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Saturday 15 November 2014

RIP GRANDPA GORDON NORM PRETTY - My first hero and role model

My Grandfather was a humble man, he never needed to be the centre of attention. In life and now in death, I'm not sure he would want us to focus on him; and I know he wouldn't want us to centre our attention on the sadness of his passing. So I've instead chosen to focus on the happiness that he brought into all of our lives and the indelible mark and impression that he made on our family and the way that we not only care and appreciate one another but also our country and community.

See, Grandpa was the patriarch of this family - a father, husband, provider, soldier, gentleman, grandfather.  I remember as a child when I was just a little boy, he would entertain Eric and I with stories of his adventures as a soldier fighting in World War II. A master storyteller he was - tales of woe, fortitude, sometimes unexpected fun, bravery, ... adventure. As two little boys from the countryside of Chatham-Kent, we were captivated; totally in awe with the things our grandpa had done, seen and places he had been.

Grandpa was my first hero (Eric's too).  Every visit to the Wabash farm Grandpa would take us around with him, play with us - perhaps to the dismay of mom, he introduced us to the World Wrestling Federation and the likes of Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior and the 'Macho Man' Randy Savage. We'd enact what we saw: Grandpa lifting Eric and I into the air together, each of us hanging from one of his biceps. The wrestling would inevitably end with all of us herding upstairs for a huge, delicious meal that Grandma had prepared. 

When I think of my Grandpa, I understand why I have such a great mom; why it is that my mother has such a loving spirit. Grandpa was courageous and brave. He was selfless and kind.  His sacrifice will never be forgotten. He was a great teacher to have, not only for my mom and all of us, but also for everybody else. He loved being a parent to his 8 children and a grandparent to his 18 grandchildren. It was his calling in life.

Though I've gotten older and both time and circumstance have pushed me further from home, I've always looked forward to my holiday visits - to seeing Grandpa, sitting at the poker table with his broad smile, home-brew in hand, and my uncles by his side. Like all of you, I will miss him dearly and it pains me to know that we've shared our last hug 'hello'; he was so much fun to be around, he loved to laugh and to have fun and I adored him. But a man as humble, loving and fun as Grandpa will always be remembered by those of us who knew him and loved him. Although we will miss him, his smile, his stories, his jokes, his love, we take consolation in the good feelings of our memories.

"Sorrow comes in great waves...but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us, it passes and we remain." - Henry James



Grandpa, I will always miss you. But I have so many wonderful memories to hang on to. You were my first hero, a role model and a great friend. Your guidance and love will carry me through to the end of my days.

I love you Grandpa, until we meet again.

Saturday 22 February 2014

LIFE AS A LAWYER IN THE GREAT CANADIAN NORTH

In school I was most captivated by constitutional and government studies classes. When I realized that law was the glue that held it all together, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer.  I love the law - its ability to shape social change and impact people’s lives has always inspired me, and its potential for building a better society has been a constant motivator. 

I saw becoming a lawyer as a primary means of engaging with that promise – though I admit the rigors and conformity of law school at times clouded that initial inspiration. I attended UBC in Vancouver, a large faculty with a strong emphasis on ‘BigLaw’, and, though I enjoyed my time there, I realized pretty early on that “one of these things is not like the other” - everyone was focused on corporate law jobs, summer clerkships, working on big figure deals. It all just filled me with dread, yet the social pressure to take that path can be pretty intense, and I did it too, for a short time. I’m glad that I did. It provided a slew of challenges and confirmed for me that I was right to pursue a brand of work that intrinsically made me happy. So I left.

The corporate law experience prompted me to embark on a legal internship with a human rights organization in West Africa. As unconventional and surprising as this decision was at the time, quite simply, it was the best one I’ve ever made. I found myself in an environment where the rule of law often existed in name only, conditions that created rosters full of clients but no access to the lawyers needed to represent them. I worked with clients who had been forcibly removed from their homes, minorities and impoverished groups whose legal rights were either forgotten or ignored. Being their advocate filled me with a deep sense of purpose and meaning. I emerged with a reconnection as to why I became a lawyer in the first place – to be someone others confide in and seek advice from, to solve problems for people, and to help improve their lives. 

My return home was with the vision and intent of serving my own community in this same way – promoting accessibility to justice. The opportunity of practicing with the Legal Services Board in the North has presented this and a whole lot more. Practice here has a frontier aspect to it; you feel as though the legal system and local community are evolving together. The legal community has a similarly collaborative tenor – a legal body that is largely collegial, not needlessly adversarial, and where sharp tactics are frowned upon rather than rewarded. 



That’s not to say coming North has all been easy. It has its own unique difficulties. Friends and family are thousands of kilometers away and mail never seems to arrive on time, to say nothing of the -50 winter chill, but its charms are unparalleled - the midnight sun, northern lights, and a chance to experience some of the world’s last untouched wilderness. And, while the cases I work on aren’t likely to get me before the SCC, they are equal in their significance; there is something to be said for work that allows me to spend my days assisting some of the most vulnerable members of society. Although the difference I make here isn’t likely to change the world, in a community that is small enough to retain the true meaning of the word, there is a heightened intimacy that allows the impact you make to be felt all around you. In short, while there are still moments where I say to myself “is this nuts?” – such as the first time I walked on the open tundra – my only regret with coming North is that I didn’t do it sooner. 

Tuesday 18 February 2014

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED: Part 2 of 2


Life for the Other Half 

I confess that I wasn’t initially prepared for some of what I saw. 

Walking through the unpaved streets and disorganized red dirt roads of a place like Lomé was more than a little unsettling.  Though I had of course scurried past shantytowns of similarly unspeakable poverty in my many travels – and perhaps even exposed myself to smaller samplings of it in my brief bouts of community service at home – never before I had experienced poverty of such size and scale.  The first time a colleague of mine told me that, since sanitary wear was simply beyond the reach of many local girls, they were forced to resort to the use of old rags, pieces of blanket, sack, newspaper or even leaves to contain their menstrual flow, I refused to believe it. The next day, I had a client who prostituted his daughter to help pay his wife’s hospital bills – my introduction had only just begun.  By the time I walked through the Buduburam refugee camp, I thought I had seen enough to be prepared for anything, but I had difficulty believing what I saw was even real: there was what felt like an endless chain of pleas for food, help, comfort – anything. Body after body, so thin and emaciated, that it was legitimate to ask, how are they still alive?

While true that in some ways I had never felt so helpless, in an ironic twist, at the same time I had never been so empowered. The former being obvious – the poverty that surrounded me was not just confronting but inescapable and impossible for me to heal – but the latter, because every client I spoke with and represented expressed a sincere appreciation and genuine feeling of gratitude. There was none of the bitterness one would expect from someone who had too often been ignored and neglected and too seldom shown so much as a sliver of decency or mercy. Instead, there was a warmth to these interactions that seldom occurred in private practice; they believed that I could help them and, slowly, I began to believe it too.

"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems" - Mohandas K. Ghandi

For the first time, I truly understood just how dangerously out of balance our world is, and I was determined to do something about it.



A World Divided

As I took in the reality that surrounded me everyday, I couldn’t shake the feeling of a global wrong or help but to begin to connect the dots.  Coming from my world of relative plenty, it was difficult to digest that such abject poverty even existed, much less persisted, unabated and with little more than the most fleeting levels of attention or urgency.  Knowing we live in the wealthiest of times in all of human history, the cruelty of witnessing so many lives condemned to either untimely death or unnecessary suffering was incomprehensible. 

"He is now rising from affluence to poverty." - Mark Twain 

Technology and globalization have made our world smaller than at any time previously, only heightening the fact that the fittest of the First World really does live smack in the face of the Third. So why is it that so few of us get to enjoy our "first world" membership whilst the majority of the human race is denied this gold card status? As my days turned to weeks, and weeks to months, that was the burning question that I couldn’t shake from my mind. Perhaps as you read these postings, you may begin to ask yourself this same question. While the answer is not a pretty one, I do believe that it is an essential acknowledgment that should be part of each and every step that we place on this Earth.

Yet, in spite of painful story after painful story, misery upon misery, I found people getting on with their life, rising gloriously above conditions that would break the best of us. In this ability to persevere through the worst, I gained not just a newfound perspective, but a worldview.  What moved me most was finding such a large number of people in places as poor in economic wealth as Ghana or Togo, nonetheless standing together to make life better, not just for themselves, but for one another. I was blessed with the opportunity to talk for hours on end with inspiring and dedicated companions. I was privileged to work alongside lawyers earning modest 5-figure salaries with a desire, indeed, a shared obligation to give more than they took. It was a far cry from my experience back home with 6-figure salaried lawyers for whom more never felt like quite enough. I quickly learned from this experience that the degree of one's happiness has far more to do with their disposition than their circumstance. 

It's also why I view seeing other places and cultures as, not only a way of understanding the special challenges that are unique to different parts of the world, but also as quite possibly the best means of appreciating the common interests and aspirations that unite us. After living with people on the edge of survival, it becomes difficult to go back to your old ways and, to my surprise, I soon discovered that I was able to live quite comfortably with an almost monkish simplicity. Gradually, I learned to be indifferent to myself and to my own deficiencies. I came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various branches of knowledge, individuals for whom I felt affection – ways in which I could seek to become much more than just an armchair critic.

"The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live" - Norman Cousins

Witnessing firsthand how seemingly small and fragmented individual efforts can add up to a powerful social force, provided that enthralling eureka moment that finally rid me of the 'excus-itis' that had always held such sway.  The period that proceeded was one characterized by a ravenous quest for answers, and the topics and discussions that follow are the fruits of this labour. I am most humbled by all who read these pages, encouraged by those who may share them and anxious for any that may actively participate in their evolution.  I hope that what I have produced herein conveys some of the passion that I feel about the issues that follow and, ideally, helps you to foster some of your own. 

With that, we begin... 



Ask yourself the fundamental question: "Who am I?"

Once you have your answer, begin to live your life with congruency.