Liberalism a far bigger anger than communism

HAD ENOUGH of the Great Canadian Dilemma? Me too. It gets te be like that rock in Greek mythology that Sisyphus kept rolling up the mountain, only to have it fall zway from him every time be got near the top.

Quebec is our rock. But this column is not going to be a repeat of the referendum debate. What will be will be, as the song said. But I'd like to introduce you to the way a great British author and journalist sees the Quebec situa- tion.

Paul Johnson is the Wayne Gretzky of English letters and has

inherited the Malcolm Muggeridge

mantle. Once 2 guru of the intel- fectual left-wing, he shed his illu- sions many years ago and now stands on the right.

Recently he did a review in the Sunday Telegraph of Mordecai Richler’s book Oh Canada, Oh Quebec. And his comments on it and the Quebec situation in gen- eral were the most insightful 1 have seen.

He attributes our current mess te liberalism. And as Muggeridge said, librralism is a far bigger danger than communism, It is a kind of fungus that destroys the will,

You doubt that? Consider the disastrous effects of ‘‘affirmative action,” radical feminism and the efforts to destroy the family.

Consider the blockades put on by the Red Brothers, ail of which could have beers removed by a couple of bulldozers but instead were treated us if anyone with a grievance, rcal or imagined, had the right to hold the public up to ransom.

Consider what ‘‘liberalism” has done to the U.S., for there is a dircct connection between the “freedom marches” of the 1960s and the death and destruction wrought by blacks and Hispanics in Los Angeles. Looters were allowed to loot and kill, when they should have been shot.

Canada, says Johnson, is a classic failure of liberalism.

“The Quebec Act of 1774 (writ- ten by the British, of course) was the first great liberal measure in world history. it enabled the French-Canadian community to retain its integrity, refigion and language instead of going into the mekting pot.

“For a time it seemed to have paid dividends...In the long run, bowever, it made possible the emergence of a fiercely

ic and intoterant French nationalicn which has little to do with the modern warid. It has more in common with the spirit of Afrikanerdom..."*

Johnson takes from Richler’s book examples of the intolerance

Doug Collins

with which English Canada is by now only too familiar, but against which it still hasn't rebelled suffi- ciently.

He describes what I long ago dubbed Quebec's “language fascism,’* but semechow it stands out more clearly when it is reported in a foreign newspaper.

He says that the instances of French parangia given by Richler are “hair-raising."’

To which J can only say that they may raise his hair but that our hair has been kept down by the Brytcreem of familiarity and liberal excuse-making.

The Afrikaners, he points cut, have also been oppressive towards people of English origins, but even they have never gone so far on the language issuc as have the French in Quebec.

“The Francophone regime

he siates tellingly, *‘has

something of the flavor of Vichy France under Petain and Laval.”’

Such intolerance would be un- thinkable in modern-day France even though French governments oppose *‘Frangiais’’ — the cor- ruption ef the French language by English.

It is no news to us, of course, that Quebec-dominated Ottawa insists on cquality for French in the rest of Canada while permit- ting unilingualism in Quebec.

One result, as Johnson points out, is that Rowntrees Pastilles, Fry’s Peppermint Creams and Cadbury’s Dairy Mifk had to be removed from the shelves in Toronto because the labels w not printed in French as well as English.

But who has supported *‘the tongue troop of Quebec every bit as much as the ich themselves?

Johnson doesn't say it, but it is the Keith Spicers, the Allan Fotheringhams, the Pierre Ber- tons, the John Frasers, the CBC gurus and all the other high priests of Canadian liberatism. Not to mention our despicable politicians.

Johnson quotes A.J. Andrews (author of Bilingual Tod:

French Tomorraw), who has claimed that English-speaking Canadians in Quebec have no language or political rights wnat- soever except the right to vote.

That is an exaggeration, but there is a germ of truth to it. For what is blithely called The French Fact takes precedence in Quebec over everything else. And if *‘Brit- ish"? Columbia atterspted to do one hundredth of the things that Quebec has done we wouid all be denounced as Nazis.

That’s liberalism for you.

Have a nice day.

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