October 1, 2003

Right Hook C4

J.J. McCullough
OP Columnist

 

In my opinion, Adrienne Clarkson personifies much
of what is wrong with Canada today. For most of her
adult career Adrienne Clarkson has been a broadcast-
er, churning out boring interviews on Canada’s state-
owned CBC. Her shows were never popular, but
thanks to CBC’s total rejection of the free-market sys-
tem, Ms. Clarkson was able to hang around for years,
interviewing countless Canadian nobodies.

Somewhere along the line this made her a “proud
Canadian institution,” worthy of a cushy government
job. In 1999 Prime Minister Chretien showed off his
“multicultural” spirit, and appointed Adrienne as
Canada’s first non-white governor-general. As you
may remember from high school social studies, the
role of Governor General is to represent Canada’s for-
eign Queen by reading pre-prepared speeches and
wearing stupid uniforms. It is an expensive and out-
dated position that serves no purpose. In other words,
the perfect office for someone like Adrienne Clarkson.
Adrienne Clarkson represents the epiphany of
Canadian intellectual snobbery. Like most broadcast-
ers on the CBC, Adrienne never had to cater to the
whim of public interest, and was instead allowed to
single-handedly decide what was worthy viewing for
us, the great uncultured and unwashed masses. As the
old joke used to go, she was Adrienne Clarkson, and
youre not, so you may as well learn to appreciate what
she has to offer.

For years she shacked up with fellow left-wing
“intellectual” author John Rouston Saul before being
forced to marry him in a hastily organized ceremony
prior to assuming the Governor Generalship.
Adrienne was “above” marriage. That was so bour-
geois. Rouston Saul, for his part is also a “proud
Canadian institution” and has written many extreme-
ly relevant books, explaining why George Bush is an
idiot, and other equally profound conclusions reached
from his garbled “philosophical” dribble. The happy
pair now see themselves as Canada’s royal couple. We
should be so honoured to have them! “It’s a two for
one,” gushed John Aimers, Canada’s Monarchist
League chairman, upon hearing of the appointment.

Adrienne Clarkson is the typical Canadian celebri-
ty. No one likes her, no one wants her, and yet since
the government has decided she is important, we have
no choice but to put up and shut up. Perish the
thought that Canadians should ever be able to elect
their own head of state, or watch shows about Canada
that are not directly funded by the government.

The other day, when it was proposed that perhaps
the Governor General should justify her vast personal
accounts to Canada’s elected parliament, the un-elect-
ed Adrienne scoffed, “I am above politics.” And of

course she is. For a supposedly equal society like
Canada, we still have no problem with manufacturing
our own class of nobility through the Governor
General. She gets to parade around in her ballgowns,
sitting on thrones, and wearing shiny medals. She gets
to expand her “court” through the Order of Canada,
our nation’s preeminent award for tireless preservation
of the status quo. She gets to dine with the Queen,
and countless other Heads of State, and entertain
whoever she pleases in her enormous taxpayer funded
mansion.

And now Adrienne Clarkson has decided that she,
along with sixty of her closest intellectual snob
friends, need to visit Finland and Iceland. This trip
will cost the taxpayers over a million dollars. Her jus-
tification? It will “improve Canada’s Northern
Identity.” Here’s a newsflash for Her Excellency, there
is no Canadian “Northern Identity.” As all those beer
commercials never fail to remind us, Canada is a mod-
ern, urbanized nation, not some backwater ice cube
where we all ride
dogsleds to work. We
are a Western, North
American nation that
is virtually identical
to the United States
of America. The
average Canadian has
far more in common
with a farmer from

Montana than a
whale-hunter from
Reykjavik.

Of course, this reality is uncomfortable for left-wing
Canadian intellectuals like Ms. Clarkson and her hus-
band. These types prefer to imagine that Canada is
some wonderfully distinct, culturally rich nation,
rather than simply a sponge-like proxy state of the US.
These Canadian “nationalists” voyage around the
world, constantly mentioning that they're from
Canada, as if the rest of the world cares. Well, the rest
of the world doesn’t. We're not Europeans, we're not
Arabs, we're not Africans, and we're not Asians. We're

Adrienne Clarkson
represents the
epiphany of Canadian
intellectual snobbery

Opinions ¢ the other press ©

Governor General reaffirms
Canadian myths

North Americans, and we're generally thought of as
just as rude, crude, and noisy as any American, despite
Adrienne Clarkson’s constant campaign to convince
us otherwise. Canadians need to understand our his-
toric, cultural, and security ties to the United States,
and accept the fact that Canada’s future as a nation
will always be heavily dependent on the actions of our
countrys only neighbor. At a_ time
Canadian/US relations lie in tatters thanks to a Prime
Minister who has sold out Canada’s moral values to
the interests of the so-called “international communi-
ty,” our diplomatic efforts must be concentrated on
improving our shared North American identity. This
is the only true identity Canada has. We are not part
of a make-believe “Empire” or “Commonwealth,” nor
are we members of some socialist European anti-US
league, or part of a collective “Northern Identity” with
a few glacier countries. Left-wing politicians want
Canada to be everything except what it actually is, a
North American nation allied with the US.

No, instead the
Governor General

when

insists we are some-
thing different, and a
million dollars is
being granted to fund
this fantasy. It all
amounts to the cur-
rent state of Canada.
No one knows what
this country repre-
sents anymore, so we
are instead expected
to rely on a leftist cultural “vanguard,” appointed by
the Liberal Party to tell us. They lecture us on “what
it means to be Canadian” and spend billions of our
dollars to fund artwork, poetry, television shows, and
media stunts that promote their own fantasy world
vision of a non-existent sovereign and “culturally dis-
tinct” Canada.

As far as I’m concerned, Adrienne and her vast array
of tag-alongs can stay in Iceland. We sure don’t need
them here.

 

eee es .
—_ Cit ee al

http://www.otherpress.ca

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Cartoon by J.J. McCullough

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