EDITORIAL: Stop cancelling Canada; start fighting for it

There’s an old joke about two boxes of lobsters left without lids on a fisherman’s wharf. One is Canadian; the other American. How can you tell the difference?

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The Americans escape. The Canadians don’t. Every time one of them tries to reach the top, the rest of the lobsters pull it back down.

It’s a time-worn chestnut, for sure. But it leaps to mind with the outrage that’s brewing about Canadian hockey legend Wayne Gretzky in the wake of his appearance at the Four Nations final between the U.S. and Canada.

He’s been slammed for everything from not wearing a Canadian hockey sweater to fist-bumping the American team. Critics are in high dudgeon over his friendship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Now they want his Order of Canada rescinded.

Since when did Canadians become such whiners?

For us, Gretzky will always be The Great One. His hockey career is spectacular. That’s why he was given the Order of Canada. He didn’t get it on personality. He didn’t get it because he was a nice guy or because we agreed with his political views. He got it for playing hockey. Full stop.

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Now he’s guilty by association because Trump likes him. Giving someone the Order of Canada doesn’t mean you own that person for life. It means you’re acknowledging his or her contribution to this country’s fabric.

It’s like the way school boards and others are determined to cancel some of the greatest leaders in Canadian history. Toronto District School Board just voted to rename three schools named for Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, educator Egerton Ryerson and Henry Dundas, an abolitionist whose parliamentary amendment helped facilitate the end of the slave trade.

In cancelling Macdonald, the board and their self-appointed “experts” displayed an ignorance of history that prompts questions about what schools are teaching. Their actions were based on flawed and inaccurate research.

Macdonald governed at a time when Canada was threatened by our neighbours to the south. Without him, there would be no Canada.

At a time when Canadian sovereignty is once again under threat, it would be nice if the naysayers and half-baked “historians” would sit down so the grown-ups can fight for this country.

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