by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
January 11, 2005
Last Saturday, a memorial service was held in Ottawa’s Civic Centre for the victims of the December 26 tsunamis in asia. Services were also held in other parts of the country including Queen’s Park and City Hall in Toronto.
The Civic Centre was set up to accommodate 8,000 people and an overflow room was available to handle another 7,000. a total of only 600 showed up to hear Prime Minister Paul Martin, the Governor General adrienne Clarkson and other dignitaries and religious leaders speak.
No matter how much Paul Martin cut taxes and slashed medical spending during his years as Jean Chrétien’s Minister of Finance, now that Paul has the top job he has consistently shown that he is definitely not the conservative that some people assume that he is. In his speech that was truly Clintonesque, Martin talked about feelings. actions were barely touched upon. In a speech that would have made Bill Clinton proud, Martin felt the pain of the tsunami victims; he said as much. "South asia’s pain is our own". His speech to the 600 or so that didn’t know enough not to show up, was truly a touchy-feely one in which Martin moaned that "we are all connected by compassion".
all kinds of reasons were given for the extremely poor showing at the service from the media’s exaggerated predictions of huge traffic jams to poor publicity. But there is another reason why many did not show up--they didn’t have to. When the call went out for aid to the affected areas, ordinary Canadians were quick to respond and generously opened their wallets to help provide relief to the survivors of the devastation. Canadians took action--they had no need to assemble to hear words. Canadians know that talking about compassion and "feeling pain" doesn’t help. What the survivors need is food, clean water and medicine.
Being the true Grit that he is, Martin was quick to play to Canada’s immigrant population that is his party’s most important constituency. Martin said, "Thousands of Canadians from the 13 affected countries are shattered by the devastation that has been visited upon the nations they departed but never left behind." Departed but never left behind; an excellent way to express the Liberal Party’s view of multiculturalism where Canada has no culture; our culture is everybody else’s culture and where second generation Canadians are raised to believe that Canada is secondary to the country that their parents came from. But Martin’s speech to the few hundred that had gathered was most significant, not in what he said but in what he omitted to say.
Martin never bothered to thank the ordinary Canadians who reacted to the crisis by generously donating to aid agencies. It is no secret that the PM cannot relate to the ordinary man and woman on the street. Unlike immigrant groups, the ordinary Canadian does Martin’s political agenda no good. Despite his feeling the pain of those in asia and his outpouring of compassion, Paul Martin doesn’t give a damn about ordinary Canadians. Unlike his predecessor, he cares little about Canada. Canada to Martin is merely a vehicle to exercise his ambitions. Even Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty took the time to thank Ontarians who donated money to help save lives in asia. But not Martin. His speech wasn’t about Canada or about Canadians. It wasn’t even about the victims of the tsunamis--it was all about him and how he feels.
Oh yes, Paul Martin did mention some of the children who collected money or, who like one girl donated money that she was saving in order to buy a puppy to help the relief efforts. Martin only mentioned the children because it fit into his one world agenda. The internationalist Martin expressed hope that the kids would grow up to be, not good Canadian citizens but citizens of the world.
Martin’s speech at the Civic Centre was a slap in the face to every hard working Canadian who took the time and trouble to call the Canadian Red Cross or other relief agency to help victims half a world away. and if that makes you angry, don’t worry. You can rest assured that Paul feels your pain.