Canadian Writers Abroad

Review of Understanding at Last,
by Roxanne Dubé, Amazon, December 2023
Reviewed by Tim Martin

When we think about diplomacy, we think of immunity, privilege, and cocktail parties. What we don’t think about is risk and vulnerability.
In Understanding at Last, Roxanne Dubé, a mother, takes us into her diplomatic nightmare as Canada’s Consul General in Miami. Nothing is more important when you are an ambassador than helping Canadians in trouble. More than a million Canadians visit Florida every year. On top of that are commercial relations, counter-narcotics cooperation, and more.
Early in her posting, the night of March 30, 2015, Dubé’s 18-year-old son Jean was shot and killed in a drug deal gone bad. Her 15-year-old son, Marc, was charged with felony murder, which carries a life sentence. This was not because he was suspected of killing his brother Jean or the drug dealer, but because, according to Florida law, an individual involved in a violent crime during which someone is killed can be charged with felony murder.

Understanding at Last takes us on the psychological rollercoaster that Dubé experienced, beginning with Jean’s tragic path to the fatal drug deal, through the terrible jeopardy faced by Marc, and how she struggles to navigate the merciless American criminal justice system. The book has the pounding suspense of a John Grisham legal thriller, the heartbreak of a survival memoir, and an insider’s look at how the Canadian foreign service operates when one of its own ambassadors is the vulnerable Canadian who needs help abroad.

Dubé introduces herself to us with a self-awareness that is honest and engaging. An ambitious diplomat, she moved smartly up into the executive ranks of Global Affairs Canada after serving as an advisor to Lloyd Axworthy.  She became Director of Cabinet and Parliamentary Affairs — a tough job on the treacherous borderline between public service and partisan politics. Before long, she was Ambassador of Canada to Zimbabwe. After that she headed up the Corporate Secretariat Bureau and other high-level and demanding jobs. By the time she was assigned as Consul General in Miami, she had impeccable credentials for the job.

But she arrived in Miami with son Jean in emotional and social turmoil. We learn the backstory of Jean’s inner conflict through Dubé’s own struggle to comprehend it. She describes Jean as “smart, athletic, adventurous, enigmatic and  ambitious.” In a haunting remark that foreshadows his fate, she says, “ I used to joke with him that if he were bleeding to death after a car accident, he would still not call me for help.”

Dubé’s sons are mixed race. Their father is a Black refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Dubé is a White woman who grew up on a dairy farm in small town Quebec. The marriage was turbulent, and she separated from him. In Ottawa, she tried to give the boys normality and stability. But Jean became alienated from his mother. After his second arrest by Ottawa police for drug possession and trafficking, Dubé asked him why he was rejecting the bright future she had planned for him. “I’m a lost kid,” he told her. Jean rejected his mother’s advice, insisting he knew what was good for him and denied that he was being manipulated by older friends. She couldn’t change his path. “If there is one moment I could revisit in my life, it would be this one,” Dubé writes.

A central theme of the book is the need to understand racial identity and the grave consequences of parental alienation. Dubé had thought that good education and social position would give Jean all the tools he needed to slide into success and a bright future. Jean headed in the opposite direction. 

Looking back, Marc says of his brother, “In the end, Jean only listened to extreme rappers like Fredo Santana, Future, Chief Keef and Rondo Numba Nine. These singers projected a world of easy money, drugs and girls where power and arrogance reign…” Seduced by this culture, he started to dabble in the drug trade and ran with a bad crowd. Dubé could not cross the gulf that divided them, no matter how much she loved her son. 

After they moved to Miami, Jean connected with the local drug trade. He hatched a scheme to double cross a dealer and steal a package of marijuana to sell later. Marc came with him and waited in the car outside a drug den. Inside, Jean pulled a gun on the dealer. The scheme backfired. Jean was shot and killed. Police arrived and Marc tumbled into the maw of the American criminal justice system.

Dubé was desperate to save her surviving son from what was potentially life in prison, but she was vulnerable too. A foreigner in a strange city — and in the headlines — she was unprotected. Consular officials do not have diplomatic immunity, nor do members of their family. Marc was prosecuted with the full force of Florida law.

This is not a political book, but the political differences between Canada and the US come into sharp relief when we see the shocking cruelty with which this Canadian kid is treated. Firstly, there is the well-known fact that Black men are incarcerated at a much higher rate than other races. Secondly, Florida aggressively prosecutes and sentences children as adults. Thirdly, the Miami police and prosecutor were driven by political incentives to convict and land a harsh sentence to show how tough they are on crime. To make matters worse, Marc was portrayed in some media as a spoiled rich kid. 

All this over a stupid bag of weed. 

The Canadian criminal justice system is far from perfect, but we are fortunate that social justice and the rights of children are part of our political culture. It is crucial for us to hang on to those values, especially in this age of polarization.

Dubé’s writing is clear, direct and honest. She pulls no punches and the reader feels the full gravity of her situation. “There was enough to charge Marc with felony first degree murder, felony second degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of attempted armed robbery and one count possession of a firearm by a minor. More than enough to put him away forever.” 

The cast of characters populating this ordeal come to life with colour and depth. Here is the superintendent of the Miami-Dade juvenile detention centre, Daryl Wolf, who brought her dog Justice to work every day. “She seemed to understand the scope of what I was going through, and more importantly, she recognized the severity of Marc’s situation. She showed me a picture of her only daughter, who had died in a car accident a few years earlier. On top of this, Daryl was divorced. This woman had been through a lot.” 

The ambitious prosecutor, Maria Mato, comes across as distant and vaguely hostile to Dubé. Named prosecutor of the year in 2014, she “exuded a professional and disciplined demeanor.” The reader can practically hear her black stiletto heels echoing through the courtroom. Judge Teresa May Pooler was a woman of contradictions. “She let her salt-and-pepper hair fall loosely over her shoulders. Her features looked harsh to me. She appeared unhappy.”

The cruel drama and high stakes of Marc’s plight provide more than enough momentum to make this a page turner. What is more, the reader will come to care about Dubé, her sons and their journey. With unflinching self-awareness, a mother’s unbearable tragedy becomes knowledge, strength and finally new purpose. Understanding at Last surfaces three insights: the importance of parent child attachment, the need to understand racial differences and the power of transformation. Thanks to Dubé’s generosity of spirit and willingness to look in the mirror with clear eyes, her hard-won insights become our own.

Ultimately, this story is about hope. Something unimaginable indeed turned our lives upside down, but in the end, it also saved Marc and me.
— Roxanne Dubé, Understanding at Last, Amazon, December 2023, 232 pages.

Diplomat, federal public service executive and political advisor, Roxanne Dubé served as ambassador in Africa. She worked to promote Canada’s interests in the United States and directed the Canadian Foreign Service Institute, a professional development centre for Canadian diplomats. Since the tragedy of 2015, strengthened by her ongoing learning in intercultural competence, she advises private and public sector leaders in growing diverse, inclusive and equitable teams.

Self-published on Amazon, Understanding at Last is also available from Boutique BouquinBec.

Further

• “A Timeline of Events in Marc Wabafiyebazu’s double murder case in Miami,” The Globe and Mail (February 19, 2016).
• Andrew Duffy interviews Roxanne Dubé, Ottawa Citizen (February 6, 2024).
• CBC reporting: “Canadian diplomat Roxanne Dubé’s son killed, another in custody after Miami shooting.”
• “A Mother’s Trial,” on The Fifth Estate video, CBC.