The Magnitude of All Things, director Jennifer Abbott’s devastating NFB co-production about personal and planetary grief, premièred at VIFF’s Vancity Theatre, with Abbott and co-producers Shirley Vercruysse and Andrew Williamson in attendance. #VIFF2020.
The Magnitude of All Things (Canada). Truth telling, a call to action, and gorgeously filmed by cinematographer Vince Arvidson, Sundance and Genie award-winning director Jennifer Abbott (The Corporation) offers viewers an intimate and emotional punch-in-the-gut with her new documentary. The Magnitude of All Things draws intimate parallels between the experiences of grief — personal for the filmmaker in coming to terms with the passing of her sister, and planetary, as Magnitude takes us across the globe to witness planet Earth in crisis: from the catastrophic fires Australia suffered at the end of 2019, to the devastating role our current climate emergency has played in destroying a southern hemisphere eco-system, the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, the rising sea levels drowning the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati, to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest arising from the grievous policies of Brazilian and Ecuadorian presidents Jair Bolsonaro and Lénín Moreno, the struggles of the Indigenous peoples who are waging a desperate battle against oil and mining extraction and, at home, how the melting ice in the autonomous Newfoundland and Labrador Inuit community of Nunatsiavut has permanently altered the landscape.
Lest you believe The Magnitude of All Things to be a polemic, didactic filmmaking regurgitating what you’ve heard before, allow this writer to assure you that is not at all the case. Rather, Magnitude is a film about battles waged, lamentations of loss, and raw testimony that coalesces into an extraordinary tapestry, woven together with raw emotion and staggering beauty, a film that transform darkness into light, and grief into action.
The Magnitude of All Things. A film by Jennifer Abbott. An NFB & partners production.
John Ware Reclaimed (Canada). A genealogical exploration of the life of 19th century Alberta cowboy, John Ware, that seeks to reclaim the narrative of his life, filmmaker and historian Cheryl Foggo expands on the work she undertook in mounting her 2012 award winning play, John Ware Re-imagined, as she re-examines the history of Alberta’s famous early black folk hero and Prairie cowboy, who was rugged, independent & black.
From a story written by Omayra Issa for CBC Saskatchewan …
“It is a history that has been erased,” says Foggo. Both sets of her maternal grandparents came to Saskatchewan from the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century. Three generations lived in the province before moving to Alberta, the family eventually spanning across the 3 Prairie provinces.
Foggo’s ancestors were among the 1,500 to 2,000 African American farmers who came from the southern U.S. from 1905 to 1911 in search of a better life and a place that was less hostile and dangerous than Jim Crow America. They established five small pioneering communities: one in Saskatchewan and four in Alberta. Their story is steeped in slavery, racial segregation, and the fierce desire for emancipation.
Foggo has been reclaiming her family history for decades. More recently, she has been doing the same for an iconic Black figure on the Prairies, John Ware.
Ware proved himself to be a charismatic man and a highly skilled rancher. He owned two ranches, ultimately reaching one thousand head of cattle. He also pioneered irrigation in the region. Legends of his talents as a horseman were known in Indigenous communities on Treaty 7 territory, where he was close friends with chief Crowfoot of the Siksika First Nation.
John Ware’s story is a fundamental Prairie story and an indelible thread in the Canadian narrative. “It is important to connect John Ware to the Black history that was here in his time, carried on, and has been here from that time forward,” Foggo told CBC Saskatchewan journalist, Omayra Issa.
Fashion is today the second most polluting industry in the world, following only the oil business.
For altruistic and ecological reasons, the shopping attitude of Canadians towards second-hand clothes has been changing, and consignment stores are bustling with their newfound clientele, and consequent increased sales.
What was once a $12 billion North American market only a few short years ago is now a thriving $24 billion consignment clothing market, with the marketplace expected to top $50 billion by the middle of the next decade.
In other words, the ‘second hand economy’ is thriving.
Consignment stores are not what they used to be, offering quality like never before, carefully curated collections, and an elevated shopping experience for their burgeoning customer base.
A recent published study shows that in 2018, 64% of women and men were willing to buy pre-owned consignment store clothing — clothing which often has never been worn, and acquired from businesses which have gone bankrupt — up from 45% in 2016. The clothing retail industry believes that by 2028, up to half of the clothes in women’s and men’s wardrobes are likely to be ‘secondhand’. Fashion circularity, a new term referring to the recycled life of a garment, as indicated above is projected to reach $51 billion in five years, up from the current $24 billion.
In discussion with consignment store operators across Vancouver, proprietors told VanRamblings that where there was once “a stigma attached” to purchasing consignment store clothing — conjuring images of the yellow sweat patches, clothes strewn casually and confusingly hung (if at all) and emotional baggage people often associate with used clothing …
“Now, thankfully, purchasing clothing from consignment stores is not just acceptable — it’s cool and has completely captured the fashion zeitgeist,” one consignment clothing proprietor recently told us.
A recent study published by the Raymond James Financial Centre reports that 56% of women and men aged 18-29 prefer the consignment second hand market over conventional retailers of new clothing. Shopping in a thrifty manner guarantees shoppers the uniqueness of their own style. Most of the pieces in a consignment clothing shop are one of a kind, and allow endless possibilities of matching and styling in a creative and unique way.
All of which is to say, no longer is there a taboo about consignment clothes shopping. The rise of the sharing economy has also helped — it’s taken the stigma out of resale and removed the need to own something forever.
In September, fast fashion chain Forever 21 announced it was closing all its international locations, including 44 stores in Canada, amid flagging sales.
According to a recent interview conducted with the CBC finance guru Diane Buckner, British Columbia retail consultant Bruce Winder told her fast fashion’s target market — young, style-conscious shoppers on a budget — are also among those most concerned about the health of the planet.
“The younger millennial specifically, along with Gen Z, are incredibly environmentally conscious,” he said. “And they look at every brand and every product in terms of what is the impact on society, but also what is the impact on the employees and the environment.”
Not only do consignment stores benefit from the fact that the city’s stylish set are clearing out their closets like never before, a return to quality over quantity in the minds of most shoppers means visits to consignment stores for quality designer goods that will last (i.e. not end up in a landfill) and not break the bank will only continue to rise.
How does consignment clothing store shopping save the environment while also saving you money? Thrift shopping at consignment stores offers a viable solution for anyone looking to help out the environment.
Saving Money. Thrifted clothing is far more affordable than new clothes of comparable quality.
Smarter Buys. You tend to spend more time looking over each item instead of buying it outright.
Unique Finds. It’s highly unlikely that anyone else is walking around in the same clothes as you.
Creative Potential. You might be inspired to try new combinations, or even some DIY reconstruction!
If that isn’t enough incentive, as promised above, here are seven ways Erich Lawson writes thrifting helps the environment …
1. Consignment clothing shopping lowers your carbon footprint. A great deal of energy goes into clothing manufacture, right from the transportation of raw materials to the production process. Then, there’s the energy required to transport clothing to stores, and dispose of unwanted pieces. When shoppers buy from consignment stores, we prevent wastage of energy & resources on production of new clothes.
2. Aiding in Water Preservation. In addition to energy, water consumption is extremely high at every stage of clothing production. For instance, growing one kilogram of cotton requires 5,300 gallons of water, while wet processing and printing use 18 and 21.6 gallons respectively, per pound of cotton. Manufacturing, packaging and transportation processes add to this cost as well.
3. Reducing Chemical Pollution. The production of cotton is highly pesticide-intensive, causing soil acidification and water contamination. Textile manufacturing processes also involve the use of harmful dyes, caustic soda and crude oil by-products. These chemicals are generally dumped into areas around manufacturing units, contaminating surface and ground water through soil runoff.
4. North Americans throw out anywhere from 60 to over 80 pounds of textile waste annually, and only about 10% of this makes it to consignment stores. If more people start shopping for consignment clothes, less fabric ends up being dumped in landfills. That’s not all. Packaging material is also reduced, keeping plastic, paper and metal out of the waste stream.
5. Inspiring Green Living. Thrifting is an essential part of green living, in more ways than one. When you buy consignment clothing, you keep them from being sent to a landfill and reduce manufacturing demand as well. Also, by donating consigning clothes you no longer wish to wear, you encourage others simply by giving them something they can use.
6. Boosting Community Development. Shopping at consignment stores means support for local business instead of multinational corporations. Consignment stores provide employment in retail outlets, creating more jobs and boosting the local economy. Many hire disabled workers and support local community programming projects as well.
7. Encourages Recycling. Did you know that recycled cotton clothing uses less than 3% of the energy that would have gone into producing new clothes? When you reuse or recycle clothes, you’re decreasing the demand for production & encouraging sustainabity. It may not seem like much, but every item that doesn’t end up in a landfill counts as a win!
In the 1990s, when VanRamblings was charged with training Statistics Canada employees on how to conduct the annual Survey of Household Spending, during the role play portion of the training exercise, in answer to the question as to how much we spent on clothing and shoes each year, we responded with: $500. Senior staff at Statistics Canada guffawed loudly when VanRamblings offered this bit of information, saying to us at days’ end, “Raymond, suggesting that you spend only $500 a year on clothing and shoes is the funniest thing I think I’ll ever hear. How clever of you. Good for you. It brought lightness to the day’s proceedings.”
Little did senior staff know that, in fact, VanRamblings was acquiring most of our clothing from Arthur’s for Men on West 1st Avenue just west of Burrard Street, where fashionable wool sweaters could be had for $15, shirts and pants for $10, and jackets and shoes for $25, or less.
VanRamblings’ children had long encouraged shopping at consignment stores.
“Dad, not only are you colour blind, you have no fashion sense. In the past, you’ve bought your clothing at The Bay, and you’ve tended to shop for the store brands. You are much better off shopping for name label clothing at a consignment store: those clothing items are priced less expensively than what you’re buying now, the clothes are of invariably better quality — and will hold their nap in a way your current shirts, sweaters and pants will never do, meaning the clothing will last longer.”
“Buying name label consignment clothing assures quality, assures — at least in most cases — proper colour and design that will match the remaining items in your wardrobe, and as long as you shop at Arthur’s for Men, the owners will know what clothing items you have in your wardrobe at home, because they have a list of what you’ve purchased, so will be able to recommend complementary items.”
And now to the present.
Recently, we purchased an Italian suede jacket we’d seen at a neighbourhood Italian clothing boutique that had now gone out of business.
The jacket was retailing for $380.
When Turnabout (our consignment clothing shop of choice, these days) purchased almost the entire stock of the bankrupt Italian clothing boutique, that $380 suede jacket was put on sale for $40!
When walking into the store the morning the jacket was put on sale, staff approached me to say, “Mr. Tomlin, we’ve just put a jacket out on the floor that we think you’ll love,” directing me to the suede jacket. “You’d better buy it now, or it’ll be gone by noon.”
So, we did — and enjoy wearing it today!
Now, it may be a lark that our former employers at Statistics Canada thought our voiced annual clothing expenditure to be a laugh, but in our current scarce and uncertain economy, if sales at the consignment store we most often attend is any indication — where only a decade ago, we could wait for an item to drop 80% in price were we to wait six to eight weeks — when an item we like now appears in the shop, we purchase it immediately, because if we don’t, it’s almost a certainty that it’ll be gone the next day.
With the holiday season coming up, gift giving is on the minds of a great many people, gifts for family, friends and colleagues, and gifts for oneself.
Given the uncertain nature of the economy and the scarce dollars available to most folks, a bargain is always appreciated — and make no mistake, with Black Friday coming up on November 29th and Christmas sales at the ready across our land to entice you to spend, there’ll be plenty of bargains to rein in whatever disposable income you’ve set aside for gift acquisition.
Retail online sales, if projections are correct, will top $40 billion Canadian this holiday season, with total world sales expected to exceed $3.5 trillion for 2019 — most of which monies will be spent acquiring products made available on the Amazon website (or app, as the case may be). Latest figures published by Statistics Canada indicate that 3 out of 5 Canadians do most of their non-food shopping on the Amazon.ca website — cuz it’s less expensive than the retail stores as well as reliable, and if you’ve acquired an Amazon Prime membership, goods delivery is free within 12 – 36 hours.
If you’re not in the market for anything in particular — say you’re just looking for gift ideas or killing time during your lunch break — you can get to the Amazon Warehouse Deals landing page by heading to Amazon.ca and search for “Amazon Warehouse” or “Warehouse Deals.” From there you can browse the categorized listings just as you would at any online retailer.
Most people who shop on Amazon, though, know exactly what they’re looking for. If you already have something specific in mind but want to see if there’s a discounted Amazon Warehouse option available, this is where your sleuthing, money-saving skills come into play, saving you up to 50%.
The bottom line: why pay full retail when there’s a perfectly fine — and much cheaper — alternative?
In much the same way that VanRamblings does most of our clothes and shoe shopping at consignment stores (Turnabout is our current favourite, where we save up to 80% on new sweaters and jackets), the Amazon Warehouse has perfectly fine ‘used’ goods at 50% off or better savings.
For instance, we recently acquired a Dash 1.2 L Compact Electric Air Fryer (which we’ll write about later in the month) for $42, when the retail price on Amazon.ca and at Walmart was a much steeper $101.67, plus tax. The Dash Air Fryer arrived in the original box, in pristine condition, in 48 hours.
All we did when arriving on the Amazon web page for the Dash Air Fryer was scour the page, keeping our eyes peeled for words like “New & Used,” “Buy Used,” “New & Used Offers” or just plain “Used” — and with the click of a couple of buttons, our ‘new’ Dash 1.2 Litre Compact Air Fryer was on its way, at a cost saving of pretty darn close to 60 per cent.
Why’s Amazon Warehouse stuff so cheap? Just like other major retailers such as Walmart or Costco, Amazon takes in a lot of customer returns, which it can no longer sell as new-in-box, regardless of why the buyer sent the item back or whether it’s even been opened.
That’s why everything Amazon Warehouse sells is listed as used, even if the product itself has never been touched. Regardless of its condition, used stuff is just worth less — sometimes a lot less. And that, most often, is very good for you.
Amazon has five different grades it assigns to items it resells. Here they are with brief explanations of what Amazon means by them.
Renewed: This is the highest grade an Amazon Warehouse item can receive and is on par with what other companies might call “refurbished.” Renewed items have been closely inspected and tested and determined to look and function like new and come with a 90-day replacement or refund guarantee.
Used, Like New: No noticeable blemishes or marks on the item itself, although the packaging may be damaged, incomplete or missing all together. All accessories are included, and any damage to the package will be described in the listing.
Used, Very Good: Item has been lightly used, with minor visible indications of wear and tear, but otherwise in good working order. Packaging might be damaged, incomplete or the item repackaged. Any missing accessories will be detailed on the listing.
Used, Good: Item shows moderate signs of use, packaging may be damaged or the item repackaged and could be missing accessories, instructions or assembly tools.
Used, Acceptable: Very well worn, but still fully functional. Major cosmetic defects, packaging issues and/or missing parts, accessories, instructions or tools.
How to choose the right grade? If there are multiple listings with different grades available for the product you want to buy, think about what you’re going to use it for. If it were something purely functional and you couldn’t care less about its cosmetic condition, like hair clippers or a cordless drill, our suggestion: go with the cheapest option, period.
Honestly, a low enough price on just about anything can woo most folks into dealing with some scratches or scuffs. Not to mention, Amazon tends to err on the side of caution, marking items as Good or Acceptable that the average person would consider Very Good or Like New. One of the benefits of purchases made through Amazon Warehouse is that
Amazon’s standard 30-day replacement or refund return policy applies, which comes in handy if you wind up with a lemon. Amazon does caution that because these products are considered used they don’t come with the manufacturer’s original warranty — but you can, in fact, register the product online with the manufacturer for the full two year, or better, warranty.
And remember: Amazon Prime members still get free shipping. Subscribing to Amazon Prime won’t get you a bigger discount on Amazon Warehouse Deals, but you’ll get free shipping just as you would for any other Prime-eligible item, which is why it remains a good deal, at $90 Canadian a year to sign up for Amazon Prime (which also gives you access to Amazon Prime TV, for most folks a pretty good deal when you get right down to it, and applicable to all Amazon Warehouse purchases, as well).
As above, most stuff you buy through Amazon Warehouse ships and arrives within the same one- to two-day window you get with new items, although some orders do take longer to fulfill. If that’s the case, the extra handling time is usually indicated on the listing, so you know what to expect.
Of course, Amazon will be participating in this year’s big Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales too, with some deals starting as early as Nov. 22nd, with all current Amazon.ca Black Friday deals available here.
The suffering hero of our times is, we are told, the tormented taxpayer.
Conservative politicians mount campaigns to protect the taxpayer, editorial writers evaluate politicians and their policies on whether they will increase or decrease the “burden” to taxpayers, and some self-described taxpayers have formed faux, corporate-funded organizations to plead their cause & lament their plight. Thus, you have the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Nobel prize winning author Toni Morrison, in her New York apartment. Photo | Tim Knox
At a speaking engagement, a few years back, at a New Yorker festival, Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist, essayist, editor, teacher and professor emeritus at Princeton University, Toni Morrison, offered insightful commentary on topics about race, gender, writing, and other issues. One particular observation made by Ms. Morrison was quite memorable …
The complexity of the so-called individual that’s been praised for decades in America somehow has narrowed itself to the ‘me’. When I was a young girl we were called citizens — American citizens. We were second-class citizens, but that was the word. In the 50s and 60s they started calling us consumers. So we did — consume. Now they don’t use those words any more — it’s the American taxpayer, and those are different attitudes.
The phrase “taxpayer’s money” is almost always propaganda — that must be rejected and resisted by all of us who support progressive politics.A better phrase is “public money”.
So, why do so few in the news media, if any at all in these times of corporate-owned media, refuse to use the term public money, replacing it instead with the far from benign word taxpayer?
Public money is the property of the entire public, not of taxpayers.
Taxes are a way to pool our resources and develop common infrastructure that can have a positive impact on us all. They build our roads and bridges, pay for our police and firefighters, our system of justice, offer support for raising children and contribute to reducing child poverty, provide income security and housing for people who are in need, contribute to foreign aid, and help to ensure our environment is clean and safe. All of these things are much cheaper and effective when we pay for them collectively.
The taxes paid by previous generations benefits us today, and the taxes we pay hopefully act to benefit the generations of tomorrow.
David Brooks. Toronto-born American centre-right, self-described “moderate centrist” political pundit and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times
In 2016, New York Times columnist and PBS political commentator David Brooks wrote about the difference between taxpayers and citizens …
You can be a taxpayer or you can be a citizen. If you’re a taxpayer your role in the country is defined by your economic and legal status. Your primary identity is individual. You’re perfectly within your rights to do everything you legally can to look after your self-interest.The problem with the taxpayer mentality is that you end up serving your individual interest short term but soiling the nest you need to be happy in over the long term.
A healthy nation isn’t just an atomized mass of individual economic and legal units. A nation is a web of giving and getting. You give to your job, and your employer gives to you. You give to your neighbourhood, and your neighbourhood gives to you. You give to your government, and your government gives to you.
If you orient everything around individual self-interest, you end up ripping the web of giving and receiving. Neighbours can’t trust neighbours. Individuals can’t trust their institutions, and they certainly can’t trust their government. Everything that is not explicitly prohibited is permissible. Everybody winds up suspicious and defensive and competitive. You wind up alone at 3 a.m. miserably tweeting out at your enemies.
And this is exactly the atomized mentality that is corroding North America.
Years ago, David Foster Wallace put it more gently …
“It may sound reactionary, I know. But we can all feel it. We’ve changed the way we think of ourselves as citizens. We don’t think of ourselves as citizens in the old sense of being small parts of something larger and infinitely more important to which we have serious responsibilities. We do still think of ourselves as citizens in the sense of being beneficiaries — we’re actually conscious of our rights as citizens and our nation’s responsibilities to us and ensuring we get our share of the American pie.”
This is where the Canadian Taxpayers Federation comes in, a shady, secretly-funded (who are, in fact, funded by right wing elements within Canada’s corporate culture), unrepresentative organization that sells itself as a populist “citizens advocacy group” looking to cut waste and ensure accountability in government, when such couldn’t be further from the truth.
Larry Haiven, a professor in the faculty of management at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, says most of CTF’s stances on issues — and particularly their relentless calls to lower taxes — are …
“the most simplistic garbage. It assumes that nothing that is purchased with our taxes is of any use for us. Despite CTF’s anti-tax, spending-is-out-of-control rhetoric, taxes are lower now than they’ve been in decades, leaving governments struggling to provide essential services.
Provinces and the federal government have been cutting taxes frenetically, frantically, for the past 25 years. Governments across Canada are taking in about $250 billion less than they did 15 years ago. You have to weigh that against everything the Taxpayers Federation says.”
Yet night in, night out the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is given a platform on the corporate-owned and operated evening news, with folks on Shaw-owned Global TV, anchors like Chris Gailus and Sophie Liu, and Bell Media CTV Vancouver hosts Scott Roberts and Mi-Jung Lee fulfilling their supplicant role as handmaidens to their corporate bosses & not on our side.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation media presence is truly remarkable when you consider it has a membership of five people.
This might come as a surprise, but the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is not now, nor has it ever been, a grassroots, member-based organization where anyone can pay $10 to sign up (or sign up free) and have a say in how the organization is run.
Instead, it has supporters — about 90,000 of them, who, like followers on Facebook, can like, comment, answer surveys and make donations, but they have no actual say in how the organization is run.
While the CTF’s mandate is to hold elected officials to account, who holds the CTF’s five members to account? Each other. Who decides who else can become a member? They do. It should be no surprise that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has, as a result, faced accusations of being an Astroturf organization — a fake grassroots organization.
Writing in The Tyee, journalist David J. Climenhaga says the following …
Right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch are among the funders of the international Atlas Network, a Canadian Taxpayers Federation partner. Photo credit: DonkeyHotey.
“The Canadian Taxpayers Federation,” writes Climenhaga, “a self-described non-partisan tax watchdog and taxpayer advocacy group once headed by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, has always been tight-lipped about the sources of its own funding and support. This may be mildly ironic, given its vocal demands for transparency in government policy.”
Since the 1980’s and the rise of the Koch brothers in the U.S. and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in Canada, there has been a deliberate effort to reframe citizens as “taxpayers” and public spending as “taxpayers’ money,” as if taxpayers are shareholders. CBC’s Dougald Lamont writes …
Journalists and politicians in every political party routinely use these terms without considering that this framing is anti-democratic. That is because politicians are elected by citizens, not just taxpayers. The word “taxpayer” is not in the constitution; the word “citizen” is.
All citizens are equal. Taxpayers are not.
It is self-evident that you can contribute to the economy and society without paying taxes. Many citizens don’t pay income taxes, notably children, the working poor and a few millionaires and billionaires. Charities, churches and places of faith are all tax-exempt.
Defining taxpayers as the only people who matter has real and serious consequences for policy. It is not a politically neutral position: it is a radical right-wing ideology that drives inequality by making the rich richer while neglecting the poor.
That is why the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s real membership of five people matters, as does its ideology. We don’t have to care what they think, but we should be clear on just where they are coming from.
So the next time you hear British Columbia’s new wicked witch of the west, CTF spokesperson Kris Sims, blathering on your TV about how your “taxpayer dollars” are being wasted, remember: Kris Sims and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation could give a damn about you as a citizen of the province of British Columbia, and could care even less about what our provincial government is doing to alleviate child poverty, build urgent care centres to serve the 780,000 British Columbians without a family doctor, build truly affordable housing for seniors and working people across the vast expanse of our province, create affordable $10-a-day child care for working families, while funding our public safety and justice, education, transportation and infrastructure, agriculture and fisheries, climate action and environment, social development and poverty reduction, indigenous relations and reconciliation, and jobs, training, trade and technology ministries of government to better serve your interests, and the interests of your family, your neighbours, your co-workers, and your friends.
And while you’re at it, ignore Kris Sims when you see her next on your TV!
The Magnitude of All Things, director Jennifer Abbott’s devastating NFB co-production about personal and planetary grief, premièred at VIFF’s Vancity Theatre, with Abbott and co-producers Shirley Vercruysse and Andrew Williamson in attendance. #VIFF2020. 
