By Tony Keene
Fight clubs, bike gangs, the military, and so much more.
It’s almost too much to deal with.
There have been multiple news stories recently about “fight clubs” and white supremacist militias arming and training to take over areas of Canada, not to mention a biker gang infiltrating a branch of The Royal Canadian Legion. In recent years, the Legion, which contains almost no veterans of the Forces, has found itself dealing with racist incidents and highly questionable events at its branches.
The appearance of hate-monger Ezra Levant at a Legion branch in Toronto is just one in a seemingly endless, and increasing, series of incidents and events involving racism, intolerance and reaction.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/royal-canadian-legion-releases-hate-group-policy-1.5167794
Be it turbans on Sikhs, viciously racist jokes about Native people, or invitations to white supremacists to join in community events, it is becoming increasingly apparent that these “bozo eruptions” can no longer be written off as isolated incidents or events that are “not who we are.”
In the Legion’s case, it is very much who they are. And Don Cherry in a Legion blazer, ranting about “you people,” likely has them cheering him on in halls across the country.
These are big honking dots, which should be easily connected.
Decent and right-thinking people do not need policy directives to prevent them from hanging with racists. Yet the national president of the Legion obviously believes his membership does. And he’s right.
The Royal Canadian Legion has, throughout its long history, provided exemplary assistance and support to veterans of the First and Second World Wars (less so to others). But it has at the same time painted itself into a socio-political corner of reaction and intolerance.
Heard a good one recently, but are afraid to tell it at work in case you get fired? No problem, just go down the Legion. You’ll get lots of yuks, no one will call you out, and you might hear a few new ones.
Let’s get something perfectly clear. The Legion is not a veterans’ organization. There are almost no veterans in it, and even fewer with Canadian military service. It is essentially a white, male-dominated structure, conservative to the point of being reactionary, xenophobic and resistant to change. Any change, under any circumstances.
It is bleeding members, and has been doing so steadily for at least three decades. There is no indication whatsoever that this will abate, because Legion membership has little to offer today’s veterans. Why would we join a group that has essentially no criteria for membership? The doors have not only been flung wide, but they’ve also been taken off the hinges.
While it does offer full support to modern-day vets, in terms of dealing with injury claims and such, at the Branch level, the membership is largely fixated on the World Wars. It is unlikely you will find any pictures, flags, badges or memorabilia in your local Legion relating to anything the military has done since Korea, if even that. Veterans of that conflict were not even admitted to the Legion until 30 years after it ended.
It’s as if our military history came to an end on VE Day.
Veterans of more recent conflicts are often treated as second-class.
The dedicated people who man the Legion’s service offices do yeoman work on our behalf, and will continue to do so as long as they can. But it is likely, at the current rate of attrition, that the Legion will be largely irrelevant within a decade, or two at the most. When the membership runs out, the money runs out. And then what?
The incidents of intolerance and outright racism at Legion branches span the country, from British Columbia to Alberta, Ontario and Prince Edward Island. They will likely continue, and perhaps even increase, as the membership of the Legion boils down to a relative handful of angry white males.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-tignish-legion-turban-apology-1.4498355
The executive of the Legion knows full well what sort of people the organization attracts. To be fair, there is probably little they can do about it.