Tepid speech, tepid nation

TORONTO - The nation famous for Vimy Ridge and Dieppe, whose soldiers are buried in immaculate little graveyards across Europe, who died in their thousands in two world wars to win ground that other Allied troops could not, was last night praised as a land now best-equipped to offer hugs to a grieving planet.

This was the astonishing sum of the message from Prime Minister Jean Chrétien last night in a speech to a Liberal fundraising dinner in downtown Toronto. It was his first major address since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and came hot on the heels of his visit earlier yesterday to the White House and U.S. President George W. Bush.

The Prime Minister offered hard evidence that in a single generation, Canada has gone from the nation which produced the brash and fierce Canucks who were the affectionate despair of wartime England to one whose people are akin to social workers.

His repeated theme was that by showing up 100,000 strong at Parliament Hill, by opening their homes to the 43,000 airline passengers who were diverted to Canadian airports in the aftermath of the attacks and stranded for as long as four days, Canadians did what we do best, offered "support and comfort.

Several more times, he struck similar chords, once rather wistfully noting that "showing concern and comfort for those who have less, the way I love so much" is a national characteristic, and at least twice singing the virtues of multiculturalism.

At his most passionate, he said, "I turn my back to those who have committed acts of hatred against Muslim-Canadians or other minority groups," denounced these isolated acts as "completely inappropriate", and vowed to defend Canada's open immigration policies.

"Let there be no doubt," he said, "We will not allow terrorists to force us to sacrifice our values or traditions."

He spoke solemnly of a recent visit he made to a mosque, where he "sensed the sadness of Muslims at the fact that Islam has been tarnished by mass murder."

Mr. Chrétien also said that "the only way terrorists can win is if we do not get on quickly with our daily lives and daily business."

He urged business leaders to see beyond the short term and not to make important decisions based on the fiscal results of the last two quarters and the one to come.

"The foundation we have spent years building remains," he said. Curiously, he also pledged that his government's "targetted priorities" will remain unaltered by recent events.

These, he identified as an emphasis on "skills and language,",post-secondary excellence, "a good start in life," health care, Aboriginal Canadians and "clean air and water," which, he said, "are no less a priority because of the attack in New York."

The message, then, was clearish: Canadians should get on with it; continue to dispense solace and express sympathy to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks; uphold the values that "we can be different and equal at the same time" regardless of religion, skin colour or language.

As he said, sincerely if confusingly, "It's grey inside for everybody. "We're all human beings ... we make room for everybody in society."

It was, certainly, grey inside the Metro Convention Centre last night, where a capacity crowd gathered for the Liberals' annual Confederation Dinner, described by chairwoman Annette Verschuren as "a proud fixture of the fall season."

If Mr. Chrétien did not deliver a thunderous speech, neither was he interrupted by more than tepid applause, even from this audience that was chock-a-block with prominent Liberals and members of the business community.

The evening got off to a rousing start when world-class fiddler Natalie MacMaster played O Canada; the anthem never sounded better than minus its banal and oft-rewritten lyrics.

But perhaps the truer tone was set by David Smith, the Toronto lawyer who is better known as a longtime Liberal.

Mr. Smith, in introducing Ms. Verschuren, noted that she was just one of a series of women who have served as the chair of the dinner.

Two previous female chairs, he said proudly, were "born outside Canada" and "two of the other three" were not native English-speakers.

In the circumstances of this dinner, then, Mr. Chrétien's speech was probably not unreasonable.

But the press was there in huge numbers; the speech was carried live on television and radio. In this regard, it was clearly designed to reach not only the ears of the converted, but also those of all Canadians, many of them the sons and daughters of men who actually were called to fight for the country, and not merely urged to embrace their neighbours before dashing off to work.

In a remarkably modern touch, Mr. Chrétien also noted that at a time like this, "It is our prayers, our feelings and our actions that count."

On the prayer and feelings fronts, there is little question Canadians have risen ably to the occasion.

It is in the action department, surely, that they may have been looking for a little concrete direction from their prime minister. It was not, alas, to be: Beyond pledging to keep the Canadian passport the prized creature it is to the rest of the world, Mr. Chrétien was short on specifics, short on ringing rhetoric, and long on squishiness.

Most starkly, perhaps, but for one moment when he spoke of "cold-blooded killers [who] struck a blow on the values of free and civilized people everywhere in the world" and another when he repeated an earlier message that "our American friends" are not alone, he made barely a mention of the estimated 6,300 Americans who perished.

Neither did anyone offer a toast to the United States --though glasses were raised to Canada -- and there was no minute of silence nor note of the Star Spangled Banner.

It would have been done better, in short, in any pokey, smokey branch of the Royal Canadian Legion anywhere in the country.

that "we can be different and equal at the same time"

What drivel.

This is what they get for letting the Frogs, who lost the fricking war in the mid 18th century, take over the country. When will the Canadians get some spine and remind the damn Quebecers that Montcalm LOST!

skills and language

Reader of this forum may not be aware that Canada's beloved Prime Minister is not fluent in either official language.

About the only good spin I can put on this bad situation is that Chrétien didn't pretend to be anything but a squishy liberal.

The real question is whether he reflects the consensus of Canada. If so, we can no longer count on our friends to the north for anything more than some hugs.

And in fact, it WAS done better in many smoky Legions, and many civic venues, with great grace.

That it was not so done at the national level is scandalous; I guess 35+ years of socialism under the Grits and the Nits haven't done much for the country.

Luckily, the majority of Canadians, like Americans, have not yet been processed into new soviet persons by their respective nanny states.

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