With the demise of Sun News Network last month, Ezra Levant announced that he planned to start a new online news network. The network is called “Rebel Media,” presumably to mark Levant and his colleagues as rebels against a presumably left-wing elite that makes up so much of the “Media Party” Levant talks about.
References like these that mark the people who see them as “rebels” supposedly fighting against some big elite have often left me scratching my head. Pierre Trudeau famously talked about how he prided himself on “paddling against the current” of popular opinion, and rallied public support against the “elites” who supported the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords. Writers like John Ralston Saul and Mel Hurtig have been criticizing Canadian business and political elites for years. The Harper government has often tried to portray itself as outsiders fighting against an entrenched Ottawa elite, even though it’s been in power in Ottawa for almost a decade.
In all these cases, they try to distinguish themselves as standing out from the pack, rebelling against some powerful elite that supposedly wields all the real power in Canada. The odd thing is, though, the “rebels” often themselves have a lot of power, wealth and influence, and could easily be seen themselves as some kind of intellectual, political, or business elite of one kind or another. The identity of the “elite” they criticize often tends to vary too, whether it be reporters, professors or businesspeople.
How does one explain the presence of so many different “rebels” and so many different “elites?” One possibility is that there is no single “elite” in Canada that all shares the same opinions and goals, and that the people who all make up the “elite” have just as many disagreements and different goals as any other group of Canadians. The federal Conservatives, for instance, have their supporters among the university professors and the media, while progressives like the Liberals and the NDP have their supporters among entrepreneurs and the business community.
Another possibility is that there is more than one group of “elites” in Canada, each of whom wields some kind of power and influence. Rob Ford got elected in part by criticizing what many people considered Toronto’s downtown elite and standing up for the ordinary citizen, but Ford himself could easily be seen as part of an elite himself, given his family wealth.
So when someone tries to portray themselves as a rebel in Canadian politics, it’s worth considering exactly who the “elite” they’re opposing is, and just what their own status exactly is. Popular culture often depicts rebels who fight back against elites as heroes, and political commentators will often try to portray their adversaries as elites. In some cases, they might actually be right in depicting their adversaries as elites. However, at the same time they might end up being depicted as elites when someone else begins rebelling against their ideas and actions.
Sometimes, elites and rebels aren’t as different as they seem.
Jared Milne is a St. Albert resident with a passion for Canadian history and politics.
