Happy Canada Day. Canada is 147 years young and we still need to grow, develop, mature and grasp the reins of nationhood. There is so much to admire in Canada. There are Canada’s peoples, its beauty and its natural wonders. There is also its future. We need to share our ideas of what this country should be. We can only hope that it is not the country that the Conservative government in Ottawa is trying to shape.
In a pre-emptive pique, the Harper Conservatives are criminalizing our country. Canadians were puzzled at first because this government wanted to build prisons at a time when crime was decreasing. We now know the occupants of those prisons are us. Big Brother lives.
The prisons are for liberals—condemned as libertines. The prisons are for the whores and pimps and johns who besmirch the construct of conservative sensibilities. They are for the environmentalists who flail so valiantly against exploitation by uncaring capitalism. They are for the hyphenated Canadians who flaunt their former nationalism. They are for those who espouse regicide and disavow the monarchy. They are for those who defy the hypocrisy of dogmatic churches and temples and stifling sacraments. They are for those who hope to shine the light of Diogenes in the dark halls of Parliament. They are for those who seek blessed relief in a rapidly less caring society.
Yet you cannot bury your nose in your Blackberry or iPhone and not see the land and its peoples. You cannot cocoon in your entertainment centre and let the storms of a raped and angry environment rage outside. The judges of the Supreme Court must not be the only people who know what is fair. We must challenge the news media and let them know they are not here to be just another opiate of our times but to report them.
On this Canada Day, we all need to say loud and clear that we will choose our lives, what our country will be and our future. Nobody can deny us our values. The best protection of our rights is our effort to protect the rights of others. And why should we not be a country of extended rights instead of repressions. Canada can and must continue to represent freedom to the rest of the world.
For freedom is not a right for government to give but ours for taking. Our land is for our non-destructive enjoyment and, in our good tenancy, to reap its offerings. The same as our waters will share their bounty if we do not despoil them. For our Canada is only ours in trust for the generations to come.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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