Yeah, there was also a Royal Commission or two on Canadian Unity (or some
such title) between 1971 and 1980. It's pretty freaky, to me, that to date
I've been able to fill one of those big photocopier paper boxes (like a Facs
box) and a filing cabinet drawer full of gov't documents on all of this.
Whatever comes of this vote, anybody who says that Canada didn't try is just
plain blind to the facts, I think.
>The price one pays for considering that "history began with Star Wars".
>I think I had to move to the US to begin to find Canada truly interesting
>for its own sake.
Luckily, I've never suffered from that particular "affliction." ;) The
history of this country never ceases to fascinate me in so many ways. Take
the Hudson Bay Company, celebrating its 325th birthday this year, which
makes it the oldest company in the world, I believe. Being the only
supplier of goods to pretty much all of Canada a couple hundred years ago
(and still in that position in some northern communities), it makes sense
that they produced _everything_, literally. So _of course_, a couple
hundred years ago, there was such a thing as, say, Hudson Bay Whiskey. But
I never knew that they were still producing the stuff up until 1980 or so.
A department store that actually manufactures its own products; such a
blatantly simple idea, but still so novel nowadays.
>And I think I had to watch the country veer towards
>oblivion before developing something resembling actual patriotism.
Yeah, although it's still not entirely clear what happens after the vote,
since, barring a unilateral declaration of independence, the fact remains
that there is still no legal mechanism to accomodate the departure of a
province. I also heard mention on the news today that not only would the
Cree and Inuit want to stay in Canada, but there are some communities in
Western Quebec that would want to stay in Canada as well, if there is a yes
vote. Sandy Ronaldo (does the news on CTV, one of Canada's TV networks)
summed up Parizeau's response to this as such: "Parizeau says he can break
up Canada, but nobody can break up Quebec." Um, yeah...
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Darren Osadchuk dosadchu@sol.uvic.ca http://www.xtc.net/~osadchuk/
In other words, human essence - not human nature in general (which does not
exist) nor the sum total of qualities and shortcomings in the individual,
but the essence of who somebody is - can come into being only when life
departs, leaving behind nothing but a story.
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