Incite/Insight Spring-Summer 2019 Incite_Insight—Spring_Summer 2019 Final | Page 11

In Solidarity: A Note from YTJ’s
First Canadian Editor
WRITTEN BY DR. MONICA PRENDERGAST
The following editorial was printed
in the latest edition of Youth Theatre
Journal, the scholarly journal of the
American Alliance for Theatre and
Education.
I come to the role of Editor of Youth
Theatre Journal as a Canadian
citizen; I may indeed be the first
Canadian Editor of the journal. I live
slightly to the north of the longest
undefended border in the world. The
history between our two countries
has been largely peaceful and
cooperative, with a few blips along
the way (the War of 1812 anyone?)
But Canada has long been aware
that living next door to its closest
neighbor and partner in trade—at
ten times its population and with the
largest military on the planet—can be
challenging. Former Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau once said to an
American audience in Washington,
“Living next to you is in some ways like
sleeping with an elephant. No matter
how friendly and even-tempered is
the beast, if I can call it that, one is
affected by every twitch and grunt”
(“The elephant and the mouse”,
n.p.). Well, since the last Presidential
election, Canada has been sleeping
with more twitches and grunts
emerging from Washington than
perhaps ever before.
But one potentially good thing about
having a Canadian at the helm of
YTJ at this point in history may be
that, as an outsider, I may bring
some alternative perspectives to
what is happening. The view across
our border is not a pretty one these
days, that is certain. Yet it is a far
more open and hospitable view
than for those who try in desperation
to cross the southern border, soon
to be a wall. Canada has resisted
America’s will in the past; we refused
to join the illegal and immoral
invasion of Iraq in 2003, for example.
And while your President tries to
turn the clock of social progress
and social justice back to the Dark
Ages, Canadians have been able
to stand strong behind our shared
beliefs in a multicultural society,
universal healthcare, abortion rights,
public education, gun control, high
levels of immigration and peaceful
coexistence.
We Canadians are not perfect,
though! We are wrestling with our
shameful history of residential
schools, in which Indigenous
children were torn away from their
families and communities and were
subjected too often to physical,
emotional and sexual abuse. And
in Indigenous communities across
the country there remain many
problems, including access to
basic needs such as clean water.
We are struggling with changing
our economy from one driven by
non-renewable resources such
as oil and gas to renewable and
greener options. Our current
federal government is committed
to addressing climate change, yet
recently purchased a pipeline from
an oil company with our tax dollars.
This pipeline will cross from Alberta
to British Columbia (where I live),
threatening wilderness, Indigenous
lands, and the Pacific Ocean
coastline with the dangers of a spill.
And in Quebec, which has always
had an uneasy alliance with the rest
of Canada, the province has brought
in legislation that will prohibit any
show of religion by anyone working in
the public sector, including teachers.
This is thinly disguised Islamophobia,
but the law will also affect observant
Jews and Sikhs. Finally, Ontario has
a new right-wing premier who takes
his playbook straight from Donald
Trump, thus moving our largest and
wealthiest province into a tough time
of cutbacks and the end of many
progressive social programs.
So why am I sharing these thoughts
with you in the context of an editorial
for a journal that publishes research
on young people, education and
theatre/performance? I do so
because I believe politics and
economics matter, and have both a
direct and indirect effect on what it
is that we do. As I write this, President
Trump is proposing cutting funding
to the National Endowment of the
Arts and to public broadcasting.
America has already had the
lowest per capita funding for the
arts compared to other developed
countries; studies consistently show
the United States lagging far behind
(National Endowment for the Arts,
2000; McCaughey, 2005). Historically,
America has tended to fund the
arts through patronage, thus relying
on both the whims and tastes of
wealthy benefactors. In countries
such as Canada, the U.K. and most
of the European Union, funding is
provided by government through
taxation and delivered by national
and provincial/state arts councils in
an arms-length peer review model.
These facts matter, as they trickle
down in reality to theatre companies
in the US that struggle to survive,
and may be pressed to take fewer
risks in their programming, for fear of
losing precarious funding. Needless
to say, similar problems are currently
effecting education in America,
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