This is the eighth in a series of opinion columns on the 2022 Ontario provincial election, written by Josh Lieblein for The CJN.
I’m not exactly sure when I realized that, in most of Ontario, disagreement is treated as a rude intrusion at best and a threat at worst.
So deeply embedded is this taboo against conflict that I broke it constantly in my sojourns outside the Jewish community—without knowing it was there to break.
Nobody said to my face that I was actually making people uncomfortable by cracking jokes and being free with my opinions—and occasionally straying into out-and-out rudeness—because that would’ve hurt my feelings. (Or so they assumed, anyhow.) As you might imagine, this didn’t help in the long run.
I can remember the shock and disgust in a local grandee’s voice when he informed me that a Liberal candidate implied that the local Conservative MP had taken a payout to approve the building of a cell phone tower. I laughed. How cute! But then I saw the look of mortal outrage on this man’s face, and I quickly stopped laughing.
(Later, this same politician got hauled off in handcuffs for a different financial irregularity. I wasn’t around for the local reaction to that bit of news.)
This culture shock was inevitable, considering that there are homes near Montreal’s Park Avenue station built by my dear departed zeyda that wouldn’t be there if the right connections hadn’t been made. It was Quebec in the ’50s, he said. Ah, but that was Quebec. This was Ontario.
Ontario, where the voters pine for the days where the different party leaders treated each other like gentlemen. Ontario, where grown women say “Oh… sugar!” instead of cursing and make their voices inaudible when talking about this mayor’s drunk driving record, that councillor’s affair, this Ontario PC leadership candidate’s tendency to videotape their encounters. Ontario, where you bring a chocolate menorah to a Christmas party and people just… stare at it. “What do you do with it?” they ask you, aloud.
Families live for generations in our province’s rarified air strictly adhering to a code of being nice, helping out, and looking good. These behaviours take different forms.
Sometimes, “being nice” is apologizing unasked for Canada’s behaviour during the Holocaust. Sometimes, “helping out” is bringing the best ham money can buy over to your Jewish neighbour’s house for a holiday. And sometimes, “looking good” means politely asking your Jewish political colleagues if they wouldn’t mind being “team players.”
Being an outspoken and occasionally self-promoting Jewish politician still makes you stand out in the Ontario of 2022. Last week, I wrote about Larry Grossman’s difficulties winning over his own party—but had he been in politics today, this “team player” issue would’ve been the knock on him.
And, just in case you think this is an issue from ancient political history, I’m willing to bet that more recently former (or soon-to-be-former) Jewish MPPs Monte Kwinter, Jonah Schein, David Caplan, Peter Shurman, Gila Martow and Rima Berns-McGown all heard similar criticism, for right or wrong.
By no means is this solely a Jewish issue, either. Steven Del Duca is of Italian ancestry. It should go without saying that this should not count for or against. And yet, his ethnic community connections were highlighted in a TVO article by Steve Paikin immediately after Del Duca secured the Ontario Liberal leadership.
It’s no better, and often far worse, for Black, Asian, Muslim, Eastern European and Indo-Canadian residents of the province, to say nothing of what happens when gender and sexuality get added to the mix. For some, these groups are too loud, engage in too much self-promotion, and put their interests first instead of putting them aside for the good of all Ontarians.
When the late former premier Bill Davis was asked for the secret of his success, he famously said, “Bland works.” Perhaps. But only for some.
Josh Lieblein can be reached at [email protected] for your response to Doorstep Postings.
