BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS

WHO IS ARROGANT?
GLOBE COLUMNIST LAWRENCE MARTIN

In his column of July 12, 2007 about the verdict for fraud against National Post founder, Conrad Black, Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin asserted that Canadians do not support Mr. Black because he is arrogant and also an “arch-conservative”. Mr. Martin stated:

Another factor that has created distance over time has been his ideology. He stood apart from the Canadian mainstream not only because of his wealth, lifestyle and power, but because he was an arch-conservative in a land where that breed is uncommon. With his large fleet of newspapers, he gave vent to conservative voices and passions.

According to Martin, Mr. Black could never find a way to Canadians’ hearts since they do not view him as their own because “he was cut from a different cloth”.

Obviously, a columnist for the Globe and Mail has no love for its very able competitor, the National Post, which has greatly disturbed the Globe’s pride of place and financial returns in Canada’s newspaper jungle.

The Globe and Mail, in which the notoriously left-wing Toronto Star has a substantial financial interest, has been lurching ever leftward since that purchase. Therefore, naturally, a Globe columnist was delighted to take a poke, albeit a juvenile one, at its competition, the National Post with its presumed conservative values, which, oh horror of horrors, gives “vent to conservative voices and passions”. In other words, how dare a conservative voice exist when he, Mr. Martin and his employer, the Globe and Mail, have a completely different point of view?

However, what is really arrogant (never mind Mr. Black’s perceived arrogance) is Mr. Martin’s assumption that all Canadians think just like him ­ namely, as left-wing ideologues and that conservatives are an “uncommon breed.” In short, it is galling that Mr. Martin takes for granted that Canadians fall dutifully into the politically correct, left-wing mind set, of which so he obviously approves.

Mr. Martin has spent far too much time in the closed world of left-wing Toronto political pundits. He should get out more, and learn about Canadians before he makes further ignorant and biased comments about them.

BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS