Happy BC DAY!

Imagined Nation

from the archives of the Western Standard

Canada has become a phony country made up of diverse tribes who have no idea what they're doing together

David Warren - August 8, 2005

"Why do you think Canada is breaking up?" This perfectly straightforward question from a reader took me aback. What appears obvious to me, may not appear so to others; and vice versa.

The short answer is, because there is nothing left to hold it together. Anything that was particular about the country--not about regions but about the country as a whole--has been obviated by government legislation, or put quite purposely into disuse. We are no longer a Dominion; we have a Queen only on paper; our system of Crown-in-Parliament has been negated by the quasi-presidential rule of a succession of "federaste" prime ministers from Quebec. Our history is no longer taught in schools.

We are reduced to waving a Canadian flag--and that is itself an imposture. The current Canada is something that was invented from scratch, in Liberal party advertising agencies, and dates approximately from the invention of that flag, in 1964. But successive Liberal governments could think of nothing with which to replace the old symbols. Hence, a "new Canada," defined by a bunch of nothings.

Ask a Canadian who is waiting for a bus--or more likely for a CAT scan--what Canada means to him, and he will say something like "multiculturalism" or "tolerance" or "universal health care." These are nothings. There is nothing Canadian about any of them. Every postmodern country has all these things, and none of them are worth having.

But this is old news, dating back to Pearson. The late Pierre Trudeau made no secret of his contempt for Canada and Canadians as a national group, and instead put his faith in universal abstractions. We got what we deserved by repeatedly electing him.

Quebec has a linguistic identity. Alberta has a western identity--which by now appears to be shared with the B.C. Interior and much of Saskatchewan. (It is, in fact, what's left of the old English-Canadian identity.) Newfoundland has a Newfoundlandish identity. The Maritimes and Manitoba are resentful, mendicant districts; the North is a kind of environmental reservation; and Ontario exists by default.

I live in Ontario, and so far as I can make out, it is the ultimate zero. It eats, makes money and sleeps. It has no morals, no religion, no culture, no purpose beyond getting to work in the morning. No Ontarian can explain what he stands for, except with negatives. The only thing I see is a smug dislike for anything with a shape. Ontario hates the rest of the country, the West especially, for embodying positive qualities Ontario once had.

And it is Ontario that supports the Liberal party--together with the bought provinces, which live on Ontario's evaporating goodwill (plus money appropriated from the West). It will not vote Conservative for fear that the Conservatives have a "secret agenda," i.e., that they may harbour any opinions at all.

This is why Canada will break up. The Liberal party is absolutely despised by the great majority in Quebec and the West. Ontario will vote to keep it in power, in the full knowledge of the degree of its corruption, for the sake of "national unity." Yet that is the very thing to which another Liberal victory will give the coup de grace.

For Ontario does not even pretend the Liberals are not despised elsewhere. Ontario doesn't care. It doesn't think separatists are serious. It is not even sure the rest of the country exists. Well, it thinks Quebec exists, but that Quebec can be assuaged by saying, "We wuv you."

It is like a husband who doesn't know his wife hates him. Who will be utterly surprised when she sues for divorce.

European countries are still held together by common ethnicities. The United States is held together by a rich, common historical and constitutional heritage, inculcated in children from birth. Canada has become more like an African state, with diverse tribes, and no memory of what they are doing together. We, at least, were something once, but now that is gone. We have become a sleepwalk, a "gay marriage."

Why Beancounters Should Stick To Counting Beans

CGA BC's radio ads are good for a laff anyway.

You've probably heard it by now, the "Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau defined luck as where opportunity and preparation meet" ad from the Certified General Accountants of BC.
Actually, it was Lucius Annaeus Seneca, most of 2000 years earlier who defined luck that way.

Some other news flashes for the CGAs:

Pierre Trudeau did not create the heavens and the earth
Pierre Trudeau did not part the Red Sea
Pierre Trudeau did not invent hockey, beer or pizza.

And Pierre Trudeau did not elect a single MP west of Winnipeg for 16 years, which may cast into doubt the sagacity of invoking his name and memory in your BC ad campaign.

On the other hand:

"Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau expressed his contempt for British Columbians with the famous Salmon Arm Salute."

Work that into the copy, why doncha.

Live Local and Latebreaking

Thomas Anthony Proniuk (seen here with a daughter to be proud of)
may be back out and about soon.

The North Burnaby neighborhood terrorized by last week's pellet gun and bear spray rampage are waiting to hear the results of the suspects second hearing Monday morning in New West.
Will he be heading over with a real rifle this pm? Will he cool his heels in the jug a while more at least?
They're getting hourly reports on Susan Boyle instead.
Weak.

Of Course The People Are Happy With Us

They all vote!

If one had doubted whether the totalitarian impulse is alive and well and abroad in the land, the number of voices clamoring for compulsory voting in the wake of less than half of British Columbians voting last week should remedy that.

This concept is incompatible with individual liberty as it assumes state ownership of the individual, rather like conscription to military service, which in a free society, takes, as Daniel Webster put it, "an exercise of perverse ingenuity to extract slavery from substance of a free government."

Its also instructive to note how popular compulsory voting is with authoritarian governments and governments in general who feel insecure about their legitimacy.

As Filip Palda puts it so well in Vote. Or Else

"The less legitimate politicians feel, the more they try to pass laws that build around their regimes a Potemkin facade of citizen involvement. This is why Soviet Bloc countries forced their citizens to vote. I remember one election day in Prague in the 1970s when my aunt had returned from the polling station. A young man had started shouting that the election was a farce in which he refused to participate. Police whisked him away, perhaps for a lesson in civic duties administered by truncheon. As the fall of the Soviet Bloc showed, government cannot paste a happy face on a political system and hope that people are smiling inside."

Then there are those great defenders of democracy like Team 1040's Don Taylor (who should stick to sports) and CKNW curmudgeon Bruce Allen who figure, in Taylor's professional broadcaster turn of phrase:

"All's (sic) I'm saying is if you didn't vote you got no right to complain."

Apparently, free expression and free association (as opposed to the forced sort) are even more devalued than ever in some people's minds, while taxes of all sorts count for nothing.

As for Bill Bland's assertion that people who disdain the choices on offer should just vote "for someone, for anyone or spoil your ballot", well, every day in every way Bill demonstrates why that nice deep voice of his is so good for reading the news.

Genesis live 1977 - Firth Of Fifth*

STV Goes Down To Defeat

*And so with gods and men the sheep remain inside their pen
though many times they've seen the way to leave.

Verily, They Getteth It Not

Its simply not good enuff to have scofflaws
charged with the governance of British Columbia

BC-STV Debate Made Real Simple

Backroom boys like these don't want you to vote yes.

Need more? Check out Christy Clark, of all people, on STV. Yes, that Christy, the one I've so excoriated so often. Whether it was a visit from three ghosts one night or, as she says, listening to vox populi, Christy's seen the light.
Note especially her mea cupla for her previous opposition to BC-STV,

Then go vote YES on Tuesday.

Illegal in the UK?

But, but, everybody loves the classics! Don't we?

A Brit, an American, a Vietnamese, a Russian and an Israeli are sitting at a bus stop when a reporter approaches doing a 'streeter'.

"Excuse me, may I have your opinions on the shortage of grain in the Third World?"

To which the Brit asks, "What's a 'shortage'?"
The American asks, "What's 'the Third World'?"
The Vietnamese asks, "What's 'grain'?"
The Russian asks, "What's an 'opinion'?"
and the Israeli asks, "What's 'excuse me'?"

Is that someone at the door?

What a Revolting Selection

Please tell me this is just a bad dream.

Let's see, I can take my pick, one of three varieties of poison.

Jane Sterk's Greenies -yeah, right. I experience one of those cognitive dissonances whenever I see Jane 'cause she should be an earnest 9th grader to listen to her. I spoke with her local candidate whose big idea was establishing separate PACs in the schools for parents who don't speak English. The party for hippies.

Carole's Cadre - I don't fall into too, too many of the approved victim groups Carole discriminates in favor of, and as a matter of fact, I hold to all sorts of heretical ideas about equality, individualism ... and I abhor antiSemites. I'd find myself on Minister of Niceness Mabel Elmore's Shortest Shit List in short order no doubt. The totalitarianism of the Non Democratic Party should frighten anyone who thirsts for Liberty (is that someone at the door?) if using that word won't get me dragged in front of an HRC for offending some imam.

Then we have Gordie Campbell's Crew. I had to chuckle the other day when Christy Clarke referred to "conservative voters" voting for Gordie. Gordie is the archetypal Liberal, complete with the stench of corruption, cronyism and the co-option of media magnates.

The fairy tale of Human Induced Global Warming, oops, its not warming anymore? Well, Global Climate Change then induced Gordie to fish ever deeper into taxpayers' pockets. Surely the Hansel and Gretel Tax can't be far behind.

The cruel, absurd, postmodernist shibboleth of 'aboriginal self-government', though struck down emphatically by the courts, has nonetheless been championed relentlessly by the Liberals federally and now Gordie plans to weigh in with his Aboriginal Recognition project, which will be a disaster for BC's economy while, far from doing anything to alleviate the miserable plight of natives, will further impede their integration into modern civilization and make their situation far, far worse, aside from the tribal chiefs, who will get richer.

Conservative? Gordie has a Ministry of Healthy Living! What's next, the Ministry of Optimistic Encouragement? How many zillions of tax dollars can be poured into turning that into some sort of a monster a la Human Rights Commissions?
Twenty years from now, I can see the Ministry of Healthy Living issuing us all chits entitling the bearer to buy so much of this food item, so much of that, all for our own good of course.

Under the ideologues of the Liberals and the NDP BC has become a place where I can sit in the doorway of a shop shooting heroin, but I can't ride my bike without a bucket on my head.

This is reminiscent of the era that produced Social Credit as a BC based alternative whose leader spoke of the paramount importance of the individual. I sure wish we had one of those nowadays.