I offer it to you here:
Kieran Green
I'm feeling particularly politically cranky today, so here's my own...
What we Canadians have to be proud of?
1. We are the last country in the world preventing the UN from listing asbestos as a hazardous substance... because we want to keep selling it to third world nations.
2. Our country is one of the biggest obstacles to global progress on addressing climate change.
3. We are the home of the world's most environmentally-destructive oil source, but we call it "ethical oil".
4. We let Chinese companies buy out our environmentally destructive oil source, and then accuse environmental groups of being "foreign influences".
5. Our government labels non-radical environmental groups as "Enemies of the government"
6. We give rich oil companies $50 million for PR to promote the oil sands, while using "fiscal restraint" as an excuse to fire all the government scientists researching climate change.
7. We spend $750,000 to put fancy new ice shacks on the Rideau Canal, while aboriginal children freeze in houses and schools that look like something from the most impoverished nations in Africa.
8. We boast about training female police officers in Afghanistan, while an increasing number of female RCMP officers are forced to sue our national police force because of unendurable sexual harassment and indifference from their superiors.
9. We boast of helping end police state oppression in Libya, while still refusing to conduct a serious investigation of human and civil rights abuses by Canadian police at the 2010 Toronto G8/G20 Summit.
10. The governing party has violated Canadian laws on multiple occasions, and Canadian voters rewarded them with a majority government.
11. Canada continues to reduce aid to the poorest countries in Africa, shifting aid dollars to much better-off South American countries because we have trade interests there.
12. We are about the only country in WTO negotiations actively trying to eliminate national systems that benefit our own farmers.
13. We register cars, marriages and dogs, but think that registering guns is a horrible infringement on our freedom.
14. In a country that claims to be peaceful and polite, one of our most popular current cultural icons is a loud-mouthed, bile and hate-spewing hockey goon.
15. In a country that claims to be peaceful and polite, in our last election: the use of vitriolic attacks ads increased, homes and cars were vandalized because their owners visibly supported a particular party, and a candidate who was canvassing door-to-door had a man threaten to throw garbage at her... WHILE SHE WAS CARRYING HER 2-MONTH-OLD BABY.
16. Our national police force has played an active partisan role to influence at least two of the past three national elections.
17. The home of Lester B. Pearson is now so irrelevant in global politics that we were turned down for a seat on the UN Security Council.
18. We have all but abandoned our role as one of the cornerstones of global blue-helmet peacekeeping, while engaging in an increasing number of American-style 'spread democracy through force' combat missions.
19. Everywhere you see "Support our troops" stickers, whose owners will practically spit on you if you dare question the latest mission. Those same owners don't seem to care how our "Support our troops" government continues to reduce its support for Canadian veterans suffering mental and physical injuries from those missions. (Oh, and if one of those soldiers tries to make a public fuss, the government publicly releases their private medical information to discredit them).
20. The majority of Canadians don't give a rats ass about any of these things, and will crap over anyone like me who dares suggest that Canada is less than perfect. Because we have become empty, navel-gazing "my country right or wrong" patriotic idiots, just like Americans.
Astute, controversial and well done.
WFDS
Glad the WFDS dusted off the ol' blog!
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