Much Ado About Nothing

Canadians are such saps for a sob story we take pride in the fact, viewing it as part of our national heritage.

There's a reason Canada is flooded with "refugee" claims from countries like Mexico or the Czech Republic, and that our waiting list of immigration applications is nine years long. We don't ask a lot of questions, we trust everyone to keep their promises, and we hate saying no, in case we hurt anyone's feelings.

So it's noteworthy that Canada's Tamils have so singularly failed to generate the anticipated wave of national indignation for their cause. Ours is the biggest Tamil community outside Sri Lanka, and it's pretty clear their friends and family back home are going through hell. Canada's Tamils spent two weeks waving flags and chanting on Parliament Hill, five days blocking traffic on University Avenue in Toronto, and marched around Vancouver as well.

Yet apart from some ritual calls for humanitarian aid the response has been notable for what didn't happen rather than what did. Neither Stephen Harper nor Michael Ignatieff was willing to venture out to address the crowd in Ottawa. MPs stayed away, resisting the opportunity to pander to some juicy ethnic votes. In Toronto their main achievement was to irritate commuters to the point that police finally told the last few desultory chanters -- caught in a downpour on a grey afternoon -- that it was time to go home.