I have, on more than one occasion, expressed my admiration for the work of James Travers. On this Remembrance Day, he wrote of his father who “learned to be a soldier at Kingston’s Royal Military College” and his uncle who “died soon after wearing pilot’s wings for the first time.”
They would, he wrote, not recognize the Canada of 2010. “They wouldn’t understand a country where patriotism is partisan, where men and women in uniform are used as political props or where death and sports are shamelessly conflated on Hockey Night in Canada.”
For we have become a mean spirited country and — according to the prime minister — we have done it as a matter of principle. But, as Lawrence Martin made clear this week, the prime minister’s principles are pure piffle — whether they be government accountability, fiscal frugality, a firm commitment to an end date in Afghanistan, or the free market sale of Canadian assets like potash.
Many of us never accepted those principles. What is remarkable is that Harper is still selling himself as a Conservative. For the truth is that he is no such thing. His convictions are totally malleable and are easily altered by his quest for power.
He seems to have befuddled Canadians. But the rest of the world has his number. Under Harper’s leadership, Travers wrote:
Canada fell from global grace because it is no longer a modest but constant light among nations. Rather than holding steady, it flickers in the gusting winds of great challenges — among them Arab Israeli peace, African poverty and climate change — that are to this generation what world wars were to our parents and grandparents.
Canada, like its prime minister, has become puffed up by its own self importance. It is worth remembering that we used to be a much different — and a much better — country.
Owen Gray grew up in Montreal, where he received a B. A. from Concordia University. After crossing the border and completing a Master’s degree at the University of North Carolina, he returned to Canada, married, raised a family and taught high school for 32 years. Now retired, he lives — with his wife and youngest son — on the northern shores of Lake Ontario. This post is cross posted from his blog.