February 04, 2005
Truth is, I find it very awkward to post about Canada these days. There's a code of honour that dictates you don't kick somebody when they're down (don't remind me that some Canadians don't follow that code - I well know that!) and despite the smugness displayed by much of the media, a lot of people in Toronto and Canada are down. Just here in Toronto, today's paper tells about problems in the education system (even at the elementary level,) the transit systems and despite millions of dollars spent to fight homelessness people are still sleeping in parks and on the streets even though it's mid-winter. Nationally, the sorry tale of Canada's sub purchase reveals yet another stupid decision and the Adscam inquiry is still bogged down in conflicting testimony while questions remain unanswerable due to bookeeping that rivals that of the U.N. for careful incompetency.
The failure of the electorate to administer a sharp rebuke to the Liberal Party for corruption and mendacity is depressing. Some back home say the American press was too voracious in pursuing the Watergate story and the leads arising from the hearings, but up here I'm seeing the other side of the picture: too many in the media seem almost disinterested in learning the truth and complacently let the government investigate its own wrongdoing with the occasional plaintive bleat that the commission has uncovered little of substance.
Two main legs of Canadian identity are health care and hockey, and both are way past life-support systems.
I can't count how many times Canadians used to conclude a (usually friendly) comment about the USA with a grinning "but don't get sick there!" I never took offense (Americans are much more polite and forbearing than we're given credit for) but consider how many people died of SARS in the US and how many died here in the city of Toronto. Might it have something to do with the fact that medical personnel down there wore the proper face masks whereas they were deemed to be too uncomfortable up here? Or maybe the quaint notion of "quarantine" actually meant something in the US even when it inconvenienced people. What happened to the meme if it saves only one life, hmm? They only trot that out when it comes to coke, Twinkies and McDonald's but keep it tucked away when people are actually dying.
Today the despised American-style health system is the only resort for Canadians suffering and even dying on the waiting lists the treasured health care system offers in place of actual medical care, and some treatments are even being offered to Canadians at a discount by some enterprising American doctors.
As for hockey, Attention NHL owners, players, and assorted others: it's February, you morons, and yet you're pretending there might yet be a chance for a hockey season? This season is dead, defunct. It has passed on. Canada survived without NHL hockey and the CBC showed some pretty decent double-billed movies on Saturday nights. End of story.
So what's left when health care and hockey are out for the count? The U.N., peacekeeping forces, and moral superiority.
Exposure of the debasement of the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program remains sparse and although a story today speculates about possible Canadian connections to Hussein's oil, the conflict of interest of former PM Chretien due to his familial ties to Power Corp. and thus TotalFinaElf remains an unpublicized and unexplored factor in Canada's membership in the the Axis of Weasels.
Remember when the argument would be made that Canadians had consciously reduced their military in order to nationalize a world-class health system?
Then he who was then Finance Minister and is now the Prime Minister, Paul Martin, decided to reduce the national debt by withholding money from the provinces which should have gone into the health care system. Now there's neither accessible health care nor military strength up here, but cruel history provided events in Liberia, Haiti (including the devastation of last summer's hurricanes) Sudan and a tsunamai to accentuate the harsh reality that Canada can no longer respond to international crises nor provide peacekeeping to protect innocent people from genocide. crimes against humanity.
The only leg standing (as it were) is moral superiority. Above all, Canadians are compassionate. If you don't believe me, just ask them. They will expound at length as to how much more compassionate and caring and enlightened they are than Americans. (They've even got some Americans believing it.) Why, they're close to achieving a plane of compassionate existence that's almost European! Unfortunately, they spend so much time and money proclaiming it that they never get around to actually doing much that is compassionate, caring or enlightened but a cynicism has set in that allows that it's the appearance that matters, not the deeds.
Coming back full circle, as was pointed out in the opening link, if Canada's rapid response to disaster is delayed 10 days while waiting for a foreign power to transport that team, what will happen in the event of a disaster within Canada? How will aid reach Canadians in their own country?
You know the answer to that. You know you do. Despite the recent urging of outgoing U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci, don't count on Canada spending the necessary money to enable herself to become self-sufficient in the areas of self-defense at home or doing her fair part abroad.
But beware: if the day should come that they need our help, they'll hate us for it not because of what it says about us but because of what it says about them. Gratitude barely disguises resentment.
I do understand in part what lies under the surface in Canada. Canada's moral pose adopted a strikingly higher plane when the US was bitterly divided over Vietnam and demoralized over the Watergate hearings. After all, Canada was just coming out of the FLQ Crisis and needed a boost. The country was in danger of losing federal coherency so everyone rallied around a "we're better than the US" plank. And it worked.
In fact it worked so well, they were reluctant to tone it down. The media and politicos have trumpeted Canada's superiority over their American neighbours increasingly louder since the mid-70's, but as so often happens, reality is slowing catching up and there is growing recognition that Canada has become too complacent and the legs of Canadian identity and culture have become eroded.
But that's not a crime, it's just life. No nation can live up completely to its ideals, but one of life's challenges is to square our shoulders and try again. The important part is to adhere to the truths of those ideals, nourish them, and keep trying.
The deaths of U.S. soldiers and personnel as well as Iraqis unfortunate enough to be near IEDs when they went off provided a kind of comfort zone for those Canadians who have had some niggling feelings that just maybe Canada should have been on board for Operation Iraqi Freedom if only to offer moral support.
But now something has changed, or rather, everything has changed. There were real elections in Iraq in which the people of Iraq defied both the terrorists and the expectations of those with compassionate, caring, and enlightened views and, in so doing, also defied France, Russia, Belguim and Canada.
And we know that the price our sons and daughters are paying can be laid on account against the weasels because we kept our troops in the desert for several months while they pretended to debate in good faith on the U.N.S.C. all the while buying time for Saddam to set up his underground thugs.
Although far too few, however, there are indeed Canadians who have been awe-inspiring rock-freaking-solid in supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom from the onset, and they have earned the right to feel proud of the remarkable events of Sunday because they were part of it. (If you don't know who they are, look at the blogroll and I admit that it's incomplete.) Their numbers include media such as the Toronto Sun and Western Standard. (It hasn't been uncritical support, of course, but that's what friends are for.)
As for some others up here ... If they're examining their souls and wondering how they could have so misjudged the situation in Iraq then I'd advise them not to waste too much time on guilt or shame but pledge only to open their minds to the possibilility that if a stopped clock can be right twice a day, then Americans too might occasionally be right.
Those, however, who are rapidly devising a posture that denies that the success of the elections in Iraq might require a re-evaluation of their world view may as well carry on as though nothing has changed. They no longer matter.
As I wrote earlier, gratitude equals resentment, and therein lies an additional reason as to why the elections in Iraq were so important. The Iraqis need no longer feel lessened by Operation Iraqi Freedom because when it came time for them to take a stand, they alone made the decisions and took the steps toward freedom, braving the threats of those who had proven their willingness to murder them and, in that defiance, asserting the dignity of the Iraqi people beyond all measure and for all time.
One result of that renewed confidence was indicated when the citizens of the Iraqi village of al-Mudhariya fought off an insurgent attack, killing 5 and wounding 8, and then burnt the insurgents' car! (link via Best of the Web Today)
It's become much more simple now. The mission in Iraq is far from over but we have a new member in the Coalition of the Willing: the Iraqis, and this coalition has something the Axis of Weasels could never have - a mandate from the Iraqi people.
The counter-offensive began yesterday, and there are once again families in the US and Iraq who are bereaved. Press advisories come into my inbox advising me of the names and heartbreakingly young ages of the Americans who have lost their lives. It's not fair. It's wrong. It hurts. But we won't be deterred.
You see, we Americans share a national dream that has returned to the fore with renewed vigor and energy. I look forward to that day when all the peoples of the world can join hands and bear witness to the stirring power of Dr. King's words as he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and echo his words saying, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, [insert deity or deities] we are free at last!"
Correction: Feb. 7 - Dr. King's speech was delivered in the steps of the Lincoln Memorial not the Washington Monument as I initially wrote.
Posted by: Debbye at
08:22 AM
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Thanks for the link too, by the way. 62 queries taking 0.0512 seconds, 142 records returned.
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