National Post (National Edition)
Singh takes a leap beyond logic on Quebec
And did everyone have a good Victoria Day weekend? (Except in Quebec of course, where you celebrated Journée nationale des patriotes). Where I am in COVID-besieged Toronto, the weather was wonderful. However, even as I plunge fingers into the laptop alphabet, I hear there is frost in Newfoundland. No, not a polar vortex from the province's bankers, but the traditional kind for my weather-tormented home and haven.
A few neighbours in Toronto had a great time on Victoria's gracious long weekend. They took a trip. A smart move.
There was a family council of the young person units and the parental units, and all agreed going somewhere different for a change would be very enjoyable and provide a needed break. So they packed up all their stuff, put together a food supply and went upstairs for the weekend.
“Downstairs all year was getting sooo boring. We needed somewhere different, somewhere exciting.” This was their common cry.
They equipped themselves with recliners, and spent the whole of Saturday bouncing beach balls and staring down the hall on the second floor. Sunday they played tick-tack-toe on the walls of an unoccupied bedroom. (Child-person One emerged champion.) “If you closed your eyes and banged your head on the stair rail long enough, you could believe you were in Cancun.”
Ingenious people-kind, this family. They plan, if lockdowns continue for another year, to spend the next Victoria Day weekend in their garage.
I understand some folks weren't either as ingenious or as happy about the holiday. The shadow of imperialism still hovers over great Queen Victoria (“Victoria” is enough of a clue). Quite a number of the sleepless woke community are upset about that, and any other of a hundred things about the 19th century.
Query: What is the woke community NOT upset about?
I will leave that conundrum for another day and stronger minds. But take heed. It will not be long before Her Great Imperial Majesty herself is cancelled — posthumously, of course. And while I think of it, that beautiful city of Victoria, B.C., should ready itself for a change of nomenclature, so as to be shorn of its vile associations with the period of Britain's ascendancy.
Not to mention British Columbia itself, that ethnic tag, British, being a hiss and a byword in the minds of the enlightened. Its simple presence on signage or postal addresses is readily seen as triggering and constituting an “unsafe space.”
Not much happened in the public domain over the weekend. Or maybe I wasn't paying attention. No mind. Jagmeet Singh made one of his rare appearances. You know it's very unusual for an NDP leader to have such a low, near-invisible public profile. Just review.
This is the party that had Tommy Douglas, the William Jennings Bryan of “democratic socialism,” at the helm as its first leader. It also had David Lewis, an orator close to Douglas; plus Ed Broadbent, who motored the NDP though some heady triumphs; and of course, latterly, Jack Layton, who could never be smothered, who made press coverage an engine of his own popularity, and because of his brave, last campaign, is something of the party's patron saint.
Singh we rarely hear or see, and there are many who actually think the much more active and denunciatory Charlie Angus is the NDP leader. Whatever, he is on every hot file — witness the WE mess.
However Mr. Singh came out this weekend, from behind Justin
Trudeau's chair, to explain to Canadians that Quebec unilaterally amending the whole of the Canadian Constitution is quite fine with him and his party. And his logic was impeccable. It amounted to declaring it OK because it is Quebec that is proposing the amendment.
Which leads to the corollary that were it any other province — particularly Alberta — it would be an unthinkable assault on the very foundations of Canadian governance, and for that matter, Canadian history.
“We know Canada is a bilingual nation and it's important to have bilingual services across Canada,” he stated.
So Canada is a bilingual nation and it's important to have bilingual services. All fine, and is not Quebec a constituent province of this nation Canada? So should not bilingualism reign there as well?
But there's where Mr. Singh slipped completely off the diving board, leapt off, rather.
His “reasoning,” which I distil here, came to this (all the words are his) that “Quebec has unique challenges … a unique situation … a different situation …” and finally, a situation “that is different, that is unique.”
Well, outside of Newton's equations, the laws of thermodynamics, and Jean Chrétien's “a proof is a proof,” there is no more impregnable a demonstration of reason and clarity than Singh's musings the Canadian Constitution.
Would not the simpler response from Singh have been, “our party has but a feeble hope of gains in Quebec during the next election, and this little concession to that province might improve the NDP's prospects.”
“Plus me and Mr. Trudeau are as one on so many things, and my support for him up to now has been formidable. This gesture of mine on Quebec unilaterally amending the Constitution will only cement that alliance. The Jagmeet and Justin Accord. Surely that makes sense, and will delight all right-thinking Canadians, especially those who live in la Belle Province.”
Now, that response carries some logic, and even a little truth.
WHAT IS THE WOKE COMMUNITY NOT UPSET
ABOUT?