Radio intrusion instills fear, anxiety

I was driving home from a lovely walk in the east end of the city with my partner, our 7-year-old son and our lovely 12-year-old retriever. One of those glorious Toronto summer days of heat, wind and green as far as the eye could see.

As we traversed College St., with the radio blaring on our 7-yearold’s favourite oldies music station, our programming was suddenly interrupted by a loud foghorn coming from the radio and an eerie air-raid voice announcing a “tornado warning.” My son screamed, “What was that?” We didn’t actually know, ourselves.

In an attempt to calm his concern, my partner explained that maybe this radio station posted weather alerts. Normally we listen to CBC, but sometimes, you just want to sing when you’re in the car. At the end of the second warning, the radio station host exclaimed, on air, “Well that scared the crap out of me. I didn’t know what was going on. Creepy how the government controls the radio waves like that.”

Oh, so it wasn’t just this station? They didn’t even know it was coming? Several days later a friend confirmed that she, too, was startled that her CBC programming was interrupted.

I know it’s wise, especially for those in rural areas, to be alerted to weather dangers. But, I did start to wonder. My partner remembered hearing something about a new “warning system” being implemented by the federal government. Interesting timing. An election approaching and terror is in the air.

So the new warning system accomplishes a few things, as I see it. Despite the government’s alarming disregard for environmental issues, we will now receive fair warning of the climate hazards coming our way. But, what else does it accomplish? Low-level states of impending doom, a “be on your guard” anxiety, even for 7-year-olds.

Slowly, but surely, this government will persuade us that we are under threat, always in danger, and they are there to protect us. If the ballot issue becomes safety and security, as the Conservatives would like it to, then they might instil enough fear to make us vote from our place of panic. Climate-change deniers and silencers of sound science will now use weather instability to instil the kind of anxiety that makes otherwise reasonable people vote out of fear.

For our part, we will try to protect our son from this new form of political messaging and hold on to the dreamy childhood summer days — at least until he’s 8. Kathleen Gallagher, professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education