There are sunny days and there are also easy days. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had one of those easy days recently. All our PM had to do was go to a sledge hockey game with Prince Harry. The Queen’s favourite grandson was here to promote the Canadian Invictus Games next year before going to the U.S. to help open the American Invictus Games for this year. It was all good publicity for Justin, for Harry, the Royals and the games.
But that was not without a tinge of hypocrisy on Justin’s part. Our PM is not really a monarchist. What makes him ambivalent on whether Canada should have a monarch is his trepidation on opening up Canada’s constitution. If it only means that he can occasionally get some publicity pictures of him with some of the more acceptable Royals, he can handle it.
And if there has been one smart move by Buckingham Palace in the past half century, it is Prince Harry’s patronage of the Invictus Games. It is one of the finest moves to have been made for our wounded and ill veterans in a long time and it serves to point out how much more needs to be done.
Even the name “Invictus” has powerful connotations as the word in Latin means “unconquerable.” It is also the title of the poem written in 1882 by William Ernest Henley that ends with the memorable lines: I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
It certainly is easy to get publicity for the games when Harry’s grandmother collaborates with him in some silly social media communications with the Obama’s in Washington. How can the news media ignore that?
For Justin it is just another publicity cakewalk. If he could come up with as smart a solution to the Senate of Canada, his sunny days could continue. It is because he is afraid of re-opening the constitution that he has been trying his elitist solution of having a supposedly independent committee choosing candidates for him to appoint to the senate (as independents, of course). The only problem is that these independents might decide to be independent and not pass some of his laws.
But in the meantime, that looked like an exciting sledge hockey game. It was too bad the cameras could not bear to part with Harry and Justin. We could have enjoyed some of the game. Instead we get a cornball joke from Harry about Canadians wanting to do everything on ice!
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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