VANCOUVER — Last week, the Western Standard published a light-hearted but pointed ranking of the “top ten most painful English speakers in Canadian politics.”
The reaction was both predictable and revealing.
The piece was widely praised on social media as inspired, if not satirical, journalism addressing a real and controversial subject.
But legacy media journalists and left-wing politicians predictably clutched pearls and cried “racism.”
Never mind the fact racism applies to race and not language proficiency — this split isn't surprising.
It highlights the growing disconnect between insulated Laurentian elites, legacy media journalists, radical left-wing politicians, and their shrinking but increasingly insular world of political discourse.
The usual suspects rushed to virtue signal.
For example, Ryan Painter, long time BC political ‘insider,’ said on X: “This is vile and racist, plain and simple" — before saying he would never platform the Western Standard or the article’s author ever again.
That's a shame.
What makes the outrage particularly rich is the hypocrisy from some of its loudest voices.
Take Warren Kinsella. He amplified Andrew Coyne's critique, who mocked the article as ranking "Immigrants and Frenchies [who] sure talk funny."
Yet legacy media figures like Kinsella and Coyne have been quick to platform criticism when public figures fail to meet French-language expectations.
The recent case of Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau is instructive.
Rousseau faced intense backlash — including from federal politicians and commentators — for delivering condolences after a tragic crash primarily in English, despite years of promises to improve his French.
He was hauled before parliamentary committees and ultimately faced pressure contributing to his departure.
The outrage machine ran at full throttle, as it does, because a senior executive at a major national carrier must function in French.
This is the same crowd that now insists noticing "painful" English in federal politics is bigoted.
In Canada, French gets treated as sacred, especially in federal institutions and Quebec-focused roles.
English competence in overwhelmingly English-majority Western Canada?
That’s apparently flexible for us out West — for reasons that are not only never coherently explained, but for which questioning it is treated as offensive.
Our original article wasn't about mocking ethnicity.
It included native English speakers with folksy or muddled styles — Jean Chrétien didn't exactly speak the Queen's English and Stéphane Dion could not understand full sentences based on his infamous CTV interview — and French-accented politicians for balance.
The metric was simple: How difficult is it for average English-speaking Canadians to understand what these public figures are saying?
The social experiment, with predictable results, was even more simple.
Racism refers to race and ethnicity — not language proficiency.
Plenty of immigrants speak crisp, professional English and excel in public life.
Politicians including Jasraj Singh Hallan, Harjit Sajjan, and Tim Uppal reflect a broader Canadian tradition in which newcomers and their children not only integrate into public life, but frequently become among the country's clearest and most compelling voices — whether you agree with their politics or not.
The issue is scale and standards.
Canada has welcomed hundreds of thousands annually in recent years under a radical mass immigration policy.
Expecting basic functional proficiency in just one of the working and official languages of most of the country isn't radical or racist — it's the bare minimum for employment and citizenship, let alone high trust institutions like being a lawmaker.
Those demanding we pretend otherwise are the ones lowering the bar and thereby engaging in the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Racism is immoral and wrong because it judges people based on skin colour — an immutable characteristic one has no control over.
Language proficiency is something within everyone's control.
In their desperate attempt to lambast anything as racist that competes with their outdated worldview, they've lost sight of what the definition of “racism” is.
The strong positive reaction on X versus the insular outrage from legacy outlets tells the story.
New media allows direct conversation with readers tired of enforced taboos.
People see the Tower of Babel effects in their communities, schools, hospitals, road safety, and now politics.
Criticisms from legacy media journalists Rob Shaw, Coyne, Kinsella, and others were dismissed by the majority of readers.
They clearly appreciate outlets willing to say the quiet part out loud.