Woe Canada

Is it just me, or does Canada kind of suck right now?

I just rented Passchendaele (God I love Paul Gross), and I was watching the documentary on the making of the film that's included in the extra features and they were talking about how World War I really brought Canada together. The Canadian Corps was admired by the allies, and feared by the Germans. They talked about how the Germans had a special name for the Canadians, Stormtroopers, and they knew to expect the worst when the Canadians were on the field of battle.

Not that I'm getting all romantic about war. It's awful and horrible, and I'm not sure that I should feel proud about how good this country was at killing other people. But at least it was something.

Lately, I'm not feeling like Canada has much to be proud of anymore. I used to feel that Canada was a great country and I was so lucky to be living here. We were peacekeepers, we were leaders in human rights, we were something that the international community admired and emulated.

I just look at the news now, and I think "What has Canada got to be proud of now?"

Our military is still floundering around in the quagmire of the Middle East, searching for an impossible victory. We seem to be backsliding in the human rights department left, right and centre (think of the shit the RCMP have been up to lately, and their blatant cover-up attempts, think Abousfian Abdelrazik and the government's attempts to weasel out of bringing him, a CANADIAN CITIZEN (brown skin notwithstanding) home, and this lovely bullshit from my home province).

We are one of the most advanced countries in the world, and instead of using our wealth and knowledge to better ourselves and the planet, our government is actively engaged in obstructing the world's efforts to actually do something about climate change.

In short, I feel like lately this country has not shown leadership in a single area. I am so sick of our little government of Bush-wannabes sneaking around trying to see what little acts of sabotage they can get away with before the public finally clues in and kicks their fat asses out of office. How I wish that Michaëlle Jean had had the ovaries to make Stevie boy face the music back in December last year. Though frankly, I'm not entirely confident that Ignatieff and the Libs would do much better. Same shit, different pile.

We've become a nation of apathetic, arrogant ignoramuses, with nothing better to do than sit on our fat asses and watch the latest lobotomizing reality tv shows. I just don't know what it's going to take to shock us out of this.