| Introducing Inroads | |
Introducing Inroads #10 | ||
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OUR 10th ANNIVERSARY ALREADY. INROADS, TO OUR SOMETIMES SURPRISE, HAS survived for a decade. But we’re not resting on our laurels. Continuing our effort to make inroads into the solitudes that divide Canadians, Inroads 10 presents several important articles that help map out the country’s faultlines, over Aboriginal grievances and policies to redress them, over Quebec language policies and modernizing Bill 101. But let’s start at the beginning. LAST NOVEMBER CANADA HELD AN election and very few came an alarming indicator of declining interest in politics, especially among the young, says Henry Milner in his introductory editorial. In his editorial, John Richards lays some practical Aboriginal policy options on the table. Then come Harvey Schachter's selections from the Inroads listserve in which contributors offer their sometimes conflicting, always lively, interpretations of the meaning of the federal election. IF PEOPLE AREN'T VOTING, IT MAY BE that they do not see a viable alternative to the party in power. Inroads 7 explored how Canada's electoral system is fragmenting us politically. Inroads 9 described the result, a virtual one-party system putting immense power into the hands of Prime Minister Chrétien. In this issue we address implications and possible remedies. With the Alliance and the Bloc estab-lished as regional parties, what possibility is there of a national alternative to the Lib-erals? This is the question posed in an ex-change among three persons who have good reason to be concerned with this state of affairs: Ontario Alliance MP Scott Reid; Norman Spector, former chief of staff to Brian Mulroney; and Guy Laforest, policy advisor to Quebec's third party, the Action démocratique. An external perspective is provided by Howard Cody, a seasoned American observer of Canadian politics. In the absence of needed reforms to the electoral system which can hardly be expected from the Liberals who richly profit from the status quo Reid and Spector discuss the possibility of the Alliance and Tories devising a formula to avoid competing in ridings where the result of their splitting the vote is a Liberal MP. Insight into the feasibility of strategic voting, in this case on the centreleft between Ontario Liberals and New Democrats in the 1999 provincial election, is provided by Brian Tanguay and Henry Jacek. THE 2000 CANADIAN ELECTION SHARED with the U.S. presidential campaign something rare in recent years: considerable public attention to the relation of religion to politics. In the United States, Joseph Lieberman's candidacy crystallized the issue. In Canada, Stockwell Day made his religious faith an important part of his political persona. Inroads invited three eminently qualified Canadians to ponder the dilemmas. Claude Ryan, whose distinguished career as a political leader and journalist has been inspired by his strong religious faith, analyzes the theological currents that most influenced him. Bob Chodos, who was editor of the Jesuit magazine Compass until its recent demise, applauds Day's and Lieberman's efforts to bring a religious dimension into the election, for example in not campaigning on their respective Sabbaths. He is less sympathetic to Day's seeming capacity to make his religion into science. The eminent theologian Gregory Baum looks especially at the implications for policies toward the Third World. We have much to learn, he argues, from the criticism by Third World religious representatives of Western secular philosophy, which treats religion as a private matter and excludes it from debates over public policy. THIS SECTION BEGINS WITH AN exchange between Alan Cairns and Tom Flanagan, two political scientists who last year published major books on Aboriginal policy. To understand this most complex of issues requires more than political science. JoAnn Episkenew uses several works by Aboriginal writers to illustrate how Aboriginal people have adopted the literary styles of their colonizers to tell their own stories and critique past public policy. Frances Abele sets the Canadian situation into a wider, international context. In assessing progress in redressing historical injustices suffered by indigenous peoples, she points to parallel developments in Australia, Denmark (Greenland), New Zealand and Norway. Frances Boylston draws our attention to eanna Christensen's life story of Ahtahkakoop, 19 th century chief of the Saskatchewan Cree band that bears his name. Faced with the disappearance of the buffalo, and the way of life built around it, he taught his people that education would be their new buffalo. Finally, a poignant reflection on a sensitive aspect of Native white relations is found in the personal testimonies in this issue's roundtable, moderated by Arthur Milner. The participants are four young people who were adopted by white families in Montreal, and who reflect bitterly, but not without empathy, on their experience. ONCE AGAIN, LANGUAGE POLICY figured prominently in Quebec political debate this year, in hearings before the Quebec government-appointed Estates General on the French Language. While many interventions — from the usual suspects on both sides were predictable, the hearings brought to light new and generally encouraging research findings about the linguistic integration of allophone immigrants in Montreal. Perhaps the most complete and balanced analysis was that of JeanFrançois Lisée, whose Sortie de secours was featured in the last issue. In a revised version prepared for Inroads, Lisée spells out educational and other policies he thinks necessary to secure the present linguistic equilibrium: predominance of the French language accompanied by a vital and secure anglophone minority Another important contribution to the commission's deliberations was by Christian Dufour. To introduce Inroads' readers to Dufour's ideas, John Richards translated the final section of his recent book, Lettre aux souverainistes québécois et aux federalists canadiens qui sont restés fidèles au Québec. In addition, this section contains four review articles. Alexander Craig reviews Martha Radice's study of contemporary anglo-Montrealers. Gary Caldwell admonishes Canadian and Quebec historians for ignoring an important book published 12 years ago. Richard L'Heureux reviews Yves Lavertu's book, the story of the journalist Jean-Charles Harvey, an undeservedly ignored hero of the anti-fascist movement in Quebec in the 1930s and 40s. John Richards discusses Eric Kierans's public life, as related in his just-published autobiography. WHEN NOT EDITING THIS JOURNAL, Arthur Milner writes, and writes about, plays. In this issue, he explores his growing disenchantment with the prevailing approach to theatre. Finally, we return to the theme raised at the outset, the contemporary challenge to democracy. Taking a fresh look at the effects of the new information technology, Norwegian political scientist Tommy Tranvik points out how people's views about the Internet reflect their ideas about society and democracy. Power to the Internauts!? John Richards in Vancouver, Arthur Milner in Ottawa, Henry Milner in Montreal |
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