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The letter to the editor I sent to the Hill times was too long, so Kate Malloy (Editor) did her magic and published: We need to move ‘broadcasting’ and ‘copyright’ from Canadian Heritage, to Innovation, Science and Economic Development: McOrmond   The following is the unedited version with hyperlinks added. I've been active in related areas of policy since the 1990's, so have watched the damage caused by the Department of Canadian Heritage (created in 1993 and given royal assent in 1995). This is a department whose Minister was granted jurisdiction over "Canadian identity and values, cultural development, heritage and areas of natural or historical significance to the nation" (from 4(1) of An Act to establish the Department of Canadian Heritage). Department of Canadian Heritage Act (S.C. 1995, c. 11) The departmental mandate includes Official Colonial Languages. Given what I have finally learned since the start of 2020 about what the Governments of Canada continue to...

A cartoon at the top of a National Post article explains quite well what has gone wrong with the Green Party of Canada, but for the opposite reasons than the journalists are suggesting. I was an active campaigner for the Global Greens movement within Ontario and Canada in the 1990's, hosting websites, and doing pretty much everything short of putting my name on the ballot. I've lived in Ottawa since 1987, and felt it inappropriate to parachute elsewhere or put my name forward as a uni-lingual anglophone. Several of my bilingual friends have had their name on the ballot. In a culture that valued such things I might be considered a community elder and knowledge keeper of the movement from that period. Given we don't live in such a culture, I'm being told by Annamie Paul supporters that I'm just an "angry white man". If you look at the Global Greens Values , it includes Participatory Democracy. This means that the Green Party Leader is supposed to act exact...

Over the years I have read many articles discussing how people believe the province of Alberta has a cycle of abuse with Big Oil . Until recently I agreed with this sentiment, that Alberta is the victim of an abusive relationship with extractive industries such as Big Oil. Since my anti-racism training lead me to a different understanding of Canada, and a more unbiased understanding of its history, I now have a very different perspective. Canada was created unilaterally by the passage in the British Parliament of the British North America Act 1867 to effectively be a corporate subsidiary of Britain, to be part of the British Empire, and to provide cheap resources to the empire (affirmative action for Whites and all that). It was never created to be a democracy, or to think independently.  It retains pretty much all of the British systems which were unilaterally imposed on this homeland. The British Parliament passed many laws called the " British North America Act " between...

I sent in a brief to the committee for their study on March 25'th ( PDF ), but it was a bit too long so was asked to send in a more brief brief on April 12'th ( PDF , via OurCommons.ca ). I'm merging the footnotes from the earlier version for this blog. Introduction This is my ( My name is Russell McOrmond. Full contact information is at http://www.flora.ca/#contact ) first submission to parliament on this area of policy as I previously focused on technology law . I wish to offer myself as an example of a privileged white male who for most of my life was unaware of Canada's record on human rights. I believed what I was told, and now wants what I was told to match Canada's actions. European worldviews were embedded within the UN's conceptualisation of Human Rights as encoded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I do not believe UDHR was ever universal, and consider UNDRIP a critical step in that direction. I am aware of opposition to UNDRIP as adopted...

My self-directed anti-racism training brought me first to studying racism itself (a system, distinct from individual prejudices), to Indigenous studies, to worldviews, and then to religion. I have been struggling with my own relationship with religion since I left Christianity in my late teens.   The Abrahamic Origin Story In Trans-Indigeneity, and a loss or lack of Indigeneity I referenced where/who I was from, and that the Indigenous worldviews of my peoples were long ago replaced by Abrahamic worldviews. In Is religious freedom camouflaging ongoing colonialism and empire building   I discuss how Abrahamic religions all share core worldviews, even if the various splinter groups disagree on specific details. (Christianity split from Judaism, Protestants split from Catholicism, Islam split from Christianity/Judaism, etc). The book of Genesis writes down the Abrahamic origin story, and from this we can see the core Abrahamic worldviews.  Much of what people think of as we...

As part of NS 115 we were asked to read a paper titled " Oceania in the Plains: The Politics and Analytics of TransIndigenous Resurgence in Chuukese Voyaging of Dakota Lands, Waters, and Skies in Mini Sota Makhoche. ” by Vicente M. Diaz . This was another article that got me thinking not only about the concept of Trans-Indigeneity, which I had never thought to think about before, but also more about who I am and where people like me fit in the larger relational story. The article discussed two Indigenous peoples who have culture and ways of thinking that can be seen with their connection to canoes. Quoting from the article: In this article I want to tell a political and cultural story about the effort of one group of displaced Micronesians, from the island of Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia, to practice traditional outrigger canoe culture and traditional navigation using stars, waves, and clouds, and sea creatures, but in waters and lands—rivers, lakes, and skyways—of the n...

One of the articles assigned for NS 115 students this week is an essay by Jessica Kolopenuk titled Provoking Bad Biocitizenship . ( https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.1152 ) I do not have a background in biology or the medical sciences: that is the domain of my wife who teaches high-school biology to possible future doctors and scientists. I have spent decades involved in democratic reform, starting in the 1990's. I am inspired by the essay to think about how I might slide it into a domain that I am more actively engaged in. What is Democracy? Everyone thinks they know it when they see it, but lets copy a dictionary definition to have a common start. a : government by the people especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections Provocation 1: Canadian Confederation was not an example of a democracy Prior t...

I have written about UNDRIP and Uyghurs and China vs Hong Kong, Canada vs Haudenosaunee Confederacy ., and how I consider the narrow focus on China to be misplaced whether we are talking about Hong Kong or the Uyghurs. Michael Chong recently tabled a motion which he called "Religious Minorities in China" that I want to write about.  I first want to document some of the biases that caused me to initially form the opposite opinion to Michael Chong. Michael Chong's biases I have been following Michael Chong's political interventions since I met him in the context of his Conservative Party leadership campaign . I really liked what I heard so I re-joined the Conservative party (sorta - I had been a member of the Progressive Conservative party) and voted for him as #1 on my ballot. I have noticed a growing focus on China in his interventions in the house, growing to the point where he seems to talk about China more than he talks about Canada. While there are other sources,...