Let’s play a little game. It’s called Whose Statue Gets Taken Down?

Sometimes, only your best friends will tell you.

And sometimes, only a federal cabin minister will tell you. In this case, it’s Liberal Seamus O’Regan, Minister of Veterans Affairs, who wants you to know that, “immigrants are better at creating new businesses and new jobs than Canadian-born people. Simple.”

The headline in the National Geographic was a grabber. “Australia Goes Dry”. The magazine was sitting in a basket at my friends’ home in Toronto, so I decided to leaf through the story, because his daughter and my son were going there shortly. “How bad is it?” I wondered. 

Donald Trump’s Spinal Tap Tour of NATO/ Britain (with backing vocals from Russian president Vladimir Putin) was about as tumultuous as you’d expect. After Trump made NATO his backing band, he allowed Putin to plug into his sense of grievance over the Mueller probe. The U.S. president conflated his “collusion” outrage with Putin’s annoyance at getting caught out hacking the DNC computers.

Led by their virtuous prime minister, Canadians have no self-esteem issues. A Canadian ending a romance says, “This isn’t about me. This is about you.” 

A Canadian talking about himself to a stranger says, “But enough about me. Let’s talk about my career.”

So it is with the latest self-effacement game. Canadians miffed with President Trump’s bracing assessment of Canadians as partners have decided that they will boycott American holidays, American products, American culture. It’s a trade tantrum.

There are many points of conflict in today’s arguments between the Left and Right in America. One just had to see the ballistic reaction of the Left to the Supreme Court supporting president Donald Trump’s so-called Travel Ban to take its temperature. Prominent progressives are openly talking about stacking SCOTUS when they next get the chance.

The pathetic scene of a drowned Syrian boy on a Turkish beach stunned the world in 2015. Politicians on the European continent quickly understood this searing image may be worth a thousand words, but it had the potential to cost them hundreds of thousands of votes. 

Hey, don’t have a cow. Have a dairy industry instead.

There were many predictions in the aftermath of the Donald Trump/ Justin Trudeau insult fest after the disastrous G7 meeting in Quebec last week. 

In 1974, the bestselling book Sybil was published. It concerned a young woman who, it was claimed, had 16 different personalities. The condition is known as dissociative identity disorder, and— before you could say TV miniseries— multiple personalities was all you could hear in the culture. 

It may come as a surprise to you, but the greatest threat to North American civilization lies, not with Russians or Iranians, but with the baristas of Starbucks. As the father of a former barista, I was indeed shocked to learn that a culture of evil existed amidst the ventes and espresso shots of the ever-so-progressive caffeine shops of Starbucks.

Doug Ford is polling at numbers that suggest he can form a government. The NDP is a very close second and the governing Liberals are on pace to lose party status under their reviled leader Kathleen Wynne. Yet Toronto’s chattering class has decided that the outgoing premier is a misunderstood visionary. 

Back in the day, leaders had handles that told you all you needed to now about them. Charles the Bold. Mad King Ludwig. Vlad the Impaler. Now that was branding.

It seems that a little truth in advertising might be in order for today’s political leaders. Take Justin Trudeau. It would seem that Canada’s current prime minister could benefit from a little self promotion as he makes his way through his first term. 

In WW I the French generals had a single answer to how to defeat the German. “Élan vital,” said General Joffre. Meaning, roughly, the fighting spirit and Christian character of his men marching slowly against German machine guns and cannons would win the day. This mystical cran, élan et la bayonette was assumed to be instilled within every Frenchman along with his mother’s milk.

First, let me acknowledge my confiict: I’ve known Steve Paikin since the 1980s. He and I hosted a show on The FAN 590. I know his kids and wife, and he knowns mine. We’ve attended sports events together, and he was at my son’s wedding. IOW We are lifelong friends.

It is an indelible image. A lone Toronto cop facing down a suspect after a horrific murder spree. A suspect who appears to be brandishing a weapon at Const. Ken Lam. The suspect taunts Lam, asking Lam to shoot him.

Two guards outside the private room of Josef Stalin hear a thump, as if a body has hit the floor inside. “Should we investigate?” one guard asks the other. “Should you shut the fuck up before you get us both killed?” replies his terrified compatriot. 

It is incumbent upon progressive virtue signalliers that their schemes have as many working parts as possible. That these fever dreams must contain a bulging roster of purported experts to tell you why resistance is futile. And a palace guard of heavies to intimidate anyone not impressed by the first two conditions.

It doesn’t take a lot to inspire the wrath the progressive left. Their hair-trigger tendency was most recently on display when they thrust forth high schoolers, fresh from a shooting tragedy, to advance their political agenda on guns. When FOX critic Laura Ingraham dared point out the manipulative nature of the exercise, her advertisers were threatened, and she was harassed into apologizing.