I DON’T THINK YOU REALLY MEAN THAT

Kathleen Wynne

On July 27th, two days before my daughter Jessie’s wedding, I was out doing some last-minute errands for her. I was buying nail polish, hoping I had found a colour close enough to match her manicured nails so that she could repair any bumps or scratches before the big day on July 29th.

I offer this level of detail only to let you know that the furthest thing from my mind was federal politics as I approached the check-out counter. It doesn’t matter which town I was in and it doesn’t matter which store I was in. It was a store in a small town in Ontario on an afternoon in mid-summer. The reason I am writing this is that the setting was so ordinary and could have been anywhere in Ontario.

I don’t use self-checkout so I was next in line at the cash desk behind a woman a bit younger than me. She and the cashier seemed familiar with each other, and the conversation centred on how her small business (I don’t know what the business was) had been gutted by COVID, including that her regular customers had not come back. She was increasingly agitated, as one would be, talking about losing one’s livelihood. I was listening because I felt sympathetic to the businesswoman’s situation but I restrained my politician’s instinct to ask questions to try to better understand what had happened. However, I admit I was curious.

And then as the customer’s agitation came to a crescendo as she was about to leave, the cashier quipped something like “And then Trudeau is taking all our money”. It was a throw-away line underpinned by anger at taxes and the Prime Minister which I believe the cashier thought was just a tagline on the conversation.

To be fair to the cashier in that moment, I believe she was surprised by what the customer said next. Not shocked and winded as I was but surprised. The customer said clearly and without a hint of humour, only anger:

“Hopefully someone will shoot him!” To which the cashier replied something like “That’s what I think too”.

The customer strode out the doors. I literally was trying to gather myself, which the cashier could see. She was waiting for me to come to the desk as she looked closely at me and said, “you look familiar.” I actually think she knew who I was but I took a breath as I told her that I was a former Liberal politician, that I used to be the Premier, my name, and my shock at what the previous customer had said.  To which the cashier said very quietly that it was just an opinion.

I am neither naïve about nor overly sensitive to the rough and tumble of politics. I have been attacked, reviled, criticized and threatened online and in person. I get that people are angry right now. I know that the cost of living is way beyond what is reasonable for many. And I worry about it. I worry about young families with children and too much debt. I worry about small businesses that have not recovered from the pandemic. I worry every day about the costs of climate change for individuals and communities as we watch wildfires and floods rage across the country. This is not the best of times.

But in all my 70 years, there has never been general agreement in Canada that it’s perfectly acceptable to publicly announce that you hope someone will be shot. It was said in anger and frustration with not a hint of irony.

‘It’s just an opinion’ feels like a dangerous cop-out. It’s actually not an opinion, it’s a wish and a dangerous one at that. What is the state of our democracy if you and I cannot vehemently disagree without one of us wishing the other dead? How do we move forward from that? How do we solve the really tough problems to which there are no easy answers? There is no politician in the country, or I would suggest anywhere, who has conclusive answers to the questions of economic recovery from the pandemic, the future of work in the face of artificial intelligence, the ravages of income inequality (although some Western European countries do better on this front than Canada and the US) or the disastrous impacts of climate change.

Fuelling anger and threatening violence just cannot be the answer.

My partner, Jane, suggested that I write to the company to let them know that one of their employees had behaved in an unacceptable manner by validating what this customer had said, because she saw it as a customer service issue. But for me that was not the point. I think the point is that this is a societal issue. Together we are allowing ourselves to be meaner, angrier and more violent in our words and actions. In the USA, the leading Republican candidate has publicly incited violence. The leader of the Conservative Party of Canada has chosen to validate violent, angry protesters.

I honestly don’t believe that either the cashier or the customer in that store would actually want anyone, including the Prime Minister, whatever their feelings about him, to be shot. I don’t think she really meant what she said.  

But no one else in that line expressed shock at what she said. Maybe they agreed with the sentiment, maybe they didn’t. But what if one of their children or grandchildren decides to go into politics? No matter our political stripe, we have built a country where differences and differences of opinion have, for the most part, been embraced. So, if that customer really did mean what she said, I believe that is a sign of trouble for the country we have built together. We all need to take her anger seriously and find ways to listen much, much better to each other.

I don’t scare easily but I felt fear for us all in that check-out line.

. . .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kathleen Wynne - Kathleen Wynne was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 2003 as the MPP for Don Valley West. She was Ontario’s 25th Premier and leader of the Ontario Liberal Party from January 2013 to June 2018. Kathleen has dedicated her professional life to building a better province for the people of Ontario. She is guided by the values and principles that knit the province of Ontario together: fairness, diversity, collaboration and creativity.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Air Quotes Media. Read more opinion contributions via QUOTES from Air Quotes Media.