Canada’s chief human rights commissioner, Marie-Claude Landry, must be feeling the pressure these days.
I can just see her shaking her head as she wrote a statement for the media about the troubling rise in intolerance from the terror attacks in Europe, to the rallies being held in Canada and the U.S., to the Canadians upset with the steady arrival of immigrants.
The intolerance has always been there.
I hear from people asking why I don’t do an editorial blasting the Trudeau government for having the RCMP act as border bellhops, carrying the suitcases of immigrants they feel are jumping the queue.
I hear from women, who say they are furious that other women are forced (they assume) to wear a burka, making them invisible.
Some people I talk with are more upset with the government for seeming to do nothing, than anything else.
They don’t understand why the so-called alt-right can even get a permit to march, when we know it likely means trouble.
The intolerance we are being told to challenge is simmering just below the surface in some, waiting to pop up online and on the street.
Commissioner Landry says we cannot be silent in the face of intolerance. She wants us to speak up.
Do you think it would help if the government lead by example or at least explained what they were doing?
Bob Layton is the news manager of the Corus Edmonton group of radio stations and a commentator for Global News.
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