The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

by Douglas Murray

Over the northern border it turned out that Canadians were not even able to die without demonstrating systemic racism. In April 2018 a terrible bus crash occurred in Saskatchewan in which 16 young people were killed and another 13 injured. The tragedy was only made greater when it was discovered that the bus involved in the collision had been filled with the Humboldt Broncos. In a hockey nation the death of so many people in their late teens was a source of unprecedented national mourning. Canadians left their hockey sticks outside their front doors as a mark of respect and a campaign to raise funds in memory of the young men yielded a record-breaking amount of money. But even this tragedy was not immune from the new racialization of absolutely everything. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy the Quebec City writer and self-described ‘activist’ Nora Loreto took to social media to complain about the attention paid to the dead hockey team by proclaiming, ‘The maleness, the youthfulness and the whiteness of the victims are . . . playing a significant role.’