Canada has looked its nose down on its neighbors to the South pretty much forever. We like to shoot each other; we’re the ones prone to starting wars over the slightest provocation and dragging them into our battles.
So then we look at what happened this week. A lone gunman gets into Parliament, shoots a couple of people, and now lawmakers are saying, Canada is never going to be the same, Canada is going to change forever.
Really?
Thank God it wasn’t worse, because it could have been, easily. A guy walked in the front door of Parliament with a rifle and apparently fired dozens of shots in its halls on a day when most MPs would have been on the premises for weekly caucus meetings. If he hadn’t been what he seems to have been, a lone wolf with no formal training and no real battle plan other than to fire shots indiscriminately, it’s a different story altogether.
What happened, ultimately, wasn’t much removed from the recent incidents at the White House with jumpers getting over the fence, and the one who got in and ran around for a brief time before being subdued, except that neither caused any injury as a result of their intrusions.
Which is to say, it wasn’t 9/11, or anything close, for comparisons of scale.
Our response to the White House invasions has been to demand the head of the person in charge of the Secret Service, but aside from that, meh, crazy people will do what crazy people will do.
Our response to 9/11, on the other hand, yeah, we changed how we do things, and ultimately who we are. I’m not sure that many of us would argue that we’re better off as a result.
So don’t change who you are, Canada, over a guy trying to shoot up your Parliament. C’mon, we know that you’re a helluva lot more resilient than that.
– Column by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
