Canadians have not earned the right to share our grief

Ian Parker, National Post
Published: Thursday, April 27, 2006

As a retired member of the Canadian Armed Forces, I'm disturbed by the media frenzy and the artificial public outcry over the government's decision to restrict the media from CFB Trenton for the arrival of Canadian war dead. I fully support this decision, and I am ashamed of my fellow Canadians. For the past dozen years, when the Liberals were decimating the Canadian military, there was no public outcry. There was no media frenzy. You did not care. Canadians have -- due to their self-centred, insatiable demand for social programs -- wilfully neglected the men and the women of the Canadian Forces and allowed the federal government, under the Liberals, to gut the Canadian military. And now the media and other pundits wish to share in the grief of the military families for their fallen ones?

Where were the public outcry and the media frenzy over the government's obvious agenda to emasculate the Canadian Forces? There was no outcry when the air force was arbitrarily cut due to lack of resources; no outcry that the army, cut to the bone, is now unable to survive on a modern high-tech battlefield; and there has been not been a word over the decimation of the once-proud Canadian navy. In short, there has been no outcry that the Canadian Forces cannot fulfill its mission to defend Canada.

The Canadian media -- and Canadians -- have not earned the right to share our grief. Shame on the Canadian media, and shame on Canadians.

Ian Parker, Carleton Place, Ont.
© National Post 2006