Excuse Me, Your Dog Whistle Is Broken

Bear with me, Americans. This one takes some ‘splaining.

Yesterday, the latest shot in Canada’s culture wars, a relatively recent, and so far, less virulent cousin of the American variety, was fired.

The target was 85-year old former Boston Bruins coach and 40-year TV fixture Don Cherry. The boisterous, outspoken, irascible, “Old-Stock-Canadian,” as Stephen Harper would call him, went down over on-air comments made on the eve of Remembrance Day.

November 11 is serious business in Canada. After more or less ignoring the fact for two decades, Canadians in 2000 suddenly woke up to the fact that they’d lost 117,000 of their number in the wars of the Twentieth Century.

For a little country, that’s a lot. But the pacifism and anti-military sentiment of the late 60s and 1970s, coupled with Liberal governments run Trudeau and Chretien, one a draft-dodger, the other a man who called the armed forces "The Red Cross With Guns," conspired to bury that fact in the public mind for a long time.

In place of the old myth of the righteous, Christian, British and French kingdom, arose the new myth of Canada: The neutral, peacekeeping, multicultural Canada. The “Old-Stock-Canadians” were not asked for an opinion. Neither was anyone else.

Canada changed, becoming less white, less bilingual, more multi-coloured and multi-tongued. Not a bad thing, per se. Just not ever really explained to the people who woke up one day to find their “Canadian Values” were not the ones they’d been raised with. Gone was the Lord’s Prayer and God Save the Queen. Again, who was asked?

In 2000, though, something changed. A bureaucratic decision was made to repatriate the remains of an unknown Canadian from the battlefield of Vimy Ridge, bringing home, for the first time, a Canadian Unknown Soldier.

Though the man had been dead for 73 years, you would have thought he was everyone’s first child, gunned down just yesterday. The streets around the National War Memorial were thronged with mourners, as the Unknown Soldier was brought home, finally. I admit it: I cried. The most touching part, as I recall, was when, at the moment the formal ceremony ended, thousands of Canadians took off their poppies, and placed them on the Tomb of the Unknown.

Fast forward 19 years. The poppy that united us that day, divided us this weekend. Don Cherry is the national equivalent of that cranky uncle who goes off at the dinner table, while people roll their eyes. You love him, because he has done so much for the game of hockey, and for the veterans whom he gushes over, but you can’t agree with it all.

So, when he went on a rant about “You people” who come to Canada for our “milk and honey” but who won’t wear poppies, I did what many other people have come to do when Uncle Grapes goes off. Roll my eyes, and say, “Oh, Don.”

But we live in divisive times. In the aftermath of a bitter election, when two provinces are openly toying with notions of sovereignty, rolling your eyes wouldn’t cut it anymore.

The Outrage Machine, curiously quiescent when our young fool prince of a Prime Minster was shown to have japed about in blackface (damped down to “brownface” for His Majesty’s Pleasure), was now activated in full dog-whistle mode. Kill the Beast.

Of course, Uncle Grapes brought it on himself. He’s been warned before about his broad-brush painting of newcomers and Francophones. He insulted many immigrants and sons and daughters of immigrants who have served this country, and who wear the poppy with an earned pride. It was an ignorant thing to say.

Of course, Don was never asked if he approved of the changes to Canadian society, like, I suppose, the Huron and the Cree were not, either. Plus, he’s not entirely off the mark. I am married to an immigrant, who comes from a country whose recent experience of war is very limited. There is no equivalent of the poppy in Brazil, for there is no national graveyard equivalent to Flanders’ Fields. So, I’ve had to explain the importance of the poppy, and take the lead in educating my children as to what November 11 means to a Canadian.

Perhaps some immigrants, without an Old-Stock-Canadian in their family, don’t get the message. I suspect that’s sometimes true. But I also know a great many native-born Canadians who are ignorant on the subject, too. Who view November 11 as just another holiday, and who greet others with “Happy Remembrance Day!” Grrr.

Don was wrong. But he’s also 85. Just as so many people were willing to excuse Trudeau’s stupidity because he was 29 (weird, but okay), allow me to state what should be obvious: Old people don’t like change. Especially change they weren’t asked about. They get cranky.

SportsNet, Uncle Grapes’ employer, did the predictable 21st century cave, and fired him yesterday. They have every right to, of course, as a private company wishing to control their image. But the timing was terrible.

Instantly, the “I stand with Don” memes started popping up. All over the place. A large part of Canada, the part that won the popular vote but still saw Prime Minster Jolson re-elected anyway, cried, “No fair.”

I won’t re-post the memes. Don was a tiny part right, but mostly wrong, the way we usually are when we generalize. He owes my immigrant, and sons of immigrant veteran friends, a big apology. But if we on the right, because that’s where almost all of Don’s fans are, can accept this, so too must the left accept the wrongness of generalizing. All whites are not privileged. All Christians are not homophobes. All Europeans are not racist. All cops are not bigots.

But I’m not holding my breath on that count. The power of silencing alternative points of view, the power that cancel culture has bequeathed to the left, is too powerful to be surrendered without a fight. The left has revealed their hypocrisy with their airy acceptance of Trudeau’s ignorance, and Clinton’s lechery, as they blast away at anyone on the right who shows similar tendencies.

So, I won’t be jumping on the outrage wagon, folks. Count me out. Don is an old man who deserved an eye-roll and a public scolding, not a demon personified. If his critics won’t hold their leaders to the same harsh standards they hold him to, then there is no real justice in what has just happened.

Add this incident to the stack of kindling that will burn down the Phony Canadian Consensus. Manufactured by the Laurentian elites, and now subject to a referendum of chaos.

This could have been handled better. And it wasn’t. Because the Dog Whistle Brigade just can’t help themselves. Sorry, guys. I can’t hear you anymore. You’ve blown those whistles so often, I’m deaf at that frequency now.