Feature

Mike Johnston: guerrilla filmmaker

Mike Johnston, Trent University’s resident guerrilla filmmaker, has been piecing together his video opus on higher education since the fall of 1998. The modestly titled My Student Loan has took him, and by extension Trent’s recent foibles, to the Banff Film Festival on a CTV emerging artist grant last year. The fourth cut of My Student Loan, featuring new footage, is screening at the Gordon Best Theatre this Thursday. Proceeds go to Arthur and, of course, to Mike’s student loan. Arianne Robinson asked Mike about the history of his project and its personal meaning for him.

What inspired you to make My Student Loan?

I really have no idea what inspired me to do it. Just prior to having the idea, I was doing some video work with Al Purdy the poet. That was the fall of 1998. Work on that stalled when he went out to the west coast. It wasn’t much later that he was diagnosed with cancer. Back here in Peterborough, I was yearning to do some kind of very human documentary. The only problem was I was unemployed and couch surfing. In fact, I was at a pretty low point and collection agents were even able to track me down at a friend’s place. I had nothing to offer then but my sense of humour. It was still in tact. Maybe it was desperation, but that’s when I got the idea to make a movie about my student loan called My Student Loan to pay off my student loan. Right off the bat, the premise grabbed a spot in my heart. I knew right away that this was going to be an important thing for me.

What is the film about to you?

Wow, that’s a good question. It’s a deeply personal story. The story is about me picking myself out of that gutter I was in three years ago, and tackling this very huge problem of student debt. And it’s not just my debt; it’s a societal debt. It’s a transfer of debt from public hands to private ones. There’s no big surprise that recent governments are more concerned with offering tax cuts to wealthy people rather than sustain core funding for endeavours like education. At the same time, My Student Loan looks at how higher education is currently managed. Trent’s my alma mater and I’ve documented this school as a dove tail to the story. Some folks wonder why there’s so much Trent in My Student Loan. Well, take the Superbuild story. The government’s total Superbuild budget for universities is about one-third of the operational funding they’ve cut. Keep that in mind when you think about all the division and dissent it’s created at Trent, and keep it in mind when you ponder the tuition fee increases of the past number of years. Plus, Trent is very much a living history. In My Student Loan, you can hear about the founding principle’s of education and the institution from the founding President. That’s pretty hard to do at U of T. This film is an examination of present post-secondary education with Trent as a case study.

Why is this an interesting film to see?

For local folks, I guess it’s interesting for obvious reasons. But others outside of this town have seen it, and they all comment on the fact that this very Peterborough story is interesting because it could happen anywhere. I think any community is a microcosm of the world; the big job is finding the story that links us all together, and make sure you tell it that way.

What are some challenges of making a film of this nature?

Well, for me, the first big problem was finding a camera and affording the tape to put into it. The Native Studies department lent me a SVHS camera, and old professors bought me the tape. Today, things are a lot easier. I almost exclusively shoot on BetaSP, and am backed by a lot of industry people. I still don’t own my own camera, but I won’t through the entire production. It’s a matter of principle, I want to tell the world I made this film without owning a camera. As far as any other challenges, the biggest one is just having enough guts to say fuck it, I’m making this thing and that’s all there is to it.

What is your artistic background especially as it relates to this project?

I do have an applied arts diploma in broadcasting prior to getting my degree, but I don’t give that as much relevance as I do other experiences. I think artistically, the three biggest influences on me have been Al Purdy, Ray McGregor, my old boss at the Red Dog, and Fred Eaglesmith the musician. All of them are good friends. I say are, even though Al and Ray are no longer here now. But they all taught me the same thing. Just find your own style. The key to that is to be yourself and be comfortable in your own skin. The rest is the follow-through, just work real hard at whatever it is you do.

What was the production process for your film?

I told you how I started with the SVHS camera. The most important production decision I made was becoming a cable TV volunteer. I put in hours every week helping the folks at Cogeco here in Peterborough. Some people have asked how I made the cable connection. Well, the answer is anyone can put their name on the list, but committing yourself to it in every way is the real chore. Seventy-five per cent of my time there, I help with their programs. The other twenty-five per cent is for My Student Loan. Mostly, I use their Betacam now. They trust me. The post- production I do there too. I’ve done three off-line tape to tape cuts in the past two years. I’ve done them pretty much on my own, in Cogeco’s mobile truck. The fourth cut I’m working on right now. It’s digital, and the first one with a professional editor, Adrianno Ferreri. He’s a staff producer at Cogeco, and is brilliantly objective in his work. We’ll be buried in the digital suite all weekend, getting the thing done for Arthur showing.

How did you get funding for the project?

I’ve been supported by HRDC through an apprenticeship with Celebrate Canada in the Kawartha’s. I have an emerging artist grant with the Canada Council for the Arts in its Media Arts section. And I have a fellowship with CTV. All those things I applied for, and I guess just put my best foot forward in the applications. The key is knowing your project well enough, and have an interest in it high enough, that others become interested with the story. The odds of getting a grant with the Canada Council are about 12 - 1, so you better be serious about what you’re doing before you waste any money on the postage.

Were other artists involved to make it possible?

Brian Mitolo from the Peterborough Arts Umbrella has been a huge help behind the camera and he’s been my story consultant the whole time. Folks like Travis Phillips and Jess Phillips (no relation), have also been instrumental behind the camera. One’s a cook and the other is a blacksmith. They work on the project because it’s fun. They’re doing something that’s really cool, and aren’t concerned about some huge reward. I’ll tell you, it’s humbling to see their loyalty to this project. I told you about Adrianno at Cogeco, their regional manager Tim Cadiggan has been a big support in making this thing work. Shit, there’s so many people that have helped me along the way I’ll stop there because I don’t want to offend anyone.

And the country is full of us: Rethinking Whiteness and Liberalism

Kevin FitzMaurice

Whiteness and Liberalism are the basis of the Canadian political project and the key to understanding Aboriginal-State relations. White/Liberals are good, kind people that strive for equality, respect difference, promote multiculturalism and fight all forms of systemic oppression and offense. An examination of white liberalism points out the problem with our politics and theories of difference and sameness.

Liberalism: The Middle Way

Generally considered to be one of the founding fathers of classical liberalism, John Locke argued in Two Treatise of Civil Government (1690) that the State was a trust and people were morally self-sufficient to watch over its activities in the interests of the society at large. He reasoned that people have the ability to decide not only what is right and wrong for them personally and in the larger context of society. To do this, the individual must have unrestricted freedom.

In Canada, J.W. Pickergill’s The Liberal Party is often regarded as a founding text on Canadian Liberalism. It argues "the middle way: the way of progress. It stands for tolerance and the rejection of extreme courses, wether it be that the state should do everything for the individual or in demands that the state should do nothing so that the fittest survive."

The Canadian welfare state, medical insurance plans, old age pensions, unemployment insurance etc., are clearly rooted in the interpretations of this ideal. In the popular conception of the liberal minded, we Canadians lean to notions of kindness and respect for difference, multiculturalism, being anti- oppressive, the desire not to offend, being politically correct.

In thinking about Whiteness I am immediately struck by the general reluctance that White people have in using the term White as an identity. In the emerging discourse of Critical White Studies this phenomena is understood as the resistance to giving up the power to racialize all non-Whites while maintaining the privileged position of normal and without a race.

Richard Dyer, a major writer on whiteness, says that "as long as race is something only applied to non-white peoples, as long as white people are not racially seen and named, they/we function as the human norm. Other people are raced, we are just people."

Dyer further understands that this positions White people to speak for all of humanity because they do not represent the interests of a race, while raced people can only speak for their own race. This assumption of normalcy, which is endemic to White culture, is one step removed from saying that Whites are people whereas other colours are something else.

White is considered to be both the source of all colours as well as light itself and therefore neutral, or rather a non-colour. Whiteness is characterised by a sense of continuous change and diversity that seems to remove it from a culture or collective identity. Rather, White people think of themselves as individuals while others belong to groups and cultures.

We White Liberals

And so I’m a white-liberal. These definitions apply to me but not ‘to my people’ because I don’t have a people. We don’t think of ourselves this way. We are dynamic and autonomous individuals, we move from city to city, country to country, we have all kinds of colours, shapes and sizes and when we speak, we speak for everyone. And the country is full of us.

We love the public service and NGOs and altruistic things like that. Working for oppressed Aboriginal people is particularly appealing to the White Liberal. But to return to the question: how far will we go?

There are limits to the liberal ideal. Ruth Hubbard, a senior adviser of the Canadian government, was travelling across the country having conversations with Canadians about their conceptions of good governance. Hubbard was particularly interested in how Aboriginal people perceived self-government and their political relations to the Canadian State. The problem of colonial control and State paternalism were generally agreed to being a serious impediment to Aboriginal governance.

Hubbard spoke of her years of experience working with Aboriginal people, her travels to isolated northern Aboriginal communities and to a particular project of hers to convince the Treasury Board to allocate a substantial amount of money towards the development of clean water infrastructure. The Treasury Board required a process of accountability, needing to know exactly how the money would be spent. In her discussions with the northern Aboriginal leaders it became clear that their spending priorities were different from hers. Ultimately, they could not agree on how the money should be spent and the transfer did not happen.

Ruth Hubbard, as a white liberal, saw a way in which to do good by Aboriginal people, provide them with clean drinking water – everybody needs clean drinking water. She couldn’t let go of this ideal and trust the Aboriginal government leaders to know what they needed for themselves, to govern themselves.

In a classical, Liberal way, Ruth Hubbard, acting as a free and autonomous individual, had decided what was right in the larger context of society. She had a plan that was, to her, inherently good. Where she reached her limit was at the point of respecting difference. In other words, giving up her freedom to act and accepting Aboriginal differences and their freedom to act for themselves.

On Tuesday March 13, CBC’s This Morning radio show broadcast an interview with Dr. Jane McGillivary on the subject of the Innu of Labrador. Predictably, the focus of the interview was gas sniffing and suicide and the social decay and degradation of the Innu community at the hands of white society. And when I say predictably I mean to say that Aboriginal social problems are the consistent focus of white media coverage of Aboriginal issues.

Dr. McGillivary has worked for the community of Sheshuishit for many years and is publishing a book on their recent experiences. She recently spoke of the need for the Innu to take responsibility for healing themselves. During the interview, she talked about the many social problems facing the Innu and the lack of an appropriate State response. She felt that, in spite of the request from Chief and Council to postpone the CBC interview, that it was important to get this message to Canadian citizens so we might pressure our government to act swiftly due to the lives at stake.

Rather than stepping back and complying with the request of Chief and Council to postpone the interview and thus actually trusting in their method of negotiating appropriate State assistance, she felt compelled to intervene and go to the media with this information. And so once again, a free and autonomous individual, decided what was right in the larger context of society reaching her limit at the point of respecting difference and thus giving up her freedom to act on the behalf of Aboriginal people.

The White Liberal State

The Canadian State body is a collection of all things White and Liberal. The sovereign State, borders recognized, acts independently in the world, signing free-trade deals or erecting protectionist barriers, aiding other countries, engaging in diplomacy or declaring war. It is autonomous, complex, dynamic, normal. The Canadian state is not merely its geography.

The limits of White/Liberalism in relation to the Canadian State and Aboriginal people are best considered in Aboriginal ‘Self’-government agreements. In particular, there are three agreements, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA) and the Cree-Naskapi of Quebec Act, The Sechelt Agreement and most recently the Sechelt Agreement-In-Principle and The Nisga’a Final Agreement which span roughly the last 25 years of Self-government negotiations efforts.

These agreements are extremely long and complex documents and, for the most part, uniquely tailored to their particular context. They are detailed articulations of jurisdictional responsibilities surrounding areas like land categorizations and planning, taxation, governance, dispute resolution mechanisms etc. with varying degrees of the general applicability of State law when not specified within the agreement.

What is interesting in terms of this question of White/Liberal limits is what autonomy the State explicitly is not willing to give up. I can only give a rough sketch. Firstly, and this is common to all three agreements, the State has protected its control over the fish and wildlife conservation and has retained a right of access to fee simple, Aboriginal lands and surrounding waterways; including the right to construct roads and thoroughfares (with compensation). As well, the State retains exclusive control over the standards of justice and the application of law on its citizens, in spite of their presence on Aboriginal lands.

Secondly, in the case of Nisga’a and the Sechelt, the State Charter of Rights and Freedoms continues to apply to their governments and its institutions. And lastly, particular to the James Bay agreement, found within the Cree-Naskapi of Quebec Act among a list of areas of Aboriginal jurisdictional, is a small, but I think important, clause stipulating State control over the, " establishment, maintenance and operation of cemeteries on Aboriginal land.

Like Dr. McGillivary’s and Ruth Hubbard, the White/Liberal State too as a free and autonomous individual has decided what was right in the larger context of society. Its limits were reached at the conservation of fish and wildlife, at the control over its citizens regardless of their location, at the securing of access to all Aboriginal lands, at the protection of individual rights for Aboriginal people within their own governments and lastly, in the case of James Bay, at the control over the internment of their dead. It is at these points where the State refuses to step back and tolerate Aboriginal difference and their freedom to govern themselves.

The particular values of Canadian style Liberalism informs a State moderation of the individual citizen, consumer, and corporate freedoms so as to promote ‘peace, order and good government.’ Amongst ourselves, the notion of individual autonomy and freedom is paramount, but it is premised on a reluctant negotiation of the ethical and the curtailment of this freedom.

But in the case of Aboriginal people, we are incredibly quick in our interruption of their freedoms, often occurring long before their freedoms have had a chance to impact on ours.

And so perhaps the next question is why do White/Liberal individuals and States get stuck where they do? Why can’t we tolerate the Aboriginal difference in the way that we strive to tolerate differences amongst ourselves? Why can we not trust Aboriginal people to act in their best interests, as they define them, and in the collective interest which may, in fact, include us?

White/Liberal ideals are clear; individuals are free to decide for themselves, both as individuals and as groups. Why do we stop where we do? Why do we consistently reach a limit of tolerance of difference and feel the need to retain some degree control over the lives of Aboriginal people? It is as if to say that we are independent individuals and they aren’t quite. Rather, they are individuals that need our care and guidance. We are the parents and they, our children, our ‘wards of the State’ and we have our fiduciary obligation to look after them. Is this our colonial legacy? Certainly the colonial regime is not what it once was.