It is reported that the Harper federal Conservatives are quietly re-installing pictures of the Queen in consulates and embassies. Amazingly some of our media have discerned a pattern as the government has also recently returned our armed forces to being “royal” forces. It is probably the last hurrah for royalty in Canada and Harper is looking silly.
Canadians are tired of the foolishness of royalty. The use of the word “royal” and pictures of the queen are symbols of Canada’s past. They are hardly symbols of our present or our future.
It is symbols of our country that are important to us and we would be far better off arguing about those. For example, there are Canadians who want the Mint to put the head of a moose on both the front and back of the Canadian quarter. This can not only end confusion between a nickel and a quarter but we could have spirited debates whether the face should not be an elegant western elk and the back end left as a moth-eaten eastern moose.
Of course, it is long overdue for deceased prime ministers to be honoured on all our currency. The voting seems solid on the Right Honourable John George Diefenbaker having his face on the loonie. That leaves the toonie for the Right Honourable Lester Bowles Pearson. With Laurier and Macdonald already enshrined on the fives and tens and Mackenzie King on the fifty, the twenty is available for Pierre Eliot Trudeau. We could create a three dollar shinplaster for Depression-era R.B. Bennett.
We must certainly save the Canadian penny for when Mr. Harper has gone to the reward of his maker in the great western skies. Mr. Harper trained to be an economist and a penny seems to be appropriate for him. Just think of all the drawers and socks and chamber pots, he could fill.
Canada is a country of many vistas, changing vegetation, different flora and fauna but it is its people who give it the distinction of a country
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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry
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