Much has been made lately on CBC radio of its "Seven Wonders of Canada" Contest.  While I listened to various Canadian citizens pontificate about the wonders of Canada that they had either nominated or voted online for, my thoughts turned to less admirable qualities of our nation that really could stand to be rectified.  It's normal practice for the CBC to engage in smokescreen activities like this.  It is the propaganda arm of the Canadian Government afterall.  This latest media stunt is just another attempt to pull the wool toques over the eyes of the unsuspecting Canadian public and spin them around three times before pushing them away to sway and swagger dizzily back into their mundane, safe lives. 

So, what are my 7 Horrors of Canada?  Canadians might be blinded by patriotism, but are we fooling the outside world?  No way! 

 

1.  Logging of the Queen Charlotte Islands - Roughly 50% of the islands' natural habitat has been clearcut, causing irreversible damage to ecosystems.  Along with erosion and landslide problems, the clearcuts have provided suitable habitat for black-tailed deer, an introduced species, and its exploding populations have done even more harm.  Other introduced species like beavers, rats, squirrels and raccoons are threatening indigenous salmon and sea birds.  I chose the Queen Charlottes specifically because they are the poster child of the wanton destruction of old growth forests across the country by a subsidized industry  of foreign-owned companies.  I don't remember the last time that clearcuts in old growth forests anywhere in Canada got  significant press.  At the rate we're going, we're destined to become a very big, very hot Easter Island. 

2.  Alberta's Oil Sands - the Gas Patch, as it's affectionately known by the mob of people rushing to cash in on the black gold.  This limited supply of oil and gas not only puts us in the crosshairs of our cantankerous neighbour to the south, but is poised to do some serious ecological damage.  The tar sands operations use massive amounts of water - more than the river-based supply can keep up with and despite weak water conservation initiatives, will most certainly have a devastating effect on an already water-strapped region.  Then there's the issue of carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants.  The gas patch is Canada's number one industrial contributor to greenhouse gases, and therefore global warming.  And what happens when the supply runs out, leaving thousands of new Albertans with suddenly worthless houses and repo notices on their sixty-thousand dollar crew cab pick-up trucks? 

3.  Canadian Opposition to the Kyoto Accord - While we're on the subject...  this is one of the most internationally embarrassing exploits of our proud nation.  The Conservative government not only misunderstood, then mishandled climate change policy, they also pissed off the global community by backing out of a promising agreement that we helped to create.  The actual value of Kyoto isn't what's on trial here, but the way Canada's been instrumental in muddling up an international effort to at least move in the right direction by casting doubt on the whole debate.

4.  Afghanistan - This is our Viet Nam, everyone.  No longer peacekeepers, our soldiers are on a search and destroy mission under the thin veil of restoring order to a shattered country.  How many more Canadians have to come home in a box before we realize that we're not doing Afghanistan, or ourselves any good, and that we're fighting Bush's bullshit war for him?  It's humiliating. 

5.  Pandering to America's Every Wish - Free trade, border security, the middle east, global warming, oil, water.  We have it, they want it and we're giving it to them.  From sharing of files on bogus security threats, to not standing up for our own citizens under U.S. scrutiny, we're America's lapdog.  We're following the U.S. of A. right down the toilet.  Yeah, sure our economy's healthy right now, but how long do you think that's going to last?  Start learning the Star-Spangled Banner, because not only does it give us a clue as to what they're going to do to us when they run out of water and can't buy their oil from China, but we're all going to have to sing it when we become the 51st state. 

6.  The Seal Hunt - It's absolutely shameful that, as a nation, we endorse, protect and subsidize this barbaric act.  It's shameful that we point fingers at the Chinese' appetite for the grotesque while all the while, we're the ones supplying the seal penises!  It is the largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world by a huge margin - official quota for 2007 was 330,000 animals.  It is cruel beyond belief.  Seals, many of them infantile whitecoats (depsite regulations) are bludgeoned and either die a slow (up to 90 minutes), painful death bleeding through their shattered skulls, or are skinned alive, writhing in pain (conservative estimates put the number of seals alive when skinned at 42%).  They don't die instantly after they've been skinned either.  Hundreds of thousands of seals die this way to make fur hats for the rich and to help Chinese men allegedly get it up.  We, the Canadian people, turn a blind eye to it.  The federal and Newfoundland governments use a massive media campaign based on distorted studies and outright lies to ensure we don't know what's going on.  Newfoundland claims it is an economic necessity for the unemployed cod fishermen (who are out of work because they fished the cod stocks into oblivion).  The federal government cites all kinds of dubious benefits to the hunt, such as preventing overpopulation of seals (they blame the seals for the destruction of the cod fishery, and the lack of ice floes this year did a deadly job of controlling the seal populations anyway).  The federal government has also made it illegal for anyone to document or even witness the killing of a Harp Seal without a licence (which they never grant) and the law is enforced by the Canadian Coast Guard.  The Coast Guard has been filmed ramming peaceful protest ships and driving their ice-breakers onto seal rookeries, crushing hundreds of baby seals to death.  Didn't catch that on the evening news, did you?  The world has condemned us for the seal hunt and we should hang our heads in shame.  This is what the red and white of our flag signifies - sea to blood red sea. 

7.  Stephen Harper's Conservative Government - Notice how things all went south, as in towards Texas, when we elected these bozos?  In a few short years they've destroyed what was a handsome international reputation, sold our souls to the American dream, and erased any hope of salvaging our own environment, let alone the global one.  The list could go on an on.  Maybe we, the Canadian citizens, should be the 7th horror of Canada.  We are to blame.  It falls on us, though, to right our wrongs.  We can make changes for the better, we just have to pull the toques up off of our eyes and look around! 

The Seven Wonders of Canada are meaningless if they are overshadowed by the blight of corruption.  They are doomed to become a distant file, archived on some neglected server at the CBC.  It's good to love our country.  If we really do love it, shouldn't we do something to protect it?