In Canada, we generally don’t like to talk about death. Even our medical profession is reluctant. And rightly so: Doctors are committed to preserving life, and we wouldn’t want it otherwise. But death is a part of life, and assistance in dying is increasingly being recognized as a medical option for terminally ill patients.

It was only a few years ago—in February 2015—that the Supreme Court of Canada ruled it would no longer be a criminal offence in Canada for physicians to assist a person with ending their life, in certain circumstances. On June 17, 2016, the federal government followed up by passing legislation that details the circumstances in which someone may be deemed eligible.

Each province is responding differently. In Manitoba, specialized professionals, including a doctor, a social worker and a nurse, provide this service under the Winnipeg Health Authority. This centralized team, known as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), provides a referral source for medical practitioners who recognize assistance in dying is a medical service beyond the scope of their present practice or who won’t participate for reasons of conscience. My wife, Jean, was one of the first 100 patients in Manitoba to use the services of MAID to die with dignity.

In February of 2018, I had taken Jean to the emergency department of our local hospital in a wheelchair, as she was having trouble breathing and too weak to use her walker. The triage nurse took Jean’s vital signs, admitted her right away to a private room and hooked her up to oxygen. “The doctor will be here shortly,” she said. Jean and I held hands when she left. A young doctor appeared almost immediately. He smiled and introduced himself as he quickly examined Jean. “I want to consult with one of my colleagues,” he said. He returned with another doctor, who also examined Jean. The two physicians looked at one another knowingly. Then the first doctor began:

“You are in the process of dying. There are four options: You can keep on going from doctor’s office to doctor’s office and from hospital to hospital. But obviously, that’s not working. You can come into Comfort Care here—and we are arranging that now. Alternatively, you might be able to go home into Palliative Care, once we get your pain and heart medications balanced. It will take some trial and error with close supervision and observation on our part, both here in the hospital and at home, however. A fourth option is Medical Assistance in Dying.”

Now it was our turn to look at one another knowingly. Jean and I had talked about this eventuality for some months. We just couldn’t understand why none of the medical people we’d seen weren’t as open about it as we were. They were always offering hope.

Jean smiled and looked at the two doctors: “Don and I can relate to what you’re saying. We’re in our 80s and we know that we’re on the back nine of life. I’m close enough to the 18th hole that I can see the clubhouse. We’re content with that. So what you call Comfort Care makes sense. But I want to know more about Medical Assistance in Dying also.”

We’d known Jean’s medical prognosis was critical for almost 25 years, when a cardiologist had discovered Jean’s heart murmur was not caused by a childhood illness, but by a hole in her heart from birth. He offered that he could add another five years to her life by open heart surgery, but she felt she knew her own body. The operation to repair her heart, back then, would have been risky and, besides, her heart was managing to function, even though it was slightly enlarged from overwork. Instead Jean opted to see a heart specialist, who prescribed medications to support her heart in its day-to-day work. He agreed to monitor her progress on an ongoing basis. Jean was proud that she had already enjoyed life for an additional 25 years, rather than just the five predicted by the surgeon. But now the past was catching up with us. Her heart was failing.

To make things more complicated, Jean had developed hip problems and was in line for a hip replacement, then ultimately disqualified by the anesthesiologist. Over the years, her heart had become increasingly enlarged. “While the surgeon is doing his work, it’s my job to keep you alive on the table,” the anesthesiologist had said. “From your records, I can almost guarantee that you’ll have a stroke. I’m recommending that you try pain management instead.”

To manage Jean’s pain, we’d gone from one specialist’s office to another. My wife even tried medical marijuana. Nothing had a lasting effect, and her heart was getting weaker.

Now we had to deal with the inevitable. The second doctor left the room, while the first doctor remained with us to explain the options. He regarded what he was offering as a continuum service, depending on how far along Jean was in the process of dying and how well she responded to medical interventions along the way.

“For now, Comfort Care will give doctors the opportunity of monitoring Jean’s medications and the nurses the chance to build her up. She will also be referred to physiotherapy to get her walking again,” said the young doctor, who arranged to have Jean admitted into a private room in Comfort Care. We did not think that she would be coming home. This doctor also said he’d make a referral to the MAID team.

Our feelings were, of course, mixed, but Jean took advantage of her private room to invite family and friends and inform them. The room was filled with flowers, and I was able to be there from morning to night without the inconvenience of hospital hours.

Three of our granddaughters were already in Winnipeg, but two of our grandchildren flew in, one from British Columbia, with our youngest great granddaughter, and the other, from Houston, Texas. When our grandchildren were all assembled, Jean discussed the situation openly and distributed her jewellery to each of them, explaining the significance of her choice for each piece.

In Comfort Care, the doctors and nurses carefully administered Jean’s medication for her heart and for her pain, expertly balancing the two. And while in hospital, we received counselling as well and were referred to a volunteer from “Dignity Therapy.” The volunteer interviewed Jean about her life, and afterward we received a transcript of the interview. Jean was proud of it and distributed copies to family and friends. A local doctor had discovered that terminally ill patients had benefited from this process. As it happened, Jean rallied. She became strong enough to walk with her walker again and was overjoyed when the nurses said she could be released from the hospital into Palliative Care at home.

Palliative Care no longer has to happen in a hospital setting. Instead, professional assistance, medical equipment and training for the husband or wife of the patient can be provided at home. In our situation, a nurse visited two or three times a week to monitor Jean’s medications, and we had round-the-clock access to medical advice by phone. Jean would be transported back to hospital and admitted back into Comfort Care, in case of an emergency.

The services of the Palliative Care staff were focused on the whole person, tending to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs. Although on oxygen 24 hours a day and highly medicated, Jean was enthusiastic. She used her nine months of Palliative Care to write her own obituary, plan her celebration of life and visit daily with friends and family. Most important, Jean and I had time to reflect on our lives together and prepare ourselves. Jean would say: “We can’t be greedy. Don. We’ve had a wonderful life together. Our two boys are successful. We have five beautiful granddaughters and four wonderful great grandchildren. What more can we ask?”

Medical Assistance in Dying can be seen as the next step in the continuum of services for patients who are terminally ill. But it is very new—and very revolutionary. And because it’s so new, it’s not always known to doctors and patients, nor accepted. Fortunately, the young doctor had already referred us to the MAID team back at the time of Jean’s admission to Comfort Care.

We had three interviews with the MAID team, all within the first week of that hospital stay. Jean’s first interview was more or less an explanation of how the service would be made available to us, if Jean qualified. We asked that our two sons, Ramon and Anthony, be present for the second interview.

Not surprisingly, our sons came prepared to argue in favour of their mother living longer. But as it played out, the MAID team only confirmed what our sons had already suspected: Their mother was terminally ill and, even with her medication, in excruciating pain. The third interview happened only a few days later. Again, by our request, our sons were present when we learned Jean qualified for assisted dying. It was now up to her to choose where and when.

Jean spent three weeks in the hospital and nine months at home, before the time came to decide. All along, we had agreed Jean would take the lead, with my full support.

On December 18, 2017, two doctors visited at the request of the Palliative Care nurse. They said they could adjust Jean’s pain medication. They also said Jean’s heart was failing rapidly.

The next day, we talked at breakfast and Jean phoned the coordinator of the MAID team to meet with our sons and us the following day. We were all familiar with one another by now, and the doctor heading up the MAID team hugged Jean, when we got there, and said: “We were surprised and pleased, of course, that we hadn’t heard from you sooner.” Jean smiled and responded: “It’s time.”

We settled quickly on December 23, 2017, at 10 a.m., as the date and time when the procedure would be administered. Jean and I wanted it to happen in our apartment, which meant we didn’t have to book a special hospital room. Jean gave our sons a list of 15 people she wanted invited. A few days earlier, she had had a friend bring a selection of new clothing for the occasion. She chose a red top with long sleeves, black slacks, and red earrings to match the top.

On December 23, 2017, Jean sat in her favourite chair in our apartment. The 15 invited family members and friends were present, along with the MAID team. She urged everyone to reflect on the happy time we had all had together and to be grateful. She assured them she was at peace within herself and felt fulfilled. There were tears of course, but also much laughter and happiness, just as Jean had wanted. Jean called each person forward, to speak with them individually. I sat beside her and held her left hand. Our sons sat on the other side of her and held her right hand. The doctor who was to administer the drugs sat on a small stool behind Jean. Jean had asked our granddaughter, Jessica, to sing her favorite song, “Smile”—the Steven Tyler rendition. Jessica sang it a capella.

Finally, it was my turn for a few private moments with Jean. We had already spent the past few days preparing one another, but what happened in Jean’s final moments was completely spontaneous. We leaned toward each other to touch foreheads. Jean began the mantra we had written for ourselves some years earlier. It had carried us for the past few years, and we had repeated it together nightly:

“Look for beauty in all things,” Jean said.

“Expect love at all times,” I replied.

“Give from the heart,” she continued.

“And be grateful for life itself.” I said.

“And smile,” we said together.

Then we smiled at one another, even though by that point it was very hard. The doctor from MAID asked Jean again—by way of a legal requirement, as much as a part of the process—whether she still wanted the assistance in dying. Jean said “yes,” quietly but firmly. Then we said our last words. The MAID doctor waited and then introduced the drugs into the IV, hidden by the long sleeves of Jean’s top—a sedative, an anesthetic and a muscle relaxant. Jean fell asleep, then into a coma and then finally, her heart stopped.

It’s been a little more than a year since my wife chose to surround herself with family and loving friends at home and be medically assisted in the process of her dying, and less than a year since our family spoke of Jean with affection to the large crowd at her Celebration of Life at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg. Afterwards, there was the jolting shock of losing a loved one, followed by a period of calm. Then, we began talking among ourselves as a family.

This experience opened up the whole discussion around dying with dignity for us. Through Jean’s example, we realized it was alright to talk about death, because it is an inevitable part of life. We saw how important it was to understand end-of-life care options. And we saw how a person who has purpose and is intentional about life can be the same way in death. Jean chose dignity, not victimhood at the fate of a medical process that is often very linear and often misunderstood. In the timing and the details, she was guided by her own sense of peacefulness.

My eldest son, Ramon, has since said a better way to describe what the MAID team provided was a “liberation.” Those of us who accompanied Jean in her last months and on her last day agree that it’s much more fitting than the very clinical sounding Medical Assistance in Dying.

Over the past year, we all have been questioned by friends and acquaintances, even by medical professionals. How did we find out about MAID? How did we learn Jean qualified? How did we support her? How did we feel afterwards? Almost always, there is an awkwardness. There is a lack of experiential knowledge out of there, of course, and a constant search for the right words to communicate freely. That’s why, even though it’s still so raw after one year, I write to share our experiences more broadly.

As Canadians, we don’t like to talk about death. Yet Canada is one of the first countries to offer medical assistance in dying to patients who are terminally ill and suffering. People need to talk to understand it’s a new way of valuing life. The conversation is only just beginning.

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Canada now has a working group dedicated to figuring out bee mortality. On July 9, environmental group Sierra Club Canada shared a press release announcing the group’s formation, which is made up of beekeepers, farmers, scientists and others in agri-business. The press release mentions the recent loss of 27 million bees near Elwood, Ont. In the release, Sierra Club Canada’s executive director John Bennett says, “This working group is the first real recognition of the impact of neonictinoid on bees,” referring to a pesticide still used in Canada, though banned by the European Union.

According to the Canadian Honey Council website, Canada’s bee population has dropped by 30 percent in the past year. Globally, bees are disappearing by the millions; detrimental news for our food supply—pollination is responsible for 70 percent of plants grown for produce—and agricultural business. A brochure from the council states, “In Canada it is estimated that the value of honeybees to agriculture is $1.3 billion.”

Both Ontario and New Brunswick have seen a decline in their bee populations, as have Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba – the provinces responsible for 80 percent of the country’s honey production. Both honeybees and native bumblebee populations have been affected.

Hives have been found near void of working bees, leaving only the queen and immature bees. Though bees are social creatures that stay near their hives – the workers’ bodies are not found near the homes. Predators of abandoned hives, like hive beetles and wax moths, will not even enter the affected hives. This strange phenomenon has been dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Since 2006, different theories have circulated regarding the cause of CCD. They range from viruses, such as the Israeli acute paralysis virus and the nosema virus, to cell phones and even Osama bin Laden (yup).

Now, neonictinoid pesticides are being looked at. Used for corn and soybeans, the pesticide was authorized for commercial use by Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency in 2004. It replaced lindane, which was taken off the Canadian market after it harmed bees, birds, and other wildlife. Research published in the online journal Nature Communications says neonictinoid blocks a part of the bee brain, disabling them from linking floral scents to nectar. This research contributed to the EU ban, which upset neonictinoid companies Syngenta and Bayer. In a company statement, Syngenta disputed research findings: “The proposal is based on poor science and ignores a wealth of evidence from the field that these pesticides do not damage the health of bees.” Both companies warn the ban will cost billions of euros.

And now, we’ll get to see what Canada’s new working group determines in regards to this controversial pesticide.

Bella and two other dogs were caged and kept in a basement. Bella’s back legs were weak and her paws had grown extra toes. You wouldn’t know Bella was a rescue dog now, carrying a large fallen tree branch with her teeth. Her tail was wagging, not between her legs. And her demeanor was friendly, newly accustomed to the family’s two-and-a-half year old son. Bella’s new owner told me she’d heard the original owner was taking out his anger on the dogs after he and his girlfriend split up. Not unlike the case of Queenie, a Cane Corso in New York. She was found starving to death in her home earlier this year. The abuser was a spiteful ex-husband, whose ex-wife thankfully saved the dog.

Dog abuse can also be caused by good intentions–if good intentions mean locking up 61 dogs in two windowless buildings, left to fight each other and live in their own waste. Their owner, Manitoban Peter Chernecki told news outlets that the dogs were strays he rescued from Gull Lake’s local landfill. He insists they were not malnourished, telling CBC News, “The dogs were all fed, they all had water. The dogs were in good shape. They weren’t starving, nothing like that.”

Even so, this September, he and his partner Judith will be sentencedafter pleading guilty to seven counts of animal under the Animal Care Act and Regulations. The Office of the Chief Veterinary Officer for Manitoba cites the distress-related charges on their Media Bulletin:

• failure to provide adequate medical attention when animals were wounded or ill,
• failure to provide adequate lighting, and
• confinement of animals in a way that impaired their well-being.

The couple will be facing a maximum penalty of six months in jail, a $5,000 fine, and a five year ban on dog ownership.

Even if Chernecki was telling the truth—that the dogs had food and water—every living thing needs more than that to survive. The conditions these animals were forced to live in left their fur matted with feces. When provincial officials rescued the dogs, the buildings were treated like a hazardous materials site. Neighbours would later tell the Toronto Star about a strange odour coming from the dwellings and the black flies surrounding the area.

These creatures are famously known to be our best friends, but they were overwhelming neglected. Over half of the animals were euthanized. The Winnipeg Humane Society saved some and others were sent to a U.S. dog shelter called Dog Town. Officials say the incident was a case of hoarding. Animal hoarding can be a result of OCD, addictions or attachment disorder. Whatever the case, 61 lives were abused and 34 of them didn’t survive it.

Canada is a nation of wild, legendary rivers. The Mackenzie, the Fraser, the Churchill, and dozens more all empty into our national identity. They flow through our landscape, history, and imagination. They are vital to any history textbook, Group of Seven exhibit, or gift-shop postcard rack.

Canada is also a nation of river-tamers. We revere our waterways—but we also dam them. Trudeau canoed the epic Nahanni and two years later presided over the opening of the mammoth Churchill Falls hydroelectric dam in Labrador. We are, as the Canadian Hydropower Association says, a “hydro superpower.” Almost 60 percent of our electricity supply comes from dams—compared to just 16 percent globally—and only China squeezes more electricity out of its rivers than we do.

The heyday of big dam construction in Canada began around the late 1950s. What followed was an exhibition of progress in the raw. Surveyors and bulldozers headed to the frontier. Mighty men tamed mighty rivers. Engineering prowess replaced natural grandeur.

As rock was blasted and cement poured, legacies were forged, both geographical and political. In Manitoba, the two largest rivers and three of the five largest lakes were dramatically re-engineered. In Quebec, 571 dams and control structures have altered the flow of 74 rivers.

The construction phase lasted through the ’80s, then slowed, even though the country’s hydro potential had only been half tapped. Now, after two decades of limited construction—with the exception of Hydro-Québec, which kept on building—the dam-builders are rumbling to life again.

In the next 10 to 15 years, Canadian utilities will spend $55 to $70 billion on new hydroelectric projects. This would add 14,500 megawatts to Canada’s existing 71,000 megawatts of hydroelectric capacity. Most new projects are in Quebec (4,570 MW), B.C. (3,341 MW), Labrador (3,074 MW), and Manitoba (2,380 MW). The largest of these, Labrador’s 2,250 MW Gull Island project, will produce as much power as 750 train locomotives.

The extent and cost of construction will vary over time, but one thing is certain: the push for more hydro is on.

Most of these projects are driven in large part by the prospect of exporting power to the U.S. American interest in hydropower is linked, in part, to its low cost and its low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this context, the push for more hydro is also a push by the industry to position its product as an answer to climate change.

Jacob Irving heads the Canadian Hydropower Association, which represents the interests of the hydro industry. He says hydropower is “a very strong climate change solution,” because it can displace the use of coal and natural gas to generate electricity. The argument is simple and compelling: use more hydropower, use less fossil fuel. The industry especially touts exports of hydro to the U.S., where 600 coal-fired plants produce 45 percent of the nation’s electricity, with another 24 percent fuelled by natural gas. The CHA says hydro exports already reduce continental emissions by half a million tons a year. They want that number to grow.

Given the dire climate prognosis—emissions in Canada, the U.S., and everywhere else are well above levels in 1990, the year used as a benchmark in the Kyoto Accord—the urgency of reducing fossil-fuel consumption is great. Perhaps Canada’s wild rivers, if harnessed, can be our gift to a warming world. Maybe a concrete edifice nestled in a river valley is just as quintessentially Canadian as a lone paddler on a pristine river.

This presents a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario for Canadian utilities. They can build more dams—obviously still a cornerstone of the corporate culture—cash in on lucrative exports, and enjoy eco-hero status. But is damming more of our rivers an optimal strategy for addressing climate change?

Despite the virtues of hydro power, dams can only reduce emissions indirectly. Their climate value hinges in part on the extent to which they substitute for fossilfuel-fired generation, as opposed to displacing nuclear, wind, or other sources. Though displacement is hard to prove, Irving reasons that “were we not to be sending that electricity down to the United States, the next most logical source of generation to meet their load requirements would generally be natural gas and/or coal.” The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) actually predicts that over the next 25 years, 11 percent of new generation in the U.S. will be coal-fired and 60 percent natural gas (which is roughly half as bad as coal in terms of emissions).

In Canada, most new hydro projects are located in provinces with minimal fossil-fuel-fired generation, so limited displacement will happen here. Exceptions are Ontario, Labrador (where 102 MW will be displaced), Nova Scotia (which will import from Labrador), and possibly Saskatchewan, which could use hydro from Manitoba.

While the fossil-fuel displacement argument has obvious merit, it also has weaknesses. Utilities can argue that hydro exports help save the planet, but critics can say these exports just keep the most wasteful society on earth air-conditioned and recharged. They can say that hydro exports just feed an addiction with more and more cheap power, every kilowatt of which reduces the imperative to curb consumption. The basic argument is that reducing demand must be the obvious and dominant priority in energy policy, rather than endlessly ramping up supply.

Government agencies predict electricity demand in Canada will grow almost 10 percent between now and 2020, and in the U.S. by approximately 30 percent between now and 2035. Ralph Torrie says we can and must go in the opposite direction. “We could double the efficiency with which we use fuel and electricity in Canada,” he says. If you want to see how it’s done, he adds, “just take a vacation to Europe.” Torrie, whose energy expertise is internationally recognized, serves as managing director of the Vancouver-based Trottier Energy Futures Project. In contrast to Irving, who accepts that demand for electricity will grow, Torrie advocates a “new way of thinking about the energy future.”

“There is no demand for electricity,” he says. “Nobody wants a kilowatt hour in their living room.” We want the services that electricity can provide, and we must “focus on how we can best meet the underlying needs for amenity with less rather than more fuel and electricity.” That, he says, is the only hope for “anything we might call a sustainable energy future.”

“We waste half the hydro we produce,” says John Bennett, who heads the Sierra Club of Canada. The solution to climate change is “to use less energy,” he says. “That’s where the major investment should be.”

Torrie says large hydro is environmentally preferable to many forms of energy supply, but still, reducing demand can achieve the same thing at a lower cost, and without the decade-long turnaround time for planning and construction. He views conservation as a resource. “There’s almost always a kilowatt of electricity that can be saved for a smaller cost than building the ability to generate a new kilowatt.” Plus, the resource gets bigger with every new innovation in efficiency. As Torrie puts it, “The size of the resource goes up every time somebody has a bright idea.”

Cutting electricity demand by half would include a range of technologies, including LED lighting, sensor-driven smart controls that reduce daytime lighting in buildings, and continued improvements to virtually every device that uses electricity.

But even if we as a continent cut our energy use by half, we still need some energy—and should not a maximum amount of that come from low-emission hydro? Can’t conservation and new hydro be dual priorities?

According to energy consultant Phillipe Dunsky, total spending on efficiency and conservation programs in Canada is only about $1 billion per year. Despite that, Jacob Irving says, “energy conservation has to be forefront of all decisions.” Then he adds a caveat: “There’s a lot of analysis that says energy consumption will grow, and so we need to be ready for that.” Whether demand shrinks or expands, the simple prohydro argument—more hydro equals less fossil fuel— still stands.

But for Tony Maas, who works for the Canadian branch of the World Wildlife Fund, it’s not that simple. He says new hydro projects must be part of an overarching plan for “net reduction in GHG emissions.” He cites Ontario’s Green Energy Act as an example of a plan that commits to overall GHG reduction.

But, as John Bennett points out, “we don’t have a North American plan to reduce emissions,” so new hydro projects “can’t be part of that plan.” The EIA predicts that without policy change, coal use as well as GHG emissions from electricity generation, will continue to increase over the next 25 years. Bennett says building more dams to meet increasing demand is like doubling the fuel efficiency of cars so that people can drive twice as much.

In a release this April, Hydro-Québec, Canada’s largest generator and exporter of hydropower, said, “The major environmental challenge facing North America is to replace coal to generate power and oil used in transportation.” While climate change may be the “major” environmental challenge of the day, it is not the only one. Just because hydro dams do not have highly visible carbon-spewing smoke stacks does not necessarily make them environmentally friendly. Behind the question of whether dams are a climate solution lies a more fundamental question: is hydro actually clean, as utilities and governments regularly assert?

Jacob Irving says, “When people refer to [hydro] as clean, it’s in the context of air emissions.” But rarely is this specified. The categorical use of the term by utilities, without caveat or qualification, is misleading. Tony Maas says he gets “nervous” when hydro is called clean because “it almost implies there are no impacts.” But dams harm the environment. A dam is not an environmental improvement or solution for a watershed.

One of the main impacts is the disruption of the natural “flow regime” in a waterway. Maas says the natural fluctuations in water levels are the “master variable in organizing a river ecosystem,” giving key “cues” to other species. Thus, a WWF report says, “Dams destroy the ecology of river systems by changing the volume, quality, and timing of water flows downstream.” The evidence of this is visible in dammed Canadian rivers, as it is in the hundreds of millions of dollars paid to mitigate and compensate for damages caused by dams. Manitoba Hydro alone has spent over $700 million to address damages from its “clean” hydro projects.

The WWF takes a more nuanced approach. It says some hydro projects can be built without unacceptable harm, but its 2011 global energy plan still “severely restrict[s] future growth of hydro power to reflect the need for an evolution that respects existing ecosystems and human rights.”

Similarly, a 2011 report about Canada’s boreal forests by the Pew Environment Group considers both pros and cons of hydro. In a section about hydro called “How Green Is It?”, the report says:

Although [hydro dams] are comparatively low carbon emitters in comparison to many conventional energy sources, hydropower projects have resulted in significant impacts to wildlife habitat, ecological processes and aboriginal communities.

In a later section, the report states:

While it is clear that allowing our societies to be powered by carbon fuels is not sustainable, this does not mean that alternative or renewable energy sources can simply be viewed as having no cost whatsoever.

The report, entitled “A Forest of Blue,” does not offer a simple verdict. Rather, it says, “We must understand as many of the implications and complexities of the issues as possible.” The candour and openness to complexity demonstrated in the report are exactly what is needed in the assessment of any climate-change strategy.

In keeping with the Pew report’s frank and thorough nature, it also discusses the role Aboriginal peoples play in hydro development. This is an essential part of any discussion of hydropower in Canada since virtually all hydro projects occupy lands to which First Nations have rights. In the past, Aboriginal people vehemently (and mostly unsuccessfully) opposed major dams. That has changed: in some cases Aboriginal opposition has succeeded. The $5 billion, 1,250 MW Slave River project in Alberta has been “deferred” after project proponents were unable to reach a deal with Smith’s Landing First Nation last year.

The proposed Site C Dam, a 1,100 MW, $7.9 billion project planned for the Peace River in B.C., faces resolute opposition from four First Nations in the area. But the outcome of that David-and-Goliath battle will not be know for some time.

Elsewhere, opposition has given way to participation—David and Goliath have become allies. Most recently, members of the Innu Nation in Labrador voted in June to allow the massive Lower Churchill River projects—Muskrat Falls (824 MW) and Gull Island (2,250 MW)—to proceed. In exchange, the 2,800 Innu receive $5 million per year to assist with their process costs during and prior to construction, up to $400 million in contracts during construction, and share of project profits thereafter (5 percent of “After Debt Net Cashflow”).

The broad Tshash Petapen (New Dawn) Agreement, in which these provisions are contained, also includes an agreement in principle on land claims and $2 million a year as compensation for damages related to the existing Upper Churchill Falls dam.

Meanwhile, the Inuit (distinct from the Innu), who are concerned about downstream impacts in their territory, say they have been largely left out of the process.

In Quebec, the James Bay Cree receive over $100 million a year in hydro, forestry, and mining royalties as a result of the 2002 Peace of the Braves agreement. In it they consented to the Eastmain-1-A/Sarcelle/Rupert Project (918 MW) while securing the permanent abandonment of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert project, which would have flooded 6,000 square kilometres.

First Nations near proposed dam sites in Manitoba have been offered lump-sum compensation packages, along with the opportunity to invest in projects. For instance, the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, with its 4,500 members, will be entitled to a third of the profits of the nearly completed Wuskwatim Dam if they can come up with a third of the $1.3 billion cost of the dam. They also benefit from $60 million of employment training.

In June, four other First Nations joined Manitoba Hydro in announcing the start of construction on the 695 MW, $5.6 billion Keeyask dam. Like Nisichawayasihk, they will be offered the chance to invest in the dam, as well as employment opportunities.

What’s clear in all these cases is that Canadian utilities cannot ignore Aboriginal demands. “We can stop development,” says Ovide Mercredi, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations and the recently retired Chief of the Misipawistik Cree Nation in northern Manitoba. His community sits right next to the 479 MW Grand Rapids Dam, which floods 115,700 hectares. In reference to the water flowing through that dam, Mercredi’s message to the province is simple: “That’s not your water, it belongs to our people and we want a share of that money.” The dam’s 50-year provincial licence expires in 2015 and Mercredi wants licence renewal to be contingent on public acknowledgement of the harm, increased mitigation of damages, and a revenue-sharing agreement. In part, the message is that if utilities do not deal with Aboriginal concerns now, they will have to later.

Whether First Nations are defiant or eager for new dams to power their economic future, the broader environmental questions remain. While Aboriginal influence has led to a reduction in the size of dams and increased environmental mitigation, and First Nations consent improves the general ethical perception of a project, there is still no tidy way to pour thousands of tons of cement into a river.

No matter who is involved, the merit of the case for hydro as a climate solution can be tested by the assumptions it rests on. These assumptions are that hydro is clean; that demand for electricity will grow; and that the primary alternative to more hydro is fossil-fuel generation. Are these solutions part of the solution or the problem?

Ultimately, the solution to climate change, as well as to watershed health, may never be found unless we move past these assumptions and replace them with better, more accurate premises.

First, dams are not green or clean in themselves. To disrupt the flow of a river and blaze a transmission corridor through kilometres of forest is, in itself, bad for the biosphere. To solve one environmental problem (global warming) with another (pouring hundreds of thousands of tonnes of cement in a free-flowing river) is counterintuitive. That said, desperate circumstances may require desperate measures.

Second, energy demand can and must be substantially reduced. The logical outcome of letting demand increase indefinitely and meeting that demand with ever more hydro and other renewables is to have every river dammed, the landscape saturated with wind and solar farms, and consumption still increasing. The ultimate, unavoidable solution is to use less energy. This must be the dominant priority.

Finally, dams do not reduce GHG emissions per se. They increase energy supply. Apart from a demonstrated continental commitment to dramatically reduce emissions (and energy demand), the case for hydro as a climate solution is, for the industry, a rather convenient truth. Hydropower can’t be part of the climate-change solution if there is no solution.

Climate change is one of humanity’s greatest challenges, and to address it we may need to conjure greater creativity than just reviving electricity generation megaprojects conceived of decades ago. Dan McDermott of the Sierra Club’s Ontario Chapters says, “The age of big dams is over.” According to him, hydro proponents “have their heads turned backwards attempting to mortgage the future to maintain the past.”

The large hydro projects currently in the works were envisioned before global warming concerned anyone, in an era summed up by former Manitoba premier Duff Roblin when he rose in the legislature in 1966 and prophesied a grandiose future for hydropower, saying, “We can have our cake, we can eat it and we can make a bigger cake, and sell part of that.”

Though hydro prospects are framed differently now, dam proponents still appear to share Roblin’s belief in limitless, consequence-free development. Now the question of whether taming more of our iconic rivers will help the climate becomes a question of whether Roblin was right.

MIT Professor Sheila Kennedy's solar-energy-producing textiles. Courtesy Sheila Kennedy.

Rick Mercer’s quip during the Copenhagen climate conference last December summed it up best: “So [Stephen] Harper flew to Copenhagen to have a club sandwich and hide in his room?”

The post-Copenhagen doldrums were still bringing us down when Thomas Auer, managing director of Transsolar, the German climate-engineering firm assigned to the Manitoba Hydro Place, stepped onto a stage at Toronto’s Interior Design Show in January to explain his vision on designing a world without oil. The future in sustainable architecture is about harnessing daylight and fresh air, he declared.

The theme that came up again and again in presentations from renowned engineers, architects, designers and futurists at IDS was if we are to kick our oil addiction, guilt-tripping us won’t work. But seduction through innovative design just might. As design guru Bruce Mau said, “I don’t believe we can succeed in sustainability without making it more sexy and beautiful.”

So imagine, for example, a beach house with billowing curtains that harvest sunlight and convert it to energy— enough to juice up your laptop or illuminate your bedroom at night. Sheila Kennedy, architect, inventor and MIT prof, has done just that. Her sensuous textiles (including lace) are implanted with ultra-thin photovoltaic strips that produce electricity when exposed to light.

For Fritz Haeg, desirable objects took a backseat to the human condition. A geodesic-dome-dwelling architect based in California, Haeg says the story of oil is one of disconnection. There was a time when we used the resources immediately within our reach and dealt with our waste locally as well, Haeg says, but oil took this away and unintentionally led to our present ignorance about the environment.

One of Fritz Haeg's Edible Estates. Courtesy Fritz Haeg.

Edible Estates, Haeg’s ongoing gardening project, is trying to change that. By turning eight suburban front lawns from spaces you cut and “keep off” into productive gardens, Haeg wants to bring back a reality rendered invisible by oil. He’s not a Slow Food idealist; instead, Haeg says that questioning the front lawn is just the easiest first wedge into unraveling the old structure of our cities. But he acknowledges the idea will face resistance in suburbia. “How far have we come from the core of our humanity that the act of growing our own food might be considered impolite, unseemly, threatening, radical or even hostile?” he asks.

Yello Strom energy metre in use. Courtesy Yello Strom.

Like Haeg, Ted Howes of global consultancy IDEO believes that we have to turn energy from an invisible commodity into a tangible experience. And social media can help. The Yello Strom energy meter, which Howes helped develop for the German market, is a small wall-mounted box with a curvy bright yellow shell and a simple-to-read meter that could easily have been plucked from an Apple store window. It sends out tweets about your energy consumption and gives consumers direct access to Google’s energy management tool, PowerMeter. A phone app is sure to follow.

The attitude that we can wean ourselves off oil by finding more attractive alternatives may have ironically been best summed up by the man who was Saudi Arabia’s oil minister during the 1973 oil embargo. “The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone,” sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani said recently, “and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.”

“We know that the greatest obstacles to technological progress are organizational, cultural, sociological,” says Anita McGahan, a professor who teaches “The End of Oil” [PDF] at the University of Toronto. “They’re not technical. We have the technology.”

Now we need the political leadership.

November 13, 1971, The Pas, Manitoba. Four young white men drive past Helen Betty Osborne, a 19-year-old Cree girl. They call for her to get in the car and party with them. “I think I heard a yes,” one man taunts. When she refuses, the men pull her into the car and drive off.

Flip the page, to illustrated panels showing the RCMP knocking on her mother’s door, about to deliver the news of Osborne’s rape and murder. Winnipeg author David Alexander Robertson uses the advantages of a graphic novel to detail the horrific event in his book, The Life of Helen Betty Osborne.

“Her story is really close to my heart. All of us involved in it really got to know her,” Robertson says. His father comes from Norway House, the same small northern community where Osborne spent her early years.

Robertson had self-published two novels when the Helen Betty Osborne Memorial Foundation asked him to write a book about Osborne’s murder to use in schools. He came up with the idea for a graphic novel telling the story of the girl’s last days, showing her hanging out at high school with her friends and dreaming of becoming a teacher—depicting her as a person, not a victim. What’s left for discussion is the racism, sexism and indifference behind the fact that only one of the four men implicated was ever convicted, and only sixteen years after the fact. It’s a tale of sloppy police work, townfolk who wouldn’t speak up about what they knew, and official indifference to a pattern of white men sexually harassing aboriginal women and girls.

The racial tension that divided whites and aboriginals in The Pas in the 1970s has lessened, but Robertson argues his book is relevant all these years later because the problems that played a part in Osborne’s death are still very much at play. He sees a connection between Osborne and hundreds of other disappeared aboriginal women. “There are 520 murdered and missing aboriginal women in Canada, half of them in this decade. By telling Helen Betty Osborne’s story to a wider audience, it’s bringing a new awareness to the issue. We’re seeing the awareness build, but it’s a long slow build.”

Robertson’s book is just the latest in a string of non-fiction Canadian graphic novels to surface. Many landmark works are personal projects, like Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki—which, like Robertson’s book, sketches the life of a teenage girl. Others, like Chester Brown’s footnoted history Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography or Guy Delisle’s Burma Chronicles take a more documentary approach. These home-grown examples follow in the footsteps of global successes like Joe Sacco’s pointillist reportage on the Bosnian War with The Fixer, Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of an Iranian childhood in Persepolis, and Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning holocaust memoir, Maus.

Unlike these creators, Robertson writes the script but leaves the art to others. For Osborne, illustrator Madison Blackstone applied a range of graphic techniques, including full-colour paintings and black and white drawings. Some panels mesh drawings and photographs, underlining that this project is based on a real woman; the photos show the flowers and cigarette lighters that continue to be placed on Osborne’s grave and memorial, the hold she has on people’s memory in a town that cannot forget her death.

“I love the way that graphic novels offer different ways to engage people, from elementary school to people in their sixties,” Robertson says. For his next project, he’s working on a comic book series called 7 Generations, a historical work of fiction focused on the Plains Cree area. “It’s all about the impact of history, how can we address that and move on.”

Graphic novels are long past being comic relief. Robertson’s new book joins a growing tradition that expands our idea of what to expect from the un-funny pages.

Historic treaty boundaries between Canada and Aboriginal peoples. Not representative of any proposed outline for an Aboriginal province; vast areas of Canada have never been formally surrendered or ceded by Aboriginal peoples. Courtesy Ministry of Natural Resources. Click to Enlarge

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 included a clause prohibiting British colonists from purchasing “Lands of the Indians,” so as not to commit more of the “Frauds and Abuses” that characterized colonial takeovers of Aboriginal territory. To my reading, this measure was intended to make clear to the English colonists that Aboriginal Peoples enjoyed equal status. As we know, that’s not quite how it worked out.

In 1987, after the premiers met at Meech Lake and agreed to open the Constitution, I proposed to several prominent people involved in the process that the easiest way to respect that commitment, and to lessen the offence of their putting Quebec before Aboriginals, would be to create an 11th province out of the remaining Aboriginal and territorial lands. Twenty-two years later, First Nations are still fighting to get even a modicum of self-government.

When Canada was patriating the Constitution in 1982, Aboriginal leaders were able to create enough domestic and international pressure on the federal and provincial governments that the first ministers committed to making the next round of constitutional change about Aboriginal issues. They even enshrined in the Constitution a requirement for first ministers to have one, and then two more meetings with Aboriginal leaders.

But the election of the Progressive Conservative party under Brian Mulroney in Ottawa, and the defeat of the separatist Parti Québécois in Quebec at the hands of the Liberals under Robert Bourassa, suddenly moved the now infamous “Quebec round” ahead of Aboriginal people. While the constitutional requirement of first ministers’ meetings with Aboriginal leaders to amend the Constitution was met, it seems with hindsight that these meetings were simply pro forma, as Bourassa and Mulroney already had plans for the Meech Lake Constitutional Accord.

The accord failed, in part, due to a single Aboriginal member of the Manitoba legislature named Elijah Harper who refused to give unanimous consent so it could be adopted by the Manitoba legislature by the Mulroney government’s declared deadline for ratification: June 23, 1990.

A year later, the Mulroney government appointed a Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Among its recommendations were a list of powers that Aboriginal nations needed to protect their language, religion, culture, and heritage.

The underlying concepts are similar to the powers that the Fathers of Confederation from Lower Canada had identified as necessary for the preservation of the francophone language, religion, culture, and heritage. Letting provincial governments have the powers necessary to protect language, culture, and religion, was the key to Confederation and then the innovation of federalism was chosen for the new Dominion of Canada. Even though Canada was based on this idea of division of powers to allow for regional cultural autonomy, the federal and provincial governments have rejected similar devolution of powers to Aboriginal communities or provincehood for the Northern territories. The federal and provincial governments claim the population is too few and too dispersed to manage all these powers. And, of course, small provinces and Quebec do not want to start adding multiple provinces, beginning with three in the North, as their own relative influence would diminish.

But what about one province for all Aboriginal Peoples?

Aboriginal lands, including the three Northern territories, are legally held in reserve on behalf of Aboriginal Peoples. The federal government acts as trustee over the land, and this creates a rather distasteful paternalistic dimension to Aboriginal–Non-Aboriginal relations. What if our government simply takes all this land held in reserve and returns it to Aboriginals? Make all that land the 11th province of Canada.

The structure of government for this new province is unimportant and frankly not the business of the people who don’t live on this land. The constitutional change would be simpler than one would imagine. It would not require the unanimous consent of the provinces. According to the Constitution Act, 1982, the agreement of only seven provinces, representing the majority of the population, is needed for the federal parliament to create a new province. But it also states that this is “notwithstanding any other law or practice,” and for the federal parliament to take all remaining Aboriginal land and designate it the “final” province, given constitutionally entrenched treaty rights and federal jurisdiction over “Indians, and land reserved for Indians,” it may even be possible to do part of the change without provincial consent.

This change does not even have to significantly alter the existing structures of Aboriginal communities—unless, of course, they decide to alter them on their own once they have obtained provincehood. In many of the current provinces there are three levels of government managing provincial powers, namely the provincial government, regional governments and municipal governments. So, for example, the Government of Nunavut could continue as a regional government within the new Aboriginal province and the Sambaa K’e Dene Band could continue to operate similar to a municipal government, with authority delegated from the Aboriginal province. As the Aboriginal province would have all of the powers that Aboriginals have identified as central to the preservation of their languages, religions, and cultures, it can delegate powers as needed locally or act provincially as expedient.

With the exception of the creation of a provincial government, this is pretty close to the position the federal government has been taking vis-à-vis territorial governments and local band councils. The big change will be that in the future, instead of Aboriginals demanding from the federal government the right to handle their own affairs, they would be dealing with their own provincial government—a government they elect and that is accountable to them.

For those concerned about corruption within band councils, their own provincial government would regulate these matters and being concerned about how monies transferred to the local governments are handled, it would undoubtedly do so more effectively than the federal government, and without the racism or paternalistic interference. Equalization payments to the province would replace the now direct transfer to Aboriginals and their band councils, thus eliminating the demoralizing stigma of dependency. What is more, some of the Aboriginal land held in reserve is resource-rich, providing an independent source of revenue.

Critics of nationalism most strongly reject the idea of a province based on ethnicity. But based on its territory and its land base, the new 11th Province would not be exclusively Aboriginal. Many non-Aboriginals live on these lands and within the broader Aboriginal grouping there are First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, subdivided by hundreds of individual Aboriginal nations. This would be a civic nation like Quebec, and a province like any other, though the provincial leadership will likely be Aboriginal.

This largely Aboriginal province will be bigger in territory, richer in resources, and competitive in population size to the average Canadian province. It can negotiate with the more influential provinces, where many of its off-reserve citizens live or work, namely Alberta, B.C., Quebec, and Ontario. And, like the other civic nation of Quebec, its premier, by virtue of representing a cultural group that is in the minority across Canada, would have a powerful voice at the table of first ministers.

With provincehood would come an increase in Aboriginal members in the Senate and House of Commons. Aboriginal Peoples would finally be truly engaged in Canada’s political process—and this is essential for full citizenship and equality.

[Writer Laura Trethewey recently travelled across Canada by train, and sent us five postcards on the way, from B.C. to Northern Ontario. The “Prairie Postcard Project” chronicles that leg of her trip and the people she met along the way. Visit her blog for the whole story. Click the postcard images to enlarge.]

Dearest This:

It’s almost a requirement that a hotelier have a certain amount of eccentricity. The owner of the first place I stay at in Winnipeg definitely does. My second night there, I hear loud voices coming from the garden. Thinking it’s a gang of rowdy guests, I head back and discover the owner and a pal of his deep into a box of wine. They invite me to join in.

Both are in their 40s but have an oddly child-like appearance, the owner in particular. The corner of his mouth is stained, like a toddler who hasn’t learned to drink his grape juice properly, while his thinning hair sticks out diagonally from one side of his head, like his just awoken from an afternoon nap. He has a quiet demeanour, almost like he’s sizing me up, and then he gives himself over to proclamations like “women are bitches! They don’t want to see each other succeed. Men do. I think it comes from playing sports.”

This is followed by a huge guffaw that quickly quiets into a worried look, like he’s said too much. His friend tells me later on that the owner has recently had his heart broken by a “lady friend.”

-Laura T.