or celebration of the British Empire or British Monarchy. These institutions are not examples of the "good guys" winning -- for these wars and even the treatment of European Jews by European Christians, there were no "good guys", just a winner who were able to brand themselves as heroes.<br /><br /><br />See also: <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/01/canadian.html">What does being a Canadian mean to me?<br /></a><div><br /></div>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-71519448006729753632022-09-03T10:14:00.012-04:002024-02-17T13:15:57.542-05:00A call to action for fellow French descendants in "North America"<p>While my Irish and Scottish ancestors came to this continent relatively recently (1800's, only 3-5 generations ago), my French ancestors have been on this continent for much longer. How much longer I don't know, as I have not yet done the more detailed genealogy work, but I'm told the family names of Hébert, De Rainville , Payette, Beauchere have been around for a while.<br /><br />As part of my antiracism learning I was led to anticolonialism, and from there became interested in the unique ways in which some settler groups see themselves and their relationship to this continent and its peoples. Some settlers go so far as to believe they are Indigenous, or victims of colonialism on this continent.</p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/distorted-descent" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT3E65o7HgahGTjSDdoY-5Zy4XWYDPk3NuMS-BRskGYrb789j8I3S4fOxbaIjy8XN1kh_PK-ti1iD8GFYez_vndaYqYg5ZPfvxbPHsuxZGqcX0OKqpAcBuQee7iiuyHYvB0ufaQpAOyVtiBIfEgnD2hOwPUo3m7pVb4-2Zb7C-R8TLVAQqb-dSHhq8ADg6/s320/DistortedDescent.jpg" width="215" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/distorted-descent" target="_blank"><span style="text-align: start;">Distorted Descent:</span><br style="text-align: start;" /><span style="text-align: start;">White Claims to Indigenous Identity (2019)</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>I'm told that most of my ancestors, in one way or the other, saw themselves as victims of the British Empire.</div><div><br /></div><div>For Ireland and Scotland, the reasoning is obvious, given part of Ireland and all of Scotland is offensively still considered part of the so-called "United Kingdom". I am strongly supportive of the reunification of Ireland, and for the sovereignty of Scotland, even though I do not have citizenship or other close kinship ties to either Nation.<br /><br /> With my French ancestors it is more complex. While Britain and France fought several wars against each other as well as on the same side against a third party, Britain does not control any part of France. What the feeling about the British Empire come from is the colony of New France, previously part of the French Empire.<br /><br />(For a quick refresher on the history, see: <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/01/canadian.html" target="_blank">What does being a Canadian mean to me?</a>)<br /><br /> <p></p><p><a href="https://smu-ca.academia.edu/DarrylLeroux" target="_blank">Darryl Leroux</a> is an Associate Professor in the <a href="https://www.smu.ca/academics/departments/social-justice-community-studies.html" target="_blank">Department of Social Justice and Community Studies</a> at Saint Mary’s University. An area of focus has been the the dynamics of racism and colonialism among fellow French descendants. His 2019 book "<a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/distorted-descent" target="_blank">Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity</a>" puts together many of the dynamics I wanted to understand. He maintains <a href="https://www.raceshifting.com/">Raceshifting.com</a> to help educate people on these issues.<br /><br />While I <a href="https://twitter.com/russellmcormond/status/1561844718874640384">tweeted some thoughts</a> while reading the book, the last page contains what I feel to be a call to action to all fellow French descendants on this continent.<br /><br /><br /></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">As French descendants, we have been told from a young age that we are the (only) victims of British colonialism, despite the fact that our ancestors colonized significant parts of what we generally call Canada and the United States for a century and a half prior to falling under British dominion. During this time, our forebears not only enslaved African and Indigenous peoples and actively displaced and dispossessed Indigenous peoples across a wide swatch of the continent, but benefited from broader French mercantilist policies that turned the French Antilles into one of the most brutally violent slave societies the world has ever known. Our belief that we are the only legitimate victims of (British) colonialism continues to be a major stumbling block to building meaningful social movements dedicated to combating French-descendant forms of racism and colonialism.</span></blockquote><p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Act" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="672" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilehwmellUhzH9HpU-t2EjhnCVnIoJSaNYlKSrep-PCozVnu0_MnN13J05UgneCO02lOe-FzN-T4tPTrCpKtyahwYBAkb66eTaih4lSpm0sNXf5Tsu31BAiq4JcoT2quwcnGKaFKqfPYnCp6OHVJGCiZLB0bQndiuhkBaJ23QBRUvPJcOetBBpNDWfkQ/w400-h310/Quebec_Act_1774-crop.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span face="Slack-Lato, Slack-Fractions, appleLogo, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #1d1c1d; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://vividmaps.com/new-france/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="787" height="400" src="https://www.vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/New-France-1007x1024.png" width="394" /></a></div><br /><span face="Slack-Lato, Slack-Fractions, appleLogo, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #1d1c1d; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span face="Slack-Lato, Slack-Fractions, appleLogo, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #1d1c1d; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">My wife's parents are Hindu Bengalis from India. I also believe it is incorrect for loyalists of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire" target="_blank">Mughal Empire</a> to claim the eventual end of their occupation of India was an act of "colonialism" by the Swedish, Dutch, Danish, French, Portuguese or British colonialism. Indigenous India was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_India" target="_blank">victim of all this colonialism</a>, and all these empires were (some still are) perpetrators of colonialism. Which perpetrator "won" a given campaign/war/etc to claim to be the current colonial occupation does not make loyalists of any of the "losing" colonial powers a victim of colonialism.<br /><br /></span></p></div>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0Turtle Island47.6771486 -95.3288415999999925.676809926408243 -130.48509159999998 69.677487273591765 -60.17259159999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-42712788620740640082022-08-10T09:37:00.007-04:002022-12-31T08:45:46.549-05:00Should you be upset at individual police officers who support the "Thin Blue Line" concept?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FV4cMFJUYAAxkCm?format=jpg&name=900x900" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="411" data-original-width="750" height="175" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FV4cMFJUYAAxkCm?format=jpg&name=900x900" width="320" /></a></div>The concept of the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line" target="_blank">Thin Blue Line</a>" comes up regularly.<br /><br />I <a href="https://www.facebook.com/russellmcormond/posts/pfbid0xennVH1215Qs4YqZSzkG37EZdsMtEpZ4aBtJkTAB2UjcqEwhLiPyjW1VnAdiWZCtl" target="_blank">posted about this on Facebook</a> on Dominion Day, what the P.E. Trudeau government re-branded as "Canada Day" in 1982 to help hide the truth about the Dominion.<div> </div><div>I consider the Thin Blue Line to be another discussion about systems vs individuals.<br /><br /></div><div><br />The job of Law Enforcement is to enforce the law, not to interpret it or to ignore the laws the police departments or individual officers don't like. If a law is racist, then it is still their job to enforce that law.</div><div><br />Whether US or Canadian law supports the idea that Every Child Matters or Black Lives Matter is a matter of law and other systems, not law enforcement. This is even true if some law enforcement officers start a "Blue Lives Matter" movement in response to the feeling they are personally being targeted by the "Black Lives Matter" and other human rights and social justice movements.</div><div><br />Canada and the United States are founded and still exist today as an ongoing expression of the <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/white-supremacy.html">White Supremacist</a> notion that Europeans and European systems have more of a "right" to govern over this land (Reminder: not part of Europe) than the Indigenous Nations and peoples who have governed and stewarded this continent for tens of thousands of years.</div><div><br />The Canadian Constitution hasn't been modified significantly since the one the British unilaterally imposed in 1867 with the first of the 11 <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/primary+secondary?title=British%20North%20America" target="_blank">British North America Acts</a>. This was done without the permission of, or even notification to, a majority of inhabitants and citizens of existing nations. There have been minor changes, but not away from White Supremacy within the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11" target="_blank">Canada Act 1982</a>, and other Acts of the British Parliament.<br /><br /><br />The United States is similarly fundamentally flawed, with their constitution being one of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C3Yrwwwr1s" target="_blank">most outdated</a> on the planet.<br /><br />Lets use a concrete example. APTN recently did an in-depth called:<br /><a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/ourstories/cirg/" target="_blank">Behind the Thin Blue Line: Meet a secretive arm of the RCMP in B.C.</a></div><div></div><div><br />We could read that article and get all angry at the RCMP for this, but lets remember: they are law enforcement.<br /><br />Where is the source of the conflicts with the sovereign nations in that part of Turtle Island (the name the peoples near where I live, such as the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe call this continent)?</div><div><br /><br />That would be the British Columbia NDP government. That is the allegedly democratic body that is in charge of these systems, and passed the laws (and unlawfully approves "development" on land they don't have jurisdiction over) which the BC RCMP is then required to enforce.</div><div> </div><div>The BC NDP even <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/indigenous-people/new-relationship/united-nations-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples" target="_blank">passed a law promising</a> to change BC's racist laws to conform with the <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html" target="_blank">United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>, but thus far has refused to do anything other than virtue signalling and theater. They could immediately cease the violations of human right being carried out by the RCMP, with simple changes to the injunction process on unceded lands, but refuses to do so even with their majority government.</div><div></div><div><br /><br />BC (currently NDP government, allegedly the most "progressive" party that forms governments in Canada) and Canada (currently a "Liberal" government) are regularly called out by UN agencies for ongoing human rights violations. (<a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/INT_CERD_ALE_CAN_9554_E.pdf" target="_blank">PDF Posted by APTN</a>, You can also go to the <a href="https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal/TBSearch.aspx?Lang=en&DocTypeID=76&ctl00_PlaceHolderMain_radResultsGridChangePage=9" target="_blank">Treaty Body Database</a>, limit to Canada, and look at April 29, 2022)<br /><br /><br /><br />Note: What Canada and BC are claiming about Indian Act band councils granting them "permission" is in fact unconstitutional. Those federally created/regulated corporations administrating Canadian government services delegated to the federal government under the racist Constitution section 91(24) <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/02/indian-act.html">do not have any jurisdiction over activities outside of their reservations</a>. They are not examples of self-determined responsible governments.<br /><br />Blaming the police, and especially blaming individual police officers, is part of flawed Western worldviews which have a narrow focus on individuals rather than recognizing systems.<br /><br />Police departments within "Canada" and "United States" are not law enforcement systems which contains some racist (the oddball "Bad Apples" narrative), but the enforcement arm of racist governance systems. Individual police officers are <b>not</b> the problem. If there are individual officers that are more overtly racially prejudiced, that can easily be understood as being the most loyal to Canadian systems (Patriotism).<br /><br />What about the claim that law enforcement is the "line which keeps society from descending into violent chaos"?<br /><br />First you need to recognize that Canada has a legal system, imposed by Britain based on British laws, religion and worldviews, and not a justice system. This set of systems called the Dominion of Canada have been carrying out a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2226217140832714" target="_blank">slow Genocide since it was imposed by the British</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Law is not the same thing as order, and sometimes<b> laws and law enforcement itself can be the cause of violent chaos</b><br /><br /><br />(I have taken a course where Kim Tallbear was my professor. She is an amazing Indigenous academic who does <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzVKVBgb4S4" target="_blank">anthropology of white peoples</a>. )<br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><br />Law enforcement in Canada is part of the ongoing colonialism project. Carrying out racist activities is in fact their job, given the laws they are required to enforce are examples of systemic racism.</div><div> </div>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-88059860307862526962022-06-14T13:34:00.005-04:002022-08-17T22:28:23.767-04:00"terra nullius" continues: British North America ("Canada"), Denmark, Russia.<p>A friend asked me if they heard about Canada and Denmark sharing the land border?<br /><br />I immediately thought: Here we go again.<br /><br />I looked it up and found a CBC article with headline: <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-denmark-reach-hans-island-deal-after-50-year-dispute-1.6487325" target="_blank">Canada and Denmark reach deal to divide uninhabited Arctic island</a></p><p><br /></p>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Image of Hans Island" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/HansIslandLocator.png/1024px-HansIslandLocator.png?20181119121443" width="320" /></a></div>
</td><td>Google Map: <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hans+Island/@78.8944288,-83.9643636,3.62z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x4fcf2bbd21314427:0xa411e99efbd18178!8m2!3d80.8268705!4d-66.4596503" target="_blank">Hans Island</a> <br />Google Earth: <a href="https://earth.google.com/web/search/hans+island/@85.76554,110.03475466,-4701.0386737a,6476996.69248939d,35y,194.46621812h,0t,0r/data=CigiJgokCfr6jR6t8kFAESix5uMhfUBAGTHH54v65GJAISKcR0MqQWPA" target="_blank">Hans Island</a><br /><br />Note that the island is nowhere near Denmark or Britain, so no legitimate reason for those governments, or their subsidiaries/derivatives, to have title claims.<p></p><p>If you look via Google Earth and look at the earth from the North Pole, you can see how there is a claim that this has something to do with Russia.</p><p>
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There is that phrase: "unihabited".<div><br /></div><div>This is what Europeans look for. It is a reminder that the "Doctrine of Discovery" and "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius" target="_blank">terra nullius"</a> are still current concepts for Europeans. This is the notion that if a thing (which until recently included people) was not already "owned" in a Roman/European sense, then it could be claimed to be owned simply through seizure.<br /><br /><p>European notions of properly grant exclusivity, but without any responsibility. Once "owned", the thing can be harmed or even destroyed without any responsibility to others (human, non-human living things, differently animated things).</p>When Europeans first started to visit this continent, which the peoples near where I live call "Turtle Island", they didn't recognize the people here as civilized and had an unwillingness to even treat them as humans. When Samuel de Champlain, a subject of the French kingdom, first came across a citizen of the Haudenosaunee in 1609, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy had already been an an advanced participatory democratic league of 5 nations possibly since 1192. While the Europeans lacked evidence of their odd claim to being more advanced in social sciences, they did have more advanced weaponry. Typical of the thinking of Empire builders, might was believed to be right. They use their savagery to claim supremacy and "civilization".<br /><br /><br /><br />I believe continuing to use this less advanced European way of thinking in this case makes no sense.<div><br /></div><div>Apparently the concern is that Russia might claim ownership through seizure, so British North America (Canada) and Denmark jointly seized the land for themselves as they already made odd claims to neighboring lands. The assumption in all this European Supremacist thinking is that it is legitimate for any European government to lay exclusivity claims based on seizure, even to lands quite distant from Europe.<br /><br /><br />Europeans are constantly feuding or at war with each other. Even though "might was believed to be right" in the European seizure of this continent, somehow Russia (also part of Europe) doing the same thing to a much smaller area currently called Ukraine that was fairly recently part of the Soviet Union is supposed to be automatically understood as wrong.<div><br /></div><div>Apparently the sovereignty of Europeans we are supposed to like is good, but the sovereignty of non-Europeans we are blindly supposed to ignore.<br /><br /><div><br />The correct thing is for the International community to protect further land outside of Europe being claimed to be controlled by European governments based on their uncivilized notions of seizure based exclusivity. It is the people and other more-than-human relations with connections to the lands which have a motivation to steward the lands which should be protected.<br /><br />What is needed is for Indigenous peoples of the polar regions to be granted sovereignty <b>from</b> European governments in the south (especially those operating outside of Europe). There are agreements to disallow any foreign government to claim Antarctica, and something similar should be done with the Arctic.<br /><br />In the case of what Europeans renamed "North America", it would be the beginning of allowing the True North to become Strong and Free again -- without being subjugated to European dominion.</div><div><br /></div><div>Starting with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_Nunangat" target="_blank">Inuit Nunangat</a> <br /><br />What is needed is peacekeeping to protect the land from European ideologies (whether from Eastern or Western Europe), not further land seizures by Europeans.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-62775002938502355942022-03-26T12:42:00.005-04:002022-03-27T08:52:22.270-04:00Discussing: How Canada Will Fall.<p>I added the following as a comment to a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io6bR4dGm6k&lc=Ugzaeez9l-1W4NtO0yh4AaABAg" target="_blank">YouTube video</a>. I find it interesting and I learn from people who I wouldn't normally hear from, and who have ideas ideas I don't agree with.</p>For a different take that is closer to my own thinking, check out <a href="https://mediaindigena.libsyn.com/">MEDIA INDIGENA</a> : <a href="https://mediaindigena.libsyn.com/usa-rip-ep-280">U.S.A. R.I.P. ?</a><br /><br /><hr /><br />Interesting ideas, but I think there was a core issue not included.<br /><br />Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy, meaning the constitution which was passed by British (<a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/primary+secondary?title=British%20North%20America%20Act" target="_blank">11 British North America Acts</a>, and then the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/contents" target="_blank">Canada Act 1982</a>) are a stand-in for a monarchy. This isn't how Canada describes it, and it claims it is more like the British which has a living monarchy. Given the deliberate modifications of the amending formula for Canada's Constitution when the British relinquished the right to change Canadian law in 1982, the Constitution is nearly impossible to change. That document is now the real head of Canada rather than the federal and provincial parliaments which are restricted by the Constitution. Canada isn't the democracy people think it is, and the current "leadership" doesn't have the authority to change any laws they wish.<br /><br /><br /><br />This comes into play with your discussion of the Wet'suwet'en government and their representatives, which are not European-style top-down hierarchical. <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-5/" target="_blank">Indian Act band councils</a> are part of the Canadian Federal bureaucracy, delegated power that the federal government is granted in <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-3.html#h-17" target="_blank">section 91 of the Constitution</a>. Section 91 grants the federal government jurisdiction over "24. Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians." These Indian Act bureaucracies do not have jurisdiction over land outside of reservations, or any other authority not delegated to them by the federal government, and thus do not have the legal authority to <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/02/indian-act.html" target="_blank">authorise the activities which some claim they have</a>. Some entity having an "election" is not sufficient for it to legitimately be considered a democracy -- far more is needed.<br /><br />The oldest Participatory Democracy on the planet is the <a href="https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/" target="_blank">Haudenosaunee Confederacy</a>, so it isn't correct to believe that there aren't working governments on this continent other than those which European settlers brought with them. Whether other governments acknowledge their jurisdiction is separate from recognizing their existence.<br /><br />For Six Nations of the Grand River, the Confederacy exists in parallel with the <a href="https://www.sixnations.ca/about" target="_blank">Six Nations Elected Council</a> (SNEC), the latter imposed by Canada through force carried out by the RCMP in 1924. Why? Because that elder League of Nations <a href="http://historybeyondborders.ca/?p=189" target="_blank">went to the younger League of Nations forming in Europe</a> to <a href="https://www.docip.org/en/oral-history-and-memory/historical-process/" target="_blank">gain full membership</a>. The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/history-of-the-un/predecessor" target="_blank">European League of Nations became the United Nations</a>, and appropriate membership of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is still being denied.<br /><br />It is the Confederacy that is a democratic government, while SNEC is merely a group of Canadian federal bureaucrats : the bureaucrats may do good work, but are not part of an Indigenous government. To understand what an Indian Act band council is requires people read the Canadian Constitution, Charter, and Indian Act.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://guides.library.ubc.ca/aboriginal_treaties/historical" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Historic Treaties Canada" border="0" data-original-height="553" data-original-width="544" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHf7d9CVaauvvxoI3coG7PBw_CqSdbgC7KI5nCS7606k6F2oP-e02ZrMzxohgkECQo3tcHMOmYCHVAVKTjVjuK9ZZsGI0AVIIvoQSZ2ALARPdsESvXN1TI15IG7ytMFkleeb67K5qMv7C7nN554om9X_koMKSI_448jKuV8V5MSI69U_xRpNdq_lYpBQ/w315-h320/Historic%20treaties%20Canada.png" width="315" /></a></div><p>Part of the 1982 changes is section 25 of the Canadian Charter which clarifies that the <a href="https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/royal_proclamation_1763/" target="_blank">Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763</a> is part of Canadian law, and section 35 of the Canadian Constitution that clarifies treaties as part of Canadian Law. Treaties are with nations, so that clarifies in Canadian law that Indigenous Governments must be treated as separate nations from Canadian federal and provincial governments.<br /><br />British Columbia, similar to large parts of Quebec, lack treaties and thus come into conflict with the Royal Proclamation when trying to determine which bodies have jurisdiction to make certain decisions. Again, Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy, so exactly what the Canadian Constitution says really matters.<br /><br /> </p><p>Individuals can believe Canada is a republic, and that everything is up for the government debate, and that these legal documents don't matter. That isn't true, and that will always cause confusion and problems. I agree there is a division between the East and West on this continent, just as there is in Europe and should be expected for a continent this size. I think it is an oversimplification to suggest the division is "left" vs "right", a concept that hasn't offered much clarity outside the French Revolution.<br /><br />European settlers have had two civil wars so far on this continent, largely along north-south divisions. The separatists lost the second civil war, so that second one isn't being called a "War of Independence" by anyone. I doubt the next civil war will play out that way -- it is far more likely that east-west will be how things divide. I have watched the growing tension over my lifetime, and I believe another civil war is inevitable -- just not the one people who believe the current imaginary line is fixed believe it will be. There are too many smug Canadians that believe what happens in the United States is somehow disconnected from them. That British separatist/loyalist division from that first civil war is further in the distant past than people seem willing to recognize.<br /><br /><br />The fact that Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy and few Canadians are even aware of the contents of Canada's Constitution will likely cause a collapse of "Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada" (to again quote from section 91 of the constitution). I noticed that in the "Freedom Convoy", where there was a <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/02/ottawa-siege-trudeau.html" target="_blank">lack of understanding of jurisdiction</a> and the fact that the federal government had little to do with the issues people were protesting.<br /><br /></p><p></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-91592750852664110152022-03-02T18:44:00.017-05:002022-03-03T08:13:30.608-05:00Problems I see in discussions about the Sovereignty of Nations<p>It is hard not to have a conversation with anyone for very long without the subject of Ukraine coming up these days.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm told what's happening in Ukraine is simple: Putin Bad.</span></b></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b></h3><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiwY6Sqbe0UcxEFjSakGKan9SkPCU3wGfuicI9UvVxwzAq2fnBvN8vWSAmwwx6dgb5HiA9h2kEX4FyD1z28T3Xf8WH_Jc953KZWPp8z2ayUzTsXmpTX2_ffsLZTm4ElGGdeoIYkfI40d3KBNelqmtdvhr2RUjV1BeqnNVvogPlS2yQ5OKyIhALwGdG2DA=s1086" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="869" data-original-width="1086" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiwY6Sqbe0UcxEFjSakGKan9SkPCU3wGfuicI9UvVxwzAq2fnBvN8vWSAmwwx6dgb5HiA9h2kEX4FyD1z28T3Xf8WH_Jc953KZWPp8z2ayUzTsXmpTX2_ffsLZTm4ElGGdeoIYkfI40d3KBNelqmtdvhr2RUjV1BeqnNVvogPlS2yQ5OKyIhALwGdG2DA=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p>When I look at the history of the area currently called Ukraine, I don't remotely see something simple. I see an area stuck in the constant war between Eastern and Western Europe. The current borders encompass a population where the native language is Ukrainian (an East Slavic language) in the west, and a third of the population largely in the east where native language is Russian. These divides are seen in presidential elections, as well as surveys on which economic unions the country should join. This is a country that recently declared independence in 1991, and is not clearly pro-West, anti-East as the western media and politicians claim it is.<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p> </p><p>I am anti-war, anti-conquest, anti-colonial and anti-genocide.</p><p>I don't want any warring in Ukraine, but it is not as simple to me as it seems to others as to what the underlying cause of the warfare is.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ottawa Siege: Trudeau Bad</span></h3><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEib0RbfTZdUM9194a7J3rNjbJ5wa7CQw0uNwb9ofkZL69ENsxYHdnpBYUYj9BXTxVqOUJtsxDj_U0pTVl3DkbuhwGZjkGdp8rMc3WWmJITvGLUcCVYHOrnKTaO8tpOHaSvZhyWmlbfYJgSOPZO8pSAnmdkyl4FqYzUoRjxV--P760UGeA4yE1T_ImBDFA=s700" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="700" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEib0RbfTZdUM9194a7J3rNjbJ5wa7CQw0uNwb9ofkZL69ENsxYHdnpBYUYj9BXTxVqOUJtsxDj_U0pTVl3DkbuhwGZjkGdp8rMc3WWmJITvGLUcCVYHOrnKTaO8tpOHaSvZhyWmlbfYJgSOPZO8pSAnmdkyl4FqYzUoRjxV--P760UGeA4yE1T_ImBDFA=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br />I had started a series of articles discussing the Ottawa Siege, with the most recent being titled <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/02/ottawa-siege-trudeau.html" target="_blank">Why didn't "dictator Trudeau" just remove all mandates</a>?<p></p><p></p><p>I am fully aware that the President of Russia has far more power, constitutionally and personally, than the Prime Minister of Canada. Vladimir Putin was a former intelligence officer, and learned quite a bit about people and how to influence them.<br /><br />Justin Trudeau was... umm... a substitute teacher, who withdrew from university to seek public office. He was put into the position by a <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/lets-work-to-fix-parliamentary-flaws.html" target="_blank">corrupt party system</a> that wanted to launch another "Trudeau Mania" such as happened under Justin's father.<br /></p><p>That said, I had to live through a siege on my hometown by people receiving international support for the myth that Trudeau was a dictator, rather than just being an idiot. Some of the "Putin Bad" simplistic way of looking at things have seemed very similar.</p><p>I'm tired of this overly simplistic nonsense. Western European worldviews have a cult over individuals, which hides from most westerners the complex systemic realities of the world they inhabit.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">How do people choose which attack on Sovereignty matters?</h3><p> </p><p>I live in on a continent that some call North America, while others call it Turtle Island. I wrote in January my current feelings on what <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/01/canadian.html" target="_blank">being a Canadian means to me</a>, after focusing some learning on this continent for a few years. The short-form is that Canada is not what I thought it was, and is in fact a series of governments (not a place) which is part of an ongoing act of colonialism and genocide.</p><p>Canada isn't unique. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States are collectively known as CANZUS in international circles. These are British Colonies, all of which claim independence from Britain, but where colonists greatly outnumber Indigenous peoples and where governments built on British worldviews. In the case of Canada, these governments were directly created and maintained by the British parliament, and an amending formula to allow a body on this side of the Atlantic to change the constitution was created in 1982.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I have noticed that there are many nations whose sovereignty has been subdued by another nation, but where the general population in Western European countries, and their colonies, don't pay attention. I am not the only person who noticed this, and on social media a simple pattern has emerged.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CahmN4OueW0/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%; border-radius: 3px; border: 0px none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) 0px 0px 1px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15) 0px 1px 10px 0px; margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0px; width: calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding: 16px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CahmN4OueW0/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%; line-height: 0; padding: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; width: 100%;" target="_blank"> <div style="align-items: center; display: flex; flex-direction: row;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; 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<br /><p></p><p> </p><p>Westerners only seem to care if the Nation whose sovereignty is being attacked is:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>European, or European Descent -- Contrary to what some people think, North America, Australia and New Zealand are not part of Europe, but any threat to the sovereignty of these colonial governments is still considered "important".</li><li>Christian</li><li>Capitalist</li></ul><p></p><p>Russia is only two out of three, so they are bad. Apparently if you adopt the British/Scottish (Adam Smith) Eurocentric economic system you are good, but if you adopt the derivative German (Karl Marx, etc) <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2020/11/ecocapitalism-ecosocialism-decolonization.html" target="_blank">Eurocentric economic system</a> you are bad.</p><p>In the formation as it has existed in recent decades Ukraine qualifies under all three requirements, so therefore it is claimed that a threat on it is a threat to "democracy".</p><p> </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Threats to Democracy</h3><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7UfYhuv0BSAcckMYofxgiT-Pg6ZdaAOUgKh8lA8lfaLZ424O-B1GYHr7NY2E3CJDjw0RdDL5rZiRvq2l2WZs_PMjqVEETSp196JzQIQOyahVQGZhWc0kHIEIK83SIvv1uTg43_qig_quKT528VhNMavE7HEsL0IsE4pTXc830E58G0S1ehZKTl8xvIQ=s950" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="950" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7UfYhuv0BSAcckMYofxgiT-Pg6ZdaAOUgKh8lA8lfaLZ424O-B1GYHr7NY2E3CJDjw0RdDL5rZiRvq2l2WZs_PMjqVEETSp196JzQIQOyahVQGZhWc0kHIEIK83SIvv1uTg43_qig_quKT528VhNMavE7HEsL0IsE4pTXc830E58G0S1ehZKTl8xvIQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p><br />When the subjects of European Christian Monarchies first visited this continent, what they found were advanced civilized nations. Some of the nations had joined to create confederacies such as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which had already been an advanced Participatory Democracy for centuries.</p><p><br />Quoting from the <a href="https://www.onondaganation.org/culture/wampum/two-row-wampum-belt-guswenta/" target="_blank">Onondoga Nation</a> website:</p><blockquote> In 1613, the Mohawks noticed people coming into their territory unannounced. The visitors had begun to cut trees and clear land for their homes and farms. They had entered the lands of the Haudenosaunee and were now occupying some of their empty rooms (land). The newcomers dressed oddly and had hair on their faces. They had iron pots and pans and had their families with them. These people needed a place to live. The Mohawks sent a runner to Onondaga to convene a meeting of the Haudenosaunee.</blockquote><p> <br /></p><p></p><p>I regularly write about the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. From my <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/04/INAN-brief.html" target="_blank">brief on Bill C-15</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><blockquote> The process that eventually led to UNDRIP <a href="https://www.docip.org/en/oral-history-and-memory/historical-process/">started in 1923</a>. This is when Deskaheh, Chief of the Iroquois League, representing the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, left Canada to go on a mission to Geneva (Switzerland). At that time the elder league of nations (Iroquois 6 nations in 1722, and a confederacy of 5 nations possibly since 1142) wanted to address the younger league of nations (formed at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, which later became the United Nations) to have the younger league adequately recognize the elder.<br />...<br /><br />In response to the attempt to get appropriate international recognition for the Iroquois league of nations, the British subsidiary called Canada sent in the RCMP to depose the centuries old participatory democratic Confederacy Council. Canada installed an "Indian Act" band council which is only responsible to the Canadian crown and not citizens. This is not a Representative Government, and the ongoing refusal of Canadian governments to recognize the Confederacy Council and not fold the band council is in my mind an obvious violation of UNDRIP Article 3.</blockquote><p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjphZL22VTCS9YoO4G5O8OogHHel9Afp_zxmKcbyY1sjISABo8qp6EyYMbDu0p-DbJ6j-lvCQdiwqLPwAdKwFyRD5NRcRNhvcuHFbtrsd34VhEeerkgyqZ-Mx2RtRguTuJn4UJlt6e8l37VBwwfMXPB-fjTMHrTxIKcPDah4G2MWoP8HCqJDB_hab3Eag=s920" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="579" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjphZL22VTCS9YoO4G5O8OogHHel9Afp_zxmKcbyY1sjISABo8qp6EyYMbDu0p-DbJ6j-lvCQdiwqLPwAdKwFyRD5NRcRNhvcuHFbtrsd34VhEeerkgyqZ-Mx2RtRguTuJn4UJlt6e8l37VBwwfMXPB-fjTMHrTxIKcPDah4G2MWoP8HCqJDB_hab3Eag=s320" width="201" /></a></div><br />Almost 100 years later, and British allies (including but beyond CANZUS) are still blocking recognition of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy at the United Nations. Canada still refuses to recognize the confederacy as the governing body of that league of Nations.<p></p><p><a href="https://www.protectthetract.com/" target="_blank">Land theft is ongoing</a>, as Canada and its provincial governments like Ontario believe that if they continue to put squatters on land which they don't have title over that this will eventually eradicate the sovereign nation entirely.</p><p>Watching the weak <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/lets-work-to-fix-parliamentary-flaws.html" target="_blank">corporate-party-centric democratic institutions of Canada</a>, it is clear these governing bodies are many generations away from having as advanced democratic institutions as what the Haudenosaunee had at European contact in the 1500's. That is if they are going to advance to being stronger democracies, as opposed to becoming even weaker over time.</p><p><br /></p><p>Other than "stop bombing", trying to figure out what should happen in Ukraine seems complex. What is needed is neutral third parties to get involved to help Ukraine. I am aware there is a good relationship between the Ukrainian people and several of the Indigenous peoples of this continent, but see no helpful role for excessively biased European governments or their colonies.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p>What Canada should be doing on this continent is far simpler, and there have been a stack of commissions and other reports over decades (longer than Ukraine has been independent) giving the Canadian governments blueprints.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwamtl-NkGRvuApSs512pslWCPu8OsR9J6SjdivrSvjcRSYBlUwKNd9rpSyP220ZbAfm7M12pJJaPlQInst1F-YLz5W_Khqv9szi3m8pi9z1rYmexjdYTQ7RA_gdF7Cj9zotBpF2mZGw8TRnGenrBZ6LJzbe_boAA0KH7clVhhKjMAA-NDtoGeFr1fOw=s810" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="810" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwamtl-NkGRvuApSs512pslWCPu8OsR9J6SjdivrSvjcRSYBlUwKNd9rpSyP220ZbAfm7M12pJJaPlQInst1F-YLz5W_Khqv9szi3m8pi9z1rYmexjdYTQ7RA_gdF7Cj9zotBpF2mZGw8TRnGenrBZ6LJzbe_boAA0KH7clVhhKjMAA-NDtoGeFr1fOw=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p>Canada fully recognizing the elder democracy of the elder League of Nations seems obvious, as well as transferring all assets and financial transfers currently received by the imposed Indian Act band council bureaucracy. Then there is the matter of all the <a href="https://www.sixnations.ca/LandsResources/index.htm" target="_blank">trust money which Canada "borrowed"</a>, and should get onto a payment plan to return with interest.</p><p></p><blockquote>Six Nations of the Grand River understands that Canada does not have enough money to bring historic land
issues to resolution under the existing land claims policies. </blockquote><blockquote>
This booklet is an explanation of Six Nations’ land and financial grievances against the Crowns of Canada
and Ontario and the need for the establishment of a new perpetual care and maintenance mechanism. A
mechanism that would benefit the Six Nations People and their posterity to enjoy forever, while continuing
to share the Haldimand Tract lands and resources with our neighbours.</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Trade and other Sanctions</h3><p>When will the trade and other sanctions against Canada finally start?<br /><br />Is it really as simple as the fact that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy isn't European, Christian and Capitalist?</p><p><br /></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-20534673932281936872022-02-24T15:56:00.007-05:002022-09-22T12:21:34.697-04:00Please stop repeating CGL's misdirection: "The company says they have 20 signed agreements with elected bands..."<p>The following was a letter to <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/" target="_blank">APTN News</a>, which I copied to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, and my MP in Ottawa South.<br /><br />It is repeated on their website: <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/land-rights-defenders-weigh-in-on-cgl-incident-on-wetsuweten-territory/" target="_blank">Land rights defenders weigh in on CGL incident on Wet’suwet’en territory</a><br /><br /></p><hr /><p><br />I'm a settler of Irish, Scottish and French descent, currently living on <b>unceded, unsurrendered</b> Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. My mother was born in Paris, Ontario, part of the Haldimand Tract. I have loyalty to this land that has sustained me, and solidarity with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (the oldest participatory democracy, not the Six Nations band council bureaucrats) and Anishinabek nations.<br /><br />Even I, who fully recognizes I am not Indigenous and have never been naturalized to this continent, find it offensive each time APTN repeats the colonial misdirection about Indian Act Band Councils without the required disclaimers. This offensive misdirection was repeated again on this evening's newscast, apparently to remind viewers of the existence of worthless "agreements" that CGL has with "elected bands".<br /><br />Indian Act band councils are created, regulated and funded by the Government of Canada.<br /><a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-5/" target="_blank">https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-5/</a><br /><br /><br />The phrase "elected" should never be repeated, as that is colonial propaganda to falsely suggest since there was an "election" that the body might be democratic. These councils are responsible to the Canadian Government, not Indigenous citizens, and thus are not representative governments. Elected parts of the federal government bureaucracy are still federal government bureaucrats.<br /><br />The position of Pope is "elected", but that does not change the fact that The Vatican is an absolute monarchy.<br /><br /><br />These councils are in a trivially obvious conflict of interest when it comes to any issue where there may be conflict between the interests of the Canadian Crown (and its corporations) and Indigenous governments. This was the entire purpose of the additions of s.25 and s.35 of the Canada Act 1982, to clarify that the Canadian federal government, or any of its delegates, cannot simply take control over Indigenous lands.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/contents" target="_blank">https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/contents</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/schedule/B/paragraph/25" target="_blank">https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/schedule/B/paragraph/25</a><br /><a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/schedule/B/paragraph/35" target="_blank">https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/schedule/B/paragraph/35</a><br /><br /><br />Some of the same individual people may be part of an Indigenous government and a band council. However, an Indian Act band council as that council does not have jurisdiction outside of what the Federal Government has jurisdiction on and has delegated to part of its own bureaucracy. An Indian Act band council, a subsidiary part of the Canadian Federal government, constitutionally cannot have jurisdiction over treaty land under Constitution s.35 or land where treaties were not created under Charter s.25 which clarifies the Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763 is part of Canadian law.<br /><br />The fact that Indian Act Band councils administrate policy on reservations is because the British granted the Canadian Federal government jurisdiction over "24. Indians, and lands reserved for the Indians."<br /><br /><a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/30-31/3/section/91" target="_blank">https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/30-31/3/section/91</a><br /><br /><br /><br />Please stop helping ongoing colonization on this continent. If you are quoting from a government or corporate statement, please make use of a disclaimer before or after to clarify that Indian Act band councils are part of the Canadian Government bureaucracy, and thus can not have jurisdiction over issues not part of federal responsibility.<br /><br /><br /><br />There may not currently be clarity about who represents the Wet'suwet'en peoples. This is a problem caused by the Government of Canada, so the Governments of Canada (federal or provincial - with Municipal governments being provincial corporations) should never benefit from harm to existing Indigenous governance that the federal government caused.<br /><br /><b>Settler governments which had any respect for their own laws or internationally recognized human rights would have had federal courts issue an injunction against CGL and the British Columbia government. The injunction would be to cease all authorizations of land use and operations until the s.25/s.35 Indigenous Government representatives are lawfully clarified and the correct governing bodies have granted Free, Prior and Informed Consent for any activities on their land. If the appropriate bodies don't exist currently, then the fiduciary duty of the Canadian Crown is to help them be re-established, with the injunction remaining in place.</b><br /><br /><br />This isn't only a matter of recognizing UNDRIP, but of recognition of the Royal Proclamation 1763, the Canadian Constitution, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /><br />Thank you for reading,</p><p> </p><hr /><p> <br />For anyone who read this and didn't know before that the Canadian Constitution granted the federal government jurisdiction over "Indians, and lands reserved for the Indians", please think about that for a moment. <br /><br /> Could you imagine the German constitution granted a specific level of government jurisdiction over "Jews, and lands reserved for the Jews"?</p><p>This is the real Canada, and not the "Canada the good" marketing material most of us settlers grew up with.</p><p><br /></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-8735939559244650492022-02-22T12:22:00.018-05:002022-12-12T08:25:07.478-05:00Ottawa Siege: Why didn't "dictator Trudeau" just remove all mandates?<p>One of the very visible features of this protest was a lack of understanding by most of the supporters I heard from of how Canada's legal and governance systems work.<br /><br />Tamara Lich's husband provided an obvious example in court.<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Canada's First Amendment</h3><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/tamara-lich-bail-hearing-february-19-1.6358307" target="_blank">No bail decision yet for Tamara Lich, convoy protest organizer</a><br /></li></ul><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 28px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></p><blockquote><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 28px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">"Honestly? I thought it was a peaceful protest and based on my first amendment, I thought that was part of our rights," he told the court.</p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 28px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">"What do you mean, first amendment? What's that?" Judge Julie Bourgeois asked him.</p></blockquote><p> </p><p>As my high school teaching wife would say: This is a good teachable moment.<br /><br /><br /><br /> I suspect many Canadians get their ideas of domestic law from watching police and courtroom dramas from the United States.</p><p>Tamara Lich's husband, who admitted he wasn't very politically or legally literate, was making an obvious reference to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. That amendment protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.<br /></p><p></p><p>You can read on social media all the discussion this drew. These are people who claim they aren't political, demonstrate a lack of basic knowledge of Canadian politics and law, and yet helped organize an illegal event supported primarily by foreign money and backing. They even think of themselves as patriots, although I'm not sure of which country.<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimVpLNW7Dkpe-x2--51RliLlqPVJDmNkdVTnl79OtmwdEmkdfs2bXA_2JDbk9ssWSYxkLdIM22N2SECfaP4O4l-5sHVxN2KfBuZsF3wgxdxNxuOxxGvu1N3l_k0oTQLfdolX7CBvm6bvsI4amsWXTdYFa1EBrItoLFtLbb3xKODFtZvziPT4aYLnds6w=s762" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="762" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimVpLNW7Dkpe-x2--51RliLlqPVJDmNkdVTnl79OtmwdEmkdfs2bXA_2JDbk9ssWSYxkLdIM22N2SECfaP4O4l-5sHVxN2KfBuZsF3wgxdxNxuOxxGvu1N3l_k0oTQLfdolX7CBvm6bvsI4amsWXTdYFa1EBrItoLFtLbb3xKODFtZvziPT4aYLnds6w=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>What was the first amendment to the Canadian Constitution?<br /><br />The official Governments of Canada answer: <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/constitution/lawreg-loireg/p1t21.html" target="_blank">Manitoba Act 1870</a>. A more complete list is available on the <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/constitution/lawreg-loireg/index.html" target="_blank">Department of Justice website</a>.</p><p>The accompanying map is helpful for context, given many Canadians believe a myth that these "provinces" democratically joined "The Dominion of Canada", and in the form they are today. There is some very important history to learn to understand what Canada is and how it operates.<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Canada's Origin Story</h3><p>The answer of the Manitoba Act is only part of the story.<br /><br />Canada was created and maintained by the British through a series of Acts of the British (later UK) parliament.<br /><br /> In 1867 it was a small number of British citizens (Western European, white, men) in a white minority part of the world who asked their government (Britain) to pass a law to create a new subsidiary of the British Empire. It wasn't the <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/02/canadian-democracy.html" target="_blank">democratic will of the inhabitants</a>, the majority of which weren't European and had their own existing (many democratic for centuries) governments. Many weren't even informed.<br /><br /><br /><br />Some key acts to be aware of:<br /><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/primary+secondary?title=British%20North%20America%20Act" target="_blank">11 British North America Acts</a>: It is actually BNA 1871 that confirmed Manitoba in the Constitution, as the British retained more control over Canadian law than they granted to the subsidiary governments on this side of the Atlantic. While <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/30-31/3/part/VI." target="_blank">Part VI of BNA 1867</a> (Sections 91-95 of the Canadian Constitution) created separate jurisdiction for federal and provincial responsibility, that limitation didn't apply to the British who could legislate at any level they wished - including the Canadian Constitution which only the British government could amend.</li><li><a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/22-23/4/contents" target="_blank">Statute of Westminster 1931</a> - this is when Britain granted several of its colonies, including Canada, the ability to have foreign policy. Technically Canada never declared war during the First World War, and "Canadians" participated in that war as British Subjects.</li><li><a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/contents" target="_blank">Canada Act 1982</a>
: This is where the British terminated their power to legislate for
Canada. This is the (most likely) final British amendment to Canada's Constitution,
and the creation of a new amending formula allowing governments on this
side of the Atlantic to amend the Canadian Constitution.<br /><br />SCHEDULE B, Part I, is the new Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBZOHbMM-eULi5Pb_WpV0ewa6Ml4HB0mggoVa815FSmjSbNkoS0ueilBaQ45HOGsIVkk54e81P4DilKLq-lVvhhImoUoU3DhdE09fGPeSZgVtZRks5kygw9P5gT9fxRqpuQ4N3jxPOVRfL043WnOZd1YR5UJK7hkrnYgCP2Bx9U9R1hYQbbCwJBsOiag=s1280" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBZOHbMM-eULi5Pb_WpV0ewa6Ml4HB0mggoVa815FSmjSbNkoS0ueilBaQ45HOGsIVkk54e81P4DilKLq-lVvhhImoUoU3DhdE09fGPeSZgVtZRks5kygw9P5gT9fxRqpuQ4N3jxPOVRfL043WnOZd1YR5UJK7hkrnYgCP2Bx9U9R1hYQbbCwJBsOiag=s320" width="320" /></a></div>While the existing Constitution sections 91-95 clarified jurisdiction for federal and provincial governments, the new <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/schedule/B/paragraph/35" target="_blank">Constitution section 35</a> as well as <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/schedule/B/paragraph/25" target="_blank">Charter section 25</a> clarified jurisdiction and rights for Indigenous governments.<br /><br /> If you don't yet know what the Royal Proclamation 1763, Treaty of Niagara 1764, or the Quebec Act 1774 is, then you don't yet know the foundations of Canada or Canadian law.<br /><br /></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj5eYl2MojS7PAREuguk1HcJKIXyXdQhLlWcTFNsXRKSJzXMA79DgjRjrfCconXbzIYCv2KddH6vZ9BU2uMTWnaVPV6faOV702VFkMf4YX9lcmuYaeHpXFV7SW7hOVxK9b-wViqPCd2qq6rbujouyz1Mg8e32uZfY2LL-FFysqgNxy2_cgPwfTrUjt06Q=s956" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="127" data-original-width="956" height="43" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj5eYl2MojS7PAREuguk1HcJKIXyXdQhLlWcTFNsXRKSJzXMA79DgjRjrfCconXbzIYCv2KddH6vZ9BU2uMTWnaVPV6faOV702VFkMf4YX9lcmuYaeHpXFV7SW7hOVxK9b-wViqPCd2qq6rbujouyz1Mg8e32uZfY2LL-FFysqgNxy2_cgPwfTrUjt06Q=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Government jurisdiction</h3><p>This origin story of Canada, which we should all have been taught, is critically important to understanding what happened.</p>I <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/02/ottawa-seige-health-and-safety-in.html">discussed earlier</a> that there weren't mandates (to vaccinate, wear masks, "lock down", etc) that were targeted at individuals, only workplaces. Individual rights were not being restricted as no individual has a right to enter other people's homes or workplace and ignore policies set for those locations.<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Multiple levels of government have created workplace and other health and safety policy relating to the current COVID pandemic: provincial (municipal), federal (Indian Act band councils), and Indigenous governments.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />I use brackets in the above as the constitution separates jurisdictional powers between Canadian Federal, Canadian Provincial, and Indigenous governments. Municipal governments are provincially created and regulated corporations, and Indian Act band councils are federally created/regulated entities. These are not independent levels of responsible government, but bodies responsible to the level of government which created and regulates them.</div><p style="text-align: left;">The vast majority of what people think the protesters were asking for, to "end all mandates", was outside of the jurisdiction of the Canadian Federal government. Even if the Government of Canada wanted to end all mandates, they do not have the power under the Canadian Constitution to do so.<br /><br />To say that in the reverse: The federal government, and Trudeau as Prime Minister, has nothing to do with a vast majority of the mandates protesters were angry about. These are independent decisions being made by multiple independent levels of government, primarily making use of independent public health units to help direct them during a critical time.<br /><br /> The type of centralized decision making that the protesters believed was happening is simply not possible. Public health mandates were not in any way a top-down decision made by a single individual, and health is primarily a provincial responsibility.<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Canadian Parliaments: and what is a "minority government"</h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"></h3><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7ruH3qmiJEdCXcdmQQPVLvmBySxzGzoWwT0Z5CLfD2fnKnfGkbNUplTlIZqUCc18t2DctFp8iISFYg6drztAf1e0Sxvpcv4zKJG60RGsgvkSBem7P_Z2-_fVHRR4gXGV7XEJ1_eZ1JaWWkYg-GduQoHNzD8AI0tt0gUIZgIchnJxbGMNI0hSoM2HTfw=s1600" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7ruH3qmiJEdCXcdmQQPVLvmBySxzGzoWwT0Z5CLfD2fnKnfGkbNUplTlIZqUCc18t2DctFp8iISFYg6drztAf1e0Sxvpcv4zKJG60RGsgvkSBem7P_Z2-_fVHRR4gXGV7XEJ1_eZ1JaWWkYg-GduQoHNzD8AI0tt0gUIZgIchnJxbGMNI0hSoM2HTfw=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br />I believe Canada's <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/lets-work-to-fix-parliamentary-flaws.html" target="_blank">Democratic Institutions have been weakened</a> by the transition of Political Parties from being a caucus formed within and accountable to elected parliamentarians, to being unaccountable corporations operating outside of parliament that manipulate parliamentarians.<br /><br />That said, Canada's Democratic Institutions are currently still far stronger than the protesters were alleging.<p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">Justin Trudeau is currently the Prime Minister of Canada. He is not the King of Canada, and does not have the level of control that protesters seemed to believe he has.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">Justin Trudeau is the current leader of the political party that has a plurality of <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/members" target="_blank">seats in the House of Commons</a>. This is a plurality, as the Liberal party of Canada would have needed 11 more seats to have a majority. The governing party must get support from at least one of the other larger parties (Green Party with 2 seats not sufficient) in order to pass any specific legislation. The opposition has a majority, and can force an election nearly any time (there are some minor procedural limitations) if they wish to discontinue the current parliament and try again at changing the makeup of parliament.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">For those who don't pay attention, the most recent general election was in September 2021. Canada has <a href="https://elections.ca/content.aspx?section=ele&document=index&lang=e" target="_blank">general elections (for all seats) and by-elections (for a subset</a>), and doesn't actually have a "federal election" with a common ballot question for all voters. The House of Commons is not an electoral college like the USA has to chose their President, although you couldn't tell from how the media (foreign or domestic) misreports Canadian elections as if they were in any way similar to US presidential elections!<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"> </p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">So, is it possible for Trudeau to act as a Dictator? No, not in the slightest.<br /><br />He can act like a petulant child, and constantly say unhelpful things when in front of a microphone, but he can't act as a dictator.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEisuwH_fvNMhZlgi3lwd-zunhfvdZEq5gpdekVoOAaSrWqzB3L_Xx2oN5Uv5pIGmTY1GfULJ9dM7xoy6FuhL4LkqgGhU9G4yz5jgN23FhW2ilEWZNZIQEhb1mlKgZA_s7Jhd8FyjxRXVIP5IHuk01TU19QYmFIPknGkBHNDj8vtAxuRrFvQFoIU6kNcnQ=s3968" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2976" data-original-width="3968" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEisuwH_fvNMhZlgi3lwd-zunhfvdZEq5gpdekVoOAaSrWqzB3L_Xx2oN5Uv5pIGmTY1GfULJ9dM7xoy6FuhL4LkqgGhU9G4yz5jgN23FhW2ilEWZNZIQEhb1mlKgZA_s7Jhd8FyjxRXVIP5IHuk01TU19QYmFIPknGkBHNDj8vtAxuRrFvQFoIU6kNcnQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div>Is Trudeau the best person to be representing Canada's federal
government as the Prime Minister? For this my personal opinion is
strongly: No!<br /><br />I don't like Trudeau for many reasons, and consider him an embarrassment as Prime Minister. Not liking Trudeau is not the same thing as believing he has power that he doesn't have, or that I will blame him for things which he has no control over.<br /><br /> I also want a better Prime Minister, but I want that accomplished through stronger democratic institutions and not by an angry mob of people who didn't spend any time trying to understand the basics of how governments work making DEMANDS of any democratically (by Canadian standards) elected government.<br /><br /><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Advise for First Time Protesters</h3><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">When listening to interviews of protesters (live streams, more formal media, etc), or reading things said by and interacting with supporters on social media, I got the distinct impression that this is the first time they have protested or paid attention to any government policy.<br /><br />I can't recall exactly, but I started getting more politically involved in the early 1990's. I've been to many protests over the decades, some which I now recognize as ineffective as I didn't really understand the relevant governance institutions in my youth. I've since met many politicians (before, during and after they were parliamentarians), some of which I even consider friends.</p><p style="text-align: left;"> </p><p style="text-align: left;">I would love to share as much as I can, and encourage others to get more politically informed and involved. I do, however, believe it is critical that you do your homework if you want to be effective.</p><p style="text-align: left;"> </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Research if the policy concern is real. There are many political opportunists out there, including politicians and the media, who want to use you as a pawn for their own special interests. They will abuse confusion to create anger, and then point you at a target of their choosing which likely has nothing to do with the alleged problem.<br /></li><li>Learn about the organizers of any political movement or protest. Don't assume that their "marketing brochure" is actually their goal. Don't take actions based on marketing which is regularly deceptive, but based on actual goals of the organizers.</li><li>Learn what level of government, and sometimes exactly which department or ministry, the policy you are critical of originates from. The easiest way to get dismissed by anyone involved in governance is to come to them with problems which have nothing to do with them: they are very busy, and teaching you basic civics is not part of their job.</li><li>Recognize that protests involved people, and possibly banners, flags and other such things to make the message clear. They don't involve heavy machinery, which is what changed the nature of what might have been thought of as a protest into something illegal, and what many considered a siege. <br /></li></ul><p> </p><p> </p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-86033035375041381812022-02-16T13:29:00.002-05:002022-02-22T15:53:23.163-05:00Ottawa Siege: Health and Safety in federally regulated workplaces <p>I have been wanting to write something about the protest since it started on January 28. I wanted to get my thoughts together before I posted, but the longer I wait the more facets emerge which are worthy of discussion.<br /><br /><br />I will start with the federal government regulation that is claimed to have sparked these protests. I say "claim" because most of what I hear from protesters and supporters has nothing to do with this policy, but larger social issues I'll put into separate articles.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">What is this "vaccine mandate" about?</h2><p><br />News release: <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2021/12/government-of-canada-will-require-employees-in-all-federally-regulated-workplaces-to-be-vaccinated-against-covid-19.html" target="_blank">Government of Canada will require employees in all federally regulated workplaces to be vaccinated against COVID-19</a></p><p>This is a simple/boring workplace health and safety policy. </p><p>Throughout this pandemic, politicians and the media have done a very poor job in explaining public health policy. This isn't a left-vs-right politician or left-vs-right media issue, as I feel they have all done a poor job.<br /><br />You will see politicians and media discussing "lockdowns", "mask mandates" and "vaccination mandates" without any context given to clarify the meaning of these phrases.</p><p><br /></p><p>There is a percentage of the population, higher in western countries, who think of themselves as individuals and not members of a larger society. When they hear these phrases it means "I am being locked down", "I am being mandated to wear a mask", and "I am being mandated to get a vaccine".<br /><br />When you look at the policies that have been put in place by Canadian municipal, provincial/territorial and federal governments (and the parallel First Nations governments) they have all been workplace policies: "this workplace is temporarily closed", "this workplace requires masks", "this workplace requires vaccines".<br /><br /><br />These two concepts are not remotely the same thing, and yet politicians and the media have been conflating the two. Given few people read the policies, they incorrectly believe individuals are being regulated rather than workplaces. <br /><br />If individuals were mandated, then their individual rights and freedoms may be impacted. However, since no individual has a right to enter someone else's workplace, their individual rights have not been impacted.</p><p>I am unaware of a jurisdiction within what most people call Canada where essential services that citizens require to survive being temporarily closed or requiring vaccinations, and thus am unaware of any scenario where individual rights are in question.<br /><br />Ignoring unusual political ideology, putting on a mask to enter other people's workplaces shouldn't be any more controversial than a requirement to put on pants. I am so glad there isn't a big movement to protest "workplace clothing mandates".</p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">What does this have to do with Justin Trudeau?</h2><p> </p><p></p><p>Example: <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2021/10/06/prime-minister-announces-mandatory-vaccination-federal-workforce-and" target="_blank">October 6, 2021 announcement by the Prime Minister</a>.<br /></p><p>I may not be a fan of the specific language the Prime Minister decided to use in his announcements or media releases, or how other politicians and the media reported on it. I think many individuals in these professions aren't very good at their jobs.<br /><br />I may find <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/lets-work-to-fix-parliamentary-flaws.html" target="_blank">Justin Trudeau embarrassing as Prime Minister</a>, and want to change the seriously flawed Democratic Institutions that puts someone with his lack of qualifications into that position, but that doesn't impact my opinion on this workplace health and safety policy.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Health and Safety policy for Truckers</h2><p>Once you recognize we are talking about workplaces and not individuals, then how this relates to the trucking industry becomes more obvious.</p><p>As part of their work, truckers need to enter other peoples workplaces: their trailers get loaded and unloaded, and along the route they travel for days do as all humans do: eat, sleep, go to bathrooms, etc. Not all of these things are done entirely inside their cab, and involve entering people's workplaces.</p><p>The regulation is not specifically about the health & safety of the truckers, but of all those people whose workplaces they must enter to do their job.</p><p> </p><p>There is a claim truckers are being fired or their individual charter rights are being infringed if they are not vaccinated. While this may be how some individuals feel due to their political biases, this is not what the policy is saying.<br /><br /> Nobody has a right to enter other people's workplaces and ignore the health & safety policy of those workplaces. Truckers who individually decide to disqualify themselves from entering workplaces required for their job have made a personal choice.<br /><br />Truckers have special drivers licenses, and many other regulations which simply do not apply to people in other professions. These regulations, many of which were lobbied for by truckers unions to protect truckers individual and collective rights, are all quite normal.</p><p>Someone with only a class G1 Ontario drivers license isn't being "fired" or their rights somehow impacted if the job requires that they have a valid Class A (full or restricted) or Class D Ontario drivers license. Not all truck drivers are allowed to drive all types of trucks.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p>This specific policy has been highly politicized for reasons that can be discussed later, as they relate to the broader political issues at the heart of these protests. Under normal political circumstances I seriously doubt these workplace health & safety policies would have been controversial for anyone.<br /><br /><br /></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-79660071010933244932022-02-13T12:57:00.008-05:002022-02-13T13:12:17.226-05:00Review: The Tinder Swindler<p>My wife and I watched <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tinder_Swindler" target="_blank">The Tinder Swindler</a> last night on Netflix.<br /><br /> Part of the story was some journalists who <a href="https://www.vg.no/spesial/2019/tindersvindleren/english/" target="_blank">published an article of the same title</a> in 2019. You should read the synopsis and story if you haven't already watched the documentary.</p><p>I quietly watched, not feeling I could express my thoughts out loud as I knew I was seeing the documentary different than was intended by the documentations. It wasn't until my wife expressed similar feelings that I felt I could share.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjyXpSjba9PjE6-IrRbQwQ4sLUHULWj7koKzJ8jGWwHhZ_DllWo8Gs6fINIAy7R5SBNUacANwzHJDx4lJCmr-cnzgX_uKeUA1Fx5LQ7sueo2X83EO9d-NeSLHJnWpuA-zH0uEY5DVmfvhNmiDRnuUfouu82X10R8KrzjQZ5T8_lhPrWjyF7sLamrjg3Lg=s400" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="267" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjyXpSjba9PjE6-IrRbQwQ4sLUHULWj7koKzJ8jGWwHhZ_DllWo8Gs6fINIAy7R5SBNUacANwzHJDx4lJCmr-cnzgX_uKeUA1Fx5LQ7sueo2X83EO9d-NeSLHJnWpuA-zH0uEY5DVmfvhNmiDRnuUfouu82X10R8KrzjQZ5T8_lhPrWjyF7sLamrjg3Lg=s320" width="214" /></a></div><br />I could not see this story outside the context of my recent anti-racism learning. The story was to me an example of the outcomes of what was discussed in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53260224" target="_blank">White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color</a> by <a href="https://www.rubyhamad.com/" target="_blank">Ruby Hamad</a>.<p></p><p></p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">My alternative Synopsis</h3><p>Three Western European (of Western European descent, not immigrants to region), due to the sheltered lives they have lived, fell prey to a simple <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme" target="_blank">Ponzie scheme</a>.</p><p>When the police did not take the case of one of the women as seriously as she believed it deserved, she brought the issue to some journalists who widely published her case. That journalism lead to some of the victims connecting and sharing stories, and one of them finally took some responsibility for her actions and helped police to catch the perpetrator.<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">White Privilege</h3><p>I have only recently become <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/02/my-privileges.html" target="_blank">aware of my privileges</a>.</p><p></p><p>It is a privilege to live within a country where the laws were created by people who have some of my democratic traits (Men of Western European descent). While I live in what <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/01/canadian.html" target="_blank">most people call Canada</a>, in a continent which is clearly not Europe, my European ancestry has meant these European created/derived systems have never targeted me as being different. I wasn't well-off growing up, but having the systems not help me individually is entirely a separate concept from the systems not attacking me due to having different demographic traits.</p><p></p><p>The fact that the story was about three white women matters. Having never been targets before, they had the privilege of not being very aware of the complexity of the world around them. They made trivially obvious mistakes in their personal finances, mistakes which if someone of a different demographic background made them would have been entirely blamed on the individual.<br /><br />Many BIPOC people are treated as if any financial issues they have ever had are entirely their own fault even when it is clearly systemic, but if a non-BIPOC person actually makes serious personal mistakes they are treated purely as victims.<br /></p><p>The women have set up a GoFundMe to help them pay back some of their debt. No thanks, I'm going to continue to support <a href="https://www.patreon.com/PayYourRent" target="_blank">Pay Your Rent</a> which is far more deserving of my support. (See: <a href="https://payyourrent.ca/" target="_blank">Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation</a>).</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">(Social) Media</h3><p>The end the documentary made it clear they do not assign any blame to Tinder as a social media platform. The first women we were introduced to is back on the platform, as if nothing happened.</p><p>There are serious systemic problems with media and social media. Due to a cult of individuality and anonymity originating primarily out of the United States, online platforms shield their users from accountability. A sense of entitlement without responsibilities is regularly listed as part of <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2020/11/ecocapitalism-ecosocialism-decolonization.html" target="_blank">Western-European worldviews</a>.<br /><br />I have been arguing for decades that a variety of trusted authorities should be maintaining identity services. It could be a combination of government agencies and private sector, but communications on the Internet generally, and social medial platforms specifically, should not be unaccountable by default.<br /><br />Social media platforms can offer aliases, but the individual citizen should be known to these communications proxies and able to be trivially identified if required by court order.</p><p></p><p>Anonymous sources have always been possible, long before the Internet. What this meant is that another human operated as an intermediary: you would be hearing from the proxy and not directly from the individual, and that human would be offering the anonymity. This proxy system provides accountability, which should be required of communications platforms.</p><p> <br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Gold Diggers, or victims of systems?</h3><div style="text-align: left;">They included some references to what the journalists thought were angry people on the Internet calling the women Gold Diggers.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />What I see are systemic problems, even if those systemic problems have lead to a lack of individual responsibility. These women are attracted to what the society around them has indoctrinated them to be attracted to, and that includes blind desire of money.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Since they are blindly following cultural systems, it makes them easy targets for individuals or systems which want to harness those systemic flaws.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiFQrzbWmQyMWv6sxIvvV9EYMmeGTZiNht__xQalX1KEewyRBJJATpujM8GZwtknUNJ9-ByFdI2JYUGVje7pqiQTbULg47ycOM62MzFFUI4wI0hFO4tKeg92v50X1xonGrtvpdMP8fTaBChPhT4iyj_UVYOneh_OBltPQW09ueUb4Xt2JNeqOn-1Ut0rA=s1870" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="1870" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiFQrzbWmQyMWv6sxIvvV9EYMmeGTZiNht__xQalX1KEewyRBJJATpujM8GZwtknUNJ9-ByFdI2JYUGVje7pqiQTbULg47ycOM62MzFFUI4wI0hFO4tKeg92v50X1xonGrtvpdMP8fTaBChPhT4iyj_UVYOneh_OBltPQW09ueUb4Xt2JNeqOn-1Ut0rA=w320-h139" width="320" /> </a>An Israeli man born into a poor family and neighborhood wants to live what we are all told is "the good life".<br /></div><p>I can easily picture him noticing that so most wealthy people extracted it from others rather than earning it, and decided to get in on that racket.</p><p>The fact that his Get Rich Quick schemes are clearly illegal, yet other equally dishonest schemes are still considered perfectly legal, is another systemic issue worthy of discussion.</p><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">As important as I think it is that the women are Western European, I believe it is important that the man was a Jewish Israeli. I see the history of the treatment by European Christian countries/systems of European Jews to be part of the story.<br /><br />There is a common narrative coming out of Europe after the Second World War that during the early 1900's there was a "good" and a "bad" side of the treatment of European Jews. The reality is that there was a "bad" side and a "much worse" side.<br /><br />The German Christian solution to the alleged "European Jew problem" is now known as the Holocaust, the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews.<br /><br />The British Christian solution was to allow Jewish people to live, but ensure that they lived somewhere else. Britain caused the partition of Palestine, at the time under British occupation, after the war in 1947. This is the same year Britain partitioned India, which was also until then under British occupation. The serious consequences of these British induced partitions are ongoing in both regions.<br /><br />The United States, <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/02/canadian-democracy.html" target="_blank">like Canada</a>, was not created out of the democratic interests of the inhabitants. A small group of white-European men in British colonies, in minority-white regions of the world, imposed systems of government. They used racist immigration policies, gerrymandering and genocide to <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/04/INAN-brief.html" target="_blank">minimize domestic Indigenous populations</a>.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><br />Today <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#religions" target="_blank">four-fifths of the remaining Jews</a> live in two regions that were formally or currently under British or British colony occupation: Israel (41%) and United States (41%).</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><h3 style="text-align: left;">My review?</h3><br />While the documentary sparked thought, I disagreed with the narrative that the documentary was intending. The media is once again patting themselves on the back, not recognizing their own complicity in perpetuating the systems that these individuals were all victims of in one way or another.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a lens different than the journalists involved. The documentary is seriously flawed.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-73090217361584506642022-01-01T14:22:00.042-05:002022-09-15T13:15:32.446-04:00What does being a Canadian mean to me?<div>In 2020, starting on January 7’th, there were a series of protests in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en First Nations. At the time I did not know what was happening, and did not have a clue what people could mean by “Shut Down Canada.”<br /><br /> This launched a journey for me to learn more about what Canada is and is not, which corrected many myths I was told growing up.</div><div> </div><div><h2 style="text-align: left;">1492</h2><p>While there is <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/03/origin-story.html">considerable evidence</a> that pacific islanders had been doing trade with this continent for centuries, this is when Italian Christopher Columbus is claimed to have “Discovered” what some now call the Americas. Contrary to myth he never traveled to the northern continent, even though the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKi59ZM4LaI" target="_blank">USA celebrates him</a>.<br /><br /> It was Italian Amerigo Vespucci that is the source of the name that European colonialists called these continents.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">1493</h2><p>The Bishop of Rome, also known as the Pope, issued more in a series of Papel bulls where he created the “Doctrine of Discovery''. This is the offensive concept that if land was not claimed by a European Christian Monarchy, that Christians could claim it (and all its inhabitants, human or otherwise) for themselves. While this policy led to centuries of colonialism, slavery and genocide, this institution has yet to apologize or pay reparations for any of the harm it causes.<br /><br />Some people are finally upset at what is now called the Catholic Church, what the original Roman Christian branch was called when other branches were formed. They are finally aware of what this institution did in Indian Residential Schools, but that is merely the surface of what this institution is responsible for.<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Late 1500's and early 1600's </h2><p>In the early years there was trade being done with the peoples of this land. Larger problems emerged in the late 1500's and early 1600's when Europeans started to form settlements.</p></div><p style="text-align: left;">The correct way to immigrate into another nation is to naturalize to the existing laws and customs. While some Europeans did that and became citizens of Indigenous Nations, most did not.<br /><br /> When Europeans traveled across the ocean, they brought with them a series of barbaric cultural practices and beliefs which they then fought to impose on the more socially advanced nations and peoples of these continents.</p><p style="text-align: left;">It is important to remember that the Europeans forming settlements were subjects of Christian Monarchies, while some nations as well as leagues of Nations such as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy has been an advanced participatory democracy since 1192CE. In 2022, Canada's top-down <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/lets-work-to-fix-parliamentary-flaws.html">hierarchical systems of governance</a> are still generations away from catching up.</p><p style="text-align: left;"> </p><p style="text-align: left;">What do I consider to be some of the top barbaric beliefs and practices that Europeans brought?</p><p style="text-align: left;"> </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Religious supremacy, and with it forced religious conversion and genocide. Christians fought with other religious branches that prayed to the same God of Abraham (Judaism, Islam, etc), but did not treat as human those not of Abrahamic faiths which they called "pagans".</li><li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjYk95RTjEps34GpuKuAC1L70wi8x5aDzsHzPCjyVQ0DPbLJGUQGCX4MH9lFVmkpKfS2xN6GDBkUJdYN6Jcf4n9X71cxM1vC5YIE_Xajj2uAT3ftzUM8UUV0hp3IXjMKNG6YxqDHRmb3CxCy2xEN0j1in_vVer8vEjs2pMPh3UqBj3M9klzp8G54VmuLg=s540" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="540" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjYk95RTjEps34GpuKuAC1L70wi8x5aDzsHzPCjyVQ0DPbLJGUQGCX4MH9lFVmkpKfS2xN6GDBkUJdYN6Jcf4n9X71cxM1vC5YIE_Xajj2uAT3ftzUM8UUV0hp3IXjMKNG6YxqDHRmb3CxCy2xEN0j1in_vVer8vEjs2pMPh3UqBj3M9klzp8G54VmuLg=s320" width="320" /></a></div>Male supremacy, also known as Androcentrism -- the notion that males should have all political power, and women should be treated as property.<br /></li><li>Human supremacy, also known as Anthropocentrism - the notion that humans are above the rest of creation, and that the rest of creation only has value in how it benefits humans.</li><li>The notion that land is something that can be "owned" rather than "stewarded". From this grew the concept of "exclusivity without responsibility", the core of western European notions of property law.</li><li>The notion that descendants should inherit privileges (monetary or otherwise) but never obligations. If a grandparent or other ancestor steals something, the grandchild or other descendant believes they are owed value from that theft rather than have responsibility for reparations.</li></ul> <span class="EOP SCXW81548046 BCX0" data-ccp-props="{"134233279":true,"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" face="Arial, Arial_EmbeddedFont, Arial_MSFontService, sans-serif" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; color: black; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 17.2667px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"></span><h2 style="text-align: left;">Late 1600's through 1700's </h2><p>Spanish, British, French, and Dutch colonists came. Through the 1600's and 1700's these Europeans fought with each other for exclusive European involvement in these continents, sometimes with Indigenous Nations as allies.</p><p>While the British were the last European nation that officially remained, as all others ceded any claims to the mainland, the British settlers were divided in how much respect for their own laws and the laws of the land they were willing to accept. Lack of respect (for other peoples, for the rule of law, for international treaties and law, etc) remains a defining trait of the European involvement on this continent.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjYbsb553It3J6OOwkypcuMONpXBZpBxJmtJA3ATHpOXablyBPPEX6p6ZP_6UNYPnQ22Wwwp5__UuJi2cILwamvLe9jwrR4lYrs_uOGCdXDpaCdJQTnu7Eqjzkm-wB4sNUgOxph8nKXRHXulbfAeMmJJmZnWmi4DWhn0FLczAngVasZ7U5LinAxkKjk0Q=s370" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="370" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjYbsb553It3J6OOwkypcuMONpXBZpBxJmtJA3ATHpOXablyBPPEX6p6ZP_6UNYPnQ22Wwwp5__UuJi2cILwamvLe9jwrR4lYrs_uOGCdXDpaCdJQTnu7Eqjzkm-wB4sNUgOxph8nKXRHXulbfAeMmJJmZnWmi4DWhn0FLczAngVasZ7U5LinAxkKjk0Q=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br />1701</h3><div style="text-align: left;">Great Peace of Montreal, also known as the Dish With One Spoon treaty, included the French signing a peace agreement with the (then) Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onendoga, Mohawk), as well as Anishinaabe Nations (Ojibwa, Odawa, Potawatomi, Mississauga, Saulteaux, Algonquin).<br /><br />The Tuscaroras joined the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in 1722 to become the 6th Nation.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuIGpzEmk8jirvwhu7Mul1zG_PCaIrMlTKMlgJ1paa4lwx4A2a38nfKJhTQW_5IJ0Hoj9FAxKvYQrwCoiNmXj0DSHnQp1RDjcTDi0SQhOMcZEoYcYKkX4Gx1z3qD2J4lN3v3y1fgTrcQWMDdffbKJM5zGMMwIcpu55WMU0Z0Ez0OSzLjdwKdlxR0xEfw=s672" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuIGpzEmk8jirvwhu7Mul1zG_PCaIrMlTKMlgJ1paa4lwx4A2a38nfKJhTQW_5IJ0Hoj9FAxKvYQrwCoiNmXj0DSHnQp1RDjcTDi0SQhOMcZEoYcYKkX4Gx1z3qD2J4lN3v3y1fgTrcQWMDdffbKJM5zGMMwIcpu55WMU0Z0Ez0OSzLjdwKdlxR0xEfw=s320" /></a></h3><div style="text-align: left;"><h3 style="text-align: left;">1763<br /></h3></div><div style="text-align: left;">After the Seven Years War (1756-1763), and the Treaty of Paris 1763, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III. This established the basis for governing territories on this continent surrendered by France to Britain, as well as the constitutional structure requiring respect for treaties with Indigenous Nations.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><h3 style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3bNutrum8BWiI_gG_N-chvNNXFxPQeMmQCBx7TSBVf_1chZblIXkEzRI-Z8KVEDZfp-fg185tTjXUZEtnlHb8u3wYQ_GfM8KLAhEtIb1CIXADx5c0CuPjbOaqk8tsc9xZzlAMJ8Y6rlHgi5GmbypSXkAkzrdVkBvmokXVzJGLLInivnAA6ic0dTfvJQ=s956" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="127" data-original-width="956" height="43" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3bNutrum8BWiI_gG_N-chvNNXFxPQeMmQCBx7TSBVf_1chZblIXkEzRI-Z8KVEDZfp-fg185tTjXUZEtnlHb8u3wYQ_GfM8KLAhEtIb1CIXADx5c0CuPjbOaqk8tsc9xZzlAMJ8Y6rlHgi5GmbypSXkAkzrdVkBvmokXVzJGLLInivnAA6ic0dTfvJQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div>1764 <br /></h3></div><div style="text-align: left;">Treaty of Niagara at Fort Niagara, when approximately 2000 First Nations chiefs gathered to create a peace and friendship treaty with the British. This was intended to bring the British into normal relationship with Nations on this continent. If the British had any respect for the laws of the land or their own laws this continent would be a very different place than it is today.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/maps/textdocs/ontario-boundaries-1774.aspx" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="558" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIhrTlc3A5t-YjdRqmRx7s6elzk1tJT1jPyt5RpqGKKFSrCF58YrgMs7xC8Egq4zeu5FtgyMOzy416lcPOWzEG8Bh3c0Fcmg0ricL-GdE9gHrll818MTX5cAtRTnDJgNP-5UJCVI93jLznqRpERWtP5PwwqHWIVcQXHLy6-yFJ7KjTWxkNlhrxxj1-EA=s320" width="291" /></a></div>1774</h3><p>Additional concessions were granted to French loyalists via the Quebec Act of 1774.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1775</h3><p>The British government had granted concessions to French settlers and recognized inherent rights of Indigenous Nations. The British crown also required that the colonist beneficiaries of the inter-European wars on this continent should pay for the wars.</p><p>This is all that was required for the <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/confederate-flag-capitol.html">most barbaric thirteen of the British colonies</a> to launch a war to separate from the British crown.</p><p>The British, claiming they were protecting everyone from the British separatists in those 13 colonies, violated the Royal Proclamation through their own western expansion. This will feel ironic today given so many "Canadians" claim that the United States is "our" closest ally, when in fact Canada was largely formed through claiming that the United States was the greatest threat.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1784<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2020/11/support-1492-Land-Back-Lane.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="579" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLZ16QfT2sHkiDKMAY-Dk9yTl92NS0UQRVaswbgejqaXJELwr2As3gVcWNcT-bnnTUpZC3cVG0_Th2Anq3uwHamQmZnMIs4KTNtaDrR9ANoGKNPfomjSGkJ2MB84KHE72mR22ndNF6iHMWaII9ygk9p3h0AeJkgJESdfG4Of4GlKENzXrQHaay0l-PtA=s320" width="201" /></a></div></h3><p>The Haudenosaunee Confederacy allied with the British against the separatists that formed the United States. As compensation for the loss of land south of the Great Lakes, Sir Frederick Haldimand, the governor of Quebec, <a href="https://www.sixnations.ca/LandsResources/HaldProc.htm" target="_blank">granted</a> the Confederacy <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2020/11/support-1492-Land-Back-Lane.html">Six miles each side of the Grand River</a> in 1784<br /></p><p></p><p>"Canada" has been denying this grant since that British subsidiary was created, and continues its dishonest attempts to steal land and wealth to this day. (See: <a href="https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/2021/06/haudenosaunee-confederacy-announce-moratorium-on-haldimand-tract/" target="_blank">Haudenosaunee Confederacy Announce Moratorium on Haldimand Tract</a>, April 20, 2021)<br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1812</h3><p>Further disrespect by the southern separatists, although it is widely reported that after this war the British no longer felt the need to respect Indigenous treaty allies as the British no longer felt the need for military allies as they ceased pursuing disputes with the separatists.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/confederate-flag-capitol.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1094" data-original-width="1459" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhcevu267bDcK_fEj-fEaIGmkQBwQcrfmOcggDSUgWH3BfoyJpXt63TCrNbJTdIRPiplmYTRmB1MeonryTM5s1qC8EDTl_m_5Aaw9TJ4g4vAOVpsz5eJWMhGxHE2xdFbiBla8WbtW2uX6vqznIUjXgxizxlSxtbkQnc7qGeM0WhErvtsIDwfdt2q9sjAA=w200-h150" width="200" /></a></div>1861-1865<br /></h3><p>Wars get named by the victor, so when a <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/confederate-flag-capitol.html">subset of the separatists</a> tried to further separate it was only called a civil war rather than a revolutionary war.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Territorial Expansion from 1867</h3><p>In 1867, a small number of white men in a white minority part of the world asked the British parliament to pass the first of 11 bills entitled "<a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/primary+secondary?title=British%20North%20America%20Act">British North America Act</a>", which the British used to manage what they branded as the "Dominion of Canada". (Dominion inspired by the Christian Bible, with that phrase used in many places including <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+72%3A8&version=KJV" target="_blank">Psalm 72:8</a> and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A26-28&version=KJV" target="_blank">Genesis 1:26-28</a>. Canada has never been a secular government).<br /><br /></p><p><a href="https://atlas.gc.ca/ette/en/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVjmxFQhVVxg5NaJG50NZbVVsRKd5VnrO_tFuBCLyA19Jdl8SlTqNC4wTbslMlUXRE1HMgj53b3yH6BST7YNVGwVR20BfDExr30VX5p4fOq__Af6SYlX6bAC95eIM8Nc210MivWgGTszsvoLnTk5DS8Y1wwq0zPUE81uxHCzEXVVwMf8KC-4l3TzeM3g=s320" /></a>The Canadian Government offers a <a href="https://atlas.gc.ca/ette/en/">series of maps</a> of key points in the history of this British colony. It comes with descriptions which read as colonial propaganda, and do not match any less biased interpretation of history. Maps discuss land, but the British never had title to this land so what these maps are discussing is regions which British created governments claimed some alleged right to govern.</p><p> </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>1867: The non-separatist British colonies of "Canada" (Previously Quebec, and then Upper/Lower Canada), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were joined. The colony of "Canada" was separated into "Ontario" and "Quebec". This new set of governments was formed to be part of the British Empire, effectively a corporate subsidiary of the British government.</li><li>1870: Canada claims it acquires land from the Hudson's Bay Company, even though the Hudson's Bay Company did not own any land. What they owned was an exclusive patent granted by the British Crown to do business in a region. Manitoba created from this area the British called the North-West Territories.</li><li>1871: In violation of the Royal Proclamation, the small number of white men who had no title to an area they called British Columbia are alleged to join the "federation".</li><li>1873: British colonialists in an area they called Prince Edward Island join the "federation".</li><li>1874: Boundaries of Ontario are extended into NWT. The Ontario government also provides a <a href="http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/maps/ontario-boundaries.aspx">series of maps from 1774-1912</a> of regions they claim to govern.</li><li>1876: District of Keewatin created within NWT.</li><li>1880: British unilaterally claim the rest of the North, other than colonies of Newfoundland and those claimed by the United States and France (St Pierre and Miquelon).</li><li>1881: Manitoba territorial expansion.</li><li>1882: Districts of Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Athabaska and Alberta formed out of NWT, to install settler governments to impose British rule in areas where a railway was being built.</li><li>1886: Keewatin and Saskatchewan boundaries adjusted.</li><li>1889: Ontario expanded yet again.</li><li>1895: Districts of Ungava, Mackenzie, Yukon, and Franklin created from NWT. Athabasca and Keewatin enlarged.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCTPa-HCd3IpAVG31Jjszj_EyabgnWsNvbswyWvxNRAtzjCM8VP_hvQhb7ZKp1oNi5sqA55VQsihq1LAmRb8ka17pqHApKvfZsnA5zFCyWLHknLPdYVO4SLuG9PpCNdXL9tJvX57O-K_tdu75HFB688LlauTITxtiaIWTNb8E6XBOvPvkBTBWxTnpSag=s1255" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCTPa-HCd3IpAVG31Jjszj_EyabgnWsNvbswyWvxNRAtzjCM8VP_hvQhb7ZKp1oNi5sqA55VQsihq1LAmRb8ka17pqHApKvfZsnA5zFCyWLHknLPdYVO4SLuG9PpCNdXL9tJvX57O-K_tdu75HFB688LlauTITxtiaIWTNb8E6XBOvPvkBTBWxTnpSag=s320" /> </a></li><li>1897: Adjustments of NWT district boundaries.</li><li>1898: Yukon separated from NWT to become a separate territorial government. Boundaries of Quebec unilaterally extended into NWT Ungava district.</li><li>1901: Yukon territory expanded into NWT</li><li>1905: Alberta and Saskatchewan unilaterally imposed, granting southern colonialist control over northern district of Athabasca. The anti-democratic gerrymandering involved in this is obvious, given the so-called Alberta oil sands are in the district of Athabasca.</li><li>1912: Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba imposed northward, again an obvious gerrymandering to grant southern colonial power over the north. As with Alberta and Saskatchewan, much of the resource extraction in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec are on lands which these "provinces" were allegedly granted control over via this gerrymandering.</li><li>1920: Boundary expansions into NWT formalized.</li><li>1927: Newfoundland, still a separate British colony, is granted expansion into "Quebec" by the British government.</li><li>1949: Newfoundland government joins the federation; some say because the British starved them out and were given no choice. (See: <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/12-13-14/22/introduction">British North America Act 1949</a>)</li><li>1982: While not listed on the map, this is when the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/contents" target="_blank">Canada Act</a> was passed by the British parliament. Up until this termination of power to legislate for Canada, the British government had more control over the laws of Canada than any body on this continent. This is the point at which Canada became eligible to be considered a democracy, although I don't consider it sufficient. <br /></li><li>1999: Nunavut becomes territory out of land previously part of NWT.<br /></li></ul><p></p><p> </p><h1 style="text-align: left;">What do I take from what I have learned over the last two years? </h1><p>I will use point-form <br /><br /><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> Canada is not what I was told growing up.</li><li>Canada is a set of governments unilaterally imposed on this homeland by the British to be a subsidiary of the British Empire and promote British laws and worldviews.</li><li>I am not British, and I don't live in Europe.</li><li>While my Irish, Scottish and French ancestors have been treated very badly by the British (and those who assimilated and became loyal to the British), that does not allow me or other non-Indigenous people to claim to be victims of colonialism or British conquest on this continent. (See: <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2022/09/french-descendents.html">A call to action for fellow French descendants in "North America"</a>)<br /></li><li>I do not have to be stuck in the past, and can move beyond the fact that I am a descendant of European colonists.</li><li>If I am not Indigenous, and not fighting for Indigenous Rights, then I am complicit with the ongoing violation of those rights. It doesn't matter when my ancestors immigrated and didn't naturalize to a domestic Indigenous government, I am still complicit.</li><li>I do not consider "Canada" to be the name of this place, which has retained many names since long before European contact.</li><li>I do not consider "Canada" to be the group of people who currently live on these lands, nor do I consider those <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/02/canadian-democracy.html">governments to be democratic</a>.</li><li>Canada is not a protector of human rights and democracy, but is <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/02/undrip-uyghurs.html">guilty of ongoing genocide</a>.</li><li>I do not have to adhere to what I now consider to be the barbaric cultural practices that European colonists brought with them. I can instead reject them, and politically work both as an individual and a member of the larger society to naturalise to Indigenous worldviews and laws.</li><li>While the Canadian and Ontario governments claim me as a citizen, there is no reason for me to be loyal to them. I have loyalty to the land that has sustained me my entire life, and the peoples who have stewarded these lands for thousands of years.</li><li>The institution of the Monarchy (British Monarchy, Canadian Crown, etc) has many things it should be held accountable for.</li><ul><li>I reject the rebranding of a racist, colonial and genocidal institution that has
existed since the 8'th century which now markets a claim to have
"values" similar to that of a an idealized "family".</li><li>I will not mourn the death of any member of the so-called "Royal Family" </li></ul></ul>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-36514961321242380492021-11-05T09:15:00.009-04:002022-12-22T18:19:23.471-05:00"Music Theory", "Canadian Values" and the Department of Canadian Heritage<p>I am recommending a video discussing music theory, but I feel it should have a bit more Canadian context.<br /><br />Remember the controversy when Kellie Leitch suggested having a screening of new immigrants for "Canadian Values"? Some <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-immigration-values-test-now-in-effect-1.4749735" target="_blank">provinces</a> and the federal government have related screening, so<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>the suggestion being controversial is subjective.<br /><br />While conceived of during the Brian Mulroney government, and formalized during the short Kim Campbell government, the Department of Canadian Heritage was fully formed during the Jean Chrétien government. The department's first Minister was Sheila Copps (1996-2003).<br /><br />The following is an excerpt from the <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-17.3/page-1.html#h-69712" target="_blank">Department of Canadian Heritage Act</a>.
</p><blockquote><p><b style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;"><a class="sectionLabel" id="s-4" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; text-decoration: none;"><span class="sectionLabel" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-weight: bold;">4</span></a></b> <a class="lawLabel" id="s-4ss-(1)ID0EBCA" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; text-decoration: none;"><span class="lawlabel" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-weight: bold;">(1)</span></a> The powers, duties and functions of the Minister extend to and include all matters over which Parliament has jurisdiction, not by law assigned to any other department, board or agency of the Government of Canada, relating to <b>Canadian identity and values, cultural development and heritage</b>. (emphasis added)</p></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p>
<p>While it shouldn't need saying, this continent isn't part of Europe. And yet it is two European languages and cultures (English and French) that are the primary focus of the <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-17.3/FullText.html" target="_blank">Heritage Act</a>, <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage.html" target="_blank">department</a>, and <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/CHPC" target="_blank">parliamentary committee</a>. That bi-colonialism is also core to the so-called <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11" target="_blank">"Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms"</a>, imposed during the P.E. Trudeau era.<br /><br /><br />Let's think about "Music Theory".<br /><br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="331" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kr3quGh7pJA" width="574" youtube-src-id="Kr3quGh7pJA"></iframe></div><br /><p></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-8196748181559073742021-09-19T19:41:00.006-04:002021-09-19T20:20:57.274-04:00Why I trust Jody Wilson-Reybould, and never again Justin Trudeau<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwmeXLBTVJNtdzzGYPYqRFFT6IePUCEsK3Mo5-zDvWvj1fBKoqLi6vj9vr_9d7NiAxZnEAhLJ6MdC0HV8Ak430mHQ-PY9v4QjzCEU8-SyF6bv34R0LNTYXck4KokpIaPzzZvhmrKVNWpZh/s4032/PXL_20210915_223410934.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwmeXLBTVJNtdzzGYPYqRFFT6IePUCEsK3Mo5-zDvWvj1fBKoqLi6vj9vr_9d7NiAxZnEAhLJ6MdC0HV8Ak430mHQ-PY9v4QjzCEU8-SyF6bv34R0LNTYXck4KokpIaPzzZvhmrKVNWpZh/s320/PXL_20210915_223410934.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>A few ideas are in my head.<br /><br />Jody Wilson-Raybould is also known as Puglaas, a title she explains in the speech I link to below. I knew she had written a second book in the spring when it was announced, a process that had already been underway for quite some time.<br /><br /> For those confused about the timing of this book that coincided with the election, it is important to recognize that books are not written and published in a few weeks, and the timing was decided months ago. Even the timing of his election to coincide with the planned launch of this book is Justin Trudeau's personal mistake.<br /><br />When her first book came out, I didn't notice as I had not yet started my anti-racism journey, and had not leaned about Indigenous Canada or become engaged in leaning about, thinking about, and helping in any way I can to fight for Indigenous Rights.<br /><br />The attention this election is on the second book, which is focused on her time as an MP, joining cabinet, and being forced because of Justin Trudeau's lack of ethics felt forced to resign from cabinet.<br /><br />I feel like much of the partisan talk is missing the context that she can offer, and that is more visible in her first book which was organized as a collection of speaking notes.<br /><br />I want to highlight and suggest everyone read the speech she ended her first book with: Each of Us, In Our Own Way, is a Hiliga<span face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #0f1419; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">x̲</span><span face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #0f1419; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></span>te. - Wilson-Raybould, Jody, 1971-. (2019, June 6). Feminists Deliver “Standing in Your Power, Using Your Voice” [O]. doi:<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0380803" target="_blank">http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0380803</a><p></p><p> </p><p>This speech resonates the most with me as it summarizes what went wrong in cabinet. She was trained from an extremely early age for a critical female role in her culture and nation, the Hiliga<span face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #0f1419; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">x̲</span><span face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #0f1419; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></span>te, which is one that "correct the Chief's path". <br /><br />Unlike in Western European culture and worldviews where women weren't granted political rights and responsibilities (and only recently partially gained), Puglaas is from a much more mature culture where women have specifically allocated political roles (which colonialism attempted to strip).<br /><br />What happened with her relationship with Justin Trudeau was that Puglas did her job: as an MP, as a member of cabinet, as Attorney General, as Hiliga<span face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #0f1419; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">x̲</span><span face="TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #0f1419; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></span>te, and as an Indigenous woman.<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYAzsJY3LCG0qcEh8DdgbUCR5DIY65DfFJE1ZCDUSQtZsQnOVaY7EycNDeS6oK2a20Ll854w39lq7jX_TepgHourpbEWfF4d5NWfd54pQFOjatBT_PlLisCOpvBSx7vNtSFK3xwxnyEama/s3968/p7180164.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2976" data-original-width="3968" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYAzsJY3LCG0qcEh8DdgbUCR5DIY65DfFJE1ZCDUSQtZsQnOVaY7EycNDeS6oK2a20Ll854w39lq7jX_TepgHourpbEWfF4d5NWfd54pQFOjatBT_PlLisCOpvBSx7vNtSFK3xwxnyEama/s320/p7180164.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>When I met Justin Trudeau in <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210414095744/http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/5195" target="_blank">2010 at his constituency office</a>, I was also optimistic. He said all the right things, and as a technical person I thought it was amazing that a politician had a signed <a href="https://xkcd.com/" target="_blank">XKCD</a> cartoon on his wall.<br /><br />I think for much of the decade Canadians were enamored with Justin Trudeau. He said all the right things.<br /><br />Except, one by one, I think we all started to notice that his actions didn't match those words.</p><p>My previous article highlighted <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/09/Arthur-Manuel-Elxn44.html">books by Arthur Manuel</a>, which spoke about Justin Trudeau as well as his father. What I read there about the Trudeau Prime Ministers has been confirmed from so many other sources. While they speak progressive, including on Indigenous Rights, their actions are actually the opposite.<br /><br /><br />I have come to believe that, <b>adjusted for the time period</b>, Pierre Elliot Trudeau was more racist than Sir John Alexander Macdonald (I discuss why I believe that in the earlier article). Statues of John A are being removed, and I expect we will want to revisit a more honest version of the historical record of P.E. Trudeau.<br /><br /><br />Justin came into power in 2015 with an extremely large amount of political capital. Demonstrating what I have now come to believe is his extreme sense of entitlement and privilege, he burned through that political capital as if he thought it was infinite.<br /><br />But.. the real world the rest of us live in has limits, and now Trudeau exist as an anchor pulling the Liberal party under. Much of the problems with the centralization of power into the leaders offices, including the Prime Ministers Office (PMO), is fallout of policy initiated by and deliberately not fixed by the Trudeau family.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/lets-work-to-fix-parliamentary-flaws.html">Lets work to fix parliamentary flaws which block holding a Premier or Prime Minister accountable.</a></li><li><a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2019/10/justin-trudeau-electoral-reform.html" target="_blank">What did Justin Trudeau and the 2015 Liberal platform team do wrong on electoral reform</a></li></ul><p>While there are people talking about other types of strategic voting, such as trying to avoid vote splitting which is caused by the lack of ranked ballots, I consider all of this to be short term thinking.<br /><br />Canada has some serious problems to deal with, and on all counts: whether it is Women's Rights (he is a fake feminist), Indigenous Rights (he is a fake ally), or Democratic Rights (he is a fake progressive) -- Justin Trudeau is in the way and must be removed.<br /><br /></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7753959616553937852.post-7896327312221813082021-09-08T12:10:00.006-04:002021-09-08T17:15:59.526-04:00Arthur Manuel's books as a lens to the 2021 general election.<p>Some people are calling this the Seinfeld election -- an election about nothing. I don't see a significant change in the parties since the 2019 election, even if 2 of the parties with seats in the last parliament have changed leaders (Conservatives, Greens).<br /><br />On the other hand, I have changed. I started self-directed anti-racism learning in 2020. Some of what I had to say about the 2019 general election applies today, but I have a very different lens when looking at Canada.</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2019/09/right-wing.html" target="_blank">Federal Election 2019: Right-wing parties and leadership</a> </li><li><a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2019/10/federal-election-2019-center.html" target="_blank">Federal Election 2019: Politically center parties and leadership</a></li><li><a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2019/10/left-wing.html" target="_blank">Federal Election 2019: Left-wing parties and leadership</a></li><li><a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2019/10/justin-trudeau-electoral-reform.html">What did Justin Trudeau and the 2015 Liberal platform team do wrong on electoral reform</a></li></ul><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisirkh5DWo-0OtrTsw27gmt5WR77DBpRVUtlCoaiXc4eYSQSJYJLDNt2KJk-97QJSm8y1E9JB701lXFeDiULDpDoNXxOZwehXfKvK_2fLnK_Y7k7Cr9iS0vx0SYOk0hRdjbHp8deIrXGt0/s4032/PXL_20210907_120944747.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisirkh5DWo-0OtrTsw27gmt5WR77DBpRVUtlCoaiXc4eYSQSJYJLDNt2KJk-97QJSm8y1E9JB701lXFeDiULDpDoNXxOZwehXfKvK_2fLnK_Y7k7Cr9iS0vx0SYOk0hRdjbHp8deIrXGt0/s320/PXL_20210907_120944747.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>While I have <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/118968388-russell-mcormond" target="_blank">read several relevant books </a>in the last 14 months, there are two written by Arthur Manuel which I believe are particularly relevant to this election.<br /> </p><p>Arthur Manual (1951 – January 11, 2017) wrote about some of the general history of colonialism against this continent, but focused on events he and his father George Manuel (February 21, 1921 – November 15, 1989) had personal experience with.<br /><br />While many try to put colonialism and the genocide that inevitably comes from colonialism into some distant past, the real story starts in the Roaring Racist 1920's and continues to this day.<br /><br /></p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Liberal Party of Canada, and the Trudeau Family<br /></h3><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p></p><p><br />I was born in 1968, and my father in 1936. Justin Trudeau was born in 1971 and his father in 1919. We and our fathers are of comparable generations, and thus could have had similar experiences. We didn't.<br /><br /><br />The second book includes a quote from Leo Tolstoy (From "What Then Must We Do?") that was included in the <a href="http://caid.ca/PennerRep1983.pdf" target="_blank">1983 Penner Report (PDF)</a> on Indian(sic) Self-government in Canada.<br /><br /></p><blockquote>I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all possible means -- except by getting off his back.</blockquote><p><br />(Note: The picture of <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/childhood-photo-justin-trudeau/" target="_blank">Trudeau on the back of a black boy</a> was fake, but for obvious reasons given Trudeau's personality and continuous expressions of entitlement and White Privilege we all believed it was true)<br /><br /><br />Canadian governments were unilaterally imposed on this homeland by the British as an <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/white-supremacy.html" target="_blank">ongoing act of overt racism and white supremacy</a>. Canada continues to push Indigenous peoples down so they can't built back their nations and economies.</p><p><br />I don't, however, believe that quote applies to all Canadian Prime Ministers and the governments they lead. Of all the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Canada" target="_blank">Prime Ministers of Canada</a>, with all the ephemeral parties with the word "Liberal" or "Conservative" (or sometimes both) in the party names, the above really only applies to recent Liberal PMs. Prior to that time no PM would claim to feel sorry for Indigenous peoples. They believed the only human right Indigenous Peoples should have is the right to be forcibly assimilated into European worldviews and governance systems (clear genocidal policies of "Kill the Indian, Save the Man", "Kill the Indian in the Child", stealing land and converting to European "Fee simple" property, etc, etc).<br /><br /><br />Much of these two books are dedicated to talking about P.E. Trudeau and Justin Trudeau. Each had a Trudeau Mania backing them and having them be considered "progressive", all the while they were actively carrying out overtly colonial and genocidal activities against Indigenous Peoples.<br /><br />While Europeans like to believe their history is universal, European history is actually quite unique. Growing racism and related violations of human rights in the 1920's in Europe (between "world" wars and during the second) had serious implications on European colonies. This included European colonies in what the Europeans called the Americas (after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian "explorer" who claimed to have "discovered" the continents many thousands of years after<a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/03/origin-story.html"> Pacific Islanders are likely to have been doing trade</a> with peoples from this continent).<br /><br />In the 1940's, Europeans finally started to better understand some human rights concepts, and in the context of the United Nations (which the Europeans actively blocked Indigenous nations from joining) started to recognize that <a href="https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en" target="_blank">colonialism</a> and the inevitable <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml" target="_blank">genocide</a> that it causes must be considered crimes against humanity.<br /><br />This brings us to Pierre Trudeau starting in 1968. Europeans had been thinking about, started to adopt, and understand human rights in the 1950's and 1960's. We even saw a Civil Rights movement in the USA to try to gain equal rights for African Americans. Even with this context, Trudeau thought he would get away with a forced assimilation "final solution" to the alleged "Indian Problem" with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_White_Paper" target="_blank">1969 White Paper</a> he launched along with then Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien.<br /><br />There has never been an "Indian problem", only a colonialism and genocide problem.<br /><br />Also starting in the 1960's was movements towards so-called "Patriation" of the Canadian Constitution. I suspect it was concern over a growing international movement against racism and colonialism that sparked these mostly Liberal Party leaders to seek to ensure that Britain could not make Canada less racist as they did when the British abolished slavery.<br /><br />Prior to the passage of the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1982/11/contents" target="_blank">Canada Act 1982</a> (Please read the actual text, not what Trudeau and others claimed it was about), the UK parliament had more authority over the laws of Canada than any governing body on this side of the Atlantic. While jurisdiction was divided between the federal government and provincial government in Canada, the UK could change any legislation including the constitution.<br /><br />Arthur Manual discussed the Constitution Express, where Indigenous peoples fought against the "patriation" of the constitution and the exclusion of the rights of Indigenous people. It was Trudeau yet again trying to wipe out any recognition of Indigenous rights.<br /><br />It was with the lobbying in Canada and Britain that the British required a recognition of Indigenous Rights in the Canadian Constitution, and thus section 25 (Aboriginal rights and freedoms not affected by Charter), section 35 (Recognition of existing aboriginal and treaty rights), section 37 (Aboriginal peoples included in constitutional conference clarifying rights) were included in the Schedule B replacement of the Constitution.<br /><br /><br />If the Canada Act 1982 had not passed, the UK could have passed a single act of their parliament to incorporate the <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html" target="_blank">United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a> into Canadian law in the same way that the replacement Canadian Constitution including a Charter of Rights and Freedoms was a schedule of the Canada Act 1982. Unfortunately, since Britain made that step to try to absolve itself of any responsibility for its creation and maintenance of Canada, it is now much harder to force the federal and provincial governments to honor internationally recognized human rights and international law.<br /><br />I may wish that Britain would rescind the Canada Act 1982, and fix some of the problems they created, but that is politically unlikely. Canada finally fully adopting UNDRIP will require a constitutional amendment, which is unlikely in the current overtly racist climate in Canada (especially in some of the provinces).<br /><br />Arthur Manuel discussed Pierre more in the first book, and then sets the record strait on Justin Trudeau in the second book.<br /><br />Not discussed as much as I would have liked is additional dishonesty about UNDRIP by Justin Trudeau. Given the Canada Act 1982, it wasn't possible for the federal government to directly pass UNDRIP into Canadian law as it wouldn't be compatible with the constitution, including the division of powers. The federal government and each provincial government must carry out a process to change all the existing human rights violating laws, as well as not pass any new rights violating laws. Solving even this problem in a more permanent way to disallow parliaments to pass human rights violating laws will require a constitutional amendment.<br /><br />So passing a bill to force governments to change human rights violating laws is what was <a href="https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&billId=11007812&View=3" target="_blank">tabled multiple times in the federal parliament since 2008</a>, and a version finally received royal assent last June in the form of <a href="https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?billId=11007812&Language=E" target="_blank">Bill C-15</a>.<br /><br />In typical Liberal style, Justin Trudeau campaigned in 2015 on moving forward with TRC calls to action which included moving forward with UNDRIP. This was clearly a lie. While he could have tabled a government bill immediately after the 2015 election based on Romeo Saganash's <a href="https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&billId=5471030" target="_blank">Bill C-469</a>, he did nothing. After waiting a year, Romeo Saganash re-tabled his bill which received the number <a href="https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&billId=8160636" target="_blank">C-262</a> and the Liberals deliberately delayed the passage of the bill in the House of Commons and Senate. Then, again typical Liberal lies, they claimed that even though they had a majority government in the House of Commons and control of the Senate that somehow it was the Conservative party that delayed the bill.<br /><br /><br />"except by getting off his back"!<br /><br /><br />The only critique I have of either book is how statements made by then Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould about UNDRIP were interpreted.<br /><br /></p><blockquote>Simplistic approaches such as adopting the United Nations declaration as being Canadian law are unworkable and, respectfully, a political distraction to undertaking the hard work actually required to implement it back home in communities,</blockquote><p><br />(See: <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_bPXJbq-wgWenpoa2NIRmgwT2NlWkx3enNSWXJELTFSSzc4/view?resourcekey=0-HjS1aWP6f2D5afxiSpxwTA" target="_blank">Notes for an address given at an AFN meeting in July 2016</a>, and page 72 of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51802038-from-where-i-stand" target="_blank">From Where I Stand</a>)</p><p><br />Given the unfortunate passage of the Canada Act 1982, what Jody Wilson-Raybould was discussing is merely a statement of the legal situation within Canada. There is no mechanism by which the federal government could unilaterally pass a law that would allow Canada (which has multiple levels of government and a constitution) to immediately adopt UNDRIP.<br /><br /><br />These statements are sometimes merged with statements regularly repeated by Carolyn Bennett, then Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs (Now Crown-Indigenous Relations), <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/indigenous-northern-affairs/news/2016/05/canada-becomes-a-full-supporter-of-the-united-nations-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html" target="_blank">starting in May 2016</a>.</p><p><br /></p><blockquote>The Honourable(sic) Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, today announced that Canada is now a full supporter, without qualification, of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Today’s announcement also reaffirms Canada’s commitment to adopt and implement the Declaration in accordance with the Canadian Constitution.</blockquote>So which is it -- are there no qualifications, or will they be attempting to implement the declaration only in accordance with the Canadian Constitution which is partly responsible for the ongoing violations of human rights?<br /><br />The Canadian Government had been discussing for some time the concept of a "Canadian definition of UNDRIP", which is simply not possible. There is only one Declaration from the United Nations which is UNDRIP, and that is the text <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html" target="_blank">adopted by the General Assembly on Thursday, 13 September 2007</a>. Nothing written before or after is UNDRIP, no matter what anyone claims or attempts to declare.<br /><br />Canada (or some activists groups) can pretend all it wants that something other than UNDRIP is UNDRIP, but it is up to the United Nations to evaluate that -- it is not up to Canada or anybody else.<br /><br /><br /><br />If you take these two statements together as if the Liberal party is one happy family (and we know how <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210722122226/https://www.jodywilson-raybould.ca/updates/letter-to-constituents-july-8-2021" target="_blank">happy things went</a> for Jody Wilson-Raybould), you would think both were statements pushing back against UNDRIP. I disagree. All evidence suggests that Carolyn Bennett and Justin Trudeau are fully aware of their roles in deliberately delaying Canada coming into compliance with human rights and international law. I do not see evidence this was the case for Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was simply discussing yet another aspect of the dishonesty of the Trudeau family and the pro-colonial/genocidal aspects of the so-called "Patriation" of the Canadian Constitution.<br /><br /><br />Now... just imagine if instead of Justin Trudeau as the Liberal Party leader that it was Jody Wilson-Raybould. I know which one of these people I wish weren't running in this election, and which was. Without the fake-feminist, fake-anti-racist Trudeau barking commands from his colonial throne, we have no idea what this powerful Indigenous woman might have been able to accomplish.<br /><br />I look forward to when the international embarrassment of Justin Trudeau being the Prime Minister of Canada is over.<br /><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Conservative Parties of Canada</h3><p>Whether I agree or disagree with a conservative (or <b>Conservative</b>), they tend to believe in what they are saying and are far more honest than the Liberals. I know where they stand, and it is easier to work with (or against) them.<br /><br />One of the mistakes I made in 2019 was to be too narrow in what history I was contemplating. I noticed in 2011 that many people who otherwise voted for the Bloc Québécois nominated candidate ended up voting for the NDP nominated candidate. I incorrectly put the Bloc in my discussion of left-wing parties.<br /><br />Canadian conservatives have split many times since the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/primary+secondary?title=British%20North%20America%20Act" target="_blank">first of 11 British North America Acts</a> imposed the governments of Canada against the interests (or even awareness) of the majority of the population. The antiquated electoral system Canada uses which retains the concept of vote splitting forces them to regularly attempt to merge into a coalition party rather than more regularly being able to form coalition governments. Due to this I don't understand why they don't have ranked ballots as a priority reform, but what they consider priorities regularly don't make sense to me.<br /><br /><br />Western Canada has wanted to dominate Canadian politics for a long time. The Reform Party was a splinter group that formed in 1987 as a Western-Canadian protest movement, and while they separately had seats they continue to have success as it is more correct to say the Reform party took over what was previously the Progressive Conservative party than the claim they merged.<br /><br />For my views on so-called Western Alienation, the basis of that protest movement, see:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/03/alberta.html" target="_blank">Why I don't believe Alberta is bullied by extractive industries such as Big Oil</a></li></ul><p>Even if most of the Conservative party MPs aren't from Western Canada, this European Supremacist ideology as it relates to Indigenous peoples and this land and her resources dominates the party.<br /><br />The <b>Bloc Québécois</b> was a splinter group of mostly Progressive Conservatives that crossed the floor to form a new party in 1991 after the failed Meech Lake Accord.</p><p><span></span><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOywWPbV1X3wMwkKlAicQGIm_VQ_PNXqpdGLwNHoSvu8Jfo9PHYEl3QTU3jIkwUEU2SKVg3uFfTbeYtAedpt0CvnRpt1ZJx6km8M631UmdNwm1S3O19e25Zsg3aWXxSHXT6O961T8dERfB/s4032/PXL_20210907_121110229.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOywWPbV1X3wMwkKlAicQGIm_VQ_PNXqpdGLwNHoSvu8Jfo9PHYEl3QTU3jIkwUEU2SKVg3uFfTbeYtAedpt0CvnRpt1ZJx6km8M631UmdNwm1S3O19e25Zsg3aWXxSHXT6O961T8dERfB/s320/PXL_20210907_121110229.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>I have read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28899472-sovereign-injustice">Sovereign injustice: Forcible inclusion of the James Bay Crees and Cree territory into a sovereign Quebec</a> which clarifies with considerable references the illegality of a provincial government separating from "Canada" and retaining a land base. I have done quite a bit of other anti-racism reading, and finally recognize the Quebec sovereignty movement for what it is:<br /><br />Yet another White Nationalist movement.<br /> </p><p>According to international law, as well as Canadian law confirmed in Supreme Court rulings, the Government of Canada doesn't exclusively own title over the land it claims to. This includes what was considered Lower Canada, part of the former colony of New France that was conquered by Britain in the Seven Years' War. The Government of Canada has even weaker title claim over the extensions it unilaterally made to Quebec in the Quebec Border extension Acts of 1898 and 1912 (or the extensions to Ontario including 1912, or the unilateral creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905, etc).<br /><br />The notion that part of this land would be allowed by the international community to be conquered by a newly separated European derived government in a modern example of colonialism is absurd. If the French colonists wanted to naturalize to this homeland as the Métis did it would be an entirely different story as Indigenous peoples have a right to self-determination separate from the colonialists. There is simply no method for the French colony of Quebec (with or without the border extensions) to separate. Any attempt to forcibly do so would be met with international peacekeeping, and likely a civil war.<br /><br />In the context of Canada, British Canadians, Irish Canadians, Scottish Canadians, French Canadians, Somali Canadians (, etc) are all merely part of Canadian colonial multiculturalism. I'm of Irish, Scottish and French descent, and all of these ancestors are multicultural settlers and colonists -- these groups have ancestral lands and nations in Europe, but not here.<br /><br /> I'm not fully convinced <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/02/canadian-democracy.html">Canada is a legitimate nation</a>, so obviously reject the notion that Quebec or any other colonial division can be considered a nation. There are many legitimate nations on this homeland, but none of them are of European descent. This is not Europe, and it is far past time some Europeans took their second foot off the boat.<br /><br /><br />If Quebeckers are relying on good relationships with the right-holders to the land that the Quebec government currently occupies, they had better improve that relationship quickly. The relationship thus far has been horrendous, and their government has been lying to them about it. They should not assume that if various Indigenous title holders (peoples, not individuals) are asked if they want to remain in Canada rather than be part of Quebec that they will side with Quebec and want to form treaties with French colonists.<br /><br /><br />There are other more recent conservative splinter groups running candidates in this election.<br /><br />The <b>People's Party of Canada</b> formed after Maxime Bernier lost the 2017 leadership vote, and he embarrassed himself even further than he had when he was a Minister during the Harper Government years. He decided to form his own cult (Umm... Political party). It is hard to take anything relating to this party seriously, given candidates seem to be spending much of their campaign time protesting hospitals and the public health of fellow citizens. They seem to take memes likely originating from Russia or China as if they were fact.<br /><br /> The PPC platform on "Indigenous Issues", which they claim is a "New Relationship based on mutual respect", is simply a repeat of the illegal colonialist ideas expressed in P.E. Trudeau's 1969 White Paper. It is sad that our "educational system" is so poor that there are any Canadians who are so confused as to think that P.E. Trudeau's racist ideas are new or useful. I don't know how long this "party" will last.<br /><br /><br />The <b>Maverick Party</b> was originally called Wexit Canada, and founded in 2020. An even sadder White Nationalist version of the Bloc Quebecois, there is no ability for unilaterally imposed western provincial governments to separate from Canada and retain any land base. Without the protection of the Canadian Constitution, that land reverts to being part of the North West Territories -- which is already running a <a href="https://www.ntassembly.ca/visitors/what-consensus" target="_blank">far more advanced governance system</a> than Alberta or Saskatchewan. I may agree with the idea of ending the 116 year failed foreign workers program and replacing those governments with something less racist, but that is clearly not what Maverick is intending. Given the similarities to the Bloc (other than the floor crossing and ability to immediately send their leader to debates), I won't be surprised if they gain seats in parliament.<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">New Democratic Party</h3><p>What I said about the <a href="http://mcormond.blogspot.com/2019/10/left-wing.html">party and leader in 2019</a> still applies in 2021.<br /></p><p>There are individual MPs and candidates that are worthy of taking notice and supporting. Most notable in my mind are:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Center). I've already maxed my federal donations to her. On twitter she calls herself "Proud Lakota", and has been an activist in this area of policy long before she considered becoming an MP.<br /></li><li>Matthew Green (Hamilton Center)</li><li>Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay). I've known him since he became an MP and caused the NDP to do a 180decree shift on Copyright policy (temporarily bringing the party into this millennium). I have been very happy to see how well he does on Indigenous Rights, which I agree is more important.</li></ul><p></p><p>As is typical with this mixed-bag party, I also noticed how Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona) spoke at the Heritage committee. She was strongly in support of granting the department responsible for colonial "Canadian identity and values" and its industry cheerleader CRTC more control over media than it does already. As far as I'm concerned <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/07/c10.html" target="_blank">Bill C-10</a> will violate UNDRIP, but somehow Heather convinced her caucus to support this horrendous bill.<br /></p><p>What needs to be said about the NDP is that when they are in government, as they have been in provinces such as BC, they don't act any different when it comes to the overt rejection of Indigenous Rights. Arthur Manual grew up on a reserve in the BC interior, and wrote about the BC provincial government throughout the books. It is an NDP government in BC that has been sending in the RCMP to forcibly and violently remove land defenders (IE: representatives of the rightful collective owners of the land - injunctions should be against the province and "developers"). As with the federal government, the NDP provincial government is trying to terminate Indigenous rights as a condition for land title negotiations.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Green Party</h3><p></p><p>As a past supporter I have been sad to see the party failing. While the media has seized on the idea that the problems with the new leader relate to gender or race, it is the fact that the party has <a href="https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/06/global-greens-canada.html">drifted even further from the Global Greens movement</a> that is causing it problems. I will be surprised if they have any seats left in parliament after this election.</p><p>The party could have learned from having a sitting MP with close ties to east coast indigenous peoples, but failures of the new leader forced Jenica Atwin (Fredericton) to cross the floor. Failures with the NDP (top-down party structure, currently disallowing floor crossing) meant that Jenica Atwin crossed to the Liberals which was not likely the most obvious choice.<br /><br />Given we can't solve problems within the same mindset/worldviews that created them, I have come to believe that decolonization is a prerequisite to solving current environmental issues on this continent -- including our contribution to climate change. The Green Party has been extremely White over the years, and the party and movement in Canada has not done the work it needs to form good relations with Indigenous Peoples. Sometimes the ideas from conservationist types within the Green movement directly conflicts with the rights and longer-term experiences and sciences of Indigenous Peoples, and this was discussed by Arthur Manuel.<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/on-androcentrism-anthropocentrism-ppe-student-blogpost/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="540" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSTJHJ5np5mX6KYEz-dQeM2N1eNChF1PQi9gkhPXi-3BeYS8yD4Yz6yJ8PT3it4WmQyiMkcAw8uE7OjS3covZP7G2991GKZSUrLVBrzrM9nSqh7sJZfHbpV4T5JvDGVPhR25DucbokQy7t/s320/tumblr_inline_nytznc815J1teu7zg_540.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />I believe the green movement in Canada must adopt decolonization as a core principle, and not be pushing European environmental notions, given it is European anthropocentrism which is the core of the problem.<br /><br />When it comes to sustainable economies and democratic governance, the Indigenous peoples of this continent are centuries beyond where European thought is.<p></p><p>We should be following and supporting Indigenous peoples, not falsely suggesting we as peoples have the necessary experience to take the lead.<br /><br /></p><br /><p></p>Russell McOrmondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036noreply@blogger.com0