Are heroes passé?.In the same week that Tina Turner died, we learned the government — rather than fixing our passport problems — chose to revamp the pics inside and in so doing deleted from our collective psyche our great Canadian heroes. The same government that was outraged when a protester put a cap and Canadian flag on Terry Fox or urinated on the War Memorial have wiped out Canadian heroes all together. They couldn't stop at Sir John A and Queen Victoria, apparently. So, Turner's song 'We Don't Need Another Hero,' now playing regularly in the wake of her death, took on a new meaning for Canadians at least..We are told when crisis hits, a leader will emerge. Not in Canada, at least not during COVID, and at least not among our politicians. Here the axiom was proved wrong. We had no Churchill riding the subways encouraging fearful citizens. No Ghandi or King or Vaclav Havel — anyone, actually — defying the prevailing narrative, showing great personal sacrifice, bringing people together "at the table of brotherhood." Not even a Jack Layton, or (gasp!) Stephane Dion, or Preston Manning — no Tommy Douglas arguing from a place of deeply considered and lived-out intellectual and emotional conviction..No. Instead, our leaders hid behind "experts," "the science," and the nudges and verbal camouflage of Behavioural Insights Teams and Navigator communications firms. Everyone played the same bureaucratic sing-song — the Brave New World hypnopaedic moral messaging stuck on repeat.. New Passport 2 .So maybe the weak-kneed actions of David Johnston are simply a part of our times. Disappointing, though. Back in the day, I was elated Johnston was the new GG. He didn't look like the CBC-type sophisticate we usually get for the office. Sure, he was a university president, but he was also the father of five kids, and as a father of six I thought this had to account for something good; kids have a way of kicking the BS out of you. I expected more than another loyalty test by the Laurentian elite..Regardless, we can't let these fellas convince us heroism and leadership are dead in Canada..Today, as I headed off to pick up my daughter at school, a young volunteer firefighter in an old pickup truck just pulled into our local fire station with his blue light flashing on his dash. He parked and jumped out of the cab — a broad-shouldered guy with some faded logo writing on the back of his blue T-shirt. As I passed by, all I saw was the back of him. He was running, running into the station as the first firefighter there. Fully on and ready to go.. TrudeauPrime Minister Trudeau — responsible for removing Canadian heroes from the pages of the Canadian passport. .I don't know if it's because I was heading into town to pick up my daughter at school; I don't know if its because there are wildfires all over the place right now, but the image stuck. The picture hit hard. It was an example of something good, something excellent: A man — younger and stronger and clearly more fit than me — putting all that he's made for into running into danger for someone else..A couple minutes later down the highway, I called home. I'd started to hear sirens, and one car after another up ahead pulled aside as eventually I passed 12 cop cars, rushing to what seemed a major crisis. I had to make sure my wife was near her cellphone..She said she'd been hearing fireworks nearby. I said I didn't think it was fireworks; I was sure there'd been a shooting. The seething frustration that's becoming part and parcel of a post-pandemic Canada finally erupted somewhere near our house. Either that or the uprising had begun..In a few minutes I picked up my daughter and two of her friends. On our way home, in the backseat her friends were chatting up the usual daily recap and what funny things their peers had done and said. Then one asks the other: "Did you hear what R said about all the wildfires? He said, 'I know who lit them: it was Justin Trudeau. Either him or someone he appointed!'" And they all had a laugh..I gulped. What a strange reality we're in. I couldn't imagine anyone joking about Chretien starting wildfires. A couple minutes later I got the call from home: our local convenience store and a nearby house had burnt to the ground. The "sounds of shooting" had been the store's supply of Canada Day fireworks exploding in the midst of the flames..Yep, the irony: Canada Day fireworks exploding in a building burning to the ground. Would this have been the last time the owner would carry them anyway?..When I got back home and all the streets around were backed up and blocked off, I couldn't help but think of that young man rushing in to fight that fire..While these men and countless others (and women too) are fighting fires all across this country, many of those waving flags this month outside downtown coffee shops and Muskoka cottages, apparently in an effort to redress some wrongs, call them toxic. Poisonous. These soot-covered heroes who fight our fires and clean up after hurricanes are demeaned and cast aside. Them and all those who live to face the danger and, yes, to know they have put themselves on the line for others, won't get any cool shots on the front page of the CBC during this month or any other. Not unless they have purple hair and breast prosthetics. Only Zelensky gets profiled as macho..Our whole understanding of bravery is twisted. We praise only those who join the parade, like it takes courage to march in time; those who "click to share," and follow "the guidelines." We "save a life by staying home.".Under the weight of nudges and group-think of these past few years, too many of us have lost the ability to draw lines of conviction and stand by them. We barely see the lines anymore. We are disoriented and tired and alienated in a country that we once knew but now don't recognize..We needed leaders of sacrifice and responsibility. We needed leaders with a stake in the game. We needed leaders who have everything to lose and yet still stood by their convictions, and thus through their example ended up making those they lead better and stronger. Not weaker..As wildfires burn this month and our leaders and mainstream media dance around with virtue signaling, buzz words and views on YouTube, we have to find our backbone again. We need to put up or shut up..Is Canada more than the parade we've seen these three years, or not?.Thousands of Canadians put their jobs on the line for the sake of conviction. Journalists and doctors and some politicians broke with the party line for the sake of conscience, and in so doing have shown that their ethics run deeper than career goals. They know the public good's not synonymous with some cooked up new definition of social stability. And, yes, some Canadians who don't give a rip about a flag that "affirms someone's life choices" do sacrifice a little of their precious comfort to get to know the gay couple next door, and simply affirm them as people..Staying home does not save a life..These days, too many kids want to grow up to be activists or 'influencers.'.I want to live in a country that breeds kids like that competitive roughneck Surrey teen, born in Winnipeg, who was known to have a temper tantrum or two while running on one leg across a country that still had some grit and who would, I think, have been more at home with those who put a ball cap on his statue, than with the spirit of mortal outrage and airbrushed virtue signalling that has come to dominate our lives... and our conversations..When Terry Fox ran, kids wanted to be firefighters.
