Let me tell you a story about my early days working for the House of
Commons in a non-partisan position serving all Members of Parliament
and all Canadians. While we all had our own political opinions, that
ranged from right to left, we all worked professionally and in a non-
partisan manner to serve the House. And we all got along.
On one particular
day we were on what could best be called a self-improvement course. I
suppose there was money left in the professional development budget
and somebody knew somebody, but that is a different discussion. This
course veered into a particular direction that was critical of social
programs and public health care suggesting they enabled the lazy.
Many of us expressed our opposition to these seemingly American
inspired ideas during the seminar. During our first break I was
discussing this with a colleague, who happened to be the most right
wing member of our staff from conservative Alberta, and I, from NDP
stronghold Sudbury, was the most left wing staff member, and we both
agreed the seminar was a waste of time and we both decided to go back
to our desks and do real work for the rest of the seminar.
The point being that
while we had different political outlooks we shared the same Canadian
values that all our colleagues did.
There was a time,
not really that long ago in the political history of our country,
when people on the left respected, and even admired, right wing
politicians like John Diefenbaker, Bill Davis, Flora MacDonald and
Joe Clark and people on the right felt the same way about politicians
like Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles and Ed Broadbent. There was a
time when we held two Quebec referendums and national debates on
Quebec separation in a respectful manner without the level of hatred
that is expressed today. This was a time when Canadians had their
party preferences but did not fear for their country if their
favoured party lost.
I can think of a
particular American multi-millionaire and another American
billionaire that can share some of the blame for what is happening in
Canada today. But the blame also lies with too many of us who have
decided to use our ability to control the information we receive to
only see what we have already chosen to believe and only listen to
those we have chosen to listen to. Unfortunately this leaves too many
people in a position to easily fall prey to disinformation and
manipulation. But that still does not explain the level of real
hatred we see expressed in our political discourse today,
particularly against the current Prime Minister for everything from
policy decisions to the colour of socks he might choose to wear.
How did we get here.
Postscript
It is blatantly obvious that the vast majority of the political hate
(and bigotry) we are seeing today is coming from one end of the
political spectrum. It is time for the centre right decide who their
values better align with, the far right or the centre, and a time for
them to decide who and what they want to be aligned with.
