That wasn’t so easy. I understand why translators are advised to translate into their primary language instead of the other way around.
I found this, from Saturday’s Globe and Mail interesting:
Fear and loathing among the eastern elites
It’s a column by Margaret Wente. Regardless of what one may think about the election’s outcome, I think this column has a lot to say. I certainly knew the people whom she is speaking of when I lived in Toronto; and (horror of horrors) I’ve heard the same as they say from people here in Alberta. Only a few, and none of them Conservative supporters (obviously), but I’ve heard it nonetheless.
Of course, we can compare this to Heather Mallick’s column in the UK Guardian, where she calls Stephen Harper, “a Canadian version of George W Bush, minus the warmth and intellect.” Cite.
Does anybody honestly believe that the new Harper majority will, in Ms. Wente’s words, “turn Canada into a right-wing theocracy where women have no abortion rights and petty criminals are executed at dawn”? Ms. Wente was speaking satirically; but Ms. Mallick seems to be serious when she says,
Do any reasonable-thinking people honestly believe this? Abortions, their availability, and their coverage by provincial health plans, have been settled law for decades. Gay marriage has a shorter timeframe, but the law has said that it’s okay too. It would be unprecedented for Parliament to go against the Reference re Same-Sex Marriage.
On another note, I was amused by this, from Wente’s (linked) column above:
FTR, I live in Alberta, I did my undergraduate work at U of T, and I occasionally read Harper’s, which is available on the newsstand here. And I’ve been to Europe, a number of times.
I call it the goatfucker effect. You’re from Alberta, you’re a redneck. Learn to embrace your red neck, you evil anti-abortionist, creationist, anti-same sex marriage, American loving western rube.
It’s just pure bigotry. The fact is, both Edmonton and Calgary have tremendous, sophisticated culture. In Edmonton we have the second largest fringe festival in the world. We have a great symphony, we’re home to many great actors and comedians (SCTV shot out of Edmonton). Edmonton and Calgary have excellent universities. We have thriving immigrant cultures in both major cities.
It doesn’t matter. There will always be people who take it as a given that Alberta is some kind of redneck haven where we all wear cowboy hats, listen to country music, and oppress the gays and women. Oh, and the workers. We also oppress the workers. We don’t tend to picket our Wal-Marts.
In the states, the sophisticates on the coasts look down at Texas and Alabama and other ‘flyover’ states. It’s the same thing. Bigotry.
Y’know, I was about to say that I’m originally from Toronto.
But as it is, I guess I’d better put on my favourite cowboy hat, jump in my Ford F-350 pickup, and waste a bunch of natural resources revving it up in the great outdoors! Hell, we’ve got plenty of natural resources! Put that in your Smart Cars, Ontario! Gays can be cured! And you girls seeking an abortion–have you found Jesus yet? Yee-haw!
Naw … just doesn’t fit me. And nor is it the way a lot of people out here feel. I know you’re only having fun, Uzi, and so am I; but let’s face it–Torontonians would never believe it.
And I drive a Chevy. 
But now that you’ve fucked the goat (moved to Alberta), it doesn’t matter to…
Bingo
You’re supposed to drive a RAM (giggity).
But then again, the attitude of “anyone who dislikes Harper is an Eastern Elite[sup]TM[/sup] snob …damn them and their education at McGill/UofT/Western/whatever example serves my purpose most…” is just as bad, really. The idea that conservatives = ordinary Canadians and everyone else=rich elite snobs who think they are better than everyone else (and I guess would be unCanadian? Or perhaps just extraordinary…?) is just as ridiculous as the redneck stereotype. It doesn’t stop some people from using it though, like in that article, which was kind of an embarrassment to read from either perspective.
Well, it’s quite easy to believe the omnibus crime bill part. The conservatives have already indicated that’s the plan and imho it will lead to a boom in the prison business. The social conservatives in the party will undoubtedly try to push their agenda now that there’s a majority, but I doubt anything will come of it.
Yup, absolutely.
You know, the more I read, the more I realize that just about every segement of Canada has an unsavory stereotype about every other … and people are not shy of invoking theirs on the slightest of pretexts, certain that they are the only ones who are the unfair targets of bigotry!
That’s the thing about stereotypes - they don’t have to be true, they just have to be plausible.
After the over-the-top hysteria we saw in this thread after the election, I don’t think any non-Conservatives have any leg to stand on to refute articles like that.
Really? Not one? At all, on any issue or opinion whatsoever? Every non-Conservative who posted in this thread, nevermind anywhere else, is automatically wrong about everything and they are all Eastern Elites? And all the Conservatives were calm, sane and rational about every issue?
I doubt it.
See, that’s the problem with labels. People hand them out freely, regardless of whether the recipients want them, and oftentimes people reject the labels pinned on them. It isn’t all or nothing.
How about the non-Conservatives who weren’t hysterical? Or the Conservatives who were?
Yes, this I can definitely believe. No, petty criminals won’t be “executed at dawn;” that’s just an exaggerated image. (Though my own favourite image is “11-year-olds who shoplift candy bars will have a hand severed.”) But obviously with a Conservative majority government, criminal sentences will be strengthened and more people will be sent to prison, and judges will have less latitude in rendering decisions, with more offenses having mandatory minimum sentences. And I’d say this will be done for ideological reasons, because Conservative voters believe in being “tough on crime” whether or not it actually decreases crime or not. And I believe it won’t.
And while this may be popular in some parts of Canada (I won’t say Alberta by name, but I think Sam Stone in a previous post did point out that it is true that Albertans feel concerned by criminality) it will create resentment in other parts of the country. I know that Quebec has a relatively low crime rate, and while we do have our own believers in being “tough on crime,” and the recent scandals about white-collar criminals have made harsher sentencing more popular at least for fraud cases, it is still widely thought that the reason why we have relatively little crime is that we tended to promote rehabilitation instead of punishment, punishment, punishment. I remember this was discussed even back when the Liberals were in power, with Anne McLellan (an Albertan!) as minister of Justice. Personally I don’t fear crime and criminals. To me it just isn’t an issue. And to me being “tough on crime” means giving our citizens (perhaps even me some day) fewer chances, sending otherwise upstanding citizens to crime school instead of working something out with them, and in time increasing our crime rate. I don’t welcome it, it’s what scares me the most about the next few years in Canada, and it even makes me wonder if Canada shouldn’t do like the US and make criminal law an area of provincial responsibility. (Yes, I know, the Constitution and all that.) Or, alternatively, if Quebec shouldn’t become independent.
Really, I think there’s just a disconnect between how different parts of Canada view criminality and criminals, and I don’t know if it’s even possible to reach an understanding.
Oh, and here’s something funny. One of my friends, when she learned the Conservatives had their majority, changed her MSN status to (my translation) “Conservative MAJORITY! Now I just need to change countries!” Said friend has just done her bar exam to become a lawyer, and from what I understand she is interested in criminal law. When I saw this, given how I think criminal justice will orient itself in the next few years in Canada, all I could think of was Back to the Future II: (my paraphrase, since I don’t think I’ve ever seen this movie in English) “Justice moves a lot more swiftly now that they’ve eliminated lawyers!”
Heck, just drive around greater Toronto. People in Toronto Centre find it absolutely mystifying why people in Mississauga-Brampton South voted Conservative, and people in M-B.S. can’t understand why the folks in Toronto Centre voted Liberal. The two ridings are, in bad traffic, maybe 35 minutes’ drive apart. I haven’t heard anyone from downtown Toronto complain about how Alberta voted, but I’ve heard some amazingly hateful things said about how people voted in Toronto, and in cities immediately adjacent to Toronto. Michael Ignatieff himself was beaten by a Conservative in a Toronto riding - Etobicoke Lakeshore - and this totally mystifies people just a few miles away.
One of the more amusing parts of the Liberal meltdown is their horror at the fact that visible minorities are starting to vote Tory. It’s a constituency the Liberals courted for decades and eventually just took for granted; now tha tthe Conservatives do a better job of marketing to visible minorities (which is why they snagged so many GTA ridings) the Liberals feel betrayed, and some commentary veguely hints that it’s somehow unfair and racist that the Tories would do that.
People tend to associate with people with the same political viewpoint, so they only hear political talk in an echo chamber. I know many people who work in the theatre and entertainment industry in Toronto, and they’re positively hysterical about the Conservatives; the Tories will cut all arts funding, shoot gays, the works. When mot of your friends and associates are in the same industry as you and very few are, say, oil sands workers or small business owners, the concerns of theentertainment industry seem like the whole economy. I know people who are legitimately furious at other Canadians for voting Conservative because they feel they voted that way just to take away arts subsidies and therefore put them out of a living. That voting NDP would have put people in OTHER indsutries out of a living is something that just isn’t even thought of.
People tend to assume their their perspective and their place in life is The Way It Really Is. It’s not bigotry so much as it’s simply a lack of perspective.
Well, until someone is stealing your car, or vandalizing your property that is. Personally, I’d rather give breaks to those who are doing things that only affect them (drugs, prostitution, etc) breaks rather than those people who deliberately and with little concern do things to others. Not everyone is stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family.
Heh, all politics is local … I can answer for Etobicoke Lakeshore (my riding): Iggy was “parachuted” into this riding, because it was safely Liberal (two others who sought nomination for that riding were disqualified on grounds that were sorta suspect). He then went on to basically ignore the riding.
This is sort of emblematic of the Liberal approach to politics lately - to take their supporters for granted, and concentrate on the “big picture”. Unfortunately, it does not come with any real “big picture” vision.
Liberals in this riding resented being used as Iggy’s stepping-stone, and either stayed home or voted Con in droves.
But that’s just it. How often does that happen (yes, I know, statistically it does happen in non-insignificant amounts)? Sure there’s graffiti around town, both my husband and my cars have been keyed, and I know maybe 2 people in my whole life who have had a car radio/cd player stolen, but it’s rare enough that I doubt we need a ton of new prisons and really super duper tough crime bills to defend us from spray paint and the odd stolen car. A problem? Yes. A problem as described by some conservatives (and probably some others as well, I don’t really pay attention to who says what)? Not so much. It just isn’t a big scary monster of OMG!!CRIMINALS!!!
I also feel that drugs and prostitution should be treated differently than they are, to the point of legalizing some of it. But why is it one or the other? Why would you “rather” one in place of the other… it isn’t a binary choice about what crimes to be tough on.
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been a victim of theft or property damage in Calgary. I’m guessing that most of the perpetrators were young offenders. If someone wanted to try to fix things so that everything that isn’t bolted down isn’t stolen or defaced, I would support that.