I think (not continually) of those who are not truly great. The quiet ones, the ones you pass by and only glancingly notice. Or those neighbours who are not friends but are friendly, workers who have done a chore or two and you found you liked their way. The guy at the coffee shop, the lady at the check-out, the airline agent who disentangled the flight … you see what I mean, the everyday bunch of normal people who go about their business, and often play a role in yours, too.
Their, in some cases, quite justifiable causes do not get a lot of attention, as those of some other groups do. These people either don’t protest, or protest does not accord with their manners and sensibilities. It’s not that they do not have challenges, or go through hard times, or face unfair treatment from time to time. Protest is just not their mode. (When was the last time you saw unemployed oil workers, or struggling farmers take to the streets?)
But just because they do not try to own the headlines, or disrupt the rest of our lives to get their problems front and centre, is no reason at all to put them out of mind, or not have their concerns at the top of the political agenda. In fact, this is all the more reason to give them some time, attention and public backing.
It seems as though protesters have their day every day. I’d like society to start paying attention to those who do not protest. Ordinary working people matter. They are the life of the country, and they are of all beliefs, backgrounds and races. They are us. We are them.
Who was in the hospital taking your temperature? Who drove the trucks bringing food and medicine to the hospital. Who fixed your car? Who grew the food? Who processed the oil and gas that kept your condo warm and your car in motion? Who is the person at the grocery store stacking the shelves?
Have you checked in on a few fish plant workers lately? Razor-sharp knives and slippery fish hides, now that’s a job. What about the taxi driver who has seen his plate’s value evaporate (which was to be his retirement fund, or, and I have heard this so many times, how he was planning to get the money to send his daughter or son to university).
What slogan can we invent for these people? They are not media savvy, and this country’s cosseted media class has no time for them. They don’t think in social justice slogans. They go about their days making sure everyone else’s days go smoothly. Are they ever really thanked, or even acknowledged? Is there an international day in honour of those who do the menial jobs: the men and women working the 24-hour convenience stores, the buckos manning the hot-dog stands during the summer? Who throws a party for them at the end of their season?
And all of these people, they don’t throw Twitter tantrums, they are not online 24/7 just waiting to pounce on, and curse out, some stranger whose illiterate ravings may have upset them. They do not mob people on the Internet, and they would never perform an act of raving revenge against some person they have never met, or ever will. They wouldn’t try to cancel someone, to kill that person’s livelihood. They decline that seductive urge, which is so often succumbed to by the social justice warrior class, to drink deeply from the vats of ostentatious righteousness.
They are a stoic lot in the main. And humble to boot. They would never think their particular problems, or their family’s stresses and challenges, are everybody else’s problem. For the most part, they struggle on with patience and self-driven industry. Part of it is simple pride.
You do not see them, or their many fellows and peers, demonstrating every day, blocking highways or claiming special status. No. Ordinary, everyday people rarely puncture the high altitudes of national news features, or get to “tell their story” — that is the CBC’s patented phrase — on some otherwise lobbyist-infested panel on a political talk show. They are not, or they do not, represent a cause. They just go to work, fix things, operate big machines, push small brooms or make up beds. They make up a great many of the people in our society, but when it comes to their issues being the subject of public discourse, they are all but invisible.
Where is the voice for all these people? They have problems and challenges. They encounter unfairness or simple bad manners almost every day. (They also, it has to be noted, meet some very nice people and are cheered by them, and they in the main being mostly quite pleasant themselves pass just as much cheer back.) Their complaints largely stay among themselves. Their intimate lives are kept just that — intimate.
A long time ago, there were some in the NDP, and in really remote times even in the Liberal party, who thought about them, and cared. Not anymore. The NDP is a fashion house for trendy causes and bespoke accommodation to the deliriums of woke politics. The NDP is as elite as the elites it pretends to criticize.
And the Liberals, while they dream of reshaping all of Canada, they long ago lost touch with Main Street, and the modest, small-scale, practical supports that Mr. and Mrs. Canadian Citizen would so much like to see, as opposed to their focus on high-style, Davos-oriented big issues. The Liberals know and (used to) love (big caps) WE. But what about (small caps) us?
No one speaks for the lower tier, the men and women who do real work, who do not see themselves, or want others to see them as being “oppressed,” but live hard lives, work like dogs and hardly ever complain. They haven’t pulled down a statue, or burned a store, or gone on a looting rampage.
Nor do they plan to, because they: (A) are too busy working and living; (B) have manners; and (C) don’t look outside themselves to explain or blame their condition, but have the old stoic notion that to bear hard times is a dignity. They have no grand theories for their condition, but it would be nice once in a while, just for a change, if someone gave them a moment of consideration and acknowledged their dignity, admired their resolve and applauded their deep industriousness.
Where’s their great social movement? Where are their champions? The non-statue breakers. The non-complainers. The salt of the Canadian earth. They are such likeable people. So say thanks to all of them. Rejoice in the fact that they are an integral part of the fabric of our laxly governed country.
Let’s have a day to celebrate the great unacknowledged, vital, admirable and wonderful working people of Canada. Could anybody be offended by an Ordinary Working People Day?
National Post
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
