It's Canada Day! Our national celebration of being one of the best places on the planet and pretty much the official start of our summer, whether or not it has actually arrived.
It's a day for hanging with friends and family, beer, BBQs, music and fireworks. A day we all set aside whatever differences we might have and admit we're pretty damn happy with one another.
That's particularly noticeable this Canada Day over at the CBC, where they've corked the endless negativity and pulled out all the stops to celebrate our Colonial past. Not our own actual Colonial past, but the past in which we were subservient to the British Monarchy.
Gosh, things were just so much more proper then.
Yes, Will & Kate have come to visit and it's a "Your Turn to Curtsy, My Turn to Bow" gush-fest at the national broadcaster, where things that seemed so very important just days ago have been forgotten in a rush to embrace past glories -- even if they weren't really our own.
You don't hear much about how the very existence of the CBC is threatened by the current government today, given that the Minister of Heritage has granted them "Exclusive coverage" of the big birthday party on Parliament Hill, at which the recently wed Duke & Duchess will attend.
Our private broadcasters aren't even allowed access to the location, despite it being pretty much the signature event of the day.
Maybe Canada Day is now gonna be like the Superbowl, passed around from year to year so everybody gets a taste. If it is, I'm sure that when CTV or Global has it next time, all that "This Government just wants to kill the CBC" talk will be back at full volume.
Being able to forget that "other Canada" that emerged on another broadcast entity during the 2010 Winter Olympics seems to suit the CBC and has silenced some of their other carping as well.
A couple of week's ago, the Prime Minister taking a Government jet to Boston to root on the Vancouver Canucks was pitched on CBC's National News as an outrageous misuse of taxpayer funds. But yesterday we had Peter Mansbridge proudly pointing out what might have been the very same aircraft bringing Royalty still two generations removed from any actual throne or constitutional significance to Canadian soil.
So far, I haven't heard anybody on CBC mention that the cost of this whole trip would've paid for about 425 "Summerworks" festivals or approximately 3 dozen for every city the young Windsors won't visit.
Indeed, the CBC seems intent on spending its own taxpayer stipend on hyping the fact that not only is Kate wearing the duds of Canadian designers but she Honest-to-God-I'm-not-even-kidding-actually-dresses-herself!!!
Seriously, a 29 year old woman who can put on her own clothes is noteworthy! Jesus, how inbred are these people?
So far, the highpoint for me was Will making a speech praising Canada's contribution in Afghanistan, words met with overwhelming gratitude by reporters visibly tucking away those "Afghan War Crimes" memos and who've appeared on the CBC following virtually every Canadian casualty in that war to assert that the time had finally come to cut and run.
It frankly had me giggling into my first Bud Light of the day.
So, I'm going to turn off the CBC now, skip the exclusive party and Monarchist love-in, and go celebrate with actual Canadians, most of whom weren't even born here, but who love this country as much as I do.
We'll burn some burgers, play some baseball, bean our dogs with frisbees and probably drink a lot.
Then when sundown comes, we'll be hammered enough to safely handle some explosives and light up the skies while sending the aforementioned dogs scurrying for cover under the deck.
That's the Canada I know and love. The real Canada that long ago evolved from needing to tug our forelocks in the presence of our "betters".
And while that part of my country will always be courteous to entitled fops and those who fawn after them, we also know that they are definitely not our future.
I look forward to the day our national broadcaster wakes up to who their audience really is.
Until then. Happy Canada Day! I hope you have a great one!
