Tweets Have Consequences

CANADIAN HERITAGE MINISTER James Moore likes to call himself "the iPod Minister."  He's "hip," and plugged into new technologies, and is the guy pushing the CMF to get all jiggy with that online content creation that hasn't made anybody any money yet.

And yet...

I was very surprised when waiting for a plane to find he'd tweeted this yesterday:

Now, on the one hand, it's almost a funny.  I wouldn't have minded the evocation of the 2nd iteration of the Alberta wingers who took over the Conservative party a while back, but Moore is a politician -- and words, whether they're calling a constituent a 'bigot' or choosing a team in a match -- have impact.

Yes. I know.  Moore is from Vancouver. He should be expected to root for the Canucks.  He could have said any version of, "My team in this playoffs is the Canucks," he could have said, "West Coast Rules! Vancouver!" or anything similar, and we would have taken it in that spirit.  But that's not what he wrote.

"The Canucks are Canada's Team in these playoffs."

What does that mean, exactly?  Well, to an eye practiced in the art of discerning & interpreting Conservative Party spin -- a task that most of us have grown to learn since they took the reins of power four years ago -- it is the same old thing of splitting apart into an us or them.  Us doesn't include the CBC, artistic elites, union people, city dwellers -- and Quebec.   In a fractious, minority parliament situation, divide & conquer, shore up your base & cherry pick some ridings here and there might be the only way toward stability. But it's killing the country. Killing it.

Sports is a special metaphor for everything. People invest so much because, in the end, it's not as gnarly & real a thing as your pension, or your employer maybe shutting up shop, or the fact that you're not sure you'll be able to pay your mortgage in three years.  Sports is freighted with an emotion greater than its actual, real-life importance.  Someone in the political class surely knows that.

Now let's talk Hockey.  84% of the country watched the Gold Medal Canada Hockey game.  The Hockey Playoffs are routinely the highest rated shows of the year in this country.  Moore's party knows that -- they even changed the Citizenship guide so that immigrants would know how important the sport was to this country.

Which is why Moore's comment -- coming on the heels of one of the most stunning comebacks by a team that a whole lot of "Canadiens" think of as "Canada's team" goes beyond tone deafness, into a very much darker corner of the current political climate.

By circumstance, I happened to be in Montreal the night the Canadiens walopped the Capitals, and did the unthinkable -- advance to the 2nd round of the playoffs by beating the best team in the game. 

It was unlikely. It was surprising, and it was joyous.  The bar I was in erupted.  The man beside me, a 72 year old in an old style Habs sweater, let loose a strain of joyous French invective that sounded like Jacques Brel coughing.  He told me later that he'd seen his first game at the Forum in 1946.  

To my right there were three businessmen from Cincinatti.  One was a Penguins fan, but said that "tonight I'm rooting for MONNNtreal."  These were nice, decent guys -- and the convo only got dicey a couple times when they started talking about Barack HUSSEIN Obama -- and the heart of division came back to the fore.  I subtly indicated that, in fact, I was Team Obama, and a remarkable thing happened.  We sort of, by covenant or mutual agreement, agreed to let it go. We were tired, and in a fun place. We agreed that maybe the sides working together a bit more was important.  They said that they loved coming to Montreal because it was so different that it gave them a totally different perspective on the world.  "That's why I like it too," I said. 

Another beer, another story, good natured -- about the Democrat friend one of the guys always gives a hard time to.  And he gives it right back.  "I'd like to see what he did to Hannity if he got a shot."  Still neighbours. Still friends.  The war in the media doesn't have to hit main street after all.  By the time they left, I had a standing invitation to visit Cincinatti. And Patrick to my left had regaled me with the stories of the three times he'd met The Rocket.

Outside in the streets, up on Ste. Catherine, the flags were waving and the kids were screaming.  Anglo & French, songs shouted together.  A legacy shared across a language barrier.  If nothing else, that's why the Canadiens win was important.  More important, in fact, because of how unexpected and unlikely it was.

That's what Sports is good for too, Minister Moore.  Crafting the unlikely metaphor for life, that if you listen and live it, just might transfer a bit of hope to other areas, too.

We're so tired of everyone in Ottawa acting like a bunch of two year olds.  Your party's default position of blaming everything on the other -- liberal plots, the CBC, bias from the civil service -- doesn't cut it anymore. You've been running the country for years now. Whatever's wrong -- you own it. We don't want to hear whose fault you think it is. We want you to fix it. You have a minority government.  That means you need help.  Start looking for help and stop looking for who to blame.

And while you're at it, next time you're in an unfriendly (read: Non-Conservative) part of the country, may I gently suggest you take the iPod earbuds out of the ear and listen for a moment?  My specialty is the cultural sector, and I know from listening to you & reading your tweets for a year or so now, that gosh, you get an awful lot wrong.  I can't believe that's not true in some of the other areas of your stewardship.

It's ironic that a party that takes so much of its energy from regional, Western disaffection concentrates so much of the power in one man's office, and refuses to accept outside ideas or advice -- even from within the party.  Perhaps you tweet & twitter so much because the PMO's door is closed to you, too. I don't know.

What I do know is this: there are many of us out here that yearn for a Canada where the first thing you don't hear from a Vancouverite is how much they hate Toronto; where you can enjoy the beauty of an Alberta trail without getting into an argument; and maybe where the spirit of those anglo kids & French kids shouting for joy in the streets can be marshalled for something other than the most unlikely of hockey wins.

I did a quick in-and-out trip to Winnipeg in the last couple days for a seminar.  I met some great people, had wonderful conversations.  On the flight there, I watched Defendor, the Woody Harrelson, Hamilton-shot movie written & directed by an Actor I first met when he was in my Miniseries Across The River to Motor City, Peter Stebbings.  It was great.  A wonderful movie about personal responsibility & heroism & about how ordinary people can do extraordinary things.  On the way back I saw a funny, scabrous dirty heist movie, The High Life -- about four hapless guys trying to pull a bank heist. It was like a rougher Canadian Guy Ritchie movie.  And it was based on a play that I remember seeing in Toronto several years ago.  Yes. That's right. A movie based on a Canadian PLAY.

Accessible, entertaining, Canadian. Made for us. Made by us.  Not the slightest bit elitist.  I also, as I do a lot, flipped through the TV section, lingering over the French language episodes of Les Boys & a Patrick Huard comedy special. I keep hoping one of these days I'm going to see these available on the inflight entertainment system with English subtitles.  I'm curious. I'd like to see what Quebec is watching, too.  And right now my French isn't good enough to follow it. I hope one day to fix that, too.  Because I think that's kind of one of the cool things about Canada.

When you take the iPod buds out of your ears to face a non-Conservative audience, it's amazing the things you'll hear.  You won't like some of it.  But I'm confident you might hear one or two things that could change your perspective a little.

I guess the question is, what's more important to you?  Serving the great nation that Canada is? Or working relentlessly to make it over in the Conservative ideology you support?

There are two Canadian teams in these playoffs, Minister Moore.  You're from Vancouver, and we'll give you a pass for rooting for the Canucks.  But don't tell us who's more Canadian. 

That is not, and will never be your call to make.  If you don't get that, then there's something in your ears besides earbuds.

UPDATE: I stipulate that the "iPod Minister" thing probably came from the Press, not the Honourable MP himself.  Quick on the uptake, if not the accepting of responsibility.  "Lighten up," of course is the familiar riposte of anyone who's ever been taken to task for telling a sexist joke or making an off-colour remark.  I learned from personal experience years ago that "lighten up," is about the worst answer you can make in about 99% of these circumstances.  But it heartens me to think that we won't see any kind of puffed-up or manufactured outrage coming from the Minister the next time a Liberal MP makes a bad joke, or if somebody on a CBC Panel tweeks the government.  It's clearly a new day dawning, where we'll all be able to "lighten up." I salute the brave Minister for choosing to lead the charge.  Follow through, and you'll be a better man than I, Gunga Din.

AND YET ANOTHER UPDATE 05/03: 


A commenter, "Red Snapper" below points out another excellent take on the subtext of this article:

I also question his increasing use of the "block" function. He's actively shunning cultural organizations he's supposed to be standing up for as well as taxpayers who are so outrageous as to now [sic, he means 'not'] fawn over him 24/7.

That's a great point. The Minister got Pissed off at ACTRA a few weeks ago and blocked them, so that he doesn't have to read their responses, and they can't "follow" him.  This is a regular thing now with the Minister.  If you're not in step with his worldview, he does the digerati equivalent of putting hands over ears and petulantly shouting, "naah naah nahh can't hear you!"

You know, part of the rumbles over the Gordon Brown gaffe last week (separate & apart from the debate over whether the woman he spoke to was actually a bigot or not) comes from the fact that deep down, this is what a lot of us fear about politicians -- especially in a Parliamentary system where they're supposed to be more loyal to the party than their constituents -- when the doors are closed, they barely pay lip service to other people's opinions.  We're not naive.  We saw the result of George W. Bush's government shutting out any and all advisors that didn't conform to their worldview:  it transformed government into a purely political apparatus, with disastrous effects for the United States, and the world.  (In contrast, if you'll remember, to the Clinton years, when Republicans had to worry and harrumph over stained dresses because any of their good ideas were actually, you know, embraced by Clinton)

Blocking contrary voices on Twitter just proves that the guy is really, really interested in saying how great he is going around handing out money -- serving his portfolio? Not so much.