Reb Arie's Midrash

July 8, 2009 | Tikkun Daily

This article has been edited to reflect the current reality at the Metivta of Ottawa. The original article is here.

Diane Ablonczy, the Canadian minister responsible for distributing The Marquee Tourism Festival Program, has lost her authority to oversee and distribute the $100-million federal fund. The reason: Ms Ablonczy approved a $400,000 grant to Pride Week in Toronto.

The fund was established to support Canada’s largest festivals and attractions over 2009 and 2010.

The current government of Canada is formed by the Conservative Party. This was previously called the Progressive-Conservative (PC) Party. It was was fiscally conservative but socially progressive (the “Red Tories“); there was always a rump of “Blue Tories” who were strictly fiscal conservatives, though not socially so.

ue Tories governed Ontario the same way that Richard Daly governed Chicago: for decades. Though Daly was a working class Democrat and the Blue Tories anything but.

The PC Party governed in Canada throughout the 1980s but was defeated in 1993 and left with only two seats in Parliament (of the 151 they had as government). The Reform Party, a social conservative party rooted in Western Canada, elected 52 members and over time managed to merge with the PC Party. When the merger was complete the “Progressive” was dropped.

There was a time when the prophetic voice was important in Canadian politics.

Tommy Douglas was a United Church minister and preached the Canadian version of social gospel. He was the first socialist leader ever elected to govern in the Commonwealth of Nations: in 1944 he led the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, which became the New Democratic Party, to government in Saskatchewan and was elected again in 1948, 1952, 1956 and 1960.

Douglas saw to it that Saskatchewan, which then as now is largely rural and sparsely populated — today there are 1 million people in 250 thousand square miles — enacted the first universal health care system in the free world. This became a model of the Canadian health care system.

There is a shadow side to the prophetic voice in Canada. The prophetic shadow is cast by social conservatives who were (and are no longer), in other ways, populist and progressive.

The cooperative movement, for example, flourished throughout Western Canada, rural Ontario and the Atlantic provinces — all of which were otherwise socially conservative.

These prophetic voices were cast by people such as Fr Lionel Groulx in Quebec, Ernest C. Manning and “Bible” Bill Aberhart in Alberta, and David Mainse in Ontario.

No progressive accent in the prophetic voice of Canadian social conservatives is a problem.

A federal minister who approves a $400,000 grant to Pride Week knows what she is doing. Of 132 Conservatives in Parliament, only a few have stood behind Ms Ablonczy — two have gone on the record.

Others are members of Cabinet, afraid of going on the record because they want to remain members of the Cabinet. This is frightening.

Some things are worth fighting for. Apparently support for a Cabinet colleague is not among them.

There are not yet any grand coalitions, such as the one Michael Lerner wrote about, of progressive religious voices in Canada.

This is an overwhelmingly Christian nation. A rabbi trying to register as a marriage officiant needs to be assessed credentially based on Christian standards.

Imams face a similar issue — and I understand (perhaps imperfectly) that most imams officiate over strictly Islamic weddings not recognised as marriage in Canadian law.

My next posts will address the issues of prophetic, progressive theology as I understand it from Jewish perspectives in Canada.