What followed was a media feeding frenzy that mostly misrepresented our position, and a week of the worst sort of national attention for us and for the university. Despite several of us doing numerous interviews, most media focussed on the erroneous notion that our opposition is to soldiers being considered heroes and to parentless children being given education assistance.
Those of us who signed the letter have been subjected to virulent hate mail and argument by decibels and epithet. The language of many of our critics would make a stevedore blush and a grammarian wince. Always helpful, local Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski poured gas on the fire at every media opportunity, repeating his claim that we oppose help for the bereaved and honour for the dead and demanding our public apology (boiling oil not being available) for something we didn't say and didn't intend.
It seems that some of his fellow travellers have created Facebook groups to maintain that focus and invite people to put pressure on us and on our university. We could be pardoned for thinking that much of the furore has political fingerprints all over it.
On Sunday evening, the local CTV news again ran the story, framing it on our alleged opposition to calling dead soldiers "heroes," with Lukiwski as the talking head, again demanding an apology from us.
What to do? Well, as one elder advised one of us, "Stand firm. Repeat your message. You've argued for peace your whole life."
--Joyce Green and Darlene Juschka are professors at the University of Regina; Green in political science and Juschka in women and gender studies, and religious studies.---