I will always defend Canadian interests. This party will always embrace Canadian values. Is the plastic patriotism getting a little thick?
Samuel Johnson, the English public thinker, coughed up a great chestnut back in 1775: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” He was writing, we are told, about false patriotism.
What would he say about the current campaign that is designed to win Canadian hearts and minds?
Would Johnson be impressed with the rolling out of the Maple Leaf at every campaign stop. There was a time when a Liberal leader was satisfied to be seen with one flag behind him at a given campaign whistle stop. But now those who choreograph these “events” have the leader draped in flags. One is never enough. There are times when four of them aren’t enough. And it’s not just the numbers that might evoke to the late Mr. Johnson, the sense of false patriotism. Size matters to Liberals. It seems the flags get larger every year.
Question to the Martin campaign: Are the flags getting larger? Or is your leader getting smaller?
I am told that the guys who sail the PM’s little vessel, the backroom hounds who I think of as pantry boys, read this column. Now that I have gotten your attention, I realize that you think I am unfair. It is true that Stephen Harper also rolls out the flag. But it’s generally a more modest display. And Harper doesn’t seem to keep blowing on that Canadian values horn the way Paul (Satchmo) Martin does.
Virtually everything Harper suggests is, in the rhetoric of the prime minister, contrary to Canadian values. Whether it’s child care, health care, foreign policy, domestic policy or same sex policy, nothing Stephen Harper recommends is Canadian enough for Paul Martin.
Hey Paul. You’re only a first minister among other ministers. You’re only a common man representing other commoners. You are not the God of Canada. Do you honestly think you are the God of Canadian values?
To hear you on the stump under your canopy of flags, one would think that you invented Canadian values. Just because someone challenges what you think, doesn’t make him unpatriotic. It’s not like we are at war and your opponent is supporting the enemy.
Or are we?
In recent days, the pantry boys have told the PM that his little fart attack at the environmental confab in Montreal created some goodwill for him among those Canadians who enjoy bashing Uncle Sam. Martin might as well have said that the Americans are to clean air what Osama Bin Laden is to the bumper sticker ‘I [heart] New York.’ The Martin speech drew some fire from the U.S. ambassador to Canada whose name our prime minister mistakenly or deliberately mispronounces.
Memo to Paul Martin: We are not at war with the United States. But I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us that a false patriot might create a false war.
In the spirit of Samuel Johnson, and my serious attempt to provide a balanced approach in this column, I want to congratulate the prime minister.
Mr. Prime Minister. You deserve at least one bouquet for exceptional brilliance. If your balderdash patriotism does involve us in a war with our neighbour, your personal fleet of ships will be safe from enemy fire.
Putting pragmatism ahead of patriotism, they don’t fly the Maple Leaf.
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