It happened so very quickly. From the instant I saw the animal until I realized we’d hit it, a second, or less, had passed, but in the strange chronology of the mind, it seemed to take much longer, and so very much happened. While Alex and I were chatting, his head down looking at the map, I suddenly saw a coyote at full gallop less than a metre away from the front end of the car, its path perfectly perpendicular to ours. I saw its yellow-brown fur, and the reticulated pattern on it, like a tiger’s, running down the length of its body. In a microsecond, I saw its eyes, intent on the safe side of the road ahead of it. I thought I could avoid it. My foot came off the gas and hovered for another tiny slice of the second above the break, and I jerked the car to the left, slightly. But there is no median on this high-speed road, and cars were coming toward us. It would do no good. I was going to strike this animal with the full force of my car, speeding at eighty kilometres an hour, and neither I nor the poor coyote would be able to stop it, and so I simply did the only thing possible, and continued along a straight path, and ran into the side of its beautiful, wild body.

I immediately slowed, looking in the rearview mirror. I could see a small piece of the car, but the coyote wasn’t there. I thought by some miracle I had only glanced it, and it had simply run off into the fields to the north. But I suddenly realized it was still under the car, and we were still moving, at maybe fifty kilometres per hour. Just at that instant, there was a loud thud, and, as I pulled onto the shoulder, there it was, about twenty metres behind.

I was stunned. Alex was overcome. A truck pulled off the road ahead of us, and a man got out, pulling on gloves. I rolled down the window, and glanced in the mirror. To my utter horror, the coyote’s head lifted off the road, wobbling. It was still alive. The man came to the window, and said he’d drag it off the road to avoid an accident. Perhaps he didn’t realize it wasn’t dead. For some reason, I said nothing, and got out of the car to see the poor thing lurch up, and hobble, in agony, onto the shoulder, limping as though one of its legs were crushed, or torn off. I felt sick, and Alex was leaning against the roof of the car, his face hidden.

Realizing that the animal was alive, the man told me to call the Humane Society. This I could do. I couldn’t help the coyote. I couldn’t even bring myself to approach it and look at the state it was in, and the immenseness of the suffering it was experiencing and which I caused. But I could call for help. I got back in the car and made the call.

Because of the proximity to Oakville, and the state of the various services in the two cities, it took three phone calls and an exasperating voicemail trap before I spoke to someone. When I hung up, I got out of the car, and watched from a distance while the man, and now two others, crowded around the wounded animal and did what they could.

“I can’t go over there,” Alex said.

“I know.” But I could go, and I had to. There was no helping it, but I should at least look at what had happened. And so I walked slowly toward it, expecting the worst. Nobody looked up as I approached. One of them had put a blanket over its body. It was curled up as though it was ready for a nap, but its head was up, and it was alert, looking at us with its yellow eyes. Its breathing was laboured; it was almost panting for breath. Blood spilled out of its mouth freely, and the foreleg that I could see, poking out from under the blanket, was soaked with it. There was a trail of bright red blood leading right up to where it lay, and I suddenly realized that I was standing in it.

A van appeared, and a woman in uniform got out. The first man was actually handling the coyote’s head, petting it, and she warned him not to touch it. It could, after all, be rabid. But it was not rabid. It was strong and healthy before the impact. The fur was thick at its ears, and its eyes, even now, were bright, alert, beautiful, and wild, even as it struggled to stay alive.

“It’s a good thing it’s winter,” the woman said. “No pups left alone.” So it was female. “Anyone know what happened?” An older man said that someone had hit it and driven off.

“No,” I said, “I’m the one who hit it.”

She got on the phone to the police, and described where we were. Someone wondered why the police were called. The older man suggested it needed to be shot.

For some reason, I thought this woman from the Humane Society would have everything she needed in her van, and would be able to euthanize it immediately. She explained that she would never touch a wild animal so severely injured, and neither would any veterinarian. The only alternative was to shoot it.

“You should all leave,” she said. “You don’t want to be around when it’s shot.”

I simply looked down at it for a second, panting blood, its injuries dramatic. If it wasn’t euthanized, it would simply die in an hour, or two, all the while in some kind of agony I don’t want to imagine. I suppose I looked distraught, because the older man took my arm warmly and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t worry,” he said, “there’s nothing you can do on these roads. And it won’t be much longer.”

And so, as they drifted away, I simply thanked the ones who had stopped, and I thanked the woman from the van, and I went back to the car.

Alex was still upset, his hands mostly covering his face. “Should I take us home?” I asked.

“No, we should go hiking.”

And so we did.

In Speyside, the trail is beautiful and tight, and crowded with fragrant cedars growing from fissures in the ancient rock of the escarpment, split from centuries of ice and rain. It snowed last night. The trail was undisturbed. Snow capped the rocks, and coated each needle on every evergreen. It was quiet, except for the occasional call of a crow, and the crack of wood in the distance.

Nobody had passed the trail here before us — the snow was pristine. The only tracks were those of coyotes, following the natural depression the trail made, moving ahead of us in what appeared to be a gallop; two animals, traveling side by side and marking the snow on our beloved Bruce Trail, hunting rabbits, or simply running freely through the forest. We followed for a while, and once, we missed the marked path and had to double back.

I loved the impression of those tracks. Here, they galloped, and here, they slowed, walking close together. They traveled along the path for what seemed like a long way. I could follow them all day. But soon, the tracks left the main trail and headed off into the trees, and disappeared from sight.

I’m not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate.

Around the country, scientists were shocked that the federal Minister for Science interpreted a question about his acceptance of evolutionary theory as an attack on his religion. Some likened his response to a refusal to answer whether or not he thought the earth was flat due to his religious beliefs.¹ Others were more blunt, wondering how the chiropractor-cum-cabinet minister could possibly retain the science portfolio if he rejected one of the world’s most well-established scientific theories.

The issue is particularly troubling given the Conservatives’ gutting of research-based science funding in their January budget. With a focus on the commercialization of discoveries to “bring them to the marketplace” quickly, important areas of scientific study remain woefully underfunded.² Whereas in the United States the Obama administration has pledged $10 billion USD to fund basic research, the Conservatives have forced research agencies in Canada, including those responsible for studying stem cells and climate change, to cut spending by $148 million. It is not difficult to see Conservative ideology at work here. Add to that the unrestrained hostility that Mr. Goodyear and his staff have for lobbyists acting on behalf of the scientific research community — witness his boorish behaviour of loudly accusing them of lying whilst an aide screamed at them to “shut up” mere moments into a scheduled meeting — and it is no wonder that scientists in Canada see no alternative in such a climate but to ironically move Stateside to what is now a more hospitable environment for scientific research.³

A history of holes

Goodyear is not the first Conservative cabinet minister to display pride in a preschool ignorance of evolutionary theory, or outright hostility to it. Stockwell Day, the Conservative Trade Minister and former leader of the party while it was incarnated as the Reform Party, is known for his creationist views, which, together with a suitable compendium of gaffes, likely cost him the 2000 election.

In response to their respective creationist kerfuffles, Mr. Day and Mr. Goodyear and other government spokespeople have rightly said that MPs, including cabinet ministers, are entitled to their beliefs. They have said the government is not in the business of promulgating either creation “science” or any other viewpoint. Those would be comforting words but for the fact that Mr. Day lamented that creationism was not taught in public schools, and that Mr. Goodyear controls funding for an area of science he is openly hostile to, in a Ministry he has demonstrated is controlled by ideology over need. They would be comforting words but for the fact that Day, Goodyear, and their apologists shrilly cry foul when their views are challenged by the media, because somehow their religious beliefs are sacrosanct and untouchable, even when they themselves present them to the public, or offer them up in some unpalatable concoction of public policy and private piety.

Furthermore, when a creationist openly ridicules evolutionary theory and its scientists on the floor of the House of Commons, the public venue entrusted to him by his riding constituents so that he may represent their most fundamental needs, he has made two fatal errors: he has abrogated his political responsibilities, and he has polluted his public office with his private religious beliefs contrary to the stated aims of even this Conservative government. On April 2, 2009, James Lunney, another chiropractor and now Conservative MP for the British Columbia riding of Nanaimo-Alberni, addressed Parliament.⁴ Evolutionary scientists are arrogant anti-scientists, he said. He claimed that all the millions of Canadians who believed in a creator were being ridiculed in the debate surrounding Mr. Goodyear’s curious response to a question about evolutionary theory. Lastly, and ghoulishly if not laughably, he said that, since Charles Darwin could not be conjured from the grave, today’s evolutionary scientists could not disprove that the father of evolutionary theory would not today abandon it if presented with the “discoveries” of the likes of creationist and Seventh-Day Adventist Robert V. Gentry⁵ — discoveries dismissed as amateur pseudoscience after peer review.⁶

A concession, of sorts

In the end, Mr. Goodyear was forced to affirm a “belief” in evolution, some suggesting that those in the upper echelons made him do it to avoid yet more Conservative controversy. Unfortunately, his espousal had nothing to do with evolutionary theory, and only underscored the Science Minister’s appalling ignorance of science. “We are evolving every year, every decade,” he said. “That’s a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment.”⁷

Yet again, Canada seems destined to belatedly follow the United States in areas of public policy and cultural myopia. We can only look forward to the day when we also follow their political lead, and discover energizing politics, youthful ideas, a devotion to reason, and dynamic leaders once again.

1. Anne McIlroy, Minister won’t confirm belief in evolution, The Globe and Mail, March 17, 2009.
2. Carolyn Abraham, Researchers fear ‘stagnation’ under Tories, The Globe and Mail, March 2, 2009.
3. Ibid.
4. Aaron Wherry, James Lunney v. Evolution, Macleans.ca, April 2, 2009.
5. Darrell Bellaart, Darwin would think again, Lunney tells House of Commons, Nanaimo Daily News, April 4, 2009.
6. Polonium Halo FAQs at The TalkOrigins Archive.
7. Anne McIlroy, Goodyear continues to deflect questions on evolution beliefs, The Globe and Mail, March 18, 2009.

I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up — I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people.

– Stephen Harper, September 23, 2008

When the head of a government starts invoking “ordinary people” just before an election in an attempt to appeal to the broadest base of voters possible, particularly in relation to an issue they collectively know very little about, there is no doubt that the ideological engine is shifting into high gear. Harper strenuously denied the funding cuts were ideologically motivated¹ even as his Finance Minister acknowledged that politics certainly played a role.

We are a Conservative government, and the ministers who sit on the Treasury Board have that hat on as well. This is not a bureaucratic process; the decision is made by the ministers who sit on the Treasury Board, and they have views on certain programs.²

– Jim Flaherty, September 24, 2008

Coupled with the strongly ideological Bill C-10 introduced in February 2008 apparently at the behest of ultra right-wing creationist and Evangelical Christian Charles McVety, deemed “censorship” legislation by the arts community and which would have denied federal funding to film and television productions the government deemed offensive, it’s difficult to imagine how any move the Conservatives might make against the arts could not be seen as materializing out of the right-wing canon. And indeed, an analysis conducted by The Globe and Mail of the Conservative budget in relation to arts funding found that cuts made to arts and culture programs appeared to be almost certainly ideologically motivated.

The Department of Canadian Heritage is the body that receives federal funding for arts and culture. Divided into two “Strategic Outcome” arms, the first, known as SO1, is the mainstay for directly funding Canadian arts and culture, such as film, television, visual, and other arts. The second, SO2, funds initiatives related to sports, official languages, “citizen participation”, even ESL studies. Both are called beneficiaries of “arts funding” by the Conservatives.³

The Globe found that SO1 funding was falling, while SO2 funding was increasing. In fact, all the relevant funding cuts only affected SO1. The government could thereby claim that, although some arts funding was being cut, money was actually being invested back into other “arts” programs, failing to mention the strongly polarized programs making up SO1 and SO2. Moreover, the Conservatives were claiming that arts funding introduced by the previous Liberal government was their own, due to an anomaly in finance reporting after Parliament was dissolved ahead of the 2006 election.⁴

Perhaps sensing the public would not be ignorant of these facts forever, and surprised at the strong and well-organized backlash from the arts community and local governments alike, Harper next announced tax credits for families with children in arts programs. In a breathtaking example of political cynicism combined with naked hypocrisy, Harper introduced the new funding in words barely believable after his tirade less than a week earlier against “whining elitist artists” and their “expensive galas”.

For some children, participating in art, dance and drama classes will be a fun and enjoyable activity. For others, it could be the beginning of much more — a lifelong interest or career.

– Stephen Harper, September 29, 2008

The cynicism of this move did not satisfy those affected by the cuts and the potential censorship legislation, especially in Quebec, where arts and culture strongly identify the distinct society that Quebecers enjoy. It’s interesting to wonder if there would be any way that Jean-Claude Lauzon’s 1992 film Léolo — featuring pre-teen masturbation, food eroticism, scatology, incest, and other wonders — would have ever seen the light of day, had the censorship legislation been in place. Internationally acclaimed, the film made Time magazine’s list of the one hundred best films of all time, but in the world of the Conservatives, this surely would have been deemed objectionable and pornographic stuff during one of the closed-door meetings that would have determined funding for such projects.

But panic ensued, and, in a further example of cynical electioneering, the Conservatives reversed themselves and vowed to scrap Bill C-10. However, the damage had been done. The Conservatives are seen to be ideologically opposed to arts funding, unless they are allowed to call sports, ESL classes, and other unrelated activities “art”. They have ignored the fact that actual arts and culture contribute 7% to this country’s GDP, translating to more than $84 billion of economic gain annually.⁵ They are avowed ideologues, where funding policy is determined not by economic considerations, but by how well-aligned the beneficiaries of those policies are with the Conservative agenda.

Artists, filmmakers, musicians, poets and writers, beware.

1. James Bradshaw, Harper plays populist tune on arts cuts, The Globe And Mail, September 11, 2008.
2. James Cowan and Marianne White, Finance minister defends Tory cuts to arts funding, September 25, 2008.
3. James Bradshaw, Study reveals erosion in arts funding, The Globe And Mail, September 19, 2008.
4. Ibid.
5. Culture sector helps drive economy, CBC.ca, August 26, 2008.

Canada’s current government is focused mostly on raising the spectre of criminal activity, despite the fact that the government’s own statistics show the national crime rate to have been falling steadily in virtually every area since 2004.¹ Of all the pages detailing policy in its 2008 platform, a full 29% mention crime, violence, punishment, penalties, prison, criminal conduct, or tough laws. The government is also fixated on military engagement and the open encouragement of nationalism.

[Addendum, April 21, 2009: Statistics Canada reports that serious crime was at a thirty-year low before the Conservative anti-crime campaign began.²]

Its actions in these and other areas before the 2006 election and subsequently have demonstrated the Party, and Mr. Harper in particular, to be concerned with populism. As a result, they have shown a remarkable disdain for parliamentary democracy, the traditions of a free media, intellectualism, and for anything that does not on its surface appeal to the basest political appetites of Canadians.

It’s simple to examine this government’s three short years of life to peel away the populist policy promulgations, and begin to reveal that long sought-after hidden Conservative agenda. In a morass of breaches lesser and greater, a few particularly egregious offences stand out. And so, in a series of articles, in neither chronological order nor in any sequence of terribleness, I present the Conservative government’s Shameful Acts.

But let’s begin before it even all got started.

1. Breaking Canada’s election laws

Apparently in order to circumvent national campaign spending limits during the 2006 federal election, the Conservative party engaged in an “in and out” scheme. The Party’s national headquarters transferred money to local ridings, which immediately sent the money back using pre-signed bank transfers, claiming it had been spent on campaign advertising. However, the “local” ads were identical to national campaign ads, with only the addition of local candidate information at the end. The result was not only spending beyond the legislated limits by more than a million dollars, but a loss of almost one million dollars to taxpayers, since sixty percent of the costs of the ads were claimed as refundable expenses by local candidates.³

During routine audits, Elections Canada, the independent body overseeing the election process, uncovered the discrepancies, and in April 2008, the RCMP raided the Party’s national headquarters to seize documents related to the scheme. During its investigation, Elections Canada discovered that local Conservative candidates did not know which ads the payments were for,⁴ presumably because the bank transfers were pre-signed by the national Party.

In other words, local candidates were sent money by the Party to fund their campaigns. The candidates immediately returned the money to pay for their campaign advertising, which they had no part in creating, and which they apparently never saw or approved. The local campaigns then collectively claimed that Canadian taxpayers owed them a million dollars in refunds to be processed by Elections Canada. In other strata of society, this kind of willful flouting of financing rules is known as “money laundering”. The euphemistic “violations of the Elections Act” of which they were accused would, if it were any other piece of legislation and any other component of society, be called “breaking the law”.

There is much more shameful behaviour in this story after the Conservatives came to power, including: the Conservatives’ refusal to cooperate with a House investigation into the matter; representatives being told by the Party not to show up after being summoned by the investigative Committee; the Party’s refusal to express confidence in Elections Canada by voting against a symbolic motion put forward by the Bloc Québécois to do so; and Conservative campaign chair Doug Finley’s bizarre crashing of the Committee, apparently in some Orwellian attempt to intimidate Conservative witnesses.⁵ After refusing to leave, he was forced out by security personnel.

The entire “in and out” episode has been described by critics as “disdain for democracy”, and by some Conservatives as a betrayal of the Party’s vision.

1. CBCNews.ca, Snapshot: Crime in Canada 2007, July 17, 2008.
2. The Canadian Press, Crime rate hit 30-year low in 2007, The Toronto Star, April 21, 2009.
3. Richard Brennan, Furor over campaign funds heats up, The Toronto Star, October 27, 2007.
4. Scandalpedia.ca, The In and Out Scam.
5. Peter Zimonjic, Conservative candidates felt betrayed, Northern News, August 2008.

It’s an interesting story. On the one hand, it was heartening that someone had discovered happiness to come from something other than the superficial banalities of one’s life. On the other hand, it was sad that there are many people, perhaps most, who must actually learn this lesson.

A belief in fulfillment

And so I am not shocked that, like me, god believers are saddened by the hollowness of so many lives lived in emptiness, fulfilled by nothing and driven by the most amoral of motivations. I am not surprised at the satisfaction believers have in their lives, filled as they are with a pursuit that, no matter what unrecognizable form it may ultimately take, at the very least seeks meaning for themselves and everyone. I am not surprised by the confidence of their beliefs, by the resistance their faith has to that which disputes it.

Of course, I know they are terribly misguided for that faith, and the details of their belief are their ultimate undoing, and no reconciliation is possible between dogmatic positions and a truly happy existence. But I say that out of a need to clarify. It doesn’t really matter, this time.

It indicates that a life of true fulfillment comes from everything that seems not to define the majority of us. In the West, most have forgotten so simple a truth utterly. It may be cliché to bring up the fact that material pursuits have replaced our sense of satisfaction with ourselves and each other, but often truth is to be discovered anew in aphorisms like that.

It’s one reason for the divide and the ultimate conflict between those with faith and the secular world they inhabit. On a larger scale, it hints at more troubling issues: the conflict between Islam and the West, as an example, and the failure of either to find areas of common values and goals.

A flow of lives

But I must recede once again to the microcosm of a single life. Unlike James Randi, who is nearing the end of his journey, I can’t look back at a remarkable life to reminisce on scores of remarkable experiences. I’m far too ordinary.

There are issues to deal with, and things that seem like setbacks, but its very simplicity makes my life deeply fulfilling. Alex and I have a circadian beat to our lives that offers happiness I could scarcely imagine when I was in my twenties, clambouring for money and sex and superficial relationships and fun, and other trivialities. There is the expanse of Bronte Creek Park near my home, small though it might seem to some, that holds a portion of my consciousness in its fields and woods and paths. There are the hundreds of books in my library, holding hundreds of thousands of pages, that fill up the corners of my barely satiable curiosity. And there is the incidental interaction with people, acquaintances and strangers, offering the opportunity to imagine the details of another life, and, if I can, if only in the smallest of ways to make that other path slightly more navigable.

I like my work and I’m considered fairly successful, but it’s simply a lucky tool that allows me to live a life away from it. There are so many better things, more important things. The breathtaking breadth of human history in front of me at this very moment, for example, or living inside the cream-coloured pages of my library. I’m staggered when I think about the billions of lives that have shaped what humanity is right now; or the trillions upon trillions of beings that have directed the course of life on the planet.

Something in me goes very quiet when the sun sets beneath the purple clouds over the peaks of houses behind us. I feel as though I’m sharing the lives of the finches that wake me up each morning as they build a nest beneath the trough under my bedroom window, which they and their ancestors have done for as long as I’ve lived here. We’ve been here many years, but we’re still apart from virtually all the neighbours. Sometimes when we come home in the car, one of their kids waves at us, though we are silent strangers to them and their parents, and it makes me smile. Alex has a swimming friend that he picks up every Sunday morning. She usually bakes him cake on Saturday night, and he comes home full. Despite our shyness, and what must seem like stand-offishness, the neighbours directly beside us invite us for an hour or two of drink and conversation every Christmas and every summer, and have always been immeasurably kind to us.

There’s so much loveliness, so much fulfillment in life that I’m surprised when I hear stories of lessons learned, like Ms. Fitzpatrick’s. What deep pleasure there is to be found in the world’s accessible corners. What meaning there is in the most straightforward of relationships. How gorgeous things are. How important we all, each of us, are, to one another, to the flow of lives beginning in the incomprehensibly distant past and that builds our story for the sake of our existence alone. How completely beautiful, unknowable, and livable it all is.

A member of the Canadian armed forces explains heavy ordnance to a young boy.

None of these. Peacekeeping is effectively finished as a tradition as soon as the population wills it. The acceptance of mounting casualties in foreign conflicts that have nothing to do with security at home, the promotion of nationalism in the face of a national identity crisis, the mood that allows parents to look on, smiling, while their prepubescent children dress in real military uniform, handle real ordnance, and talk with real soldiers in front of real recruitment desks — these are the signs that change for a nation of peacekeepers is inevitable.

And in Canada, change has come.

Canada and peacekeeping

After World War II and the Korean War, Canada’s position as a “middle power”, together with its foreign policy goals and its sense of national identity, restricted its participation in military engagement across the globe. Peacekeeping, the maintenance of cease-fire between combatants following hostilities, was a role that fit well with both the will of the population and the fiscal means of Canada as a middle power.¹

In 1956, Lester B. Pearson, then Canada’s minister of external affairs, proposed a UN force to defuse the looming threat of war during the Suez crisis in the Middle East. The proposal was accepted, and the world’s first organized, multi-national UN peacekeeping force was deployed successfully to the region, ending hostilities. Pearson is considered the father of modern peacekeeping, and for his accomplishment, he was awarded 1957′s Nobel prize for peace. Canada’s tradition of peacekeeping began with that milestone, and with the recognition by the Nobel selection committee that Pearson, the only Canadian to win the peace prize, had, in their words, “saved the world” from another global conflict.²

Since Pearson, Canada has been engaged in about forty peacekeeping operations, and has been generally regarded with respect for both its “quiet diplomacy” and its leading role in conflict resolution and maintenance, as well as its willingness to bear the human cost: more than one hundred peacekeeping Canadian soldiers have lost their lives in the half-century of the tradition in Canada.³

This is contrasted sharply with the number of Canadians dead in the combat mission in Afghanistan in just seven years: one hundred and eleven fatalities as of this date.

No win, no end

Undoubtedly this disparity is not lost on Mr. Harper and his minority Conservative government, who have pledged close to twenty billion dollars annually in military spending through 2010 and beyond. Despite popular opinion in Canada that the military is woefully underfunded, spending has reached levels not seen since World War II. And the Department of National Defence is asking for twice the current amount through 2025.

A member of the Canadian armed forces explains the workings of a large assault gun to a young boy he has helped dress up in military armour.

Those plans may include sending yet more troops to Afghanistan beyond the 2011 deadline the Conservatives agreed to.⁵ Even as he was determined to echo Canadians’ sentiments that “winning” in Afghanistan was important, whatever that means, and even while he claimed winning was impossible, Mr. Harper did not rule out spending more money, and presumably more lives, on the Afghan mission.

The importance of acclimatizing Canadians to combat missions with unclear agendas and unforeseeable ends has a certain logic for a party fixated on issues of law, order, might, and nationalism, and not so concerned with details of personal liberty and freedom of thought. Afghanistan, in this respect, is a kind of test. If Canadians simply accept perpetual troop deployment while not bothering themselves with the foreign policy issues involved, the Conservatives have won a major ideological battle in this country. The transformation is underway. Dead soldiers are being routinely delivered along the “Highway of Heroes”, elevated to the status of national half-deities, while flag-waving patriots cheer from bridges above. Are those people concerned with foreign policy? With tax dollars spent on unwinnable wars in culturally hostile nations? Or are the soldiers, and by extension the military, the foreign policy directing them, and the Conservative government formulating that policy simply above reproach, with pesky issues of mission worthiness, or even the worthiness of combat missions over peacekeeping missions, simply getting in the way of idolizing soldiers for the sake of their occupation alone?

Wargames

Perhaps there is no more telling sign of a fundamental shift in the population’s attitude to the military than in the signals parents give their children. Last month, I was at the Canadian International Auto Show, which I attend every year. Once again this year, the military had a large display area, showing off tanks, vehicles, bombers, and heavy guns. Soldiers in full uniform, including officers, were everywhere. At the rear of the display area, recruiters manned desks for the various services: army, navy, air force. People wandered in and around the area, touching artillery, clambering on machines of war. High above, a sign proclaimed that the Canadian Armed Forces was hereby “Connecting With Canadians”.

Members of the Canadian armed forces pose for pictures taken by the parents of a young boy holding a missile.

Is this how the Armed Forces connects with Canadians? By turning itself into a playground for kids? By making acclimatization to the military, to machines of destruction, a part of growing up in this country? By making its presence felt at the most unexpected of places in society?

I have said that I do not support the troops, because I am supremely uncomfortable giving unqualified “support” — whatever that may mean — to a government body directed by policy I may not understand. I stated that, not being psychotic, I don’t wish harm on troops or anyone else doing a job of their choosing, but that I’ll reserve my support for those people and those actions I can condone with a clear conscience, with the knowledge that I know what I’m talking about. For example, in the second World War, the need for troop deployment was obvious. In the “war on terrorism”, the desire to wedge foreign policy into a culture defined by its antipathy to the West is less so.

A young boy looks at the material at a recruitment desk while a member of the Canadian armed forces stands by.

And now Canada is seeking out the youngest and the brightest. The sooner it can find them, and the younger they become, the more irrevocable will be the march into the territories of barely controlled national pride, of the idolatry of soldiers and war, of suspicion of dissent, of the turning away from discussion. Eyes fixed on the future, the Conservatives understand that a fundamental change is underway.

1. The Loyal Edmonton Regiment Museum, Peacekeeping: Canada’s Role
2. CBC.ca, Lester B. Pearson, Top Ten Greatest Canadians, Spring 2004
3. Peter McCluskey, CBC News In Depth: The history of Canadian peacekeeping, October 30, 2003
4. Steven Staples and Bill Robinson, More Than The Cold War: Canada’s military spending 2007-08: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, October 2007.
5. Paul Koring, Canada, allies, will never defeat Taliban, PM says, The Globe And Mail, March 2, 2009.

The TTC buses showing these ads should start rolling in May, and the proposed message is the same as that used for the UK campaign: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Messages and hierarchy

I was made sleepy by the expected reaction from zealots, but was somewhat surprised to find opposition to the campaign from unexpected quarters. A non-religious acquaintance seemed baffled, wondering aloud what the purpose of it could possibly be. And Author Stephen Marche, a self-declared atheist who uses the term interchangeably with “secular humanism”, bemoaned the campaign in The National Post, finding it distasteful.

I believe what Dawkins and Hitchens write, and I certainly don’t need to be convinced of religion’s inherent toxicity… But turning secular humanism into a movement with a message is no way to stand in opposition to the terrifying global rise of religiosity.

It’s a startling declaration at first, apparently bereft of conviction and courage. But Marche is merely arguing that the first step toward dogmatism, the rigidity of viewpoint that atheism is supposed to refute, is hierarchy and organization. The kernel of his warning is a sound one: dogmatism, or militancy, of any kind, including militant atheism, is bad. It refutes rational investigation, the very foundation of most atheism, and ultimately rests on nothing more than unfounded propositions and opinions bleated loudly, lacking any appeal to reason.

Unreasonable lassitude

Like most atheists, however, Marche seems happy to silently live his life surrounded by the messages of religion, even while finding those messages to be irrational at best, and poisonous at worst. In October 2008, a “leading Vatican official” called homosexuality “a deviation, an irregularity, a wound.” There is a tiny, one hundred strong Christian sect in Kansas in the United States that has had global publicity far in excess of what is merited based on its size, the worthiness of its assertions, and the guttural offensiveness of its messages. And of course, Joseph Ratzinger, the current pope, previously head of The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — known a century or so ago as The Inquisition — said on December 22, 2008 that humanity needs to be saved from homosexuality and transsexualism, likening these conditions to its own destruction. (As an aside, I’ve walked down Church Street after midnight on many weekend nights in my youth, and humanity is in no danger of being eradicated by the various incarnations of Marylin Monroe and Jane Mansfield you can find flouncing around there.)

To my knowledge, Marche has not written any articles in major national newspapers decrying messages as offensive and anti-human as these. It is startling to me that he has decided to pick on the inoffensive and agnostic, even sheepish and apologetic message of the bus campaign.

This is morally repugnant to me. To take a position against the hurricane of life-denying poison coming from the lips of many of the faithful, a small position, so discrete as to be almost invisible, seems to be the only recourse many people have. To display one’s world view in quiet, gentle opposition to the regular religious harangue — to, horror of horrors, stand in opposition to all of this with an actual message! — is a noble effort, a kind of life-affirming “excuse me but” in the face of a pervasive, opposing rant. It is not only a good way to stand in opposition to the relentless march of religious intolerance and irrationality, it is a necessary act. A baby step perhaps, but an important one.

Much in a single line

Most importantly, much to the dismay of Marche and many people like him, the eleven words of the campaign message represent a coming together of people weary of the intolerant unreason issuing from the side of the faithful. Something quite simply has to be said, in as cheerfully inoffensive a way as possible. Gathering for this effort, sending money or putting up a website or ordering advertising on the side of a bus, is not the sure road to rigid dogmatism that alarmists are worried about. It is simply the required response of a growing population of reasonable people who reject the unreasonable, sometimes offensive and toxic, dictates of religion.

The message is directed at believers, and it is a simple one: Yours is not the only message around. There are others with a message more wholesome and more life-affirming. Fear is not the dictator of morality, and good works do not come from an abundance of faith, but from an unfettered love of humanity, from pleasure in humankind for its own sake, from the joy we take in our fellows simply because we live, because we are, because we eschew suffering and embrace life; because we believe in ourselves.

I understand the potential for militancy in atheists’ positions. Logical discourse mostly fails when attempted with many believers, because faith is necessarily impervious to logic. Many atheists assert that religious faith, especially fundamentalism, has seriously eroded education, science, and intellectualism, has made inroads in politics that have accelerated this process, and has changed the face of popular culture (such as it is). In the face of the inability of believers to accept rational arguments criticizing their beliefs, a reactionary response from atheists follows, buoyed by a feeling of fatigue with staying silent. This leaves the avenue of assault wide open — while simultaneously closing off common ground.

From the viewpoint of the believer, the nature of faith makes it impossible to reconcile its tenets with serious critical inquiry, and thus, there is no point in any dialectic concerning faith. To have faith implies that one accepts the infallibility of the articles of that faith. In extreme cases, inquiry of any kind is a sort of heresy. For example, even the soundest forms of biblical criticism and analysis would not alter the way some believers hold to the specifics of their faith. While this way of dealing with the world is a kind of refuge for believers, it necessarily cuts off all communication with those who do not believe.

In Canada, twenty-three percent of the population identify themselves as atheist, remarkably about double the number of the estimated percentage of atheists in the entire world. Even in the United States, where about 8% of the population report being atheist, the number of non-believers is growing, especially among the young. Even so, believers far outnumber atheists in North American society, and in society at large.

It seems apparent that both sides should be communicating with one another.

There is some attempt to do this. David Emery, a pastor at Middletown Christian Church in the US state of Kentucky, offered a series of sermons that sought to respond to what he calls the valid arguments of popular atheists like Dawkins. In his short but incisive book, Atheism, Julian Baggini, who is not shy about revealing the abundant absurdities of faith, warns about militant and dogmatic atheism, and its cost to reasoned discourse.

A model of common ground that would temper acrimony would be the understanding that a moral position is possible for both the atheist and the believer. Believers can be coached to accept that morality is possible with no belief in gods; that, in fact, morality and altruism are the default modes that human beings operate from. The sheer abundance of evidence of moral behaviour throughout recorded history, where the nature of belief in gods has continually changed, is indicative of this. That most atheists are even concerned with moral and ethical issues should be proof positive.

Atheists must always operate from a position of moral grounding while recognizing the fundamental humanity of believers. What is more immediately important than what a person believes is what a person is, in terms of his or her relationship to the rest of the world, and how suffering impacts everyone, whether its source is an absurd delusion or not. There is no need to refrain from pointing out absurdities of faith, especially when those absurdities take on dangerous forms; but when communicating with individuals, what is important is the recognition of the sameness of the atheist and the believer. PZ Myers’ cracker desecration would have been impossible for him, if his concerns for the suffering of others outweighed his intolerance for religious absurdities.

As their demographic numbers, perhaps glacially, approach one another, the importance of the shared humanity of believers and atheists is highlighted.

One night at age twenty-two, a car not using its turn signal drove directly into the side of my bicycle, crushing my leg between the car’s grill and the bike’s frame before sending me over the hood, against the windshield, and onto the pavement. It was summer, and with my arms and legs outstretched while facing down, the first layer of my uncovered skin peeled away as my body rotated against the road in a full circle before stopping. Immediately and uncontrollably, a primeval howl of pain came up from the pit of my stomach. With near-total objectivity, I was then observing things as though from a distance. The pain in my leg and on the surface of my skin was total, certainly the most pain I’d felt before or since. But, intensely curious, I took note of the way my body writhed on the pavement. The night air was cool on my forehead, budding with sweat; there was a musical clatter of running shoes on the road as some kids from a nearby park ran to help me. The old woman who’d been driving the car stooped over me, breathing heavily. Somebody from one of the houses attempted to talk to me over my screaming, to ask for a phone number they should call. At once the impassive observer stepped forward, quieted the screams, and spoke the number evenly and calmly before allowing the pain, the writhing, and the vocalization to overwhelm me again.

Some years ago while meditating, I suddenly had the unbidden sensation of being watched. The observer was clearly myself. This was no schizophrenic episode, but a very intense sensation of “I” being cooly, impassively observed by “me”. “I” was lying outstretched on the bed, breathing deeply, hyper-aware of my surroundings but in a state of complete meditative relaxation. “Me” was a depthless reservoir of my consciousness, ever curious but universally impartial, an objective, dispassionate observer.

I, defined

After eviscerating religious faith and stripping it of its claim to moral authority of any kind, Sam Harris closes The End of Faith with a chapter on the nature of consciousness and the self. He argues deftly for a non-dualistic conception of consciousness that ultimately does not require “I” to be an important element to consciousness at all. He disposes with the notion that the self is either merely the body, with its self-regulating systems teeming with all manner of life, or the generic components that make up the mind, considering that, in the end, only genetics and social environments account for the myriad expressions of behaviour in human beings, and that one’s “self” is nowhere to be found in them. In fact, without wondering at the evolutionary path that may have led to such a state, he suggests that the concept of the individuated self is nothing more than a biological function of the brain, transmitting impressions collected from the environment to the receiving entity it has created for the purpose, called “I”. This “I”, this self, is not necessary for consciousness to exist; it is merely handy, and the apparent duality of our relationship to the universe, of a subject that perceives and an object that is perceived, is, on close inspection, wholly without substance.¹

Harris accepts nothing without evidence, so how are we to prove this for ourselves? Introspection through meditation, as evidenced by what he considers the empirically selected practices of Eastern mysticism, exposes the merely utilitarian nature of the concept of self. The act of investigating the self, of looking for “I” in the sea of one’s consciousness while meditating, reveals it to be illusory.

There is a further paradox: the best expression of selflessness, the best route to ethical behaviour and concern for others, occurs when one is sufficiently introspective in order to recognize that “I” might not exist.

Toward the within

Much of this is anathema to atheists, who connect the kind of mysticism that Harris is talking about with dogmatic positions of faith, or acceptance of propositions without evidence. But meditation is available to everyone, and the results of studied introspection will speak for themselves. There is nothing here that need be accepted on faith. It is merely the West’s allergic reaction to the potential abandonment of identity that stands in the way of honest inquiry into the nature of personal consciousness. Even for atheists, there should be an exciting terrain within reach, if only one would close one’s eyes and quiet the chattering observations of consciousness offered by the self, to investigate the nature of consciousness itself.

1. Sam Harris, The End of Faith, W.W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 210 ff.

And of course, I have no idea why I even have a need for this kind of disclosure.

Online communication is dangerously abstract. Everyone knows the pitfalls in taking people at face value through their words. The lack of any other kind of expression, through gestures or speech, is rife with the potential to cause offense even in the most innocuous of circumstances, particularly when people are bad writers, or bad readers.

But in fact, there’s another danger. There’s a danger of losing contact with what actually matters. And there’s a danger of losing the ability to even define what matters.

When interacting with others in this environment, words seem to be the perfect distillation of a person. There seems to be no better way of analyzing and correcting, or receiving and taking joy in someone, than through their unaltered, unfiltered words. Words become people. And in the end, the only thing that can possibly matter about the people you meet online, the only thing of any substance for most everyone you’ll ever interact with, is what they say.

But of course, people are much more than what they merely say.

I’m saddened by a kind of loss today, which I hope will turn out to be a personal incentive to move on to other things, to regain the measure of what’s important. To rework my words and the words of others. To remove a level of abstraction; to build with words, and to transmit my love for words through what I say, and not how it’s said.

I am not comfortable with change, less with change that’s forced, or, on the surface, unjust. But I truly welcome each experience with some measure of expectation and hope. I try to translate the things that happen, small things and larger things, into a sensible direction.

It works, occasionally. Something else starts, or Alex, in his kind and patient way, focuses things for me, and I take direction from him. Life’s good, mostly, despite annoyances and troubles, and failings and helpless starts and stops. I live near the lake. When I feel like this, I wander down there and look out across its choppy surface, to the side I can’t see, disappearing into the blue or grey or white of the furthest visible edge of the water. There is a lot to see in the unseeable. A lot to look forward to, even in the thin line at the far horizon, where there’s no telling what will come, or who will bring it.