Composed: 2017
Premiered: 2018, Winnipeg
Duration: 12 minutes

The idea for Just Society came to me in the winter of 2017, not long after the first Syrian refugees landed in Canada. The world seemed to have gone crazy, with many countries turning their backs on people who were fleeing this horrific situation.

I decided to use sound samples from speeches by P.E. Trudeau, especially a clip of him saying that Canada could be “a model of the Just Society.” I also found Cicero’s De Officiis, written in 44 BC, where he covers much of the same territory. But reality seldom lives up to ideals, so I decided to balance things out with some of Trudeau’s speeches from the period around the Quebec Referendum (in French) and parts of a poem by Louis Riel (who certainly didn’t receive justice from our society). Riel spent some of his exile period in New England, and this poem playfully chides the many Canadians who had gone there in search of a bigger paycheque.

The final section references some well-known songs about Canada and still being an optimist at heart, I decided to end with a sing-along.

Program note by the composer.