Canadians plan giant 'Rally for America'

Canadians plan giant 'Rally for America' Group unhappy with Ottawa's response to U.S. crisis

TORONTO - When real estate developer Richard Diamond boarded his flight in Montreal last week, he had no idea of the forces he would soon unleash.

Mr. Diamond was there attending a family function, and en route back to his Toronto home, settled down to read his newspaper.

What he found -- a story about the booing of the U.S. national anthem the night before at a National Hockey League game between the Canadiens and the New York Islanders -- made him so heartsick that he began making furious phone calls when he landed.

Within a few days, the 42-year-old Montreal native had on his hands a genuinely burgeoning grassroots movement that will next week culminate with a noontime "Rally for America" at Toronto City Hall, designed both to give voice to those unhappy with the federal government's handling of the Iraq crisis and to show simple support for Americans.

As 33-year-old Josh Cooper, one of the first people Mr. Diamond called, said yesterday, "We're not a political group. We're not a religious group. We're not pro-war. We're not anti-war. We only want to show support for our friends in America."

Mr. Diamond appears to have touched a nerve: Within days, he had so many supporters -- Jewish, Christian and Muslim -- he kept having to find larger and larger meeting rooms, and donations were flowing in even before the group, now formally called Friends of America, yesterday set up its bank account or its Web site, www.friendsofamerica.ca.

At an executive meeting yesterday, among those at the table were Mr. Cooper, a golf camp owner who is running for the Canadian Alliance nomination in his Thornhill riding next month; Ray Heard, a senior Liberal and Bay Street executive; lawyer Andrew Muroff, 35, who was born and raised in the border city of Windsor and is licensed to practise in Michigan; a 32-year-old woman named Melony Jamieson who announced herself as proud "10th-generation Canadian" and who was one of the movers and shakers behind Nelson Mandela's visit to Toronto -- and two Americans now living in this country.

As Mr. Diamond told the meeting yesterday, organizers considered calling the group "Canadian Friends of America," but decided that would defeat one of their central purposes -- to frankly acknowledge and celebrate the close web of intimate ties, as evidenced by the connections of those at the table, that bind together the people of both nations.

As Mr. Cooper's stepmother, Helen Cooper, said quietly, "The fact that Americans live among us should make us more sensitive, not less. What about all the vacations we have in one another's countries? What about all the fishing trips they make to our lakes, the golfing trips we make down there? What about all the good times we've shared? The traditions, the loyalty, the shared civility and the ability to listen to one another?

"All that is eroding," Mrs. Cooper said. She is a teacher, rued the degraded quality of the Iraq debate and reminded her fellow organizers, "As violently as everyone feels about the [Liberal] government, let's make this thing civil."

For Cherry Tabb, president and CEO of the Herzig Eye Institute, joining the group was personal.

Her 29-year-old brother, James, is a captain with the 82nd Airborne, assigned to service in Afghanistan, last she knew, though she suspects he may now be in Iraq. "That's what hooked me," she said. "There's a lot of emotion attached to this for me."

One of the group's unofficial slogans -- "the voice of the heretofore silent majority" -- means for Ms. Tabb "being able to give meat to that voice. I want to send a message to the current [Canadian] government that they are misrepresenting many people and to the U.S. government that Canadians are being misrepresented."

Ms. Tabb, who is married to a Canadian and a landed immigrant, said she just recently hung her U.S. flag at her home, and was wondering, only half-seriously, if she would soon find "eggs on my window."

That sort of tentativeness had no place at yesterday's meeting. As speaker after speaker said, "We're proud of our relationship with the United States."

Mr. Cooper said he was most embarrassed by the anti-American tone in the country. It's one thing, he said, for Canada to decide not to send troops to fight alongside Americans. "So send field hospitals then," he snapped. "Send medical aid. Send a message of support to our friends."

The rally, which Mr. Diamond hopes will be kicked off by undetermined celebrity speakers and the playing of the Canadian and American anthems and the raising of both flags, begins at noon on April 4 at Nathan Phillips Square.

The fever appears to be spreading. Georganne Burke, who was born in Syracuse, N.Y., said Niagara Falls is planning its own rally on April 12.

In Alberta, a group is taking out an US$18,000 advertisement to tell Americans what the Prime Minister will not: "We support the U.S.A." The group of about a dozen citizens led by High River, Alta., resident Richard Wambeke is putting a quarter-page announcement in USA Today next week.

I think this is worth viewing even if they can't spell Canadian:

TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES
>
>This, from a Canadian newspaper, no less, is worth sharing.
>
>America: The Good Neighbor.
>
>Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a
>remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian
>television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant
>remarks as
>printed in the Congressional Record:
>
>"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the
>most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.
>Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted
>out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars
>and
>forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying
>even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
>
>When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans
>who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the
>streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
>
>When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that
>hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by
>tornadoes. Nobody helped.
>
>The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into
>discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing
>about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of
>those
>countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar
>build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane
>to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10?
>If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except
>Russia fly American Planes? Why does no other land on earth even
>consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese
>technocracy,
>and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get
>automobiles.
>
>You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon -not
>once, but several times and safely home again.
>
>You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store
>window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not
>pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless
>they
>are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at
>home to spend here.
>
>When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down
>through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania
>Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old
>caboose.
>Both are still broke.
>
>I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other
>people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced
>to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even
>during the San Francisco earthquake.
>
>Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned
>tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing
>with
>their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose
>at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada
>is not one of those."
>
>Stand proud, America!
>
>

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Oh Canada (remember, we are all in this together)

V