Listen Up! Hate and Anger can be crippling

There has been a lot of sniping on both social and mainstream media this week about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family enjoying a vacation in Jamaica in a luxurious villa owned by a friend. Personally, I couldn’t care less.

I do care that the Prime Minister was not forthright about it and did his best to cover it up, but there is nothing new there either.  He is good at that.

On the face of it though, it’s not a big deal. Whether you like Justin Trudeau or not, being Prime Minister is a heavy load.  If he can get away for a couple of weeks with his family, to a place provided by a friend, (and certainly he is not the first Prime Minister to do that), so what? 

The only caveat to that would be if the friend was also benefiting from government pork barreling and if there was any evidence of that, the media would have been all over it. 

To me, there is not much to be accomplished by sweating this kind of small stuff when more serious attention should be given to what is a much bigger deal, and that is the alarming increase of anger, hate, frustration, and to some extent, hopelessness in Canada.  

I heard last week a story about a family who moved to Canada about a decade ago. They did so because of Canada’s reputation as one of the best places in the world to live, where people were generally friendly, helpful, and had a positive outlook. That proved to be true for a number of years, but they don’t see it that way anymore. They see Canada now as fractured, and many Canadians less happy and more concerned about individual freedom than the common good or the rights of others.

Of course, some would say to this family and to others like them, that if they are not happy here, they are welcome to leave. But that is the easy way, and it glosses over the reality that while Canada is still a great country, there are serious issues here today that need to be addressed. 

 That process must start at the top of the political chain. When we see our elected representatives, leaders both nationally and provincially, ducking the hard issues because they don’t want to offend potential voters, when we see them behaving in ways that promote divisiveness, anger, and frustration and consequently accomplishing little for their constituents, it is little wonder that many Canadians lose faith in those that lead them and act out accordingly.

And it does start at the top. Canada’s Parliament cannot get its act together and hardly portrays a good example to the rest of the country. 

An editorial just before Christmas in the Toronto Star gets to the nub of that when it says, in part, “Suggestions that Parliament has merely retreated deeper and deeper into the Ottawa bubble and become increasingly irrelevant to Canadians, is hardly a new observation but there can be no denying  that the toxicity, faux outrage, partisan posturing and schoolyard sniping in the just completed session has brought this cherished institution into further ill repute.”

Former Prime Minister Joe Clarke weighed into this issue as well, although a little more diplomatically, when he said recently, “I think that the current discouraging styles of our governments and our political parties, will only widen regional gaps in this still complicated country because they enlarge the gulfs between politicians and the people themselves.” 

It is our government’s job to unite Canadians and not to divide them. While Opposition parties have less power to accomplish this, it is their obligation as well.  When this does not occur, when dysfunction gets in the way of finding workable solutions to tough problems, when the rule of law takes a second seat to appeasement, that is when we have a problem.

And that problem has seldom, if not ever, been as evident as it is these days with the wave of antisemitism that has arisen in Canada, triggered by the Israeli/Hamas war. Pro-Palestinian rallies and demonstrations, the vast majority of which have been clearly antisemitic in nature, have blanketed the country. Synagogues and Jewish cemeteries have been vandalized, Jewish businesses blockaded and boycotted, access to public buildings blocked, and traffic disrupted. 

Many Jewish Canadians living here fear for their safety, and rightly so. And what, over many weeks of these primarily illegal activities, have our political leaders and the agencies they control done about this?  Beyond platitudes, almost diddley squat! 

 Many Jewish Canadians living here now fear for their safety, and rightly so. Is this what Canada has come to?

Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, what has been happening over the past few days in North Toronto just makes my head shake. Pro-Palestinian protesters have occupied and blocked a busy overpass to Highway 401 on Avenue Road. It was intentional in terms of its antisemitism. Many Jewish families live in that area. I know it because I was raised there, and we had a number of wonderful Jewish neighbours. 

And how has law enforcement handled this illegal occupation? Well, instead of removing the protesters, they closed the overpass to vehicles that would normally use it “due to public safety concerns.” They have allowed the illegal protest and this serious disruption to continue. And unbelievably, they have been supplying the protesters with coffee and doughnuts and have even been in negotiations to provide them with toilet facilities. A very strange way to enforce the rule of law in my view.

Marco Mendicino is the Member of Parliament for this part of Toronto, and this is how he has responded to the occupation of the Avenue Road bypass: “Good intentions aside, police serving coffee to protesters will just embolden more deliberate obstruction of traffic, undermine public safety and add to local frustrations. Laws exist to prevent this. They should be enforced.” Amen to that. 

There is too much hate and anger in Canada right now. It is not only disturbing, it is also dangerous. Politicians are too afraid of stepping on some people’s toes in order to do something about it. Too many of them prefer to be all things for all people but sometimes that just can’t happen.

 Anger and hate can be crippling. If our political leaders don’t step up now to enforce the rule of law and restore confidence and goodwill in the citizenry, the situation here will only get worse.

And that would be a real shame for Canada.

Hugh Mackenzie

Publisher

Hugh Mackenzie has held elected office as a trustee on the Muskoka Board of Education, a Huntsville councillor, a District councillor, and mayor of Huntsville. He has also served as chairman of the District of Muskoka and as chief of staff to former premier of Ontario, Frank Miller.

Hugh has also served on a number of provincial, federal and local boards, including chair of the Ontario Health Disciplines Board, vice-chair of the Ontario Family Health Network, vice-chair of the Ontario Election Finance Commission, and board member of Roy Thomson Hall, the National Theatre School of Canada, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Locally, he has served as president of the Huntsville Rotary Club, chair of Huntsville District Memorial Hospital, chair of the Huntsville Hospital Foundation, president of Huntsville Festival of the Arts, and board member of Community Living Huntsville.

In business, Hugh Mackenzie has a background in radio and newspaper publishing. He was also a founding partner and CEO of Enterprise Canada, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm established in 1986.

Currently, Hugh is president of C3 Digital Media Inc., the parent company of Doppler Online, and he enjoys writing commentary for Huntsville Doppler.

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