Thanks for the Green Party

I’M OKAY WITH ELECTION RESULTS - ELIZABETH MAY IS COMING TO THE HILL

This morning, mulling over the huge Tory sweep of seats in the federal election, I must admit feeling a tad uneasy. I didn’t mind a minority government, headed by the Conservative Party but the election had now given them the majority, most folks thought unattainable. I spent some time thinking about my own political stripe....and I just don’t have one! No matter how hard I look, in the old nooks and crannies of middle age, I’m without serious political preference.

For a brief period of time, in the late 1980's, I was a card-carrying Conservative.....but that was because of my tremendous respect for former Ontario Premier, Frank Miller from our Muskoka-Parry Sound Riding. I’ve spent my life believing that whatever party is in power, they will respect and protect the fundamentals of democracy......the fundamentals we have fought to uphold during world wars, and during peace keeping missions, and isolated war-fronts since the Korean War. Some of the actions of the Conservative Party over the past two years, in their minority governance, has made me wonder what might happen in the event they were to secure a majority. Is democracy as we know it being threatened? They would answer “no!” Some would answer with an aggressive “yes!” So forgive me a little story I’d like to relate, and the one shining light I have found, in this most recent, under-attended election. It’s not linked in any way to the federal election, this week, but it’s a reflection of government’s less than respectful history. We often find ourselves frequently disappointed, these days, when our rights and freedoms are of a lesser luster than our pride expects. I think my dad would have approved of the Green Party’s Elizabeth May. Not because he was an environmentalist, or thinking of becoming one, but because he had a strict appreciation of democracy.....and its abuses by governments over many decades.

______________________________________________________________________________

I grew up with a deep respect for my country. I can remember staring at my father’s navy portrait, and wondering what it must have been like for him, a gunner, firing on enemy aircraft, not having time to worry about lurking U-Boats beneath, that might also end a young Canadian’s life.....sink a ship with all souls lost.

I remember him telling me about crewman, from other ships that had been destroyed, and the lasting regrets he had, being forced to leave the survivors in the water......the risk of stopping to rescue the sailors would have put even more ships and crew in peril. To his final days on this mortal coil, he never forgot those events of war he could do nothing about........and he had no privilege whatsoever, of losing those ghostly, haunting images, of sailors about to drown, waving valiantly to fellow Canadians, to carry-on and win over adversity, whatever the cost.

One day I came home from school, flicked the television on, settled down on the sofa with a pop and some left-over chips, and couldn’t help noticing that something was missing from the wall. Ed’s portrait was gone. There was a clear outline where the picture had hung. Clean wall and dirty wall. My mother probably had a fit when she noticed the discoloration. I got up, looked behind the chair to see if it had fallen down, and began a search of the livingroom. It wasn’t in a closet or in storage. I checked all the rooms. Nothing. Maybe it had been stolen. Who would take one personal portrait, when there were other, more valuable, items laying throughout the apartment? I was so worried about it, I called my mother at work. Her answer floored me! “He sold it!” Before I could muster any kind of counter-point, or utter “why” she answered my hesitation with, “He never liked it anyway. When he came back after the war, these photographers were out there trying to make money, doing these portraits of the sailors. He just went along with it, but he did it for his mother as a keepsake. Even she didn’t want it!”

By time the portrait, my heirloom, had been sold-off, I had already found my own national identity, and it didn’t hinge on a black and white portrait of a sailor once.....and I was certainly proud of my father, a gunner and radar operator aboard the Royal Canadian Navy’s ship, “Coaticook.” In conversations with my dad, I knew he was a sailor at heart, and a life-long defender of the Canadian values we cherish today. When he joined the Navy, in the first place, he was a wayward kid, with no job, no prospects, and he, with chums from the neighborhood, were hungry for adventure. As so many recruits then, he didn’t place nationalism or the preservation of democracy, over the immediate need for occupation, regular meals and a wage, however modest. He joined the navy with great hubris and unflinching bravado for the good but admittedly unknown fight ahead.....with the innocence of inexperience, but the desire to be a part of something huge and important. In retrospect, he was impacted severely by the carnage he witnessed, as many veterans suffered through the remainders of their lives. I think he was disappointed, when he arrived back home, and found a welcome, much less than what had been anticipated. I think he felt that appreciation was most deficient at the government level, in general, something many homecoming veterans felt at the time.

I remember one afternoon, at our former antique shop, in Bracebridge, showing a veteran, who also happened to be a militaria collector, a Canadian made, fabric banner, dating from 1945, a “welcome home” sign, to be hung over verandah railings and on store-fronts, to show national pride for our brave enlisted men. The gentlemen, looked me in the eye, stared down at the banner I had unfurled for his viewing, and he very slowly and methodically began folding it up again. When he had completed folding it to a small square, he pushed it back over the counter......and for a thin moment, I thought he was letting me know I should add it to the receipt on my cash register. Then he growled.....and I mean growled; “Ted, I was never welcomed back after the war. This banner is not what we were looking for when we returned. No, we didn’t feel welcomed back at all. As if we hadn’t done anything overseas.” I talked to him at some length about this, and it was clear his longstanding dismay wasn’t about the people of Canada but the general business-as-usual insensitivity of the government of the day.....to the needs of returning men, and what they required from the democracy they had defended, and successfully preserved.

I can’t really parallel the two events,..... this gentleman rejecting a World War II “Welcome Home” banner, and my father’s indifference, selling off an heirloom portrait. I did however, come to feel some added reason to ponder these incidents, over the decades, and with other similar stories I’ve heard and read about since, I think there must be something to this......and unfortunate about it......because it seems to be happening today as well, with soldiers returning home to Canada from tours of duty. You hate to think our Armed Forces’ veterans would ever think of the government, as insensitive or disrespectful, uncaring or unresponsive to their needs. Particularly those suffering from emotional and physical injuries, returning home and having to fight even harder, to find the kind of democracy they thought we had, before enlisting to serve their country. By understanding what these modern-day veterans and soldiers must contend with, from the democracy they have been nurtured, reminds me evermore poignantly what my father and a veteran friend were talking about.......when they agreed, coming home lacked everything their departure seemed to portray, about the dynamic and reliability of democracy. Their period as heroes, was painfully short-lived.

Today when I grapple with my own national values, I am torn between what I want to believe......what those brave veterans saw when leaving port, the fanfare and national pride for the preservation of the Commonwealth, to the actions of a veteran selling off his naval portrait for a few bucks......when in fact, I know, we didn’t need the money.

In the last years of his life, I brought my dad many books on the Royal Canadian Navy, and we sat and talked for hours about his service on the North Atlantic. He seemed genuinely pleased when his grandsons and I, would listen to his stories, sensing our awe, when he described shooting at German aircraft, detecting U-Boat penetration to the convoy, and riding out the monstrous storms on the high seas. He always attended Remembrance Day

Services, at Bracebridge’s Memorial Park, and he had been a Vice President, once, of the local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. He and my mother Merle never once missed voting in federal or provincial elections (I don’t know about municipal elections), and I would say our household was as proudly Canadian as you could get. Point is, it had absolutely nothing to do with the government of the day. Ed would credit his ship-mates, and all the veterans for their actions.....and never once feel compelled to mention any political leader of the day.

While many candidates and parties, in this most recent federal election, believed (with their twenty-something, backroom strategists and mantra spinners) they knew more about national pride, and responsible government, than we did, including many surviving veterans, it made me ever-more determined to follow the same nationalism my father and his friend Al had show me. That being proud of one’s country, isn’t negotiable, debatable or something to be interpreted to meet the need of some vested, timely interest. My national pride will never be hinged or influenced by the will or re-definitions imposed by the sitting government, or the political banner they wish to wave in victory, as the “party” flavor of the half decade. There are many folks like us, who will never surrender our brand of Canadian pride, which has a history, culture, society and citizen based patina we’re comfortable with, and have no desire to water-down or distort because government plans “a re-write” for their own selfish posterity.

I have been looking to find that portrait, of my father, for decades now. I hunt through hundreds of regional church sales, flea markets, estate and garage sales, and every antique shop I come upon, thinking that one day.....that familiar old face will turn up again. What a wonderful reunion that would be. You see, he would never tell me who he sold it too, especially when he found out how determined I was to get it back. Yet, what I didn’t have in a photograph of an “old salt,” I had in personal contact, and so many shared stories that I hold dearly now.

When I was growing up, having been born in 1955, we possessed a clearly proud attitude and appreciation of our Canadian heritage. On my mother’s side, were United Empire Loyalists, some who had fought for Britain in the Revolutionary War, with their offspring fighting again in the War of 1812, loyal to Crown and Country. On my father’s side, he was the offspring of a poor Irish immigrant and a Bernardo girl, and his home street was Toronto’s Cabbagetown. A tougher Canadian home turf, from that Depression era neighborhood, would be hard to find. He was just as proud of his roots, as my mother was of hers. And they shared this with me. Just as my wife, also of pioneer stock in this country, and I, today, honor the family legacy with our two boys. There is no wavering of nationalism. There is however, a deep and profound suspicion, about the tampering of political ambition, and undemocratic actions of our past and present governments. We will never allow our government to define us as Canadians.....no matter how clever or cunning they presume to be! This is a privilege we will defend in perpetuity......which we guarantee will survive longer than any fleeting government term of office.

I have only heard one speech in the past five weeks, of this grating election campaign, that speaks to every value I possess as a Canadian; seeking, like everyone else, good and responsible governance. It came from newly elected Green Party candidate, Elizabeth May, in her election-night acceptance speech. Her keenly felt values of democratic principles, our rights and privileges in the democratic process, the rights and freedoms we are afforded by the constitution, and the privilege to dissent without prejudice, should give us heart that one strong voice, in our new Canadian Parliament....will carry the unyielding, resilient message, that we are prepared to fight, as we have for long and long, to protect what we so dearly adore about our country.

God bless you Elizabeth May, for your perseverance, and stalwart belief that democracy is alive and well. You, and the Green Party, are shining lights, for those of us who had come to believe, partisan governance was the new and unmovable reality of a modern-age democracy. Thank you for your conviction to the contrary. It is a Canadian Government we have elected. I wish Elizabeth well, and look forward to her participation in the very next all-candidates’s debate four years from now!