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Canadians are in the throes of an identity crisis that borders on neurotic hypocrisy.
Take, for example, the results of three polls released in anticipation of Canada Day: a Léger Marketing report stating that 58 per cent of Canadians believe that pornography is immoral a Strategic Counsel poll concluding that 94 per cent of baby boomers don’t smoke pot and a Reader’s Digest survey ranking Toronto as the third-most-polite city in the world behind trash-talking New York, the surprise winner.
The consistent thread linking these three polls is the utter lack of honesty and self-awareness Canadians exhibit in responding to these questionnaires.
Even though pornogrpahy is an $11 billion industry in North America, no one ever admits to watching porn. When’s the last time someone showed up at work and told his/her co-workers that they must run out and rent International Dick Of Mystery? Pornography exists in a world of denial. We indulge and we condemn, sometimes in the same breath.
This hypocrisy of simultaneously engaging in the pleasure of indulgence while maintaining a dignified disapproval is also apparent when talking about pot. The suggestion that 94 per cent of baby boomers see marijuana as a mere youthful indulgence is undercut by many other surveys showing steady increases in the percentage of people in the 30-to-50 age group who still consume pot.
Pierre Berton may have been the only aging Canadian icon with the courage to admit to long-term pot use, but there are plenty of silent, stoned middle-aged Canadians leading highly productive lives. Yet these same stoners deny their pot use and claim to be actively steering their kids away from this bad habit. No wonder the laws have not changed in the past 40 years.
Similarly, the notion of Toronto the Polite is somewhat misleading.
I would be happy to concede that in T.O. the courteous probably outnumber the rude and obnoxious. However, this surface impression obscures the fact that the American cultural preference for confrontational and aggressive posturing is slowly becoming the Canadian way.
We may actually act in a fairly civil manner when in public, but we find ridicule and humiliation highly entertaining and are willing to pay other people to be very uncivil on our behalf.
We may not have produced many Simon Cowells, Nancy Graces, Judge Judys or Howard Sterns, but we eat this garbage up as readily as our friends to the south.
We may still act a lot like Miss Manners, but we love seeing others use speech as a weapon and not as a mode of informative discourse.
Look at legal culture in Canada. The profession is mired in a culture of arrogant and aggressive posturing largely because this is what the public believes is required for effective lawyering. Like dogs playing in the park, it is believed that legal professionals must always appear dominating. If not, some stronger dog will come over and piss on their leg. So the institutional role of the lawyer becomes well-defined.
The shark. The bulldog. The champion. The gilded mouthpiece. The sarcastic and intemperate advocate.
This view of the lawyer is largely shaped by television and the expectations of many polite Canadians.
On occasion there are cases where an aggressive, bold and insulting advocate serves the ends of justice, but more often then not the posturing just gets in the way. A good performance does not guarantee a sound verdict.
Just last month a Commission of Inquiry into three recent cases of wrongful convictions in Newfoundland concluded that a contributing factor in two of the three miscarriages of justice was a “Crown culture” driven by inflammatory advocacy, tunnel-vision and a competitive need to win.
As for porn and pot, little can be done to force secret hedonists out into the open, but the legal profession has tried to address the problem of increasing rudeness among members of the bar. At a Canadian Bar Association meeting the following advice was given to lawyers: “Never wrestle with a pig – you only get dirty, and the pig likes it.”
This may be good advice, but it’s hard to act upon because in Canada the consummate professional will never admit to being a pot smoker, a porn surfer or a pig.
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