(LifeSiteNews) — It cannot be emphasized enough that Canada has become a fundamentally unserious country. This is not because Canada lacks serious people, but because the establishment of the country is in the thrall of unserious people whom we are forced to take very seriously because their views are constantly amplified and endorsed.
The partnership between the state broadcaster and the LGBT movement is a microcosm of this. Editorial teams do not just report on the news; they decide what is or is not newsworthy, through the lens of their ideological commitments. One would think, for example, that a fast-food chain producing merchandise to celebrate a movie franchise is not news. In Canada, you would be wrong.
“Harry Potter has been a beloved part of so many of our guests’ lives for decades and we couldn’t be more excited for Canadians to discover the wizarding world at Tims restaurants,” said Hope Bagozzi, chief marketing officer for Tim Hortons. “We’re exclusively bringing the magic of Harry Potter to QSR in Canada in true Tims fashion – from donuts inspired by each Hogwarts House to a Golden Snitch Timbit® and Timbit holder, spellbinding Patronus and Forbidden Forest inspired drinks, and limited-edition merch that guests will want to collect and share.”
This is what a saner generation of journalists might have called a “non-story” – but that was then, and this is now. Canada’s top LGBT activist outfit, Egale Canada, instantly fired off a furious press release, stating that many Canadians “cannot separate the franchise from JK Rowling, one of the world’s most prominent voices opposing trans rights and inclusion, who has used her influence and financial resources to support efforts that are harmful to trans and gender diverse communities.”
“As a brand that is synonymous with Canada, Tim Hortons and their partnerships should reflect Canada – a country that is inclusive and proud of its diversity,” the press release stated. “Tim Hortons’ partnership with the Harry Potter franchise contributes to the continued visibility and commercial success of a brand associated with a person whose public advocacy has contributed to anti-trans narratives and the rollback of trans rights around the world.”
To fail to do so, Egale warned, would be to essentially cooperate with a hate campaign: “As anti-2SLGBTQI hate continues to rise in Canada, especially for trans and gender diverse communities, campaigns that celebrate the Harry Potter brand can be deeply disappointing, infuriating, and saddening for those who are directly affected by that harm as well as their allies.”
I’ve never read Harry Potter, and I assume that the food tastes pretty much the same. But these doughnuts, apparently, are transphobic doughnuts. The fact that adult people can have such conniptions about fictional fantasy characters tells us quite a bit about their own character. In Canada, the heckler’s veto is wielded by folks with the emotional regulation of toddlers.
An appropriate and mature response to this bile would be something along the lines of: Whatever. JK Rowling, a pro-abortion, pro-gay liberal doesn’t believe that men can become women and vice versa and opposes sex changes for minors – things pretty much everybody believed until about five minutes ago. Egale’s press release should have sunk without a trace.
But the CBC, which (as I’ve noted many times in this space) functions as the propaganda arm of Canada’s LGBT movement, treated these temper tantrums with the sort of seriousness that can only be displayed by unserious people, noting solemnly that “the backlash from the 2SLGBTQ+ community and allies was swift.”
Rowling, the CBC noted, has “launched the JK Rowling Women’s Fund, which uses her personal wealth to fund legal support for people or organizations who have ‘been discriminated against because of their expressed beliefs on biological sex being unchangeable.’” Some people “on social media” are calling for a boycott and have even coined the term “TERF-Hortons” (“TERF” translates to “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”). Those people promptly had a digital microphone thrust in front of them by the CBC:
“I’m an employee of Tim Hortons. I’m also transgender. You are actively hurting many of your employees including myself,” one person wrote on Threads.
Another said, “Choosing donuts over the safety of trans people is certainly a choice. What a terrible f—ing thing to do.”
Another person was “heartbroken,” adding, “This really hurt more than most. How can one person’s hateful voice carry this far?”
Well, primarily because the CBC constantly amplifies such voices, carefully combing the sewers of social media to retrieve the comments of people who think that a Harry Potter menu is a “terrible (expletive) thing to do” and that Tim Hortons is “choosing donuts over the safety of trans people,” which is frankly an insane thing to say. But worse than that is the fact that some editor looked at the comment, nodded wisely, and decided that this comment was worthy of publication at the taxpayer-funded state broadcaster.
