Conservatives need to convince Canadians that they are centrist enough to be trusted in government. But linking themselves to the likes of Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson will not reinforce that sentiment.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on January 29, 2024.

OTTAWA—He was too toxic for Fox News. But Tucker Carlson was welcomed with open arms by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith last week.

The pair enjoyed a private dinner before they shared the stage at a sold-out Carlson appearance.

The premier featured in a photo with two other Carlson wannabees: Conrad Black and Jordan Peterson.

Carlson was in the province for two speaking events, engaging 4,000 attendees in Calgary and 8,000 in Edmonton.

Carlson, who spent the fall on tour to countries governed by extreme right-wingers, told the media he was coming to Canada to liberate the country from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

While Carlson attracted thousands of people to his events, more than 17,000 people signed a petition calling for the cancellation of those appearances because of his hate speech against the LGBTQ+ community.

Carlson has also spoken out vociferously against support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

Carlson says he would rather liberate Canada from Trudeau than liberate Ukraine. He has compared the Canadian prime minister to Hitler, and said Canada was turning into a totalitarian state because of its legalization of medically-assisted deaths.

Since the MAID legislation was introduced in 2016, almost 45,000 medically assisted deaths have been recorded in Canada, much to the chagrin of Carlson, who claimed that these deaths were evidence that Canada was slipping into totalitarianism.

While Carlson and Smith were linking arms on issues like their opposition to COVID vaccinations, the federal Liberals were meeting in caucus to figure out how they may be able to dig themselves out of their political hole.

Trips like that of Carlson are fodder for Liberal strategists who think the way to beat Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is to link his party to the Trumpian-inspired anti-government movement in the United States.

Like Carlson, Poilievre refused to fund war assistance for Ukraine, calling it a faraway foreign land when they voted against financial assistance in the House.

Like Carlson, Conservative Members of Parliament such as Leslyn Lewis are calling for Canada to drop out of the United Nations.

Conservatives need to convince Canadians that they are centrist enough to be trusted in government. But linking themselves to the likes of Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson will not reinforce that sentiment.

Peterson was another speaker at the Carlson roadshow. He was listed as an author.

Peterson has failed to meet professional standards in psychology, and has been required to undergo social media communication coaching.

In refusing to do so, Peterson went to court, but his appeal was denied by a three-judge divisional panel in August. Their decision was recently upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeals, and refusal to comply means Peterson will soon lose his right to practise.

Peterson teaches that chaos is a feminine trait, and that “confused gay kids are being convinced they’re transsexual.”

Peterson says women’s studies should be banned from university, and claims that the pay gap between women and men could be “predicated on competence.”

Peterson says the rise of Donald Trump is a response to a collective push to “feminize” men, claiming that if men are pushed too hard, they will become more and more interested in fascist ideology.

Poilievre has been promoting the defence of Peterson on X (formerly Twitter).

At the same time that the Conservative leader attacks “woke Liberal-NDP mayors,” he defends Peterson’s decision to ignore a court order on his professional misconduct charges.

Before Carlson appeared on the stage with Smith last week, he joined a webinar with Peterson and Canadian businessman Brett Wilson.

Liberals were quick to tie Poilievre to the Tucker event, with Edmonton Centre Member of Parliament and minister Randy Boissonnault leading the charge.

Boissonnault, a gay MP, said Carlson’s appearance in his riding in downtown Edmonton had caused a lot of fear in the LGBTQ+ community.

Boissonnault was joined by fellow ministers Pascale St-Onge, Pablo Rodriguez, and Steven Guilbeault in Ottawa last week. They all called on Poilievre to denounce the presence of Carlson, and make it clear that his caucus is not aligning their views with those of Smith and Carlson.

The Carlson appearance was limited to Alberta, and chances are he may not be invited elsewhere in Canada as he continually referred to Toronto as an “atrocity,” a great crowd-pleaser.

He laughed at gays and defended white anglos who are being undermined in Canada.

The decision by the Alberta premier to invite Carlson will certainly provide political fodder to those who question what kind of Canada conservatives really want.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The time has come to move as a herd.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 1, 2020.

OTTAWA—Surgical sterility is great for an operating room. But it does not work in the real world.

The notion that after almost three months in lockdown people are expected to either stay home or go to places where they are not allowed to sit down for fear of transmitting COVID is unworkable.

In Calgary, people gather in bars and restaurants in a convivial atmosphere. In Ottawa, you cannot even sit down on picnic tables at the Dairy Queen for fear of an infection outbreak.

In the olden days, Hogtown had another nickname, Toronto the Good. It was based on laws with a distinctively Presbyterian flavour that restricted drinking, dancing, and all things purportedly sinful.

The new normal has unleashed a wave of righteous caterwauling the likes of which we have not witnessed since the seventies (of the last century).

The blowback on the Trinity-Bellwoods park exuberance, was a case in point.

Everyone from the premier to the mayor jumped on the finger-pointing bandwagon, instead of realistically assessing why there was only a postage-stamp park in an area of multiple, low-income high-rise dwellings.

Not everyone has a private backyard to COVID in. In Toronto, the possibility of having your own personal space is even more remote.

So, on a sunny Saturday in May, when the province had announced the loosening of rules to stage two, people came out in droves.

On the fish-eye lens shots that immediately circulated on social media, it looked as though thousands were elbow to elbow.

But when the television cameras arrived, it was clear that people were trying their best to ensure social distancing.

But the armchair critics jumped in to attack millennials, claiming their irresponsibility was putting lives at risk.

At one point, a COVID-commentating doctor was almost in tears on television because he could not understand why people would be undermining the contribution of health-care workers in this thoughtless romp in the park.

Across the pond, critics are vicious in their attack British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top aid for defying lockdown rules and driving to his mother’s home to drop off his four-year-old with grandma. He claims he and his wife were sick, and therefore the trip was about necessary childcare while they convalesced.

Without drilling down into the details of his explanation, the revelation rocked the country. People are stuck at home and obviously hurting when the rules that apply to them do not apply to others.

But the COVID epidemic has also unleashed the vitriol of unhappy people who normally keep their acidic worldview to themselves.

In today’s world, the COVID police are everywhere, ready to pounce on someone who veers too close on a walking path or accidentally steps in the wrong spot in a grocery store.

The old nosy parker, who was into everybody’s else’s business, is now doing it with impunity, as though their observations on everyone else are in the public interest.

In the condo in which I live, some dwellers have taken to counting the empty visitor parking spots every weekend to make sure that no interlopers are sneaking into the premises.

Last weekend, I hosted two family members for a dinner. It was within the rule of five, and we had covided in their backyard (with self-distancing) several times over the past few months.

To enter the apartment without neighbourly reporting, we made sure family entered through the underground parking, so as not to be outed by anyone looking out their window into visitors’ parking.

I have a friend who is struggling alone to support her husband, suffering with brain cancer. We have a weekly COVID meeting in the passageway between our apartments.

Last Friday, she broke down in tears, describing the loneliness of watching her partner slowly slip away, without the support that would normally attend a dying family member.

Horror of horrors, I hugged her. She needed a human connection and two meters of space just did not cut it.

Perfection may occur in hospital settings, but I think the public’s attention would be far better focused on eliminating risk in long-term care facilities.

With the high ratio of deaths in vulnerable populations, it is shameful that we need the military to expose germ-infested, understaffed conditions in health facilities.

But while we focus on not touching each other, the death rate numbers are largely driven by long-term care neglect.

Canadians have been very supportive of the new normal. But enough is enough. The time has come to move as a herd.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps

First published in The Hill Times on November 5, 2018.

OTTAWA—A Calgary Winter Olympic bid plebiscite next week is only the first hurdle in the city’s potential 2026 hosting bid.

Whether Calgarians want to cough up cash in lean times remains to be seen. Even the majority of city council opposes the bid, although an eight-hour long debate did not yield enough opposition to kill it.

Council voted 8-7 to end the bid but rules required a two-thirds majority to reverse a previous positive council decision. The chair of the bid committee, councillor Evan Woolley, was a key opponent of hosting the games, claiming a new trilateral financial agreement prompted more questions than answers.

Olympic supporters jammed council chambers with noisy chants in support of the bid. But the social media told another story.

Many were griping online that those who would be footing the bill could not make their voices heard because the meeting was held during normal working hours.

But Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, a vocal bid supporter, made a compelling financial case as to why citizens should support the bid.

“This is an incredibly good deal. After all that sausage-making, the sausage that came out of it is amazing.” Nenshi said the investment yield a ten-to-one return in capital improvements to public facilities that will remain long after the games. He said the city was already going to spend $350-million on McMahon stadium and field house upgrades. The increased bill of $40-million would result in a $4-billion dollar Olympic investment.

But even if the Nov. 13 plebiscite passes muster, the biggest hurdle is convincing the world that a single city should host the games twice in a period of less than forty years.

Add that to the fact that Canada hosted winter games in Vancouver-Whistler less than 10 years ago, sympathy at the International Olympic Committee may not be in Calgary’s court. At this point, there are competing bids from Sweden and Italy, both of which appear to have fewer naysayers.

City dissent, while not unusual in Canadian pre-game bids, will also affect the level of support that can be expected at the International Olympic Committee. These international decision-makers are nothing if not political. And if it looks as though local opposition is building, the IOC may simply not want to take the risk.

But if Calgary is successful, the struggling city will enjoy more than an economic rebound.

The last time Calgary hosted the games was 1988. By all accounts, the event was a smashing success. It left Calgary with a sports legacy that is still paying dividends. Athletes from all over Canada move to the city to take advantage of the national training centre that was developed as a legacy from the games. Many of the historic number of medals that Canada garnered in 2010 were a direct result of the national sport legacy spawned in Calgary.

The city has also been an incubator for retiring athletes to embark on new careers, building on their Olympic prowess.

Nenshi is right about the unequalled federal and provincial investment levels the games would bring.

The city is required to pay a cash contribution and offer up some in-kind investment but the bulk of the financial strain will be borne by the federal government, shared in half measure by the province.

The IOC has also promised to provide more than $1-billion in financial incentives, so struggling cities can afford to bid on the games.

The federal government reworked a pre-existing funding agreement that required a 50-50 between the federal government and provincial and local authorities. New rules require the city to be responsible for any deficit.

A cost-cutting agreement tabled on the eve of the council vote last Wednesday, shaved $125-million off the initial $3-billion public funding estimate. Savings in security and housing construction were cited. The total bill is estimated to be $5.2-million.

But question still looming large even after the council vote, is a city pledge to buy an insurance policy to cover up to $200-million in cost overruns. City management warned that it is unclear whether an overrun insurance policy is even available.

All in all, it leaves Calgarians have a lot to consider when they go to the polls next week.

Chances are the ayes will have it. Games organizers have mobilized strong business support and everyone knows that Calgary needs an economic boost.

But even if citizens swallow the uncertainty and vote to host the games, the road to 2026 will be very long indeed.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By SHEILA COPPS

Published on Monday, September 18, 2017 in The Hill Times.

OTTAWA—Imagine a public arts policy where bureaucrats choose the art.

No, we are not talking China. The City of Calgary has recently been debating a motion to freeze public art investment, because some councillors are not happy with controversial art installations.

Calgary councillor Shane Keating recently spoke to the media about the motion to freeze the public art policy until changes are made.

His comments in explaining the freeze left arts supporters shaking their heads.

“I think we need to move away from the concept the artist gets to decide what it looks like,” Keating told the media.

“The taxpayers are actually commissioning the artwork and they should have a very large say in what the final piece should actually look like rather than the artist’s interpretation.”

On the contrary, the concept of artistic freedom is designed to ensure that creative interpretation is not ruined by bureaucratic meddling.

On this political discussion, Calgary could actually learn something from China.

I have just returned from the 5th Canada-China Cultural Dialogue held in Dunhuang, on the edge of the Silk Road.

The dialogue focused on ‘Innovation and Ingenuity,’ and included professional presentations from museum and gallery leaders from both countries.

John McAvity, chief executive officer of the Canadian Museums Association, was one of the participants.

He underscored the important opportunity for our museums and galleries prompted by a 400 per cent increase in Chinese tourism to Canada.

The Canadian delegation included almost two dozen creative professionals and museum leaders from Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, and Montreal. The CMA board president, who hails from the Timmins Museum in Ontario, also joined the group.

The brains behind the ongoing dialogue, started nine years ago, is Dr. Nelly Ng, a Canadian physician from Scarborough. She has committed a lifetime of volunteer effort to the preservation of her Chinese heritage.

Ng initiated the dialogue almost a decade ago, after having spent the previous 10 years establishing the Canadian Foundation for the Preservation of Chinese Cultural Heritage.

Ng’s passion led to the creation of a not-for-profit organization which seeks to link museum directors and artistic leaders from both countries.

Thus far, there have been five exchanges, involving more than 200 artistic professionals from both countries. The dialogues have actually led to the opportunity for Canadian and Chinese artistic professionals to share work experiences.

In some instances, Canadian conservation professionals have worked in Chinese museums and galleries, and their Chinese counterparts have come to Canada for similar exchanges.

The relationship is so strong that at the recent September meeting, the Chinese proposed the establishment of a bilateral memorandum of understanding between Canadian and Chinese museums.

If the MOU negotiations are successful, both organizations are hoping to have the agreement signed next April when the Canadian Museums Association hosts its next annual meeting in Vancouver.

Ng, whose personal mission has been the inspiration for this strong relationship, is motivated by her love for the deep history of Chinese cultural heritage.

She singlehandedly spearheaded the Canadian Fund for International understanding through culture to reinforce her deep connection with Chinese heritage. It’s short name is Can4Culture, and the organization includes Governor General of Canada David Johnston as honorary patron.

According to Ng, the mandate of Can4Culture is to “support cultural exchange, student exchange and … cultural heritage, art, literature, drama, music science and history.”

At the meeting in Gansu province, Canadian visitors got the chance to witness firsthand cultural treasures that date back more than 2000 years.

The Mogao Caves and grottoes were carved by Buddhist worshippers along the original Silk Road at the edge of the Gobi desert. The creations are a Chinese treasure that has been recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site.

Dunhuang, located in the heart of Gansu province, was teaming with tourists.

However, most of them were Chinese. With a population of more than 1.2 billion people, Chinese heritage sites’ first mission is to encourage local participation.

In addition, the local, provincial and national governments invest heavily in research and interpretation support.

The Mogao destination is stunning. The work involved in grotto interpretation involves dozens of arts professionals whose sole aim is to promote research and education about the artists and worshippers who created and protected the site.

This stunning Silk Road site is a treasure trove of artistic creation.

For lovers of history and heritage, Mogao is a must see on anyone’s bucket list.

Unlike Calgary, there is absolutely no disagreement in Dunhuang about the right of artists to protect and preserve their creations.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.