[URBAN NOTE] On Toronto and Canadian music after Sam Sniderman

News that Sam Sniderman, the man who ran the now-defunct Sam the Record Man and indirectly played a major role in promoting Canadian music, rapidly made its way across the Canadian Internet. Sniderman was important--I've blogged about him and his chain's landmark store consistently through the past few years.

His nation-wide chain was ubiquitous, providing a platform, even a store in Charlottetown. (The Toronto Star reports that Sniderman actually was extensively involved in the Island, promoting local music among other things.) Even after the chain failed, the Yonge and Gould store remained open for almost a ecade longer--I remember still dashing over when I learned of the location's unexpected closure at the end of the business day on the 30th of June, 2007.



The building is now gone, levelled and soon to be replaced--as I noted in a 2011 post--by an avant-garde building of Ryerson University's ever-expanding campus. Clearly, the memory of the man


CBC's report on Sniderman's death has the expected broad scope, but Jamie Bradburn's excellent Torontoist essay provides a very good overview of the history of the man's involvement in music.

Sam Sniderman entered the record business in 1937, when the 17-year-old budding entrepreneur was given space in his brother Sid’s radio shop on College Street. In the years afterward, he gave several accounts as to why he was drawn to records. The usual story is that he believed it would help woo a girl who loved classical music (if so, it worked—he married Eleanor Koldafsky a few years later). In another telling, Sniderman remembered being wowed by tales about the industry from an RCA Victor salesman, even if those tales were meant to push records. “I was intrigued with the stories he was telling,” Sniderman recalled in 1996, “and I wanted to find some sort of niche for myself.”

By the 1950s, records overtook the shop’s radio sales, leading to a name change: that was when the store became Sam the Record Man. It moved to 347 Yonge Street in 1961, a decision Sniderman once admitted was spurred by arch-rival A&A’s tactic of pasting his ads on their window with his name removed. The battle between the Yonge Street titans was fierce, with Sam’s developing an edge for its bargain closeouts and deep selection. With his trademark wide smile, Sniderman told the Globe and Mail in 1967 that “we’re friendly competitors, except that we’ll stab each other in the back whenever we get a chance.”

Sniderman was a hands-on owner, strolling through the store to advise customers. Local lore held that he had memorized the entire inventory, an impressive feat given its depth. The store became a place where people who came in for a particular record quickly lost a few hours flipping through the bins. Each expansion added to the ramshackle (if sometimes maddening) charm, bringing with it more crooked floors and mismatched rooms. To many tourists, a trip to Toronto wasn’t complete without walking through the doors under the spinning neon discs.

Sitting still was difficult. Sniderman said he was “driven by a compulsion to become involved. I can’t just sit on the sidelines. I’m into an idea and before I know it I’ve said things and made commitments and I know deep down I can’t make six appointments for 2 p.m. on a single day.” Among the things that kept him busy were establishing the Sniderman Recordings Collection at the University of Toronto (which comprises some 180,000 sound recordings), serving as a director of CHIN radio, supporting the Yonge Street pedestrian mall during the early 1970s, investing in a neighbouring Chinese restaurant which bore his name, and assisting numerous agencies devoted to developing Canadian musical talent.

Helping homegrown musicians was a point of pride; Sniderman maintained that “talent is a country’s best resource.” He pushed multinational companies to pick up Canadian acts, promising to sell at least 1,000 copies of any album they offered. He reputedly landed Joni Mitchell her first spot at the Mariposa Festival. “If Ottawa had any sense,” he told the Globe and Mail in 1971, “it would buy out Sam the Record Man and build those 90 stores just to plug Canadian talent. Why if each shop sold just five discs apiece, we’d have a national hit on our hands.” He envisioned a federal “Canadian Talent Development Board” which would underwrite artists who wanted to record or tour. Not that there wasn’t a profit motive involved: “I make plenty of cash out of Canadian records,” Sniderman said. “If I didn’t, I’d throw them out of the store.”

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Crasstalk's MonkeyBiz wonders if Apple has jumped the shark and is just coasting on past achievements.


• Crooked Timber's Henry Farrell takes issue with Tony Judt's dismissal of Stephen King. A good case can actually be made that King, through his fiction, is something of a public intellectual--a left-winger, at that.


• Daniel Drezner partially retracted his criticism of Mitt Romney after that man was caught on video talking about displacing the Israeli-Palestinian dispute's resolution into the indefinite future, but also wonders whether Romney is actually seen as a credible antagonist and leader. What good is a posture based on strength if that strength is disbelieved?


• Geocurrents has a post describing the confluence of environmental catastrophe and local autonomy in the Ogoniland district of Nigeria's polluted, unstable, Niger delta.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money's Robert Farley took note of a proposal in the Canadian media to modernize the Avro Arrow as a new-generation warplane. Wouldn't work, of course.


• Language Hat notes the completion of a dictionary of Demotic, the ancient Egyptian written in the time of Rome.


• Using highly-detailed poll data, Patrick Cain wonders if, suitably and plausibly redistricted, Ontario might return a Liberal majority.


• Supernova Condensate notes that the discovery of exoplanets in the young Beehive Cluster suggests planets can form and remain in orbit of their star(s) even in densely-packed star clusters.

[LINK] "Canada and Britain embassy-sharing pact called ‘nickel and dime’ diplomacy"

I actually don't share in the hostility--described, for instance by the Toronto Star's Bruce Campion-Smith--towards the idea of Canada and the United Kingdom sharing embassies in select locations. The Commonwealth isn't much of a reality, now, but it is a reality, there's no particular necessity for a power the stature of Canada (or of the United Kingdom) to maintain a full diplomatic presence everywhere in the world, and I have read of discussion within the European Union of different countries sharing diplomatic facilities. As for fears of Canada and its brand being eclipsed, I'm confident that my country is large enough, and distinct enough from the United Kingdom, to avoid being swallowed back up.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird joined with his British counterpart, Foreign Secretary William Hague, to announce the move during a meeting in Ottawa on Monday.

It means that Canadian diplomats will be able to share space at the British embassy in countries where Canada does not have an embassy, and vice versa.

Baird portrayed it as a cost-saving “administrative” move and insisted it would have no impact on Canada’s foreign influence. Canada already has 178 missions in 106 countries.

“We are not moving to merge all of our embassies and consulates around the world. We are not going to be sharing ambassadors or trade commissioners,” Baird said.

Still, the agreement immediately drew criticism at a time when Canada is competing with other nations, including Britain, for trade, investment and talented immigrants.

Under a new memorandum of understanding, the two countries pledge to “make the most of their respective diplomatic resources by exploring further co-location, and by collaborating on consular services.”

Baird said the arrangement will start in two countries. Britain will share space at the Canadian Embassy in Haiti while in Burma, a Canadian diplomat has set up shop in the British Embassy. The Canadian flag and Union Jack will be flown together at diplomatic outposts where the two nations have diplomats working together.

“In select locations, this simply allows Canadian diplomats to do their good work faster and at lower cost to Canadian taxpayers,” Baird said. “The alternative is to waste months or years along with many taxpayer dollars setting up embassies from scratch.”

[. . .]

But critics pounced on the announcement, saying it highlights Canada’s flagging diplomatic ambitions around the world.

“It sends a very mixed message or muddled message about Canadian identity,” said Fen Hampson, director of global security at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

“What kind of message does it send a country when you’re essentially doing co-opt diplomacy?” he said in an interview.

[LINK] "Police officer testifies that Mob just as ubiquitous in Ontario as in Quebec"

I'm not really surprised by the news coming from Québec--here, sampled from the National Post but see also the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail and the CBC--arguing that, contrary to Canadian stereotypes, Italian organized crime families are as strong in Ontario as they are in Québec. La belle province has a reputation for particularly high levels of corruption and organized crime that strike me as being as much English Canadian stereotypes as anything else.

Plus, when it comes down to it, as far as the demographics of Italian Canadians go the demographics for ethnic mafias are better in Ontario than in Québec: there are nearly three times as many Italian-Canadians in Ontario as in Québec (about 870 thousand versus 300 thousand) forming almost twice the proportion of the provincial population (7.2% versus 4.0%).

A veteran Ontario detective has testified in a public inquiry that the Italian Mafia’s reach in that province extends to all kinds of legitimate businesses that mask criminal proceeds.

Mike Amato, a detective with the York Regional police, testified Thursday before the Quebec inquiry looking into allegations of corruption in the province’s construction industry.

Called to provide a portrait of the reach and scope of the Italian Mafia in Ontario, Amato described a group that, over the years, has managed to root itself deeply into everyday society.

[. . .]

Amato said Mafia-controlled legitimate businesses in his region include everything from garden centres to financial institutions to banquet halls.

“They need these businesses to launder criminal proceeds,” Amato said. “It also allows them to explain their wealth … you can mask it in a business where you can hide your illegitimate wealth.”

[. . .]

Ontario boasts many of the hallmark Mob industries — smuggling, drug trafficking and bookmaking. Then there are more modern ones such as stock manipulation.

“As we evolve as a society, so too does organized crime,” Amato said.

“They are just sometimes a little bit quicker, better and faster at it than we are.”

What’s noticeable about Ontario, Amato says, is a lack of the same level of visible violence as has been seen in recent years in Quebec and witnesses who are willing to testify about it.

“If there is numerous murders, a lot of violence, if there are a lot of bombings, it attracts attention from politicians, from the community, from police,” Amato said.

“You cannot build a successful criminal enterprise if you’re continually being investigated by the police.”

Any tensions in that province have been mostly resolved quietly or away from the reach of law enforcement.

And in Ontario, that has meant it’s difficult to justify digging deeper, Amato says. Whereas a few dozen police officers may have investigated the Mob in the past, now there might be a handful.

[. . .]

A former RCMP chief superintendent, Ben Soave, told both media organizations that organized crime has infiltrated Ontario’s economy at least as much as it has in Quebec.

[LINK] Sikorski in Oxford

Talk of Canada and the United Kingdom sharing embassies presumably for reasons of the Commonwealth ties reminds me of Eastern Approaches' coverage (Edward Lucas writing) of a speech given by Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski to a British audience. In it, Sikorski argues that if the United Kingdom doesn't want to commit itself to a European Union that (on the balance) not only serves British interests but reflects British economic and cultural norms, that's sad. Poland, transatlanticism aside, would bid the United Kingdom adieu so the European Union could be made to work more solidly.

Mr Sikorski comes from a background of hawkish British Atlanticism. As a refugee from Communist Poland, he was a notable figure in Oxford in the early 1980s, belonging to the Bullingdon Club of hard-drinking aristocrats (other members included Boris Johnson, George Osborne and David Cameron). Most people from that milieu are more or less euro-sceptic. But many fear that Britain's position on the sidelines of Europe is becoming unsustainable. Ian Traynor wrote in the Guardian recently:

Berlin for months has been demanding to reopen the EU treaties to facilitate a big pooling or surrender of – depending on your point of view – national sovereignty to facilitate a federalised eurozone, with what amounts to a core European government of an expanding 17 countries that would take on prerogatives over tax-and-spend powers. Britain is well out of that.

Last week the European commission signed up to the German blueprint, while unveiling problematic EU legislation making the European Central Bank the policeman of the eurozone banking sector. Britain will have no part of that, either.

On Tuesday the German foreign ministry extended the federalising economic policy-making to foreign and defence, along with 10 other EU foreign ministries carefully chosen to reflect the non-UK EU mainstream – small countries, big countries, single currency members and those outside the euro, core western states and newer east European countries. The likelihood is that the 11-country consensus will swell into a majority among the Eu's 27. Britain also stands apart from this. The 11 include Germany and France, the big ones, plus Italy, Spain and Poland – after Britain the biggest EU countries.

In short, Britain's isolation becomes more fixed, while the cross-Channel gap widens to become less than bridgeable. More in sorrow than in anger.

It is in this troubling context that Mr Sikorski (disclosure: a friend of the author of this blog post) made his speech. Poland wants Britain in Europe as a counterweight to the Eu's dirigiste, heavy-regulating countries and to balance German weight and Russian proximity. Despite the betrayals of the past (Yalta, Katyń) it cherishes Britain's support for Poland's freedom in recent years. But if Britain marginalises itself, Poland will have to make the best of Europe as it is, and as it is shaping up to be. I was once at dinner with Mr Sikorski and a leading British Tory who chided him over Poland's impending membership of the EU (it was 2001). "Why is Poland of all countries selling out to Brussels?" said the Tory. "Do you think we should rely on Britain, like we did in 1939?" came the crisp response.

Though his Tory friends try not to hear it, Mr Sikorski's message is consistently and unashamedly pro-European. He uses words and sentiments that are rarely heard in Britain now (only the Lib Dems are unabashedly europhile, and even they tend to keep quiet about it). He told his audience at Blenheim Palace. "I believe in the logic and justice of the modern European project. And my country, Poland, will do its utmost to help it succeed."

He pointed out that half of Britain's exports go to the EU, that the much-maligned European Convention on Human Rights is nothing to do with the EU (and also a British creation); that the cost to Britain of EU membership is trivial (£15 per person per year by his calculation, against £1,500-£3,500 in benefits from the single market), that the European Commission's 33,000 staff is tiny by comparison to any national bureaucracy; that EU rules are not "Brussels diktats" but proposed, and agreed, by the member states; that only one-sixteenth of UK primary legislation stems from EU decisions; and, perhaps most importantly, that the EU is a hugely important force in keeping markets open and competitive. He didn't mention its current assault on Gazprom.

The comments, as one would expect, are generally worth reading but frequently quite heated.

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto may get queer-centric school"

Xtra!'s Andrea Houston writes about a potentially controversial proposal to establish a queer-centric high school in Toronto. I don't think it'll happen: politics aside, it's not clear that there would be enough non-heterosexual students who'd so strongly identify as queer, or who would want to be separated from their heterosexual peers if they did, or that it wouldn't be possible to reform schools to include queer content for everyone's benefit. Queer identity just doesn't work in the same way as the African-Canadian identity that has driven the foundation of an Afri-centric school.

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) wants to know whether it should create a high school that encourages queer teachers and students to be out and proud.

A former student of the TDSB is hosting a community forum on Sept 26, entitled Have Your Say: A Queer-centric Secondary School in Toronto, to solicit community feedback.

The idea was first proposed by Fan Wu, 20, a University of Toronto student who graduated from Douglas Collegiate in 2010, and has been gaining support from members of the board.

[. . .]

The school would include grades nine to 12, says Javier Davila, a teacher and advisor in the TDSB's office for gender-based violence prevention. Davila is helping to organize the community forum as well as gathering support among board members.

While some schools are more queer-friendly than others, Wu says, most high schools don’t actively encourage lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans students or teachers to be out and proud.

“The gay teachers at my school made a point of not coming out to their students. Some only told students after they graduated,” he says. “Teachers are afraid of parental backlash, mostly. They were sensitive to the cultures of students, especially new Canadians, some of whom come from very conservative families.”

Some teachers who knew Wu's sexuality made efforts to share books from queer writers, passed on to him like contraband, he recalls.

“I remember my writers' craft teacher would slip me passages from queer writers, things that would inspire me that she would not give to the whole class,” he says. “I have always been attracted to queer writing and finding voices that I can relate to.”

Michael Erickson teaches at Harbord Collegiate and is one of the lead writers of the teachers' guide “Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism.” He says he would rather ensure that every TDSB school has queer-focused resources.

“I am concerned when we are pulling resources and goals into making one small space safe, as opposed to asking ourselves how that should look across the system,” he says. “What kind of student will self-select at 13, 14 or 15 years old? I think convincing teachers in schools to be integrating equity work is a better use of our resources.”