By Aatif Baskanderi 2019/20 Fellow
After staying up the night before watching the election results appear in a crowded theatre in Edmonton, I boarded a plane to head to Halifax. The Action Canada Fellows knew this was going to be an interesting time to get together. A diverse array of people from across the country landing in a single location to meet with local leaders to learn about Atlantic Canada and digesting the election when we could. Incidentally, I live in the only riding in Alberta and Saskatchewan that didn’t go blue. I am also a proud Newfoundlander. As I travelled to Halifax, I started to see my Facebook feed exploding with Alberta-Newfoundland political uproar of Newfoundlanders who live in Alberta, or with strong ties, criticizing and vilifying Newfoundlanders for not voting Conservative. This tension in the air gave me a lot to think about and it turned out that the study tour program in Nova Scotia provided some interesting angles to further my unpacking of all of this. There was something unique about this study tour that resonated with me deeply.
First off was the ability to share Atlantic Canada with the other fellows. Four of the 16 of us Fellows currently live in or grew up in Atlantic Canada, including myself from Clarenville, NL. We were fortunate to give our perspectives on Atlantic Canada as a whole, as well as learn about Acadian history from Fellow Angèle McCaie. I was able to share tidbits on electricity, livelihoods and diversity in Newfoundland and Labrador. Angèle is also a fantastic champion of Rogersville, NB where she is the Chief Administrative Officer and shared some Acadian gifts for all of us!
We also were able to dive deep into the fishery industry in Atlantic Canada and understand the opportunities that lie within this definitely not obsolete industry. The idea of its obsolescence is what catalyzed my thinking around how we treat particular areas of the economy and how we focus policy on them. Specifically, what does a province do if there are major growth-potential economies in rural communities, such as the fisheries, but those communities are seeing declining populations? More pointedly, if those industries need policy designed to enable them, yet all the people are moving to cities, are those provinces seeing an urbanization of public policy where these large city centres are attracting more people from the rural communities, and in-turn the large city centres are disconnected from these industries realizing stranded economic assets in rural communities pushing more population decline? Sitting in this boardroom listening to this presentation on the fisheries and thinking about the impact of representative democracy on rural communities, Newfoundland and Labrador all of a sudden felt like a microcosm of Canada with larger, more powerful regions swinging in their input upon those in smaller communities.
The other thought-catalyst was this tour’s focus on storytelling. A significant portion of the program was dedicated to connecting to local comedians, filmmakers or journalists. We had the pleasure of touring the set of CBC’s satire “This Hour Has 22 Minutes”, observe a table reading to whittle 50 sketches down to a handful, and have a Q&A with the cast and crew. Of course it wasn’t just special because I was able to meet some East Coast comic icons, but their post-election sketches were right on point to how I was feeling. They were able to tease out the tension in my mind and make me laugh at the whole situation. One of the sketches that made it to air was two Newfoundlanders who live in Alberta complaining about “stupid Newfies” voting the “wrong” way. Aside from the jokes, sitting in a room of comedians on a public policy tour made me think about how art informs culture and culture informs decisions. It made me think about the power of storytellers to portray culture in such a way to either reinforce or challenge our thoughts on it. How accurate is the popular presentation of a Newfoundlander and Labradorian as a person who lives in a rural fishing community? Why do we reinforce a particular caricature in our art, yet in our decision making by the very same consumers, those same people have limited ability to inform the public policy of the province?
This tour provided different angles for me to think about Atlantic Canada and myself as a Newfoundlander. To be honest, I felt guilt. Like many Newfoundlanders and those from Atlantic Canada who moved away, a piece of me feels this obligation to home. I try my best to be a champion for Newfoundland and Labrador as a storyteller and contribute to my home in whatever way I can. Being an ardent evidence-based policy believer, I have also learned that there are some things I don’t have the right to talk much about as I no longer live there and lack the knowledge to make informed opinions. This tour was certainly a special one for me personally as it drew me closer to my home by understanding how far apart I am from it at times.