POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IS GNAWING AGGRESSIVELY AT THE LANGUAGE.

for “worrisome,” and “impact” as a verb, let alone emitted the noise “impactful” (all now current usage), we would have been energetically caned. Such rough occurrences were frequent, though not in my case for reasons of abuse of the language, but the adolescents of my cohort have not attracted sympathy for the severity of our residential schools. I am not at all nostalgic for school days; that era of education had many failings, including excessive teacher-student violence (as a parent myself, I was a complete shower as a disciplinarian), but in those people to grow up and learn, but uncorroborated sexual allegations that come from anonymous sources and destroy peoples’ careers are often almost as ancient as McGregor’s antics at Frank (which he predictably claims not to remember).

This week, TV Ontario personality Steve Paikin was accused by businesswoman and politician Sarah Thomson of inappropriate conduct. Both are friendly acquaintances of many years, Steve a perfect gentleman, and Sarah a reformed aventuriere. I believe she leads a conventional married life now, but when I first met her nearly 20 years ago she was magnificently concupiscent, and in large groups, such as a crowded party at the home of my delightful and talented colleague Christie Blatchford, Sarah candidly volunteered that she was unsure if she had slept with various of the other men who appeared. She offered to do me if I would give her an interview and I declined but commended her on her initiative. She was different and refreshing and when she ran for mayor in 2010, I gave her my endorsement in this column from the fulcrum of municipal influence where I then resided, a U.S. federal prison in Florida. On this issue, Steve is more credible. The denunciation is not made with cowardly anonymity, but another good man cannot be taken down on an unsupported denunciation over a trivial complaint, from an estimable person, but in these matters, not an unblemished source.

The majority of people are tired of the extreme inhibitions of political correctness, but most modern societies have been so self-brow-beaten over past mistreatment of ethnic, gender, religious or behavioural minorities, our society has been atomized into a legion of complainant groups, competing fiercely for official sympathy and reparations. It will be seen that one of Donald Trump’s benefactions has been to reject this tendency. Even my Jewish wife is delighted to hear our American friends say and send cards reading “Merry Christmas” and I suspect even many Muslims are slightly relieved to have an American president and Secretary of State who call Islamist extremism by its rightful name. All groups must be respected and everyone must be treated equally and all have a right not to be despised because of these immaterial (to their rights and worth as people) distinctions. Slightly changing O Canada is innocuous enough, but no sane woman felt herself excluded by the previous wording, or the original male-only French wording, least of all the-then head of the British world, Victoria, queen and empress. Political correctness is, by its nature, oppressive. We can overthink these things; the world’s most magnificent national anthem, France’s glorious La Marseillaise, attributes “male accents” to Liberty, and demands that France “water our countryside” with “the impure blood” of invaders.

In all these matters, we should lighten up a little. Canadians are a well-regarded nationality. But nowhere and by no one have we been thought a barrel of laughs since Ed Sullivan used to split his sides laughing at Wayne and Shuster in the 67 appearances they made on his television program.

Inadvertently Christine Elliott was not named in this column last week about the Ontario PC leadership. She is certainly qualified to be leader and I much liked and admired her late husband, Jim Flaherty. As she ran unsuccessfully last time, I think of her as more of the past than the future in leadership terms, but she is certainly a strong and plausible candidate. I apologize to Ms. Elliott and wish her well.