Category Archives: 2020 Trip to Southeast USA

As a Dog Returneth to his Vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly

2020 Trip to Southeast USA

 

On the first evening of our trip to Arizona, we ended up staying in Watertown, the scene of last year’s disaster. For those of you who did not read my blog last year, let me explain.

First, we cut our drive on Interstate -29 short on the first day of our journey last year on account of freezing rain. We lounged in our hotel room for about an hour toasting our smarts in getting off the highway to a safe harbour in the hotel. We were exceedingly proud of ourselves.

Then we went to dinner, but because I was stubborn and foolish, I did not listen to my smart wife who warned me not to turn right as we were leaving the hotel,  and as a result we ended up right back on the 1-29. Freeway.  Only this time it was exponentially worse. The highway was incredibly icy. Cars and trucks were  everywhere in the ditch and on the meridian. I had to drive 12 miles to the next exit before I could turn around. Then I drove another 12 miles back on nothing but white knuckles and guts. It was a terrifying ride. I have rarely, if ever been as angry with myself as I was that night. And I have had many occasions to be mad at myself. I had been perfectly safe in the hotel room and I ruined it!

As if that was not bad enough, the next day we were socked in by a blizzard. Since by then our car doors were totally iced shut I had to tramp in a blizzard to Walmart to pick up windshield wiper fluid to de-ice the locks and car doors.  As I was working on the car in the freezing conditions I was very annoyed by my smart wife who was yelling at me by the hotel door. Why would she bother me when I was working so hard? It turned out she had gone to window with a vague suspicion that I might be as stupid as I was. She “knew” I was de-icing the wrong car! Some lucky car owner must have wondered who the Good Samaritan was that de-iced his car. Only I (and Chris) knew it was not a Good Samaritan. It was a Good Dummy. After that I had to de-ice my own car, and thankfully I had enough fluid left to do that. As I keep saying, life is hard when you are stupid.

Well a year later almost to the day we were back in Watertown. As the good book says, “As a dog returneth to his vomit so x a fool returneth to his folly.” That was me. Only this time I was not quite as stupid. This time we drove in easily. There had been another awful winter storm but this time we avoided it completely. By the time we got there the storm was over. Yesterday morning I-29 had been closed all the way to the Canadian border. Today it was open and much better. We saw only the remnants of the storm. Huge piles of snow beside the road and again large numbers of vehicles in the ditch and meridians again.

According to USA Today, the storm had caused 20 million people in the Midwest to be given winter storm advisories yesterday.  It also reported,   “The fierce storm had closed interstates and caused hundreds of crashes over the weekend in the north central U.S., where conditions were especially bad in the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Minnesota.”

But this time we were lucky.  Sadly, not smart, but at least lucky. We had intended to leave on December  29 right into the teeth of the storm, but were delayed by a visit from our son Stef. Since he left for home on December 31, 2019 we decided to wait until then too. Lucky us. This time. Thanks Stef.

Jordan’s Principle: Health Care for Indigenous Children

2020 Trip to Southeast USA, Indigenous Issues

 

On the first day of our trip to the south we listened to CBC radio, as we usually do. We heard Cindy Blackstock talking about Jordan’s Principle.

Jordan River Anderson was a young indigenous boy from the Norway House Cree Nation who suffered from Carey Fineman Ziter syndrome, a rare muscular disorder. As a result of his illness he required years of treatment in a Winnipeg Hospital. He spent the first two years of his life in a hospital.

If you have ever been in a hospital you know you want to be there if you are very sick, but the shorter your stay the better. It is a horrible place to live. After 2 years in the hospital his physicians agreed that he could live in a family home near the hospital in Winnipeg.

Had Jordan been white, it is likely that none of this would have been a problem and Manitoba Health would probably have covered him. Unfortunately, the federal and Manitoba wrangled about who would pay. Manitoba took the position that as an aboriginal child the federal government was responsible. The federal government was not so sure. For more than 2 years the two governments fought over who would be responsible for his considerable medical bills. During that additional 2 years Jordan continued to live in the hospital. In fact he actually never got to live in a family home, because he died at the age of 5 before that ever happened. It was a case of horrendous abuse perpetrated by the two levels of government. It was a dark day for Canada and Manitoba when he died.

It is true that in Canada there is some ambiguity about which level of government is responsible for government services for First Nations children even when those services are ordinarily available to other children living off reserve. As a result it is common for the governments to wrangle over the bills while the services to the children are delayed. Often the services are denied until the dispute is resolved.

 

According to Jordan’s principle, that was agreed to by the federal and provincial governments after the bad publicity as a result of the case of Jordan River Anderson, the governmental agency that is first contacted will pay, without delay or disruption and then if the government that paid feels the other government ought to have paid, it can refer the dispute to an impartial dispute authority for binding resolution if the two governments cannot agree which should pay. The idea was to help the children immediately and let the governments work it out later. This was a great idea. Jordan’s principle was unanimously adopted by the House of Commons of Canada on December 12, 2007

Sadly according, to Cindy Blackstock, an indigenous activist, the government had interpreted the principle so narrowly that hardly any children get to benefit from it and the stark injustice continues.  As a result she helped First Nations file a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (‘CHRT’) and independent adjudicative body. In January 2016 the CHRT held in favor of the First Nations complainants and found that the Government of Canada improperly implemented the principle which Parliament had unanimously adopted. As a result according to CHRT Canada discriminated again First Nations Children  and youth on the basis of race and ethnic origin contrary to Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It also ordered the government to stop applying that principle in a discriminatory manner and to apply the principle fully.

Since that ruling in 2016 nearly 4 years ago, the CHRT has issued 7 non-compliance orders against Canada for failing to abide by its rulings. The 3rd of its non-compliance orders was issued by the CHRT in May of 2017 after the it had found that Canada continued to repeat is pattern of conduct and narrow focus with respect to Jordan’s principle. At the same time the CHRT issued 22 additional orders. The Liberal government under Justin Trudeau says it agrees with the decision but want to think carefully about how it implements the rule. That sounds sensible, but in the meantime Indigenous children continue to be discriminated against.

 

As part of a much broader claim against the federal Government by Indigenous children, in September 2019, the CHRT issued a ruling related to compensation. It ruled that the federal government should pay $40,000 to each child who was in child and family services care on reserve at any point from Jan. 1, 2006, to a date to be determined by the tribunal. It even included payment to some of the parents and grand children of the children involved. That amount is the maximum allowed under the Canadian Human Rights Act. In other words, the tribunal might have awarded even more if it had the authority to do so. Clearly, the CHRT saw the conduct of the Canadian government as egregious.

It is arguable about whether or not such a cash award is the right way to solve such a problem. After all it may seem like throwing money at a problem.  Yet it shows how serious the problem is and how badly the Canadian government is failing indigenous children, thus continuing a pattern of neglect and abuse that is more than a century old. It is time for a change. Indigenous children should be treated equally with non-indigenous children whether they live on or off-reserve.  Anything less is a disgrace. And they should not have to wait until the federal government is ready to do what it has been ordered to do.

From Billions to None

2020 Trip to Southeast USA, Extinction

 

On New Year’s Eve, 2019 we left for a 3 month journey, mainly to Arizona, but to included other parts of the magnificent American Southwest.

Shortly after we crossed the American border I was shocked–absolutely shocked.  You won’t believe this. I saw wildlife! For the first time in our annual trips to the southern US we actually saw wildlife.  We saw a small herd of about 7 white-tailed deer in a farmer’s field.

At one time North America had more wildlife than Africa!  Now most of that has disappeared largely as a result of western “progress.” As we all know the 60 million bison were driven to very near extinction from which only heroic last minute efforts saved them.

The most dramatic story is probably the story of the North American Passenger Pigeon. In the 19th century the most common bird in North America was the Passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius).  It may have been the most numerous bird species in the world. Many people described the vast flocks that flew through the sky.

Barry Yeoman described how one aboriginal youth encountered on such flock:

In May 1850, a 20-year-old Potawatomi tribal leader named Simon Pokagon was camping at the headwaters of Michigan’s Manistee River during trapping season when a far-off gurgling sound startled him. It seemed as if “an army of horses laden with sleigh bells was advancing through the deep forests towards me,” he later wrote. “As I listened more intently, I concluded that instead of the tramping of horses it was distant thunder; and yet the morning was clear, calm, and beautiful.” The mysterious sound came “nearer and nearer,” until Pokagon deduced its source: “While I gazed in wonder and astonishment, I beheld moving toward me in an unbroken front millions of pigeons, the first I had seen that season.”

Actually many people described encounters with passenger pigeons and all of us moderns find such report unbelievable, because we have never seen anything like it. Yeoman described one such report this way:

Throughout the 19th century, witnesses had described similar sightings of pigeon migrations: how they took hours to pass over a single spot, darkening the firmament and rendering normal conversation inaudible. Pokagon remembered how sometimes a traveling flock, arriving at a deep valley, would “pour its living mass” hundreds of feet into a downward plunge. “I have stood by the grandest waterfall of America,” he wrote, “yet never have my astonishment, wonder, and admiration been so stirred as when I have witnessed these birds drop from their course like meteors from heaven.”

One of my favorite writers, Aldo Leopold referred to their flocks as “a feathered tempest.” An observer from Columbus Ohio said one day he saw a “growing cloud” that caused children who saw it to scream and run home for safety. They could not understand what it was, for nothing else compared ot it  Women also hurried home at the sight. Horses ran for cover. Some people considered it a portent of the approaching millennium. Many dropped to their knees in prayer at the sight of a flock. Some flocks required more than 2 hours to fly by. In one case after a flock few over a town, when it was finished the town looked a ghostly white in the now revealed sunlight because it was covered in white pigeon poop.

Even when the numbers of the pigeon began to plummet the relentless attack was not stayed. In a fact according to Peggy Notebaert of the Nature Museum and the Field Museum, as the pigeons’ numbers crashed, “People just slaughtered them more intensely. They killed them until the very end.”

I love to travel through the North American plains, but it always makes me sad too. Thinking about what might have been. But, as they say, extinction is for ever.