policy

Learning about aging

On Jan. 12, Dan Levitt, seniors advocate of British Columbia, spoke at the Jewish Seniors Alliance’s winter symposium. (photo from JSA)

On Jan. 12, Jewish Seniors Alliance, with Kehila Society of Richmond and the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, presented the winter symposium titled The Future of Aging. The featured speaker was Dan Levitt, seniors advocate of British Columbia.

Jeff Moss, executive director of JSA, opened the afternoon event and Toby Rubin, co-executive director of Kehila Society, offered some remarks, including that Kehila is always happy to be a co-presenter with JSA.

Gyda Chud, representing the Peretz Centre, told a few stories about the Levitt and Gofsky families (Dan Levitt’s parents) and their history with the Centre. Levitt’s great-grandparents, Rose and Abe Smith, were among the founders of the Peretz. Chud spoke of her mother, Gallia, who is 100 years old – she lives by and instils the values of diversity, inclusion, social justice and advocacy. Chud also mentioned that she had been Dan Levitt’s preschool teacher at the Peretz Centre, where the symposium was held.

Tammi Belfer, chair of JSA, reminded everyone of the organization’s commitment to all the seniors of British Columbia, and thanked everyone for working to enhance the quality of life for all seniors.

Levitt, who is an honorary member of JSA, then educated the 125 attendees about the situation of seniors in this province. He began by giving an example from his time at a home in Mission. The story involves giving plants to seniors on one floor of the facility and telling them that they were responsible for the plants’ upkeep. Plants were also given to residents on another floor, but they were told that the staff was responsible for their care. The residents who were given the responsibility had plants that flourished, whereas the plants on the other floor died. Given purpose and responsibility, said Levitt, people will rise to the challenge.

Levitt continued with some statistics: there are presently 1.1 million seniors in British Columbia and, by 2036, there will be 1.6 million. More than 90% of seniors live independently, but the fastest growing segment of this cohort is over 85 years old, and one in three of them will need care.

In his travels across the province, Levitt has heard from seniors about age discrimination in the workplace, often related to the regulations of employment, such as losing long-term disability and group insurance coverage after age 65. Many were concerned about the cost of driver’s licence renewal medical forms, which can vary from about $80 to $250, depending on the doctor’s discretion.

Levitt’s office is planning on holding a panel on transportation that will look at the needs of seniors. Some of the concerns are the distances between bus stops and the availability of HandyDART services.

There are many challenges ahead, said Levitt, noting that there are 6,500 people in British Columbia waiting for a publicly-subsidized long-term care bed. Home support, which would enable many seniors to “age in place,” is expensive here – these services are free to users in Ontario and Alberta. There is a need for more advocacy, he said. Support is also needed for caregivers, so they are not lost to other jobs. Combating ageism is also important.

Some other problems include the seismic upgrading needed in many care homes and digital access for seniors. The future must include help at home, with aid in reminders regarding medications, and help with technology. There needs to be age- and dementia-friendly places like they have in Bruges, Belgium.

Recommendations from Levitt and the Office of the Seniors Advocate include improving SAFER (a rental help program for seniors, the rates of which are inadequate); free home support; the funding of shingles, RSV and enhanced flu shots; and developing cross-ministry synergy for seniors’ issues.

After a lively Q & A session led by Chud, Ken Levitt, Dan’s father, who is a longtime board member of JSA, said a few words of appreciation. Larry Shapiro, JSA past chair, presented Dan Levitt with a gift and Moss thanked him. Refreshments followed, and the audience lingered and talked with Levitt before leaving with more knowledge and confidence than when they arrived.

Shanie Levin is a Jewish Seniors Alliance Life Governor. She is also on the editorial committee of Senior Line magazine.

Ageism is everywhere

Panelists Margaret Gillis, left, and Dr. Melanie Doucet were the experts featured at this year’s Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights, which focused on ageism.

“Ageism is anytime we make an assumption, a judgment, a stereotype, or discriminate based on age. And this can go in any direction. You’ve often heard people say, ‘too young to understand,’ ‘too old to understand.’ It can be directed toward oneself. It manifests in our interrelationships with others. And it is evident in our institutions and organizations. In fact, it is everywhere,” said Zena Simces in her remarks at the sixth annual Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights, which took place over Zoom on Oct. 28.

Ageism impacts many aspects of life, said Dr. Simon Rabkin. “It affects our health, both physical and mental,” he said. “Studies have shown that psychosocial impacts of ageism include low self-esteem, self-exclusion, lack of self-confidence and loss of autonomy, both for older and younger people. The data indicate that workplace ageism is associated with increased depression and long-term illness. Importantly, studies have found that older persons with more negative self-perceptions of aging have significantly reduced longevity.”

Simces and Rabkin set the stage for the dialogue, which was called Too Old, Too Young: A Conversation on Ageism and Human Rights. It featured Margaret Gillis, founding president of the International Longevity Centre Canada (ILCC) and co-president of the International Longevity Centre Global Alliance, and Dr. Melanie Doucet, an associate with the Centre for Research on Children and Families at McGill University, who is a former youth in care. The discussion was moderated by Andrea Reimer, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, who herself survived as a street-involved youth.

Gillis focused on the impact of ageism on older persons. She gave examples of human rights violations taking place in Canada, including that Canada’s long-term care homes have been under strain and in need of reform for at least two decades. She said an estimated one in 10 older Canadians experiences some form of elder abuse, adding that such abuse is underreported. She spoke about ageist employment practices and negative media representations of older persons.

“Ageism is toxic to the global economy and to health,” she said. “For instance, a US study showed a massive $63 billion per year impact on the economy as a result of ageism in health care. Perhaps one of the most distressing aspects of ageism is its prevalence, the World Health Organization finding one in every two persons is ageist.”

Nonetheless, not much is being done about it, said Gillis.

“I should note that there are protections against ageism in the Canadian Human Rights Code and the provincial human rights codes. But, the problem is, this takes time, money and know-how and our legislation and court process are not well-equipped to remedy complex situations like ageism easily and cost-effectively.”

Gillis encouraged people to join the Canadian Coalition Against Ageism, which she established. It comprises organizations and individuals who are working to confront ageism and bring about changes, based on the WHO global report on ageism.

She advocates for the adoption of a United Nations Convention on the Rights of Older Persons.

“In general, a convention is a method to achieve positive change by combating ageism, guiding policy-making and improving the accountability of governments at all levels, which we most certainly need,” said Gillis. “A convention would also educate and empower, and we’d see older people as rights holders with binding protections under international law.”

Doucet spoke about the human rights of younger persons, specifically youth who age out of the care system. She explained that youth age out of care at the age of majority and that, in British Columbia, about 1,000 youth age out annually.

A video Doucet made as part of her doctoral research included data on the difficulties most young people exiting care experience: 200 times the risk of homelessness, post-traumatic stress disorder rates on par with war veterans, and fewer than 50% finish high school.

Statistics Canada Census data from 2016 indicated that nearly 63% of youth ages 20 to 24 were still living with their parents, with almost 50% staying home until the age of 30. “And I’m sure those statistics have even increased since the pandemic,” said Doucet.

“Youth in care don’t have that luxury. They’re legislated to leave the system at age of majority. So, they’re deemed too old to remain in the child-welfare system after they reach age 18 or 19, depending on where they live in Canada, but, yet, too young to be sitting at the table when policy decisions are being made that impact them, sometimes even at their own intervention planning meetings with social workers.”

Additionally, in the last 20 years or so, a new developmental phase – “emerging adulthood,” which occurs between the ages of 19 and 29 – has been acknowledged in the academic literature, said Doucet. “It’s a phase that encompasses young people who are not necessarily children anymore but they’re not quite adults, and it provides room for identity exploration, trial and error, obtaining post-secondary education, and just figuring out one’s own place in the world. Youth in care aren’t able to experience this crucial developmental phase because of the legislated age cutoffs.”

There are studies that measure the benefits to both the youth affected and society at large of extending the age cutoff: “a return of $1.36 for every $1 spent on extending care up to age 25,” Doucet said.

Meanwhile, the cost of not extending care is high. For example, youth in care lose their lives up to five times the rate of their peers in the general population, she said. Poverty is more prevalent, as is homelessness, as previously noted.

“Out of the 36 countries in the global north, Canada is one of the six that does not have federal legislation to protect the rights of youth in care,” said Doucet. “While Canada has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child [CRC], it only provides human rights protections for children and youth until the age of 18. So, youth in care who are transitioning into adulthood actually don’t fit within the UN CRC because they’re deemed too old, even though they are a vulnerable population that experiences multiple human rights violations. This highlights that age-based discrimination is very much entrenched into the mainstream child welfare system in Canada.”

In the question-and-answer period, Gillis outlined three recommendations in the UN’s report on ageism: education/awareness campaigns; changes to laws, programs and policies, starting with long-term care and other basic human rights; and intergenerational work. We need to look at what other countries are doing, the evidence, best practices, she said, and pensions and other financial programs must keep up with cost-of-living.

Doucet spoke about initiatives she and her colleagues have undertaken.

“We developed what we’re calling the equitable standards for transitions to adulthood for youth in care. We released those in 2021, myself and the National Council of Youth in Care Advocates, which is comprised of people with lived experience from across the country, youth-in-care networks, and a couple of ally organizations, like Away Home Canada and Child Welfare League of Canada. This was our way to provide a step-by-step rights-based approach that centred on lived expertise, research and best practices, to guide how youth in care need to be supported as they transition to adulthood.”

There are eight pillars: financial, educational and professional development, housing, relationships, culture and spirituality, health and well-being, advocacy and rights, emerging adulthood development. And each pillar has an equitable standards evaluation model. For example, about housing: “Every young person should have a place they can call home, without strict rules and conditions to abide by.”

“The ultimate goal [of] this project for us is, eventually, we are living in a society where the term ‘aging out’ no longer exists for youth in care, that they transition to adulthood based on readiness and developmental capacity instead of an arbitrary age,” said Doucet.

The Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights was introduced by Angeliki Bogiatji of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which is a partner of the annual event. Juanita Gonzalez of Equitas – International Centre for Human Rights Education, also a program partner, closed out the proceedings.

Systemic change possible?

Eleanor Boyle’s Mobilize Food! Wartime Inspiration for Environmental Victory Today offers concrete ideas for how food systems can be transformed. (Julie Doro Photography)

I plan to make the Honourable Woolton Pie. Just for fun, not necessarily because I think it’ll taste wonderful, though it might. Named after Lord Woolton (Frederick Marquis), who was appointed minister of food in 1940 Britain, it represents several of the British government’s goals during the war years: it was “meatless, thrifty, filling, and made use of domestically produced in-season foods.” The recipe is in Eleanor Boyle’s latest book, Mobilize Food! Wartime Inspiration for Environmental Victory Today (FriesenPress, 2022). The book is the only reason I know who Woolton is. More importantly, the book offers many reasons to feel less naïve for mostly believing that humankind can save ourselves and the planet before we kill ourselves and the planet.

Mobilize Food! is an optimistic examination of Second World War rationing and other wartime policies in England and how the lessons from that period could help us counter the climate crisis by changing our food systems, to start. Lest one think that Boyle is a pie-eyed dreamer, she has solid credentials – a bachelor’s in psychology, a master’s in food policy and a doctorate in neuroscience. The Vancouverite also has been a journalist and she taught for many years. She wrote the book High Steaks: Why and How to Eat Less Meat (New Society, 2012).

Despite all of Boyle’s education and experience, she still believes that radical change is possible. This is heartening in and of itself. But it’s the 42-page bibliography that I found more assuring. The recommendations Boyle makes in Mobilize Food! are based on extensive research. And they consider what individuals, governments and businesses are already doing, as well as what they could be doing more of (which is a lot). She is not arguing for a socialist utopia, or a utopia of any sort, though she does imagine more engaged, civic-minded communities than I think currently exist anywhere in the world. That said, she gives an example of a city that apparently has ended hunger – Belo Horizonte, Brazil, “which in 1993 declared access to food as every citizen’s right. It then implemented food price subsidies, supply and market regulation, supports for urban agriculture, education on food preparation and nutrition, and job creation in the food sector.”

How does this relate to Second World War Britain? As did Britain during the 1940s, Belo Horizonte set up state-subsidized restaurants that are open to everyone (to avoid stigmatizing people on lower incomes), it feeds kids in the public education system every day, it partners with private grocery stores so that they can sell cheaper fruits and vegetables, and it supports family farms, among other actions “that help democratize food.”

Boyle provides copious data and examples of how the food industry, as it stands, is contributing to climate change “by contributing at least a quarter of human-caused GHGs [greenhouse gases].” It does this through its use of fossil fuels, the cultivation of monocultures (“vast, unnatural acreages of single-species crops”) and destroying ecosystems by removing or burning vegetation, among other activities. One of the eye-opening stats is: “Some analysts calculate the contribution of livestock to overall anthropogenic GHGs as at least 30% and as high as 51%.”

Boyle argues persuasively that how we produce and consume food can be transformed. The first half of Mobilize Food! runs through all that Britain did to make significant changes, “from national agricultural policy to the family dinner plate. They didn’t wait for dire food shortages or society-wide agreement of exactly how to proceed. Even before war was declared, government set up a high-powered food committee to craft plans for making food systems crisis-ready.” They used multiple strategies and strived for general engagement using PR campaigns and other tools. “The programs were simple but transformational,” writes Boyle, “based on shifts toward domestically produced, plant-rich and minimally processed foods. Together those programs adequately fed the population – and, in many ways, better than prewar, by providing broader and more equitable access to food and enhanced health [reducing diabetes and heart disease, for example].”

The wartime measures also show that people can change how they eat and act, she notes. But leadership is key – Lord Woolton was very charismatic, it seems, and, on the larger scale, Boyle writes, “Only governments have the mandate for the public good, the oversight for national strategy and the legislative levers. Only public officials can do the necessary system-wide planning, coordinate sectors, forge agreements across regions, and make the tough decisions.” Lastly, such massive change relies on everyone participating: “We’ll need to think systems-wide and involve every segment of society, every community, every food-related business and civic organization, and every one of us.”

Boyle admits this all “sounds like fantasy. But, as the story of World War II Britain shows, such a transformation has occurred.” Am I personally convinced we have what it takes to mobilize so drastically? The larger whole is still too much for me to contemplate, but I can eat even less meat and fewer processed foods, buy more from local growers, invest in businesses that improve the environment and/or social outcomes, support politicians who are working toward a healthier and more inclusive society. No doubt, there is much more that I could be doing, but it’s a start.

I’m glad that I read Mobilize Food! Full of images (including awesome wartime PR posters), data and stories from people who lived through the war effort, it is engaging on many levels. It reminded me that what seems impossible may not actually be so. And the importance of hope – combined with action – cannot be overstated.

For more information, visit eleanorboyle.com.

Integration policy misguided

Max Czollek, left, speaks with Prof. Chris Friedrichs, after Czollek launched his new book here Jan. 19. (photo by Pat Johnson)

German attempts to create a cohesive national narrative into which newcomers must integrate is a mistake – and the role Jewish Germans play in this “Theatre of Memory” is especially problematic, according to Max Czollek, a provocative thinker who was hosted by the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival last month.

Czollek visited Vancouver Jan. 19, the only Canadian stop on a North American tour promoting the English translation of his book De-integrate: A Jewish Survival Guide for the 21st Century. He excoriated the German integration process as an ideological disaster.

“The only integration Germany has done well is the integration of old Nazis,” he said, explaining that about 99% of Nazi core perpetrators never met justice and, in fact, often succeeded in postwar Germany despite their wartime activities. By contrast, he notes in his book, those who challenged the Nazi regime were often viewed in the postwar context as politically untrustworthy: “[A]fter all, they had already revealed themselves as willing to resist the structures of the German state before.”

While the failure of the larger integration scheme is a theme of Czollek’s book, his main thesis is that Jews are being used to cover up the atrocities of the past. In the contemporary German narrative of integration, newcomers to the country are expected to assimilate into a vaguely defined “guiding culture” (Leitkultur) and not misbehave, Czollek told an audience in the Zack Gallery. But, despite that the vast majority of German Jews are migrants, too, that expectation is not imposed on them. Instead, Jewish Germans are assigned a different and unique role in a German narrative that seeks a return to a normality that was shattered by the Nazi era.

Positioning German Jews collectively as bit players in a larger narrative of redemption reduces them to a cover for the history of their own destruction, he argued: “Because, as long as there are Jews in Germany, then Germans can’t be Nazis.” He later said, “We don’t feel this is our function – making Germans feel good again.”

Czollek, who was born in East Berlin in 1987, two years before the reunification of Germany, explained the different postwar experiences of the tiny Jewish populations of East Germany and West Germany. Numerically, though, these experiences are overwhelmed by those of post-Soviet Jews: 90% of German Jews are migrants from the former Soviet Union or their descendants, he said. And these migrants (or, in the term used for their children and grandchildren, “postmigrants”) are excluded from the burdens placed on other newcomers, especially Muslims. In fact, said Czollek, Muslim immigrants play a role in this narrative, too, in which “good Germans” must now protect Jews against perceived threats from Muslims.

The author looks with a particularly jaundiced eye at German Jews who subscribe to this narrative, such as those who vote for the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) based on anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies. “Maybe the next time the mosques are going to burn first, but then the synagogues are going to be next,” Czollek said. “We know if the Muslims won’t be able to live safe in Germany, then the Jews won’t either.”

The very idea of a German “guiding culture” is flawed, Czollek argues, not only because the unification of Germany in the 19th century brought together diverse tribes and groupings into what is now purveyed as a unitary nation, but because the postwar immigration of diverse peoples has made such a unified culture unworkable. “Because, given its current state of social diversity, arriving at an ethnically and culturally homogeneous Germany would simply require ethnic and cultural cleansing,” Czollek writes.

A central flaw in the integration narrative, he argues, is that, no matter how long someone named Mohammad has lived in Germany, they will be subject to different criteria of good citizenship. Neo-Nazis who commit arson against refugee shelters or march down the street chanting “Heil Hitler” are not accused of failing to integrate into the German culture, he noted.

“[A]t what point are you no longer considered an immigrant who refuses to integrate [Integrationsverweigerer], but simply a frustrated German?” he asks.

Czollek contends that the narrative of a prevailing German culture (and integration into it) has seeped from the far-right across the spectrum. “Not a single democratic party platform neglects to centre this term in discussions of social belonging,” he writes. “No discussion panels about migration are complete without someone underscoring the importance of integration.”

Czollek argues for a live-and-let-live approach, but suggests the advocates of integration aren’t interested.

“They can eat weisswurst with sweet mustard for lunch and drink at least one litre of beer a day,” he writes. “I have no problem with that and neither do my friends. And that’s precisely the point that fundamentally separates those of us who would defend a concept of radical diversity from those proponents of German guiding culture: we want to create a space in which one can be different without fear, while the other side wants to implement cultural criteria for belonging that by necessity exclude those who don’t align with their concept.”

The original German version of Czollek’s book was published in 2018, shortly after the far-right AfD had become the third-largest party in the Bundestag. Rather than spurring a backlash against extremism, other politicians took a page from the playbook, he argues, with the parties of the right, centre and left warning of the perils of nonintegrated newcomers.

Czollek views the AfD’s rise as a symptom as much as a cause – “Suddenly things everywhere are staining Nazi brown,” he writes – and he sees a different avenue for political success in the face of the far-right surge.

“I don’t believe Germany will win the fight against the New Right without the votes of (im)migrant, postmigrant, Jewish and Muslim citizens,” he writes. “And this critical – if perhaps unfamiliar – new alliance requires strong narratives, the willingness to accept self-criticism from all sides, and a political vision for a society beyond the current integration paradigm.”

Czollek has a doctorate from the Centre for Antisemitism Research at the Technical University of Berlin, has published books of poetry, and is a co-editor of Jalta, a journal of contemporary Jewish culture. He has been involved in political and multicultural theatre in Berlin for many years but with this, his first nonfiction book (translated into English by Jon Cho-Polizzi), he burst on the scene as a contentious public intellectual. The opposition to his work evoked not just political challenges but also public efforts to discredit him based on his identity as a patrilineal Jew.

Czollek’s presentation, in conversation with Markus Hallensleben, associate professor in the department of Central, Eastern and Northern European studies at the University of British Columbia, was opened by book festival director Dana Camil Hewitt. The main festival runs Feb. 11-16.

Get involved in election

Canadian elections do not generally pivot on issues of foreign affairs. Yet, the split screen image Sunday of Justin Trudeau calling a federal election juxtaposed with images of the Taliban seizing control of Afghanistan was a stark one. Canada left Afghanistan in 2014, having joined an international coalition after 9/11 to attempt to bring the terrorists who found free rein in that country to heel.

The remaining American forces were slated to leave this month, with U.S. military officials candidly acknowledging that their departure would almost certainly result in a Taliban revival. They were wrong only about the timing. Estimates were that it might take the fundamentalist Islamist sect weeks to take back the country. It took mere days.

The implications for Afghan citizens are bleak. Desperate Afghans were hopelessly clinging to U.S. military aircraft taxiing on the runway at Kabul airport. Afghan women will, based on prior experience under the Taliban, become some of the most oppressed in the world. There are also expectations of violent retaliation against anyone and everyone who, in the past two decades, “collaborated” with Western forces. The possible scenarios for Afghan people are horrible to envision.

And the implications go beyond the borders of that country. Optimists, such as they may be on this subject, say that the 20-year Western engagement in Afghanistan has not been for naught. The United States captured Osama Bin Laden and has not experienced another 9/11-type terror attack in that period, though whether Americans are actually safer, with other forms of domestic extremism and violence on the rise, is another question. Regardless, in a region with so much instability and contending factions, the Afghan situation further disrupts an already deeply troubled part of the world.

We may not immediately see the consequences of what is happening halfway around the world, but already domestic politics are being affected by the developments. Canadian military planes are rescuing interpreters and others who assisted our forces when they were in Afghanistan. There are calls for Canada and other Western places of refuge to accept more refugees from what seems destined to become a theocratic dystopia. But we cannot, apparently, save the entirety of the Afghan people and their country from the grips of their oppressors. Western powers held the Taliban at bay for 20 years but understandable domestic pressures to put a halt to “endless wars” inevitably brought us to this point.

This week’s election call comes amid a conflagration much closer to home as well. British Columbia is seeing wildfires and weather events unlike anything we have witnessed before. The hypothetical impacts of the climate emergency have gotten very, very real for Canadians with any sense of cause and effect. Appropriately, opinion polls suggest that Canadians view climate and the environment as a top – if not the top – issue as they ponder for whom to cast their ballots.

One problem with democracy is that those who seek public approval are disinclined to tell voters things they do not want to hear. Canadians (and other earthlings) need to understand that this crisis demands that our leaders impose potentially painful policies that will impact our emissions-producing lifestyles. We say we need to address the climate emergency, but will we be so enthusiastic when it impacts our own pocketbooks and comfortable routines?

One might imagine that scenes of the province on fire might make voters look seriously, finally, at a political party with the climate as its No. 1 priority. But the Green Party of Canada has been in turmoil since the Israel-Hamas conflict last spring. Annamie Paul, the Jewish, Black leader of the party, has been fighting an internal battle against insurgents in her own ranks. We hope that her voice will be heard and that all parties will take this existential issue with utmost seriousness.

The continuing pandemic will play a role in this campaign as well – both as Canadians assess the achievements of our government during the crisis and, more immediately, in the way candidates and campaigns pursue votes while adhering to safety protocols. The parties should be judged on what kind of COVID recovery plan they propose, and how they intend to follow through on supporting the most vulnerable Canadians through this health, economic and social crisis.

Whatever issues are important to you, this is the time to make your voice heard. Consider reaching out to your local candidates. Discuss your concerns with them. Volunteer for or contribute to their campaign if you like what you hear – consider connecting through the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs distils information about various party platforms and policies. Our country and our world face urgent issues. An informed, active electorate is the key to ensuring that our elected officials reflect the concerns that matter most to us.

Klein speaks on climate crisis

Seth Klein brings his book A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency to the Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 22. (photo by Erica Johnson)

At this year’s virtual Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, which runs Feb. 20-25, Seth Klein is among the many writers featured. He will talk about his new book, A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency, which came out last September.

Klein was the founding director of the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), a position he held from 1996 to 2018, and was also a founder of the B.C. Poverty Reduction Coalition. He is a board member with the nonprofit Dogwood and an advisory board member for the Columbia Institute’s Centre for Civic Governance. He is a founder, advisor and instructor for Next Up, a leadership program for young people committed to social and environmental justice, as well. He spoke with the Independent in advance of his Feb. 22 book festival presentation.

JI: How did you come to write this book?

SK: When you spend 22 years at the CCPA, you’re forever in this place of what you think should happen versus what our governments are prepared to consider, but never more so than in the case of the climate emergency, where we all live in this harrowing space. I wanted to write a book that would tackle that, that would convince particularly our political leaders, specifically those who say they get it, to be more daring than they have been to date in tackling the emergency.

Originally, the book was to have a single chapter on the Second World War, as an example of rapid economic transformation, but the more I delved into that story, the more I saw parallels between the war and the current crisis – not just on the economic front, but well beyond that. I saw parallels in terms of the role of civil society, the mobilization of the populace, the role of Indigenous people and the need to take care of those who make sacrifices; for example, those working in the fossil fuel industry, who need a just transition, modeled after the care for returning soldiers. I also saw cautionary tales around the squashing of civil rights, the things we don’t want to repeat. To speak to a parallel to which the Jewish community has the most connection: the response to refugees.

JI: Can you say a little more about that last point?

SK: Despite Canada rallying to fight the good fight in Europe, we slammed the door on Jewish refugees before, during and after the war. Years ago, I heard Cindy Blackstock, the amazing Indigenous child welfare advocate, give a very simple definition of reconciliation: reconciliation means not having to say “sorry” twice – you learn from what you did. Canada’s behaviour towards the Jewish community during the Second World War was shameful. I believe that the issue of global climate refugees is going to be one of the defining issues of the next 50 to 100 years. We’re going to have to decide who we want to be this time.

JI: You write that the Mackenzie King government resisted entering the Second World War until the last moment and, even after joining, was slow to ramp up efforts to what was needed. You note that the first nine months of the war are called by historians “the phony war,” and write that we seem to be in the “phony war” stage in our fight against the climate crisis. Can you elaborate on that?

SK: The comparison is really strong. The “phony war” is the period between when they declared war and when things got real. At the beginning of the war, the threat was not clear and present to most Canadians. The fall of France was the moment that the popular zeitgeist shifted. Today, we have the Trudeau government passing a bill acknowledging the climate emergency one day, in the summer of 2019, and then, the next day, re-approving the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. That is what I call “the new climate denialism.” It manifests in all these governments who say they get it but don’t act like they actually do. In our province, it manifests most clearly in having the most robust climate plan in the country, which we do, and, at the same time, doubling down on fracking and LNG – and you can’t make the math work. That’s the phony war.

JI: What are the assumptions that block government progress on climate action?

SK: The measures that have been adopted so far are largely grounded in what are called “neoliberal” assumptions, which state that society should self-organize according to individual economic interests – the “free hand of the market,” as opposed to the idea that government should function to ensure what is in the best interests of all, so change is left to be voluntary. That’s not working now, and it wouldn’t have worked during the war. When something is an emergency, you don’t make it voluntary.

JI: There is an incredible parallel to COVID-19.

SK: Yes! How do you know when a government knows it’s in emergency mode? These are the four markers: 1) You spend what it takes to win; 2) You create new economic institutions to get the job done, like C.D. Howe, the Liberal cabinet minister [in King’s government] who created 28 new crown corporations to get the job done; 3) You move from voluntary, incentive-based measures to mandatory ones as needed; 4) You tell the truth about the nature and the extent of the crisis and what you have to do.

We did all four of those things in the war. In COVID, we can quibble about the extent that our government has done all four of those things, but I would argue that they have. We’re spending – though it still doesn’t hold a candle to what we did in the war, by the way, but we’re spending. We shifted to mandatory – we locked down the whole economy for some time. We’ve created audacious new programs like CERB that, 10 months ago, none of us would have imagined. Is it too slow sometimes? Yes, but they’ve shifted the mindset. And we have briefings every day, which tell us the truth about the severity of what’s happening. Yet, when it comes to the climate emergency, none of our provincial or federal governments hits any of those markers.

JI: You also describe some cautionary lessons from our wartime experience. Can you elaborate on those?

SK: Aside from the response to refugees, there were all kinds of shameful things, such as War Measures Act stuff, like interning political activists and making political parties illegal, and, most shamefully, the wholesale internment of Japanese-Canadians. There was also the poisoning of Indigenous lands by the very crown corporations whose formation I was so impressed by. These are all examples of state over-reach. The point in recalling these things is to go eyes wide open into the next emergency. To some extent, we have, in fact, already learned as a society – [Brian] Mulroney replaced the War Measures Act with the Emergencies Act, which has safeguards against those types of things. We need the leaders of today to be as bold and innovative as the leaders we had then – and we also need them to be different.

JI: What was the scale of the economic transformation during the war, and how did they pull that off? What are a couple of highest priority steps in your “battle plan”?

SK: The same four steps I’ve already outlined: spend what you have to spend to win, create new economic institutions, move from voluntary to mandatory as required, and rally the public by telling the truth. During the war, they increased government spending tenfold. When C.D. Howe was pressed about the amount of money being spent, he simply said, “If we lose the war, nothing matters.” He carefully controlled all of the supply chains to prioritize the war, including recruiting private businessman, big names like H.R. Macmillan, J.W. Woodward, who abandoned their private interests and served for years as “dollar-a-year men” to serve as controllers and head up these crown corporations because, in an emergency, you don’t leave the allocation of scarce resources to the market – you prioritize what has to be done.

Remember, from 1942 to 1945, the sale of private automobiles in the U.S. of A., the heart of car culture, was illegal. That didn’t happen due to the goodwill of the automakers. They were told. They were busy making stuff for the war effort, making money, but they didn’t decide what to make. We need to approach the climate emergency like C.D. Howe approached the war. We need to conduct an inventory. How many electric buses do we need, how many heat pumps, how many solar arrays, how many wind farms? And, if there is a gap – and there is – we need to decide how we’re going to fill it. Through contracts with the private sector? OK. And, if that’s not enough, we create a new generation of crown corporations to expedite what needs to happen.

JI: Do you think we can rise to the climate emergency in time?

SK: I am trying, in the book, to walk a line. I think, too often, for years, climate communication has been polarized between Pollyannas and pessimists. The leaders we most remember from the Second World War walked a careful line between telling the truth about the severity of the crisis and still imparting hope. Can we do this in time? We don’t know. The reminder I offer to readers is that Canada had a population of 11 million people in the Second World War and over one million Canadians enlisted. You know what they didn’t know? Whether they could win. We know how the story ended, but they didn’t [when they volunteered]. They did what they had to do anyway, and that’s what we have to do.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He has been published in Philosophy Now, Tricycle, the Forward and elsewhere. He blogs on Medium and is master teacher at Or Shalom Synagogue in Vancouver.

NDP proud of their record

Selina Robinson (photo from Selina Robinson)

Premier John Horgan sent Selina Robinson a message: “A mensch is a good thing, right?”

Robinson, the NDP government’s minister of municipal affairs and housing, is seeking reelection in the riding of Coquitlam-Maillardville. She sees herself as the Jewish maven around the cabinet table.

“I said yes, who called you a mensch?” Robinson recalled. “He just wanted to double-check.”

As she and other New Democrats campaign toward the Oct. 24 provincial election, Robinson and fellow cabinet member George Heyman spoke with the Jewish Independent. (In this issue, we also speak with Jewish candidates and spokespeople for other parties.)

As minister of housing, Robinson takes pride in the development of a major initiative called Homes for B.C.: A 30-Point Plan for Housing Affordability in British Columbia. Her ministry engaged with housing groups, renters, developers, economists, local government officials, planners and other thinkers. Then they convened people in a “World Café,” an engagement exercise in which people from different perspectives sit at a table and must come to agreed-upon recommendations on a topic.

“It was from that that we picked the best ideas and so it really came from all sides of the housing sector rather than pitting them against each other,” she said, acknowledging that she had to convince some to buy into the process because bureaucracy is not always amenable to novel approaches.

She cited two particular areas that she wants to “kvell about.” BC Housing, the agency that develops, manages and administers a range of subsidized housing in the province, is building housing on First Nations land.

“The feds, I don’t think, are building a lot of Indigenous housing and they’re supposed to,” she said. “No other province has stepped up to do that.… You’re a British Columbian and you need housing … if it’s land on reserve, it’s land on reserve – we’ll build housing.”

By providing housing in First Nations communities, it also helps people remain at home, rather than moving to the city, where housing is even more expensive and possibly precarious, she said.

“I’m very proud of that,” Robinson said.

The other point of pride is, Robinson admitted, “a geeky piece of legislation.” When she stepped into the role as the government’s lead on housing availability and affordability, she recognized that there is no data on what kind of housing exists and what’s needed.

“Local governments are responsible for land-use planning and deciding what kind of housing goes where – this is going to be multifamily, this is going to be single-family – but, if you were to ask them, how much do you have, how much more multifamily do you need, they couldn’t tell you, because nobody was collecting the data.”

She brought forward legislation that mandated local governments to do a housing needs assessment every five years to identify whether more housing options are needed for different age groups and types of families.

She also cited the government’s development of social housing, through the allocation of $7 billion over 10 years to build 39,000 units. So far, 25,000 units are either open, in construction or going through the municipal development process.

“My biggest worry is that the Liberals [if they are elected] will cancel all of those that are still in the development stage because they did that in 2001 when they formed government,” she said. “We’re so far behind the eight ball because they did that. I’m not saying it would have fixed everything, but, if there were another 5,000 units of housing out there, it wouldn’t be as bad as it is because there would be another 5,000 units.”

Every Friday, Robinson lights Shabbat candles and then shares a reflection on social media about her week.

“Lighting the Shabbat candles just grounds me in my identity,” she said. “I make myself take 10 minutes on a Friday at sundown to stop and to clear my head and to remind myself why I do the work. It’s not for the pay. It’s not for any of that; it’s not worth it. It’s who I am, what are my values and what’s important to me? What did I hear this week that reminds me of why this work is important?”

Robinson admitted she’s being partisan in saying that she believes NDP values are Jewish values.

“From my perspective, taking care of the world – whether it’s the environment, the people and all that’s within it – is our collective responsibility,” she said, adding with a laugh: “I think all Jews are New Democrats who just don’t know it yet.”

* * *

George Heyman, minister of environment and climate change strategy, is seeking reelection in the riding of Vancouver-Fairview. He is a son of Holocaust refugees, who escaped the Nazis with the help of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who illegally issued visas to about 6,000 Jews, many of whose descendants now live in Vancouver.

photo - George Heyman — George Heyman *(photo from George Heyman)*

In 2019, Heyman took a family trip to Poland, which broadened his awareness of his family’s history and where he met family members he never knew he had. The Independent will run that story in an upcoming issue.

Speaking of his record in government, Heyman expressed pride in bringing in CleanBC, which he calls “a very detailed, independently modeled set of measures to get us to our 2030 target and beyond.”

He also said the government “completely revamped the province’s Environmental Assessment Act, incorporating the principles of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

Collaborating with the First Nations Leadership Council, the government adapted the legislation to bring in affected local communities at the beginning of a project, before a proponent spends millions of dollars then has to go back to the drawing board due to local concerns.

“We’ve been investing in clean technology, we’ve approved transit plans that were stalled for years that the mayors of Metro Vancouver thought were critically important,” Heyman added. “We’re going to see the Broadway [SkyTrain] line commence to relieve the tremendous congestion on the Broadway corridor, both on buses and on the roads. And we’ll be working on ultimately being able to work with UBC and the city and the federal government to extend that to UBC.”

The government, he said, updated the Residential Tenancy Act to address tenants who were being threatened with eviction for suspect renovations and that saw people getting notices of rent increases as high as 40% because of loopholes in the act.

“We closed those loopholes, we held rent increases to the cost of living unless there is a legitimate demonstrated need to do renovation and repair and it’s fair to receive some compensation rent to pay for that,” he said.

Like Robinson, Heyman cited the construction of affordable housing, as well as supportive housing, to get homeless people off the street and provide them with services they need. He said the government has created 20,000 childcare spaces in the province “with significant fee reductions for families as we work our way toward a $10-a-day program.” Increased staffing in schools, mandated by a Supreme Court decision during the previous regime, is also an accomplishment, he said, as well as adding more investments in new schools for seismic upgrades, fire safety and heating and ventilation systems.

On the opioid crisis, Heyman acknowledged a surge in deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. “While there is much more to do, we managed to flatten the level of deaths up until COVID hit,” he said.

Also parallel to the pandemic was a realization of “the terrible state of many of our long-term-care homes.”

“We saw that deteriorate under the previous government,” he said. “With COVID, we saw the results of that. We saw people dying because workers were having to go to two or three different care homes, increasing the risk of infection, simply to cobble together a living. We took measures to allow our healthcare workers to work in one institution without suffering the loss of pay and we’re also investing in more beds and more equipment for long-term-care homes.”

New Democrats have been governing in a minority situation with the support of the Green party since 2017. Horgan called the snap election on Sept. 21, facing criticism for breaking fixed election date legislation and going to the polls during a state of emergency.

Segal helms Liberal message

Rachael Segal is media spokesperson for the BC Liberals. (photo from BC Liberals)

Facing a campaign unlike any other, with shaking hands and kissing babies prohibited by social distancing protocols, all parties needed to reimagine how they would reach voters. Rachael Segal, media spokesperson for the BC Liberals, had to figure out how to get her party’s message to British Columbians.

“We can’t have a media bus, so, as the person responsible for media relations, how I connect with media now is very different than how I would do it in a normal campaign,” she said. “I’d be on the bus, I’d be with the leader.”

Instead, the leader is often driving himself to the modest-sized events that typify the 2020 campaign. Instead of facing a phalanx of TV cameras and radio mics, party leader

Andrew Wilkinson speaks to a pooled camera, with his message then shared among the media consortium. It’s an experience all parties are dealing with. But the leaders, as well as candidates in 87 ridings across the province, still have to communicate their positions.

“Obviously, Andrew still needs to get out there and get his message out there,” said Segal. “We’re making announcements daily, just like we would on a campaign normally, they’re just different.”

Wilkinson, a medical doctor as well as a lawyer, is particularly sensitive to the health risks and safety of his team, Segal said.

Segal, who grew up in Kerrisdale, is the official campaign spokesperson for the party during the election and is second-in-command at party headquarters when in non-campaign mode. As senior director of the party, her role is a loosely defined collection of responsibilities that she describes as “basically whatever hole is there, I try and fix it.”

One of her primary responsibilities is stakeholder relations, which means meeting with particular community groups and connecting them with the leader and other members of the legislature.

“Andrew and I have done Shabbat dinners, we’ve done Rosh Hashanah meals, we’ve done tons of Jewish community events,” Segal said by way of example. She also hosts the party’s podcast and started a young professional women’s group “to try to engage the 30-to-50-year-old women demographic, which is the largest swing demographic in British Columbia.”

Segal came to the role in April 2019. She already had a long resumé in education, politics and media.

She attended Vancouver Talmud Torah elementary and Magee high school and received her undergraduate degree at the University of Victoria, where she was the first president of the Jewish student organization when Hillel House opened there. She served as national president of the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students before graduating from UVic in 2005. She then went to the University of Leicester, in the United Kingdom, for a law degree, followed by a master of laws from Osgoode Hall, in Toronto.

She worked on Parliament Hill for Conservative MPs David Sweet and Scott Reid, as well as Senator Linda Frum, and was a senior policy advisor overseeing corrections and the parole board for then-minister of public safety Steven Blaney.

While studying in Toronto, Segal worked full time as an on-air legal and policy correspondent for Sun News, until that network shut down. She worked in criminal law and then civil litigation for a time but found it not her speed and returned to media, joining Toronto’s Bell Media radio station News Talk 1010. She returned to Vancouver in 2018 and covered as maternity leave replacement for the B.C. regional director of the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee. She joined the BC Liberal party staff three days after that position ended.

“This election is really about who British Columbians can trust to lead them through economic recovery,” said Segal. “When we think about the ballot question, that’s really what British Columbians are voting on. Who do they trust to lead them through the next stage of this pandemic from an economic perspective? We have an incredible team who are all very experienced. We have former ministers, we have doctors, we have lawyers, we have just a really diverse and interesting team of very smart people.”

Given significant turnover – seven cabinet ministers have opted not to seek reelection – Segal questioned who would be on the frontbenches of a reelected NDP government.

“The question is, what does an NDP cabinet look like in the next government and do they have the bench strength to be the best party to lead this province economically?” she said.

Segal takes seriously her position as one of the few Jewish individuals on the campaign team.

“It’s a real privilege to be able to represent the community within this political sphere and it’s something I take very not lightly,” she said.

Of her job on the campaign and her slightly less hectic role the rest of the time, she added: “My job is pretty different, wild, fun. Every day is a new adventure. It’s pretty great. And we have such an incredible team, so they make it all even better.”

Managing our potable water

Seth Siegel’s latest book is Troubled Water: What’s Wrong with What We Drink. (photo from Seth Siegel)

With approximately seven percent of the world’s renewable water resources within Canada’s borders, it would seem that we should have little to worry about when it comes to agriculture and potable needs. But our drinking water is at risk, said Seth Siegel, author of Troubled Water: What’s Wrong with What We Drink.

Siegel has spent the last half-decade studying the quality of drinking water. While his book focuses specifically on U.S. water sources, he said water quality is also a concern for Canadians and he worries that neither country is really prepared to address the threat of contaminants from our technological age: plastics, undetected chemicals and aging, inadequate infrastructure.

All of the issues that Siegel examines in his book regarding U.S. drinking water have been raised in recent years in Canada-based research. In many ways, Siegel’s exposé on the environmental impacts of toxic substances, chemicals and medication in the United States is a mirror into our own environmental dilemmas, as Canada is home to many of the same industries and technological challenges. It’s also home to its own significant problems with water purification in rural indigenous communities.

Lead in drinking water

The Flint, Mich., lead water crisis of 2014 may have faded from newspaper headlines, but researchers are still warning about the levels of lead in American and Canadian drinking water. While we are exposed to lead daily in minuscule amounts from the environment, both countries’ federal governments publish guidelines to stringently limit exposure – because lead is a neurotoxin. In Canada, old (pre-1970s or so) water pipes or solder were made with lead, while more recently made pipes do not contain the substance.

In March 2019, Health Canada tightened the guidelines for lead in potable water from a maximum of .01 micrograms (mcg) per litre to .0005 mcg/litre. The decision coincided with a yearlong investigation by Canadian journalists to determine how prevalent lead was in tap water. Some 300 homes in 11 cities were tested and, as expected, newer homes connected with updated water systems had acceptable readings but neighbourhoods with lead service lines or antiquated interior pipes had excessive lead in tap water. One older home in Whistler produced readings more than 12 times the maximum limit, and some 20 communities in Montreal were found to still have lead service lines.

What often makes things worse, Siegel told the Independent, is that updating service lines and interior water lines aren’t inexpensive undertakings and homeowners, who may not have the expertise to weigh the urgency of those changes, often have to bear the cost of upgrades.

Microplastics and more

Lead isn’t the only health risk homeowners face. Microplastic contamination, which has been traced, in part, to the use of plastic bottles, is a growing concern in Canada, home to a robust bottled water industry. Researchers at McGill University, the University of Toronto and several institutions in the United States are currently undertaking studies to determine the prevalence and effect of microplastics in the environment, including on local marine life.

While the World Health Organization states there isn’t enough evidence to confirm that ingesting microplastics is harmful to humans, Siegel and other researchers disagree. As he details in his book, there is now compelling research to suggest microplastics can actually “disrupt the human body’s hormone-related activity,” especially in children.

Becoming advocates

Still, Siegel cautions that his book isn’t an appeal to simply throw out the technology we use. “None of this is a call to ban plastic,” he said, noting that, “just more than 100 years since its first commercial use, plastic is the dominant material of our times. If one wanted to do so, it would be nearly impossible to go even a day without contact with it in some form.”

The answer, he said, is advocacy: educating ourselves and taking proactive approaches that steer both companies we invest in and the experts that oversee their products’ safety, so that materials are exhaustively tested and verified as safe for dependent, long-term use.

“Because your health and the health of your family rely upon your drinking water being of good quality, it’s important for you to get this right,” said Siegel, who said he hopes the data he has provided will help inspire a “citizen’s movement” to change the way drinking water is tested, approved and protected in the United States and elsewhere.

Troubled Water is Siegel’s second book on drinking water management. His New York Times bestseller, Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water Starved World, published in 2015, delved deeply into Israel’s national water management system and the mechanisms that have made the country a sought-after resource on drought management in an era of climate change.

A graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a successful entrepreneur and expert in patent law, Siegel said the book’s concept has been licensed in his name, but he is not charging royalties for its use. He said he wants to encourage other countries to use it as a template to inspire environmental change in their communities.

“[Every] country in the world is dealing with the same contaminants,” said Siegel. “They may have a different regulatory regime. Obviously, not everybody has the U.S. [Environmental Protection Agency] … but, whatever the local problems are, they are more similar than different.”

Both of Siegel’s books, as well as other resources, are available through his website, sethmsiegel.com.

Jan Lee’s articles and blog posts have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, Times of Israel, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.

On access to palliative care

The way a society treats its most vulnerable speaks volumes about its principles. There are few more vulnerable than those reaching the end of life. The physical, emotional, interpersonal and spiritual challenges confronted at life’s end are immense. Just as we expect our healthcare system to be there for us throughout our lives, so too must it support each of us – and our families – as we enter life’s final chapter.

Palliative care is a policy issue that has the potential to touch every family across the country. According to the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, only 15% to 30% of patients approaching the end of life have access to palliative care. With Canada’s population continuing to age, existing shortfalls in the system will only grow in the coming years.

While the federal government has taken the vital step of announcing additional federal funds for home care and palliative care, more can be done to ensure that no patient seeking palliative care is denied. This is why the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) has taken a lead role in mobilizing an interfaith coalition to urge Ottawa to take action on this issue.

Working with Catholic, Evangelical and Muslim allies, CIJA’s efforts achieved a key milestone in late 2017, when Parliament passed Bill C-277. This bill, which received strong support from MPs across party lines, called for the establishment of a national palliative care strategy. Our next step is to ensure that the national strategy that flows from Bill C-277 strengthens end-of-life care for all Canadians.

For this reason, in partnership with others, CIJA is organizing an expert working group to provide us with advice regarding Canada’s national palliative care strategy. An essential portion of these suggestions will be based on the patient and family experience, which is why I invite every reader to consider whether they have personal insights they can share with us.

Can you attest to the importance of high-quality palliative care, perhaps having had a loved one who received excellent end-of-life care? Or, do you have a family member who, despite seeking it, was unable to access appropriate hospice or palliative care? We want to hear your stories – and government policymakers need to hear how these policies affect real lives. Email [email protected] to share your experiences with palliative care.

It is an extraordinary act of chesed to care for a person in their final days of life. Our healthcare system, in which Canadians rightly take pride as evidence of our nation’s innate sense of kindness, must do better to ensure that those who need palliative care are never denied this essential service.

Steve McDonald is director, policy and strategic communications, at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).