Canada not immune to riots at public buildings

Of the many books I've read during this COVID ordeal, one by local author Herb Colling struck home as so many of us witnessed a wave of insanity almost overwhelming Washington D.C.'S congressional building. In Turning Points: The Detroit Riot of 1967, A Canadian Perspective (2003), Colling looks closely at riots in Detroit from this, usually safer, side of the border. It's a good book and well worth a revisit as a reminder of how fast situations can get out of hand and become vicious in very short order.

However, Canada has not been immune to riots that threaten legislatures and public buildings. On Sunday, May 20, 1938, (Bloody Sunday), an estimated 700 unemployed men, allegedly inspired by the Communist-affiliated Relief Camp Workers' Union, stormed Vancouver's new federal postal building. They occupied it until June 19. Thereafter, mobs smashed store windows as they retreated under police batons. Ironically, perhaps the nation's bestknown example of a mob of rioters taking over a legislature was in 1932 in the British colony of Newfoundland. A crowd estimated at up to 10,000 unemployed and often starving citizens stormed the Colonial Building on April 5, 1932 (they captured several bottles of whisky).

Corruption within the colonial administration of Prime Minister Richard Squires combined with massive public debt, a collapse of the fisheries and so many people living on the “dole,” led to the uprising.

Squires had been arrested in 1923 on a charge of bribery, so allegations of corruption probably were well-substantiated. In a subsequent 1932 election the United Newfoundland Party wiped Squire's Liberals off the map.

However, in 1934, the British Colonial Office intervened and replaced a democratically elected government with a non-elected Commission of Government which ruled Newfoundland until it joined Canada in 1949.

In May and June of 1919, Canada experienced the 30,000-participant Winnipeg General Strike, although no public buildings were occupied.

Then there was the June 11, 1935, On to Ottawa Trek, which met its disastrous end in riots in Regina where two died and several hundred were injured and thousands of dollars damage was caused within the city.

Then there was the May 1970 Abortion Caravan, the women's chained occupation and shutdown of Canada's House of Commons galleries and water bombing of MPS below.

Casting aside pointless riots provoked by losses of hockey games and other senseless ostensibly spontaneous riots, the common theme of Canadian riots noted has been deprivation of income, jobs or rights.

The Detroit 1967 riot stands among those of a different character. Like many other racially based riots in America, the deprivation is economic but premised upon overt racial discrimination. Unfortunately, racially based riots have been characteristic of America's unusual culture since immediately after the U.S. Civil War. They have continued in some form until 2020. Sadly, they may continue in the future as racial and political divisions in America appear to have become fixed.

Of all America's destructive riots, however, none appears to have been more pointless than that inspired by an irresponsible president against the very institution he had sworn to uphold. That a narcissistic president played upon the fears, frustrations and outright hatreds of some marginal Americans should not be entirely surprising.

Fully two months before America's presidential election a widely reported poll suggested that 40 per cent of Americans — of both parties — held a belief that violence would be justified if the candidate of the other side were to win.

Trump's incitement dipped deeply into that trove of distrust festering within America's political system.

President Roosevelt declared Dec. 6, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” one day after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor; doubtless, Trump will best be remembered for his Jan. 6, 2020, personal day of infamy.

Authoritarian populism has become the style of aspiring autocrats. From Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro to Russia's Vladimir Putin or India's Narenda Modi and Hungary's Viktor Orban. Aspiring demagogues rely upon rhetoric and histrionics rather than reason and openness.

Trump has largely been a failure as president but successful as an inciter. Not much of a legacy is it?