rwmtest

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...

I will be attending the online event to acclaim Leah Gazan as the Winnipeg Centre NDP candidate for the next federal election. Since I am yet again offering support for a member of parliament who is in the NDP caucus, I felt it worth discussing my current thoughts  on the NDP.   Who I've met... When I first became political in the 1990's I was partisan, and an active volunteer for the Green Party of Ontario and Canada. I had no interest in meeting or talking with politicians, because -- well -- they all needed to go because they were all bad (and none of them were Green, so that went without saying). I ended up meeting Hon. Mauril Bélanger because of a mutual friend, not because he was a politician. In 1997 when I moved to the Ottawa South, I wrote him a letter and we started to engage in conversations.  In 1998 I joined the federal Progressive Conservative party to vote for David Orchard. And thus began my transition from being focused on political parties to noticing ...

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,...

Last evening I watched An Evening with Desmond Cole , hosted by the Canadian Museum of History. I read "The Skin We're In", and watched different interviews. This one was particularly inspiring. This will partly be because Desmond Cole has been on a tour of this highly successful book, and with each presentation he will be getting interesting questions to think about himself. The questions given him by Adrian Harewood and some of the students watching were not easy ones. Adrian challenged Desmond with far more than a discussion of his book. The two most interesting answers for me were about Canada, and about the chapter on Canadian colonialism.   Do you love Canada?   Using a quote from James Baldwin, Adrian asked Desmond about whether he loved Canada. I don't have the quote handy, but this quote conveys the theme: “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” - James Baldwi...