move along… nothing to see here
Scribbled down on September 18th, 2008 by she
Posted in Random Burbling
I’m still suffering from my klutz induced injuries but I caught something in the news today that’s royally pissed me off. My dad used to say that “we’re all equal in Canada; some of us are more equal than others“. It’s a sad truism that can be proven by looking no further than our national media and it’s response to ongoing issues in the latest Federal Election campaign.
The TV, radio and online news is buzzing about the Conservative aid’s comment that could be construed as racist.
The exchange was caught on video and broadcast as the lead item Wednesday by the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.
“If you behave and you’re sober and there’s no problems and if you don’t do a sit down and whatever, I don’t care,” said Mr. Cannon’s assistant Darlene Lannigan to Mr. Matchewan. She then added: “One of them showed up the other day and was drinking.”
“Are you calling me an alcoholic?” replied Mr. Matchewan.
“I’m not calling you an alcoholic. No. It was just to say that you’re in a federal office. If you’re coming in to negotiate, I expect, there’s [decorum] that has to be respected,” said Ms. Lannigan. [Source: Globe and Mail]
Ms. Lannigan has since apologised. For those of you who are unaware of her position, Ms. Lannigan is an assistant to Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon.
So what am I so hot under the collar about? It’s taken over a week for any real notice to be paid to the racist comments made by two Liberal Party candidates during their campaigns. Sure, a few newspapers have carried the story. Most notably the National Post [here and here] and Le Soliel [here]. It’s all over the blogosphere. What I want to know is why hasn’t it been all over the TV and radio news for the past week?
Meanwhile the Liberals have also had issues this campaign related to aboriginals.
Two Liberal candidates in Quebec resigned last week in relation to controversial remarks.
Simon Bédard is no longer the Liberal candidate in the riding of Quebec for comments the former radio-host made in French to the Le Soleil newspaper about his views during the 1990 Oka standoff.
“Everyone was scandalized because I said: ‘Send in the Army and let’s clean this up once and for all!’ But maybe we should have done that because 17 years later, it’s still the same thing. If anything, it’s worse,” said Mr. Bédard, according to Le Soleil.
The Liberal candidate in Beauharnois-Salaberry, Ricardo Lopez, also resigned after attention was drawn to remarks he made in 1988 when he was a Tory MP.
“I think all the Indians should be sent to Labrador, to go live together and have peace and leave us in peace,” Mr. Lopez was quoted as saying at the time. [Source: Globe and Mail]
The Globe and Mail indicates that Simon Bedard was fired on 9/11 for his comments. Canada.com indicates that Bedard resigned and was not fired. CBC.ca posted a similar message. I watched the big 3 news casts in Canada on Sept 11 and I don’t recall – granted my memory could be very fuzzy from pain pills – any sort of media frenzy or time spent calling out Mr. Bedard or the Liberals for comments that were made.
I realize that in the above comments, what M. Bedard said doesn’t seem overly evil. After all, he’s had the benefit of hindsight to change his opinion, which he reiterated in the above quoted materials. What he originally said on a CJRP radio program in 1990 was:
You go in there with the army, then you clean up all that. Fifty dead, 100 dead, 125 dead, that would put it out. We bury it and life goes on. [Source: Montreal Gazette]
Adds a bit of a chill when you think about what M. Bedard was advocating – the use of the Canadian Forces to slaughter Aboriginal Canadians. M. Lopez desire to round aboriginals up and ship them off to the far regions (Labrador) are repulsive in their own right.
But of course, our TV and Radio news media are all about providing Canadians with a serious and non-biased review of the day’s events as they occur. Excuse me while I prepare a chunk of swampland in Florida for sale.
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September 18th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
maybe he should have made a poorly timed joke about dying the death of a thousand cold cuts instead, that one seemed to get a lot of media play.
September 19th, 2008 at 11:14 am
And rightly so. It was an offensive comment and deserves to be called out into the public view. Censure is appropriate in that case. I guess I’m crazy for expecting fair and balanced reporting from our TV and Radio news media during the election (or at any time). For example, little airtime has been given to the Green Party candidate in the suburban Vancouver riding of Newton North Delta – John Shavluk – who was removed due to anti-semitic comments…
September 20th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I don’t see where Mr. Bedard’s comments were racist. He didn’t advocate slaughtering aboriginal peoples; he advocated use of military / police force against terrorists. He correctly noted that doing so may have prevented more terrorist activity years later in the same place for the same reason. The behaviour of the terrorists, not their skin colour of ethnicity, was the issue.
The colour / ethnicity of the criminals in question here is only an issue for those who choose to see such matters as more important than a person’s behaviour. In other word, for racists.
Full disclosure: I’m a WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant). I can’t claim any minority status that’s recognized as such by most people. I can guarantee you that if I got a few of my similarly-genetically-endowed friends together and we all put on masks, carried prohibited-class firearms around, blocked public roads, made threats of violence, and threw rocks at police officers, tanks would be rolled over us or snipers would take their shots in short order. And rightly so.
I don’t care what a terrorist’s ethnicity is. I care that they’re a terrorist (and the behaviours I described qualify by any reasonable definition). For law enforcement officials to treat some offenders differently than others due to ethnicity is far more racist and far more offensive than Mr. Bedard’s statement.
That said, if there’s a way to resolve a situation without killing people, then by all means it should be pursued. I’m glad no slaughter was necessary. However, I would be perfectly happy to have seen those 50, 100 or 125 people arrested, tried, and convicted and still sitting harmlessly in prison cells if guilty, .
No way would I try to defend Mr. Lopez, though. Dumb, bad, morally offensive thing to say. Or even think.
As for Ms. Lannigan – also a dumb thing to say, but I don’t know that it’s worth as much fuss as has been made over it.
-Zirbert, The Irritable Saint
http://zirbert.blogspot.com
September 20th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
One mustn’t forget that the military and provincial police forces were already out in force during the Oka crisis. Shots were fired and arrests were made. Granted, this all took place a long time ago but the army was already in situ by the time M. Bedard was advocating the military “clean up” the situation. Thus, I interpret his comments as advocating killing as the best method for resolving the situation. That the implementation of his “suggestion” could have easily caused a backlash amongst native and non-native Canadians seems to have escaped M. Bedard both then and now.