The Current - Extraordinary Canadians named to Order of Canada

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

We get to know a few of the extraordinary people just named to the Order of Canada: hate crime expert Barbara Perry, food insecurity expert Valerie Tarasuk and artist Ruth Abernethy.

Viking. Committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship with thoughtful service and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. Learn more at Viking.com. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. Every day there are Canadians achieving great things and twice a year the Governor General recognizes some of those people with our highest honor, the Order of Canada. The most recent announcements were made just before the New Year started and as is a New Year tradition on this program, this week we're going to get to know a few of them.

Joining me first is Barbara Perry, who is recognized as one of the world's foremost experts on hate crime. She's a professor at the Ontario Tech University, founding director of the Center on Hate, Bias and Extremism. Barbara, good morning. Good morning, Matt. Congratulations. Well, thank you.

How did you find out that you had been named to the Order of Canada? Well, it was completely out of the blue, as you can imagine. I had an email that said something like, you know, exciting news about Order of Canada, please call. And of course I Googled the name first because you can't be too careful, especially working in the space I work in. And I thought, oh my gosh, someone I know has been nominated and they

want me to write a letter, but no, when I called, they said, you have been named to the order of Canada. And you don't know anything about this in the background. It's kind of, you know, somebody nominates you and away it goes until they, they let you know that you have, uh, have been named. Absolutely. I had no idea. It came completely out of the blue. The citation says that you, as I mentioned in the introduction, are one of the world's foremost experts on hate crime. When you look at the work that you do, what do you see is the most important purpose of that work?

I'm gonna say there are two. One is actually to give voice to those who have been affected by hate crime. So my work has involved a lot of interviews and focus groups with targeted communities. So it really is allowing them to tell their stories and then telling their stories and amplifying those voices. But then the second part of that is continuing to work

with those communities to develop strategies to intervene either to enhance their resiliency or support victims and targets of hate crime or to counter the kinds of narratives that give rise to hate crime. So blow your own horn. This is an opportunity for you to celebrate your own work. What are you most proud of in that work? Oh, I'm not very good at this.

This is your chance, go ahead. I think it's exactly what I just said and that is the ability. I think because I've worked in the area so long and I've developed a very strong reputation amongst policy makers that I've been able to influence change and influence a policy in this area at the local level, but also I would like to say at the federal level like well in terms of you know engagement around

important policy shifts with give me an example of that change something concrete that you've seen that that again This is an opportunity for you to to be proud of the work that you've done can be traced back to that work I think maybe to one is in sort of the private sector and that is working with Big Tech and helping them to define what hateful narratives are, what hate groups are, and trying to identify those individuals and groups that might be then deplatformed.

And the other is probably work that I've done around things like the online harms bill and providing guidance there on the hate crime component specifically. So I think it is those sorts of interventions that really shift our understanding and the way that we express that understanding in policy. It's the beginning of a brand new year. What are you expecting in 2025?

Oh, nothing good, I'm afraid. Nothing good. I'm usually very optimistic, but this is, I think, going to be a very trying year. We're on the heels of the Trump election, which already we're seeing the impacts of that in terms of narratives here, and this whole Maple Maga movement in the Canadian context, which I think will only be further emboldened by what looks like a Canadian election coming up, and the extent to which that Maple Maga will now rally around our election and spread the kind of disinformation and misinformation that they like to do and increase the polarization that we're seeing here. I think you add to that the conflicts and the challenges and the divisions that we're

seeing around the Gaza war, and I think it's going to be another very challenging year for the communities that are affected, but also for those of us that work in this area. Can I go back to just what you were saying about here in Canada? I mean, one of the things we saw in the United States is a lot of people who got behind Donald Trump and supported him because they felt they were left

out of a conversation. They felt that leadership had ignored them, whether it was economically or politically, and that this was their opportunity to say, you know what, we are here and we feel as though our goals and our ambitions have been ignored. How do you draw a line between people who are putting their position forward and the concern that you have

about misinformation and disinformation and what you call the Maple Maga? Yeah, I think part of it is the way that you have about misinformation and disinformation and what you call the Maple Maga. Yeah, I think part of it is the way that those sentiments are expressed and where the blame is allotted. There's a tendency, I think what we've seen in Canada in the past few years is really to personalize it, that it's all Trudeau, it's all Trudeau, it's all Trudeau,

not just liberals, but Trudeau. And I think that we need to understand the broader structural patterns that are contributing to those narratives, but also contributing to the challenges that it's big business. It's corporations that are really to blame for a lot of the problems that we're experiencing right now. But beyond that, I think there is a need also to listen to those voices, because there is reality behind them, right? We are seeing unprecedented lack of affordable housing,

unprecedented prices of groceries, and just day-to-day living. So I think that to some extent, there's, not to some extent, to a great extent, there is a real valid foundation for concern there. So I think it's the way that that's then exploited and manipulated by far-right actors in particular. There are people who,

because they're not doing the work that you're doing, can turn off that negativity and turn off that hate and steer clear of it. This is your job, and so you have to be in it as deep as possible. And that can take you to, I'm assuming, can take you to pretty dark places. How do you deal with that? Well, you should see my wine collection to start with, I think. Yeah, I think it's hard to say. I'm asked that question a lot.

I think I'm just generally a very positive, upbeat person. Even when I'm having these interviews and we're talking about dark spaces, I've usually got oddly a smile on my face. So I think that there's that. I've also learned late in life the importance of working in teams. I spent much of the first part of my career working as an individual. I would travel and I would do these interviews. I remember especially when I was working with Native Americans in the US, I'd spend all

day doing some really dark interviews and then I'd go back to the hotel room by myself. And I've learned that it's much easier if we do this in teams and there's someone to debrief with at the end of the day and to get out some of that emotion that I've taken in over the course of the day. Having a strong network of people to rely on, to vent to, I think has been very, very important to me. Venting is good. It's a great honour and a real pleasure to talk

to you about that honour. Barbara, thank you very much. I thank you, Matt. Barbara Perry is the founding director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University, just named to the Order of Canada. Valerie Tarasuk is also a new appointee to the Order of Canada for her role as a leading researcher on food insecurity. She's a professor emerita

of nutritional science at the University of Toronto where she leads the research group called PROOF. It works on policies to reduce household food insecurity in this country. Valerie, good morning to you. Good morning. Congratulations. Thank you. What does this mean to you to be named to the Order of Canada? Oh, it's huge. It's a tremendous honour. And I mean, it's just a huge, huge affirmation of the work that we've done over these years. So yeah, it's absolutely wonderful. What got you into that work?

I mean, we talk and we'll speak in just a moment about what's happening now when it comes to food insecurity, but what was the path for you to begin this work? Well, it goes back a long time. I came to Toronto in the 80s as a graduate student and in nutritional sciences and my graduate, my master's thesis was looking at the food problems of what back then we called sole support mothers, low income, lone parent women in a housing project the food industry. And I was mobilizing resources to get donated food to people. And, you know, all under the guise of tackling hunger or fighting hunger in our community. And at the same time, there were some fairly significant changes to social assistance and, you know, cuts to our social safety net that were beginning back then. And I was, as this young student, I was overwhelmed by all of that. And I guess I was bothered by the fact

that nobody seemed to be on top of it, that everything was kind of happening by the seat of her pants. And it wasn't clear what the problem was that we were trying to solve and was how these donations and this flurry of community activity was working. So when I finally garnered a faculty position

at the University of Toronto, some years later, I started to make it my business to chip away at the questions and do more systematic research to ask what was this problem and where did it come from and whose problem was it really? And so that's the path. And so now we live in a society, I mean, food banks were initially created as a stopgap.

They are now embedded in our communities. The lineups outside food banks are longer than ever and the range of people who are in those lineups is astonishing. Yeah. Um, where is you the most about this? Well, and it's not just food banks, Matt. I mean, what's happened now for probably

20 years or more in parallel to all that food bank data that you've just described is we've had systematic monitoring of food insecurity by Statistics Canada. So we've got very, very good data now on the scope and nature of this problem. And yeah, what worries me is exactly what you know what you see on the ground that the number of people in Canada who are affected by food insecurity is higher than it's ever been. There's no end in sight. And despite the fact that we've got this extraordinary body of research now in this huge volume of monitoring data telling us that this problem is getting worse. Plus, you know, food bank operators across the country exasperated and, you know, defeated really by these extraordinary demands on their, you know, scant donations. You know,

with all of that, we don't have any intelligent policy moving forward. So yeah, I mean, this is a very bleak time. I have to say when I got the call, when I realized that I was going to receive this incredible honour, part of me thought, oh, for goodness sakes, I haven't achieved anything. Look at the mess we're in. And yeah, it's a very, very concerning situation. What would be one thing that would get us out of this mess, do you think? I mean, again, to your point, people know this.

People know what's happening. And yet we aren't at a place where a wealthy country like ours can think of food as a right. So what do we have to do to get out of that? I think that we absolutely need to set targets now that the federal government needs to commit to reducing food insecurity. that we absolutely need to set that we're going to have to do. But we still don't seem to have anybody who's taking

responsibility for fixing it. And if there's one thing that's obvious now is this problem isn't going to solve itself, right? So we absolutely need need a commitment. And I think that commitment comes by saying, you know, we're going

to reduce food insecurity by 50% by 2030. We're going to eliminate severe food insecurity. And now let's start doing that as opposed to what we're seeing currently, which is politicians, both at the federal and provincial level, when asked about this terrible problem, they'll say something like, oh, well, we've got to Paul, we're doing something. And they're doing something, maybe it's a job creation or it's the school food policy, or in the case of the conservatives, they're talking, they've

connected food insecurity to their platform too and the carbon tax. But you know, these are ideas that have come from someplace else, right? Nobody sat down and said, okay, if we do this, it's going to do this to our food insecurity numbers. That's what we need to see is some connection, some accountability for policymaking in this country that says, this is what we're going to fix and here's how we're going to go about it.

You have achieved a lot. And one of the things you've achieved is that we are talking about this in a much more meaningful and pointed way. Congratulations on the work that you have done, and on the recognition of that work, Valerie. Thank you. Valerie Tarasek is a professor emerita of

nutritional science at the University of Toronto and a new member of the Order of Canada. This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and on shore.

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purpose. Available in hardcover and audiobook, narrated by Jane Philpott. Ruth Abernathy was appointed to the Order of Canada for her decades-long contribution to this country's cultural landscape. If you've ever been in downtown Toronto, right across from the CN Tower, perhaps wandered past the CBC broadcasting centre, you might've seen

her bronze statue of the pianist, Glenn Gould, sitting on a bench outside. Maybe you sat down beside Glenn, maybe he had a rest or a photo beside him. That is one of Ruth's sculptures. So is the bronze Oscar Peterson sculpture, the baby grand piano outside the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, as well as statues of Margaret Atwood and Queen Elizabeth II. In fact, her

art can be seen right across this country from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia. Ruth, good morning. Good morning. Congratulations to you. Thank you. Thank you sincerely. What does it mean to get a recognition like this? It's a moment's pause. Now this is, I mean, I don't know that you can quite understand the profile that you and the current hold in

the studio where I have months and years of solitude doing work that ends up with a legacy I really cannot see from the studio. So to have that recognized as symbolic of, in the sum of its parts is life affirming. It's a huge deal. I'm glad to be a companion in the studio with you. How did this all start for you? Because you didn't start in sculpting. No, not literally. No, I didn't, but I was always building things. And I come from a family tradition of building things. And from making music collaboratively as a family,

we were on stage, I knew people backstage, and from that was hired to do summer theater. And of course I was terribly useful. I could do things, create things, find things, compile things that other people found difficult to do. So, and I wanted to travel, you know, for whatever reason, my family had relatives scattered across the country. You know, what happened in one region was personal. We were not somehow isolated in a region. And in that respect, Canadian theatre technicians are very familiar with airports in the Trans-Canada Highway, and it was mine to explore.

So I did build props for 20 years, did nearly 15 seasons at the Stratford Festival, where I arrived from Winnipeg. You know, it's just those oddities. And in fact, because I knew how to carve, it's the whole story of raising the tent, which is my very first bronze in front of the Stratford Festival, where I had recreated a fundraising indicator for the theater's renovation in 1996. And there was talk of doing it in bronze, which I honestly didn't take very seriously.

But the fundraising went well, and everyone loved the installation concept concept and I recreated it. It was installed in 97. What do you see as, and in doing that work, what do you see as your role in helping to create a permanent kind of marker for culture in this country. The thing with, whether it's theater or music, is it comes and then it's ephemeral. It can vanish off into the ether. But the Gould statue, the Oscar Peterson, what's in front of Stratford, those are there forever.

What do you see as your role in creating that permanent marker for culture in this country? Well, that's it exactly. It's like the creation of bronze exists in a different timeline. And I think it's a perfect microcosm this morning to have Barbara and Valerie's immense contributions as immediate in your lap problems to be dealt with. And then the land of commemorations is, it

could be 10,000 years. I mean, it really does have that kind of timeline. And I think it's a microcosm for each of us. Every day we are doing the moment in which we're sitting, but at some level we're also doing 20 years from this moment in our own lives. We're always balancing the immediate with the long term and you do one or compromise the other. I mean, it is a perpetual ongoing balance.

And I have the luxury of looking at archives and reading about legacies and being introduced to remarkable individuals who made an impact in their time, either with the support of others in their time or without the support of others in their time, either with the support of others in their time or without the support of others in their time. And I, and I think to be honest in looking at that, there is the reality of understanding the times

in which people used to live. And in that contrast illustrates our own time. I mean, what a luxury. That's a detailed, nuanced business. Do you watch how people interact with your work? I mean, I think of the people who sit beside that Glenn Gould sculpture, outside the building that I'm sitting in right now,

or me sitting beside Oscar Peterson in Ottawa. Do you watch how people interact with those pieces? Yes and no. I often have people sending photos of themselves with whichever piece it is and they are unabashedly staged so that people can do that. You know, I mean, the work I was doing was logically thought through based on my theatre years, right? We're looking at characters on stage who are there and are interesting to us because they're flawed characters.

I mean, it's the same on television, all film. We're looking at people. We're not looking at them because they lead perfect error-free lives. So it's the way they contend with their own shortcomings or the way they are moved by their own passions that makes them interesting to us. So in doing that, I want people to encounter them. And so I see my characters as permanent performances in the Canadian landscape.

I don't think it's very Canadian to need 20 tons of stone. Okay, the Queen's an exception, and that was a requirement and a suitable one. But the others, to me, the thought that you can meet Glenn Gould or Oscar Peterson or Abraham Gesner, father of the petroleum industry, that you can actually be there and have this face-to-face moment, because they struggled through life primarily with the same senses that we have, the same five senses, and extraordinary skill, but their skills did not make their lives easy or simple. And that face-to-face moment is the memorable bit. You know, that's what I get when I travel,

figuring out what other cultures celebrate and how extraordinary to be able to put my thoughts to that. It's a real pleasure to talk to you. I mean, having interacted with your pieces over the years across this country, it's just, it's really neat to to talk to you. I mean, having interacted with your pieces over the years, um, across this country, it's just, it's really neat to actually talk to the person who, um, who had their hands on making those pieces, Ruth, congratulations and thank you again. Many thanks. Pleasure to be with you.

Ruth Abernathy is a sculptor. She has a new book out. It's called In Form, Life and Legacies in Bronze. And she is a new member of the Order of Canada. We kick off the beginning of the year, every year on this program, by meeting some of the extraordinary Canadians who are appointed to the Order of Canada, and we'll do more of that this week.