Around the Coffee Table with Dale Jodoin A Country Afraid to Talk

By Dale Jodoin Columnist                                               There was a time when you could sit around a coffee table with friends, neighbours, or co-workers and talk about almost anything. You didn't always agree, but that was part of the conversation. You challenged each other. You laughed. Sometimes you change your mind. Most times you didn't. Then you poured another cup of coffee and carried on. Today, it often feels different. Raise a question about immigration, crime, education, religion, the cost of living, or politics and, before long, someone reaches for a label instead of an answer. "Racist. Nazi. Bigot. Colonizer." Four words that can end a conversation before it even begins. Just like that, the conversation is over. I believe Canada loses something every time that happens. Before I go any further, let me be clear. Real racism exists. Real hatred exists. Hate crimes deserve to be investigated, and those responsible should face the full force of Canadian law. All Canadians, regardless of their race, religion or background, deserve equal protection. That's not my point. I fear the day when labels become more important than evidence. Words like "racist," "Nazi," "bigot," and "colonizer" are heavy words. They describe serious ideas with painful histories. They should never be thrown at someone simply because they ask an uncomfortable question or hold a different opinion. More than one million Canadians served during the Second World War, and tens of thousands never returned after fighting Nazi tyranny. That history deserves respect. Using these words carelessly weakens their meaning and can make genuine cases of hatred easier to dismiss. If someone commits a hate crime, prosecute them. If someone falsely accuses another person of hatred, challenge that accusation with the same commitment to fairness. Justice only works when it belongs to everyone. Canada earned its reputation by becoming a country where people from different backgrounds could live under the same laws while holding different beliefs. Agreement was never the goal. Respect was. That is why I worry about what some young Canadians are learning I am not talking about every teacher or professor. Many work tirelessly for their students. But education should teach people how to think, not what to think. Students need to learn to ask questions, examine evidence and back their ideas up with facts. If disagreement is met with a label instead of a discussion, we are teaching division instead of citizenship. Canada has welcomed people from every corner of the world. Most came looking for safety, opportunity, and freedom. They have strengthened our communities in countless ways. They deserve our respect. But becoming Canadian also means accepting a shared responsibility. If you came here to escape conflict, don't recreate it here. Our streets should never become battlefields for conflicts that began somewhere else. Peaceful protest is a Canadian right. Violence, intimidation, vandalism, and hate have no place in Canada. Governments also have a responsibility to lower the temperature of public debate. I believe the federal Liberal government, often supported by the NDP on key votes, has spoken about unity while many Canadians feel more divided than before. Others will see that differently, and that is their right. What matters most is that Canadians believe the law is applied fairly and equally to everyone. This isn't really about Left or Right. It isn't about race. It isn't about religion. It's about whether Canadians can still disagree without treating one another as enemies. Here's the question I keep coming back to. Are we really becoming a country that's afraid to talk? Or have we become a country that's forgotten how to listen? Listening doesn't require agreement. It requires enough respect to hear another person before deciding they're wrong. Most Canadians aren't looking for another argument. They're looking for fairness. They're looking for honesty. They're looking for the confidence that they can ask a difficult question without immediately being branded by a label. A free country isn't measured by how loudly people speak. It's measured by whether people with different opinions can still sit around the same coffee table when the conversation is over. If we lose that, we won't lose Canada all at once. We'll lose it one conversation at a time. Not because we stopped talking. Because we stopped listening. Maybe that's the real question each of us should ask the next time we sit down around a coffee table. Are we there to win an argument, or are we there to understand one another? I still believe Canadians can find their way back to the coffee table. I just hope we don't wait until there's no one left willing to pull up a chair.