A speaker uses the 1985 animated short The Big Snit to warn that American political division is spreading north. Recent violence, including the killing of activist Charlie Kirk, shows how overheated rhetoric can make destruction seem inevitable. Canadians can still choose decency over division before it's too late.
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In 1985, the National Film Board of Canada released a short animated film called The Big Snit. It's about a married couple in their house. The husband cheats at Scrabble, the wife catches him, they start yelling at each other. She relieves stress by shaking her eyes, he by sawing the furniture. Outside, the world is ending in a nuclear war. A severe worldwide nuclear war has broken out. But this couple, they don't notice. They don't notice. They're just too busy arguing with each other. That tension between trivial obsession and looming catastrophe is exactly what gives this film its dark punch. It was nominated for an Oscar. Yesterday, America reached another tragic milestone in its race to destroy its great experiment. And watching it here from Canada, besides the whole grotesque the absurdity of it all, the shouting matches on cable news, the cruel memes on Facebook, it's easy to feel as if violence is happening further away than it is. Less than an hour after Charlie Kirk was killed, a kid in a school in Colorado shot two classmates and then killed himself. And the news reports followed the same tragic template, right down to the parents interviewed outside the school saying they couldn't believe it could happen to their kids in their school in their community. It's easy to feel as if violence is happening further away than it is. Look, whatever you think of Charlie Kirk, whatever your politics are, nobody disagrees that his death was the product of the ugly overheated political talk that's been building in the United States. Some of that talk has crept across the border. Reckless talk where politicians, our politicians, replace debate with soundbites engineered to rile their base. Insults instead of ideas. Donald Trump called the border between our two countries an artificial line. He's not wrong. He's not wrong. It's a line on paper. It's a line we defend. It's a line we protect. It's a line we're proud of. But there is, there is no wall that keeps cable news out. And so Canada today is at its own turning point. We can continue to look the other way when our political leaders chase cheap points from the American playbook. And if we do, it will carry the same risks. The louder the words get, the easier for violence to be the next logical step. Or we can choose the other path and call out politicians who trade in the same poison. We can stand up at rallies and say, no, we do not substitute anger for leadership here. We don't confuse cruelty with strength. Not here. That's a decision we make. That's a line we draw that is not artificial. On my desk I have a TV. It's usually tuned to Canadian news, but today I watched American cable news. Sure, the Kirk killing was covered, but they spent more time on other stories. Veterans doing something for 9/11. European interest rates. A UN emergency meeting. Not even 24 hours and the news cycle is ready to move on. At the end of that Big Snit film, the animated film I was telling you about, it's too late. The bombs are already in the air. Nothing can bring them back. But Canada's not there yet. We're still a young country. We have time to put down the saw, close the Scrabble board, and look each other in the eye. We can still be the country that shows the world that disagreement does not have to mean destruction, that decency can be stronger than division if we choose to.
