{"id":16571,"date":"2017-02-16T14:25:39","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T19:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16571"},"modified":"2017-02-16T14:25:39","modified_gmt":"2017-02-16T19:25:39","slug":"brocks-banter-valentines-day-is-for-haters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/brocks-banter-valentines-day-is-for-haters\/","title":{"rendered":"BROCK’S BANTER: Valentine’s Day is for…haters?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, that\u2019s another Valentine\u2019s Day in the books.
\nI hope yours went well \u2013 that the one you love treated you to something nice, you received a little token from a secret admirer or, if Valentine\u2019s isn\u2019t your thing, made it through February 14 with the nausea induced by the sight of lovey-dovey couples kept to an absolute minimum.
\nIn the lead up to the day itself, I was talking to a friend who decided to regale me with the details of a new budding romance he was experiencing.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s great,\u201d he said. \u201cWe both hate the same things!\u201d
\nAt first I chuckled. Then I realised he was being absolutely serious.
\nFor a little while I was taken aback. After all, many of us are raised to believe that while opposites might attract, like interests and like principles are, in the end, the bonds that usually cement a relationship.
\nBeing united by common hates sounds, at the outset, to be going down an inevitable collision course.
\nIt\u2019s hardly romantic. It\u2019s not necessarily something you\u2019ll want to tell your kids\u2019 kids when they ask, \u201cWhat made you fall in love with grandma?\u201d
\n\u201cWell, sonny,\u201d you might reply, \u201cwe both hated Justin Bieber.\u201d
\nYou must admit it is not a sentiment you\u2019re likely to find on a Hallmark card anytime soon. And, let\u2019s face it, by the time this guy has grandchildren to call his own, there is a strong possibility that Justin Bieber has the same level of public awareness among teens and tweens that former Canadian popstar Paul Anka has today.
\nBut, I digress\u2026
\nAfter considering my friend\u2019s point for a little while, I had to admit he did actually have one.
\nIt might seem alarming in this day and age that some people can be united by common hates, but that seems to be the way of the world. The world \u201chate\u201d, after all, has been used so much in a hyperbolic sense that it has lost so much of a punch.
\n\u201cI hate the Biebs.\u201d Okay, you might not care for his music, his public behaviour, or his fashion sense, but is that really enough to hate?
\n\u201cI hate the morning commute.\u201d Well, okay, but at least you have a job.
\n\u201cI hate the Kardashians.\u201d Fine, but do you really care enough about them in your daily life to have such strong feelings one way or another?
\nIt seems, however, that common \u201chates\u201d are enough to get people on the same page.
\nIf you find someone who shares your \u201chate\u201d for Justin Trudeau, chances are you have found a Conservative or non-Liberal soulmate. The same goes for heart flutters when you hear someone \u201chates\u201d 45. Well, bless their bleeding Liberal hearts!
\nBut, if you find someone who professes \u201chatred\u201d for homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, exclusion, and similar such matters, you generally know where they stand and that, in the end, makes things so much easier.
\nIn a strange way, this alleged \u201chatred\u201d is a sure sign of good intentions. But, as we all know, good intentions all too often pave the road to hell.
\nTake, for instance, the latest apparent controversy coming from Ottawa over a motion from MP Iqra Khalid.
\nIntroduced this past December, it is a motion ostensibly to combat \u201csystemic racism and religious discrimination.\u201d
\nThe motion, in its most basic form, calls on the House of Commons to \u201crecognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear; condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination;\u2026and request that the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage undertake a study on how the Government could (i) develop a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination, including Islamophobia, in Canada, while ensuring a community-centred focus with a holistic response through evidence-based policy-making, (ii) collect data to contextualize hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities, and that the Committee should present its findings and recommendations to the House no later than 240 calendar days from the adoption of this motion, provided that in its report the Committee should make recommendations that the Government make to better reflect the enshrined rights and freedoms in the Constitution Acts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.\u201d
\nIt seems, on the surface, to be a motion that would find the minimal amount of detractors. It does, after all, take aim at \u201call forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination\u201d while tasking Ottawa with finding ways to combat which, unfortunately, seems to be a rising problem.
\nDigging deeper though reveals an opposition which I find more than slightly alarming.
\nOne of the many detractors of the motion is Andrew Scheer, the former Speaker of the House of Commons, who is currently running to replace Rona Ambrose as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Leader of Her Majesty\u2019s Opposition and, the party hopes, Mr. Trudeau as Prime Minister in the next election.
\nHis criticism of the motion is threefold: \u201cit is not inclusive\u201d as it allegedly \u201csingles out just one faith\u201d, it fails to define Islamophobia, and could be \u201cinterpreted as a step towards stifling free speech and legitimate criticism.\u201d
\nHe might have a point with that last item as legitimate criticism over the tenets of Sharia Law, for instance, could be interpreted by some more extreme quarters as \u201cIslamophobia\u201d, but Point Three is let down by the first two.
\nIn the world we\u2019re living in today, everyone should be well aware of the generally accepted definition of Islamophobia as, unfortunately, we don\u2019t have to look very far to find it. Additionally, it might mention one faith specifically, but it certainly does not \u201csingle out\u201d Islam. It very clearly references \u201call forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.\u201d
\n\u201cAs someone whose faith is integral to my life, I am grateful for and believe very strongly in the religious freedom we enjoy here in Canada,\u201d wrote Scheer. \u201cThat freedom, which includes protection against discrimination based on your faith, is a right for all Canadians and I will fight to protect those rights and freedoms.\u201d
\nHis words are not something one can easily condemn, but what those words are being used to condemn, however, can be a slightly different story.
\nIn voting against a motion to combat systemic racism simply because it makes specific mention of Islamophobia reminds me of the intense debates which took place last year between supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement versus those who counter that argument with \u201call lives matter.\u201d
\nThe most logical analogy to come out of that melee was the burning house. If you\u2019re an emergency responder combatting a blaze with finite water on board your truck, you don\u2019t spritz the house across the street as well in the view that \u201call homes matter.\u201d You tackle the immediate problem.
\nWith so many people hurting, now is not the time to get hung up on semantics.
\nIt is a time to be like my friend and his newfound Valentine and hate the hate.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir So, that\u2019s another Valentine\u2019s Day in the books. I hope yours went well \u2013 that the one you love treated you to something nice, you received a little token from a secret admirer or, if Valentine\u2019s isn\u2019t your thing, made it through February 14 with the nausea induced by the sight of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4jh","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-03 11:19:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}