A couple of days ago I noted that the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association was upset at Warren Kinsella, the political advisor appointed by the Ignatieff team to run the war room in the next federal election. Kinsella, in a blog posting, mentioned that he was pleased to be able to visit a favourite Chinese restaurant for some BBQ “cat” and rice.
Initially, I thought the “outrage” from the CCCA was one of those low-level political brushfires that would confine itself largely to partisan blogs. Well, it has yet to surface, so far as I know, in the English- or French-language mainstream media but it has made the mainstream Chinese-language media. Indeed, it pushed the federal budget off the front pages of some Chinese language newspapers.
I'm told the it was also a topic of discussion on A1 Chinese Radio and Fairchild Radio on Wednesday night.
The attention from the Chinese-language media — a group which has been assiduously courted by the Conservatives, I should point out — was interesting. But so was this: After the initial criticism, Kinsella altered the blog posting in question, removing the phrase that offended the CCCA and, in replacement, went on the attack.
“I changed the post to emphasize Conservative hypocrisy, for anyone this angry fellow directed there,” Kinsella said when I asked him about it. “In the era of screen caps and Google cache, deletions don't happen anymore. The video is still in YouTube, too, and any reasonable person who sees it will know that the allegation being made is utterly ridiculous.”
And Kinsella, the author of a well-received book that exposed white supremacists in Canada, rejected the not-so-subtle hint from his Conservative detractors that he was some sort of closet racist. “Morality lectures from the party that came up with “Asian invasion?” That's a bit silly, isn't it? Why doesn't this fellow condemn his party for that? Or likening immigrants to criminals? Or any one of a dozen other examples of bigotry originating from Reform-Alliance-Conservative MPs/candidates?”
Moments ago, in the House of Commons, Vancouver area Conservative MP Alice Wong rose to say this:
My constituents are asking me why the Liberal leader is refusing to fire his top political aide, Warren Kinsella. Was Mr. Kinsella’s comment about tucking into a “Bowl of BBQ cat” at Yang Sheng’s here in Ottawa done in his ‘official’ role as Liberal party spokesman? His comments that Chinese restaurants serve cat meat deeply offended the Chinese community in Canada, and have already been condemned in Sing Tao Daily, Ming Pao, World Journal, and across Chinese language talk radio.
As a Chinese Canadian and someone who appreciates the freedom and opportunity that Canada provides, it hurts me and my community greatly to see racially ignorant comments coming from official spokesmen for the Liberal party.
When will the Liberal leader realise that Canada’s political system doesn't have room for someone with Warren Kinsella's offensive views? When will he fire Warren Kinsella?
David, I'm sure you and Warren will be able to extinguish this controversy together.
David, further to this, this is what I have posted on my web site this morning:
http://www.warrenkinsella.com/index.php?entry=entry090130-075940
May I ask a question, Mr. Akin?
Why is it relevant to your post to mention this: “the Chinese-language media — a group which has been assiduously courted by the Conservatives, I should point out …”
Is that not a suggestion that the Chinese community is reacting to Mr. Kinsella’s comment on the orders or at least at the instigation of the Conservative party?
As for Mr. Kinsella stating “I changed the post to emphasize Conservative hypocrisy …” I would remind Mr. Kinsella about the furor caused by an 18-year old video tape resurrected by some people in order to embarrass a sitting MP.
That controversy practically controlled QP for I don’t know how many days.
Mr. Kinsella, like many of us mere mortals, is very quick to condemn others of the same faults he himself possesses. When he ridiculed Stockwell Day’s creationist beliefs, that I suppose was OK in his playbook. But let anyone use similar tactics on him, well, hell hath no fury like that Kinsella fella.
BTW, for what it's worth, I disagree with the people calling for his dismissal from Mr. Ignatieff’s employ.
Why? Because political correctness is a malady affecting far too many people, regardless of their political affiliations. I wish we could return to an era when we could all laugh at innocuous jokes about various ethnic groups, one of which I belong to, and which has traditionally been a target.
An off-hand remark is not a political manifesto, regardless of which side of the political spectrum it comes from.
Sorry for the double post (maybe). I was not aware your blog is now moderated.
In fact, the blog is now “unmoderated” and will allow anonymous posts. In other words, you don't have to sign in to post.
That said software robots are on the lookout for comment spam and if the robots — which are not that intelligent — find what they think is spam, they hold it back and let me know I need to moderate it. If that happens, there will be a delay from the time commenters post and the time it takes for me to approve the post.
Gabby, I agree that Mr. Kinsella should probably not be fired from his position for an “off-the-cuff” remark.
However, as you implied above, it's not without copious Opposition example where they have demanded the immediate resignation of a Conservative (staff) member followed by an immediate apology for some similar off-hand remark.
Mr. Kinsella, with all due respect, I wouldn't be so quick to call Conservatives hypocritical in light of previous Liberal behaviour for exactly the same kind of remarks, yourself included.
I agree that we as a people (Canadians) are starting to become a little too namby-pamby when it comes to our sensibilities. We are becomming too easily offended by matters of pittance.
The goebbellian Liberal MSM will quash this story as usual.
Thanks for the explanation.
I long for the “olden days” when the word “discrimination” was a synonym for “good taste” as in these definitions (from http://dictionary.reference.com/):
3. the power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgment: She chose the colors with great discrimination.
4. Archaic. something that serves to differentiate.
Here's the Youtube video of Kinsella:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzwpEwXi7qw
Umm. But I'm part of the “goebbellian Liberal MSM”. Not sure how square that circle, but thanks for coming out “anonymous”!
I am a strong believer in freedom of speech and despise those who try to take it from me. Kinsella is one of those people. He calls everybody racist and then makes racist comments himself. If somebody else said the comments he did, he would be calling them knuckle-dragging racist rednecks. He is dispicable and Iggy and any other politician would be smart to distance themselves from him. Maybe in his younger days he could kick a$$ in Canadian politics, but the world is a different place, and he is so yesterday. His old methods won't work in today's world.
Kinsella must be old school if he thinks that the web doesn't have a memory. What's he going to do, sue Google?
Here's the Google Cache of his original post.
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:CvblfhA0qy4J:warrenkinsella.com/index.php%3Fm%3D01%26y%3D09%26entry%3Dentry090111-201718
Why is it so difficult for Kinsella to say, “I guess I made a dumb smart-alec comment. I'm sorry if I offended anyone.” Whether you think this is being hyped or not, what is the problem with simply saying “I'm sorry” and making it go away ? Is the idea of BBQ cat in Chinese restaurants so important to Kinsella that normal courtesy goes out the door ?
Poor Warren… He's made a career out of “gotcha politics” and branding others as racist. Now his own virtues are coming back to bite him in the tail and I, for one, find it extremely amusing.
I don't take offense to Warrens “BBQ cat” comment. I can't. I'm not Chinese. Where I do take offense is in Warren's attempts to pretend like he never made the comment in the first place. At the first whiff that there might be an issue, Warren could have manned-up and apologized, but he didn't. Instead he disappeared his original comments and pretended like nothing happened.
Now that the heat's turned up higher, he's even gone so far as to issue a faux apology and disappear the youtube video to boot. That's OK though… The Chinese community is smart enough to know that weasel phrases are just that and we had a copy of the video backed up because of Warren's habit of trying to disappear examples of his poor judgement…
As one of those free-speecher types, I believe that an individual should be free to say pretty much what they want but in so doing, they have to have the balls to stand behind their words and face the consequences of the same.
Warren doesn't…
In all seriousness, and without whining, if a prominent Tory had made those remarks, the mainstream media would have been entirely different. This story has been downplayed, either because they fear Kinsella, consider him one of their own, or both.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it's both. They are afraid of him and they do consider him their own. Reaction from those like Robert Silver at G&M seem to be consistent with the sentiment.
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090130.WBSilverPowers20090130174423/WBStory/WBSilverPowers
Curious how Kinsella (and the media) can drag out every questionable comment by a Reform/Alliance/Conservative candidate going back 20 years, but another very blatant anti-Chinese Canadian remark by a defeated Liberal MP disappears down the memory hole.
After his drubbing in the 2000 election, Lou Sekora, in a newspaper article, blamed his defeat on Chinese Canadian voters who “didn't want to reveal their offshore holdings”. You can imagine the media firestorm that would have occured had that comment been made by a Reform or Alliance politician.
While I certainly enjoy seeing Kinsella twist in the wind like this, I am perplexed at the controversy.
It is an easily verifiable fact that many Chinese people do, in fact, eat cat. To reference that fact is hardly racist. I do not know if the restaurant in question serves the dish, however.
Sorry this argument doesn't wash. This restaurant is in Ottawa and if this restaurant was serving cat, that would be a violation of restaurant health code and Canadian meat inspection.
There is a kind of racism that exists that isn't aware of itself.
No one doubts Kinsella's right to free speech and this incident is actually not about political correctness. Canada has a history of systemically discriminating against Chinese and past Liberal governments pretty much dragged their feet when it came to redressing the issue. It always surprised me since it was the Liberal party that gave us Multi-culturalism in 1971. But then now it's maybe not so surprising.
No one actually cares that *Warren Kinsella* said these things, rather it is his proximity to Ignatieff and his influence within the Liberal party that cause concern. People align themselves with political parties not just based on policy decisions, but the perceived values held by the political parties. Canadians are not entirely familiar with Ignatieff so when his aide expresses himself in such an ignorant way, they have every reason to wonder about Ignatieff himself. Ignatieff has remained curiously silent about the entire thing, which is probably not the best way to deal with it.
It's actually become big news in China and they aren't really talking about Kinsella persay, rather Ignatieff.
“It's actually become big news in China and they aren't really talking about Kinsella persay, rather Ignatieff. ”
Do you have a link for this, Anonymous, and could you share it with us ?
So sad jad, you can't do a Google search in Chinese? Here's a small sample.
http://www.hkheadline.com/instantnews/news_content/200902/01/20090201b000050.html?cat=b
http://news.sina.com.hk/cgi-bin/nw/show.cgi/32/1/1/1021854/1.html
http://big5.chinanews.com.cn:89/hr/mzhrxw/news/2009/01-30/1543125.shtml
http://world.aol.hk/defaultdetail.jsp?keyid=5818507144633750507
http://www.gs.chinanews.com.cn/news/2009/02-02/17331.shtml&usg=ALkJrhhzznnTW6lwJYHh1TAj0_IxVD13rQ
Mr. Kinsella can call Conservatives hypocritical, although we still haven't recovered the Adscam money….until it's recovered I don't think he's in any position to call anybody hypocritical!
This is not the catastrophe that the Cons would like to paint. On the other hand, it will not help to catapult Warren's political career.