MPs by a vote of 210 to 117 have endorsed a recommendation to decriminalize possession of heroin, cocaine and all other illegal drugs nationwide. The result came with little comment during a flurry of Commons votes on committee reports: “We have reached the end of the road.”
Heated debate “is what a free and democratic society does,” an Ontario judge has ruled in a ten-year legal dispute over political opinion. The key decision on free expression came in the case of 2014 commentaries by Jerry Agar of Radio CFRB Toronto: “Views may at times be expressed in colourful terms.”
Immigration Minister Marc Miller was denounced after describing an Independent MP’s immigrant employees as lazy and useless. MPs expressed astonishment at the personal insult: “They are lazy. They don’t get anything done.”
Television broadcasters rely on food advertising to offset part of the expense of their newsrooms, says the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. The trade group petitioned senators against a private Liberal bill to ban food ads targeting children: “When the ability to advertise with Canadian companies is constrained it directly impacts the ability for broadcasters to support essential democratic activities.”
Cabinet is dismissing complaints of wasteful spending as this year’s deficit approaches $50 billion or more. Conservative MP Corey Tochor (Saskatoon-University) provoked a formal protest for rough language after telling the Commons that cabinet was “pissing away taxpayers’ money.”
A federal count on homeless people will be updated by Christmas, the first revision in two years, says the Department of Infrastructure. It follows a Budget Office report pointing to a steady increase in the number of homeless: “The next update is expected by late 2024.”
Snug against the Laurentians,
Commerce and import flow out along the river.
Older ways brush against myths older still.
Governing secure and content,
Of their place.
In the centre.
Stretched along the lake,
Enterprise and industry comingle.
Convinced of their necessity,
To the rest of the Dominion.
And assured of their place
In the centre.
But west of Winnipeg,
Where the forest thins,
And the wind is sovereign,
The prairie reveals itself,
And a sign indicates plainly.
Here lies the Centre.
By W.N. Branson
The Second World War altered a quarter billion lives. The number of eyewitnesses dwindles. We are left with personal accounts of ordinary people who saw extraordinary things. Surviving The Gulag is one.
Ilse Johansen in postwar years worked as a school janitor and cruise ship stewardess in Vancouver. Friends recall she seemed friendly enough but could not bear to throw out even scraps of food. Johansen wrote her memoirs, translated here from the original German. Surviving the Gulag is like pulling a loose thread that slowly unravels a tightly-knit narrative leading to unexpected places.
Johansen at first glance is not a sympathetic character. She was a German nationalist with an office job in Romania and a Nazi membership pin. “She herself wore the uniform of the Nazi Party for her civilian duties as a secretary in Bucharest,” writes editor Heather Marshall of the University of Alberta.
Johansen’s memoirs initially are laced with tedious commentaries on German superiority. Romanians are hapless, Russians are alcoholic brutes, so-and-so is remembered only as a Jewess. It is jarring to a 21st century reader.
Yet Johansen was also a skilled diarist who matter-of-factly recounts stark anecdotes of her arrest and detention after Bucharest fell to the Soviets in 1944. She recalls one inmate weeping from hunger and others fighting over fish bones. “Johansen was a careful observer of everything that happened to her and of the people with whom she came into contact,” notes Surviving the Gulag.
“Very few people lived through five years in a Soviet prisoner of war camp and managed to bring back notes and memories with as much factual information. She makes little attempt to explain or analyze, which gives the memoir the feel of pure and immediate observation.”
Johansen survives her war by stealing potatoes at a prison farm. She recalls the Soviet propaganda slogans urging inmates to meet their production quota: Remember 125%. She remembers, too, the descent into madness.
“Child mortality is very high in the camp,” she writes. One bunk mate, 22, has a toddler she keeps alive only for the sake of rations: “I have never seen a mother like this,” writes Johansen. “It is pitiful to watch this. She doesn’t send the child to the kindergarten because then she will not receive the child’s ration. Instead she lets the child sit on the bed while she is at work. The little one is so quiet that one can leave her alone. On these occasions it happens of course that she wets the bed. The little one begins to shake when she sees the mother enter the door. The woman is merciless; she beats and throws the child back and forth until we cannot watch it any longer. The poor little mite finally dies.”
Johansen survives beatings, a failed escape attempt and starvation, all amid the spectacular beauty of Russia. “Sky-high pines look up from deep gorges,” she writes. “Huge boulders are covered with wild roses”; “I feel lighthearted,” says Johansen. “Could this country be so cruel and terrible when nature is so gorgeous?”
In time Johansen even gains insight into her tormentors. Where Soviets once seemed subhuman, she learns: “Prison is an everyday reality for Russians. One can be a very decent person but have a history of having done time for several years. They are not ashamed of talking about it: ‘My mother is sitting in jail; my husband has been convicted and was given three years in the penitentiary.’ Nobody is surprised about it. Many times the reason is an injudicious statement reported by someone. Sometimes it is homicide. They talk about it as if it were nothing special. Life here is hard and people are formed accordingly.”
Johansen was released in 1949 – “no one seems to know why,” writes Editor Marshall – and immigrated to Western Canada. Surviving the Gulag leaves much unsaid. What remains is absorbing, and very human.
By Holly Doan
Surviving the Gulag: A German Woman’s Memoir, by Ilse Johansen; University of Alberta Press; 296 pages; ISBN 9781-7721-20387; $34.95
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday outlined pre-election perks for taxpayers that open a budget hole worth $5 billion to $10 billion, figures show. The finance department declined comment on the impact on this year’s deficit that is already 17 percent over estimate: “That sounds like a trick.”
Senators must stand up for transparency in determining if any foreign agents are in the Upper House, a Liberal appointee said yesterday. “The Senate has to stand up and speak up,” said Senator Percy Downe (P.E.I.).
Ex-broadcaster Tom Clark yesterday said he would not resign from his $205,000-a year post as New York Consul amid criticism he lied to a parliamentary committee. Members of the Commons government operations committee said Clark was deliberately evasive over his role in the purchase of a luxury Manhattan penthouse at taxpayers’ expense: “Your champagne tastes weren’t being met.”
Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault yesterday said he was never told of a cabinet plan to rewrite the Elections Act to guarantee pensions for 28 Liberal and New Democrat MPs. Perrault confirmed he attended secret meetings with political aides from the two parties but said the pension question was never raised: “No, that never came up.”
The Public Health Agency increased its payroll after the pandemic was over, new figures show. No reason was given. The data follow Budget Office estimates that employee costs for all federal departments and agencies were $69.5 billion last year: “Yes, there is room to reduce.”
Immigration Minister Marc Miller yesterday enacted new regulations he acknowledged will cost Canadian jobs, a first for any federal cabinet. Miller’s department in a legal notice quietly reneged on a public promise to limit foreign students in the workforce: “This may result in increased competition for Canadians.”
Cabinet proposes to spend $46 million this winter on preparations to host soccer’s 2026 World Cup with more funding due next year. The figure is among millions in discretionary spending buried in budget bills that Government House Leader Karina Gould described as essential: “These are things that matter to Canadians.”
