History professor Tina Loo takes a look back at the stories of 2013 that changed us
Tina Loo is a professor in the Department of History who specializes in Canadian environmental history. As she sees it, the five most important 2013 stories all put the spotlight on government accountability and democratic rights.
Edward Snowden
“The information that Snowden leaked to the press proved what many people already suspected: nothing is private anymore. The scale on which spying was carried out by the National Security Agency was shocking enough, but the revelations about Canada’s involvement further eroded the country’s carefully cultivated reputation as a moral force on the international stage–the world’s Boy Scout.”
Bangladesh factory collapse
“When Rana Plaza collapsed and killed more than 1,000 Bangladeshi factory workers, we saw how we’re all implicated in a global supply chain that begins with wage slavery and ends with ‘affordable fashion.’ We rarely see the link between production and our own consumption, and when we do the picture isn’t always pretty. Rana Plaza should help us think about who we are when we buy.”
400 parts per million CO2
“Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide exceeded 400 parts per million this year for the first time since human beings appeared on Earth. The milestone went largely unnoticed. The last time the concentration of carbon dioxide was this high was about 4 million years ago and at that time, the planet was 10 degrees Celsius warmer on average. It’s a number that should catch our attention given the weather events this year like the floods in Alberta, Europe, the United States, and most recently Typhoon Haiyan. The relationship between storms, flooding and climate change is complex, but nonetheless, the intensity of weather events increases with changes in the climate. It is a number we need to take note of.”
Senate expense scandal
“This was a big news story but the real issue here isn’t Mike Duffy and his $90,000 cheque. What makes this event significant is that it has shown us the concentration of power in the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister’s Office, and the lack of accountability from both. I see many other signs of this, from Stephen Harper’s refusal to make himself available to media and his reluctance to answer direct questions of fact in Parliament, to the limits placed on what Conservative backbenchers can say and do in Parliament, the apparent muzzling of scientists, and the labelling of public engagement at conferences and workshops by federal librarians and archivists as a high-risk activity. In my view, this is about controlling the message and it really constitutes an assault on democracy that Canadians need to be concerned about.”
Theresa Spence and Idle No More
“Last winter, Chief Theresa Spence became a very important symbol and spokesperson for the grassroots Idle No More movement. Her hunger strike was triggered by the omnibus budget bill and the gutting of environmental protections. The omnibus budget bill was implemented in a way that short-circuited the democratic process. Her hunger strike and the Idle No More movement were aimed not only at criticizing the federal government but also at their own leadership–the Assembly of First Nations, for instance. Her protest and the Idle No More movement reminded non-Indigenous Canadians that we’re all Treaty people, accountable to promises made in the past.”