Why we're losing the fight against bullying

FOCUSPublished Friday, Oct. 29, 2010 6:50PM EDTLast updated Friday, Oct. 29, 2010 7:35PM EDT0 comments

It is lunchtime at St. Anne Catholic School in Kanata, Ont., and a squabble is under way at a hockey net in the playground. Hannah Gartland, 10, and Sarah Cousineau and Nick Kidd, both 11, march over, a mini riot squad in their bright yellow vests that read “Peer Mediator.” The Grade 1 boys, immersed in bickering over who should get to play goal, stop immediately and spill their sides of the story. “How about every goal, you guys switch,” Nick suggests. “You can be defence,” Sarah tells one boy. “Does that sound fair?” Problem solved, a little grudgingly. “Great,” Hannah says cheerfully. “Have a good game.” The three walk off, alert to more playground mayhem.

Not really a case of bullying, explains Nick, cool and confident in his backward baseball cap, but he has seen these disputes grow into fistfights, especially among the older kids. “It's always best to start with a little problem so it doesn't get bigger,” Sarah says.

The idea that starting young might reduce teenaged locker-room brutality and cyber-harassment is behind St. Anne's anti-bullying program. It's the kind of comprehensive, well-supported, community-based approach that research has shown to be most effective. Indeed, principal Jane Hill credits the program with bringing down bullying incidents – but most schools in Canada are failing to curb the problem. There are many reasons for this, not the least of them the fact that educators have tried to simplify a complex social issue down to good guys and bad guys, hoping positive language will seep into playground politics, and that zero tolerance will scare bullies straight. Schools have too often failed to act in the most serious cases, and kids won't tell on bullies if they don't believe it will make a difference.

When left unchecked, bullies can destroy lives, as in the recent spate of U.S. suicides related to homophobic bullying that prompted President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to speak out, expressing their sadness, shock and support for the victims of bullies.

Eliminating bullying altogether is an unrealistic goal. It's human nature: People like to boss other people around and it's not hard to see traits of a control-seeking bully in parents who rant viciously at hockey games.

“Some parents, I am sad to say, are not at all bothered if their child is a bully. In fact, they can be quite proud of it,” explains Ken Rigby, a bullying expert in Australia.

The view lingers that getting picked on is a teenage rite of passage: When bullying leads to suicide, the outrage is swift, but, as Guelph high-school student Alix Vander Vlugt asks, “Where's the outrage for everything that happened leading up to that?”

Most kids grow out of bullying by the time they reach their mid-teens.

Research consistently shows that bullying is linked to depression, poor school performance and anxiety, for both victim and perpetrator. The worst offenders are cleverly covert, often the popular kids in class.

They're the ones teachers like and parents don't suspect, and they use their social capital to cow bystanders into staying quiet, or joining in.

A Grade 8 student interviewed for this story, who didn't want to be named, described this very type: a former friend who would order her posse to go up to other students and call them names, or generally intimidate them. “I felt that if I went against her, I wouldn't have friends. Looking back, I definitely should have told a teacher.” Alix Vander Vlugt, who now speaks out against bullying, recalls watching his peers torment younger students. “I usually didn't say anything.”

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Sudden fish boom doesn’t mean decline is over, inquiry head says

Published Friday, Oct. 29, 2010 9:14PM EDTLast updated Friday, Oct. 29, 2010 9:17PM EDT6 comments

Over the past two decades, a series of inquiries has led to more than 30 reports and 700 recommendations on how to improve the state of West Coast salmon resources, but none managed to halt a “steady and profound decline” of stocks in the Fraser River.

In a preliminary report released on Friday, the head of the latest investigation, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen, said he hopes his judicial inquiry will both help restore the fishery and “end the cycle of reviewing the same issues over and over again.”

Mr. Justice Cohen, whose Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River began evidentiary hearings this week, was required to file an interim report this fall giving his preliminary views on the large number of investigations that preceded his.

He said a review by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans provided his staff with 25 reports prepared by or for the federal government between 1982 and 2005, and that he also examined several other studies, such as an auditor general’s report.

“My principal interest was reports that are relevant to the Fraser sockeye fishery, but I also thought it important to review reports that deal more generally with various aspects of West Coast fisheries, such as DFO management, conservation and habitat protection and the potential impact of open-pen salmon farms on wild salmon stocks,” he wrote.

“The number of previous reports and the number of recommendations contained within them is remarkable, as is the wide range of issues that were examined,” Mr. Justice Cohen stated in his preliminary report.

“Some issues have been examined repeatedly. An enormous amount of time and money has been invested in arriving at the recommendations contained in these previous reports, yet the decline in Fraser sockeye stocks continued through 2009,” he wrote.

Although he said much has been learned from his extensive review of past findings, “I have concluded that it would be premature and unwise to make findings of fact or recommendations based solely on these reports.”

Mr. Justice Cohen, who expects the evidentiary hearings to continue through next spring, said he will wait until all the information is in before drawing conclusions.

And he said although there have been numerous investigations before, his commission is unique because it is the first one that has been directed specifically to identify the causes of sockeye decline or that has been given the authority to summon witnesses to give evidence under oath.

“The Fraser sockeye is an iconic species of fish,” he wrote. “The steady decline of this resource over several decades has put enormous pressure on the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities that depend on it for their food, social and ceremonial purposes; recreational pursuits and livelihood needs. They want answers as to why there has been a steady decline in the Fraser sockeye stocks. They seek solutions for restoring the stocks to those levels of abundance where an ample supply of sockeye salmon served the needs of all the communities that relied heavily on it.”

Mr. Cohen says his commission, which was struck to examine the collapse of salmon stocks in the Fraser last year, will take into consideration the record runs that surprisingly returned to the river this year.

He said the sudden boom is not a sign the decline that began in the early 1990s is over.

“Notwithstanding the relief and excitement surrounding the 2010 return, no one is confident that the declines are a thing of the past,” Mr. Justice Cohen wrote.

About 11 million sockeye were expected to return this year, but during the summer, the Pacific Salmon Commission estimated the run size at 34 million fish. Earlier this month, however, the PSC put the number at closer to 29 million – still the largest run of the century, but five million less than were thought to be in the river when fisheries took place.

Last year, more than 10 million fish were expected, but only about one million returned.

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There’s good reason the masses are revolting

Margaret Wente29 comments

My best friends are wonderful people – talented, accomplished, generous, smart and caring. So it’s hard to see them in such fear and pain. The way they see it, the Visigoths have battered down the gates of Rome, and the Vestal Virgins had better scramble for cover. In the aftermath of Toronto’s election rout, their only consolation is that Rob Ford is probably too stupid and incompetent to completely sack the place. If only they lie low for the next four years, sanity will surely return to city politics.

Like my friends, the people who work in much of the major media – the CBC, the Toronto Star, even my own beloved paper – were stunned by the Ford tsunami. After all, the polls had predicted a squeaker. But there’s another reason they didn’t see the big wave coming. Very few of these people live or work outside downtown Toronto. Very few ever hang around with someone who voted for Mr. Ford and will own up to it. They remind me of the super-smart editorial writers at The New York Times who are sincerely convinced that Tea Partiers are dangerous crackpots – even though they’ve never met any.

The media think they understand why people voted as they did. As one Toronto Star pundit helpfully explained, the voters – Ford voters, that is – “were full of largely pointless rage.” Only pointless rage could explain why voters ignored the editorial endorsements of two leading newspapers, as well as a long line of former mayors who begged them, in the name of decency, to vote for George Smitherman. Even Justin Trudeau’s twinkle dust didn’t work.

The day after his election victory, Mr. Ford gave a hilariously disastrous interview to As It Happens, while simultaneously coaching a football game. It was obviously a mistake. It was also clear that, like most of his constituents, Mr. Ford doesn’t really give a darn about the CBC, never listens to As It Happens and believes that coaching his football team is far more important than talking to Carol Off. As much as I adore As It Happens, I find this moderately refreshing.

Tuesday, the U.S. Democrats will face their own tsunami. Like Toronto’s downtown liberals, they blame the masses, not themselves. The voters are full of pointless rage, they explain. Populist politicians (Tea Partiers, Rob Ford) have whipped up voter discontent with their simplistic slogans. These people are dangerous because their ideas, apart from being incoherent, are also unrealistic and destructive. And if they ever tried to implement them, they would wreck the place.

Both Barack Obama and outgoing Toronto mayor David Miller insist the voters simply don’t appreciate what they’ve accomplished. They say their only real mistake was to not focus enough on positive PR. Both the Democrats and Toronto liberals are convinced they know what’s best for the masses, even if the masses massively disagree. They believe that many of the people who vote for their opponents are basically deluded, ignorant and poorly educated (even though the Republicans are currently leading by 20 per cent among U.S. college graduates). They also believe the people on the other side are basically intolerant, anti-immigrant racists (even though a pre-election poll said half of voters born outside Canada were set to cast votes for Mr. Ford).

In other words, this is just another classic anti-incumbency wave, and all they have to do is ride it out.

The other possibility is that it’s something else. Could it be that the masses have good reasons for revolting?

Here are some. During the seven years Mr. Miller was in charge, Toronto’s spending increased by 44 per cent while services got worse. People grudgingly put up with the city’s unrelenting efforts to turn their porches into recycling depots. But they got seriously annoyed when they learned that striking city workers had better perks than they did.

In the United States, people’s lives have only gotten worse since Mr. Obama took office. Unemployment is higher. More than half of all families are worried about making next month’s mortgage or rent. Health-care reform is so impenetrably complex that people don’t know where they stand. What they do know is that their premiums have gone up and their Medicare coverage is being cut. Sixty-three per cent of Americans say they don’t feel they’ll be able to maintain their current standard of living. They know Mr. Obama didn’t create the mess, but they think he’s made it worse.

No wonder the independent voters who put Mr. Obama into office have deserted him. Fifty-five per cent of the electorate now say they are or lean Republican.

Americans believe their country is in crisis, and they’re right. By next year, the United States will reach Third World debt territory. Yet both major parties seem oblivious. Neither of them has a plan, or even publicly acknowledges the severity of the crisis. If the Tea Party does nothing else, it may at least force the Republicans to face this highly unpleasant fact. If Mr. Obama wants a second term, he’ll have to face it too.

Although Canada is far more blessed, even we won’t entirely escape the massive restructuring that faces almost every country in the Western world. The problem is simple. People have a lot more government than they can or will pay for. Mr. Ford and Tea Partiers know that. Scaling down the scope of government is the political challenge of the next generation. And if mainstream politicians stay in denial, they’ll be toast.

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Multiculturalism has been Canada’s solution, not its problem

Irene Bloemraad78 comments

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently made headlines when she pronounced multiculturalism in Germany a failure. Shortly before, a Globe and Mail editorial argued that Canadians should eradicate “multiculturalism” from their vocabulary and refocus on “citizenship.” Multiculturalism isn’t just out of style, these statements suggest – it’s dangerous for building unity in increasingly diverse societies.

Unfortunately, both analyses are dead wrong.

Social scientists can measure multiculturalism in a given society by examining the number and content of public policies and government pronouncements around cultural recognition and accommodation. Such indices show that Germany is not, and has never been, a multicultural society.

Multiculturalism can’t have failed in Germany because it was never tried. Turkish guest workers and other immigrants were never welcomed as future citizens – only as temporary labour. If Germans are now concerned about the consequences, the blame certainly doesn’t lie with multiculturalism.

These indices also group countries such as France and Norway with Germany as least multicultural, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States as moderately multicultural, and Australia and Canada as most multicultural.

Have Canada’s past practices and policies hurt attempts to forge common citizenship out of diversity?

Absolutely not. Consider how many immigrants become citizens. The least multicultural countries count the lowest levels of citizenship; the moderate multicultural countries have somewhat more. In comparison, an overwhelming majority of immigrants proudly take up citizenship in Canada and Australia, the two countries that went furthest in the multicultural experiment.

The positive link between multiculturalism and citizenship is further supported by comparing Canadian policy with that of the United States. In 1971, the Canadian government began promoting a multiculturalism-based integration policy, which was enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 and expanded in 1988, when the Multiculturalism Act became federal law. Over this same period, the U.S. enacted no formal immigrant integration program or multiculturalism policy.

In 1970, in both Canada and the U.S., about 60 per cent of foreign-born residents had acquired citizenship. By 2006, the American Community Survey estimated that, of the 37.5 million foreign-born people living in the U.S., just 42 per cent were naturalized citizens. By that same year, 73 per cent of immigrants to Canada had acquired citizenship, one of the highest rates in the world.

There are, of course, many possible explanations for this statistical gulf, but here are some factors that did not play a predominant role: different immigrant streams; the large undocumented population in the U.S.; different costs and benefits of citizenship; easier or faster processing in Canada.

My research points to multiculturalism as a key factor driving Canada’s success at citizenship integration. It legitimates diversity, provides a sense of inclusion and, through the multitude of (oft-maligned) government grants given to community-based organizations – not only for multiculturalism but also for a host of integration programs – it provides the support structures to help newcomers join the country as full citizens.

Canadians certainly can, and should, have thoughtful debates about recognizing and accommodating diversity – just as we debate health-care policy or Stanley Cup contenders.

Like health care and hockey, multiculturalism has become a symbol of what defines Canada. In poll after poll, Canadians say multiculturalism is one of the top three defining features of the country. What’s more, they are proud of it.

They should be. Over four decades, incredibly rapid demographic change has transformed Canada, especially its largest cities. In Europe, similar change has resulted in riots and cultural tensions that have tarnished the concept of multiculturalism there. But, in Canada, these changes, despite many challenges, happened peacefully, productively and positively. Multiculturalism was part of the solution, not the problem.

Irene Bloemraad is an associate professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley and a scholar of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. She is the author of Becoming a Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants and Refugees in the United States and Canada.

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