Canada is in a negative spiral. We are perpetually poised on the verge of a federal election with all of the Parties and their leaders jockeying for public approval all the time. Essentially we are dealing with a bunch of politicians who, instead of representing the people who elected them, are in stuck in permanent, sloppy-baby-kissing, glad-handing, mud-slinging mode. Not one of them is fit to sit in the House of Commons. You'd find more ethical clarity at a convention of disbarred personal injury lawyers just before they all got sent to A.A.
in a casino,
with their mistresses.
And meanwhile, Canadians wring their hands and talk about proportional representation and how much better things could be if and if and if...
Well folks, "IF" won't ever be "WHEN" unless you stand up and say so.
We have all adopted this idea of sparing people's feelings to the point where we are completely incapacitated.
I walk up Christmas Hill these days, nearly every morning. I never want to go. I hate the first fifteen minutes. Once I get up there it is often windy and to tell you the God's honest truth there is nowhere on earth I would like to be less than Victoria BC and yet - here I am and there I go.
I do it because I can't stand to be the kind of person who doesn't do it. I'm here because I took a risk on being somewhere else and lost. And I'm here because this is the most practical place for me to be. I do it because I know I am going to benefit from it with a stronger body and a mind that is sharper and more prepared for the day. I might not enjoy it at the time but I know I will enjoy the results and I might even enjoy it and learn to love Victoria a little more - and on and on and on - there are dozens more reasons why and very few of them have to do with immediate, pleasurable gratification.
My point here is this; doing the right thing is sometimes damned painful. It is inconvenient, awkward, it can lose you friends and put you in places where you do not wish to be. Canadians have forgotten this en masse. But it is always worth it. It is worth it because ultimately the cost of not doing the right thing is much higher.
We have grown, perhaps not surprisingly, into a nation of people who seek comfort above all else and who value avoiding confrontation. A nation like that cannot tolerate democracy for long. At this point in time the values publicly demonstrated to be shared by most Canadians are, in my opinion, quite similar to those held dear by pre-war Germans.
We want a quiet, orderly society. We want personal affluence or at least security. We want clean streets decent transportation, safety for our children and nice parks. We do not want confrontation, we do not want graffiti and if the Hamster in Chief is right, and he certainly seems to be, we do not want art that challenges the mind, heart or soul in any way. We want quiet, clean and pretty. These are things that do not exist in an uninterrupted stream in a healthy world. These are things that are not consistent even within our own bodies. These are demands that cannot be met and it is dictatorial and greedy and small for people to think they can.
Ironically, if we want any of these things to come to us in an organic, authentic way then we need to start being honest. We need to start standing up and speaking out when we see our leaders lying, and don't say you've never seen it - remember the time he accused the three other party leaders of refusing to have the Canadian flag in the room while Gilles Duceppe signed the agreement to work together in the event of a coalition government? I had that picture over my desk for six months - the picture of the Canadian flag right behind the desk at which those men sat while they signed the document. A lie is a lie.
Remember the Hamster in Chief pocketing the communion wafer? He did it - it was on film, there were witnesses and yet somehow we managed as a country to not only ignore it but to pretend that there could possibly be two sides to that story. Well there are two sides to that story - Right and Wrong.
Time to stand up, not shut up. Time to speak up, not saddle up. Time to wake up - we've been coasting way too long. All you have to do is see the truth and refuse to pretend otherwise. That's all - that's not much. Do it.
