Columnists Thane Burnett (left) and Andrew Hanon are of two different minds when it comes to morality. (Sun Media)

Andrew Hanon argues that we are moral.

People who think Canadians aren’t as moral as we used to be really need to take a closer look at history.

Oh sure, prior to the Swingin’ Sixties divorces were harder to come by, drug abuse wasn’t as rampant and pornography wasn’t piped into every home via the Internet.

But there was still plenty of morally reprehensible stuff going on.

Take, for example, Alberta’s Sexual Sterilization Act, which allowed the government to forcibly sterilize mental patients, epileptics, alcoholics and anyone considered genetically inferior. The law was in place from 1928 to 1972 and claimed about 2,800 victims.

Then there’s the native residential school system, which over the course of a century saw tens of thousands of aboriginal kids across the country taken from their families and placed government administered boarding schools. Thousands suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

Or how about the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War, or Ukrainian Canadians during the First World War?

Go a little further back and you’ll find Canada has a long history of slavery, beginning with aboriginals in New France in the 1500s right up until the British Empire’s — hotly contested, it should be noted — Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

Slavery was outlawed because people’s sense of right and wrong changed. What was once acceptable became morally indefensible.

Another example is inter-racial marriage. A generation or two ago, it was considered wrong for people to marry outside of their race. Those who broke the taboo risked being disowned by their families and ostracized by their communities.

Nowadays, the issue has been flipped on its ear. Those who oppose mixed marriages are shunned by the mainstream as intolerant.

The truth is, society’s values and morality are constantly reshaping, and there will always be a segment of the population who don’t like what they’re seeing.

But Canadians’ morals are evolving, not degenerating.

Thane Burnett argues that we are immoral.

So slightly. In ways you’ll admit if you’re honest.

Our morals are slipping.

Over time, the Canadian code of conduct is becomingtarnished.

Maybe it began in 1961, when alleged Soviet spy Gerda Munsinger was found sleeping with a number of federal cabinet ministers. Or on the heels of the way the RCMP behaved during the 1997 APEC summit in Vancouver. Maybe it started around the time of the federal sponsorship scandal of 2004.

But my grandfather would have argued the shift happened in 1969, when the CBC pulled Don Messer’s Jubilee off the air — setting off protests on Parliament Hill, and causing gramps to throw his ashtray at the TV.

Me? I noticed it last Tuesday, while standing in a long supermarket line — where people butted past with ne’er an ‘excuse me’ uttered.

Then this morning, packed onto a commuter train, I watched men, slumped in seats, ignore female riders — including an older woman with a cane — who stood for the trip.

Sure, Canadians still know right from wrong. But those are words of logic and not the subjective way we once carried ourselves collectively.

No Billy, life wasn’t all whitewashed picket fences and codfish aplenty when I grew up in the Maritimes. But before it all gets to the big questions of affairs and ripping off the taxpayer, morality is about the minutia of niceties. How well we do during our daily interactions.

We’re not civil to one another any more. We hate each other. And it shows.

Nor are we worried someone’s mother will slap us upside the ear.

There are few social consequences anymore.

Once, going to jail for fraud and obstruction of justice would be frowned upon. Now, you can do time while still offering up glowing reviews for inside the dustcovers of new books.

Today I called up ‘Morality’ using Google News. The first item was how we’re going to teach it to robots.

Well, good luck with that.

---