In Canada, officials demand deference

John Doyle, Opinion, The Globe and Mail:

The staunch sense of righteousness which became the dominant tone of the Rob-Ford-versus-22 Minutes incident was a salutary reminder that in some aspects, Canada is a highly intolerant country. Intolerant of spoofery, intolerant of ridicule intended to expose pomposity and falsity, intolerant of sarcasm aimed at the powerful.

What was truly startling about the bizarre Ford incident was the howling for apologies. Much media yakking – we don’t have media analysis in Canada, we merely have people inside the media venomously passing judgment on other people in the media – amounted to demands that the CBC apologize to Rob Ford.

There was a quality of bullying to this demand. First, of course, the idea that the satirists at 22 Minutes might issue an apology to a political figure is a juicy one to a certain constituency. Bring the mockers to their knees, let them know who’s boss. A tipping-point moment to emphasize that this country has shifted to the right and conservatives will not tolerate mockery. Further, though, the incident and ensuing media yakking, almost all of it bombastic right-wing hectoring – which is what characterizes the Canadian media these days – popped up at just the point where the CBC is under fierce attack. It is being attacked by a commercial competitor, Quebecor, with the Conservative Party and Conservative MPs piling on. The Rob Ford incident represented another opportunity to heap scorn on the CBC for being what its enemies always say it is – boring, stupid and lefty.

It is a fact that the Conservative government is determined to change the narrative of Canada, to change the country’s image of itself to suit the Conservative agenda.

I thought back to the beginning of the Ford era in Toronto. Don Cherry introduced Ford at his swearing-in. Famously, Cherry delivered a rambling rant about “pinkos” and appeared to mean those who had questioned his role in the swearing-in. A lot of people understood Cherry to be ranting about a column in the Toronto Star and one here by yours truly. “This is what you'll be facing, Rob, with these left-wing pinkos,” Cherry bellowed. “They scrape the bottom of the barrel.” The tone of the Ford administration was set right there – intolerance of the press, fury at mockery.

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