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Gay Wedding Bells. Why No Hubbub? It's Canada.

Gay marriage is the most contentious issue to emerge on the Canadian political scene since Quebec threatened to secede in 1995. Opinion polls show the issue cuts a fissure across class, age, regions, gender and religious lines — a recipe for sharp discord in most societies, rich or poor.

But this is Canada, a country that has never suffered a revolution or civil war, where compromise, consensus and civility are the most cherished political values.

The other day religious groups, calling their campaign "Millions for Marriage," tried to mobilize demonstrations outside the offices of 30 members of Parliament across the nation to sway them against extending marriage rights to gays. The demonstration fizzled, with reporters outnumbering protesters in several places.

That failure did not mean that gay marriage is not deeply divisive; the House of Commons was evenly split in a test vote on the issue last week, rejecting by 137 to 132 a conservative resolution defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

But it showed that explicitly taking a position on an emotional, divisive issue is, well, un-Canadian.

"Debate in Canada is like talking into a pillow," noted Jane Jacobs, an urban affairs expert who left the United States during the Vietnam War and became a Canadian. "There's a great civility, but you often don't know how people are thinking."

Austin Clarke, an acclaimed Barbadian-born immigrant novelist, had a less approving interpretation: "We are oppressed by political correctness," he said. "That makes us more conservative and scared to express our deeply felt convictions than people in countries that we regard as conservative."

Mr. Clarke was referring, of course, to Canada's argumentative neighbor to the south, the country Canadians love to differentiate themselves from. Canada is a big, multicultural country that is united by very few things: a shared love for ice hockey and Tim Hortons donuts, watching the CBC and an enduring collective desire to distinguish Canadian culture from American. If Americans are loud, Canadians will be whispery.

As the American political debate has become noisier and more polarized in recent years, Canada has settled into a comfortable, left-leaning middle ground. It's partly, though not entirely, a reaction. Canadians generally like the fact that the culture wars don't move their nation. The Christian right is small here, and few politicians will openly address hot-button issues like abortion.

Come north over the border, and you may want to turn up the volume on Canada's comparatively tepid radio talk shows. The two leading political magazines of the left and right have gone bankrupt in the last couple of years, because of decreasing reader interest and declining advertising.

"There is a deep-seated bias against anybody who stirs up feelings of anxiety about the status quo or the way the world is," noted Link Byfield, the editor and publisher of The Report, the conservative magazine that went silent in June after 30 years in print.

It is not that there is nothing to debate about here. Homelessness and urban decay are growing, as are waiting lists for health care services. Federal and local governments are liberalizing drug laws, decriminalizing marijuana and allowing safe-injection centers to open in Vancouver. But even with national elections expected to be held early next year, debates on these issues have yet to jell. Recent provincial elections have turned on such mundane concerns as auto insurance rates.

-snip-

(Cliford Krauss in The New York Times, September 24, 2003)
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I just came back from a trip to Canada, and sat in my motel room. I hate CNN so I ended up watching the Canadian news network. (very much like CNN) Hardly a word about Canada, but endless reports about the Yanks. Really funny, since U.S. media reports little or nothing about Canada.

OTOH, here in the Kootenays the sun is shining, the sky is blue, God's in his Heaven, all's right with the world. ;^)

When in Canada, avoid Toronto and Montreal.

And Ottawa.

I started doing business in London, Ontario in the early 90's. When I first began to visit there, I was impressed by how a city of 300,000 could be so clean, safe and alive. By 1999, the center of the city was shoulder to shoulder panhandlers, filthy with garbage and grafitti, and I was told to avoid the center of the city at night because of gangs.

I was amazed at how rapidly a city could fall into decline.

I've spoken to a lot of locals there. Many brain-washed sheep. Most of them cannot have too many social programs. Many have the impression that homosexuals are somehow smarter than the rest of us. Many will not come to the United States because they think that as soon as they step across the border that they're going to be shot by someone who legally owns a gun.

Conservatives are vastly outnumbered, but they are there.

I had business dealings there for over ten years without a price increase (the Canadian dollar dropped faster than inflation increased). Finally, the business that I dealt with could no longer keep pace with regulations regarding the handling of radioactive material, and I had to find a US vendor.

Canada is dying, and only a few of them know it.

I have always had a high regard for Canadians, considering them to be the same as us, but better. If you run into someone who is apparently American, but is polite and speaks grammatically, he's prima facie Canadian.

The events of the past year or so, and cable access to Canadian news has cured me of that impression completely.

I can't square my image of Canadians based on the many that I work with and know, with the image I see on Canadian news, its like another species I have never encountered before, shrill, ignorant, angry, hateful, bigoted. Totally conformist, elitist, dependent. I don't recognize those people, but I know I don't like them.

I remember when I was living overseas I used to catch CNN once in a while (I purposely didn't watch them very often) and the image I got of Americans from CNN was hair-raising, nauseating. When you are in the states, and you see CNN, it doesn't have the same effect, because you have context. You know that what you see is only a small part of the whole. But when you see CNN from overseas, the context is stripped away, and what you see is all you know, and it is horrifying.

Maybe there is something to that in watching Canadian news from the states.

I have been waiting for the opportune time to post an e-mail that I received from a Canadian reporter who actually wrote me back when I told him to keep Martin Sheen.

Here is his response, and I find it particularly funny that this guy is the total opposite of how I think...except for the lawyers part. And he's a reporter..."Personnally" is spelled incorrectly. And "way to" should be "way too" Guess it's the fine educational system of Canada?

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Okay, let me explain it to you one more time.

America is a free because in America a person can criticize the government.

Afganistan was not free because a person would be jailed, tortured or killed for criticizing the government.

You called Sheen a traitor for speaking critically about his government.

What does that make you, American because you support free speech, or Taliban because you don't? Hello!

That's how I see your comment. But, we'll never agree, so let's drop it.

But let me tell you. You'd really hate Canada if you lived here. We are a multicultural country where white is no longer a big majority. Our kids hang out, date and marry kids of all varieties of backgrounds and religions. We are also bilingual. Where I live, courts have decided that if a man can go bare chested in public, so can a woman. Courts have decided they will not hear cases for posession of small amounts of marijuana, so if someone wants to smoke a joint on the front steps of a police station, they will be ignored by the cops. My minister has performed two marriages to same-sex couples in the last month or so and our old, grey-haired white-skinned congregation doesn't care one way or the other. It is illegal to carry a hand gun and so in a city like Toronto, we have one murder for every 100 that happen a comparible-size US city like Chicago or Atlanta. Escort services in my city are licenced by the city and advertise in the yellow pages. Young women walk home from college night classes without fear of mugging. If I need to go to a doctor or have an operation, the cost is covered by the government. All Canadians have the same health care coverage, rich or poor. The cancer survival rate of poor Canadians is the same as the cancer survival rate of rich Americans because they both have instant access to health care. Canadian taxes are higher, but they are lower than taxes plus health insurance in the US. Our health care system is cheaper because there are no lawyers involved in disputes. Everything is covered for everyone so there are no disputes.

It's not a perfect country, so I complain about my government all the time. I do that without feeling like a traitor.

Personnally, I think Martin Sheen is way to conservative to live in Canada. You keep him.

John