U.S. Bastards?
More than Half of the Canadians Polled Said Yes

Parrish the Thought

MARGARET WENTE / Globe and Mail (Toronto) 4mar03

In politics, a gaffe is what occurs when you say what you really think. Carolyn Parrish's gaffe is just like Francie Ducros's. And despite the scandalized tut-tutting, they simply said what many Liberals and millions of Canadians believe. They said what some of my best friends believe, and what most teachers and Toronto Star readers and people who work at the CBC believe.

The Americans are reckless warmongers.

Plenty of Globe and Mail readers evidently think so, too. "Do you agree with Carolyn Parrish's remark that Americans are behaving like 'bastards'?" this newspaper inquired on its Web site. There were 23,247 respondents, and 51 per cent said yes.

Okay, so Web polls are entirely unreliable. But still. The tide of anti-American sentiment in Canada is running higher than it has since Vietnam.

"Do you have any advice for me?" a mild-mannered man asked me last week. "Whenever I try to stick up for the Americans at work, everyone shouts me down."

Yes, I do. Shut up and talk about the weather. You won't change anybody's mind and you'll just get overheated. Last week, I got into a yelling match about the Americans with one of my best friends (you'd think I'd know better). He began denouncing every atrocity committed by America since 1776, including slavery. Naturally, he denies that he is anti-American.

Of course, people like Ms. Parrish are quick to say they don't hate the actual American people (who are merely fat, ignorant, smug and way too rich.) The real bastards are the people who run America. Here, there is a real divergence of opinion, between Canadians who think the current American administration is misguided, arrogant and ham-fisted, and Canadians who think it's downright evil.

Jean Chrétien, who suddenly came out swinging last week against regime change for one of the world's worst tyrants (maybe it's personal for him), simply reflects Canadians' widespread suspicion about the Americans these days. He also knows Canadians despise the sight of our leaders sucking up to them. He knows that Brian Mulroney cemented his reputation as totally unredeemable by singing along with Ronald Reagan.

Interestingly, Ms. Parrish has been pilloried more for her stupidity than for her views. Countless editorial writers have pointed out that it's not too smart to rile the neighbours. All they have to do is make our trucks line up at the border, and zap! Our trade surplus is toast.

But that's exactly why people are so mad. Those with the most power over you are always the ones you most resent, as anyone who's been (or had) a teenager can attest. It's natural to be transfixed by all the real and imaginary ways they abuse their power. It's natural to exaggerate their moral failings. Unlike teenagers, alas, we'll never be as powerful as they are. We can't even move away from them. We're stuck in the same house forever. That's why anti-Americanism is here to stay and bound to explode whenever they decide to throw their weight around.

In any event, Ms. Parrish's views are not exactly a surprise. "I don't think we should be helping Americans get away with this," she opined a couple of months ago. "This is just the boys playing with their big toys." She blames the United States for creating terrorists because it supports Israel, and calls suicide bombers "desperate people" who "blow themselves up." (She hasn't mentioned the other people they blow up.)

Ms. Parrish says her remarks last week were intended for her colleague, Colleen Beaumier. Ms. Beaumier is the Liberal MP who went on a fact-finding tour to Iraq last fall. She found that it was quite a pleasant place, offering "education and human rights for women" and "a relative degree of equality for all its citizens," at least before those nasty Americans came along in 1991. As for the millions of Iraqis in exile, in jail or dead, she assured us, "President Hussein has spoken to his ministers and said some of these 'anti-freedom and anti-human rights' laws are harsh and they have to be revisited."

Then there's Bonnie Brown, the Liberal MP who compared a potential attack on Iraq with Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor. And Benoît Serré, who thinks it's all about oil, and Alex Shepherd, whose view is that "Bush's approach to foreign policy . . . reflects just how ignorant Americans are."

In other words, Ms. Parrish is no rogue MP. She appears to be right in the mainstream of Liberal Party thought. She really does believe that the Bush administration is worse than Saddam Hussein, and who can argue with that? Not me. I'd just get too het up.

Fortunately, we'll never have to seriously debate Canada's military role in any war, because we're not capable of having one. The only useful contribution we can possibly make is to send our Sea Kings to Saddam.