new kids on the front lines of social justice (and their legal team)

Many decades ago, the late 1960s thru the mid-1070s and beyond, I was one of the idealistic young people on the front lines opposing the Vietnam War and the Amerikan influence on Canada. I was severely beaten by an Amerikan professor on the steps of Ryerson College, and another time I was arrested for a t-shirt proclaiming Yankee Go Home. For the t-shirt episode I was jailed for a day and had to fight this abuse of our court system all the way to the Supreme Court of Ontario. A father and daughter pair of lawyers successfully handled my case, pro bono (free). I can't even recall their names now, but I hope they've long settled into pleasant retirements. Now there's a new generation of young people on the front lines of social justice movements, and getting their backs is a new generation of lawyers willing to support their battles in our courts.   


   
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March 6, 2020

Dear Chris,

As the events of recent weeks have made abundantly clear, the struggle for Indigenous justice and environmental justice are inextricably linked.

Since time immemorial, Indigenous Peoples have taken care of the land and water in what we now call Canada.

Today, they are some of its fiercest protectors, and — as is the case with the Wet’suwet’en land defenders — they’re often on the frontlines in the fight against destructive resource extraction projects, many of which would cause direct harm to their traditional territories and ways of life.

So when Ecojustice began working with young people on a youth-led legal challenge to the Ford government’s climate rollbacks, we knew that case needed to centre and elevate the perspectives of Indigenous youth.

Fortunately, we couldn’t be working with a more compelling and courageous set of clients.

Shaelyn Wabegijig, a 23-year-old Algonquin woman and a member of the Caribou Clan, is one of three Indigenous youth Ecojustice is representing in this landmark climate case. Shaelyn grew up in Rama First Nation in Ontario, and now lives in Nogojiwanong (Peterborough), Ont.

When I met Shaelyn, the first thing I noticed was her ability to express how deeply she cares about the planet and her culture. She’s intelligent, eloquent, and her words have power.

Recently, Shaelyn decided to put those words down on paper. She wrote an opinion piece on how the climate crisis impacts her as an Algonquin woman and a young person. The Toronto Star published it this week and you can read it here:

READ SHAELYN'S OP-ED
Shaelyn’s reflections remind me of why I became a lawyer: Because I care deeply about creating a more just and safe future, and know that in order to get there, we must put the voices and dreams of affected communities at the heart of our struggle for justice.

You’re part of this fight too.

As a member of the Ecojustice community, you’re directly supporting Ecojustice lawyers like me as we back Shaelyn and her fellow applicants in their court battle to defend every Ontarian’s Charter-protected rights to life, liberty, and security of the person. Thank you.

Sincerely,



Danielle Gallant,
Ecojustice lawyer

P.S. Learn more about why Shaelyn is taking the Ford government to court and get to know Ecojustice’s other youth clients — Alex, Beze, Madison, Shelby, Sophia and Zoe — by reading up on Ecojustice’s #GenClimateAction case here.

Photo of Shaelyn Wabegijig by Emily Chan

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Bilingual Haiku - A Delightful Challenge

   by Gregory Skala
               

    Sixty years ago, in grade school, I was introduced to the fun of writing haiku. I stuck with the 5–7–5 syllabic pattern for decades. In retirement, though, I learned from on-line haiku contests and from fellow members of my local writers’ group that poetic flow and other characteristics of haiku may be more important than the 5–7–5 pattern when writing in English. Now, I have also begun to compose haiku in French, even though my knowledge of la belle langue, based on high school French, is inexpert. My intention in the present article is to urge Canadian poets to dare to have a go at writing haiku in whichever of our country’s official languages they did not learn first.

    Please consider two of my haiku ideas, each presented in both French and English, which I believe work poetically in both languages:

    la femme de ménage                        cleaning lady
    en dehors de la classe de ballet                outside the ballet class
    très très gracieuse                            oh so lissome
 
   Now, gracieuse is not the exact equivalent of lissome, and I did also consider either élégante or souple for my French haiku. I also tweaked the English last line, using oh so rather than very very. By the way, because French uses so many prepositions, articles, and partially voiced vowels, fretting about too precise a syllable count would be particularly limiting. That second line in the French haiku above could be tallied at either nine or ten syllables, yet it reads musically and does not seem excessively lengthy.

    Here is the next example of a well-enough-matched pair:

    l’espoir du dragon—                        a dragon’s wish—
    que l’alimentation épicée                    that spicy food
    favorise la longévité                        may favour long life
  
    My French dragon here actually has a hope, while my English dragon has a wish. I make no apology for a poet’s discretion. I simply prefer the sounds of l’espoir and wish. Of course, not everyone may agree with me that both the French and English haiku are successful, but they ring true to me.

    For the following pairs, though, the French version clearly flows best:

    un jeu de billard                            a game of billiards
    par les démolisseurs                        by demolition workers
    sur une table fissurée                        on a cracked table
  
    To my ear, the English version sounds like prose, and it conveys irony less well than the French version. I could continue working to improve the English version, but the French one pleases me enough that I hardly feel motivated to do so.

    The point of presenting the previous case, and the next, is that it is appealing to discover that some ideas are better suited to one language than another. Though I haven’t given examples here of poetic ideas that worked better in English, I have written some like that, too.

    Here again, I favour the French:

    dans la pataugeoire                        in the wading pool
    un papillon noyé                            a drowned butterfly
    les enfants pleurent                            the children cry
  
    There is more alliteration in the French version and a greater sense of pathos.

    Even if you have only minimal knowledge of an official language of Canada’s that still beckons you to make some haiku attempts, do not despair. On-line translators and dictionaries can enable you to take up the challenge. I advise, though, that more than one such source should be used, if that is the approach you take, and they should be cross-checked. Otherwise, comical mistakes may spoil the effect of your poetry.

    Gregory Skala
    Nanaimo, BC