Cabinet has written a federal ban on animal testing by the cosmetics industry into its omnibus budget bill to guarantee passage this spring. The measure was first endorsed by Laureen Harper and the Humane Society in 2015: “Our government recognizes Canadians are concerned.”
There was one green leaf left on the tree
and I just couldn’t understand
none of the others had survived
yet that one green leaf was still alive.
Then a bird came and stood right next to it
I was scared that it would pick it off or something
but it didn’t
that one green leaf was still alive
and I for some reason was happy
though I didn’t really know why.
That night I went to bed
and it rained and rained with powerful winds
I thought of that leaf wondering if it had yet given in
I went out the next morning
the sun glaring sharply in my eyes
and there it was to my faithful surprise
that one green leaf was still alive.
Days went by
I seemed to forget about that leaf
I was too caught up in my own grief
fearing my future
doubting my dreams
then one day when I walked by that tree
something hit me.
I was finally able to see
I looked up through the light
and there it was
that one green leaf was still alive
surrounded by others
the tree was now full of leaves because that
one green leaf
refused to die.
By Dahlia Kurtz
Not Fit To Stay acquaints modern readers with the “hookworm strategy” of immigration law. The facts are raw. Historian Dr. Isabel Wallace of Trent University is a skillful writer. The effect is startling. If bigotry is rooted in fear and economic despair, Wallace’s research proves even the mildest society is capable of devising something akin to the Nuremberg Laws.
More than a century ago Canada feared an influx of foreigners, especially South Asians bound for work in British Columbia’s lumber trade. A 1906 financial panic didn’t help.
The result was the “Hindu disease theory” embraced by legislators, media and trade unions, that South Asia was “a hotbed of the most virulent and loathsome” infections and its people were natural carriers of the plague, cholera, venereal disease, tuberculosis and smallpox. “From a sanitary point of view I consider them worse than the lowest class of Chinamen,” as Vancouver city health inspector Robert Marrion wrote in a 1912 report.
In everyday Canadian life fear of disease was rational and commonplace. Infant mortality rates were high. Sanitation was so rudimentary Ottawa suffered a 1912 typhoid epidemic that left 94 dead. Even the mildest infection was fatal and few diseases were curable. The doctor’s role was limited to fixing broken limbs, delivering babies and signing death certificates.
Add that to pre-Holocaust racialized views of moral fitness, and the consequence is a dark chapter of Canadiana. Author Wallace documents the incredible story with appropriate indignation and incredulity, and a reporter’s eye for detail. “India’s colonial status planted discourse on the ‘Hindu’ issue at the crossroads of medicalized nativism, eugenics and colonial theory,” writes Wallace. “In this context, charges of racial and genetic inferiority often spilled over into other, more sensational areas.”
In 1903 total South Asian immigration to British Columbia numbered 10. Within four years the number rose to 2,623. The country went berserk. South Asians “had not the faintest idea of sanitation,” wrote Pacific Monthly magazine. One daily told readers: “The average Hindu looks as though something has been gnawing at his insides.”
Frederick Blair, assistant deputy minister of immigration, described Indian immigrants as “a disgrace to any human being, that they are uncleanly in their habits, are afflicted with tuberculosis, and are addicted to drink.” It was Blair who later famously wrote of Jewish refugees in 1939: “None is too many.”
Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s cabinet in 1908 enacted the “continuous journey” rule, a clever bureaucratic response to B.C. protests. It stated no foreigner could land in Canada except via non-stop travel, a regulation specifically aimed at Indians who had to disembark at Hong Kong for transpacific liners. “Laurier could not have anticipated the astounding success of the continuous journey legislation,” notes Not Fit To Stay. “Only about one hundred Indians entered Canada between 1908 and 1915.”
In 1912, false rumours that a boatload of Indians were to land in Vancouver on direct passage prompted the “hookworm strategy,” a confidential plan to test passengers for parasites as justification for immediate deportation. Author Wallace documents the secret telegraph orders from the Department of Immigration. They make compelling reading.
Not Fit To Stay is an extraordinary story, meticulously documented.
By Holly Doan
Not Fit To Stay: Public Health Panics and South Asian Exclusion, by Sarah Isabel Wallace; University of British Columbia Press; 292 pages; ISBN 9780-7748-32199; $32.95
The Bank of Canada yesterday predicted little trouble with homeowners renewing mortgages at higher rates. Members of the Senate banking committee expressed unease with the sunny forecast: “If you talk to bankers they will always tell you Canadians will go to great lengths to make sure they can pay their mortgages.”
Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne yesterday confirmed he approved up to $13.8 billion in subsidies to build a single Volkswagen battery factory in Ontario. The giveaway is nearly triple the average annual cost of all federal aid for all corporations nationwide: “That money could be used to build more than a dozen hospitals.”
MPs on the Commons health committee yesterday agreed to rewrite a Liberal “whitewash” bill that would have cabinet review its own Covid management. “Delete it, get rid of it,” said Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York, Ont.), sponsor of the bill.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday defended his climate programs and pledged “full steam ahead.” His remarks followed a critical report by the Environment Commissioner that rated Canada the worst of the G7 in lowering emissions despite higher fuel costs and more regulations: “‘‘Just trust us, it’ll all add up’ doesn’t work.”
A 2019 cabinet promise to plant two billion trees within a decade is “unlikely to succeed,” Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco said yesterday. A separate Budget Office report earlier concluded the program would go 88 percent over budget: “They are not on track.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau only hours into a national public service strike yesterday warned that “Canadians are not going to be very patient if this continues.” Cabinet dismissed contract proposals by the Public Service Alliance of Canada as “unaffordable” and “completely unworkable.”
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc’s sister in law yesterday stepped aside as acting Ethic Commissioner. Critics had protested the interim appointment: “You’re ineligible to win the Tim Hortons Roll Up The Rim contest if you’re a family member of an employee. This is ethics 101.”
Taxpayer guarantees now cover more than $5 billion in equity loans under a CMCH program intended to aid first time homebuyers. However figures show the program was of little or no use in the costliest cities: “Options are few across the country for people starting out today.”
A long-sought bill to shield private sector pensions in corporate bankruptcies has been passed into law by the Senate. Reforms most recently prompted by the collapse of Sears Canada were first proposed in 1975: “Pensioners’ groups have been calling for this legislation for a long time.”
Budget Officer Yves Giroux yesterday said it was unclear whether cabinet has “lost control of its spending.” The Department of Finance is forecasting half-trillion budgets for years to come with ongoing deficits through 2028: “We are going over a psychological hurdle, a very large one.”
The largest federal public service union last night launched a national strike for the first time in 19 years. “Our members are prepared to fight for a good, decent, fair collective agreement,” said Chris Aylward, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, as picketers prepared to protest outside Parliament and the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Commons health committee yesterday by a 7 to 4 vote cleared a private Liberal bill to ban advertising of junk food to children. The committee passed a similar bill five years ago that subsequently lapsed in Parliament amid protests from marketers: “A blunt instrument is being applied here.”
