Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Provincial silliness

Queen Elizabeth is here for an international review of warships resulting in dozens of them being anchored in the harbour. It's so weird seeing all those grey ships just sitting there with smaller boats zipping around between them. The tourists line the roadways and shorelines snapping photos while RCMP guard the bridges, the LG's residence and protect Her Majesty's motorcade.

Sort of gives me the creeps. The demonstration of our ability to annihilate one another.

On the way home, after dropping my daughter off at work (which I can now do thanks to new, shiny car) the afternoon announcer on CBC was comparing the security in Halifax for the Queen's visit to the security in Toronto during the G20.

Sigh.

They just can't help themselves. If there is a comparison to be made with Toronto, they have to make it no matter how lame it is.

It was so more peaceful here than the events in Toronto.

The undertone was that it must be because Nova Scotians are more civilized than Ontarians.

Really?

It wasn't more peaceful because say, it's the Queen and no one much cares that she's here? That there isn't much to protest about with the Queen other than the use of fur in the guards' hats or the redundancy of the monarchy. That issues like poverty, labour issues and women's rights aren't going to land on Her Majesty's doorstep.

No one gives a damn that ships were inspected by an octogenarian highness. Many do care that the environment isn't top of the government's agenda.

Crappy service and this ongoing pissiness about Ontario are the two things that make NS extremely annoying to me.

Nova Scotians: You have a terrific little province. Be happy that such beauty surrounds you and quit knocking everyone else. You don't need to compare yourself to others. Travel once in a while. See the world. Enjoy it. Enjoy coming home again. Be generous in your compliments and sparing in your slights. Ontario is a beautiful place, a large place. It exists beyond the boundaries of Toronto and, believe it or not, people there are just as friendly as you are.

I'll be glad when the ships are gone and these silly comparisons stop.

Colleen

5 comments:

  1. God Save the Queen! I had no idea what else to say so i shouted the first thing that came to mind.

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  2. I heard the interview, and I don't think that was the point of the question, nor did Kristina.

    Often you're right, and I've told you so before. We have an inferiority complex, and it's stupid beyond belief. I just don't think this was an instance of it.

    If we want to compare the Toronto and Halifax under similar circumstances, we can do so, since Halifax hosted the G8 Summit in 1995. But I think the differences between the events has more to do with the decisions taken before staging it than any difference between Torontonians and Haligonians.

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  3. Hi Richard: I won't dispute the content of the whole interview as I turned it off after the intro and after hearing comments along the lines of: perhaps Toronto could learn something from Halifax about the use of waist-high fences.

    I'm glad the focus of the interview shifted away from that sort of perspective.

    No city, whether TO or Hali or Moose Jaw,has much to do with security decisions. Those are the responsibility of the RCMP -- i.e. they are national decisions. As you know, the RCMP were in charge of security for both the Queen's visit and the G20 and they would have been for the G8 back in 1995 (a very different time than today, I think you'd agree).

    Certainly, the regular people like you and me have nothing to do with it other than having our lives disrupted while these events take place.

    And I certainly agree that staging decisions played an important role rather than the differences between cultures of the two cities.

    (P.S. Looking forward to seeing you guys Friday.)

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  4. "It wasn't more peaceful because say, it's the Queen and no one much cares that she's here? " eeeeeexactly.

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