In defence of the valedictorian

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/10/2010 (5465 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

 I had a very enjoyable debate on the Twitter last night about whether U of W valedictorian Erin Larson  was uncouth or courageous when she got political at convocation Sunday. I was thinking about it again this morning as folks on the stationary bikes were talking about it, mostly tut-tutting.

 I agree with Dr. Axworthy and my Twitter friends that perhaps using a formal and celebratory event to slag our senior MP was a bit poorly-timed. Many people feel that way, and they have a point. But I’d like to mention several things:

 1) She’s 22, and what she did is exactly what 22-year-olds do and what they OUGHT to do. We can’t lament the lack of political participation among the Facebook generation and then condemn a kid for taking advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime platform – one she earned by being very smart for four years – to raise issues she cares about. When I was 22, I was going to lame rallies against Ralph Klein’s cuts to post-secondary education, and I was much less articulate and much less effective than she was. I wish more 22-year-olds were as engaged as Larson.

2) Was it really so rude? She gave a speech, a well-spoken one that was really only 10 per cent political. The most newsworthy stuff was over by minute three. She didn’t call anyone names. She wasn’t vitriolic. She didn’t burn down the Starbucks. She put on her pearls and gave a speech at a public university that values tolerance and free speech, and she took her boos like a big girl. It can’t have been fun for Mr. Toews, but he also handled it with grace – he acknowledged the protest once with a self-deprecating joke and quoted Yeats instead of getting political. He also spoke quite eloquently about the unavoidable gap between old and young and the value of a bright, energetic new generation. In a way, he set the stage for Larson perfectly.

3) She and the protesters raised real issues that many Canadians have questions about. Not so much gay marriage – that’s settled – but the treatment of the Tamil refugees, new crime-fighting measures that will saddle taxpayers with huge new jail costs, and the $1 billion G-20 summit that saw dozens of questionable arrests of peaceful protesters and journalists. Even the most conservative Canadians have wondered about that debacle. This isn’t the nebulous I-hate-The-Gap blether most black-clad protesters barely articulate. They are real issues in the paper daily that define foreign and domestic policy.

 So, on balance, I am voting for courageous instead of uncouth.