Sports, violence and Toronto’s Ford brothers caught Canadians’ attention this year.
The 2014 #YearOnTwitter report shows the 10 news stories most tweeted by Canadians. Six concern sporting events, two cover acts of violence (the Parliament Hill attack and the shooting of three police officers in New Brunswick.) Then there’s the Toronto mayoral election, and finally Canada Day celebrations.
Hockey wins are fun, but it would have been more satisfying to see some environmental and social victories on the list. How did humanity progress in 2014 on our journey to a more just and equitable world? Overall, setbacks outweighed steps forward.
We began the year on a low, with a column that revealed the number of missing and murdered aboriginal women in this country is hundreds higher than Canadians realized. But not even the dredging of Tina Fontaine’s abused body from the Red River in Winnipeg spurred Canada’s government to take action on violence against aboriginal women.
History might view 2014 as the year Canada reached a tipping point on aboriginal issues. The Idle No More movement hasn’t faded. Winnipeg became the largest city in Canada to elect an aboriginal mayor, Métis Brian Bowman. The children of Atta-wapiskat in Northern Ontario got a school after waiting 14 years. And, although it fell through, our hats are off to Sean Atleo, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, for his hard work trying to reach an education agreement with the federal government. But too many aboriginal communities are waiting for schools, clean water and justice for their missing and murdered mothers and daughters.
A high point for the year was a Nobel Prize for Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi. The award is a victory for international children’s rights, a recognition that a world free of child labour, where every girl and boy goes to school, is essential for global peace.
On balance, however, this was not a good year for world peace. Russian aggression in Ukraine, and the West’s response, pushed the world nearer a new Cold War. Disclosures about the CIA’s use of torture were enough to shake anyone’s faith in the goodness of humanity. And the Middle East spiralled downward with greater violence in Gaza, Syria and Iraq.
On the environmental front, the greenhouse emissions deal between the U.S. and China last month inspired hope the world’s big polluters might finally tackle climate change. At home, though, we are still not on track to meet our emissions targets. And the strongest praise environmentalists could muster for the climate change deal reached in Lima, Peru, last week was to wince and say it is “better than nothing.”
There were small victories, inspiring moments and tiny steps forward to celebrate in 2014. Emma Watson’s #HeforShe speech at the United Nations was a rallying cry for men to join the fight for women’s equality. The eager and informed participation of youth in the Scottish independence referendum has inspired many to look at lowering voting ages. And Russia’s anti-gay policies at the Sochi Olympics led to sexual orientation being added to the anti-discrimination clauses in the Olympic Charter.
We are hoping 2015 will hold more celebration than setback. The opportunities are there.
Next year, the Millennium Development Goals reach their deadline. It’s a chance to create a new vision for moving the needle on global poverty.
There’s been lots of hype already for the United Nations climate change conference in Paris. Will the world finally reach a binding agreement to take on the greatest environmental threat facing our species? And in mid-2015, the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission will release its report after years of heart-breaking eyewitness testimony about residential schools.
If we seize these opportunities, 2015 will really be worth a Tweet.
Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger founded a platform for social change that includes the international charity, Free The Children, the social enterprise, Me to We, and the youth empowerment movement, We Day.
