The Lure of the Hedonists

Can Canada keep the mindset of a better good for all?

by Jon Azpiri

Since the days of Confederation, Canadians can’t seem to stop comparing themselves to their neighbours to the South. Pollster Michael Adams has made a career of it. As president of the Environics research group, Adams has written several books detailing the complex relationship between Canada and the U.S., including Fire and Ice, his award-winning 2003 book that details the growing clash of values between the two countries. His latest, American Backlash, details how American culture has embraced individualism and hedonism, something Canadians should keep a watchful eye on. Adams will be giving a lecture at UBC, Jan. 14, and took a few minutes to speak with Shared Vision’s Jon Azpiri from his office in Toronto.

It seems that the cultural divide between Canada and the U.S. is growing?

I wrote about this in Fire and Ice. When the book first came out, this idea was controversial. Now I think a lot more people are seeing evidence of Canadians thinking and behaving in one way, and Americans thinking and behaving in another.

U.S.-Canada relations will be an issue in the upcoming federal election. Do Canadians see the Conservatives as a threat to Canadian sovereignty?

I think people wonder about their hidden agenda, fairly or unfairly. When you look at the Conservative agenda, which is tilted towards the private sector rather than the public domain, there are a lot of questions in the minds of people wondering what is really behind Stephen Harper. Does he have an agenda that’s more in line with Republican thinking in the United States?

I’m pretty surprised that Harper isn’t getting more traction. It’s having me wonder and think about why he is stuck at 30 per cent. When I reflect upon the situation in the U.S., I think the Democrats have lost their ability to connect with core American values. Stephen Harper’s problem in Canada may be connecting to core Canadian values.

His appeal is more rural, more small-town. It’s possible the Conservatives may get no seats in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, our three biggest cities. What that’s saying is that he looks like he doesn’t represent the values of New Canada or of New Canadians and their children, and is more representing a backlash from old Canada.

It seems the NDP is more in line with Canadian values, yet they still struggle in the polls.

I think their problem is that people are thinking strategically. People think ‘look, they’re at 15 per cent.’ The problem for the NDP is that they are caught in the situation of not being as strong as the liberals, and the fear of the Conservatives has a lot of New Democrats thinking, ‘I have to vote for my second choice, which is the Liberals.’ The Liberals are a lot of people’s second choice.

Another way that Canadians and Americans differ is finances.

Canadians are a people for whom money isn’t everything. Autonomy is more important to Canadians than just having money. Canadians are more likely to say there’s balance between work and leisure and time with family, whereas Americans are involved in an almost Darwinistic struggle where they must work hard and show loyalty to their companies. Their companies are where they get health insurance from, so a lot of people are loyal to their company.

Is it inevitable that Canadians compare themselves to the U.S.? Is that healthy?

I think it’s useful to be aware of differences that could be beneficial or harmful. I think we will constantly compare ourselves to the United States. We’re a country of 30 million against a country of 300 million and we are intimately connected through trade, popular culture, and language; we’re bound to compare. The Dutch are constantly comparing themselves to Germans. Belgians compare themselves to the French. It’s inevitable.

Michael Adams will speak Jan. 14, 8:15 pm. at the UBC IRC Building (2194 Health Sciences Mall). Free. Info: 604-822-5675.

---

top of page

SV News

Local Activists Shine Light on Uganda’s Children

Every night, an estimated 40,000 children in rural Uganda walk toward nearby cities such as Gulu out of fear of being abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group that forces kids as young as five to serve in their militia. The children who sleep in Gulu each night are just a fraction of the 1.6 million people who have been displaced by the conflict in Northern Uganda, a tragedy as large in scope as the horrors currently taking place in Darfur, Sudan.

While the situation in Darfur has garnered little attention from the Western world, the situation in Uganda has received even less. Vancouver filmmaker Alison Lawton hopes to bring some attention to Uganda with Act for Stolen Children, a non-profit group designed to increase awareness about the African nation’s ongoing civil unrest.

Lawton decided to make a film about Uganda after speaking with Lloyd Axworthy, the former Canadian Foreign Minister and Cabinet member who is now a senior associate with UBC’s Liu Institute for Global Issues. Lawton’s work on the documentary inspired her to do more for the children of Uganda. “You don’t want to poach their story,” she says. “It turned us all into social activists who really believe in social justice.”

The campaign has brought together several groups, including the Liu Institute and Gulu Walk, a charity walk that took place in Toronto, Vancouver, and four other North American cities. Working with Erin Baines of the Liu Institute, AFSC also works on developing policy and research initiatives on Uganda. In October of last year, the group spearheaded a conference in New York where several NGOs, such as Oxfam, had a policy discussion and forum on Uganda.

Lawton’s documentary is near completion and she hopes to screen the film publicly in Vancouver sometime this month. AFSC is also planning another Gulu Walk in Vancouver this summer, as well as planning walks throughout Canada and the world. “I just hope to keep it up,” says Lawton. “I think we do have a responsibility to protect these kids and these people who haven’t been protected by their own government.”

For more information on the AFSC documentary, visit actforstolenchildren.org.

Have a Coke and a $68 Million Smile

When a Coca-Cola distributor told Raquel Chávez they would no longer sell Coke to her shop unless she stopped selling rival brands of cola in her small Mexico City grocery store, she told them, “You may call the shots everywhere else, but I’m the boss in my store.”

It turns out that Chávez is calling the shots outside of her shop, as well. The 49-year-old filed a complaint with the Federal Competition Commission. Eventually, other businesses joined in and the Commission ruled in her favour, fining the cola giant a total of US$68 million, the largest anti-monopoly penalty ever imposed on the company.

The decision sent shockwaves through Mexico’s high-stakes soft-drink industry. Mexicans consume more soft drinks per capita than people in any other country in the world, and competition is fierce as Coke and Pepsi have squeezed out local cola makers. For example, Mexican soft-drink company Jarritos had a market share of about 13 per cent two decades ago; today, it has only three per cent of the market.

Although she will not receive any of the $68 million, Chávez is pleased with the win, seeing it as a victory for the little guy. Chávez told the Press Association: “I thought we would lose this case, and when we did, it was going to be like, ‘Look little ant, we crushed you,’ because the powerful always win. Now I feel proud. Maybe now people will start standing up for themselves.”

In Other News

The Vancouver Native Health Society was recently honoured with a City of Vancouver 2005 Cultural Harmony Award. The VNHS offers a range of services to Downtown Eastside residents, including a walk-in clinic, HIV peer support, early childhood support, and social-enterprise initiatives. Also honoured was Sadia Ramirez, who has organized workshops for immigrants and minority communities and has worked to raise awareness of affordable-housing issues for more than a decade.

---

top of page

Business News

Edmonton Soilers

While countless entrepreneurs are heading to Alberta to make their fortunes in oil, Phillip Abrary of Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc. is going there in search of a natural resource most of us would rather avoid: raw sewage. In November, Ostara signed a deal with the city of Edmonton to extract phosphorus from liquid sewage to produce high-value environmentally safe fertilizer.

The Vancouver-based company will build a series of commercial reactors that will remove approximately 1,000 tons of phosphorus a year from the waste stream and convert it into fertilizer. Abrary said as many as 400 municipalities in North America and 500 in Europe are potential customers for the Ostara process.

The process, which was developed at UBC, has sewage pass through a type of chemical reactor that extracts struvite, a crystal that contains phosphorus, nitrogen, and magnesium. The phosphorus is then turned into a slow-release fertilizer the company hopes to sell wholesale to large agricultural companies.

Using reprocessed phosphorus would reduce the need to mine it, which can damage the environment. Abrary sees the re-use of phosphorus as a return to a more sustainable way of life. “What happened in medieval times is that people would take manure from the animals, spread it on the land, and grow food with it and eat it. It was a self-contained system,” he says. “Now we have more intensive agricultural practices where you have very large farms, and a lot of fertilizer and mined phosphorus being used. The balance has changed. There’s a displacement that causes an imbalance in the environment. Taking phosphorus out of waste and recycling it is just common sense.”

Belief in a Higher Spiritual Bean

Martha Bowen’s brand of Latin Organics coffee, made from beans produced by Colombia’s Arhuaco Indians, is not just certified organic and fair-trade; it has also received a blessing from a higher power. “Every time a seedling is planted, these indigenous farmers make a special prayer thanking Mother Nature for what they’re about to plant,” says Bowen. “Once the cherries are ripe and they are going to pull them off the coffee bean, they also do another prayer in a special ceremony.”

Bowen first encountered the Arhuacos while growing up in Northern Colombia. After moving to Vancouver, where she worked as a food-services manager at Capers, Bowen decided to return to Colombia to work with these indigenous farmers, whose way of life has been endangered by years of guerrilla warfare.

Bowen hopes her small company could someday serve as a role model for future organic-food growers in Colombia. She believes organic farming would work well in Colombia because of its terrain and its people. “These are people who have lived in balance with nature for centuries, way before people knew what organic agriculture was. That makes these beans very special.”

Latin Organics coffee is for sale at IGA on Esplanade and will soon be available at Whole Foods in West Vancouver. For more information, visit latinorganics.com.

Isn’t She Lovely?

Walking into Sharilyn Wright’s studio, you see piles of paper strewn all over the place. It may seem like a bit of a mess, but in fact, all that scrap paper is at the core of her business-design company.

Wright handcrafts alphabetical card-file systems using Canadian maple for the holder and colour-coded file cards made from found papers, and also produces notebooks and envelopes made out of discarded maps.

Wright, who originally started in web design, has built a solid customer base on the Internet through her website, lovelydesign.com. She has received orders from as far away as Africa and Europe but also welcomes customers who stop by her paper-filled studio.

“My stuff has a little bit more of a history,” says Wright. “When you buy a book from me, you’re not buying a blank book. All these papers come from somewhere, whether it’s a recycling bin at the CBC or blueprints or ledgers a company has thrown out. It already has a bit of a character and a life to it. It’s not totally blank. It’s got soul.”

Love for Sail

When Barnaby Killam worked at a local sail loft, a boat owner would occasionally come in with a torn sail after a particularly rough day at sea. Often, when a damaged sail was beyond repair, the giant swath of durable material would end up in the garbage. “I thought there must be a better use for this material,” Killam says.

Killam and partner Stuart Sproule decided to use their background in art and design to turn the discarded sail material into something practical. The two formed Red Flag Design and produce a line of locally made duffel bags, wallets, purses, and tote bags.

The pair thought that boat sails were the perfect material. “It has a great structure to it and it’s inherently windproof and waterproof,” says Killam. “Sail racing has really driven the technology of sails, so there are a lot of high-tech materials available.”

Killam and Sproule get their material donated from local sail lofts and construct the bags locally. Along with the new line of sail bags, they are starting to work with new materials such as a polyurethane cloth that is more environmentally friendly than PVC, which is what is used in many duffel bags.

To Sproule and Killam, sustainability and durability go hand in hand. “We look at it as being sustainable,” says Killam. “Instead of having something that’s disposable, we try to make a product that will outlast everything else.”

Core Strength

Local entrepreneurs Beth Hawthorn and Leslie Grant have released a new edition of the Vancouver Core Passbook, a coupon book that features more than 200 free or discounted passes adding up to $6,000 in discounts. Last year, the Passbook included local spas, natural-food suppliers, and yoga and pilates studios. This year, Hawthorn and Grant have expanded to incorporate eco-friendly businesses such as environmentally friendly dry cleaners and paint suppliers.

The Core Passbook costs $45, with part of the proceeds going to various local charities. They can be purchased at several businesses including Banyen Books, Capers Markets, and Chapters. For more information, visit corebook.ca.

---

top of page

Web Sightings

Let It Bee
beedogs.com/index.htm
A collection of dogs dressed up in bee costumes.

Giving New Meaning to Fair Trade
oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com
Meet Kyle, a man who is trying to trade one red paper clip for a house. He started with a red paper clip and traded up to a fish pen. The fish pen was traded for a ceramic doorknob. Kyle has been making slight upwards-in-value trades since then. So far, he has worked his way up to a 1,000-watt generator.

Do Your Own Librarything
librarything.com
Libarything is a new website that allows you to catalogue your books online and share the list with others. You can also view the catalogues of users with similar tastes to find new books to read.

Who Says Nothing Good Has Come Out of This Election?
cbc.ca/canadavotes/quizzesgames/jigsawpuzzle/index.html
For some pointless fun, try these online jigsaw puzzles of the four party leaders, courtesy of the CBC, of all places.