John Robson | National Post

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There’s been a lot of bold talk lately about restoring pride in Canada and its heritage. And yes, cheesy hockey metaphors are a stride forward from new passports that eliminate all iconic references to our actual past. But there’s more to genuine patriotism. For instance casting the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives’ ruling against Amy Hamm for bold truth-telling on gender into the sacred fire of liberty.

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Yes, sacred fire. And I especially hoist that torch and wave it now because this burst of pseudo-patriotism has involved a lot of timidity about what to be proud of. Justin Trudeau said we’re not Americans. True. We’re also not Bulgarian. Though Mark Carney found something quasi-positive not to be, saying we almost rise to being European (as he gloriously has, though maybe that was then). But what about being Canadian?

Even Christopher Dummitt, who I greatly admire, wrote here Monday “A pragmatic pluralism would recognize that one people’s hero will be another’s villain.” No. In the tale of Magna Carta King John is the bad guy for anyone and everyone who cherishes liberty under law. And if you don’t, you’re no Canadian and we don’t want you here.

I also think the courage of Vimy, Juno and indeed Waterloo is a crucial Canadian virtue. Exactly the kind Pierre Poilievre doesn’t show when posturing on policy without saying whether he believes there’s a man-made climate crisis. And the kind Mark Carney doesn’t show when he plays at being prime minister while fleeing from before Parliament.

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In contrast to these damp squibs, when teaching history I surprise students with a great Canadian quotation from Nova Scotia newspaper publisher Joseph Howe, later a Father of Confederation, tried for libel in 1835 for exposing colonial administration corruption, when truth was not a legal defence.

So, elbows up, Howe challenged the jury: “Will you permit the sacred fire of liberty, brought by your fathers from the venerable temples of Britain, to be quenched and trodden out on the simple altars (your ancestors) have raised?”

Instead of cringing, they hollered “No,” acquitting him and annulling the law as unfit for a free people truth north and strong. And if you deride the notion of any contemporary Canadian politician daring speak thusly, let’s not wait for them.

In her ordeal, Hamm writes, “My indomitable lawyer, Lisa Bildy, has given sage advice that, in my current situation — facing a ‘sentencing’ hearing for my alleged misconduct, barring an appeal to the B.C. Supreme Court — I must temper my words to avoid harsher punishment.” So will she quench that fire?

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No, eh? “I can’t do that. I have reached the summit of my tolerance for catering to the demands of gender activists and the institutional forces that they weaponize against women who speak the truth. I have had it.” What of us?

The ruling, Hamm continues, said “(T)he Panel is not concerned with the validity of the Respondent’s beliefs.” And then went on to claim her statement “that there are only two sexes… does not align with current medical or biological understanding,” thus telling a double lie. And will we permit a fellow citizen to be silenced without regard for truth? Are we not free?

Some say no. In George Washington’s first Inaugural Address, he declared that “the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” Many in our elite agree, finding liberty ugly American and admiring Canadian servility before a bloated state. But there’s no building a national identity on that one.

Burn Magna Carta in the flames of progress and you burn our flag too. So to restore our heritage we must relearn our history instead of graduating students who don’t know Henry Dundas from the Asante Empire. Because here’s another great Canadian quotation (h/t Conrad Black’s massive history of Canada), from Robert Baldwin on his Jan. 24, 1848 election triumph in coalition with Louis Lafontaine: “We shall have no more representatives of the sovereign making the doctrine of the Charleses and Jameses the standard by which to govern British subjects in the nineteenth century.”

Baldwin took for granted that his audience would recognize his reference to the 17th-century Stuart monarchs who tried to tax and govern without parliamentary consent, and that all peoples would regard them as villains, in Upper and Lower Canada alike. As they would despise censorship as un-Canadian in the 19th century, the 20th, or because it’s 2025.

Howe about us?

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