Ottawa Citizen

Canada, and the shaming of pride

- CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD Comment

And so, on the 150th anniversar­y of the birth of a pretty splendid country, did it come to this.

Canada Day was indistingu­ishable from the CBC itself, the state celebratin­g the state broadcaste­r with hours of bloviating self-congratula­tion, cloying interviews with hapless children and adults terrifying­ly well-schooled in correct answering (Reporter: “What do you love about Canada?” Child: “I just love Canada!”, or, Adult: “The diversity!”), and reporters, equally wellschool­ed, each thanking the retiring Peter Mansbridge for, as one put it without a trace of irony, “all your years of service.”

Service? Was the host of The National not paid, perhaps even well-paid? Was he not, er, doing his job? All these years, did I miss him wearing a uniform of some sort and risking his neck?

And there was Mansbridge, finally signing off the July 1 broadcast and saying, also without a shred of selfawaren­ess, “I’m not a fan of long goodbyes.”

The reader will make up her own mind, of course, but for God’s sakes, he announced his retirement last September. Eight months is a short goodbye, it appears.

Let us be grateful for small mercies.

Before the day dawned dreary and rainy, there were confident reports in virtually every major news outlet in the land that 500,000 people would descend on Parliament Hill.

About 25,000 made it onto the lawns, as many again stuck in lines that went nowhere, and if you imagine it was all because of the grisly weather, think again.

By now, with the Vimy Ridge 100th anniversar­y celebratio­n not far in the rearview 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 anti-oppressive 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.

 ??  ??
 ?? DARREN BROWN / POSTMEDIA ?? Revellers wrap themselves in the flag as they walk along Wellington Street in downtown Ottawa during celebratio­ns of a somewhat wet Canada Day in the capital July 1.
DARREN BROWN / POSTMEDIA Revellers wrap themselves in the flag as they walk along Wellington Street in downtown Ottawa during celebratio­ns of a somewhat wet Canada Day in the capital July 1.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada