Is it fair to boo a U.S.-born Grade 9 girl for carrying an American flag across a stage during a school multiculturalism parade?
Is it fair to insult and use obscene gestures against 11-year-old peewee hockey players from the Boston area because you don't like the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq?
Is there no limit to some Canadians' anti-American anger?
Those questions are being asked again on the one-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq after a teenager was in tears after being loudly booed as she carried the American flag in a parade of 39 flags representing every nationality in the school.
No other flag was jeered at Wager High School, described as the most ethnically diverse in the English Montreal School Board. The 300-student school is in the heavily Jewish neighbourhood of Cote St. Luc.
Last March, U.S. peewee hockey players, aged 11 and 12, were jeered during a four-day trip to Montreal. People booed their national anthem, made rude gestures toward them, and pounded on the side of their bus.
Canadians upset with the U.S. role in Iraq should target their protests at the Bush administration.
But targeting young children, or any individual American, is just plain wrong and insulting — and shows a level of disrespect that should be appalling to all Canadians.