Christie Blatchford has a wonderful column in The Globe and Mail today about the reaction to the plea bargain given former Conservative Member of Parliament Rahim Jaffer. Mr. Jaffer, for those of you who do not know, for those of you who are safely outside the bubble of Canadian political silliness, was last year charged with impaired driving and possession of cocaine. He eventually pleaded guilty to reckless driving. On what grounds the evidence against Mr. Jaffer collapsed so that the Crown felt certain they could not convict him of the original charges, we do not know. What we do know, thanks to the reminder provided by Ms Blatchford, is that as recently as 1999 only one in ten criminal cases in this country actually reached trial, and we have no right to assign guilt to those sentenced on charges that were dropped. It is pure political treachery to suggest that Mr. Jaffer, now a private citizen, is some manner of drug fiend.
But that is precisely what members of opposition parties have done in suggesting that, somehow, our government interfered to arrange a break for one of their own. "How is it that [Liberal MP] Ms [Anita] Neville gets to smear Mr. Jaffer?" Ms Blatchford asks. "Oh, yeah, because he's a Tory, she's a Liberal and it happened in the House of Commons."
The political climate in this country has deteriorated to the point where anyone who does not share your opinion is branded an idiot, and I will go so far as to say that anyone found to be to the right of your views is branded a devil.
I should know.
As you can imagine, with a blog called "The Classroom Conservative," I have felt the sharp end of intolerance on many occasions over the past three years. How many emails have I had branding me a Bush-era neo-Con?
The idea, originally, was that I was here describing, a little more provocatively, my stance as a "classroom traditionalist." Having worked out over fifteen years an approach to teaching based on organization, plain speaking, and a genuine belief that the liberal arts should be at the center of all that we do, I was reacting against those people who began telling me, on the heels of my Distinguished Teaching Award, that I must adopt electronic delivery, that I must embrace all manner of alternative pedagogies. I was, then, influenced by William F. Buckley, Jr.'s edict that his National Review stood "athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it." If, along the way, I have come to think of myself as a Red Tory -- fiscally conservative and socially progressive -- when so much damage is being done to our society by politicians who are socially conservative and/or fiscally reckless, then I conclude that I have done no harm.
But let us look at the record, shall we? I have voted for every major political party in Canada, including the Greens. I have been critical of those on the left who propose huge new social programs with no sense of how to pay for them. I have been critical of moderates who, believing that a vast majority of Canadians would never support a "right-wing" party, moved left in hopes of achieving, I can only conclude, something like a one-party parliament. And, to conservatives who advocate all manner of tax breaks to big business, I have been a bitter disappointment, even as I spoke for the "West," for some time, on Charles Adler's radio program.
(Speaking of tax breaks for big business: you will note that the Alberta Tory party this week rolled back any progressive measures adopted on energy royalties. I do not get it. We have a progressive system of income tax. When times are good, you contribute more to public well-being; when times are bad, you do not. I still cannot see how it is impossible to arrange a similar system for people who are in the business of extracting, refining, and selling the resources that lie underneath our province. But, according to radio call-in shows in Calgary, I do not -- simply because I ask this question -- work hard enough or understand at all how business works. But I digress.)
I hoped, as well, over these years, to suggest to people that, by self-identifying as "conservative," a large minority of thinking people could help reject the tenets of the far right. Not so, I fear. To be a conservative, in the classroom, speeding in a car, or standing formally in the political arena means something very specific, something that scares many people.
Ironically, I blame American conservatives for this development. Rather than accepting that the world of thought is one of grays, they have held that the world is black and white, right and wrong. If we do not agree on everything, there can be nothing in our views that can influence each other. Two solitudes was always more than language, of course, but now it is more than culture, as well. Two solitudes describes so much of how we all interact.
Mr. Jaffer's plight demonstrates this intolerance far more than it suggests any weakness in the Canadian legal system.
Comments