After I arrived here in Kunming last month, I found that my 3 year-old son, Geoffrey, who has been here since January, has ceased to speak in English. When he left Canada he spoke nothing but fluent and unaccented English. Now he speaks exclusively in rapid Yunnan-accented Mandarin sounding exactly like his classmates in the local kindergarten. I find this unexpected development somewhat disconcerting (albeit something of a linguistic marvel). So with a view to turning the situation around, I make a point of speaking to him in English. After an initial period of confusion he evidently he still comprehends English at least, thank God. But he still responds to me in Chinese. Anyway I sure hope he starts producing English in response soon. Geoffrey is scheduled to enter junior kindergarten at Oakridge School in St. Catharines in September. I will not be too happy if he is put into an English As A Second Language stream! Following along the same logic, I have been reading to him in English too. We don't have any English-language story books here, so my method is to do a simultaneous interpretation into English of the Chinese text, trying my best to make it sound as if the story book was actually written in English. It is a bit of stretch for my linguistic talents to do it smoothly without pauses as I process the text, and to not simply render Chinese expressions into a machine translation-like English rendering. The upshot is that as Geoffrey and I read through the little illustrated books my brain is so preoccupied with the interpreting of the text from one language to the other that I don't have enough left over consciousness to pay much attention to the content of the story as such . Turns out I may have to re-think this "clever" approach to turning Chinese story books into English ones.
The other day, I cracked open one of Geoffrey's little books and we read "The Little Grey Mouse's Cake" (hui xiaoshude gaodian). The little grey mouse's cake did not taste nice as he made it with salt instead of sugar. The lesson of the story is that one should pay attention to detail in all things. So far so good. Next was "The Little Bear Who Loved to Eat Candies" (ai chi tangguode xiaoxiong). Here is the full text in my English rendering: "Dudu, the little bear just loved to eat candies. But he had bad habits: he did not like to brush his teeth, and after eating candies he wouldn't rinse out his mouth. One day, Mummy Bear had to go out to do some shopping. As she left, she said to Dudu, "Be a good boy while I am out and don't eat any candies!" Dudu said, "I won't Mummy." But he didn't really mean it. Actually he was happy he was being left alone. He thought to himself, "With Mummy out of the house, I can really have a go at those candies." As soon as his Mummy was gone he opened a big tin box full of candies and started stuffing them into his mouth. It wasn't long before the big tin box was completely empty. He had eaten the lot! Suddenly, Dudu's teeth started to ache. He cried out "Oh no! My teeth hurt really bad! It hurts really bad!" It hurt so much that he fell to the ground writhing in pain. When Mummy finally got home and saw Dudu in such pain, she rushed him to hospital. Dudu was weeping "Mummy, Mummy my whole face is swelling up! It hurts so much!" Mummy answered him sternly "That's what you get when you don't do what Mummy tells you!" Dr. Rhinoceros examined Dudu's teeth and said "It looks like you have a cavity! We'll have to pull that tooth right out!" From that day on, Dudu no longer craved candies to eat. Moreover he brushed his teeth every day. And his teeth never hurt ever again."
After I had finished the story with a hearty "The end!" my mind caught up with the substantive content of what I had just read to Geoffrey. I was rather horrified by the fact that I had given the boy an untruthful impression of the potential consequences of eating a box of candy. After all, throughout my childhood my friends and myself had eaten the equivalent of a tin box full of sweets Hallowe'en after Hallowe'en and to my knowledge none of us ever had to be rushed to hospital for painful emergency dental surgery, although mild tummy aches the next day were not uncommon. So my Canadian parenting inclination would be to warn a child: "If you eat that entire box of sweets, you will probably get a tummy ache and you will be sorry afterwards." But not: "If you eat that entire box of sweets your teeth will ache to the extent that you will collapse to the floor writhing in pain, that your face will swell up to enormous size and you will have to be rushed to the hospital in excruciating discomfort and your teeth will be immediately extracted (evidently without anesthetic)."
But "The Little Bear Who Loved to Eat Candies" story did appear to have considerable impact on Geoffrey who actually was having tooth brushing "issues." After he arrived in China a few months ago, he refused to brush his teeth with the local toothpaste claiming the flavour of the toothpaste was too "spicy." So when I came to join my family here, I brought some milder tasting children's toothpaste from Canada. But he was still reluctant to brush. But the evening after I read him "The Little Bear Who Loved to Eat Candies" he brushed his teeth with some vigour, not once, but twice before going to bed, much to his Mother's delight!
At the end of the "The Little Bear Who Loved to Eat Candies" story there is a note in different font entitled: "Mummy, Explain the Story to Your Child this Way:" It says: "All children like to eat candies. But you should never eat too many at once. We should learn the lesson the little bear's story and get into the habit of rinsing out out mouths after eating. And we should make a habit of brushing our teeth every day. That is the way to make sure that food does not stay stuck in our teeth so as to prevent cavities."
Certainly Chinese culture is not the only one to menace children with exaggerated consequences should they misbehave as a normal socialization technique. But whether this also socializes adults to feel in general that it is morally acceptable to bend the truth in the interest of some greater good is something of an open question for me. Although I am happy that Geoffrey now brushes his teeth properly, I find "The Little Bear Who Loved to Eat Candies" a troubling children's story.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Question for my francophone friends from Quebec
While here in Yunnan, I have been reading Ramsay Cook's new book The Teeth of Time: Remembering Pierre Elliott Trudeau. On page 94 he quotes Jean Le Moyne (1913-96) who wrote in 1960: "Mon héritage français, je veux le conserver, mais je veux autant garder mon bien anglais et aller au bout de mon invention américaine. Il me faut tout ça pour faire l'homme total." I was quite taken with this idea, albeit perhaps rather obvious, perhaps archaic now. I wonder what my francophone friends from Quebec think about it?
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Fragment from Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development Meeting of May 10, 2007
Mrs. Vivian Barbot (Papineau, BQ): Do we have a report on that; on human rights in China?[English]
The Chair: Yes.[Translation]
Mrs. Vivian Barbot: I've never seen it. [English]
Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Now we can have coffee. The Chair: No, we can't have coffee. This is the part of committee business, unfortunately, that a chair does not like doing, but again, here is the problem: We have postponed a committee report on China to the 31st, and now it has been leaked, or parts of it have been leaked. It's quoted in The Globe and Mail today. They quote one member from the subcommittee. Again, as I look around this table, most of you have a great deal of parliamentary experience, and you know that when reporters phone you on a report that has not been tabled we have no comment. We don't talk about the recommendations. We don't talk about the direction in which this report is going. We don't talk about what the government's response may be to this report. We don't talk about anything, because it's still not public. Perhaps I'm not speaking to the group that I should be. Maybe I should be speaking to the subcommittee. But it is not right; it is not ethically right to start leaking these reports. I know people love to talk to reporters and they like to see their name in the paper, but in all fairness, until every individual of the committee has the opportunity to respond to this report, I would ask that you not speak to reporters. All right? So that's on the record. Mr. Wilfert, then Mr. Goldring. Hon. Bryon Wilfert (Richmond Hill, Lib.): I would concur, Mr. Chairman, that it's an embargoed report, it's confidential, and there should be no discussion whatsoever. Beyond that, I think we need to be very clear that, at any time, this obviously causes problems for all of us. It has already caused problems, because certain people now want to know more since it's out there. The Chair: Yes. Mr. Goldring, and then we will go to our second hour. Mr. Peter Goldring (Edmonton East, CPC): If it can be determined who.... The report really isn't that clear. It mentions one person, and if that one person wants to acknowledge it, that's fine, but the report also says "MPs", plural. If it was plural, then it was more than one. At what point do you carry this forward? You have rules. You have breach of parliamentary privilege. You have things set in place. There's a reason to have the confidentiality, and this goes to the heart of the other reports we might be asking for, and information on prisoners and other things. If we intend to try to keep confidence in a committee and we don't have the rules and we don't reinforce the rules, then we have nothing. Is this something that should be brought up as a point of parliamentary privilege to determine? The Chair: That's a good question. I guess why I'm trying to chastise each one of us is so that, hopefully, each party will take the message back to their people. We had a case in subcommittee of an in camera meeting where there was a press release given on the in camera meeting. Mr. Peter Goldring: Well, clearly, this one person mentioned should be questioned very directly--clearly. But the intimation of plural being more means that there should be more. The Chair: All right. Mr. Patry, a final word. Mr. Bernard Patry: I just want to go back to Mr. Goldring. Mr. Goldring, when you talk about MPs, with an "s", it's the title, and a title is not the text from the person. This is what that person could have said: MPs. That's why they say MPs with an "s". Now, I've been on this committee for the past 14 years, and it has never occurred. All the members of this committee, the main committee of foreign affairs, are great about this. There was no leaking. I trust all my members. Nobody from our committee has done these things. The Chair: And that's why I said that hopefully we can take it back to other people. That report has been around for some time. It's been with our staffers. It's been with the subcommittee. Each one of us makes sure that we keep the integrity of this thing going. We will suspend for one minute, and then we will come back in camera. [Proceedings continue in camera] Friday, May 18, 2007
Selection from House of Commons Subcommitee on International Human Rights Meeting of May 1, 2007
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=205894&Lang=1&PARLSES=391&JNT=0&COM=10945
The Chair:
Colleagues, we will recommence.
The next item on our agenda is the consideration of the Burton report. As our regular members know, this is an ongoing drama at this committee. In effect, as a result of our various motions, we were all provided early on with the public version of Burton's “Assessment of the Canada-China Bilateral Human Rights Dialogue”, dated December 31, 2005. There was a confidential annex consisting of supplementary materials that had been excised from the public version of the report.
Pursuant to our various protestations, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has furnished us with an excised version of the confidential supplementary materials, which you have before you. You've all been sent copies, at least regular members of the committee have.
Originally we were told that this would have to be considered in an in camera meeting for 10 minutes, with no note-taking, but apparently the department has now furnished us with copies, so I'm advised that we're not required to review this in camera.
A voice: Is that correct?
The Chair: Could the clerk please say something about that?
The Clerk of the Committee (Ms. Bibiane Ouellette):
I received an e-mail saying that the report would be available and the committee didn't have to look at it in camera.
The Chair:
So we're in a public session. I don't think there's anything to discuss here. We have what we have.
As I said at the last meeting, in terms of the process, this committee has already reported three or four motions to the main committee with respect to this issue. It is now up to the main committee whether they want to make any reports to the House of Commons on this. It's out of our hands, and this is what we have before us.
I would suggest that it would not likely alter any of our recommendations or the content of the report that we submitted to the full committee last Tuesday.
Mr. Sorenson, perhaps you could elucidate for us.
The full committee has received our report, is scheduled to review it, and hopefully adopt it on...which date?
Mr. Marcus Pistor (Committee Researcher):
On May 10, next week.
Ms. Denise Savoie:
Chair, can I get a clarification?
The Chair:
Yes, Madam.
Ms. Denise Savoie:
Our purpose was to compare and make a determination as to whether information was withheld. From what I read last night, it seemed like these two reports were comparing apples and oranges. There are blacked out portions that do not reappear in the last version, so you really have no point of comparison.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
The only point of comparison—
Ms. Denise Savoie:
Was the purpose to compare? If it was, then it seems like a pointless exercise.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
The only point is that now you see and know how much is blacked out. You're right, it does not disclose what's in there, and they have made that clear.
The Chair:
Yes.
Denise, the point is that this committee has had an ongoing dialogue with the Department of Foreign Affairs. This goes back to when Professor Burton appeared before our committee and revealed that some information had been excised from the public view of the report, which had been made available to us by the department.
Pursuant to a motion moved by Madame St-Hilaire, the committee unanimously requested the unexpurgated version of the report, and then this became a complicated matter.
At the end of the day, the committee decided to ask DFA to send us whatever they would reveal, and that's what's before us. It's the position of the department that the blacked out bits are classified. The committee has adopted a number of motions on this matter that have been reported to the full committee. So I think it would not be fruitful for us to spend more time on the matter; the committee has expressed itself clearly on this.
Madame St-Hilaire, you look perplexed or concerned. If you would like to suggest anything, perhaps a discussion, it's in the committee's hands.
[Translation]
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
I hope you're not allergic to the committee.
Ms. Denise Savoie:
Bless you.
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
I want to make sure I have understood correctly. I received two reports: one with some blacked out bits and another marked "confidential".
The Chair:
This is a public report that the committee received at the start of its study.
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
It now has blacked out bits.[English]
The Chair:
There are blacked out bits here too.
Mr. Marcus Pistor:
There are some other omissions.
The Chair:
Are these blacked out bits blacked out in the public version?
Mr. Marcus Pistor:
No.[Translation]
That is the version of December 31, and it contains additional information. So it is Mr. Burton's first version.
[English]
The Chair:
So it's not the version we received.
Mr. Marcus Pistor:
That's not the public version. The public version was dated April 2006.
The Chair:
All right.[Translation]
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
Then what is this one?[English]
Mr. Marcus Pistor:
According to page 4 of the December version of this report, “Findings based on the classified materials consulted are given in a classified appendix to this report”. I assume that's what this is. So these are some additional findings that are not integrated in its first draft, in the December version of the draft.
He told the committee that about 1,200 words had been deleted or taken out. Some of them are blacked out; some of them aren't blacked out or taken out. So I don't know.
[Translation]
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
You know, we know even less than you do. You say that you don't really know, but neither do we. I am having trouble following.
Mr. Chairman, you seem to be saying that we are turning the page, that it is over. But I see that Mr. Sorenson has changed his mind; he wants to have the report. He said that he would not be present to avoid leaks to the media, but I see that he is happily present today. In the end, there is nothing in this report.
[English]
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
That's why I said that if we were going to continue, and then the department was going to come with the report, with their concerns that there is classified information here that may be a security risk, I wouldn't be here. I don't have to be privy to that information; I don't want to be privy to it.
If the department says that it's intelligence or something else that can hurt something, I don't have to be here. But they've come with the report and with those segments still omitted.
[Translation]
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
Are most committee members satisfied with that?
The Chair:
I don't know.
Ms. Denise Savoie:
That was the purpose of my question.
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
We were given five censored pages, but we are continuing without any problem. Is that it?
The Chair:
It is up to the committee to decide.
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
You can influence us somewhat, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair:
No. I was very clear on that point. The committee did the same with four or five motions.
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
There was a lot of discussion, but there was only one motion.
The Chair:
Fine.[English]
I take from what you're saying that you're not satisfied.
I'm the chair; I'm in the committee's hands. We have been around this several times. We have what we have. We've expressed our concern about this matter through several unanimous motions. I'm speechless; I'm just a procedural referee here.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
I don't think we can jeopardize our complete report by waiting, fighting, or trying to continue this debate on whether we can have the classified information.
Our standing committee is prepared to look at this report on May 10. I would hope that we aren't going to drag it out here. It might jeopardize going ahead with that report on May 10. We've been given what we've been given. There may be avenues where we can voice our frustration, but let's not let that jeopardize the report.
The Chair:
Let me remind you, Madame St-Hilaire, just to be clear, that as you know, the deputy minister kindly appeared before the committee to discuss this matter. At the same time, we received legal advice from parliamentary counsel on the prerogatives of Parliament with respect to production of papers. The deputy minister then kindly sent us a letter last week indicating that his department was prepared to furnish excised versions of the report. We adopted a motion to respond to the deputy minister by way of letter, which I signed and sent last week, accepting his invitation for the members to receive original excised versions of the report, with classified elements excised.
We also discussed last week the fact that we had reported several motions to the main committee, chaired by Mr. Sorenson, requesting unexpurgated, unexcised versions of the report. Those are now at the main committee.
The Clerk:
They've been returned.
The Chair:
Oh, they've been returned, including the last one?
Oh, it has.Thank you for correcting me.
These have been returned, back to this committee.
This committee, as I say—
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
I think we brought that out at the last meeting, didn't we, that it had been returned here?
The Chair:
My view on this, Caroline, is that insofar as the full committee has the power to report to the House and we do not, this matter is effectively now in the hands of the full committee, now that they have the report. If you're concerned, you're free to talk to your counterpart on the main committee about this to raise these concerns when they come to consideration of the report on May 10.
As legal counsel advised us, Parliament has certain powers, but subcommittees do not have all the delegated powers of Parliament, so the committee is quite limited in how it could respond if it chose to do so. I'm just giving you the factual basis of where we are.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
Madame Lalonde and Madam McDonough and the Liberals are very aware of the frustration at not seeing the report. We brought it forward. When we were continuing with asking them to go to the Burton report, that is why they brought it back.
That being said, it's back here, and we still have those dates for the study of this report, as long as it gets back to us.
Mr. Marcus Pistor:
Which report?
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
Are we talking about the draft?
Mr. Marcus Pistor:
The draft report is before the...that's been sent; it's done.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
It's there. So what are we...?
Mr. Marcus Pistor:
This is the Burton report.
The Clerk:
We're talking about the subcommittee report asking for—
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
For a look at the Burton report?
The Clerk:
Yes.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
And that's been sent back?
I would suggest that we have the dates on the China report, but.... I'm just speaking as chair. I have no idea what the others may say. They may want to continue with a look at that report. But if this thing is still before us here, where we're going to drag this out on the Burton report, there is a bearing on the China report. There very well could be a bearing on whether we're going to continue, seeing that the subcommittee is still fighting this fight.
That's why I'm hoping that we can say we're done with it, and we're going to lodge our complaint with the standing committee, but there's our report.
The Chair:
I'm in the hands of the committee. As always, as chairman I'm here to make sure the procedure is fair and followed. If the committee wishes to express itself to the main committee yet again on this matter, that's the committee's decision.
My personal view is that we've been amply clear on this point à plusieurs reprises, and at some point I think we reach a point of diminishing returns on this issue.
As I said, the full committee will be seized of the China report, one related issue of which is the Burton report, obviously. If the full committee wishes to take up this issue, the full committee is obviously free to do so.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
As long as we aren't still taking it up here.
The Chair:
No, we've reported the report out.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
Yes, you've reported the report, but as long as this issue is before.... It may not play; we may go right into it. But as long as there's still some dissatisfaction on this Burton thing—because at one point in time, Madame St-Hilaire said that she was not prepared to sign onto that report until she had seen the complete Burton report, unless I've missed something since then.
The Chair:
Madame St-Hilaire.[Translation]
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:
Let's calm down a little, sir. That is what I said, however the report was adopted and it was sent to the main committee. Let's not take statements out of context. Let's leave this up to the main committee.
The Chair:
Last time, I believe we decided [English]
not to let the procedural issue here hold up the substantive advancement of the report.
Is that right, Mr. Cotler?
Hon. Irwin Cotler:
That's what I understand.
The Clerk:
Yes, it's out of our hands.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
If it's all been signed off, then what are we talking about?
The Chair:
Madame St-Hilaire is sort of asking the question, what should be done? I'm saying the committee decided.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
It's signed off, yes. Burton was part of China.
The Chair:
Monsieur Cotler.
Hon. Irwin Cotler:
It seems to me that the full report, our report, has gone forward, with our concern about the procedural matter.
Now the full committee can have both of those aspects before them; they can determine both aspects. They can deal with the main report, or they might even refer the procedural matter back to us, or I don't know what. But both of those issues should now be cleared before the full committee.
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
Okay. Then there will be no holdup on May 10, plain and simple.
The Chair:
I certainly hope there's—
Mr. Kevin Sorenson:
In fact, I'll be honest with you; I wish it was long before May 10, because the whole point of speeding up the reports was so that we could use this as leverage with the Celil deal.
The Chair:
All right. So we have what we have. I hear the frustration from Madame St-Hilaire; it's been expressed by this committee. But we're where we are and we will proceed.
We all have this. Can I suggest that we move now to our last item of business, the motion on Iran?
Okay. Then we'll move to committee business.
Mr. Cotler has given notice of a motion with respect to Iran.
Mr. Cotler.
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