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© the other press ¢ Opinions

January 14, 2004

The Liberal Monopoly on “Canadian” Values

1 OP Columnist

The January 6 issue of The Vancouver Sun features a poignant editorial by perky columnist Barbara Yaffe about how our new Prime Minister's eagerness to get along with American President Bush could spell electoral disaster for the Liberals in the coming election. Writing of what she describes as a “Bush backlash” factor, she describes how Bush has “had a considerable impact on Canadians,” by “polarizing them as few of their own national leaders have.” According to Yaffe, Bush’s “bully talk and cowboy tactics” offend Canadians proud of their “peace loving and moderate ways.” Her logical conclusion to all of this is that if Prime Minister Martin makes any move to estab- lish a friendly relationship with this crazy cowboy President, it will only serve to but- tress the electoral popularity of the anti- Bush NDP.

I cite this article because it displays an annoyingly cliched bit of “conventional wisdom” that is becoming increasingly popular among the talking heads of the Canadian media. All over the country self- proclaimed political experts are lowering their voices and clucking their tongues at the very notion that Paul Martin could be such a fool as to attempt to reconcile with an American president who is supposedly so out of touch with Canadian values. In reality, this latest round of Bush-bashing is simply yet another attempt by Canadian liberals to justify our own country’s increasing incompetence by distracting voters with the always reli- able rallying cry of anti-American rhetoric. In this specif- ic case, however, the rhetoric is taking a much more spe- cific focus, targeting President Bush and personifying him as some sort of villain whose conservative views are the very antithesis of all that is supposedly good and pure

in Canada.

Canadians are socially moderate, we are told. Therefore, if you share Bush's views on things like abor- tion or gay marriage, you are a bad Canadian. All Canadians love these ideas, didn’t you get the memo? Ditto for things like legalizing marijuana and socializing healthcare. Someone should tell that Ralph Klein in Alberta that he is not being a proper Canadian.

Canadians are socially moderate, we are told. Therefore, if you share Bush’s views on things like

abortion or gay marriage, you are

a bad Canadian

The other favourite topic of left wing pundits is American foreign policy “blunders.” These are always brought up, as if they have somehow affected Canada in any discernable way. The blunder du Jour is, of course, the Iraq war, which our former PM is now being praised nonstop by the liberal media scene for keeping Canada out of. The war was actually quite popular in Canada, and Prime Minister Chrétien was in fact prepared to send troops as late as one month before the war was waged, but changed his mind at the last minute after receiving a UN mandate for an increased Canadian presence in Afghanistan. But, oh well, at least we stayed out of it, and avoided being culpable in all those horrible American

crimes, such as capturing one of the century’s worst dic- tators, killing his two psychotic sons, and liberating 25 million people. Yes, thank God we avoided that hornet’s nest. The fact that Canada’s second largest political party, representing nearly half the country, supported the war is conveniently forgotten by such critics. “True” Canadians (ie. Canadians who vote for left wing parties) opposed the war, thus a good Canadian leader should go out of his away to avoid being associated with the scan- dalous liberation of Iraq.

Though I think the current popularity of the NDP is being ridiculously exaggerated by liberal pundits, I would not be personally surprised if they were fairly successful in the next election. The idea that it is somehow “un-Canadian” to have conservative principles has been rather suc- cessfully instilled into the minds of many, thanks to the Liberal Party, and their various supporters in the media, such as the CBC. Even Ms. Yaffe, in the column cited above, confuses being a left winger with being “nationalistic,” and in doing so helps perpetuate the myth that all good Canadians are obedient status-quo loving liber- als. What left wing commentators fail to men- tion is the equally plausible scenario that our new Prime Minister’s desire to mend fences with the US will actual- ly have the opposite affect than they have been predict- ing. Martin’s efforts could instead prove to the left that it is possible to share Bush-style values and not be any less of a Canadian. If such a secret is ever revealed, it could spell the death of such cherished liberal Canadian lega- cies, such as ineffective socialized medicine, crippling excessive taxation, an overpaid, massive beuacracy, end- less Quebec handouts, an increasingly emasculated mili- tary, and an unprincipled, globally irrelevant foreign pol- icy. And what liberal would want that?

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Cartoon by J.J. McCullough