Stock Photo
At the beginning of July, my sister came out from Ontario for a visit. Never having been to Alberta, naturally we took her to Jasper for a couple of days: amazing scenery like Athabasca and Sunwapta Falls, and the Icefields Parkway awed her. It was a great trip.
Padre (Major) Howard Rittenhouse – File Photo
You know what happened exactly three weeks later. The hotel in which we stayed and the coffee shop at which I purchased the best latte I’ve ever tasted now no longer exist.
Lightning and tinder dry conditions, not to mention hundreds or thousands of acres of pine trees killed by pine beetle infestation, provided near-‘perfect’ conditions for the devastation that followed.
Shortly after, my wife and I went on leave to the UK. It’s a regular tradition for us, but this time we went to Scotland. My son, his wife, and our perfect (it must be said) 11-month-old granddaughter came with us. But it was hard, even across the Atlantic, to avoid the news about Jasper.
However, the UK had their own tinder-dry conditions with which to deal. As one commentator said, decades of accumulated ‘tinder’ just needed a match to set it alight in a terrible paroxysm of rage, hate, and destruction. Obviously, I’m not referring to wildfires but to the riots that occurred across the UK. Thankfully, we weren’t anywhere near affected centres like Birmingham, Rotherham, and Liverpool.
And just as we watched the news from Jasper and the devastation caused by wildfire, so we watched the devastation caused by years of accumulated ‘tinder:’ disaffection, feelings of powerlessness, loss of good paying jobs, even outright hate. And the match was the horrifying killing of three young girls and the wounding of ten more.
But misinformation added fuel to the fire. While I don’t pretend to know the killer’s motives, he was not – as certain accelerationists claimed – a Muslim, or a recent immigrant. And even if he was, that in no way justifies mayhem, attempting to burn down asylum-seekers’ hotels (with them inside), burning police cars, and attacking police.
I don’t want to get into the politics – that’s not my place. What I want to get at is this: we must guard ourselves from adding fuel to the fire. Just as Jasper was nearly levelled by wildfire thanks to a lot of accumulated tinder, parts of the UK were torched by similar levels of ‘tinder:’ years of feeling abandoned by the powers that be, but also deep suspicion of ‘others’ i.e. immigrants, even outright bigotry and hatred. Sadly, this was not a new experience for the UK – the 70s and 80s were marked by outbursts of rioting, bigotry, and violence. But social media is a new kind of ‘tinder’ – it’s like throwing gas on a bonfire.
In the CAF, we work alongside people not only from across the country, but the globe. We work with people of different ethnicities, sexual orientations and genders, faiths, and views. And we’re privileged to do so! Canada is a fantastic country – be proud of our home, our heritage, and our service. But do so with an open heart, an open mind, and open hands. We serve others before ourselves; do so with honour. We serve Canadians – all Canadians – and we work alongside our allies; do so with passion and pride. We like to say the CAF reflects Canada; make it a reflection as wide open as a Prairie sky, as deep as a great lake, and as magnificent as those Rockies you can still see from Jasper.
