We didn’t lose our innocence. We never had it: Salutin [View all]

The idea that the events in Ottawa have somehow taken our innocence ignores Canada’s history and distorts the conversation about how to respond.


After Wednesday’s events in Ottawa, I want to comment on one version or account (yes, the dread “narrative”) which was dominant in the reporting. It’s the “unprecedented chaos, lost our virginity/innocence, never gonna be the same, demise of Canada as a Peaceable Kingdom” rendering.


The Peaceable Kingdom isn’t even a Canadian phrase. It was used by U.S. Quakers in the 19th century. Literary critic Northrop Frye applied it here in the 1960s and it was popularized by Toronto historian and city councillor William Kilbourn. When I challenged him on its usage, he scoffed, “Don’t you recognize irony, man?” It was sarcastic, or at best an aspiration far from reality.


Canada fought through two world wars, largely as a loyal British adjutant. Our troops were known for violence and fierceness — like our hockey. There were strong racist strains in Canada toward French-Canadians and native peoples; and racist, “none is too many” immigration policies. Some of that was challenged in the 1960s (hence Kilbourn’s “man”) but in the midst of it came a far more severe episode of “homegrown terrorism”: the 1970 FLQ crisis. Ottawa was occupied by troops in tanks. In Quebec hundreds were thrown in jail without charges. Public figures were kidnapped and one was murdered. What virginity?

Any virginity or innocence that Canada has was battled over and acquired in those years, not the normal route to chastity. The figure most associated with the peace-and-love Canadian image was Pierre Trudeau — who imposed martial law and told “bleeding heart liberals,” just watch me. Ten years later he brought in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You can at least argue it was his response to what he may have felt was his overreach in 1970. He embodied the struggle to wrest a different kind of Canadianness from the earlier model.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/10/23/we_didnt_lose_our_innocence_we_never_had_it_salutin.html