Editor’s Letter

While I was growing up in Canada, national unity was a point of pride. I remember my high-school geography teacher in Richmond Hill, Ontario, explaining the difference between America’s famous cultural melting pot and Canada’s “tossed salad”: we are a country built on immigration, yes, but also a people who celebrate differences and come together on common ground. In the time since, I have seen how well intentioned but self-limiting it can be to make broad generalizations about the country. Take reconciliation. One of the hardest lessons for many Canadians to accept has been that some Indigenous people don’t feel they are part of the country at all. Racial intolerance is now in the news on a weekly basis, sparking conversations about the fairness of our justice system. Online, the polarization of discourse — about everything from politics to Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life — seems to point to an abandonment of conversation between friends, colleagues, and even strangers. The ability to listen to each other — not as a feelgood exercise but as an act of citizenship — is at risk. I mention these challenges not to promote a sense of hopelessness but more as a plea for us to stop pretending we’re all the same or that we should expect to reach consensus on important issues. At The Walrus, we have made it our goal to foster perspectives that add up to a fuller and deeper understanding of our world with a view to embracing its complexity. In this issue, Seila Rizvic visits a Montreal group that tries to prevent potential radicals from committing crimes. In “The New Old Age,” Sandra Martin considers the challenges facing her generation and calls for higher expectations for quality of life postretirement. Her omnibus essay — which deals with personal finance, medicine, and health care — builds to a powerful argument that the needs of older people should be addressed collectively. Superficially — and somewhat delightfully, if you go by our office chatter—jason Mcbride’s feature is about a 650-pound pig. The story of Esther the Wonder Pig is about many things, but to me, it is atestament to the power of social media as a force for good. Esther is an Instagram star who inspires those who observe her to rethink their relationship with animals; she provides a way for urbanites to feel connected to the natural world and for many of us (especially her two “dads,” who take care of her) to feel responsible for her well-being. In 2017, opioids killed about 4,000 Canadians, one of them as he was writing the cover story of this magazine. To his friends, Chris Willie was “a beam of light” — an educator and an experienced mountain climber who was also very frank about his personal struggle with opioid addiction. Willie’s memoir, written before his untimely death last December, forces us to examine a national issue not through statistics but through the value of an individual life. Willie defied stereotypes about this epidemic: he was a scientific researcher, in top physical condition, and a highly self-reflective writer. In the words of his classmates from the Banff Centre’s Mountain and Wilderness Writing program, Willie was “vibrant, trusting, mercurial...e xpansive, brimming, dynamic, curious.” He was a word geek who stayed up late to discuss the exact meaning of dilemma. The fragmented style of his piece “My Life and Death on Opioids” — a juxtaposition of experience and analysis — reflects something about life. In the month of his death, Willie wrote to a friend, who kindly shared this message: “For most of us the best way we can influence the world is on the effects we have on other individuals. If those effects catalyze profound personal insight, then I deem that a success — for me. That I’ve affected you makes me happy, gives me pride and my life a sense of consequence. It means that in one moment, I mattered in the world.” We are honoured to publish his words and hope they help to continue a conversation beyond the pages of this magazine.  —