HEINRICHS: What can raise a sunken spirit?

Gerald Heinrichs is a Regina-based lawyerOne of the big news stories from 2024 was the state of Canada's armed forces. "Canada's military is short 16,000 troops, its branches are operating below readiness thresholds half the time" reported the Globe and Mail. "Unready for war," wrote Murray Brewster for CBC. "Depleted, demoralized and nearly shattered," said David Redman in the Western Standard..REDMAN: Needed, a government that takes defence seriously.It is a saga of shortages at many levels.But in recent weeks, a storm of words has shown that Canada's national spirit is also in poor shape. Twenty years ago, if a US president had talked about making Canada the 51st state there would have been shouts in the street: "Our home and native land!" and "The True North strong and free!" Perhaps a call to boycott Walmart and Coca Cola. Or at least a hands-off-my-country rally in front of the US embassy. But such true patriot love has been hard to find. It is like Canadian patriotism is sleeping — or worse. In reply to Trump's mocking annexation, Justin Trudeau posted an old tourism video with the comment, "Some information about Canada for Americans."Hardly the battle cry that sent troops up Bunker Hill. According to many though, there is no mystery why Canadian patriotism is ailing. It is because almost every element of Canadian heritage has been maligned as racist, sexist, or colonialist by the Liberal-NDP leadership. John A. MacDonald was a demon. The military is depraved. The Western railway and settlement were evil. Explorers and industrialists were wicked. And to replace it all, Canadians have been given new slogans like "Diversity is our strength." According to the Ottawa government, dismantling old-fashioned patriotism is the right thing. But almost a century ago, Stanley Baldwin, three times prime minister of Great Britain, condemned such an idea, stating, "Men who deny their national spiritual heritage in exchange for a vague and watery cosmopolitanism become less than men; they starve and dwarf their personalities; they turn into a sort of political eunuch." This is what has happened here, say many critics of the Liberal-NDP government. And if Canada has become a schoolyard weakling, then no one should be surprised that Donald Trump is throwing sand. In recent memory there was an event when hundreds of thousands of Canadians lined the highways waving flags and singing "O Canada". But Justin Trudeau called them a racist fringe minority. He did worse things too. Yet another reason for sunken pride today, say many Canadians. What could bring crowds into the streets cheering and singing again? Almost everyone knows the answer to that.Gerald Heinrichs is a lawyer in Regina Saskatchewan.

HEINRICHS: What can raise a sunken spirit?

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