No more experience of a lifetime

This story originally appeared in the May 5, 2012 version of the Woolwich Observer newspaper:

As it is with many new grads, when Kristen Horst graduated from Elmira District Secondary School last year the Hawkesville native wasn’t sure what she wanted to do or where she wanted to go in pursuit of post-secondary education.

She decided that rather than waste a year and a considerable amount of money on a college or university program she might not enjoy, she wanted to take a year to weigh her decisions. At the same time, however, the socially-conscious teen wanted to do more with her time off than make money for herself.

“I wanted to do something for the betterment of someone else,” the 18-year-old explained.

After chatting with a family friend, Horst learned about Katimavik (Iqaluit for “meeting place”), a national volunteer service organization formed in the late 1970s for youth aged 17-21. According to the Katimavik website, the mandate of the program is to impact youth positively by contributing to their development, to impact communities positively by putting volunteers to work in the community, and to impact the country positively by exposing youth to regional, cultural and linguistic diversity.

It sounded like the right opportunity at the right time in her life, so Horst applied, and in January she found herself on a flight to Calgary to meet eight other strangers to start their journey as participants in the program.

For the past four months, the nine youth have lived together and worked as volunteers in two distinct Canadian communities. For three months in Calgary, Horst – whose hometown only has about 300 residents – got to experience life in the big city for the first time while volunteering 35 hours a week as a teaching assistant in a French elementary school.

In April the group flew north to Iqaluit, Nunavut, where they’ve volunteered in schools, women’s shelters and soup kitchens, and were an integral part in organizing the annual festival of Toonik Tyme, a celebration that welcomes the sun back to the land after months of near-darkness.

They will remain in Iqaluit until the end of June, and there are hundreds of similar groups of young adults across Canada right now doing similar work in other communities with Katimavik.

“It’s like a gift. I can’t believe I’m able to do this,” she said of the experience during a phone interview from Iqaluit.

Yet Horst and the rest of the Katimavik volunteers are the last of their kind. In the federal budget tabled at the end of March funding for the group was completely cut.

Page 269 of the budget outlines the reasons for those cuts; “The government is eliminating the Katimavik program, as it reaches a relatively small number of participants annually at a relatively high cost per participant.”

Katimavik receives almost all of its funding from the federal government, and as a result is (mostly) free for participants. Katimavik hopefuls pay an application and participation fee, as well as a transportation deposit, but the vast majority of the funding – some $15 million annually – is provided by the government, and is used to cover costs ranging from transportation and housing to food and other basic necessities.

Federal funding comes from the Department of Canadian Heritage and from the Stratégie d’action jeunesse 2009-2014 initiative in Quebec; with costs in the range of about $2,000 per month per student, and about $380 million of taxpayer’s money over the past 30 years, Minister of Canadian Heritage James Moore said it was time to end the program.

“Ending funding for Katimavik is one of the easiest decision I’ve ever made,” the minister said.

The cuts have come despite the fact that the federal government has a funding agreement with Katimavik that runs until next March.

Liberal MP Justin Trudeau, former Katimavik chair and current member of the Canadian Heritage committee in Ottawa, says the fact that the government is cutting its funding before the current agreement expires is a “mean-spirited decision” and a “slap in the face” for the hundreds of youth preparing for the next round of trips, which was set to begin in July.

“The government didn’t say ‘we won’t renew the funding agreement in 2013’ they said no, we’re cutting off the funding now,” said an impassioned Trudeau in a phone interview from his Ottawa office.
“It’s a tremendous slap in the face.”

Katimavik was created under Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government out of a desire to help solve Canada’s unity problem in the late 70's. Launched in 1977, youth from across Canada cycled through three different communities where they lived together and worked at non-profit organizations, while also learning about the country’s cultural diversity.

The program flourished during its early years, reaching a peak of about 5,000 participants in 1985-86. When Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservative party won a majority government in 1984, the program was cut two years later, prompting Katimavik founder and Liberal senator Jacques Hebert to go on a 21-day hunger strike, to no avail.

Hebert then worked to ensure that Katimavik would survive by turning it into an outdoor recreation training centre in his home province of Quebec, until the Liberals were elected to a majority government under Jean Chrétien in 1993.

The following year Youth Service Canada helped form a 66-person pilot program to restore Katimavik as a national program, and the year after that the Department of Heritage agreed to provide ongoing funding, allowing the number of projects and participants to triple.

The program once again grew in popularity following its revival; in 2005-06 some 1,150 youth participated in 105 communities across Canada, and since its inception more than 31,000 youth have taken part in the program.

Yet Trudeau laments that Katimavik has failed to reach the lofty status his father had envisioned for it when it was created some 35 years ago. The elder Trudeau wanted it to become a nation-building program that challenged youth to become active and engaged and committed citizens to this country, and while it has met those goals, it has failed to attract the number of participants he had hoped for.

“The one thing he always said to himself and Jacques Hebert was ‘don’t give me a program that is going to benefit a couple hundred kids per year,’” said Trudeau.

“That was his vision for the program, and unfortunately it’s never quite gotten to the numbers that we’d like to.”

When Stephen Harper and the Conservatives defeated Paul Martin’s minority Liberals in 2006, funding for the program was cut by 25 per cent. In October of that year the government announced a three year funding agreement in the sum of $15 million per year, down from close to $20 million under the Chretien government.

The impacts of those cuts were felt immediately. To balance their budget, Katimavik was forced to reduce the number of participants each year to about 1,000,  and the program was shortened from nine months to six.

Finally Katimavik – which until then had been free – began charging fees for participants, including a $300 non-refundable participation fee to cover accident insurance and other administrative costs, and a $350 travel deposit that is paid once volunteers are accepted to the program and is reimbursed upon successful completion of the program.

Anyone who quits the program or is asked to leave for violating behavioural standards is not reimbursed the $350.

It was during this time of cuts that Trudeau began to see the writing on the wall for Katimavik, and he heard rumblings across Parliament Hill that if the Tories ever achieved a majority government, it would be cut.

This past year the Canadian Heritage department conducted a summative evaluation of the Katimavik program, and other than a few efficiencies here and program tweaks there, it met the overall funding goals of the government.

“Minister Moore told me a couple years ago that he was going to cut Katimavik as soon as he could,” Trudeau said, despite the fact that Moore’s own government agency said it was a quality program.

While Trudeau maintains that the Tories have cut Katimavik out of political spite and because it was established under a Liberal government and by a former Liberal senator, the government says that just isn’t the case.

Moore failed to respond to numerous requests for an interview for this story, but Kitchener-Conestoga MP Harold Albrecht was able to speak on the subject. He fully supports his government’s decision to pull the plug on the program, and reaffirmed their position that it was a poor use of taxpayer’s money.

“Obviously, for some individuals, it has been a good program and I’m not negating the fact that some good has come out of this program for those individuals and the areas that they have served,” Albrecht said.
“My primary concern is the high cost of it.”

He said in an era of financial belt-tightening in all facets of government spending, perhaps it was time for Katimavik participants and alumni to fundraise and attract private and corporate sponsorship to keep their program alive, rather than rely on a government handout for “99 per cent” of its funding.

“I’ve worked with dozens and dozens of young people who have gone on different trips and raised funds for that. Part of the training and development is that willingness to go to someone, explain what they are doing, sell it to them and convince them that this is a good investment of their money.

“To me that is the big piece that this program is missing.”

Yet Trudeau counters that argument by saying the economic, social and cultural benefits generated through Katimavik in communities like Iqaluit more than make up for the costs of the program. The former school teacher also said that youth who attend Katimavik make better life choices with regards to post-secondary schooling, saving the country millions on subsidized education costs.

In its financial statement from 2010-11, Katimavik estimates that the 1,462 youths that participated that year generated almost $11 million worth of volunteer hours across Canada by helping 500 different community partners in 64 communities.

“Just from that standpoint it’s a pretty good program, and the benefit to young people would more than make up for the remaining $4 million,” Trudeau said.

The Liberal MP also drew comparisons to the cadet program, which Katimavik was partially modeled on when it was formed. The cadet program costs the government about $200 million a year to operate and attracts about 50,000 youth at a cost of about $4,000 per month – or twice the cost of Katimavik – and yet the cadet program saw no cuts in the last budget, he said.

“I think the cadets do great work and it’s an excellent program … but so does Katimavik, and it does it for cheaper and it helps the community as well. On a basis like that you can’t make a comparison,” Trudeau said.

Albrecht, however, maintains that the Canadian government is shifting its youth funding priorities to other more efficient programs such as the YMCA, Encounters with Canada, and the Forum for Young Canadians, all of which will reach more young people than Katimavik can.

“We’re investing $105 million, which will allow 100,000 young people to learn about Canada through the Canadian Heritage Department,” he said.

Rumours of the cuts began circulating among Katimavik volunteers a few weeks before they were made public and while Horst was still in Calgary. When the announcement of the cuts was made official on Mar. 29, they sprang into action, writing letters to their respective MPs and to the Prime Minister’s office to request the program be saved, and they contacted the media to get the word about the work they were doing.

“This is something that I’m passionate about and I’m a part of this program and this choice by the government affects me directly, so it’s taught me a lot about using my vote and having my voice heard,” said Horst, who said she now knows that she wants to be a teacher, and is heading to Fleming College in the fall to begin her studies – thanks to Katimavik.

When word of the cuts reached Iqaluit, Horst said everyone in the community was heartbroken because of how much they rely on the volunteer work that Katimavik provides them. Having seen their impact on the community with her own eyes, Horst knows the investment is well worth it.

“It may be a lot of money to spend on one teenager, but it’s not just that teen which you’re putting the funding towards, it’s all the people in the community that are impacted too,” she said.

Horst and Trudeau were also hesitant about the idea of asking more participants to pay more out of their own pockets in an effort to keep the program running; both echoed the same sentiment that by asking families to pay even a few thousand dollars would limit the number of people able to take part.

“This way it’s something that is open to everyone,” said Horst. “Adding the cost of Katimavik and future school costs, and subtracting six months of income, it would have looked really overwhelming.”

Trudeau will continue to fight for the survival of the program, but he knows it’s an uphill battle to change the mind of this Conservative government. He vowed that when the Liberal party returns to power in Ottawa not only will Katimavik be reinstated, but opportunities for young Canadians will be massively expanded.

In light of the recent spending scandal encompassing Conservative MP and Minister for International Cooperation Bev Oda, as well as the Department of National Defence and its questionable F-35 contracts, Trudeau said the message those scandals are sending to Canadians is a true indication of Tory priorities.

“There is a real narrative of what this government is willing to spend on … versus the kinds of investment in our future that everyone knows makes a huge difference.”

Albrecht, however, is all but certain that Katimavik is finished.

“The likelihood of this program being revived or put on life support I think is very, very slim.”

In Her Footsteps

In January, 2010 Yvonne Martin of Elmira was killed in the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti. Two years to the day of her death, two of her sons (Terry and Luke) travelled to the impoverished Caribbean nation to see where she had died, and where she had worked.

I'd like to thank the Martin family for their willingness to chat with me and open up on this sensitive subject.

This is their story.

Terry Martin, seen holding a photo of his mother working in Haiti, travelled to the impoverished Caribbean nation with his brother Luke to see where she died and where she had worked. (Photo: James Jackson)

In Her Footsteps

Originally published in the Mar. 3, 2012 edition of the Woolwich Observer. 

Some nights Luke and Terry Martin still dream about their mother.

They dream that the retired nurse and grandmother of 10 is alive and well in Haiti, continuing the work that she loved – helping those who needed it the most and offering them a kind smile and gentle hands of comfort.

Those ghost-like dreams always end the same way for the two brothers, however: waking up to the reality that their mother, Yvonne, is gone and is never coming back.

In January, two years to the day of her death, Luke and Terry finally visited the spot where their mother’s body was found following the Haitian earthquake. They went to understand why she returned to the impoverished nation time and time again, and where her love for the Haitian people was born.

“We were all a little surprised when she said she was going to Haiti for the first time, but once she came back it all made sense,” said Terry, whose mother first travelled to Haiti in 2007.
“It wasn’t her entire life, but over those four years it was an important part of who she was.”

On Jan. 12, 2010 the small Caribbean nation was struck by the island’s worst earthquake in more than 200 years. The epicentre was about 15 kilometres southwest of the capital city of Port-au-Prince along the fault line that divides the Caribbean and North American tectonic plates – enormous slabs of rock that fit together like a giant jigsaw puzzle that cover the entire Earth.

Yvonne, an Elmira resident, had landed in Haiti earlier that day as part of a church mission group. It was her fourth time in the country, but at 4:53 p.m. local time the earth trembled beneath her feet and the guesthouse where she and the other missionaries were staying collapsed on top of her.

The magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck just 90 minutes after the seven women from Waterloo Region had landed in the capital. Three of those team members – Marilyn McIlroy, Deb Paton and Lois McLaughlin – were standing on the third-floor balcony of the Wall’s International Guesthouse when the earthquake struck, while three others – Marilyn Raymer, Alice Soeder and Laura Steckley – were tossed back and forth in their deck chairs as water slopped out of the pool and soaked their legs.

Unsure of what was happening around them, but realizing that they were in danger, the women moved away from the building and met outside, only to find that the seventh member of their team was not with them. It was then that they realized that Yvonne, who had gone inside to get changed just moments earlier, was buried in the rubble.

Terry got a phone call later that night while he and his wife Melanie were about to head out to a basketball game. It was Melanie’s mother on the phone asking if they had heard about the earthquake.

“At the time we hadn’t, but we didn’t think too much about it,” said Terry. “We went to the basketball game and then I got a call from my dad, and he had a brief message saying, basically, that mom was missing.”

Across the continent in San Diego, Terry’s brother Luke was at work when the first scattered reports of the quake began filtering out of Haiti. California was three hours behind Haiti, and at first Luke was relieved, thinking that his mother hadn’t yet arrived.

“I was aware that she was travelling but I wasn’t keeping in mind the time change, so as soon as I heard that the earthquake had hit I thought ‘thank goodness, she hasn’t arrived yet.’”

About an hour later Luke’s father, Ron, called to tell him that he had received a text message from Raymer saying that Yvonne was missing. After getting the news, Terry and Luke started scouring the Internet for flights to Haiti so that they could go search for her.

Information coming out of the disaster zone was sparse at best, as local television and radio stations were left without power in the aftermath. Raymer was the family’s only source of information in those early hours through her text messages, but with no means of recharging the device she tried to conserve power, meaning her messages were few and far between.

It was on his way back from the passport office the next day that Luke got the call from his dad saying that Yvonne had been killed.

“I was utterly stunned and couldn’t believe the words when they came out of my dad’s mouth. I was in shock.”

He boarded a Toronto-bound flight an hour later and joined the rest of the family at their farm near Elmira that evening, and what followed were an agonizing couple of weeks in which the family tried desperately to communicate with the Canadian embassy in Haiti, and to get their mother’s body back to Canada.

“There were lots of doubts about where mom’s body was, and then lots of frustration as far as trying to confirm it from here and trying to get it home. We just didn’t realize how overwhelmed the city was,” explained Luke.

A funeral was held on Jan. 20 and mourners packed the Waterloo Mennonite Brethren Church to pay tribute to Yvonne. Yet without a body the service lacked a sense of closure for the family, and it would take weeks for Yvonne to be returned to Canada and arrive at her final resting place in a cemetery just east of Elmira.

Gradually time passed and life began to take on a new form of normalcy as family members adjusted to the death of Yvonne, yet Terry and Luke always had the sense that they needed to go to Haiti to see where she died and where she had worked.

To that end, Terry and Luke finally boarded that long-awaited flight to Haiti, two years after they first began scouring the web in a desperate bid to join the search for their mother.

The brothers planned to meet in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 11, where they also met McIlroy, who would act as their guide for the trip. Their other brother, Dean, decided that he did not want to join them. They traversed the congested streets of the still-recovering capital city amidst the crumbling walls and leaning buildings. Tent cities and ramshackle shacks still dominate the landscape, and the entire city was coated in a thick layer of dust.

They spent that first evening talking with the six men who had dug their mother out of the rubble with their bare hands, took the time to carefully wrap her body in a sheet, and drove through the chaotic streets of Port-au-Prince to deliver her to the Canadian embassy.

Yvonne was one of 58 Canadians killed in the earthquake, and hers was the only body recovered from the guesthouse that night. It was through the efforts of Nicholson, Veniel, Samuel, Jean, Lucien and Jean Jonel that her body even made it back to Canada rather than ending up in the mass graves that were dug to dispose of the more than 300,000 people estimated to have died.

“They were working with whatever they could to move the stones and debris. I wanted to get pictures of their hands and their faces, and to hear their stories of how overwhelmed they were,” said Terry.
“If they hadn’t done it that night I’m sure mom’s body wouldn’t have got home.”

“What surprised me was that I don’t think I really believed that people knew her,” added Luke of his discussions with the drivers and vendors who had worked with his mother before she died.

“She was just one nurse out of however many NGOs and development organizations and medical missionaries pass through, but they remembered her clearly and had a relationship with her.”

The next day, Jan. 12, Terry, Luke and Marilyn participated in memorial services across the city, and stood at the same spot where Yvonne had been found. The section of the guesthouse that collapsed still has not been rebuilt, and all that remains is the brown tile floor.

“How do I come up with a word for that?” Luke asked. He paused for a moment before adding, “It was very meaningful. Where my feet were was exactly where her feet were when they found her. It was like visiting a grave.”

Yvonne may have died in Port-au-Prince, but she was very rarely ever in the capital. It was where she and the other missionaries would arrive and depart, but little more.

The heart of her work was located in the mountainous region east of the city, in the plateau region near the border with the Dominican Republic, and that was where Terry and Luke headed next.

On Jan. 13 the brothers climbed aboard a small plane and took a 20-minute flight to the village of Henche. It was there and the outlying villages of Malary, Savane Cajou and others where the brothers were able to see and hear the true impact that their mother had on the Haitian people.

After touching down at an airport which was little more than a dirt landing strip, the group had to travel through the forest and along the rocky terrain, often riding in the back of a pickup truck or even on foot on roads that were barely passable. The thought of their 67-year-old mother making those same trips filled them with admiration.

“She always said she would keep going until her body couldn’t do it anymore,” Terry said.

They were surprised to learn that the villagers remembered her so vividly, and the Haitians cried as they recounted their annual visits with Yvonne. The memories of her were still as fresh in the minds of the Haitian people as they were in the minds of her own family.

The men heard countless tales of how their mother had helped distribute food and medical aid, and cared for the sick and the injured – particularly the children.

“That made total sense to us, because that’s what mom was always fixated on – children,” said Terry with a smile.

At the end of their six-week mission trips each year, Yvonne and the other women enjoyed travelling north to the 19th century citadel that was about 17 kilometers south of the coastal town of Cap-Haitian. After climbing to the top of the fortress, the group would unwind by spending a few days at the beach on the coast.

Luke and Terry had seen photos that their mother had taken during her trips to the citadel and the beach, and they knew the site had a special place in her heart so they travelled there as well.

“Mom always described it as what she imagined Haiti used to look like. It was beautiful, with lots of trees,” said Terry of the beach.

Luke and Terry left Haiti on Jan. 19, and have spent the past several weeks trying to sort out their feelings for the nation, the people, and the stories about their mother – as well as the horrors of the day she died and the impact it had on their Christian faith.

“The earthquake hit and my first thought was ‘how could this happen?’ and I think that’s a pretty normal response for people who go through something like this,” said Luke. “I’m not one of those people who think that everything happens for a reason. No, this was the wrong time and the wrong person.”

“The earthquake happens and you think ‘what better place for my mom to be, she’s a nurse and she can help,’” echoed Terry.

“Ever since coming back from Haiti, though, I have a better understanding of life and what things are important. We don’t understand everything – it is way bigger than us here and on the island of Haiti.”

In an effort to keep her legacy alive, the family established the Yvonne Martin Memorial Fund through the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada, which helps offset some of the costs associated with training medical personnel in Haiti. There are currently three students receiving funding, and for every year they are supported they must spend one year working in the same plateau region where their mother worked.

The family continues to cope with Yvonne’s absence, and their personal experiences with their mother before her death continue to shape the complexity of their grief. She used to visit Terry and his family almost every day, and her death has left a void that still remains.

For Luke, living in San Diego for nearly a decade meant the visits with his mother were always much rarer, but he still misses the letters and the phone calls, and those feelings will likely never wane.

They also believe that there is still a lot of work to be done in Haiti to rebuild, and their journey there has helped them understand why that work needs to be done.

“This trip wasn’t so much a goodbye for me, it was just to gain a better understanding of what she did,” said Terry.

“But, you know, I still dream about mom all the time.”