Ties That Bind

The Muslim teacher, she worried, would drive her child to extremism. A man was convinced the Muslim faith was ruining Christmas in Quebec. A fellow from Quebec City said he was sick of being forced to purchase kosher food at the supermarket. In Gatineau, a man stood up and stabbed the air with his finger. “Why do the Jews have their own hospital?” he bellowed, referring to Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital.

These comments were made voluntarily, in public, by citizens who, far from being cowed by the abject ignorance tumbling from their mouths, often seemed possessed by or drunk on their own righteousness. At the head of these often packed meetings, two weighty intellectuals nodded and (usually) thanked the participants. Sometimes they asked questions. Often their faces were masks of weariness and frustration.

So went...