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Back in 2005, I found myself traveling throughout Honduras, the third poorest nation in the western hemisphere according to the World Bank. A perilous drive through the winding, mountainous roads on a relic of a North American school bus - wealthy North American Business men sell these mechanical monstrosities to destitute countries, as they cannot afford safer, more modern vehicles. For countless hours, we drove, maybe 7 or 8 hours past endless Banana Plantations, punctuated by the occasional jungle mud hut, dirty barefoot child standing, staring, as though he’d been poised in the same place the whole day. Like those workers who just sit as though stranded in time, on the side of the highways, hoping that a construction truck in need of cheap labourers will offer them some work. Eventually it was time to pause to fill our famished bellies so we stopped at one of the major super-market chains. After having seen all those banana trees, I thought it best to taste the fruit from the source. I was anticipating tasting what will probably be the freshest banana I will ever taste - I entered the store and  I hurriedly  made my way to the produce section only to find the bananas were utterly and completely rotten.
Bewildered, I later asked a local banana picker I had met, why this was - where were all the bananas from the thousands trees I had just witnessed, going?  He smiled a nearly toothless smile and said in a thick accent, “Banana go norte, to USA, to Canada.” Many like the banana plantation worker I had just met, dream of making their way to the US or Canada and often do make the treacherous, illegal journey north out of destitution and poverty.  They risk the passage where many are sent back and where many lose their lives to build a new life. And as I learned from the banana incident that summer in Honduras, they come to reap what hey sow.

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“My mom says not to over-feed him” Robert says of the dog in the industrial park facing his bleak Windsor Ontario home. In this industrial town, everything is a varying shade of gray. Robert tells us of how he was a stowaway on a ship from China.  He’s always lived with his now 90 year-old ailing mother, making a living driving a cab - and a good living he made of it - enough to buy his own car and rent it out to other newbie cabbies. When you first meet Robert, you are at once struck by his unconventional manner of speech as he stumbles and stammers. You’d think he was “mentally hindered” in some way. Maybe autistic. Somethin’ like that.

And all his life, people have judged and dismissed him. But as I listened to Robert Gene, on the film on him, I heard something else. I heard a man who was endlessly curious about the world around him. I watched in awe as I witnessed his gift for mathematics. I watched as he feverishly worked out the math for  the best  mega-store deal on orange juice.

I heard it said that he once offered to volunteer his gift for math and his personal time to help out with disadvantaged people’s taxes. He was refused the position. Robert never knew the official reason why,  but it’s simple deduction.

Now well Into his fifties, Robert has never had a girlfriend. “Too many headaches” he says. So he’s always lived with mom. Together they created a home that would rival any episode of “Hoarders”, but that another story. One need only to watch the film.

All this leads me to think that though we like to think otherwise, we live in a conformist society.Which brings me to the ethos of 21^st century thought:  free speech, freedom of expression democracy for all, and humanitarian values, all in the name of manifest destiny. Truth is, anyone who doesn’t fit the suburban ideals of modern North American life, is chastised, ignored, forgotten or Jacked on drugs.  Jacked so that they could fuse into the confines of this sectarian society. Robert isn’t jacked on drugs, but consequently, lives a life of isolation.

Americans lead all western countries as  medicated drones, boasting 3.5 billion prescriptions yearly, leaving us all into the throws of collective numbness.  This numbness, so to speak, leaves very little room for innovation, intellectual evolution. Or dare I say, genius.

People with social disorders, the mentally ill or the naturally eccentric are often the ones who question the protocols of  modern existence. Perhaps we should have a closer listen. I say, bring on the crazies. And for God’s sake, let them do our taxes. We may just save a couple of bucks.

Empress Deeqa is her stage name - Deeqa is her name. The 31 year old Montreal based reggae artist came to Canada as a refugee at the age of 11. Rewind back to 1991, Deeqa was attending a music lesson in a town on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia. She left her lesson only to find mayhem in the streets. Homebound, Deeqa was seized by one of her teachers and urged to get on a bus. She asked why she could not return home to her family in Mogadishu. That’s when she learned that there was no going back. The civil war had begun and right in front of her, her own teacher was killed. Amid the pandemonium Deeqa boarded the bus.  They made the perilous jouney to the town of  Kismayo and eventually to a refugee camp in Kenya. It was the people at Doctor’s Without Borders that helped the young girl make her way to Canada. Grateful to have been rescued from the carnage, Deeqa now was haunted by the fact that there was no reuniting with her family. The war had displaced people and there was no way to find them. Since 1991, Deeqa has rebuilt a life as a reggae singer and songwriter here in Canada,  all the while holding on to the memory of her mother, brothers and sister -  not knowing whether they were alive or dead. And then one day, in March of this year, she received a phone call that would change her life. A nephew who had made his way to Great Britain found a video of Deeqa performing on youtube. He managed to put her family in touch with her. Elated, Deeqa soon wondered what to do from here - unable to travel to Mogadishu for security reasons (the war rages on to this day), they are now trying to plan how and when to see each other again. Deeqa dreams of bringing her family to Canada though financial constraints impede any plans at the moment. For more info about Deeqa visit her facebook page, Empress deeqa.

Let us know if you have any stories about how you came to Canada.

A candid interview about a prostitute’s view on her path and of the overwhelming phenomenon of sex-trafficking in Canada.

GN: So you entered the sex trade at a very young age – you were 14 years old - what made you go down that path?

Mistress Envy: Um this girl I know she was dating this guy that was kind of like the ‘ring leader’ like he had these guys come into his apartment and there’d be some girls sitting around partying, doing coke and stuff, and there was this girl. So she showed me around to see how things operated – these girls they all had money and whatever they wanted – like shopping, weed, whatever. And I’m looking at it going hmmm, I can do the same thing too – I don’t need to depend on my family and get little handles here and there, that’s not cutting it , like my bed alone was 1200 – when I was a kid I couldn’t ask for 1200, my family would be like ‘what the fuck’? It’s easy money you know, like I don’t have to work 9-5, whatever.

GN: What do you mean by “I can do the same thing too.”

Mistress Envy: Give sex for money.

GN: Were you upset with your family for any reason – was that what lead you to do this?

Mistress Envy: I was upset for them not giving me what I needed basically. Like, I lived with my aunt and she had three other boys so she had to split her money between all of us so…I didn’t have EVERYTHING that I wanted, I had what I needed.

GN: So where were your real parents?

Mistress Envy: My mom married some guy and they moved to Detroit and my dad, I only met twice. He lives somewhere in Ontario.

GN: So your mom and her new husband didn’t want to have anything to do with you?

Mistress Envy: Yes, that’s right.

GN: So what was it like dealing with your first client?

Mistress Envy: It was kind of like a rush, like something new, like I’m the star of the moment, and this guy chose me – there’s all these other pretty girls there and he chose me. It felt like “I win”.

GN: Did you need to do drugs to give you the audacity to have sex with a complete stranger?

Mistress Envy: No I never got into drugs. Just a little here and there. But you shouldn’t get into dope in this business cuz all your money goes to getting more. My addiction is shoes.

GN: And I can tell by your authentic chanel bag! So this guy picked you in a room? Was it some sort of party?

Mistress Envy: It was a prostitution ring – it was all underground. All of us girls were like 13 or 14.

GN: Are there a lot of such underground prostitution rings around?

Mistres Envy: I know of this one place but yes, I’ve heard of a lot others around. People were saying like ‘oh be careful’ and in the back of my head I’m like be careful of what? If anything happens here, everyone’s gonna take care of me. If a fight breaks out, everyone is gonna take care of me. If there’d be any trouble there’s 10 girls that I know that will take care of me completely.

GN: So they became your new family – seeing as your real parents abandoned you.

Mistress Envy: Yes –they become like your own team.

GN: Generally, what kind of men make up your clientel?

Mistress Envy: Back then it was old dirty Arabs and all their friends. But when I got older I did a massage parlor. So then it was drunk people downtown like kids and stuff and then I went independent – it was more businessmen. I advertised in the states so it was American men – the exchange rate was better.

GN: Is that what you are doing here in Montreal?

Mistress Envy: I advertised here but I haven’t had any calls yet – I danced though. But I want to get back to the businessmen cuz if your dancing 11 hours a day at Wanda’s, I make a hundred dollars each day.

GN: Have you ever been mistreated?

Mistress Envy: One time I was robbed. I saw this guy through an agency I was with. They sent me 10 guys and I would have made 2500. So I’m like no problem, one at a time. And so they knock at the door, I open the door and they point a gun at me. They tell me to give them my money. And I still had to pay the escort agency I was with the fees that they had to pay cuz they didn’t believe me. So I got fired for being robbed. They don’t give a shit about you in this industry.

GN: So there is no protection for you against this kind of abuse?

GN: No. If you have a pimp, they’re supposed to take care of you but no one cares about you more than you. Like, they are not gonna go in the room if some guy is beating you. They’re just sitting in the car.

Mistress Envy: No one wants problems, the pimp is not gonna get out of the car and beat the guy. So it’s up to us to have our own protection. That’s why I don’t think that pepper spray is illegal cuz we should be able to use that for our own protection. What am I supposed to do? Your not supposed to have a knife, you’re not supposed to have pepper spray, what am I supposed to do? Most men can over-power me.

GN: I hear a lot of stories about the drugs, the wealthy businessmen and the escorts…tell me a bit about that.

Mistress Envy: A lot of rich businessmen do coke but I never touch that stuff – I mean I’ll do a line if I’m in a club or something but I have t control myself because I love it. If I let myself, I would be on it all the time.

But a lot of these businessmen are married – but they have the money and the power. Especially the doctors and pharmacists – they’re the worst cuz they have access to drugs.

GN: So there are these old school feminists that say that sex trade workers are degraded and exploited.They say that women do it out of desperation and not of their own free will. Others say it’s empowering – what are your thoughts on this?

Mistress Envy: Well firstly, I can’t say that we are all mistreated – everyone has their own story. Personally I don’t do drugs so it’s not about scrounging the money for the next hit. The girls who do drugs, they are the ones who get mistreated – they will accept little money and do whatever for the drugs. No one is making me do this so it’s my own free will.

GN: Do you feel a certain amount of power attached to it, do you feel power over some men?

Mistress Envy: Yes, cuz they want me and I have what they want. Some are really dumb, they’ll do anything I say especially if they are hooked on drugs- I honestly like the coke-heads best, they are better clients, they just keep throwing money around.

GN: What are the things that you love about the business?

Mistress Envy: Freedom, I can do what I want when I want. It’s not like a desk job where you have to do things over and over again – it would drive me crazy to do that.

GN: Do you think that you could do this for a long time?

Mistress Envy: No, not forever. I don’t think mentally I could do it cuz it takes a lot out of you. And the stress – some days you could make a lot of money and the next your broke. Cuz you couldn’t care about your bills or you had a shopping spree. It’s stressful but always a thrill. Especially when the guy comes and he has a Maserati and 5 grand in his pocket and he’s all coked up and doesn’t care about anything – that’s fun, you know? But it’s not always like that.

I give myself two years and then I’ll go back to school. At least I’ll have money in the bank and be stable and not have to worry about loans. I would have to finish high school since I dropped out.

From the age of 16 – 20, I dated a drug dealer so I didn’t have to do a thing. Lived in a beautiful house and everything was perfect so I didn’t think I needed school anymore cuz I had the world. Reality hit when I left him because of drugs – heroin and coke. SO I was like hmmm, what to do now? Escort!

GN: Does your family know that you do this?

Mistress Envy: My Grandma knows. I’m close to her since my mom and dad were never in my life…I had a mental breakdown and I felt like I had to tell her…I would ask her to hold like 10 grand and she would ask where the money came from. Her reaction was “at least she’s not hooked on drugs – at least she’s doing something.” My mom thinks I own an escort agency.

GN: So your mom accepted it?

Mistress Envy: She just gave me this sour look.

GN: What does your mom do?

Mistress Envy: Her and her husband own a heating company in the states. It’s bullshit work.

GN: They probably make some money though – Does she help you out?

Mistress Envy: My mom’s cheap. She doesn’t help me or my sister.

GN: Ok so I’m wondering, how do you see the average girl next door whose looking for love and marriage and eternal commitment and happiness? Do you that they have a naïve view of men?

Mistress Envy: Yeah, cuz this job, it basically made me hate men. Cuz a guy could be in the car with his wife and a car full of kids and he’ll still look at me like he wants to have sex with me, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. And these girls want to be with that? These family men cheat and treat them like shit and have lots of mistresses – like – what is that?

GN: What kind of man are we talking about here – lower middle class? Middle class? Wealthy?

Mistress Envy: All men. All. From 17 to 100, they are all dirty men. I don’t care what they preach.

GN: So you think most men cheat?

Mistress Envy: Yeah – cuz you know, everybody wants something a bit different or extra and if your not open in the bedroom, they will go looking somewhere else. And there’s so many ways to find it now, like the internet and sex clubs – they will find it. And some girls just have sex with strangers for fun and not even ask money – so they will find it. The girls who want the perfect life, they are the ones who are conservative in bed and don’t think outside the box (in bed). They are the ones who should be worried . I don’t want to be like that “oh my husband is cheating on me!”

GN: I was wondering if you knew about any immigrant sex trade workers who perhaps don’t speak French or English

Mistress Envy: I don’t know any personally but I do know what’s going on – there are ads on craigslist that offer 10 girls at once and alot don’t speak English. I’m like “You poor thing! Your just literally being raped” If they can’t speak the language they can’t sat “Stop” or “Help”. I feel so bad for them because they really are being exploited. You can actually buy an Asian girl for 10 000 dollars – what you do with

her is whatever you want, it’s crazy. People buy like 10 of them and put them in a room and the guys just go and f*ck them all day. And at dirt cheap prices. That’s why I left Toronto – there’s like a billion Asian girls at like 50 an hour (I’m 250 an hour) – I can’t compete with that. So I figured there’d be less Asian girls in Montreal – yeah right! Was I wrong. Sometimes I want to help these girls and call the police but I don’t want the Chinese mob or the Hell’s angels on my back.

GN: So they don’t do it for the same reasons?

No, they are illegals. I heard that once they get bought, they can buy themselves out for the same price (10 grand) but with interest. So make them work for years and years – wow, what a life. It’s kind f like memoirs of a geisha.

GN: So a pimp literally owns these girls?

Mistress Envy: Yes. And you have to buy your freedom. Yeah and there are some guys that won’t even give them that option. And they are made to do WHATEVER under the sun – it’s very unsafe. If you look on craigslist you’ll see a ton of listings for Asians. 99% of them don’t speak English or French. And it’s not a question of Asian preference – when they see how dirt cheap the price is, they just go. Why pay 200$ for a white girl when you can get an Asian for 50$ – and two of them for 50$! These girls are not helped when they are being abused. It’s really sad.

David <!– .hmmessage P { margin:0px; padding:0px } body.hmmessage { font-size: 10pt; font-family:Verdana } –>Wimhurst , is a spokesman for the United Nations. He has been stationed in Angola, East Timour and most recently, Haiti.

Sometime ago, before the current financial crisis and credit crunch, I got into a heated argument with a Canadian friend about our countries’ respective banking systems. He was begrudging the fact that in Canada as he put it, “the banks have the right to make money.” As an American, I looked at him like he was a Cassandra. “Perhaps the banks have the right to make money in Canada,” I said, “but in the US they have the right to print money.”

Banking is banking in Canada, and making money is perfectly fine so long as you pay your tax and obey the law. Perhaps it is our proximity to the US that allowed us to have the proper distance to predominately say: HOGWASH to the American uber-derivitization of the banking culture. In the rest of the world however this American culture of outsized derivatives grew to permeate (and then explode) the banking world, and today we are all still picking up its shattered pieces.

There was a spectacular degree of leverage due to the rise of the derivative culture in the United States under George W. Bush, and even under Bill Clinton in the latter part of his tenure- especially when you figure in the credit default swaps marketed by the insurance industry. When the going was good, and people could flip their homes for capital gains, everyone got rich, including the government taxing those capital gains at a good clip; but when the price of housing came back to earth, the banks (and the US government) were not prepared. Because there was no actual money in the crooked (and today foreclosed) system.

I had an acquaintance in New York who was a very high up player in the derivatives game at Citibank. He broke it down for me in the following manner: He said that China needed the United States more than the United States needed China due to the fact that China held so much US debt. (I didn’t buy this-it seemed ridiculously simplistic). He told me that people are still coming to the United States to look for the American Dream, to look for the big house with the two-car garage. He said that people are still sacrificing their entire histories in order to pursue this dream, and that is why engineering these derivative products of mortgage securities made so much sense. He even got so crude as to say that people still go to see the silly movies about the American Dream, so this too could only mean that of course the derivatives based on the pursuit of the American Dream are bankable. He was globe-trotting to sell Citibank debt the world over with these lines about the infinite financial powers of Renee Zellweger and Jim Carrey.

That was three years ago. Citibank has since lost hundreds of billions of dollars (and counting), and needless to say, this man (a once highly regarded mathematician who graduated from the University of Chicago) no longer has a job.

As he told me when the Citibank ship was going down last year: “No one is safe.”

The hoopla today is that Canada has the healthiest banking system of any developed country. While this should be a source of pride for us, it makes one wonder, what is really going on in the rest of the world? Because things aren’t so great here in Canada. It’s difficult to get credit; if we try to save money, the interest that we earn in our savings account is paltry. Unemployment is high and rising yet the rest of the world is now (it was decided at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh last week) trying to mimic the Canadian banking system, due to its apparent successes at weathering the storm. July´s GDP growth was non-existent. But when you look at this more closely, you realize just how bad it must really be out there in the rest of the developed world. (However it is true that Canada’s banks have not had the colossal losses and failures seen elsewhere.)

An interesting fact about the Canadian banking system is the following: Our system of negotiating and setting mortgage terms is the very same system used in the pre-Depression United States. Today the major difference between mortgage terms in the United States and in Canada for homeowners is the following: In the United States you can take out a fixed rate mortgage for up to and including 40 years. In Canada if you want to have a good interest rate on your debt, it’s generally not possible to go beyond a five-year term (amortized at up to 35 years) at a fixed rate, at which point you then have to renegotiate your mortgage with the interest rate of the present day. Furthermore, the interest you pay on your home mortgage is tax deductible in the US, which is not the case in Canada. Therefore the US incentivizes home ownership through leveraging the banking and tax system in its favor.

In Canada on the other hand, if you want to mortgage your home then it is your right, but you will have to be on your toes (due to the tax burden and short term interest rate) and the banks have more flexibility to be on their toes, too (due to the shorter mortgage terms)- certainly to a much greater extent than those banks in the United States locked into decades long (tax incentivized) deals with nearly all of their mortgager customers (the bulk of most banks’ businesses).

No, Canada never jumped ship from that original model, and in that the system is indeed conservative. Mortgaging is something that happens in geologic time and paradoxically, the shorter terms we use here, and the real tax burden serve to stretch out the home-ownership and mortgaging experience into something far more robust than the time machine model they have down south. This is why Canada never got carried away to the same lengths with uber-derivitization of the business culture seen in the US and elsewehere.

Indeed, some of our Canadian banks here were sold some of the bills of goods by Citibank et al. but none were big players in the shell game a la Iceland. And although the G 20 wants to mimic Canada’s system, it seems somehow too late for those other systems to go back- the cultures have changed. An argument can be made that no one is as civilized.

Like any large economy, Canada has fallen victim to some modern fraud. In many cases this fraud is egregious. However, going back to my argument with my Canadian friend, while there are cases of individual fraud in Canada, the larger systemic fraud that was the uber-derivatization of the business (and home-owning) culture in the United States and beyond was far more insipid and insidious than anything we’ve had to experience here in Canada, and for this we should be thankful, and (cautiously) proud.

This interview takes place in Montreal, in the summer of 2009. Karl-André St-Victor, is a producer  working in Montreal. He recently returned to Haïti. Here are his thoughts and reflections on Haïti and being black in Montreal.

Giovanna Nicolo - What was it like growing up as a black kid in rural Quebec?

Karl-André St-Victor - It is was complex. On the one hand, there was a life that you lived based on expectations and on the other, the one you portrayed to your friends. But to answer your question, I feel like I was brought up more as a Haitian, then as Black. Haitian means having a cultural identity, and black is just a race.

When my parents arrived in Trois-Rivières in the 60’s they experienced things that they never really talked about to us.  I believe that because of these experiences they instilled in us the mentality to strive to be beyond the best and to always be clear that equality does not exist.

GN - Are you the same way with your own young son?

KSV - Pauses. No, not to that extent. I believe that my parents had a style of parenting that was reflective of where they where from. And I, as a parent have a style that is reflective of my life here, having a bit of both worlds and my own views on how kids should be taught to be their best, with the continued belief that there is no equality. I believe that our parenting styles can’t be compared, but see how they have evolved. These days I don’t think it means anything to push your kids to strive to be the best if it doesn’t mean anything to them. I push my son when I see his desire to strive to be his best. However, he is only three years old so ask me this question again in a few years.

GN - What about as a black person working in media?

KSV - You’ve been in the business so you see what I see. I don’t think that it is a matter of being Black in the media. It’s a about belonging to a clique. In every profession there are little circles that are born. These circles or cliques are incestuous. And for me, it’s not about belonging, but about being able to integrate and create a space within these cliques. In the end it’s just business and to maintain who I am in these cliques I don’t just walk the walk, I walk with a bounce!

GN - I read in Mat’s article (see below) somewhere that Quebec Blacks have the highest rate of unemployment outside of Mississippi.

KSV - It’s a fact, it’s hard to accept - However, the stats don’t paint the full picture, stats in general are biased. Why do they not also show the stats for racial profiling and show the correlation between the two. People that come to Canada come to work, they like everyone else have dreams and they want to move forward. I doubt they come here to be unemployed and be taken care of by the system. More often then not people work two or more minimum wage jobs to not only care for their families here but also care for their families back “home”. To assume that people don’t want to work is to assume that they don’t have pride.

GN - The last time you were in Haïti was 1999 - can you tell me how things have changed since then?

KSV - It is hard to say how Haïti has changed, because I have changed. So, I see it in a different way. Before,I believed that Haïti was going backwards, but now I see that it has just turned around and is going in a different direction. If you walk backwards you could still see what’s ahead of you, but now it feels like it’s on a totally different path - maybe a path to nowhere. As a kid we used to go there every year. My recent trip there was my first trip back as a father, My family and I were taking my father’s ashes back to his place of birth. It was a trip with a very specific agenda. It was clear to to me that Haïti, the Haïti that my father left, bragged about and dremt of returning too, was not the same one. In my opinion Haïti became a country of broken dreams (at least for those who left with the intention of returning). But on the other hand it has maintained a warmth that radiates from it’s people that makes people want to return.

GN - You talk of the country going down another path, what do you mean by that?

KSV - Haïti is stuck with it’s history they need to mourn and let go of their past. I understand it’s their point of reference but they have reached a point where it does not serve them any longer.
Haïti is a paradox, it became the first independent black republic in the new world because of western ideology, and now 200 years later Capitalism has cultivated a world of corruption and individuality, which have overshadowed the basic human needs of the people of Haïti.

There is a lot of sympathy in the western world for Haiti. Is it real sympathy or just a reason that will allow them to look good on
the world stage. There is no war in Haïti, yet the UN soldiers ride in their tanks on the streets as if country is at war, although they are only controlling traffic. What is even funnier is that they travel by tanks in a country that often does not have enough oil. What do they gain from this? Haitians see them as tourists. They drive around all day, stay in the best hotels, get the best food and lounge on beach. Tourists!

GN - “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia says that the first thing you need to do in a country that’s been ravaged by war, is to instill the rule of law - and until the rule of law is instilled, one can’t talk about democracy…

KSV - I think that Haïti is not as dangerous as the media likes to portray it , but I think that’s she’s right. Law and order makes people respect their country men.

GN - Tell me about some of the images that come to mind when you talk about Haiti - Things where you think to yourself, My God this can’t or can be happening.

KSV - It’s clear that there is a lack of judgement that people with means have sometimes. I feel like they don’t really challenge themselves intellectually because if they did they would use their position to find a collective solution. And if they do the country is yet to reap the rewards of it.

GN - Maybe they need a kind of ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ like they did in Rwanda

KSV -It’s a good example because people need to mourn, they need to let go so that they can see the future.

Barack Obama shares the letter Bush left for him in the oval office.