Literary Review of Canada - September 2022

48 Pages·2022·35.5 MB·English

2 MARLO ALEXANDRA BURKS Back to School DAVID MARKS SHRIBMAN Inner Workings
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IAN SMILLIE Charity Case JOHN LORINC A Short Stretch on a Long Street
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e Literary Review of Canada
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A j o u r n A l o f i d e A S
“A warmhearted and unconventional
love story
that’s also an opportunity for a gentle encounter with
some of life’s fundamental questions ... A wise reminder
that the journey is really the point.”
—Shelf Awareness
“Lambert explodes stereotypes
and taboos. I’m
always partial to a writer who takes risks, who dares
to find beauty in the blemishes of our souls and our
desires.” —Heather O’Neill,
author of When We Lost Our Heads
Available at better bookstores everywhere
september 2022  volume 30  number 7
a journal oF ideas
First Word politicking around toWn
La moutarde me monte au nez The Ramble Here It Once Stood
Kyle Wyatt Memories from the PMO A pink hotel, a boutique,
3 J. L. Granatstein and a swinging hot spot
18 Amanda Perry
Furthermore
31
Party Girls
Heather Menzies, Wayne Francis,
Any given campaign Bright Yonge Things
David Murray, Emily Mernin, Jason Blake
Brooke Jeffrey Where east meets west
5
19 John Lorinc
the public square
33
complexities
As We Know It
The Tech of the Town
Uncertain Twilight
For charity’s an argument
You think you’re so smart
Our revels are now ended
Ian Smillie
Frances Bula
Gilbert Reid
7
36
21
Heroic and Imperfect Efforts
literature
Under the Hood
The battle to be heard
Vaclav Smil sets out to explain Slings and Arrows
Elaine Coburn
David Marks Shribman Two critics take aim
10
23 Keith Garebian
Miracle Grow
38
notebook
Quebec is doing just fine
Snow Globe
Graham Fraser Disrupted Rhythms
Lisa Moore’s latest
12
September has changed
Brad Dunne
in a nutshell Marlo Alexandra Burks
41
25
Mix and Match
This Unfolding Epoch
compelling people
Every movement reveals us
A novel by Jaspreet Singh
13 Elementary? André Forget
this and that Investigating a curious figure 42
Michael Taube
Moving Goalposts
Solitary Bird
27
Eugene Marten runs and shoots
He wrote this but as an essay
The Creator Bardia Sinaee
John Allemang
If only his walls could talk 43
15
Kelvin Browne
Quick, Clever, and Ready backstory
29
Who you gonna call? Ice Corps
Kelly S. Thompson
Joanna Kafarowski
16
44
poetry
Frances Boyle, p. 20 David Ly, p. 24 Michael Fraser, p. 30 Luke Hathaway, p. 34
our contributors
John Allemang is a thirty-year veteran Graham Fraser is the author of René Lévesque Gilbert Reid studied monetary economics at
of the Globe and Mail. and the Parti Québécois in Power. the London School of Economics. His dystopian
science fiction series is titled Adventures of V.
Kelvin Browne is the executive director Keith Garebian has just published
of the Gardiner Museum, in Toronto. Finger to Finger and In the Bowl of My Eye. David Marks Shribman won a Pulitzer Prize in
1995 for his coverage of American politics.
Frances Bula has covered urban issues and city J. L. Granatstein writes on
politics for the Vancouver Sun and Canadian Canadian political and military history. Bardia Sinaee is a poet in Ottawa.
Architect, among others.
Brooke Jeffrey authored Road to Redemption: Ian Smillie is the author of The Alms Bazaar
Marlo Alexandra Burks is the magazine’s The Liberal Party of Canada 2006–19. She and a co-author of The Charity of Nations:
new assistant editor. teaches political science at Concordia University. Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World.
Elaine Coburn directs the Centre for Feminist Joanna Kafarowski wrote Antarctic Pioneer: Michael Taube is a columnist for Troy Media.
Research at York University. The Trailblazing Life of Jackie Ronne.
Kelly S. Thompson has a new memoir,
Brad Dunne is a freelance writer and editor John Lorinc publishes widely on cities, Still, I Cannot Save You, due out in January.
in St. John’s. the environment, and business. ◆
André Forget recently published a novel, Amanda Perry teaches literature at Concordia On the cover: “Risks of Inflation,”
In the City of Pigs. University and Champlain College Saint-Lambert. by Sandi Falconer.
With thanks to our supporters
Made possible with
an Ontario government agency the support of
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario Ontario Creates
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— AYELET TSABARI, AUTHOR OF THE ART OF LEAVING
“These stories are rich
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First Word
La moutarde me monte au nez
I
n 1952, the very american-s ounding ingredient is harder and harder to source. (The
French brand Frank’s Mister Mustard war in Ukraine, another mustard- producing
took out an unassuming ad in the pages powerhouse, hasn’t helped matters.)
of The New Yorker. “Try It Free!” the Especially in Montreal, mustard is something
copy read. “Write name, address of your of a foundational food. “You are a grain of
grocer; your name, address. We will send you a mustard seed,” Barthélemy Vimont preached,
generous trial jar.” as Maisonneuve founded the city in May 1642,
Years later, Will Smith starred in the block- “that shall rise and grow till its branches over-
buster Men in Black, in which a giant alien cock- shadow the earth.” The Jesuit missionary was
roach threatens humanity. Late in the movie, alluding to a parable told in three books of
Smith’s character crushes a number of regular- the New Testament. “When it is grown, it is the
size roaches with his boot. Even when insects are greatest among herbs,” Jesus says of mustard
involved, American Humane has strong feelings seed in Matthew, “and becometh a tree, so
about such things, so the actor actually stomped that the birds of the air come and lodge in the
packets of mustard to mimic that familiar squish branches thereof.”
sound. “At the moment,” the movie director Jesus also likened the ancient spice to belief
Barry Sonnenfeld explained back then, “there’s itself. “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard
no mustard- defamation league.” seed,” he is quoted in the Gospel, “ye shall say
Sadly, the days of mail- order complimentary unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder
condiments are over, and in France something place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be
of a mustard- defamation league is forming. impossible unto you.” In this context, today’s
“Where’s Monsieur Mustardseed?” Bottom asks shortage seems especially poignant. It’s difficult
in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The answer in if not impossible to have faith or hope or
2022, increasingly, is nowhere. optimism at such a fraught time — defined as it
The average French citizen consumes nearly a is by a plague of gun violence and the erosion
kilogram of Dijon each year. “Many an unctuous of rights in the United States, by the devastating
sauce withers into insipidity without mustard,” fires in British Columbia and southern Europe,
the New York Times recently wrote, in an article by the record-b reaking temperatures in the
about an ongoing supply chain snafu that’s left United Kingdom, by a global economy in which
steak frites after steak frites wanting. The prob- more and more people are falling further and
lem is that the vast majority of France’s supply further behind.
of brown mustard seed comes from Canada, After her own fall, down the rabbit hole, Alice
and yields for the August 2021–July 2022 season is warned that, like flamingos, mustard can
are expected to be significantly down compared bite. The moral of that, the Duchess tells her, is
with last year’s, according to an Agriculture “Birds of a feather flock together.” The young
and Agri-Food Canada report. It may sound girl points out that mustard isn’t a bird at all:
as if 440 kilograms per hectare is a healthy “It’s a m ineral, I think.” To which the o bsequious
harvest — especially when weighing one of the Duchess quickly responds. “Of course it is;
world’s smallest seeds — but that’s about half there’s a large mustard- mine near here,” she
of what it was not long ago. And even though explains to Alice. “And the moral of that is —‘ The
yields are expected to increase twelve months more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.’ ”
from now, overall exports aren’t. It’s not just Dijon that we’re missing. Many
Alberta and, especially, Saskatchewan grow of us have a deep sense that there’s just a lot of
most of this country’s mustard, but the south- less at the moment: less nature and bio diversity,
ern prairie regions have lately suffered both less s tability and promise, less free thought and
drought and abnormally high temperatures. middle ground, less civility and nuance.
These “very unusual ‘production challenges,’ ” “Why then, the mustard without the beef,”
as the chair of the SaskMustard industry group Grumio offers Katharina in The Taming of the
has described them, have also affected y ellow Shrew. Indeed, the world truly is upside down
mustard seed, which is popular in places like and humanity truly is in trouble when things
Germany, Hungary, and Quebec, where com- are the other way around: plenty of beefs to be
panies are seeing an increased appetite for had, with little in the way of that wonderfully
pungent-t asting pastes even as their primary symbolic accompaniment.
Kyle Wyatt, Editor-in-Chief
september 2022 3
Literary Review of Canada
Massey College
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Editor-in-ChiEf
Kyle Wyatt
[email protected]
Managing Editor
Michael Strizic
assoCiatE Editor
Rose Hendrie
assistant Editor
Marlo Alexandra Burks
PoEtry Editor
Moira MacDougall
CoPy Editor
Barbara Czarnecki
Contributing Editors
Murray Campbell, Bryan Dickie,
Bronwyn Drainie, Graham Fraser,
Beth Haddon, Amanda Perry,
Alexander Sallas, Derek Ungless
PublishEr
Eithne McCredie
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Neena Gupta, Kelly Jenkins,
Joseph Kertes, Anna Porter, Richard Rooney,
John Stackhouse, David Staines,
Jaime Watt (Chair Emeritus)
CorPoratE sECrEtary
Vali Bennett
foundEd in 1991 by PatriCE dutil
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Furthermore
RE: A Sort of Equilibrium The drawing accompanying this piece claimed RE: Father’s Day
by Jeffrey Simpson (July/August) that the Dandurand home on Sherbrooke Street by Liz Howard (June)
West was “tony.” It was no more “tony” than it
jeFFrey simpson ends his elegant revieW oF was “micky” or “larry” or “percy.” It certainly liz hoWard’s poem “Father’s day” takes a
David R. Cameron’s The Daily Plebiscite by com- was located in a high-class Montreal neighbour- Hallmark holiday and runs, cuts into a real
plimenting the author for his remembrance of hood. That fact and the Dandurand achieve- world: a father unknown, time’s wind shaping
things past. And that’s my beef. From the con- ments and fortune gave it a high tone. It was the surface of a moment. The consequence of
tents of the review, at least, I get the impression thus “toney,” not “tony.” an action is undone and resurfaces in metaphor.
that the book stops time at 1867. That’s not good Mistakes such as this — along with sloppy This is a startling, beautiful poem that departs
enough — not even for historians of federalism. writing, incorrect grammar, and negligent proof- from the puerile meaning of its title almost
Unless they address the historical deficit that reading — are increasingly rampant, even in completely.
a Confederation focus perpetuates, they are “national” newspapers such as the Globe and
exacerbating the injustice this deficit represents. Mail and National Post. You can do better. Emily Mernin
I’m not a historian but a settler Canadian Windsor, Ontario
learning about both my colonial heritage and David Murray
my treaty heritage. From what I’ve learned so far, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario RE: Imaginary Futures
historians need to reconstitute Canada’s story by Kyle Wyatt (April)
based on treaty foundations: the sharing of land many thanks For your recent letter, david,
and responsibility to it. A sequel to Simpson’s and for reading the magazine. my april issue arrived just belatedly. i had
review might then begin with a revised version Our house style is largely guided by the been thinking of asking whether any acknow-
of that old “ chestnut” he opens with, about how Canadian Oxford Dictionary, which defines ledgement of Mavis Gallant’s birth 100 years ago
Canadians would title a book about elephants. “tony” as “stylish, fashionable, high-class (a tony would appear. I opened the magazine and saw
Just imagine The Elephant: A Federal, Provincial, neighbourhood).” Collins Canadian Dictionary, “Imaginary Futures.” A head-shakingly bizarre
or Treaty Responsibility? which we use less often, similarly defines “tony” coincidence.
as “stylish or distinctive; classy.”
Heather Menzies In the United States, where the colloquial Jason Blake
Gabriola, British Columbia term originated in the nineteenth century, Celje, Slovenia
Merriam-Webster defines “tony” as “marked by
RE: Patina an aristocratic or high-toned manner or style.” . . . when one’s book is considered seriously
by Jo-Ann Wallace (July/August) And while it does offer “less commonly toney”
as an accepted variant, neither the COD nor this insightFul, Well-Written, thoughtFul
kudos For this knockout personal essay by Collins acknowledges that spelling. piece, “Mixed Grill,” by Rose Hendrie, made me
Jo-Ann Wallace. Autobiography, social and Are we misunderstanding something? weepy and grateful.
cultural history, national history all effortlessly
told. Stays with you bittersweetly. The Caption Writers and Proofreaders @MrRazovsky
via Twitter
@JudithKalman thank you For your prompt reply. blame it on
via Twitter my age (eighty) and, thus, my long-ago English really quite moved by this amazing revieW oF
boarding school “education” that the Oxford The Invisible Siege in the Literary Review of
RE: Without Great Seriousness English Dictionary was the arbiter of all matters Canada. I feel . . . seen.
by Kyle Wyatt (July/August) related to spelling. Notwithstanding your
references to the COD and Collins, I stand by @dmwerb
redonda is a rock i have sailed past count- my admonition that “toney,” not “tony,” is via Twitter
less times. In fact, it is the backdrop of some of the correct adjectival extraction from the noun
my favourite beaches in Antigua and Barbuda, “tone”— just as Tony and Toni are the accepted this is a very good revieW oF my volcano.
where my family is from. diminutive extractions from the names Anthony Gotta get that can of woo-woo!
We usually go back a few times a year. I think and Antonio.
the next time we’re there and go boating, I will Is this our correspondence a phony Canadian @JEStintzi
ask my family to stop at Redonda, so I can, disagreement or a phoney English one? (Or, via Twitter
perhaps, self-proclaim myself a viscount and simply, a pedantic one?) Cordially and with wry
pop a bottle of champagne to make it official! humour (not “humor”) . . . great revieW oF spin doctors in the literary
Review of Canada. Take a read and then buy
Wayne Francis David Murray twenty-seven copies, please.
Brampton, Ontario
For What it’s Worth, the oxFord english @NoLore
RE: The Dandurands Dictionary also favours “tony” without the “e” as via Twitter
by Patrice Dutil (June) its preferred spelling, listing “toney” as but an
accepted variation. Write to [email protected] or tag our
i expected better From the caption Writers social media channels. We may edit comments and
and proofreaders at the Literary Review of Canada. The Caption Writers and Proofreaders feedback for length, clarity, and accuracy.
September 2022 55
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the public square
As We Know It
For charity’s an argument
Ian Smillie
What WE Lost: Inside the Attack thousands of them — to promote volunteerism model that was unlike those of many of its peers
on Canada’s Largest Children’s Charity and service learning about social issues, mental in the sector. Instead of appealing to donors to
Tawfiq S. Rangwala health, and Indigenous youth leadership. support programs that address just one or two
Optimum Publishing International To help popularize their efforts, the Kielburgers specific needs — providing water, for example, or
448 pages, hardcover, softcover, and ebook organized a jamboree in Toronto that brought schoolbooks — the charity evolved to embrace a
together thousands of participating high school holistic community-b ased approach.” Together
students in 2007. They called it WE Day, a com- or singly, the brothers wrote books — a dozen
I
n september 2021, craig and marc bination of celebratory r einforcement, motiva- of them — and they regularly contributed uplift-
Kielburger, the brothers who created tional speeches, and entertainment — part revival ing columns to newspapers across the coun-
a tiny NGO called Free the Children meeting, part rock concert. The format soon try. WE Charities were registered in the U.K.
and turned it into an international became a signature of the organization, and and in the U.S., where their revenues topped
network of charities, companies, and dozens of huge WE Days were held over the years $31  million (U.S.) in 2019.
foundations, announced that their $65- million across Canada, the United States, and the United A decade earlier, Craig and Marc had set up
centrepiece, WE Charity Canada, would fold. It Kingdom. These were star- studded, strobe-lit a separate structure, a “social enterprise” called
had taken twenty-fi ve years to build but only events where cheering teenagers heard speeches ME to WE, which would be a profit- making
seventy- nine days to bring it down, during company to create jobs in developing countries
which time there were hundreds of radio and through the sale of fair trade and artisanal prod-
television reports and, by Tawfiq S. Rangwala’s ucts. It also provided travel services for what
estimation, 129,000 references in the press. ME to WE described on its website as a “unique
WE’s alleged failings were legion: unbridled opportunity to volunteer on a WE Charity
Trudeau family cronyism resulting in a sole- international development project.” This, it
source $543- million government contract for explained, might take the form of “assisting with
WE Charity, an unfathomable tangle of non- local harvests, collecting water or even building
profit and for- profit entities, conflicts of interest, a school.” The for-p rofit’s second purpose was to
corruption, financial mismanagement, a hidden support WE Charity as a donor. In other words,
real estate empire worth tens of millions of the overall WE family would earn some of its
dollars, extensive donor fraud, even racism. As own income.
Rangwala writes, “Everything the organization On April 19, 2020, a month into the pan-
had ever done became fodder for scrutiny, and demic, WE Charity was approached by
eventually, suspicion and scorn.” Employment and Social Development Canada
Rangwala is not an objective bystander. He about a possible youth service program that
is a Canadian lawyer based in New York who would be part of the government’s COVID-19
served on the WE Charity board of directors response. The idea was that teenagers unable
for several years, stepping down in 2021 to put to find summer jobs could instead volunteer
together this account. He, like other i nsiders with non- profits and be paid a stipend under
and supporters, was stunned at the speed and a program called the Canada Student Service
the ugliness of what happened two years ago, Grant, or CSSG. Could WE Charity organize
and in What WE Lost, he makes a credible something like this?
witness for the defence. There is a gap in the With thousands of schools already involved
story, however: one that might be called What in WE’s service learning programs, the under-
WE Never Had. taking didn’t seem like a stretch, even when it
◆ ballooned to a target of 100,000 participants
in 1995, When he Was tWelve, craig kielburger Suddenly, it all fell apart. and a budget of half a billion dollars. WE would
y
m read an article about a young human rights act as a bridge, connecting young people with
a
l activist in Pakistan who had been murdered for from the likes of Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon, other non- profit groups across the country. Of
a

;
n his condemnation of child labour in the carpet Justin Trudeau, Prince Harry, Lewis Hamilton, the $543.5 million, just under $35 million, or
o
ti industry. Helped by his parents and his older Idris Elba, and Gord Downie. WE Days — free to 6.4 percent, would be allocated for administra-
c
e brother, Marc, Craig began travelling, raising students who earned tickets through their school tive costs. Because both the government and
l
l
o funds, and speaking out against child labour. volunteerism — were s upported by generous WE Charity wanted indemnification against
c

t With a new charitable organization, Free the donations from large corporate sponsors, among claims that might result from possible injuries
t
e
r Children, and with a book of the same name them RBC, Telus, CTV, and Virgin Atlantic. to students, it was decided that the agreement
e
v
e under his belt, he was soon being lionized There was nothing quite like it. No charity would be signed with a separate entity, the

;
8
2 by politicians, celebrities, and the media — touched as many Canadian youth as WE; none WE Charity Foundation. This body — created
9
1 including 60 Minutes and Oprah Winfrey. of the large established international develop- years earlier as a “potential future repository
.,
r
j Money f ollowed, and the organization grew. ment NGOs — World Vision, CARE, Oxfam, for the organization’s real estate assets” but
,
l
l By 2020, it was renamed WE Charity and work- Plan — could muster a crowd a tenth the size of never put to use — would allow for the kind of
i
b
t ing in nine countries throughout Asia, South a WE Day turnout. liability insurance both parties wanted and for a
a
o America, and Africa, with projects in Kenya as Rangwala describes WE Charity as “Canada’s complete separation of funds and accounts. The
b
m
a its flagship. It had major endeavours in Canada largest children’s charity.” Regarding its overseas agreement was signed on June 23.
e
t as well, partnering with schools — eventually work, he says it had devised “a development Then the trouble began.
s
September 2022 7
over the years, justin trudeau had appeared
on multiple WE Day stages, and WE Charity
paid for his wife, Sophie, to travel to eight of its
events. The prime minister’s mother, Margaret,
and his brother Alexandre were also paid speak-
ers on multiple occasions. So upon hearing of
the CSSG agreement, opposition parties cried
foul. Within a week, the ethics commissioner
had opened an investigation. The House of
Commons Standing Committee on Finance
and then the Standing Committee on Access to
Information, Privacy and Ethics also went into
high gear. There had been no tendering process.
Trudeau had not recused himself from the
cabinet decision, nor had the finance minister,
Bill Morneau, who, it turned out, had taken a
ME to WE trip to Ecuador with his family and
had never been billed for it. The optics were
terrible, and soon Morneau was gone from
government. The RCMP got involved.
In the parliamentary hearings, the Kielburger
brothers, Morneau, the prime minister, and five
dozen other witnesses were grilled over a ten-
month period. Long before any of that, however,
the government announced, on July 3, that WE
was out and that Ottawa would take over man-
agement of the CSSG. It never did: the program
was dead.
But the attacks on WE and the Kielburgers
were just getting started. The most strident came
from the Conservative member of Parliament
Pierre Poilievre, who hammered angrily away,
frequently demanding yes or no answers (“Did
you take notes on your phone call, yes or no,
for the fourth time?”) and often interrupting
with his own interpretation (“We’ll just assume
you’re hiding that”). He also expressed amaze-
ment that WE’s management costs for running
the CSSG would be covered by the agreement
(“You were going to pay the expenses to your-
self”). Poilievre was relentless, as was the NDP’s
Charlie Angus. While they directed their outrage
at the Kielburgers, their obvious target was Justin
Trudeau.
In dozens of interviews, Kate Bahen, the
founder of Charity Intelligence, a watchdog with
fleas of its own, said variously of WE Charity
that it didn’t understand Canadian charity law,
that it was broke, and that it actually had no
board of directors. Jesse Brown, of the news site
and podcast network Canadaland, posted ten
negative stories and two podcasts about WE in
July 2020 alone. The mainstream media fed off
such commentary, and the CBC’s Fifth Estate got
into the act, sending a team to Kenya to inves-
tigate charges of false advertising and “double
pledging.” The show ran two episodes about WE
in 2021. “Where did all that money go?” asked
the CBC reporter Mark Kelley.
Rangwala goes through these events in detail
and refutes most of the charges convincingly. It
isn’t all that difficult; there have been numerous
independent studies and inquiries, most of them
readily available online. The ethics commis-
sioner Mario Dion’s report, for example, found
that “the creation and eventual ratification of the
CSSG was not done improperly,” and, despite
the optics, he found no evidence of improper
behaviour in the awarding of the program by
either Morneau or Trudeau.
Using the WE Charity Foundation as
a vehicle for the CSSG — such a shocker for
opposition politicians and reporters — can be
easily explained, Rangwala maintains. And that
bogeyman for many commentators, ME to WE,