Necessity of Due Care and Attention

He didn’t mean to dishonour the memories of Canadian soldiers who defended Canada through wars.  But, let’s see.

Mr. Cherry made a rather moving video of his visit to Flanders Fields to walk among the poppies looking at the crosses row on row.  He truly, in measured tones, honoured our soldiers. 

But then, after the first period in the tv broadcast of a hockey game, in his show “Coaches Corner” he attacked “you people” clearly referring to immigrants enjoying our milk and honey, our way of life.  Interestingly in both WWI and WWII, Canada’s shores were never under real direct threat of invasion.  Our soldiers who died mostly died overseas defending others and thereby defending all humanity. 

As Mr. Law of Ottawa put it in a Facebook post, “In November, I have always worn a #poppy. Why? To honour those whose sacrifices gave me the liberty to decide if I will - or will not - wear a poppy.”

I don’t know why some won’t wear one, but THEIR FREEDOM is just as the same as mine, #DonCherry. That’s what the fallen gave us.

But ex-NHL coach Cherry has random rants with slurs on other players, Europeans for wearing protective gear and not engaging in hearty fisty cuffs, when he asserts all this bravado and violence is just part of the emotional game.  Then we find high incidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy and our hockey heros are dying of a horrible brain disease contracted for our entertainment.  Doesn’t say too many good things about us either.

Ex-coach Cherry has been in hockey broadcast for thirty-eight years.  As a broadcaster, I assume it’s his obligation to handle his communication with all the finesse he would expect a player to use in handling a puck with a stick.  Yet he has made it his schtick to do the exact opposite, sounding more like the stereotypical bully and beer leaguer in the beer hall, waxing loudly in the pub after the game.  You know the style, wisecracking ever more irreverently to gain a laugh.  Beer leaguers are almost always good neighbours, family men, employees and employers in their private lives, but with the audience of a pub, often one of them can be different person.

His actual claim to fame was having the great good luck to be the flamboyant coach of the Bruins with one Mr. Orr playing on that team. He earned success in winning Lord Stanley’s Cup as head coach.

I recall Scotty Bowman having some success as head coach in the NHL.  I recall he being a different role model, even though he had considerable success. But would Mr. Bowman have had a flair for television?  Perhaps not.

As I think about the current Cherry controversy, I am reminded of what I view as an apt automobile driving analogy.  We used to have a traffic law in Saskatchewan we referred to as “driving without due care and attention”.  This is probably the starting point of a continuum that I, a non-lawyer, think ends with criminal negligence causing death.

So when I lane wander because I have not driven with due care and attention as I drive along the highway and nothing comes of it, it’s all good.  So I run over a bus with a hockey team in it, death comes of it, it’s all very bad. Same lack of care and attention, massively different outcomes.  Maybe a lane wander incident is actually always very, very bad.

So Mr. Cherry, from his broadcaster’s pulpit, decides to loudly judge people who do not wear poppies without considering that important symbolic practice has perhaps not yet become part of their new Canadian identity for them; or it has fallen off.  He is clearly being critical of “the other”, marking them as people who somehow do not count.. But it’s all part of his schtick.  He does make the point that we must all honour our protectors.  On balance it’s a bit like getting away with driving without due care and attention, so not a big deal.  Then somebody murders a group of people in a classroom or house of worship.  Now ... is the blurter of slurs against the other aiding, abetting and enabling hate crime in the form of mass murder?  I guess time might tell.  We do know it is certainly not “all good”.

Michael Klein

Note: David Law blogs at: https://davidkeithlaw.wordpress.com/ .

All Candidate Events In Canada

All Candidates Events for Your Campaign
(This is a response to a "how to"query from campaign organisers)

The following is a suggestion on how to trigger organisation of the delivery of all candidate events.

Situation
1. The people of your riding have a need, even a responsibility, to meet every candidate as each of them deliberates making their respective choice on the ballot. 

2. The political strategists of the known incumbent, the perceived front-runner, are not motivated to have that happen as that threatens their advantage of the high name recognition of their candidate.  Strategically speaking, they have everything to lose by participating in all candidate events.

3. Community associations may have met the incumbent who may have been supportive of community association endeavours.  Community associations may be afraid of upsetting the status quo because they are typically under-resourced in terms of both people and money.  They are naturally reluctant to take the chance of upsetting the incumbent as that threatens access to both volunteers and money.

4. There are a number of news media sources serving your riding.  A careful internet search will produce a roster that goes beyond the big players, into smaller, niche players who may be more relevant to many of the people in the riding.

5. The time frame is often short and the strategy for organising events must reflect that urgency.

Suggestion for your team
1. Take the lead in setting up all candidates events.

2. Search the Elections Canada website to be sure you have every registered candidate.  Contact every campaign in the riding to invite them to help organise, or at least participate in all candidate events.  It’s critical every campaign be contacted.  The initial contact to each candidate’s campaign should be one to one.  In each case, let the campaigns know you will be emailing to all campaigns, media and venue organisations simultaneously to allow for more efficient planning and coordination.

3. Print the list of candidate using the Elections Canada print function to ensure you have the Elections Canada logo on the list.  In the normal course of campaigning, ie door-knocking, public space meeting with commuters, show people the list of candidates and ask if they know each of them and if they feel they have the right to meet each candidate on that list.  Does each person think all candidate events are a good, even necessary service to them in making their voting decisions?  At least some will.  Ask them to express that opinion in their own words and would they be willing to be quoted.  If so, include those quotes in future communications being used to persuade people to help realise all candidate events.

4. Contact every community association in the riding to invite them to offer space for, or better yet, to host such events.

5. Contact every school in the riding to invite them to offer space for or host such events, thereby also offering access to the political process for their students.  Search for other venues that have space which might be used for events; think shopping centres, vacant buildings, warehouses, any space you can think of.

6. Contact every news media outlet you find, including bloggers, Facebook Groups, to alert them to the need to meet the candidates expressed by the people of your riding.  Keep them up-to-date on the developments.  Ask them to urge people to support the initiative to hold all candidate events.

7. Start urging all candidates and all news media by using a bulk email message to all of them simultaneously.  Do not use bcc.  Stay positive.  Never corner any candidate into holding ground by quoting their refusal to participate.  Always leave the door open for them to explain themselves. For instance they may say it took a while to get their logistics to work as their candidate is so busy with a pre-planned campaign.

8..Keep going until events begin to happen. 

9. Allow others - schools, community associations, trade associations, cultural clubs etc - to take the lead and be the sponsors of any events.  Do no take credit for organising any event if someone else wishes to take that credit as community associations often do.

10. Most importantly, be respectful to every single person, even if, in fact especially when, they might not be respectful to you.

Good Luck !!

Michael Klein