Kurl: How should we understand Canada's version of the 'culture wars'?

Canadians are already tired of the deep division around issues such as gender, race, climate change and free speech. But we can’t avoid it; rather we need to address it.

Published Sep 15, 2023 • Last updated 4 hours ago • 3 minute read

The head of a statue of Sir John A. MacDonald is shown after Montreal demonstrators tore down the structure in Montreal in 2020. Photo by Graham Hughes /The Canadian Press

Oh, we were so smug then, in simpler times, when we flicked through the American cable news networks to gawk at people screaming at each other about social values. But like it or not, the so-called “culture wars” have woven their way into the fabric of Canadian political, educational and societal discourse too. Even if we wanted to (and many of us do), there’s no avoiding them anymore.

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“Culture wars” is a catch-all phrase that has become shorthand for increasingly divisive discourse around issues such as gender, race, climate, capitalism, the nature and limits of public speech, and the legacies of colonialism.

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Examples are everywhere. An unpopular premier sets off an uproar with a policy requiring that parents must give consent if their children wish to use a different pronoun at school than the one assigned at birth. Although polling shows most parents, while wanting to be informed of any change, are not convinced their permission is required, politicians on the right threaten to invoke the notwithstanding clause to see the policy through. Meanwhile, politicians on the left cast the plan as a matter of life or death to young people.

Another example. Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre takes to the PA system on a WestJet flight to yuk it up with passengers. Some airline employees object. The airline says it will review its policies. It escalates quickly, with Poilievre demanding an apology from airline staff for attempting to limit his “free speech.”

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And of course, there are the by-now routine shouting matches about renaming buildings and roads, or taking down statues of (usually white male) figures from the past.

If you’re tired of all this, you’re far from alone. In a first-of-its-kind, multi-part polling series about the culture wars, the Angus Reid Institute finds 60 per cent of us find the culture wars “exhausting.” Although, it should be noted, about one-third also find them “informative” and “important.”

Who are these folks?

According to the data, we fall into one of five points along a spectrum when it comes to our thinking about the culture wars. At the two extreme ends of that spectrum are what we call the the “Zealous Activists” and the “Defiant Objectors.” Each represents about 20 per cent of the population.

The Activists are most likely to be under the age of 35, most likely to be female or identify as non-binary, and, politically, are solidly left — most voting in the past for either the NDP or the Liberals. For them, cancel culture (wherein high-profile people of influence face career-altering consequences for controversial or offensive speech) is about accountability: holding powerful people in check.

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The Objectors are their mirror opposites: aged 55 or older, mostly male, most likely to have voted for the Conservatives or the People’s Party in the last election. Whatever the Zealous Activists fight and push for in terms of changing speech or policing those they deem bad actors, the Objectors are having none of it — and they’ll push back just as hard. This group is most likely to view cancel culture as a suppression of free speech. It doesn’t like that society is becoming more careful in the way it uses language. Where the Zealous Activists see inclusion, the Defiant Objectors see oppression.

Usually, voices from these two extremes dominate public conversations about gender, speech, race and other contentious issues. So, what of the 60 per cent of us in the middle? There are the “Quiet Accommodators,” who agree with a lot of what the “Zealous Activists” believe but are far less intense about it. The “Conflicted Middle” is, you guessed it, conflicted about a lot of these issues. The “Frustrated Skeptics” tend to lean towards what Defiant Objectors say and think but won’t go as far in their fury.

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In the coming weeks we’ll look at a lot of issues through the lens of these mindsets. It should, I hope, enable us to cut through the rhetoric of the extremes and better understand where most Canadians stand on a lot of complex, contentious challenges facing the country today.

Shachi Kurl is President of the Angus Reid Institute, a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research foundation.