Topless bathing is a typically Canadian issue. You wouldn't think that. You probably
think a typical Canadian issue is the Constitution or something involving moose.
But topless bathing is a typically Canadian issue in the following way: It is an
invented problem solved with a compromise that annoys everybody. What could be more
Canadian than that?
Like many Canadian controversies, it isn't a controversy at all when you get more
than two feet away from a newspaper box. Nobody is talking about it, except for
media people and a few worried souls who write letters to the editor. At least some
of them would be writing letters to the editor about something else, if topless
bathing were not the threat du jour. This is a phoney issue, manufactured to sell
newspapers and the TV news, giving an opportunity for juicy pictures masked as news
coverage.
A court decision started all this, overturning an indecency conviction against a
woman who had gone topless in public. In a saner society, that would be that. People
would do what they always do in this country, namely keep their clothes on unless
they are sure no one is looking. And if they were caught, they wouldn't be charged.
Would we have seen a rash of toplessness? Surely you jest. A few people might have
done it for political reasons, a few more for publicity, but that's about it.
Nevertheless, Ottawa City Council, a good Canadian city council, wanted to be helpful,
always a risky instinct. Suddenly, there is a debate, juicy photographs in the newspaper,
headlines hinting of a crisis to come.
And then the compromise: It is OK to be topless on a public beach, not OK to be
topless at an indoor swimming pool.
Does this remind you of anything?
Of course. The Quebec language law.
English on signs is OK indoors, but not OK outdoors. Another great Canadian compromise
that annoys everyone it is intended to soothe.
There are echoes of other Canadian compromises as well, such as the Canadian Football
League, where Americans can play as long as there are not too many of them and there
can be three quarterbacks as long as one of them is a Canadian and never plays and
a single point is awarded for a missed field goal.
Another Canadian compromise is the domed stadium with a retractable roof. Sometimes
the stadium is outside, sometimes inside. As in other areas of Canadian life, this
compromise works better is some places -- Toronto, in this case -- than in others
-- such as Montreal.
Perhaps the best known Canadian compromise is Mackenzie King's "conscription
if necessary but not necessarily conscription," which is often cited in the
history books.
But this doesn't help us in Ottawa where, in the unlikely event that you want to
take your shirt off at the beach, you have to make sure that the beach is outside.
The wave pool, for example, is a beach, but it is indoors. You can see where confusion
would arise and it is a very good thing that there is not a domed stadium in Ottawa
with a retractable roof.
But it could be worse. Complete chaos is only about two compromises away. Imagine,
if you can, the Ottawa rules on topless bathing being transferred to Quebec.
Would-be topless francophones face indoor signs in English telling them that they
are not allowed to be topless indoors, but how do they know, so they take their
tops off, shocking the anglophones into running out the door.
Shockable anglophones run into the out-of-doors where they are unable to comprehend
the signs saying that toplessness is permissible and suddenly confront a scene in
which there are so many bare breasts it looks like the daily newspaper out there.
A further compromise would be called for, one not inconsistent with the regulatory
impulse in Quebec: Anglophones must stay indoors and keep their tops on; francophones
must stay outside and take theirs off.
Those born in other countries and who speak other languages must apply to the Office
of Mammary Linguistics for a permit allowing them to be topless or not, in one language
or the other, but not vice versa.
Further, everyone must keep in mind that the roof on the Olympic Stadium does not
open.
But enough of the hypothetical. Summer is nearly upon us and, as Canadians, we must
be true to who we are.
Remember: Bathing suits if necessary, but not necessarily bathing suits.