By Sally Barnes
When I was young, I had a dream that sadly has turned into a nightmare these many decades later.
It wasn’t a perfect world then but there was every reason to believe it could and would be made better.
Truth to tell, despite many advancements, the world and our little part of it has become a much meaner place and I don’t know how we fix mean.
Canada has earned the reputation as a welcoming and tolerant society of “nice people” but is experiencing a dramatic increase in acts of discrimination and hate. What was once seen as someone else’s problem is now evident in our own communities and in our own backyards.
I never thought I would see the day when families are afraid to send their kids to school, places of worship hire security guards and near riots break out between groups with opposing opinions at our institutions of higher learning.
Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Many, at all levels of society, are now afraid to speak up for fear of abuse and retribution.
Social media has become a cesspool for the incubation of lies, hate, terrorism, and savagery sadly reminiscent of the period and conditions leading up to the Holocaust.
Born into a working-class family in a small Ontario town in a land of peace, resources, and beauty, life has been good to my generation. Our grandfathers had fought one far-away world war and we were too young to realize the world was again at war somewhere “overseas.”
My toddler friends and I were living a carefree life when a 15-year-old girl named Anne Frank was dragged out of her family’s hiding place in Amsterdam and thrown into a concentration camp where she would die along with millions of other victims of fanatical racism and hate.
The depression and war became history and as young adults, we reaped the benefits of a post-war economic boom and emerging advancements in just about every field from science to human rights, social justice, equality of opportunity, and world order.
Immigrants were our neighbours, colleagues, and friends and we worked shoulder to shoulder to build this unique and bountiful country. Some groups didn’t like each other but Canada was big and bold and confident that differences could be worked out.
As always, the world faced major challenges but things seemed doable. Our institutions and their leaders were respected. Today, not so much. Contempt and ridicule are more the order of the day.
Our public debt loads are staggering. Politicians who once peddled optimism and hope have become apologists overwhelmed by public demands, how much needs fixing, and how to pay for it.
We live in a polarized world. The gap between rich and poor has become a crater filled with starvation, squalor, and violence on one side and luxury, greed, and power on the other.
Our leaders are addicted to public opinion polls and too many of them are more committed to pandering to their base of supporters to get re-elected rather than supporting compromise and cooperation to solve the problems of the majority.
The system doesn’t reward politicians willing to break rank with the party line and do or say what they believe is right. To do so will only confine them to a seat in the back benches.
Unhappy voters of all ages are easy targets for right-wing populism. Younger members of our society grow resentful of the challenges and uncertainties their generation faces—such as a load of debt to pay for our mistakes and excesses, an imperiled environment, and insecurity over benefits and opportunities their parents took for granted.
Gangs and drugs once associated with big cities now threaten the security of our smaller communities as well.
Many of our fellow citizens think they deserve a bigger piece of the pie and believe their voices are not heard as taxes rise and laws and trends reflect social change they oppose. While diversity is a panacea to many, it’s a curse to others.
We are living in a time of great distrust of government and most of our institutions. Voter turnout is deplorable. Traditional media, on which we depend to scrutinize our institutions, is going broke and increasingly impotent.
Artificial intelligence can produce great benefits but poses dangers as well and is already playing havoc with public trust. False AI messages pollute and jeopardize the legitimacy of our information systems. As if democracy needed another challenge!
But to my mind, our biggest challenge is addressing what many are now calling an epidemic of hate—the vile product of anger and fear that knows no borders and threatens the stability of public institutions and democracy itself.
The trend across Europe is increased support for far-right parties, the policies they espouse, and the methods they would use.
Closer to home, we’ve grown used to violence and unrest in the United States. School shootings, insurrection, protests and demonstrations, and threats against public officials such as politicians and the judiciary, seem almost commonplace.
Hate-related incidents have shown a marked increase in Canada in the last year, fueled by racism, foreign wars, and ancient loathing and revealing that there are those amongst us quite capable of atrocities.
When will Jewish parents be able to send their kids to school without worry that they could become the next victim of some twisted individual or group in search of cult-like vengeance and loyalty to certain ideologies?
When will Muslim families be able to go out for a walk together without fear that someone drenched in hate will take offence at the clothes they wear or the mosque they attend and slaughter them on the spot?
Does this hatred of people different from ourselves start in the playground? The home? The workplace? Our places of worship? The backrooms of the influential and powerful?
All we know for sure is that the re-election of Donald Trump as the leader of the free world and his acolytes in Canada and elsewhere will only further destabilize our democracy by releasing a wave of white supremacist militancy and political unrest. He foments and wallows in chaos and revenge with his vainglory-scorched earth approach to everything.
We can only remind ourselves that anger and fear fuel hatred and hatred is stoked by silent complicity on the part of ordinary folks like ourselves and those we elect to lead us.
When something bad happens in Canada we hear the sanctimonious reassurance from politicians that it’s an anomaly—-“it’s not who we are.”
The real question is what are we becoming?
Sally Barnes has enjoyed a distinguished career as a writer, journalist and author. Her work has been recognized in a number of ways, including receiving a Southam Fellowship in Journalism at Massey College at the University of Toronto. A self-confessed political junkie, she has worked in the back-rooms for several Ontario premiers. In addition to a number of other community contributions, Sally Barnes served a term as president of the Ontario Council on the Status of Women. She is a former business colleague of Doppler’s publisher, Hugh Mackenzie, and lives in Kingston, Ontario. You can find her online at sallybarnesauthor.com.
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Sometimes it is hard to know whether a comment is in reply to an opinion expressed on Doppler, or an example of the commentary’s topic. In Sally Barnes opinion piece, I can find nowhere that she uses our Charter of Rights and Freedoms as ‘toilet paper.’ Roger Stilles: I’m not saying that doesn’t happen in the commentary, but I just don’t see where.
As far as the use of tax dollars to support media, all parties have done it for a long time. The tax money earmarked for that will have been outlined in the budget. By what mental contortion might we presume it to be “stolen”?
I guess there are those who believe that if the ‘house of cards’ falls, the ills that ‘plague’ our Canadian democracy will be flushed away. Instantaneously or over a length of time? What will that time period be? We have a majority PC government in Ontario and I find our Premier is a-tremble now when he enacts some program and then turtles when the people and the law respond.
The last part of your comment, the “serious legal action” bit is quite scary. Smooth transition of power from the out going government to the newly elected should be the democratic way. But that “legal action” causes one to envision the path likely to be taken by Donald Trump, should he achieve the presidency again. I can imagine he will claim immunity for himself, innocent of any and all charges.
Then, will he begin a program to fell or incarcerate all those who have caused him ill? He could use the type of vendetta perfected by the putin. Whereby those who oppose him will perish in some distant prison. Maybe Guantanamo, Cuba. Or Abu Ghraib in Iraq if they still rent out the space. Also, a cell somewhere in Siberia could be arranged. There is one available as of a week ago.
I know it’s only part of the whole, but does “I’ll stop hating you” infer you may hate us, or some of us now?
Give that charter a read.
Oh Sally, what a lovely place you must have lived. Unfortunately, that way of life did not exist everywhere in Canada or even Ontario.
I can be very specific where the opposite to your way of life occurred…racists , severe reverse racists, true hate, bigotry, hypocrisy etc.
If asked I will do so but I will leave it at that.
You are more than welcome to contact me at any time.
Sally Barnes is a real treasure. It’s rare these days to read someone who isn’t afraid to say things as they are. It is becoming so polarized that journalism and even comedy is not free anymore. I sense the World is increasingly dangerous and the stakes always higher. I see Iran, Russia, North Korea …as proxies for China in their mission to destroy the U.S. and allies, and I do watch too much news. Canada and the U.S. has allowed dangerous people into this country. Let’s hope AI and good people keep us safe.
Unfortunately I think Sally nailed it on the head. Saying everything is fine is turning a blind eye and we all individually need to do our own wee bit to not be prejudiced and try to understand those who think different from us and allow them their opinion, even though we don’t agree with it. Live and let live.
Stop using the Canadian charter of rights as toilet paper and I’ll stop hating you, deal? Of course not, you want to ram through your twisted…and I mean twisted, ideology that is only propped up by a Fed gov’t about to get voted out so bad they lose party status along with the media they bought and paid for (with our stolen tax dollars mind you). I cannot wait for this house of cards to fall and I want serious legal action against those in government that knowingly broke the highest law of the land.
Thank you Sally for a well-expressed review.
Change starts individually. I do not wish to be button-holed for my political leanings, yet wish to express them. However, this is not free license, in my view, to not consider the other. Not always easily done, I grant you.
My goodness, several religions own the tenent “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
In other words treat others as you wish to be treated.
“Wokeness”, as I understand it, refers to putting oneself in the shoes of another – how they may be hearing what I say, what I do. I am happy to receive opposing points of view on this. Words matter.
We can tone down and seek to explain divisive, quick, branding, labels.
Also, I believe that post pandemic, the need for reflective therapy and clinical counselling is substantial. Being brave enough to seek that kind of help may benefit families.
Finally, we choose the communities of people with whom we surround ourselves. Choose Healthy people to be in our social and relational orbits.
Trump and Poilievre are poised to win because of the left’s refusal to self-reflect and acknowledge that many aspects of their “woke” ideology are deeply unpopular with the majority. Good, honest, moral people can disagree with the illogical, nonsensical social justice and DEI being pushed through every aspect of life. It’s not that people are old-fashioned or stuck in their ways; it’s that they see through it for what it is but have trouble verbalizing it. It’s not about making life better for Canadians and righting past wrongs; it’s a bullying tactic and power game. It’s an ideology ripe for resentful young people. The baby boomers’ biggest sin was allowing this to grow without being the adult in the room. As soon as a left-wing politician has the courage to voice what the silent middle majority is thinking, Trump and Poilievre will lose much of their support.Instead, they go with the same easy playbook, lecturing Canadians about far-right extremists, white supremacists, and Russian bogeymen.
Maybe people just need to be more tolerant and respectful of others. But that requires putting yourself in other peoples shoes……
Things were not bad in the USA untill Trump came along. Then along came Pierre Poliviere here.
I read this article and nodded along with disappointment… then read the first comment and have to ask Sandra, can you walk me through how you arrived and your thoughts; that the Doppler staff are somehow purposefully sowing division and possibly benefitting from it? It just seems incongruous. Thanks.
Yes i agree Sandra. The government isnt helping either. It is dividing people and even families.
“Where Attention goes Energy flows; Where Intention goes Energy flows!” quote by James Redfield.
You can count on the Huntsville Doppler owner(s) to keep that attention on division. What is their intention?
If the youth are raised in a context of fear and distrust at home and at school, what kind of mindset will they have going forward? Look around. Is it really true or is it being manufactured …all this division? “Every Kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth. Luke 11:17, KJV.