Howard-Hassmann on Funding of Aboriginal Studies

Rhoda Howard-Hassmann’s letter to Canada’s funding councils is given below in full. What is at issue can be seen at a glance in her second paragraph: “I believe that a strong and compelling argument can be made that Aboriginal Canadians are victims of cultural genocide. Thus, I believe that attempts to preserve their languages, indigenous religions, traditions, and cultures are very important. At the same time, however, I do not believe aboriginal communities should be essentialized as unchanging and without internal cleavages and disputes. Moreover, as a specialist in human rights I am concerned about academic freedom and freedom of speech as it pertains to research on Aboriginal communities, as it pertains everywhere else.”

Read the whole letter.

Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Ph.D., FRSC

Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights

Wilfrid Laurier University

Global Studies Program, Alvin Woods Building

75 Universities Ave. W.

Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3C5

E-mail: hassmann”wlu.ca E-mail: wwebb”wlu.ca

Telephone: 519-884-0710 x 2780

Fax: 519-884-8854                                                                                                                          519-884-8854

www.chairs.gc.ca

February 5, 2010

Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics,

350 Albert Street,

Ottawa, ON K1A 1H5

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to have the chance to comment on the second draft of Chapter 9 of the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. I am copying this letter to the Associate Vice-President, Research, at Wilfrid Laurier University, to the WLU Faculty Association (WLUFA), and to the CAUT.  These are my own comments, and should not be understood as the views of WLU, the WLUFA, or the CAUT.

Since the Panel intends to post comments on this draft on its website, I wish to clarify my own background before presenting my concerns. I am a scholar of international human rights; I have also been teaching comparative genocide studies for twenty-five years. Although I am not a scholar of aboriginal affairs, I believe that a strong and compelling argument can be made that Aboriginal Canadians are victims of cultural genocide. Thus, I believe that attempts to preserve their languages, indigenous religions, traditions, and cultures are very important. At the same time, however, I do not believe aboriginal communities should be essentialized as unchanging and without internal cleavages and disputes. Moreover, as a specialist in human rights I am concerned about academic freedom and freedom of speech as it pertains to research on Aboriginal communities, as it pertains everywhere else.

I am pleased to see that some of the problems I noted in my earlier letter to you of January 19, 2009 have been remedied. Some, however, remain, or new problems have emerged. While I agree with most of the principles set out in this version of Chapter 9, I am still worried about what happens in cases of conflicts of interests between communities and researchers, and conflicts between communities and individuals. I also have some concerns about aboriginal knowledge, and about some potential legal matters.

Academic Freedom

The Draft still sidesteps the question of whether a community can absolutely block a research project. There may be occasions when communities and researchers cannot come to an agreement on research. If this happens, does the researcher have the right to continue with her research—perhaps by contacting individual members of the community—or not?  Article 9:10, lines 3678 ff states that a community can engage nominally or not at all in research,  Can the community deny the researcher access?

The idea of “partnership” (e.g. line 3363) between scholars and research subjects assumes no conflicts, or conflicts that can be resolved with good will. One would hope that such resolution would be the case, most of the time. But if conflicts can’t be resolved, whose views take precedence if there are disagreements over questions, methods, results, or conclusions? Line 3468-69 notes Aboriginal communities have often not had the chance to correct misinformation or ethnocentric interpretations. While this is true, what onus, if any, is the Panel putting on researchers here to accept such corrections, if offered?  Does the researcher have the right to reject offered corrections? Article 9:17, lines 3870-77 imply that the researcher does have such a right: but the Panel should make it clear that the researcher is entitled to have the last word. Similarly, with regard to Article 9:11:, lines 3704-3705: If there are “mutual responsibilities” in analysis and interpretations, production of reports and dissemination of results, does the researcher enjoy the academic freedom to publish her own analysis and interpretations in event of disagreement? Does she enjoy the academic freedom to disseminate her findings wherever she wishes?

These matters must be clarified: as it stands, this draft waffles about what happens in case of conflict between researchers and aboriginal communities. If researchers do not enjoy the normal rights of academic freedom, then Chapter 9 should begin with an Article that states clearly that researchers on Aboriginal affairs do not enjoy these rights. As I stated in my letter of 2009, if the principles of academic freedom are to apply to all research except research about aboriginal communities, then this should be clearly stated so that researchers on aboriginal matters know they are operating under a different set of rules than they are used to.

Individuals and Community

This draft, like the earlier version, still assumes that individual aboriginal Canadians do not have the same rights to autonomy as all other Canadians. The foreword states that First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities, but not individuals from these communities, are invited to respond to the draft. A community is defined (line 3178-79) as “a collectivity with shared identity or interests that has the capacity to act or express itself as a group.” This definition ignores communities within which interests many not be shared, even if identities are.

Throughout, references are made to Aboriginal communities as if all Aboriginal individuals live in such communities. Many do not. How is research on urban aboriginals without ties to any Aboriginal community to be conducted? If, for example, a researcher wishes to conduct research on Aboriginal university graduates living in Toronto, how is she supposed to do so?

The phrase, “while continuing to respect individual autonomy” (l. 3139-40) is not sufficient to protect the autonomy of Aboriginal individuals, an autonomy considered in other parts of the Policy Statement as key to respect for all non-Aboriginal Canadians. The Policy does not yet clarify what a researcher is to do if the interests of the “community” (or those who represent it or purport to do so) do not coincide with the interests of individuals. Indeed, the Policy still does not present guidance on how researchers can by-pass community leaders to access individuals who may wish to participate in research that the community leaders do not wish to see conducted.

I repeat what I said in my letter of 2009: there must be some statement that aboriginal leaders or elders do not have the right to veto research in which individual aboriginals might be interested in participating. The possibility of not engaging with the community in some situations must be allowed; for example, if all the community leaders are members of extended family x, and do not want extended family y’s circumstances to be investigated, the researcher must be permitted to circumvent the community leaders and go directly to family y. Aboriginal leaders do not always serve the collective welfare of the individuals within their communities (l. 3239). Lines 3330-31- state that when the “welfare of relevant communities is not affected…informed consent of individuals is sufficient.” Who decides when the welfare of the community is affected? This statement presumes, once more, that community leaders enjoy the support of all members of the community and make decisions that do not adversely affect any community members. In no other Canadian community is this assumed.

The Chapter as a whole glosses over real and potential differences between individual and community interests. Acknowledgement of diversity among and within Aboriginal communities, and the statement that such diversity “increases the important of clarifying mutual expectations and obligations within the community” (line 3338-44) is facile, and does not confront the hard question of whose interests take precedence when there is conflict. The statement in lines 3389-93 that “First Nations, Inuit and Métis individuals…enjoy freedom of expression as does any other citizen [and that] “they are free to give informed consent…” is not strong enough.  This statement should be front and centre in this chapter and it should be made clear that potential research participants enjoy this freedom whether or not the welfare of the community is likely to be affected by their decisions and whether or not community leaders agree with their decision.

Similarly, the paragraph starting at line 3510 should be front and centre. It should refer not only to “subgroups” but to individuals, whether vulnerable or not.  It should clarify that research among these people should not be viewed as covert. The Panel should be supporting overt research in communities even when there are intra-community conflicts and especially when there are risks to participants. Canada is a democracy: no citizen should have to fear that her or his rights as an individual will be undermined because of her or his decision to participate in research. This paragraph is written as though Aboriginal communities are not legally obliged to protect their citizens’ individual rights.

The larger question here is whether Aboriginals are citizens of Canada, or only members of their own Aboriginal communities. If they are citizens of Canada, then they have the same right as any other citizen to make up their own mind as to whether to participate in a research project, irrespective of the wishes of community leaders. No other competent Canadian adult is obliged to take into account any opinion but her own before deciding whether to participate in a research project. If collective decision-making is merely a “complement” to individual decisions (l. 3272) in research projects on indigenous peoples outside Canada, then it should be clear throughout this document that within Canada as well, researchers may have direct access to individuals, who may make their own decisions about participation in research regardless of their community’s views. If, however, individual Aboriginals are to be denied the autonomy that all other competent Canadian adults are assumed to enjoy, that should be clearly stated at the outset of the Chapter.

Indigenous Knowledge

“Indigenous knowledge” is now defined as “holistic, involving body, mind, feeling and spirit” (lines 3208-09). As far as I can determine, however, this Draft still refers not only to statements of fact that are empirically verifiable according to normal scientific standards, but also to non-verifiable Aboriginal beliefs and myths, as knowledge. There is still no suggestion that this “knowledge” could be inaccurate. Yet academic freedom implies that any researcher can investigate anything an individual or a group claims to be its “knowledge”; we do not, for example, protect non-aboriginal Christians who insist on the empirical accuracy of their Biblical origin myth from academic inquiry into it, even if falsification of such a myth might undermine their Christian identity.  I find it patronizing that this Draft assumes that Aboriginal Canadians—alone among all the peoples of the world—are incapable of withstanding normal academic challenges to what they construe to be knowledge, and incapable of differentiating between verifiable scientific knowledge and unverifiable beliefs or myths.

Moreover, I question the statement (l. 3211-12) that “indigenous peoples value their relationship with the land as a living entity that reveals the way to living a good life.” This may be true of many indigenous (as well as some non-indigenous) individuals, but it is a romanticized view of many others, some of whom live in such situations of severe poverty and social dislocation that their relationship (if any) with the land is unlikely to figure largely in their worldview.  That such poverty and social dislocation is a consequence in large part of past Canadian genocidal and colonial policies does not mean that all indigenous people would, if they could, value their relationship with the land. Aboriginal knowledge is here essentialized as a consequence of an undifferentiated, romantic view of Aboriginal people that does not take account of social reality.

As a minor point, why assume that indigenous Canadians can express their spirituality only through traditional or Christian practices? Does the Panel possess evidence that no spiritual indigenous person practices any other religion?

Legal Matters

Surely the statement that Article 9.1, (a), lines 3300-3302, applies to “lands over which a claim has been asserted but not settled,” is too broad. What about non-Aboriginals living on such land, as in the current concern over land claims in Caledonia, Ontario? Are researchers to be precluded from access to such individuals because the land claim is not settled?  Does the Panel have the authority to pre-judge legal claims in this manner, making authoritative statements about the responsibilities of researchers based on hypothetical outcomes of legal cases?

Also regarding Article 9; 1, lines 3310-3311. Canada did not vote for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). Surely this should be noted, whether one agrees with Canada’s negative vote or not. How can a publicly funded organization refer Canadian researchers to an international document that the Canadian government has not accepted, without noting that fact?

Article 9:18 re intellectual copyright. Has the Tri-Council Panel come up with proper guidelines on this? Individual researchers in fields such as anthropology probably do not have the capacity, even with complete good will, to negotiate appropriate intellectual property guidelines. Do individual REBs now have the responsibility to assist researchers in copyright matters? This is an extremely complex legal field. Legal advice is absolutely necessary to both researcher and the Aboriginal group concerned. Theft of traditional plant knowledge by private corporations, for example, is now common in many indigenous communities. Are there budget lines in the three Councils’ grant applications for the researcher(s) to seek appropriate legal advice? If so, will these budgets cover the costs of consulting with lawyers who may well charge up to $1,000 per hour?

Surely the three councils should be drafting a document with legal guidelines, having consulted with top-flight intellectual property lawyers, separate from the Research Ethics document, on the problem of intellectual copyright?

Smaller questions/concerns

Article 9.1: does this refer only to research on human subjects, or is it meant to apply, e.g. to statistical research about Aboriginal Canadians?

Article 9.8 line 3555-56. Are Aboriginal cultures predominantly oral in 2010? Surely most Aboriginal Canadians are literate and many if not most of their laws, if not customs, are written down?

Article 9:14. I agree that research projects should support the enhancement of skills, education and training of Aboriginal peoples. However, do the individual granting agencies now have budget categories to make such training possible? Are there budget lines to cover costs such as feasting and gift-giving (lines 3822-28), which in other contexts would be considered illegitimate bribery?

I hope that the Panel will find my comments useful.

Yours sincerely,

Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann

Cc. Dr. Paul Maxim, Associate Vice-President, Research, WLU

Dr. Judy Bates, President, WLUFA

Dr. Jim Turk, CAUT

Harper’s Senate Appointments

Blame the provincial premiers.

They were expected to set up the machinery for Senate elections, and didn’t. Remember the plan: the Prime Minister would recommend for appointment to the Upper Chamber persons elected by the provinces or regions, regardless of party affiliation.

But the premiers have fudged and stalled – Alberta is the exception – and to prevent depopulation of the Senate, Mr. Harper has resorted to the old method, making 18 appointments in December, 2008, and another five last week.

Why are the premiers avoiding the issue?

I’d say it’s because in the present set-up they have come to enjoy unprecedented prominence in national affairs. They have emerged as the representatives of their province – or as they sometimes say when they’re feeling their oats – representatives of an entire region. Remember that opposition parties are not invited to First Ministers’ Meetings. Thus Mr. McGuinty – to take my province as the example – becomes Mr. Ontario himself, the very embodiment of the province, speaking for us, Ontario’s citizens, with more freedom than he can in the provincial legislature.

In fact, those federal-provincial meetings resemble nothing so much as a gaggle of oligarchs. And if I know anything about politics it is that to a politician oligarchy is a compellingly attractive forbidden fruit. You will not find one to admit it; but it’s true. “Oh, to be rid of that clinging, complaining political opposition that hinders me in my appointed task – getting things done.”

The Fathers of Confederation envisaged no such jumped-up role for the provincial first ministers. The Senators were to speak for us on provincial matters in the national legislature. Or rather, it was the senators’ business to query the intrusion of provincial matters into the national legislature.

They gave the Senate three tasks. 1. It was to be an arena of national deliberation on the matters that affect everyone in the country equally. 2. It was to use its status as deliberative arena to resist attempts by the majority in the House of Commons to trespass on the rights of the provinces under the constitutional division of legislative powers. 3. It was to it was to assist in upholding the right of the political opposition to be heard in national debates.

We can’t return to the Fathers’ vision in toto. But adopting Mr. Harper’s plan would take us part way. Let me remind you that the Fathers were not opposed to the idea of an elective senate. Macdonald, certainly, favoured the elective Upper Chamber.

Haitian Relief

I go round the corner to my neighbourhood “alternative lifestyle restaurant” for a salad and glass of wine. For goodness sakes, there’s a sign announcing that they have contributed today $2,000 dollars to Haitian relief in the name of their regular customers. I’m one, a regular customer.

My high school emails to say it is contributing – in my name. And my university. And two local hospitals, one of which I have on my charity list. And my neighbourhood watch association. And Habitant for Humanity, another charity to which I sometimes send a cheque.

In this household we decided, after considerable discussion, to contribute through one of our (other) regular charities.

The world population increasingly thinks as a global unit. It’s heart warming. We know aid can go astray. We know that it sometimes ends up with the local oppressors. “Trade not Aid” is a good slogan for the sunny days. In an swift emergency: Aid.

“What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,

What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,

Commotions in the winds, frights, changes, horrors,

Divert and crack, rend and deracinate

The unity and married calm of states

Quite from their fixture!”

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

Citizenship Guide Pix

The new Ctizenship Study Guide: I talked about contents in a previous blog. (“Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, “honour killings,” female genital mutilation or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.” Yes!)

The pictures are worth a note too. They’re iconic. Here’s one of John Buchan, old stoneface himself. The caption reads primly: “the 15^th Governor General is shown here in Blood (Kainai First Nation) headdress.” It’s a fabulous crown of feathers, supremely majestic even in a black and white snap. Speaking at the Canadian Club of Halifax, 1937, Buchan said – I’m reading again from the caption – that immigrant groups “should retain their individuality and each make its contribution to the national character.” Each could learn “from the other, and …while they cherish their own special loyalties and traditions, they cherish not less that new loyalty and tradition which springs from their union.”

Here’s Olympian Marjorie Turner-Bailey of Nova Scotia, “a descendant of black Loyalists, escaped slaves and freed men and women of African origin who in the 1780s fled to Canada from America, where slavery remained legal until 1865.” Note the modest suggestion that in matters of freedom Canada is superior to the U.S. I don’t mind that kind of boast!

And Mark Tewksbury, “Olympic gold medalist and prominent activist for gay and lesbian Canadians.” The man’s won his race; he’s jubiliant.

Happiness and success: it’s a major theme. Sunny skies, happy days, endeavour, accomplishment. On page 27, aspiring Canadians are asked: “How will you make your contribution?” We have responsibilities as well as rights. We’re “free, law-abiding, prosperous.” We win our wars. The illustration accompanying the D-Day landing is taken from a painting by O.N. Fisher (1950). It’s as full of movement as a film clip. The Guide’s design and colours make a strong, confident statement: deep red, deep blue, pale gold.

Military history’s covered at some length.. The section on government is well done. It could go in a political science course pack. Our identity as the Queen’s Canadian subjects is not ignored.

Perhaps my favourite picture is the one on the cover. It shows a middle-aged couple, only slightly overweight, in a brilliantly yellow fiberglass canoe, paddling in tandem on the Rideau Canal. They’re sitting high on the thwarts, Mrs. Canadian in the bow. I know where they are. If they pull over and tie up they’ll be able to walk to the Parliament buildings in minutes. The sun’s shining, the sky’s cloudless. They’re supremely happy; they are where they want to be, on the water, in summer, and, of course, they’re wearing their lifejackets.

Parliament’s Friends

Who knew Parliament had so many friends in academe? The anti-prorogation statement signed by 175 political scientists, philosophers and law professors last week was a necessary and helpful contribution to discussions about our national institutions. I’m glad that it was widely publicized in local and national newspapers. (Thanks to Charles, Stephen, John, Gordon, Marcos for comments on my original posting.)

Parliamentary politics is the best form of government if only for this one reason: it allows the citizenry to wholeheartedly disagree about political objectives without resorting to blows, lynchings, or outright civil war. There is the one condition, that some citizens much of the time, and many citizens some of the time, will find themselves living with laws and policies they find disagreeable or downright abhorrent.

And it’s that fact, that in a liberal democracy there will always be people with reason to complain that, “Parliament doesn’t speak for me,” which makes our job as teachers of law and politics difficult.

Our lecture halls and seminar rooms are typically filled with youngish people whose sense of justice and rectitude is just coming into flower. They’re conscious of themselves as the coming generation. They’re beginning to think of individual roles and ambitions.

And there at the head of the table or front of the auditorium is a man or woman charged with the task of convincing them that they must on occasion accept “behind-the-times” laws and decisions, made by fusty, dumb, perhaps vicious politicians.

When we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing we’re teaching our students to think with divided minds. We want them to be able to defend Parliament and the contestation of parties for office without losing political ardour. It’s a hard sell. Some professors give up. They preach a particular political ideology. They recruit.

And – let me tip my hand – on the list of 175 professors who went on record last week in defense of Parliament, there are not a few recruiters.

For years Canadian political scientists taught – some are still teaching – that this country  in contrast to the United States, is “about collective provision, and tolerance of the rules and restrictions that are justified by the need for order.” (I’m citing Charles Taylor’s essay, “Shared and Divergent Values.”) Gun control, single-payer medicare, a peace-keeping role for the Canadian military: these are issue that define the Canadian identity and in debates on these matters we can rightly expect Parliament’s role to be limited to determination of means. That was the teaching.

In a recent column Jeffrey Simpson asked whether the professors’ statement would serve as a wake-up call to Parliament. I’m asking whether signing the statement will serve as a wake up call to academics.

Ignatieff Speaks!

At my university today. But only for a few minutes. He will then engage in open and frank discussion with the audience. Open and frank! I may walk over.

Here’s the notice in full: “Mr. Ignatieff will be speaking for a few minutes and then engaging in open and frank discussion with the audience. It is a chance to engage Mr. Ignatieff in discussion and get the word out about the importance of post-secondary education in a clear and unfettered forum. This event is part of a cross-Canada campus tour for Mr. Ignatieff to meet with young Canadians and faculty in the lead-up to ‘Canada at 150: Rising to the Challenge’ – a non-partisan conference being held in Montreal in March 2010.”

Note the exciting topic. The importance of post-secondary education. Cuts to the chase, eh. No waffling on about subordinate issues like rising costs, underfunding, crowded classrooms, the bewildering proliferation of programs, over-paid profs, underpaid instructors. No. Ignatieff is going to say in an open and frank way, hiding nothing, that universities are “important.”

Should we be disturbed at the idea that his tour is meant to recruit students for the up-coming “non-partisan conference” on means to celebrate Canada’s 150^th anniversary? Na! The word “non-partisan” means nothing. It is an emotive term indicating merely that Mr. Ignatieff’s appearance on campus is “important.” Obviously the Leader of the Opposition would not want to speak in an open and frank forum about the better policies offered by the Liberal Party.

Or perhaps Ignatieff is considering a step up to the office of Governor-General. It’s a non-partisan role, certainly and he’d be at home in it. We could get him installed in time for the 150^th.

Afghan Prisoners

Prime Minister Harper  has prorogued Parliament, supposedly to work on his post-recovery budget. That’s one story. His. Others say that he wishes to avoid discussion of the fact – surely now accepted fact – that Canadian forces in Afghanistan turn over captured terrorists to Afghan authorities, who mistreat them. Well, torture them.

Mr. Harper says that the majority of Canadians are not overly concerned about the fate of captured Afghan terrorists. Perhaps true. But so what? A minority is vitally concerned. A group of some seventy Canadian political scientists, political philosophers, and law professors are organizing a declaration of opposition to the Prime Minister; they argue that the prorogation of Parliament is high-handed; it demeans Parliament and is the more offensive because done to avoid the torture issue.

How concerned should Canadians be?

Why do we turn over prisoners to the Afghan police and Afghan forces? First: the Afghans are our allies. Second: it is one of our objectives to build up Afghanistan’s institutions for protecting Afghan citizens. Canada will leave the country at some point. Dealing with crooks and terrorists will be the responsibility of Afghans. Sooner or later superintendence has to cease. Better sooner. Superintendence is patronizing; it saps confidence, and perverts the development of that very sense of responsibility that we mean to promote.

But yes, our own principles are compromised when prisoners are tortured.  Our consciences are offended. They should be. We expect allies of the West to conform to Western standards. Or at least not to offend Western standards in blatantly outrageous fashion.

That’s where we stand with respect to our Afghan allies and our own consciences.

Let’s look at the matter from the Afghan perspective. Afghans must wonder why the West has such tender feelings about men who are implacably hostile to the Canadian forces; suicide bombers careless of civilian lives, willing to let die the defenseless children of their own Afghan society, men who hope to introduce a regime that endangers and demeans all Western values, including rejection of torture. Men who are intent on training murderers to penetrate Western society in order to kill us – Canadians, in our own country, you and me, the ordinary, indifferent citizens of the West!

Is that my last word?

It’s a dirty-hands problem. And in dirty-hand problems there is no one right answer. There are two wrong answers. Picking the right wrong answer is a job for a prudent man or woman. In the situation I describe who is the prudent person?

It is Mr. Harper. I have the advantage here; I have seen the list of seventy names. (If all goes as expected their statement and names will be in the newspapers early next week.) I know many of them. You do too. They are our colleagues, most of them senior colleagues. And they are good people. But are they prudent? Prudent enough? With reluctance, I say, No.

The Opposition to Prorogation

A group of some seventy political scientists, political philosophers, and law professors are organizing a declaration opposing Prime Minister Harper’s decision to prorogue parliament. The contention is that “in using the power to suspend the operation of Parliament as he has, Harper has violated not the letter but the spirit of the laws, essentially by using this power for partisan, tactical advantage at a time when there are matters before the House and its committees that call for the government having its feet kept to the fire by the loyal opposition.”

They continue: “as political philosophers and legal theorists we have a responsibility to speak out when our democratic institutions are imperiled by the reckless and irresponsible actions of our leaders, whatever party they happen to be part of.” The group is drawing up an op-ed piece for publication in the Globe and Mail, and in either le Devoir or La Presse. They will post a web site to secure further signatures in weeks to come. Daniel Weinstock is the organizer.

I am invited to sign.

Well, I’m not signing without consulting my authority. I’m a political scientist who dabbles in political philosophy and I like to think that I’m at home with the parliamentary systems of the seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-centuries. I have some expertise. But on the twentieth century and the twenty-first, I turn to a historian: Christopher Moore.

Moore’s blog on the current situation begins: “This isn’t where you will find an outbreak of fury about Prime Minister Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament in order to hamstring the parliamentary dissection of his government’s dishonest and abusive response to the allegations about Canadian complicity in torture.”

Moore’s no friend of executive dominance. (It would be criminal of me to reproduce the whole blog – though I’m tempted.) He’d like to see Harper’s highhandedness reigned in. The trouble is that over the years we, the electorate, have convinced ourselves and indeed convinced many of our representatives in the House of Commons that they must toe the party line.

We’re alarmed by shows of independence; we’re alarmed by parliamentarians who change their minds, who think for themselves. If one crosses the floor we assume she did it for reasons of low personal ambition. “Canadian parliamentarians are actually not as dumb and sheeplike as the Canadian legislatures make them seem to be… They act that way because we tell them constantly we want them to.” Oops, I’m quoting from Moore again.

We’ve forgotten that parliaments are deliberative institutions. The old anti-deliberative Reform Party/Alliance/ Progressive expectation hangs on among us: you choose your man or woman, send her to Ottawa, and hold her to her promises.

But is that how Parliament is supposed to work? Maybe not. There’s another, older view which insists that Members are not automatons. They should be free to react to new political developments, think on the spot, and change their support for government initiatives if in their considered opinion change is in the best interests of their constituents and the country as a whole.

The excellent book that makes the case for a more deliberative legislature, is Adam Tomkins’ Our Republican Constitution (Hart Publishing, 2005). It’s not an easy read. Here’s a start: “The government is required to secure the support of a majority in Parliament not only when ministerial careers are on the line, but every single day. It is a routine obligation on the part of the government that it must ensure that its policies, decisions and actions enjoy parliamentary backing” (page 2). Try him out. Tomkins develops this familiar idea in surprising ways.

I know. I have said nothing useful about the immediate situation. It’s hardly helpful to chatter on about proposals to enhance the independence of legislators when Parliament has been dismissed. I have only a limp reply. Other remedies – reform of the electoral system, etc, will compound our difficulties by further curbing the parliamentarians’ independence and initiative.

The long and short of it is that although I am interested in this citizen-initiative criticizing Prime Minister Harper, I won’t sign.

Reading Charles Taylor Again

Grant Havers writes to say logic is not Charles Taylor’s long suit. It bothers Havers that Taylor argues for the superiority of Christianity while clinging to the idea that other cultures/beliefs are equally worthy of “recognition” and worthy of the political rights and privileges that go with recognition. It leaves us without means to defend ourselves against the intolerant. I agree. Taylor’s soft tolerance detracts “intolerably” from the sense of right and wrong.

We find a similar indifference to logic in Modern Social Imaginaries (Duke University, 2004). Taylor argues persons living in an “imaginary” (a “culture,” perhaps – he speaks of the European Enlightenment as an “imaginary”) are more or less unable to comprehend other “imaginaries,” especially previous ones. Thus he argues that we in the modern age cannot enter fully into the pre-modern, and indeed are now seeing the “modern” slip away. Locke and the Enlightenment are becoming incomprehensible.

But – here’s the contradiction: to make this assertion, he must describe past “imaginaries.” If he is to convince us that we are losing the Enlightenment he must show it to us. Thus we learn that the past is not entirely closed to him. Why may we not conclude that insofar as we understand Taylor, the past is not entirely closed to us?

Now I’m re-reading Taylor’s “Shared and Divergent Values.” It’s one of the selections in Peter Russell’s Essential Readings in Canadian Government and Politics (forthcoming from Emond Montgomery Publications).  Here’s how I once put the argument in this famous essay: “Taylor supports the building of a Québécois way of life to distinguish the citizens of Quebec from other populations on the North American continent but hopes at the same time that Quebec will not differ from other jurisdictions in its adherence to broad principles of liberal-democratic justice. In all his writings on Quebec, Taylor is looking for the half way house” (The Once and Future Canadian Democracy).

The Woman’s Caucus Unsubscribes

The women are falling over themselves in a rush to get off the CPSA Women’s Caucus email list. It’s a bit of a mystery. Shannon Sampert, Tina Beaudry-Mellor, Koula Mellos, Manon Tremblay, Hélèn Pellerin, Dana Christina Cadeschi, Ailish Johnson: I don’t know these political scientists and I don’t know why they are stampeding for the exit.

No unsubscriber gives her reasons. It’s hush hush. But if you think Frances Widdowson figures somewhere in the story you are probably right.

These days Widdowson is complaining that the peer-review process in Aboriginal Studies is dominated by a “postmodern sisterhood,” which, she says, overwhelmingly favours scholars who argue that native people, because of their ancestry, have “a different way of knowing” not accessible to others.

She’s riding high on the huge success of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry (co-authored with Albert Howard), but the paper she submitted for panel presentation at the CPSA this spring has been rejected. It criticizes Kiera Ladner’s contention that scholarly research must respect the “different ways of knowing” and aboriginal methods of inquiry. Ladner is the head of the section of the program committee that reviewed Widdowson’s proposal.

Widdowson argues: “If the CPSA were really interested in open and vigorous debate, as it claims, it would organize a debate on aboriginal epistemologies in political science between Kiera Ladner and myself.”

I agree.

See Widdowson’s blog.  http;//blogs.mtroyal.ca/fwiddowson.

p.s. I can’t figure out why I’m receiving the Women’s Caucus communications. I unsubscribed years ago. Suddenly: I’m back! Someone signed me up. Another mystery.