Simpson's Shame, Valpy's Glory, & a Measure of Globe Justice for Stevie

Jeffrey Simpson will have to try to live down his shamefully irresponsible "(likely bogus)" remark for the rest of his life. A short note in his end of year mea culpas won't cut it. No-one will forget that when anti-refugee hysteria was flying around, Jeffrey Simpson demonstrated such brave steady judgment and piled on. Why do we need the CIC/IRB? We should just let Kreskin Simpson psychically evaluate all claims and save ourselves the time, cost and trouble of all those mundane background checks, weighing of evidence and testimony, etc.. It's one thing to muse about improving policies this way or that. It's another to absorb the ambient hysteria and prejudge the claims of desperate people. Shame.

Contrast this with Michael Valpy's glorious two-page spread reviewing and contextualising the refugee question, and our responses to it. The spread is fantastic, and while it looks good online, people should really see it in print, where it is awesomely powerful. But of course Michael Valpy is perhaps the only Canadian journalist who we know for sure is not just world-class, but during his South African period, the world's best. Others might make similar claims in their field, but it is hard to judge between societies. But foreign reporting allows one to really measure one's worth against the best of the best from other countries. And during apartheid, Michael Valpy was pretty much the only journalist to get the story almost exactly right. He never fell for "black on black" or other apartheid propaganda BS that filled the Economist and everywhere else. But neither did he give PAC, Biko, the ANC, White liberals, the Canadian government, all governments, etc. a free pass. In a sense, the praise he merits should be unnecessary. He just did his job. I'm loath to say "did it right", because you either do it, and thus correctly, or not. But all he did was listen and watch everyone and everything, talk to everyone, and keep a cool head and a warm heart, with the liberal ideals that must necessarily underline all journalism (for freedom of expression necessarily implies all the rest). He reported the National Party's claims fairly, and then reported the counterpoints, rebuttals and refutations as fairly, which was all the more convincing in destroying their crap. Think back to how many fell for the "communist" BS, etc.. Most. And the few on the other side, the Guardian, etc., had an understandable but wrong tendency to lose all critical distance re. the anti-apartheid movement (though he was gone by then, I think, Valpy would probably have been one of the few to have understood the significance of Mandela's liberation speech ignoring, uniquely, Biko and PAC). And after South Africa he did that long excellent series on the most unsexy of topics, urban poverty and the rise of food banks. People forget they were a new thing, or fairly minor, until the 1980s - we used to have a fairly decent social welfare state. Valpy has always shown an ability to keep his head, and his heart, even when all others were losing theirs. Simpson, and many others, could still learn from him that way.

One other good example to follow, however much she may rub some people the wrong way, apparently, is Stevie Cameron. Perhaps I haven't paid enough attention, but I believe her first Globe piece in years was this in December 2009. And today we get an excerpt from her book, Pickton family values. It does the heart good to see her in the Globe again. I'd hope we might see her in Macleans, and elsewhere, one day, soonish. Although personally I think she's quite forgiving, as really the Globe, Macleans etc., should have to print an entire issue with nothing but "Stevie was Right and We were Wrong" as headline and text, beginning to end, the whole issue. But still, if she's OK with things, then others are too.