Canada – Page 26

Increasing organ donations

Leading up to the provincial election in Manitoba in April, activists, family members of organ recipients and those waiting for organs pushed the topic of organ donation as an election issue. They reached out to many prominent people to help them spread their message, including Prof. Arthur Schafer, founding director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba.

The centre’s purpose is to promote research specifically in applied ethics across different professions, such as medicine, engineering, pharmacy and nursing. Schafer further described it as “ethics as it applies to controversial, moral, social and political issues in society.”

Organ donation, while supported by most segments of the population, has been an issue with which many countries struggle. As there is most often a gap between supply and demand, some countries are coming up with new ways to tackle the problem.

photo - Prof. Arthur Schafer — University of Manitoba’s Prof. Arthur Schafer. *(photo from Arthur Schafer)*

“Israel used to have just about the lowest organ donation rate of all the Western countries,” said Schafer. “So, historically, and rather embarrassingly, more people died waiting for an organ donation in Israel than anywhere else.”

According to Schafer, the lack stemmed from the common misconception that Jewish law prohibits organ donation.

“But, the very low donation rate in Israel changed after a new law was passed in 2008,” he said. “The new law gave priority [to certain people]. It was still true, after the new law was passed, that medical need was the most important criteria. Someone faced with imminent death would have priority over someone whose need was less urgent but, when patients had comparable need, the 2008 law gave priority to those who’d signed an organ donor card or whose family had donated an organ.”

The policy was nicknamed, “Don’t Give. Don’t Get.” Schafer said what this meant was that, if someone, for religious or other reasons, would not sign an organ donor card, they might end up dying themselves as a result of having a lower priority on the list of waiting patients.

“I suppose it’s the dual moral justification … first of all, a principle of justice or fairness,” said Schafer. “If you aren’t willing to give, you don’t deserve, you could argue, it’s not fair for you to take when you’re not willing to donate.

“Then, there’s also the principle of maximizing benefit, because this law seems to have resulted in saving many lives – which, according to Jewish law, is supposed to be of the highest priority. Jewish law says that saving a life is more important than anything else. Yet, many Orthodox Jews refuse to sign an organ donor card.”

Schafer said that, while the supply gap in Israel is still significant, it has narrowed dramatically since the passage of this new law.

Meanwhile, in Canada and its provinces, there is no priority given at present to those who sign an organ donor card.

As for the current local situation, the Province of Manitoba has passed a law – called Required Consideration – that requires physicians to consider whether someone dying or near death is a suitable candidate for organ donation, and to ask them or the family about donating.

Other provinces, like Ontario and British Columbia, have taken it a step further, passing a law known as Required Request. Doctors must discuss organ donation with dying patients. In both of these provinces, doctors can take themselves out of the process by alerting an organ donation coordinator to the situation.

“Many physicians are quite squeamish about the topic, by the way, especially when a younger person has died tragically in a car accident,” said Schafer. “Their organs might be a potential source of numerous healthy organs that could save lives but doctors feel, due to the severe family grief resulting from the death of a young person, that they don’t want to add to the burden by asking for an organ donation. That’s a fairly understandable reaction. But, I think it’s profoundly wrong. I think that, if your child has died in an accident or suffered from an untimely death, the family might welcome the opportunity to make something morally significant by agreeing to have other lives saved through organ donation. I think many people actually feel this way and that doctors who are reluctant to ask the families about it are depriving them of an opportunity.”

Schafer went on to say that, in many provinces, there is a big push to change the system of organ donation so that it would be a choice of opting out as opposed to one of opting in. The current situation is that, if you do not tick the box or tell your family you want to donate, your organs will not be harvested. Schafer contends that reversing the onus is a good option, as it still gives individuals a choice, but they have to choose not to do it rather than to do it.

“Many European countries have adopted opting-out systems, such as Spain,” he said. “Their donation rates have gone up considerably.”

Another option Schafer suggested is to tweak the compensation system for doctors, giving them further incentive to talk to people about organ donation when there is not the option of referring the matter to an organ coordinator.

“Many people die in community hospitals, nursing homes or in their own homes,” he said. “The family doctor, rural doctor or community hospital doctors are often unwilling to take the time filling out the forms to arrange for organ donation. I think the medical profession itself has been a big impediment to an increase in cadaveric organ donation.

“If you’re in a teaching hospital where transplant operations are occurring, you’re more likely to approach the family or individual and arrange organ donation,” he continued. “If you’re in a community hospital, it takes time. You have to fill out forms, you have to speak to people, and you’re not reimbursed. I think part of the solution to the dramatic gap between the supply and demand for organs requires a change in the medical profession itself or making it a requirement for doctors.”

The possible downside to a change in the compensation system for doctors, however, is to ensure that they still do all they can to save a patient.

For information on becoming an organ donor in British Columbia, visit transplant.bc.ca/be-donor.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

More work left to do

Call It Democracy speakers, from left to right, Mira Oreck, Margot Young and Sharon Abraham-Weiss. (photo by Zach Sagorin)

“From the Holocaust, there is a lesson we can all agree about: ‘Never again.’ There are two paths: never again to us or never again to anybody,” said Sharon Abraham-Weiss, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

Abraham-Weiss was speaking at the event Call it Democracy, held at Temple Sholom on March 14. She was joined by Mira Oreck, director of public engagement at the Broadbent Institute, and Margot Young, a University of British Columbia law professor, who served as facilitator.

About Israel, Abraham-Weiss said, “The Declaration of Independence from 1948 is the establishment for this democracy, promising equality for all its citizens. When I’m saying citizens, 20% of the citizens of Israel are Palestinian-Israelis, Arab-Israelis, people that were in Israel in 1948. Speaking about the occupied territories, it’s a different story.”

She said, in contrast to Canada, Israel “does not have a constitution … so, our toolkit, as lawyers, [is] the Basic Laws that we consider higher laws.” Additionally, she said, “We don’t have any separation between state and religion and this is something very important to understand.” For example, “the only way to get married … is in the Orthodox rabbinical system for Jews or other religious systems for non-Jews.”

Moreover, she continued, “In 1967, we occupied areas known today as ‘the occupied territories,’ Judea and Samaria, Palestine, you can name it. There are about two million people there, Palestinians. When I speak about democracy, it does not apply to the occupied territories. It’s different [there] because these people do not have the status of citizens, they are refugees.”

Oreck thanked the Coast Salish peoples, “whose territory we are gathered on tonight,” when she began her remarks. “I think it’s a relevant acknowledgement to the conversation around civil liberties, civil rights and human rights.”

Oreck described the notion of civil liberties as a political one. “These are political decisions that are made from country to country and we often think of civil liberties in a fairly narrow sense. What are the personal guarantees and freedoms that the government cannot infringe on by law?” she asked, listing freedom of conscience, religion, press, the right to security. “We don’t necessarily think about poverty and housing and other rights that we may think of more generally as human rights that don’t fall into our more narrow definition of civil liberties,” she said.

Young shifted the conversation to the balance between security and liberty.

“Can security reasons be justified by everything we are doing? Abraham-Weiss asked. “The answer from my perspective is no, not at all, it has to be balanced. Can we completely dismiss the idea of security reasons? And the answer is no.” She spoke about profiling at airports as an example. “It’s hard, for on one hand, we don’t want any terror attacks; on the other hand, 20% of our population belongs to the Arab minority. Can we generalize … that they are all suspects?” She said, “How do you bring your citizens to be part of the society when you always blame them? How do you bring your citizens to be part of the society when their schools, per capita, are less than the schools I am going to in west Jerusalem and other places?

“In 2010, the government of Israel joined the [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] and the OECD said that, if you want to be a member of the developed countries, you must show us better numbers of Arabs in the job market and better participation of ultra-Orthodox in the job market. [With] this incentive, we showed better numbers … and this, in a way, is balancing the security risks.”

In the Canadian context, Oreck referred to the passing of anti-terrorism Bill C-51, noting that the NDP was the only party that voted against it. “There are real conversations around how we address very real security threats and what the tension is,” she said. “But, also, what are we willing to trade away?… Frankly, who would be in violation of that security based on C-51?… Would people that are protesting pipelines, for example, be a threat to national security? And, if so, who are those people? Who is being threatened? Who is being protected?”

Another prominent Canadian security discussion has been about the Syrian refugees, said Oreck. “When the new government talked about bringing in Syrian refugees, well, what is the threat?… There are still many questions around what the screening process was, should men be able to come in, or should families be prioritized?”

In Canada, there is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Young noted in changing the topic from security to equality. “We do have a lot of these questions being decided by our Supreme Court of Canada in an authoritative way,” she said.

In Israel, explained Abraham-Weiss, “Our main tool is the Basic Law of Human Dignity [and Liberty] and, when we take things to the Supreme Court … although it is about freedoms, the word that is not [there] is the word equality and the reason equality is not there, it is because … the Orthodox were against the word equality because of women’s rights.”

She explained how equality was written “into dignity” in the 1990s. “Humiliation and discrimination harms your dignity and that is how it was justified. It is a very famous case,” she said, referring to that of Alice Miller, who wanted to be a pilot in the Israel Defence Forces. “She was rejected because she was a woman. Now, the interesting story about her … is that she was a pilot already, she just made aliyah. She moved from South Africa and she was holding a civil pilot license and they told her she can’t be a pilot, and she said, I am.” Miller became Israel’s first female pilot.

In Canada, said Oreck, “we are probably also dealing with an outdated version of gender and needing to really reevaluate the way that we look at gender rights, what does that mean.” She pointed to some advances, commending “the work the Vancouver School Board has done around gender-neutral bathrooms.” She said, “What is once at the margins, eventually, becomes mainstream.”

“Our job as a human rights organization is to find out what is … marginalized, outlined, and bring it to the heart of the consensus,” agreed Abraham-Weiss. “I think especially as minorities, it’s important to be consistent and put question marks on things that can be taken for granted.”

Abraham-Weiss used the example of administrative detention. She said it “was used, traditionally, against Palestinians and, whenever we brought it up, they would say [for] security reasons. Now, recently, it is used against right-wing settlers, Israeli-Jewish settlers. Now we are consistent about it … we are consistent about the procedure and part of the reason we have success is that we are not partisan … we work in the parliament of Israel with various members of the political spectrum. So, on children’s rights, our best ally is from [Avigdor] Lieberman’s party, which is right-wing. On International Human Rights Day, we held a conference in the Knesset held by … two members of the Knesset, one was from the joint Arab-Jewish party … and the other was Likud.”

Abraham-Weiss said, “In terms of human rights, within Judaism, we are more tolerant, [but] we are still not doing good enough, with Ethiopian Jews for example.… It takes time, but I think we are moving to it.”

Young asked Abraham-Weiss and Oreck to discuss the “elephants in each of the country’s rooms, really, really tough issues that that people dance around on, but don’t always talk about.”

Abraham-Weiss said, “The elephant in the room is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so, while we have tolerance and multiculturalism within Judaism, we are less tolerant to multiculturalism with the Palestinian-Israelis and their culture and I have to admit … the last couple of years, we have been dealing with what we call the shrinking democratic space in Israel due to the conflict.”

During Protective Edge, the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, Abraham-Weiss said, “We saw that there were voices against the war and, the voices, people were calling to marginalize them. So, they were opening Facebook pages calling to fire these people from their workplaces. Now, these are private places.… Look at the government. There were ministers saying: ‘Hey, don’t let anyone do demonstrations against the war, it is not a good time for demonstrations.’ When is a good time if this is the idea? Now that bothers me in a democratic country. In a pluralism of ideas, we have many voices. If you do have only one voice, you don’t call it a democracy anymore.… [Recently], there was an idea, a draft bill, to impeach the elected minority. So, the elected majority, the Jews, can impeach the elected minority, the Arabs?… I think this is a problem in a democracy.”

Oreck said, “Canada views itself and prides itself on being a multicultural country and yet … multiculturalism is, of course, from the ’70s … was about immigrants and was about new Canadians and it never dealt with First Peoples of this country and it never addressed the historical inequalities that we are dealing with now through reconciliation…. I think that, as a Jew anyway, that makes a challenge in some ways.

“For many of us,” she said, “Canada was a refuge and our families came here for safety and security and yet, at that exact time, of course, kids were being taken from their homes and sent to residential schools. So, how do you reconcile, how do you pride yourself on multiculturalism when, for many people that time was a very dark history.… We are still really addressing those challenges. I would argue that not having clean water on reserves is a failing of multiculturalism and I would argue that the Cindy Blackstock case on the underfunding of First Nations education is a failing of multiculturalism.… There is clearly still enormous work to do.”

Similarly, Abraham-Weiss said, “I can criticize Israel because I care about Israel. I want a better Israel and I think we all deserve a better Israel.”

Call it Democracy was co-sponsored by the New Israel Fund of Canada and Temple Sholom with Beth Tikvah Congregation, Ameinu, Hillel BC Society and Or Shalom. NIFC president Joan Garson concluded the event.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Creating tech and jobs

Governor General of Canada David Johnston, left, with Chief Scientist of the State of Israel Avi Hasson. (photo by Sgt. Ronald Duchesne, Rideau Hall)

On March 1, Governor General of Canada David Johnston met Chief Scientist of the State of Israel Avi Hasson to discuss innovation and how Canada and Israel can enhance cooperation in this field. During Hasson’s visit, the Canada-Israel Industrial Research and Development Foundation released its latest impact report.

Established in 1994 under a formal mandate from the Government of Canada and the State of Israel, CIIRDF-funded projects cross many scientific disciplines, technologies and industrial sectors. These include biotechnology, agriculture, information and communications technologies, automotive, natural resource management, public safety and aerospace.

With base funding of $1 million per year from each of the governments of Canada and Israel, CIIRDF stimulates collaborative research and development between companies in both countries, with a focus on the commercialization of new technologies; pools Canadian and Israeli know-how to provide both countries with improved market access, sustainable competitive advantage and long-term market opportunity in global economies; strengthens ties between Canada and Israel, and delivers economic benefits to both countries; and leverages additional regional and sector-based funding that is matched by the government of Israel.

CIIRDF has engaged more than 1,000 participants in partnership development activities, including more than 400 industry leaders who actively contributed to R&D collaboration discussions. It has processed more than 230 bilateral R&D applications and funded 110 projects engaging more than 200 companies from Canada and Israel.

These alliances have enabled the joint development, marketing and sales of more than 50 technologically improved new products for global markets; generated $60 million in initial sales, and $300 to $500 million in additional economic value to collaborating companies; and created hundreds of jobs in both countries.

For the full impact report, visit racineinc.com.

Proudly in the middle

Slovakia’s elections on the weekend ushered into parliament for the first time a far-right neo-Nazi party of the sort that have made inroads in various parts of Europe over recent years. About the same time this was making news, Donald Trump urged supporters at a rally in Florida to raise their right hands in a pledge to vote. The ensuing scene was – as any sensible person would have foreseen – eerily redolent of a Nazi rally.

Since the collapse of the bipolar Cold War-era status quo, global politics has been unstable. Common enemies make for strange bedfellows and temporary alliances have been the pragmatic responses to regional brushfires, such as the alignment of Shia and Sunni Muslim factions with, respectively, Russian and Western powers. Some Sunni Muslim powers have even been making pleasant noises toward Israel, seeing it as an ally, however unlikely, against the Iranian menace.

These tactical alliances are taking place at a molecular level, too, if we can put it that way. Not only are strange alliances forming between nation-states (and, in some cases, non-state players like Iranian-backed Hezbollah and the Western-backed Free Syrian Army), but ideologies are merging at the edges. The far-right and the far-left, in some instances, are almost indistinguishable.

In their historical forms, communism and fascism in the form of Stalinism and Hitlerism, were the most adamant of enemies. Until they weren’t, thanks to a non-aggression pact, and then they were again, thanks to Hitler’s abrogation of the pact. For the great majority of people in the West who are democrats (whether liberal, conservative, libertarian, social democratic or whatever) the two ends of the political spectrum can look very similar. Both have been responsible for genocides causing millions of deaths and neither respects the human being’s right to individual freedoms.

From a Canadian perspective, we have been blessedly free of anything more than weak startup movements of the far-left and the far-right. The communist party, under different names, had minimal electoral success in the 1930s and 1940s. When the antisemitic far-right permeated the Social Credit movement and later the Reform party, they were fairly successfully shut down. Canada is a place of moderation, a trait we bear smugly (and, therefore, without our alleged national humility) while watching the machinations of American politics today.

Today’s far-left and far-right, which are more recognizable in their traditional forms in Europe, nevertheless have traded off some characteristics. In some instances, European far-right parties, who are almost unanimously anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim, have adopted a convenient philosemitism and pro-Zionism, seeing Israel as a bulwark against radical Islam. At the same time, we are witnessing a growth of not only anti-Zionism but overt antisemitism among components of the left. Notably, the Labor Club at Oxford University, the campus arm of Britain’s second-largest political party, has been recently criticized. According to reports, Oxford Laborites mocked Jewish victims of the Paris terror attacks, made light of Auschwitz, expressed solidarity with Hamas and defended the killing of Israeli civilians, routinely employ the term “Zio,” a slang for Zionist that is usually found only on the most extreme websites, and a former co-chair of the club has said that “most accusations of antisemitism are just the Zionists crying wolf.” It is little solace that the antisemitism seems to have emanated from the Momentum movement, a hard-left stream within the Labor party headed by Jeremy Corbyn, the party leader.

The Oxford debacle is among the most public of countless incidents of Jew-baiting and Jew-hating on the left, but there is much cross-pollination between groups like those who hold Israel Apartheid Weeks and other groups that proudly march under the “progressive” standard.

Antisemitism, it is so often said, is an early symptom of a societal sickness, the first sign of crazy. This is a bit simplistic, though, because antisemitism is so unique, so capable of metastasizing into whatever form of scapegoat a society requires, so ubiquitous and yet still so fundamentally not understood, that blanket statements about it are a fool’s game.

Perhaps it is safe to say this: antisemitism exists in many places, but it is now and has perhaps always been most prevalent at the fringes of the political spectrum. No one should be surprised that it is a dominant characteristic of the far-right as well as the far-left, particularly when those terms themselves seem to have more overlap, or at least more fluidity, than perhaps ever before.

Extremists exist in Canada, as they do elsewhere in the world, and so, too, do inequality and other social issues that have the ability to polarize us, if we let them. But, extremism does not seem to be intrinsic to our land. This good fortune is something we must not take for granted. While people may joke – an example, Why did the Canadian cross the road? To get in the middle! – we have a lot of which to be proud, and something valuable worth protecting. We also, perhaps, have something to teach the world about tolerance and moderation.

מתהדק הקשר בין קנדה לאיראן

שר החוץ, סטפן דיון. (צילום: Facebook)

מתהדק הקשר בין קנדה לאיראן: הוסרו מספר סנקציות כלכליות נגד המדינה האיסלאמית

קנדה ואיראן פותחות בדיאלוג לאחר כשלוש וחצי שנים של נתק טוטאלי בין שתי המדינות. במסגרת זו הממשלה הקנדית החליטה להסיר כבר מספר סנקציות כלכליות נגד איראן, בהן הקשורות בשירותים פיננסיים, יצוא ויבוא. כך הכריז שר החוץ, סטפן דיון, בסוף השבוע האחרון. סנקציות נוספות יוסרו בהמשך הדרך בשלבים כולל חידוש היחסים הדיפלומטיים, תוך שקנדה בוחנת את הפיקוח של האו”ם על תוכנית הגרעין של איראן, כדי למנוע מאיראן להמשיך ולפתח אותה, כמו למנוע ממנה את הפיתוח של טילים בליסטיים ארוכי טווח. דיון ציין כי קנדה תמשיך לבדוק מה קורה באיראן ותפעיל מדיניות בשלבים להסרת הסנקציות, לאור החששות מתפקידה של איראן במזרח התיכון כולל מול בני הברית כמו ישראל, ולאור “הרקורד” של איראן בתחום נושא זכויות האדם. דיון הוסיף עוד: “אני חושב שזה טוב לישראל שקנדה תוכל לדבר עם איראן. זו הייתה טעות לחשוב כי הבידוד עדיף על קשר וקשר אינו מהווה הסכמה”.

לדברי דיון תחומים רבים של הכלכלה הקנדית ירוויחו ממערכת היחסים המחודשת עם איראן. זה לא רק תעשיית התעופה והחלל, אלה גם תחבורה, חקלאות, התעשייה הפטרוכימית, תעשיית הכרייה ותעשיות הנפט והגז. לקנדה יש עדיין חששות כבדים בנוגע לשאיפותיה הגרעיניות של איראן, ולכן ימשכו המגבלות החמורות של יצוא מוצרים רגישים שלא ישלחו לאיראן וכל היתר יצוא ישקל בכל מקרה לגופו. קנדה תמשיך אפוא לקיים הגבלות חמורות על היצוא לאיראן של מוצרים, שירותים וטכנולוגיה שנחשבים לרגישים מהבחינה הביטחונית, לרבות מוצרים שיכולים לעזור לאיראן לייצר טילים גרעיניים או בליסטיים.

בתגובה להחלטת הממשלה להסיר את הסנקציות הצרכז לענייני ישראל והיהודים בקנדה פרסם את תגובתו בנידון. המרכז מציין כי איראן ממשיכה להיות איום ממשי עבור ישראל והיהודים ברחבי העולם. הסרת הסקנציות הבינלאומיות בעקבות ההסכם על תוכנית הגרעין של איראן, תנוצל על ידי המשטר האיראני וזה מקור חרדה רציני למרכז לענייני ישראל והיהודים בקנדה ושותפיו ברחבי העולם. קיימת סכנה ממשית שהקהילה הבינלאומית, מתוך נאיביות לאור הסכם הגרעין עם איראן, תקבל את איראן כחברה לגיטמית בקהילה הלאומית, למרות שהיא ממשיכה לתת חסות לטרור, מתעללת בזכויות אדם, מחוללת כאוס באזור וקוראת להשמדת ישראל.

עמדת המרכז לענייני ישראל והיהודים בקנדה לגבי החלטת הממשלה הקנדית החדשה ברורה. איראן מהווה איום רב לשלום העולמי והביטחון העולמי, וקנדה צריכה להתעמת עימה באמצעות כלים דיפלומטיים וכלכליים.

המרכז יודע כי המפלגה הליברלית של קנדה למרות תמיכתה בעמדתה תקיפה נגד איראן, מזה זמן רב מעדיפה גישה המאופיינת במעורבות קונסטרוקטיבית בניגוד לממשלה השמרנית הקודמת שתמכה חד-משמעית בבידודה של איראן. המרכז ישאר מאוד מודאג מהמאמץ של הקהילה הבינלאומית לחידוש הקשרים אם איראן, “ואנו נמשיך להראות שדיפולמטיה ללא לחץ כלכלי לא הייתה מביאה שינוי בהתנהגותה של איראן. תפקידנו להבטיח לבחון את הציוד והסחורות שיועברו לאיראן מקנדה, כדי לבחון שחברות קנדיות לא יעזרו לתוכנית הגרעין שלה ולבניית מערך הטילים הבליסטיים שלה”.

המרכז אומר עוד: “עכשיו יותר מתמיד הקהילה היהודית בקנדה צריכה לקחת חלק במדיניות הציבורית המקומית. אנו זקוקים לחברי הקהילה באשר הם כדי שישמיעו את קולם. בימים הקרובים המרכז לענייני ישראל והיהודים בקנדה, ישיק קמפיין חדש לגיוס אזרחי קנדה שמודאגים לקרוא לשר החוץ דיון, להמשיך ולהפעיל לחץ על איראן. יש באפשרותה של הקהילה היהודית להשפיע על הטיפול הכושל של הממשלה בתיק איראן, כשנעים קדימה”.

Don’t vote for Momma!

A few weeks ago, I sat in the High Holy Day services looking around the room at the omany folks who make their annual pilgrimage to the synagogue that time of year. Most of them are there out of guilt or a sense of obligation instilled in them from when they were kids. Momma said, “You go to services on the High Holy Days!” And that was that! Most of them also hang onto a sense of Jewish identity and feel that attending that service once a year keeps them connected and fulfilled.

A few rabbis might wince as they read this, but I say there is nothing wrong with that. Religion is whatever we each want, need or don’t need it to be. It is personal. However we wish to acknowledge or pay attention to it is up to us. We don’t owe our beliefs or religious commitments to anyone but ourselves – and maybe our mommas.

This certainly isn’t just a Jewish-specific behavior. All sorts of folks in all sorts of religions follow a similar path, engaging at certain key times of the year to fulfill their personal obligations or commitments.

Unfortunately, too many Canadians carry on a similar mentality when it comes to national politics, with election time being the one time they feel compelled to celebrate their democratic rights by heading to the polling stations and voting.

While participating in a religious service without understanding the issues or knowing what it’s really about can still offer personal benefits, influencing politics and voting without knowing what it’s really about is concerning.

Everywhere I look on social media for the past month I see folks pleading with the country to show up and vote. We live in a democracy, after all. We are lucky to have the opportunity and the right to vote and, thus, we should. Many people sacrificed their lives so that we can have these choices today, with the right and freedom to vote for our leaders.

But it’s not just about stepping up to a pole and filling out a ballot. Important decisions are being made while every single vote carries the same weight.

It’s not just about the action of voting. It’s about contributing. It’s about respecting the rights and privileges we once fought for and now defend in this country. So please, don’t vote blind. Don’t vote based on the color of the lawn post you prefer. Don’t vote because the person in your riding has the same first name as you. Don’t vote because your momma told you who to vote for.

Everyone should vote! But if you can’t find some time to have at least a basic understanding of who or what you are voting for I am suggesting that you do not vote.

If you think you might fall under that category, take the time to read the posts linked here – both great places to start. Then get out there and vote!

Everything you need to know about the platforms, and JI interviews with the Liberals, Conservatives, Greens and NDP for all you need to about the federal leaders’ views on Israel, Iran, security, and more. And there’s even more at Federal Election 2015.

Expanding free trade

On July 21, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that negotiations toward an expanded and modernized Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA) had concluded. “Israel is a priority market for Canada and holds great potential for Canadian companies in a variety of sectors. An expanded and modernized free trade agreement will lead to a strengthened bilateral relationship as well as an increase in jobs and opportunities for Canadians and Israelis alike,” said Harper.

The modernized CIFTA will notably provide expanded market access opportunities for agricultural, fish and seafood products through the reduction or elimination of Israeli tariffs on a large number of products, and duty-free access under tariff rate quotas for certain products.

Four existing areas of the current CIFTA have been amended, namely market access for goods, rules of origin, institutional provisions and dispute settlement. In addition, seven new chapters have been included in the areas of trade facilitation, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, intellectual property, electronic commerce, labor and environment.

Israel is a priority market for Canada under the Global Markets Action Plan. Since CIFTA came into force in 1997, Canada’s two-way merchandise trade with Israel has tripled to $1.6 billion in 2014. Key opportunities for Canadian companies exist in sectors such as defence, information and communications technology, life sciences, sustainable technologies, agriculture and agri-food, and fish and seafood.

The modernized CIFTA will provide expanded market access opportunities for Canadian businesses through the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers, and help in creating new sources of jobs, growth and prosperity for both countries in the years ahead. It will support Canadian businesses and investors, deepen trade and investment linkages, and further strengthen Canada’s bilateral relationship with Israel.

Sacred task of Canada

Canada has changed dramatically in the past half-century. In two years, we will mark the 150th anniversary of Confederation. When we last celebrated such a momentous landmark birthday – in 1967 – it was a time of perhaps unprecedented optimism and belief that the world was better for having Canada in it. Yet, even in that celebratory year, the culmination of a decade of upheaval both positive and negative, no one could have predicted the Canada we would build in the next generation.

It was in that decade that Canada’s immigration laws – which since the 1920s had been notoriously stringent and oriented almost exclusively to white migrants – became part of the multi-hued world. A royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism opened the door to viewing Canada outside the British colonial and cultural prism through which it originated in 1867. Within a few short years, the ethnic mix of the country would expand the concept of multiculturalism, opening up an exciting new amalgam of peoples from around the world, though not without some significant social challenges. Even so, for a country whose demographic face has changed so dramatically in a relatively short amount of time, we have adapted to it in ways that should inspire pride.

It has been said that Canadians, polite and welcoming to strangers by reputation, are also self-critical in ways almost unknown in other countries. When there have been incidents of which Canadians should be ashamed – and, as in any country, there have been plenty – we do have a tendency to self-castigate.

On the other hand, sometimes not quickly or adequately enough. As we wrote in this space last week, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report on the catastrophic history and legacy of the Indian residential schools program highlights one of this country’s worst open sores – and that confronts only one portion of this country’s treatment of indigenous peoples. It took too long to reach this point of truth and reconciliation and it remains to be seen if action and genuine reconciliation will be the result. It is worth repeating, in this Canada Day edition of the paper, that it is our responsibility as Canadians to ensure that the recommendations of this report are not ignored or dismissed.

And Canada has a legacy of racism and antisemitism. Not just a legacy, but an active problem in many places and in many contexts. But, in a country as diverse as ours, in the year 2015, we as a collective are doing pretty well at getting along.

It has not only been the comparatively speedy and dramatic shift in ethnic demographics that has changed Canada. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been the lynchpin for judicial and legislative changes that have altered the face of the country and the day-to-day lives of its citizens. From the start, the entrenched equality of women was a significant constitutional right. By the 1980s, when the Charter took effect, it may have seemed ludicrous that a woman would not be considered legally equal – but let us not forget that the country to our south had spent a chunk of the previous decade arguing over precisely that point and the effort to entrench in the U.S. Constitution an equal rights provision failed, leaving women constitutionally unequal to men.

Court interpretations of the Charter have led to some of Canada’s most stunning progressive steps, including marriage equality. Yes, it was the courts (successive provincial decisions and then the Supreme Court of Canada) that made marriage equal, but Parliament quickly acceded (not that they had much choice) and public opinion is now overwhelmingly on side. Numerous less prominent cases have swung on the Charter’s provisions and while our American cousins fret over judicial “overreach” or “activism” when courts interpret the laws of the land (as is their constitutional role in both countries), Canadians seem to accept and even admire our Charter and its impact on the country. Polls, reliable as they may or may not be, suggest that 82% of us like the Charter.

Canada has sometimes been seen as an unnatural country, not one united by language or race or even geography, because we’ve got too much diversity for any of these to be a unifying factor. But we have found things to unify us.

In a world where diverse people stuck within random national boundaries seem to have too often sought out differences, accentuated them and fought over them, Canadians have accepted our lot as destined to share this space – and found our own ways to coexist, to identify the things that unite us, even celebrate the things we do not share in common, and make the best of it.

We are not perfect. No country is. Jewish tradition says that God created an imperfect world and it is humanity’s responsibility to strive to repair it. Perhaps, in a constitutionally mandated non-denominational way, this is also the role of successive generations of Canadians: inherit a country and strive to make it better. On Canada Day this year, may we rededicate ourselves to this sacred task.

Rise of modern management

Since Scottish economist Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, arguing the importance of the division of labor and launching the era of specialization, a formal managing role – initially personified by the owner of the enterprise – became necessary to coordinate the diverse tasks and operations of machines and workers.

As a modern profession, management is relatively new. It rose in importance during the 20th century as formerly unskilled preindustrial workers transformed into skilled workers, and their increasingly specialized knowledge and skills needed coordinators and supervisors to ensure the attainment of organizational objectives. Although the managerial role subsequently shifted from owners to professional managers, the latter tended to pursue similar goals as the wealthy elite who retained corporate ownership interest.

Comparing business owners in two of the largest English-speaking nations, the United States and the United Kingdom, suggests they were quite distinct from each other. The American business leader was typified by Horatio Alger-type stories of rising from the depths of poverty to the height of financial success. The rapid economic growth of the Gilded Age in the decades that followed the Civil War contributed to a stereotype of achievement, suggesting the existence of “equality of opportunity.” This American cultural striving for – and adulation of – achievement reflects the strength of individualism in American society. In contrast, the role of the businessman in Britain and Canada was different. Australian sociologist Sol Encel suggests that the typical representative during the 18th and 19th centuries was not just a male who owned a small business but one who was capable of seizing the opportunities provided by technological change to increase the size of his plant or create a completely new enterprise, revealing “a tradition of hard work, self-denial, the ploughing back of profits and the gradual building up of small firms into large ones.” There was less ruthless competition and vicious battles with trade unions compared to the United States but, similar to the U.S. tradition, British leaders of industry were viewed as “self-made men,” typified by a Scotsman like Samuel Smiles.

Encel rightfully alludes to Alger and Smiles for they provided flattering images of individuals who successfully built up their enterprises ostensibly on their own initiatives, whose achievements were admired by their peers and workers alike. There is a notable absence of such images in Australia where, in contrast with these other cultures, Encel observes, “Businessmen, apart from isolated individuals, are not generally regarded as having contributed prominently to the ‘development’ of Australia.” Credit for this largely belongs to members of the working class who championed egalitarianism and preferred flatter hierarchies, often to the chagrin of the more individualist managerial class.

As the managerial role evolved following the Second World War, it was no longer seen exclusively in the context of business. In the words of American management guru Peter Drucker, management “pertains to every human effort that brings together in one organization people of diverse knowledge and skills.” In a modern sense, “management” applies as much to the functioning of nonprofit organizations – from religious institutions, charities, social service agencies and public academic institutions – to the world of business and government. The term “manager,” therefore, signifies a role known by various titles, from supervisor, director and department head, to team leader and coordinator, among numerous other possibilities. Regardless of the title, contemporary managers focus their efforts on controlling, directing or coordinating the work of others.

Although the activities of managers have evolved to include a more supportive role to help the work efforts of people by coaching and otherwise supporting their labors, whether first-line, middle or top managers, they have customarily been defined as people to whom other people directly report. This arrangement suggests vertical hierarchy with management above workers, so the term manager applies to holders of positions of authority who not only possess the ability to influence how people work or behave but also indirectly impact their quality of life. Hence, the origins and implications of differences between Australian and Canadian egalitarianism and the role of political ideology in the development of the managerial outlook expose subtle variances in managerial culture. Management models also provide a window to identify salient Anglo-Celtic cultural features in managerial style. How workers organized is also revealing.

Unions in Australia and Canada emerged in the late 19th century as powerful representatives of workers in their dealings with management. In the last quarter of the 20th century, however, there was a rise in employment arrangements with individual employees rather than the workforce as a collective entity, a development that reflects a largely Anglo-Protestant management’s preference to reduce as much as possible union involvement in employment policy matters. Even in instances when union involvement could not be excluded from the bargaining process, the heightened focus on the individualization of employment has been evident in the increased use of performance-based pay systems over job- or grade-based pay, and with greater reliance on individual goal-setting procedures and appraisal, and more direct communication with individuals instead of unions as an intermediary. Prior to the rise of this individualist trend, however, collectivism strongly affected employment policies due to the strength of unions and the ideological and ethnic influences that helped shape Australian and Canadian society. The ideological influences on each culture were not identical. But what do the terms individualism and collectivism mean when applied specifically to the context of management? Above all, they provide a useful way to see influences on labor-management relations.

Arthur Wolak is a freelance writer based in Vancouver. He received his PhD in management from Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Australia. He has published articles in Australian, Canadian, U.S., U.K. and Israeli academic journals, as well as written for numerous newspapers, including the Jerusalem Post and the Jewish Independent. This is an excerpt from his book The Development of Managerial Culture: A Comparative Study of Australia and Canada (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).