How should we react to Danielle Smith now that she is Alberta’s Premier? I expect her UCP party will be defeated in the May 29th provincial elections next year. But what if the UCP wins?
She is one of the more died-in-the wool fascists to rise to power in the West in the last 15 years. She ignores climate disaster, aligns with anti-vaccine crazies like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and supports Vladimir Putin’s efforts to consolidate the power of “Christian” white nationalists. But she is just one of many such leaders, including Donald Trump, Doug Ford, Pierre Poilievre, and Viktor Orban.
I have been dismayed by the advance of fascism ever since the election of Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto in 2010, but I’m not surprised by this terrible fact. Despite all the changes in society that we appreciate, capitalism means continued environmental destruction and an inability to do much about it.
I thought about these issues on our drive to and from Calgary on October 25 and 27. Kim and I went to Calgary because our grandson Ethan had become sick on Friday October 21 and had emergency surgery to remove an abscess in his neck on October 25. Happily, despite the cratering of Alberta’s healthcare system and two terrible nights in the emergency room of Alberta’s Children’s Hospital on the 21st and the 22nd, Ethan was finally diagnosed on a third trip to the ER on the 24th, had surgery on the 25th, and was released on October 28. He is doing well; and Kim and I were glad to be close by the hospital for two days and to be of some support to Ethan’s parents, Vinny and Katrina.
On our drive to Calgary on the 25th, we stopped at The Harvey’s in “Gasoline Alley” in Red Deer for lunch, and I picked up a free newspaper that was stacked on top of the garbage bins. It was a fascist tract filled with articles against COVID-19 health restrictions and against worries about climate change. It was there to spread disinformation to unsuspecting people like me that picked it up.
I am negatively impressed by how fascists have used the COVID-19 pandemic to gain so much support. But I think climate disaster is at the core of their growing appeal. Here is how Gillian Steward put it last month in a column in the Toronto Star.
These ideas were concretized on our drive back to Edmonton on October 27. Our hotel was west of downtown Calgary, just below the hill where the wonderful Children’s Hospital sits. Google Maps told us the quickest way home was to drive a bit further west past “Canada Olympic Park” where the 1988 ski-jumping competitions were held during the Winter Olympics and onto the ring road “Stony Trail,” which eventually landed us back on Highway 2 north of the city and on which we drove to Edmonton. As we drove along Stony Trail, we passed endless suburban tracts — neighbourhoods which are incompatible with the survival of humanity into the 22nd Century.
We need cities that are dense, complex, and walkable. But most infrastructure development of the past 80 years has been the opposite of that; and leaders who talk about climate disaster yet who preside over suburban sprawl, parking lots, and multi-lane roads are guilty of hypocrisy. Those like Smith and her fascist friends who focus on “freedom” and ignore climate disaster are more authentic, in my opinion.
I wish Kim and I had been able to travel by bullet train to and from Calgary. But since 1985, there has not even been old-style passenger train service between Edmonton and Calgary. One hundred years ago, every hamlet in Canada was serviced by trains. If climate disaster were handled well, this would once again be the case. But it is much easier to imagine the victory of fascists and the continued destruction of the natural world than to imagine the densification of Canadian population centres.
Not that there aren’t temporary victories against fascism. On October 30, former Brazilian President Lula narrowly defeated fascist current President Bolsanaro, and at least initially it looks like democracy may yet prevail in Brazil, with Lula being inaugurated on January 1, 2023. We will see.
On November 8, there is a by-election in the Brooks-Medicine Hat riding in which Premier Smith is seeking a seat, and the mid-term elections in the United States. I will be thrilled if Smith is defeated and if the Democratic Party prevails in the USA.
But the inability of our leaders to handle climate disaster means more wind in the sails of fascists, I believe.
I was discouraged when the BC NDP moved against climate champion Anjali Appadurai on October 19. She was set to win the NDP leadership and thus become BC’s Premier. I would have been thrilled if a 32-year-old woman of Tamil descent, and one who puts climate disaster at the core of her agenda, had become B.C. Premier. But I guess the NDP is waiting until climate disaster becomes “dire” before allowing a radical like Appadurai to take the helm.
As the world burns, almost all leaders turn their eyes from policies that might help. This inability to look reality in its face reminds me of Hannah Arendt’s concept “The Banality of Evil.” Arendt originally applied this concept to Adolph Eichmann when he was tried for genocide in Jerusalem in 1962. She was struck by his inability or unwillingness to think what his actions as one the leaders of the Nazi Regime in Germany between 1933 and 1945 meant for the mass murder of Jews and other “state enemies.”
Today, I view the actions of leaders who focus on the economy instead of the imminent death of billions through climate inaction as another instance of The Banality of Evil.
It also helps me to understand my dismay at the mis-leadership of the United Church of Canada.
It has been evident for decades that the UCC, along with most other mainline Christian denominations, is dwindling towards its demise. But virtually no one in the church can speak this plain truth and probe it for what it reveals. When the world’s atmosphere, its oceans, the biosphere, and liberal democracy are all cratering, why not use the demise of church as a springboard to live through these grief-filled deaths and so rise to a new reality in which we could yet hold onto our sacred values of faith, hope, and love in this disastrous 21st Century?
We live in a new age – a post-2016 era in which fascism is on the rise, public healthcare systems are collapsing, and climate disaster is a terrifying reality instead of an ominous threat for the future. And yet, even a tiny, aging, and rapidly dwindling denomination like the UCC cannot grasp its own reality to better attend to a wider set of social crises. It can’t find the Grace evident in the stories of the death of Jesus and move closer to the Risen Christ. It can’t admit its demise for its 100th anniversary in 2025, let alone speak truth to the power of the imperialist church, which began its genocidal march through the world 1700 years ago with the Council of Nicea in 325.
Is this inability to think evil? Perhaps not. But it certainly strikes me as banal.
And yet . . . and yet . . . life is filled with endless sweetness. Below is a picture of me and our still-surviving dog Coco taken as the sun rose behind our Calgary hotel on October 27. For the first time in recorded history, Edmonton saw no accumulating snow between April and November. Cold weather and snow are now imminent, but I have loved the weather during my first six months of retirement.
Who knows what the future holds? Perhaps Smith, Trump, and Bolsanaro will all be sent packing – at least for now. I am glad that, despite its terrifying collapse, the Alberta healthcare system served Ethan well; that he is robust and thriving again; and that so far, all of my fall choral projects are proceeding.
Fascism, war, and climate disaster all have wind in their sails. But we are still alive and enjoying more wondrous moments of love, beauty, and spiritual growth.
Until December,
Ian
Notes and sermons from Edmonton 