I’ve already done it once.

I wrote Peter O’Toole instead of Erin O’Toole.

The two couldn’t be more different, of course: the former is a late, great actor, the latter is the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, the official opposition party in the House of Commons.

I, and probably many Canadians, don’t know a lot about Erin O’Toole yet, but one thing I have seen associated with news during his campaign to be the party leader was a pledge to stop cancel culture.

What exactly does he mean?

He wants to “preserve Canadian history.” He seems to be opposed to changing the names of institutions and removing statues of people who may have done great things to shape the nation but are being exposed now for some pretty awful things, too. Is he worried about visible tributes being removed, or does he want their misdeeds to be glossed over or not even mentioned now that the truth is out there? Both?

Erin, the history books are ‘achangin’. They are being revised to make them more accurate, nothing more. There is no conspiracy but to reveal the truth.

It’s not just history, though. In talking about the big, bad “left,” he told The Post Millennial that “they try and impose a viewpoint and attack those who disagree with that viewpoint … they really try to change and erase history when we should be embracing history and learn from it.”

Hmm. How could Erin O’Toole stop people from trying to impose viewpoints and attacking those who disagree in the Twitter age? Turn Twitter into an online meditation centre?

There’s a whole lot of attacking going on from the left, the right and in between in the battlegrounds of Twitter and other social media sites. Check out the Twitter feeds of prominent Conservative MPs and former MPs and senators sometime. Their attacks on Liberals there are endless and nasty. All decorum is put aside in so many of their tweets.

There are things the Conservatives would like to cancel and would cancel if they got the chance, and no doubt there are things Liberals and the rest of the parties and supporters would cancel, too.

Erin was no doubt trying to appeal to a certain demographic with his references to “cancel culture” in various interviews just as he was late last night/early this morning when he reached out during his victory speech to “LGBT” people, some of whom many conservative types would like to cancel altogether.

He is a new voice on the scene, and he is a fine public speaker. If anything, he will make Canadian politics more interesting — if he doesn’t turn the House into a meditation centre.

Yes, I know, that was a real stretch.

I’m shameless.

Good night.

— Jillian