brownstein: duo hope you’ll make a pact! in mismatched shoes on friday to combat hate

so, what’s wrong with this picture?stephen bronfman, no one’s notion of a fashion casualty, is sporting one predominantly black sneaker with a little white mixed in and one predominantly white sneaker with a little black mixed in.did he get out of bed in too much of a rush, still consumed and disturbed by major league baseball not coming back to montreal?nah!the entrepreneur/philanthropist is over that long-held dream of bringing the expos or another big-league ball team to town — for now. bronfman is on another mission these days. a humanitarian one at that.along with andy nulman, the co-founder of the anglo side of the just for laughs fest back in the 1980s, bronfman started pact! — the power to act a year ago.on friday in canada and beyond, pact!, alongside ensemble pour le respect de la diversité, will be launching the inaugural edition of impossible pair day, an initiative to try to curb youth hate, bullying, racism and sexism.simply put, the duo’s hope is that people will be sporting mismatched shoes — as they are doing now in bronfman’s downtown office.participants are encouraged to make $2 donations, with half the proceeds going to the ensemble program and the other half to groups with similar goals.at last year’s c2 conference in montreal, the pact! team assembled 100 pairs of mismatched nike and adidas sneakers in boxes at a pop-up event and sold the entire batch in just 10 minutes, with orders for another 1,700 pairs the group wasn’t able to fill.“we were making a simple statement: if these two rivals, the nike swoosh and the adidas stripes, could cuddle up and live together in a little box, why can’t we all?” says bronfman, proudly donning his funky nike/adidas shoe combo.

dave sidaway / montreal gazette

“the idea is that mismatched shoes will serve as a conversation starter in standing up for diversity. no matter how different we may be, our belief is that we can talk and move ahead. we’re using cheekiness, arts, culture, music and fashion to grab people’s attention in this crazy world. we’re not going to solve the problems of the world, but at least we can start conversations — and that’s a whole lot better than complaining and doing nothing.”adds nulman, sporting a loafer/sneaker combo: “the goal is to create radicalized good and make hatred socially unacceptable. it’s a lofty goal, but it’s a start. hate has not just become normalized these days, but has also become industrialized.”bronfman cites statistics indicating that nearly 70 per cent of young people in canada were reporting incidents of bullying, hate and violence.“i saw another report on tv about how so many kids are not going to school in parts of this country because of threats of bullying,” bronfman notes.“there is so much bullying online now. it’s so easy to spew hatred when you’re not looking at someone in the face. what’s so sad is that kids are among the biggest hate-spewers out there. but the reality is that there is just so much hate everywhere: islamophobia, black, antisemitism, lgbtq+, indigenous rights, misogyny. nobody lives life without getting slapped in the face.”in speaking with the ensemble group, nulman was startled to learn that topping the list among youth hate was misogyny.“i was hearing stories about 12-year-old boys being horrific to girls,” nulman says. “that was staggering, but that’s sadly how hate spreads.”bronfman points out he had a moment reminiscent of the film network a year back, “being as mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.”“pact! is just the start. it’s going to be a long process. but we’re confident,” bronfman says.they expect that students from about 250 schools in the montreal area alone will be showing up in mismatched shoes on friday. mayor soraya martinez ferrada and montreal police chief fady dagher are behind the project. celebrities like howie mandel have come on board, as have companies like aldo shoes.“this is just step 1 — pardon the pun,” nulman says. “the goal is to take this internationally. the message is simple: we can be different but still get along. this will also be an ongoing program because, sadly, hate doesn’t sleep.”adds bronfman: “andy and i are both deeply committed. we’re both lunatics at heart and we love doing this kind of thing.”“people have come up to us to say this is a wonderful initiative but it’s too massive an undertaking to pull off,” nulman says. “but i always go back to people coming up to stephen some 33 years ago talking about his involvement with the david suzuki foundation, with which he is still heavily involved. ‘climate change and the environment? are you nuts?,’ they would mutter.“the point is that you will never be able to make change if you don’t take that first step, no matter how massive the goal is. we can’t sit back and avoid action. and it doesn’t just stop here with shoes. there’s other mismatching apparel to come. like mismatching hockey jerseys.”bronfman and nulman are also planning to do a celebrity-laden awards show honouring individuals “doing good.”“or as andy puts it: we’re using the bad guys’ playbook to do good,” bronfman muses. “this is non-partisan. this is for everybody. everyone can stand up against hate. as the song goes, it’s really all about bringing back the love.“there’s definitely traction here. the goal is to try to hit it out of the park whenever we come up to the plate.”baseball analogies will always die hard for bronfman.at a glancethe inaugural edition of impossible pair day takes place friday, april 24. for information about the event as well as to make a donation, go to ensemble-rd.com/en/impossiblepairbbrownstein@postmedia.com