Protecting property rights is the solution to cancel culture
The building of a 55-foot statue of a Hindu god in Brampton is not the result of the progressive war on Canadian history and symbols, as many conservatives complained over the weekend. The sentiment embodied in the question: “how can we have this, but not statues of Sir John A. Macdonald?” might be understandable after the last decade of historical revisionism, but misses the point. A privately owned temple building its own monument offers a path to fight against cancel culture, an example to be emulated, not scorned.
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The towering presence of the god, Hanuman, may be unusual, sure, but any size or esthetic complaints are only marginally different than objections to a skyscraper casting too large a shadow, and other such nonsense arguments tossed around your average planning committee. It’s not even that unusual, as there is already a 50-foot statue of the same god in Richmond Hill.
A minority community using its own property to pay tribute to its faith is exactly the sort of project that shows capitalistic initiative isn’t just about profit, but about everyone self-actualizing in their own way, regardless of what the government wants. The statue was “built with private monies, and violates no city zoning regulations or bylaws,” according to Free Press writer Rupa Subramanya, who spoke to the temple priest and city mayor.
This particular kind of diversity — natural, not ordered or funded by government, sharing the best of the many cultures of Canadians — makes this country stronger, like the bilingual Punjabi version of O Canada sung at a Winnipeg Jets game on Saturday.
Critics might object that religious organizations receive tax benefits, and minority groups often receive public grants, but an argument against tax breaks and public funding is a distinct concern.
In any case, the building of the statue shows us why a legal system that protects property rights is beautiful — yes, I mean beautiful. Everyone should be free to build whatever they want on their own land. Unlike statues on public property, protesters can be safely ignored, and if they intrude, they become trespassers and are more easily dispensed with than if they intrude on public land. Police tend to give people causing a fuss on government property a wide berth, but when they invade private space it is a different matter altogether, at least in theory.
It is appalling that so many government bodies have removed their statues of Macdonald and other figures of Canadian history, or allowed them to be defaced without consequence, but no one should need the government’s permission to build their own monuments. And if petty zoning officers try to shut down construction in one locale, you can usually find another place nearby where authorities will stay out of the way.
What’s needed are fewer restrictions on building, not more. Unfortunately, some conservatives are using the Hindu statue as a reason to abandon the principle of property rights altogether.
“The Libertarian ideas that are used to defend this eye sore of a statue are exactly what needs to die in the Canadian Right Wing,” read a typical post on X this weekend.
“Canadians can only comprehend this through the lens of private/public property which entirely misses the point,” read another, which added, “Hindus understand the symbolism of their foreign deity towering over a Canadian skyline and it sends only one message: this country is free for the taking.”
Such emotional arguments are illustrative of the devolution of certain parts of the right into what are essentially campus socialists: applying principles of the rule of law and free speech arbitrarily, and trying to control the private actions of those they disagree with. The solution to “wokeness” is not a “wokeness of the right.” Conservative identity politics are no better than left-wing identity politics.
However, there is more than a kernel of truth to the argument that there is something wrong in this country when statues of Canada’s first prime minister and Queen Victoria can be smashed, and liberals cheer or stay silent, but everyone is expected to recognize the Brampton statue as multiculturalism in action or be branded a bigot — even if they are only objecting to its appearance, and not its symbolism.
Certainly, the Macdonald statues were vandalized on, or removed from, public property rather than private property. As Subramanya (whose writing will be very familiar to Post readers) put it, “The Hindu demigod Hanuman has nothing to do with the cancellation of Sir John A. by the progressive left.”
The two issues are, indeed, being improperly conflated.
But, while some of the attacks on the statue are no doubt rooted in bigotry, much of them originate in frustration with how Canada is constantly denigrated by progressives, and even its own government.
Subramanya is also correct when she notes that anyone who falls outside the Judeo-Christian tradition is being treated by some critics of this statue as an “invited guest” to Canada — but, it’s not like Jews and Christians are treated much better, even if their tormentors come from a different part of the ideological spectrum.
When it comes to private religious property, dozens of Catholic and other Christian churches were set ablaze in the summer of 2021, and the prime minister called it “understandable.”
This is a country where anything perceived as part of the dominant culture, or connected in any way to Canada as a country is to be smeared and destroyed. Those who disagree are to be expunged from public life.
No one should begrudge Hindus for building statues. Those angered that their heroes and symbols have been removed from public life should respond not by attacking a minority, but by taking cues from it.
Property rights are the solution, not the problem. If Canadian governments can’t abide a statue of the nation’s founder in public, then ordinary Canadians who want a statue of Macdonald should build their own, protesters be damned.
National Post
X: @CarsonJerema
cjerema@postmedia.com
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