Irony and Pierre Berton

Irony and Pierre Berton.
      I find it pretty ironic that right after I finish reading Why we Act Like Canadians by Pierre Berton the sponsorship debacle explodes in our faces. His book may be one of the most patriotic texts Canadians have – we didn’t even give ourselves a bill of rights until 1960, and few of us know our charter as well as American school children know their constitution. It discusses how Canadians are willing to put their trust in the hands of government in exchange for more security. We trust our government much more than the Americans typically do. We're willing to give them more money in taxes, and expect that we will receive better healthcare and social programs for our risk.
       Unfortunately this week we're learning the errors our government has made with our trust. The Liberals could claim they did it for the cause of solidarity - after all, they were paying off Quebecers not to vote for the Bloc, but that's a little ridiculous. Why not spend the same money on the Newfoundland separatists too then? They're the most bitter group in the country, since they were swallowed up by Canada most recently. Newfoundland was happily its own country, and many Newfoundlanders who voted to join Canada are wondering if it was the best idea. The Canadian government has ignored the maritimes in times of proper funding. Now Newfoundland is seeing money that could have been spent on maritime equalization being spent on an unparilamentary campaign.
       Why not buy every Canadian executive boxes at the Skydome, and let us bill your for the time, for the sake of solidarity? Every Canadian can go to a good old-fashioned hockey game, and realize that we aren’t all of that different at all. The Cape Breton Islanders can sit with the Queen Charolette Islanders, and we’ll all have a great old time at the Liberals’ expense – we won’t even send them fraudulent invoices!
       The Canadian Conservative and Liberal parties aren't very polarized in this country; they practically bump knees, if amid sharp glares, on the political scale. The NDP isn't a whole lot to worry about. We don't have such a large separation between the parties in the states; we've become more a nation determined to become not the States. But if our parties are close enough to bump knees, would the Conservatives have done the same thing with Canadian money, given to the government by the taxpayers in trust?
       We’ll have to wait and see – the Conservatives will probably be in power within the end of the year. They're waiting for every testimony in the Gomery inquiry to make it out to the public (thank you publication ban being lifted a tiny bit; Google News has thousands of stories from Canadian sources on it now - but a small amount of information gleaned could be out of context). When the Liberals are out there ripe for the picking, there'll be a non-confidence vote and it will probably change.
       Are we willing to let the man who authorized all of this spending be the head of our country? In the wake of a shattering economic misuse in the government, the situation begs the question if we politically timid Canadians want to risk a change in government at all. But do we really want Stephen Harper, who claims that gay marriage will hurt our multicultural society (as he told a group of Muslim dignitaries) planning the use of federal funds?
       We haven't got the same problems that our neighbours have (that's comparing migraine headaches to full blown delusion) but our government is following a trend that others have been showing. Canadian government has had its blunders (gun registry comes to mind), but we haven’t had a Watergate or a major political scandal that has influenced our consciousness. Canadians may grumble and bitch about the government, but we wouldn’t want it any other way. Our leaders have a history of being mildly insane, but in a good way.
       It could be worse; but does it have to be this bad? That's money that could have gone into subsidizing tuition, or student loans. Make student loans worthwhile again. They're nearly on par with bank loans. We Canadians just entering school need our government to help us do it, with the rising costs of tuition. We need to become educated enough to be able to realize a scandal like this is happening, and stop it before the wrong party regains power with the risk of them staying unaccountable to the Canadian people.
       Maybe it's time to pay some serious attention to the Ukraine, where they'll kick some ass if things don't go their way, or some small island in the southern Pacific. Maybe those guys who shot arrows at a helicopter don't have it too bad. However, the doubts Canadians are expressing in government lately are half crocodile tears. Our women have the full rights of a person, and have all of their person (not a victim of mutilation so common in African countries), we don't have to worry about AIDS or rape as much, and parents are not in such poverty that they will sell their children as slave labour or worse just to live from day to day.
       Canada is supposed to be among the most trustworthy countries, and Canadian people have returned this international respect by trusting in the government which made us such a respected people. Our government has made a big mistake, and will see that in the next Canadian election, be it in a month or next January. Voter turnout will probably be low, because if we cannot feel like we can trust any of our politicians, why vote for any of them and contribute to the problem? Maybe we should continue setting an example, instead of joining in with the rest of the money games.