Capitaine Canada

Hamburg, the place from which a popular dish, whose consumption, especially of the one that contains red meat linked to higher emission levels, takes its name, was the locale of yet another G20 summit. The G20 summit is turning out to be great photo op session for a number of the world’s narcissistic leaders, and this summit was not any different.

Narcissism and photo sessions are all fine, so long as the leaders that beam their dentures to the world are accomplishing something of value. This is what this G20 summit failed to achieve. Yet, for Canada, it was a lot more disappointing than it should have been, because the country that has been at the forefront of one of the most critical topics of the summit –climate change –the summit gave nothing in concrete terms.

Let us remind ourselves that at the first ever global conference on climate change –the1992 Rio conference –we promised a lot. In that respect, we were no different from many other nations. But where we were different is that we fulfilled most of the promises we made then. We followed it up at the Kyoto conference, the successor to the Rio conference.

Nine tenths of this entire country’s population now lives in provinces that have a carbon tax. Now, that is what you call commitment. In how many other nations, especially those that are part of the G20 group would you find this level of commitment? Many may dust their hands off saying that Canada is merely fulfilling the promises it made, while they did not make their own promises, after all.

This argument is specious and dubious, to say the least. So, the reasoning is, if you say you want to be a good person, be a good person and never commit a single sin, while on the other hand, we don’t make promises of being good, but will continue to remain bad.

In the previous blog, I talked about the need to create a hero that is specially going to make up for what most Canadians feel we lack as a nation –a superhero on the global stage. Why did I conjure this fantasy? Simple. When our powerful neighbour is nosey in world affairs and is going about to the corners of the world to establish its idea of a world order, should we be this complacent in comparison?

By no stretch of imagination am I suggesting that we become the bull in the china shop in the international arena. We could think of an imaginary character that will represent us for what we truly are: peaceful, prosperous and collaborative. It is keeping these in mind that we have created the ultimate Canadian fantasy superhero.

Welcome, Capitaine Canada! Well, this fellow is the objectification of what we think Canada can be internationally. After all, that is the essence of a fantasy, right? Our creation, Capitaine Canada will be someone who will roam the tormented regions of the world and offer solid solutions. He will be a guy who is tough to define.

Is he another Captain America? Is he another Mandrake? Well, as the old saying goes, comparisons can be odious. Keeping this in mind, we have created a character that is different from everybody else.

We all have our fantasies. Some say that only the mentally weak resort to fantasying to escape the reality of their shortcoming and that it is oxymoronic to fantasise about our own strengths. There may be some truth in it. But a fantasy can also be about fulfilling –in imagination of course –what we don’t possess or make happen in reality. Well, if there were reality in our imagination, why would be it be called so, and what would be the meaning of fantasying?

Can a people live out a collective fantasy? The Jewish diaspora had it and fulfilled it when they created Israel in 1948. Indian Muslims had it and broke away to form Pakistan the year before. What kind of such elephantine fantasy does a prosperous nation like ours need to have?

If there is one small deficiency –although this may be a harsher than necessary word –for us Canadians, it is that our presence in the international arena has not be commensurate with our strengths that have made us so strong internally. So, is becoming more forceful in global affairs a fantasy for us Canadians?

Is Canada punching below its weight in international affairs? Yes is the answer you are likely to get from most Canadians if you were to commission a survey on this topic. This is the common refrain from most of us Canadians. We have all been proud of our advancements in science and technology. We are among the most developed countries in the world. We have an enviable immigration policy that is aimed at helping aspiring people from across the globe overcome the limitations of circumstance they are placed against and come here and develop themselves and the nation.

We have a lot on offer. Opportunities to grow in a democratic environment where there is no interference from the government. A healthy economy. A sound Westminster model parliament that is in tune with that of the most liberal democracies. A hoary rule of law-centred judicial system which is above every individual. All these make for a dream place to emigrate to. All the people who come to Canada rejoice in its beauty and its system to get the best out of it and in turn give their best to it.

Yet, why is there such a dissonance between our domestic and foreign policies? Why have we been so laid-back in international affairs? Do we appear so when juxtaposed with our neighbour, the US? We and the US are stark opposites in this regard. Ours is a foreign policy that is muted in relation to the shrill noise the US makes wherever it feels it has the self-granted right to go.

What is preventing us from becoming more proactive globally? Is it our small population? While there are nine Americans for every Canadian; when did our low population become a handicap for our foreign policy? It is not population, but a new mindset that is needed. We have everything going for us. We are strong economically, technologically and militarily.

Hamburg, the place from which a popular dish, whose consumption, especially of the one that contains red meat linked to higher emission levels, takes its name, was the locale of yet another G20 summit. The G20 summit is turning out to be great photo op session for a number of the world’s narcissistic leaders, and this summit was not any different.

Narcissism and photo sessions are all fine, so long as the leaders that beam their dentures to the world are accomplishing something of value. This is what this G20 summit failed to achieve. Yet, for Canada, it was a lot more disappointing than it should have been, because the country that has been at the forefront of one of the most critical topics of the summit –climate change –the summit gave nothing in concrete terms.

Let us remind ourselves that at the first ever global conference on climate change –the1992 Rio conference –we promised a lot. In that respect, we were no different from many other nations. But where we were different is that we fulfilled most of the promises we made then. We followed it up at the Kyoto conference, the successor to the Rio conference.

Nine tenths of this entire country’s population now lives in provinces that have a carbon tax. Now, that is what you call commitment. In how many other nations, especially those that are part of the G20 group would you find this level of commitment? Many may dust their hands off saying that Canada is merely fulfilling the promises it made, while they did not make their own promises, after all.

This argument is specious and dubious, to say the least. So, the reasoning is, if you say you want to be a good person, be a good person and never commit a single sin, while on the other hand, we don’t make promises of being good, but will continue to remain bad.

The Conservatives are up in arms. Not literally, though. The Liberals are rejoicing the celebration of their triumph of Canadian magnanimity at awarding not just a sorry, but a booty that will exclude at least a couple of Omar Khadr’s subsequent generations from having to worry about a living. Omar Khadr, for those who don’t know still, is the Canadian Al Qaeda suspect who was taken to Guantanamo in Cuba and was said to have been tortured and forced into making a confession that he killed an American army medic, a father of two,  

So, where does that place Canada in the pantheon of liberal nations? We have prided ourselves about our liberalism by which we pick up all and sundry from their countries and give them asylum or the opportunity here for a better living. But this act of compensating Omar Khadr with not just an apology, but with a handsome $10 million begs many questions.

Like science, law too comes to conclusions based on the evidence it has at its disposal at that point of time. Till something comes along that negates and neutralises that belief, we continue happily thinking that no body of knowledge exists beyond what we have known till them. Here lies the rub. What if something that challenges the “latest” belief emerges, making the “latest” not the “latest”, but the “previous latest”? What if someone could prove down the years that Omar had indeed done what was attributed to him?

These are tricky questions of law, morality and nationhood. We have loved to show the world that we are very fast in apologising for something done by our ancestors in a different world, in a different set of circumstances, forgetting that that was normal in that day and time. It is a great thing to apologise and make amends, even though I am sure many would argue that no amount of money can compensate for psychological and emotional damage. For, accepting one’s fault and apologising requires rare moral courage and nobility.

The Americans have never apologised to the Cherokee Indians for the Trail of Tears. Muslim nations have not bothered to apologise for the destruction of thousands of Hindu and Buddhist temples in India by Muslim marauders in the previous centuries. Turks have been having a tough time arguing with the passionate Armenians about its role in the massacre of 1915.

Among the thousands of refugees we are using to taking in every year, there is a special segment, if you like: the “legacy” refugees. These are some 5000-odd refugees who have been in a state of limbo from about five years. Why the limbo? Because they came to our shores in 2012, just weeks before the then government passed a law making it mandatory to dispose of asylum cases within two months. Since it was incumbent upon the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) to comply with the law; it did what it was expected to: put the status of these refugees on hold, and taking up fresh cases for disposal. In the meantime, many who came after them have been having their papers cleared.

That left these refugees in a kind of no-man’s land, not literally of course, for they have been staying in Canada. But that is the catch: they are yet to be recognized officially as refugees. The irony of it all is that they became unwitting victims of the lenient policy of a country that was the reason for their arrival here in the first place. With many thousands more refugees getting legal sanction to stay back and lead their lives; these legacy refugees are people who have been stranded in every sense of the term. They can neither go back, nor can they take further steps for integration, being unable to take up the kind of living they came hoping for.

The IRB now says that legalizing the status of these refugees is not a priority. So, they are left with few options other than to carry out odd, insecure jobs or having the face the prospect of being jobless and uneducated.

STORIeD, or TEDC & F, should rate as one of the most powerful breakthroughs to the method of English dissemination, ever.  In every sense, STORIeD seeks to reinvent the wheel. We propose to create a medium that would give the spread of the English dictionary an impetus that is as momentous as it is innovative.

The creators of STORIeD have conceived and created a new form of propagation of the English language; the nub of which is making English available to large sections of the world’s population in a first-of-its-kind, altogether novel form, at a very affordable unit price.

The aim of this project is to make the dictionary of the world’s  fastest growing and  most powerful connecting language, English, more easily accessible to populations of the world in an altogether unique form. This project has the potential for extremely huge commercial success.

This medium is sure to revolutionize the whole idea of presenting the English dictionary in a form that has not been conceived by the human mind yet, on a scale that is stupendous. This is bound to make the spread of the language in existing and uncharted territory inestimably easier, absolutely hastening and accelerating greater access to the English Language and thus, expanding the Anglosphere in a dramatic fashion.  

The need for making English more popular than it is today can never be underestimated or understated in today’s globalized world of the Knowledge Economy, because as is universally known; teaching of no other language has this kind of demand or the prospect for expected growth[1].