Canadian society as ‘oppressor and victim’
By now, with the Vimy Ridge 100th anniversary celebration not far in the rear-view mirror, Canadians know precisely what to expect on such occasions — paeans to equity, refrains praising the collective modern tolerance (but damning the oppression that went before and lingers on), rote odes to all that is indigenous — and thought better of it.
Better a few days at a cottage or camp, a swim in a still-cold lake, a beer on the dock with family and friends, the Hip blasting all day long. Better a barbecue in a city park, cheek by jowl with families from other parts of the world, everyone minding their own business and getting along without the PM there, telling them how fabulous they were.
(As an aside, a friend and I went to the glorious Lahore Tikka Palace in the Gerrard Street East area of Toronto. I remain bitter that M. Trudeau did not show up to personally congratulate us for our embrace of diversity, and the owner for hers.)
As for how it came to that sorry spectacle in Ottawa, consider this.
A few days before Canada Day, at Dalhousie University in Halifax, the student union passed a last-minute motion recognizing “the current celebration of Canada Day as an act of colonialism,” praising itself for always “operating in an antioppressive framework for all marginalized students,” and pledging not to partake in “any Canada 150 programming.”
I watched a little of the video of the meeting — the motion was brought forward late, over the objections of at least two council members — and one, Mary MacDonald, spoke vociferously against it.
MacDonald, who is in a wheelchair and represents students with disabilities, first pointed out that the student union’s self-praise was frankly delusional.
For instance, Dalhousie’s Tiger Patrol, which is a student ride-home service organized by the union and subsidized by the university, isn’t wheelchair-accessible.
One winter’s night MacDonald emerged after an evening class into a blizzard and watched able-bodied students hop in the van while she had to make her own way home.
That’s why she ran for election last spring, to make change, but more broadly, as she said at the meeting, the motion “seems to question the very legitimacy of Canada,” and, as she told Postmedia in a weekend phone interview, “It almost subverts the celebration of pride in our country.”
“You can celebrate Canada Day and be a proud Canadian and also have empathy for others who are suffering. … The inference we can take away (from the motion) is that you’re a racist if you express pride in your country.”
The meeting was almost as painful to watch as the CBC, what with the chair saying “Perfect!” in the current fashion to every suggested amendment and banal remark.
And so what, you might say — one university, albeit one with 18,500 students, no big deal.
But not long ago, I learned that at a recent event of a corporation in the natural resource sector, the evening began for the first time with the acknowledgment that “we are standing on the territory” of the local First Nation.
As Mary MacDonald says, “before these type of ideas are diffused through wider society, they become entrenched in the university.
“I don’t see Canadian society as one of oppressor and victim,” she says, “but if you object to framing it that way, you’re a racist. This motion is blatant shaming, of being a Canadian.”
In such small, quiet and ignoble fracturings, happening all across the country I suspect, can the centre begin to crack.
YOU CAN CELEBRATE CANADA DAY ... AND ALSO HAVE EMPATHY FOR OTHERS.