The silence of the Canadian lambs

If you missed the CRTC hearings the other week, don’t worry. The exciting plans to annex the Internet to the cheerless wasteland of CanCon enforcement were justified under the usual refrain of Trudeaupian boosterism: we have to create space for Canadians to tell their own stories.

Personally, whenever I hear that line, the only plot twist I’m in the mood for is: “And then I woke up, and it had all been a bad dream.” But, assuming you’re of a more indulgent bent, the question then arises: why do Canadians have such difficulty telling their own stories?

Well, here’s a thought: maybe because most of the ones we’re trying to tell are false.

I don’t use that word lightly. But I’m still digging myself out from the blizzard of reaction to what I wrote in this space two weeks ago about Polytechnique, the film of the Montreal massacre. You can get a more or less representative sampling of reader complaints from the Maclean’s website, but let’s start with the National Post’s objections:

“Mark Steyn uses the occasion of Denis Villeneuve’s new film,” wrote the Post’s Chris Selley, “to renew his complaints about Canadian manhood, as represented by the male students who ‘abandoned their female classmates to their fate’ on orders from Marc Lépine. Ten years ago we considered this line of argument usefully contrarian; now it’s just tired. The point, such as it is, has been made.”

Oh, dear. I’m sorry it’s “tired.” Actually, the point, such as it is, was that even M Villeneuve, no right-wing pro-American yahoo but an impeccably Québécois progressive trying to tell one of those quintessentially Canadian (okay, Quebec) stories, had been unable to avoid placing the men’s fatal passivity at the heart of the film. Unfortunately, the official narrative of the event—the feminist narrative, the dark-underbelly-of-Canadian-male-violence-lurking-within-every-somnolent-hoser narrative—remains in place, even though it’s utter twaddle. And, as long as Canada’s establishment keeps forcing a fraud on me, I’m going to object.

By the way, since Mr. Selley tires so easily, I wonder whether he’s as weary of other “complaints about Canadian manhood.” To mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Cheri DiNovo, MPP, told the Ontario parliament that one in every two women in the province is abused or assaulted—including, as she noted, half the female members listening to her. The only difference between your Sudanese machete-wielder and your Ontarian abuser is that the latter’s more furtive about it: “We can look at the Congo, we can look at Darfur, we can look at the horrors of the world; here, it’s more guerrilla warfare; here it’s one man against one woman in the quiet of their own home . . . ” Does Chris Selley not occasionally find this sort of thing also just a wee bit tired, albeit statistically imaginative?

Here’s another Canadian story. The day Mr. Selley issued his magisterial yawn, the Court of Queen’s Bench in Manitoba passed sentence on Vincent Li for stabbing, beheading and partially consuming Tim McLean, his fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus ride last summer. The “agreed statement” between the Crown and the defence was full of interesting details. The Winnipeg Sun’s Tom Brodbeck published the fullest version:

“When Greyhound bus 1170 was approximately 18 kilometres west of Portage la Prairie on the TransCanada Highway, Mr. Li began to repeatedly stab Tim McLean, for no apparent reason.

“Tim McLean struggled and tried to escape, as evidenced by a number of defensive wounds. He was unsuccessful and eventually either fell or was thrown to the floor of the bus. Due to his location at the back of the bus and adjacent to a window, the seats ahead of him were a barrier to escape.

“Mr. Li was preoccupied with Tim McLean, and continued to stab him as he lay on the floor. He did not pay any attention to the other passengers as the bus was vacated. He appeared oblivious to the demands of bus driver Bruce Martin that he stop what he was doing. Several persons indicate that after everyone had vacated the bus, Mr. Li came to the front of the bus and tried to exit. The bus driver was able to close the door on Mr. Li’s arm, with the bloody knife extended outside of the bus.