September 29, 2003
A couple of weeks ago, two gay men were refused entry into the United States. They had been married in Canada but U.S. officials refused to allow them to file a joint customs declaration that can only be signed by husbands and wives. The United States, being a sovereign country does not recognize the two men as being married.
Both the Globe and Mail (Gay couple denied U.S. entry) and the Toronto Star (Gay couple denied entry into U.S.) used misleading headlines to bolster their views in favour of same sex marriage. Both headlines imply that the two men were denied permission to enter the U.S. because they were "gay" or because they were a "couple". The only reason entry was denied to them was because they refused to sign separate forms and were insisting the American government recognize their marriage.
The Toronto Sun got in right in a headline that read "Border officials bar gay ‘family’".
And speaking of the United States…
The Canadian media likes to point out how Canada is not the United States but a sovereign country. But sometimes they just can’t stop using political terms that are used south of the border but have no meaning here in Canada.
In an article for the Sun Media, Stephanie Rubec writes about Sheila Martin, wife of PM-in-waiting Paul Martin entitled, "She’ll make a very, very good first lady". No doubt Ms. Martin is a fine and upstanding person deserving of accolades, but the prime minister of Canada is not the head of state and his wife is not "the first lady". Canada’s official head of state is the Governor General of Canada and if anyone is referred to as being the first lady it should be, the GG, Adrienne Clarkson.
The Liberal Party seems poised to form the next government in Ontario and you can bet that if that happens, Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty will be referred to as "the premier elect" as soon as the election is called by the networks. In Canada, we don’t elect premiers or prime ministers. Citizens only vote for who is to represent them at their riding level and the party that obtains the most seats is asked to form the government by the Lieutenant-Governor or the Governor-General. Should McGuinty’s party win the most seats in the legislature, the proper designation for him between the time of the election and the time he’s sworn in is "premier designate". As Yogi Berra might say, "only in America".
A hurricane’s coming and we’re all going to die!
An article appeared in the Toronto Sun, entitled: "Most in T.O. think Isabel was overblown". Published the day before Hurricane Isabel was to hit southern Ontario, the piece told about how little Ontario residents were preparing for the pending storm.
Hurricane Isabel turned out like many other hurricanes that battered the Caribbean and the eastern seaboard of the U.S. before petering out and leaving Toronto and environs with just some heavy rains and strong winds.
Since last spring, those of us in Toronto have been consistently told by the media that we were going to die from SARS or from the West Nile virus and, if we somehow managed to escape those fates, we were probably going to eat tainted meat and die. SARS did kill 44 Ontario residents but its victims were limited to those who had contact with hospitals or hospital workers. The threat of SARS spreading throughout the community never occurred.
It’s no wonder that people in Ontario are suffering from crisis fatigue and are not paying much attention to the doom and gloom scenarios that the media is constantly painting. A lot of the hype comes from talk show hosts who, in what seems a vain attempt to get a life, love making things worse than they actually are. A good example was Citytv’s Cityonline talk show. Host Ann Rohmer requested that viewers call or email in and say whether or not they prepared for Hurricane Isabel. The show aired live at around 12:40 pm on September 19; the day that the hurricane would have struck had it not died. Had we actually received a full-blown hurricane of the force of 1954’s Hurricane Hazel, many people would not have been prepared. One day, the media will cry wolf once too often.