Given the atrocities this country has been forced to confront over the past month, Canada Day — normally a moment for celebration — was always going to be difficult to frame this year.
But in recent comments, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole seems to be angling for a political fight over the national holiday.
“As someone who served Canada and will soon ask for the trust to lead this country, I can’t stay silent when people want to cancel Canada Day,” O’Toole said in a televised address to Conservative MPs last week. “I’m very proud to be Canadian. And I know most people are as well.”
Canada Day has not been cancelled, nor has there been any serious public discussion about doing so. While the hashtag #CancelCanadaDay has trended a few times on Twitter, the national holiday does not seem to be in imminent danger of being called off.
What has happened is that several municipalities have opted to drop their usual celebrations.
Most Canadians probably understand that this Canada Day requires something more nuanced than in years past.
But O’Toole seems to want to speak to an audience uncomfortable with the current discourse about Canada’s failings — and to use the occasion to assert his own patriotism and question the patriotism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Erin O’Toole, leader of the Official Opposition, says he’s troubled by calls to cancel Canada Day celebrations. He says the voices of the few threaten to tear the country apart rather than bring it together. 0:57
In his remarks last Wednesday, O’Toole said the discovery in Kamloops was a “necessary awakening” for the country that “brutally forced us to confront our past … and to recommit ourselves to reconciliation.”
O’Toole said that Canadians should acknowledge “where we fall short” and “not forget or cover it up.” He also said we should “channel the pain of Canada falling short to build up the country and not tear it down.”
The phrase “falling short” may not do justice to the incredible tragedies confronting us right now. And the choice between “tearing down” and “building up” may be a false one. Sometimes things — buildings, laws, systems, ideas — have to be torn down so that something better can be built in their place.
Cue the culture war
It’s possible the people with negative feelings about this country agree with those who have more positive feelings when it comes to what Canada should be: equitable, inclusive, just, generous. They might simply disagree on how much Canada deserves to believe it has lived up to those ideals.
But in setting himself in opposition to those who would “cancel” Canada Day, O’Toole is calling back to the culture warrior he presented to Conservatives when he ran for the party leadership in 2019. Back then, he was very concerned about “cancel culture” and the “radical left” and very opposed to anyone who would tear down a statue of John A. Macdonald.
But cries of “cancel culture” tend to obscure real questions about individual actions and accountability. Reducing this moment to a culture war over Canada Day would evade legitimate questions regarding how Canadians should feel about their country, and how governments should reflect and frame those feelings.
Patriot games
“There is a difference between acknowledging where we’ve fallen short, there is a difference between legitimate criticism and always tearing down the country,” O’Toole said Wednesday. “Always being on the side of those who run Canada down. Always seeing the bad and never the good.”
So who is lining up with those who always “run Canada down”? On Wednesday, O’Toole didn’t say. But in an interview with Global’s The West Block on Sunday, the Conservative leader claimed that Trudeau and some cabinet ministers “almost want to cancel Canada Day because we failed in the past.” He also suggested he might be the only national leader who is “proud of our country and wants it to do better.”
Questioning another leader’s pride in the country is an astonishing attack — just as it was when Paul Martin’s Liberals questioned Stephen Harper’s patriotism in 2006 (Conservatives might remember how well that worked out for Martin).
But O’Toole is also not the first Conservative leader in the last six years to lament that the popular view of Canada’s history is getting too negative. Four years ago, Andrew Scheer gave a speech in which he challenged “those who deny we have anything to be proud of as a country.”
It’s fair to say that Justin Trudeau has put an emphasis on facing up to Canada’s sins and apologizing for the federal government’s past misdeeds. The skeptic’s view is that offering apologies and official recognition for past wrongs is too easy. But ideally, facing the past would build resolve to do the hard work of making things better in the present and future.
People embrace in front of the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill June 4, 2021 at a memorial for the 215 children whose remains reportedly were found on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
Every moment spent dwelling on unmarked graves, for instance, should increase the moral and political pressure to advance reconciliation. The greatest risk is that Canadians choose to look away, or move on too quickly.
If anyone feels threatened or offended by the attention given to the worst aspects of this country’s past, it’s worth asking why — whether that discomfort is really necessary.
It’s also fair to ask how much difference there is between what O’Toole claims to believe and what he claims to be against.
Four years ago, the prime minister delivered an address to the United Nations general assembly that dwelled at length on reconciliation and the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada. But he also spoke about his government’s efforts to fix that relationship and held out Canada’s efforts as an example to other countries.
Flags mark where ground-penetrating radar recorded what are believed to be 751 unmarked graves in this cemetery near the grounds of the former Marieval Indian Residential School on the Cowessess First Nation, Sask., on Saturday, June 26, 2021. (Mark Taylor/The Canadian Press)
Trudeau struck a similar tone in his Canada Day remarks that year. Reconciliation, he said, “is a choice we make, not because of what we did, or were, but because of who we are.”
Four years later, the prime minister hasn’t cancelled any official Canada Day proceedings (though the performances will again be virtual). Neither has he voiced support for tearing down statues.
Trudeau still faces a significant challenge in calibrating his own remarks on Thursday. And what he says will move to the centre of a conversation about how Canadians should feel about their country.
In the meantime, O’Toole seems to be trying to score points in a poorly conceived dispute.
Some people would, no doubt, like to get through Canada Day without having to think too much about negative things. Other people — especially now — will find it hard to get through Canada Day without feeling pain or sorrow … or guilt.
But it’s hard to see how anyone would be left better off by a fight over who loves Canada best.
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
