SPECIAL TO THE CALGARY HERALD
THE VOICE OF SOUTHERN ALBERTA SINCE 1883
The opinions expressed below are solely its author's, and do not necessarily represent the views of either the Herald, its editor, or its owner Postmedia Network, Inc. All rights reserved.
It's time that we in Canada revisited our stance in relation to Gilead. Not only that theonomic country to the south of us, but America-in-exile as well, currently confined to the geographical extremes of its former territory.
There. I said it. We have to stop acting as if The United States will ever be restored.
If you have been living under a rock for the last decade, you may have missed the 2nd American Revolution. It was a revolution some years ago which obstensively had its origins in the worldwide fertility crisis. After the smoke cleared down south, an obscure religious group, The Sons of Jacob, ended up consolidating legislative, military and judicial power in most States of the USA.
They parlayed a set of regional 'wins' into a new federal state, replacing the US of A.
Renaming itself 'Gilead', what remained of Uncle Sam's influence fled to places like Fairbanks, Alaska, or Honolulu, Hawai'i. Canada acts as if that was temporary. Truth be known, the United States de facto capital city is now Toronto, as our own federal government in Ottawa regularly defers to Americans at Toronto's consulate - to do, as it has been said, 'Canada's dirty work' for it.
Americans-in-exile in Toronto are eager to accept this delegation - as it serves their agenda of 'pay-back' against Gilead. Canadian federal politicians, including the PMO, must not have believed their luck - offloading tricky bilateral relations with Gilead to eager Americans in Canada. But Ottawa also regularly off loads sticky Gilead-issues to us, the provinces. Like here in Alberta.
The worst kept secret is that it is the Canadian provinces who foot the bill for the considerable Gilead refugee problem. Canada has a soft-spot for women particularly, who flee to the more gender-neutral climate north of the border.
This status quo within Canada has been workable and sufficient. Until now. The level of administrative and financial 'off-load' to the provinces is now too high to ignore.
So it is, I introduce you to a unique Gilead 'refugee' (in quotes, as you will discover below), Mrs. Naomi Putnam, a former Wife of a New Gilead High Commander. As such, she is now living comfortably from the Alberta government public purse, on the 12th floor of the Hilton Garden Inn in Calgary. The federal government mandates it, Alberta pays for it. Read on.
RECONSIDERING GILEAD
There are many reasons NOT to even want to reconsider Gilead. It is truly a pariah State. Meeting Mrs. Putnam, a Wife of New Gilead, it immediately becomes apparent why. Mrs. Putnam is not shy about showing off her three amputated fingers, as well as regaling this reporter with 'tales from the Colonies'. While most of Gilead remains a mystery to Canadians, all of us have been 'heard stories' through refugees from the south as to the Colonies.
By any standards, Gilead's policies with regard to combating infertility have had a devastating impact on the lives of women there.
But this piece is not about that. I will leave the more than apt critiques of Gilead to others. Let's leave it for a minute.
Why? Because both in Canada as well as in the American-in-exile community, there are a lot of kettles calling a lot of pots 'black'.
Consider this - this very publication has joined with other Canadian media outlets in a lawsuit to have the the Waterford publication ban lifted. Where is she, is she alive, and what is the status of her baby? Those questions are state secrets.
No one even knows if Serena Joy and/or her baby are still at the ITWC lock-up in Toronto, or have been deported.
Why is this important? Not just because of the botched deportation of her husband, Commander Fred Waterford. You will remember that the former-Commander had been extra-judicially executed in the 'no man's land' between Gilead and Canada in what used to be northern Vermont.
It remains important for 'goose and gander' reasons, namely that if we here up north criticize Gilead for its secretiveness, why is it that our government is doing the same? Why are our 'guests' in Canada, namely American consul stuff running loose in Toronto, why are THEY being secretive about Gilead?
We in the Canadian West know all about federal government machinations, where we pay for policies where strings are pulled two thousand kilometres away in Ottawa - over which we, west of Ontario, have no control. For which we pay.
Once again, enter Mrs. Naomi Putnam, Wife of now deceased High Commander of New Gilead, Warren Putnam. Commander Putnam had been removed in what had been a coup, he'd been summarily executed, their daughter was taken by authorities, and Mrs. Putnam ended up doing hard-labour in Gilead's notorious mid-west Colonies. Ok so far, all that is on Gilead. We all know that.
Having had fingers amputated - one cut off because she had read Treasure Island to her daughter - but also having once hosted teas for the elite Wives of New Gilead's rulers, Naomi Putnam is well positioned to school most of us on today's Gilead realities.
And by extension, how Canada should retool itself in relation to Gilead.
With up to 1,000 refugees crossing the border at Coutts/Sweetgrass each week, with the Province of Alberta footing the bill for Ottawa's policies in relation to Gilead, and with American consulate personnel running unaccountably loose in Toronto, interfering to and fro…..
….. it is well past time for Canada and the PMO particularly, to retool itself.
The plight of women in Gilead cannot get worse, but the burden on the Alberta tax-payer might just get much more unbearable.
MEET MRS. NAOMI PUTNAM
I should prepare you, gentle reader. What you are about to read may get your hackles up. Part of reconsidering Gilead, though, is to deal with this stuff up front, then put it aside for a moment while we consider a rational re-positioning. Gilead is here to stay, the USA is not coming back, and Alberta's refugee crisis is only increasing.
It's time to talk.
As a Commander's family in New Gilead (Boston and area) the Putnams had been one of the first to have had a successful outcome in the controversial Bilhah/Handmaid program, administered through those legendary Red Centers.
Many elite Boston families had had Handmaids assigned to them, and many others had had young children 'placed' with them. But for the Putnams, they had what spotty records reveal was the very first, Bilhah birth. (I will not review Gilead's Biblical 'justification' for this program, that is well documented elsewhere.)
But all is not what the Canadian American propaganda machine would have you believe. The Putnams, despite their elite status, were not exempted from Gilead's notorious purity laws. No less than the High Commander himself, Warren Putnam, had had his left forearm removed for an ill advised extra-marital affair.
Canadians may not like Gilead's laws, but it seems that those laws are still applied evenly. We never hear about that - so says Mrs. Putnam.
Those sorts of vilifications are standard fare when Canadian media covers Gilead. This editorial makes neither excuse nor justification for what you, the reader, know so well about Gilead. All it asks is that you consider it in a nuanced fashion.
Did you know this: that the Putnam's consulted with a female neonatologist - yes, a female one - when her daughter had fallen inexplicably ill. Mrs. Putnam had also allowed her daughter's biological mother, their former Handmaid, to be present in the hospital to comfort the child.
Despite that Handmaid having kidnapped the daughter from the Putnam home and threatening murder/suicide - the Putnams got to the point where the young woman could hold the baby during an elite dinner, one held at the Putnam home to celebrate births in the District.
I could go on, because once Mrs. Putnam gets going about the 'benefits and mercies' of Gilead, it is hard to stop her, but easy to detect her enthusiasm.
While at the same time, Mrs. Putnam talks openly about Gilead's more well-known brutal side. Missing limbs, the Colonies, the salvagings.
The question - is Gilead an entity Canada should be doing more normal business with? Canada maintains a relationship with Saudi Arabia, which only in 2018 allowed women to drive. Why not Gilead? I could go on.
The reality - the hypocrisy of the Canadian federal government, and the secrecy of the Prime Minister's Office, that is more Gilead-like than Central Canada admits. The PMO for instance, is the most powerful political institution in the country, and it has no mention, none at all, in our Constitution.
The Provinces do. Alberta gets a mention, yet the shady PMO can direct American agents in Toronto to do its bidding.
If the Prime Minister is satisfied with passing security duty within Canada, to wannabee American G-Men like Mark Tuello (of the Toronto US consulate), Canadians and Albertans will be none the wiser as to how our tax money is spent.
MRS. PUTNAM TAKE TWO
Mrs. Putnam's 12th floor room at the Hilton Garden Inn has a beautiful view of the Canadian Rockies to the west. Her room has also accrued the largest room-service bill in the hotel. She has her hair done twice a week - in her room, on your dime. She is said to be the largest tipper in the hotel restaurant. Why not?
What kind of investigative skullduggery did I have to engage in, to find all this out?
I asked her. She told me. She showed me the receipts. All signed by her, but paid for by the Albertan taxpayer. She is refreshingly open about it. Unapologetic, not the least embarrassed.
Why is this happening? Why do upward of 5,000 other Gilead refugees sleep in cots at the abandoned armoury south of town, and she gets room service?
Listen to how she puts it.
"I'm not sure the Calgary consul staff even talk to either the US Embassy in Ottawa, or the consulate in Toronto," she revealed.
"What I've discovered," she added, "is that as a Wife of a High Commander - and a salvaged High Commander to boot - I have 'security value'. That's the way that Toronto consul staff put it to me, when they flew out here to see me for themselves."
I asked her why Americans from Toronto had to come out West? Her answer? They want her 'left out West' because 'Toronto' does not want to pay the bills. But they wanted - and ordered - her to be treated as a security asset.
"Truly, I don't know much about the way governments organize themselves, either here or in Gilead. My superpower is holding teas for the elite women of our District." Then she added, "truth be told, the Calgary people called the Toronto consulate 'a clown car on fire', and the Toronto people said that the Calgary consulate people had, 'been out in the sun too long'. Honestly, I perhaps now know why Gilead managed to push the United States into Alaska." She said that waving away the USA with her three-fingered hand.
SECURITY CONCERNS
Then Mrs. Putnam 'talked turkey'.
"Truly," she said - she began her sentences with the word 'truly' a lot, "what happened to the Waterfords spooked everyone up here. They paint us in Gilead as the bad people, yet Fred got 'particicuted' in no man's land." 'Particicution' was a word new to my vocabulary.
"Serena Joy Waterford, she's my friend." Holding up her hands with missing fingers, she added, "Serena Joy and I shared many experiences. Yet she ended up in prison in Toronto, me I got sent to a Colony in the mid-west."
Now, she said, "I cannot find out where she is or even if she's had her baby. Who is the 'secretive state' now?"
Asked about her own participation in some of Gilead's more notorious crimes against women, namely the Bilhah Handmaid program…..
….. Mrs. Putnam offered the most stunning revelation of all.
"Who do you think rescued me from the Colonies and put me on a refugee bus to Calgary? It wasn't Canada. It wasn't Mark Tuello. None other than our former Handmaid, Ofwarren, now an Aunt of Gilead. Janine Lindo."
She concluded with, "Janine and I are now sisters, searching for what we have lost. So it is I implore all your readers, plus the Government of Canada as well as American consul staff to listen - please help me, help us, find baby….." she paused, "baby Charlotte. Who my husband and I called Angela."
Such are the reconsiderations Canada needs to make about Gilead and its people. It is multilayered.
Yet the government of Canada has a one-size fits all policy, that it offloads onto unaccountable American consul staff, mainly in Toronto. We have to stop acting as if The United States will ever be restored.
And Alberta pays the bill.
