First, thanks to Mr. Jonathan Kay for bringing this story to our attention. Thanks also to another colleague, Mr. Jamil Jivani as well as to Dr. Bruce Pardy for re-tweeting it.
What is the story about? Well, as you can see in Mr. Kay’s original tweet below, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (https://www.osstf.on.ca/) has changed its voting rules, so each so-called “non-white” union member would have “his/her vote weighed more than” so-called “white members“. They even provide slides to justify this absurdity. Should we laugh or cry to such collective insanity?
Mr. Jamil Jivani started his tweet by reaching out to “Ontario friends“. Well, since Bambi considers herself a loving friend of Ontario (for having lived and worked in Toronto for 4 years), she will say the following:
She is grateful to the friend who attracted her attention to the place where this union of teachers may have perhaps taken its idea. It is South Africa under Apartheid with its Tricameral Parliament (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricameral_Parliament#Structure). Can you imagine?!
Indeed, in the Tricameral Parliament, there were three separate elected chambers as follows, as per Wikipidia:
- “A 178-member (White) House of Assembly (Afrikaans: Volksraad), which was in effect the existing single-chamber Parliament.
- An 85-member (Coloured) House of Representatives (Afrikaans: Raad van Verteënwoordigers)
- A 45-member (Indian) House of Delegates (Afrikaans: Raad van Afgevaardigdes).”
Does that make any sense to you from a democratic, human, and ethical perspective?
Imagine such proposal being offered in the Lebanese Parliament. Imagine that the members of this or that religious affiliation will have more democratic weight than members of the other affiliation! A second civil war would break out immediately… or a revolt like the one of October, 2019!!
Imagine such proposal would be practised in countries like Iran (with its Sunni Muslim minority) or like Saudi Arabia (with its Shia Muslim minority)? Will that be fair respectively?
If the cream of the educated Ontarians find Apartheid outrageous when it is in South Africa (or perhaps push to boycott Israel because of an ongoing occupation that they call Apartheid), why are they bringing this odd and toxic idea to their own unions and workplaces?
To conclude this post, Bambi will share that she is still under shock since she read about this early in the morning. When will we see more pushback to the excesses of our collectively insane times in our beautiful Canada?
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-teachers-union-implements-controversial-weighted-voting-system-to-increase-minority-representation
They’re flat-out insane, and actually did it.
I guess they must have listened to George Wallace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLLDn7MjbF0
and agree with him.
What is proposed, effectively, is a form of segregation.
Just like what Wallace liked.
Many thanks Louis! A must-read for all this article (Bambi plans a post or even two to comment this article..). Thanks/Bravo to the courageous and competent, Dr. Kambhampati!! When will our “collectively insane times, stop”? The road to hell is paved with noble intentions… When will Canada’s politicians re-connect with the frontal lobes of their brains before it is too late? Mr. Trudeau et al., the oppositions, everyone, please read this article. Aren’t you shocked too?! Your children may miss the chance of being mentored by this outstanding scientist?!
Of course advocates for this racialized voting system would argue that it represents the complete opposite of South Africa’s former Apartheid system because it benefits the oppressed or underrepresented, not the oppressors or overrepresented. But it’s not the direction to go. Race as the decisive marker of privilege (or the lack of it) is problematic. Why not instead demand that a purely economic (or class) approach should be taken, so that votes of teachers with low-income and / or lower-education parents get more weight? Because these are probably umbrella-factors indicative of all underrepresented classes of people and they would include people from all “racial” backgrounds. Of course noone will push for this approach, and it would be a problematic one as well, although I think it would be the most exact measurement of a privileged / non-privileged background. Still, one person, one vote should be and remain the standard.