Canada is a glorious country. Canadians are a fascinating people.
Over the course of my lifetime, I’v seen much in the way of both national unity and national disunity. I’ve seen much to be proud of, yet much to despair about.
Sadly, it seemed that the despair had overwhelmed the pride and optimism as I witnessed an ever-hostile population, at least a seemingly oppositional population, gain the upper hand in our national discourse.
Canada is broken. Canada is this, that, and the other thing, all of it bad. To hell in a hand basket was the where we were heading and how we were going to get there.
Sentiment advanced by one of our two major political parties, one that polls show would win an overwhelming majority government should a federal election happen today, despite not having a single policy on anything that I can identify and reasonably articulate. Ironically, I feel the only thing that can save us from this party is their leader, who is easily in my Top 10, maybe even Top 5, of the most unlikeable human beings that walk among us. If I exclude Americans, he jumps to Top 2 status immediately, duking it out with the deplorable Jordan Peterson and just ahead of the reprehensible Kevin O’Leary. But I digress.
My point is that it’s Canadians such as these that have trashed their very own country to satisfy their own personal agenda, whether that be power, fame, wealth, and maybe all three. I can attest that all three of them have attained two out of three of those things, but so far at least, political power has eluded them. Rest assured, though, that they’d have absolutely no problem sacrificing or even targeting your best interests if they thought it would advance their goals. So there’s that.
Two recent polls have been making the rounds. In a Pallas poll, the Conservatives lead the way as usual, but this time the Liberals are only six points back, where that lead was an over twenty point gap just over a month ago. And that’s with Trudeau as leader. When asked the same question with Mark Carney as Liberal leader, the result showed the Conservatives and Liberals tied for top spot. A Leger poll has the Liberals absolutely surging in Quebec and now neck and neck with the Bloc Quebecois. As in the Pallas poll, people were asked to state their intentions if Carney led the Liberals. And as in the Pallas poll, Quebeckers responded by putting the Liberals squarely in the lead.
The turnaround is dramatic. Is it a guarantee of anything? No, of course not. As I’ve probably said before, a week is a long time in politics, buyt there’s no denying that the Trump phenomenon has kicked some spokes out of Pierre Poilievre’s wheels, and until he can come up with a catchy slogan that rhymes with words like tariff or Trump, he may be in for an uncomfortable ride.
Dump the Trump? Stump the Trump? Who knows? And by the way, almost nothing rhymes with tariff, so the boys and girls working the rhyming board over at Conservative Party HQ are going to have a tough weekend.
But enough about them.
Because something’s changed, or it sure feels like it has. Maybe it’s not something that will have any impact whatsoever on how the next federal election turns out, but whatever it is, it represents a decided move away from self-destructive anti-Canadianism and towards something that has a decided look of amity associated with it.
I suppose nothing unifies more than an external threat, a danger posed against our commonality by an outside source, a bad-actor bent on causing harm to our flag and country, and all of us right along with them.
Not long ago, considering Donald Trump as the unifier of anything would not have occurred to me. The possibility that he might be the antidote to historic high levels of Canadian disunity is not something that comes easily to me, but to be honest, I’m willing to consider anything, and for that matter, anyone if it were to mean that Canada, and Canadians, could heal.
Those 25% tariffs have done a world of good. The talk of making Canada a 51st state has galvanized Canadian public opinion into waving the Canadian flag not as a protest symbol but rather as an expression of national pride. To add to that, I don’t think we’re all that crazy about the Americans jack-booting Greenland, Panama, or Gaza either.
As a country, and as a people, we just appear to be really really mad at the Americans right now, especially the American-In-Chief, Donald Trump. We’re not really happy with the ever-strange, spectrum-addled Elon Musk either, but when you’ve got a hate on, it’s best to focus on one subject at a time, so for now that’ll be Filet O’ Fish that walks like a man.
Go anywhere and simply keep your ears open.
At one point, not long ago, a profound dislike for departing prime minister Justin Trudeau would be a topic that would pop up un-prompted wherever you happened to be, whether that’s getting a haircut, getting your winter tires put on, or in the lobby at Ma-Te-Way between games. But now, that distinction belongs to Trump almost exclusively. There was once a time when you might here opinions favourable to the current American president, maybe even at a significant clip, with maybe a 40%-50% split in favour of him. But now you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone with anything good to say about him in the produce section of your local grocer.
People are mad. They’re really mad. And it seems to be everywhere.
If ever you wish to see for yourself, walk up to someone and simply say the name “Donald Trump.” Then step back and let it all come to you organically without even offering an opinion. Whether you were looking for it or not, an earful is likely what you’re going to get.
Last Saturday night my son was at Senators hockey game. He sent me a video clip of fans booing the U.S. national anthem. That’s not something I’d ever approve of, until I approved of it last Saturday night. The following day, a Toronto Raptors home crowd did the same, followed quickly by fans at a Vancouver Canucks home game.
It makes me wonder what it’s going to be like when Canada plays the United States in the Four Nations tourney that’s replacing the NHL all-star game this year. I think that contest will take place in Montreal, a place where crowds aren’t generally shy about expressing their feelings.
I don’t know how they’re going to do the anthems. Sometimes, in international hockey, the anthem of the winning team is played after the game, so that’s not where I’d like to hear the Star Spangled Banner booed lustily, as that would mean an American win, and that’s something I don’t want to see at all.
To have a Canadian crowd boo the U.S. anthem in Montreal wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all. To have a French-Canadian crowd do it smacks as even better. But as a Canadian hockey fan, perhaps not hearing the U.S. anthem at all would be the best of all possible scenarios.
COVER PHOTO: Photo by sebastiaan stam on Unsplash
NEWSMAGRENFREW 