First off, I'm Canadian and pretty proud of it. I should state that up front. I AM touchy about it. Is it a case of the much touted "insecurity" that we get labeled with all the time. Maybe. But mostly I get pissed off when people say thing about us that are based on lies or total missunderstandings of the truth.
Canada is not perfect. Far from it. We've got a piss-ant for a Prime Minister, a dysfunctional collection of opposition parties and a Governor General who picked the wrong time to actually stick her nose in the governments business. I could go on about our health care system needing some work, our slow working (red tape filled) means of government and our overtaxed populace (I actually won't bitch about that, we want services and we need to pay for them). I will be the first one to stand up and say we've got things to work on. But never in my life would I ever compare Canada to Nazi Germany.
But that's what this guy did.
His name is Gil LeBreton and he is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He just returned from the Olympics in Vancouver and he didn't like what he saw...Maple Leafs! A whole ocean of them.
The games, he claimed, were all about Canada.
Patriotism, it seems, is so rampant in Canada that the Maple Leaf started to look like the Swastika.
For 17 days we were barraged with Canadian flags, rode buses and trains with people in sweatshirts and jerseys adorned with Canadian maple leafs, and were serenaded at venues by Canadian spectators, lustily cheering for Canadian athletes.
He had proof! Look at figure skating. Everyone ignored the Korean in favour of Joannie Rochette and her dead mother. He named other athletes, all who I watched on Canadian TV, that he claims were ignored by the people of Canada. People like Apollo Ohno, and Lindsay Vonn. We did this in favour of our own athletes you see!
His other gripe? That so many Canadians were at events! He figured 98% of the crowd at the Hockey final were Canadian. He didn't think that seemed right. HE ignord the fact that those tickets were sold LONG before we even knew Canada would be in the final. Those tickets were bought with hope in the hearts of the buyers. Besides...we are Canadian! A hockey game is a hockey game regardless of who is playing.
This column is so vile the publisher has stepped in and issued an apology.
"As publisher of the Star-Telegram, I apologize to readers and all Canadians who were offended by sports columnist Gil LeBreton’s insensitive comparison of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games to those that occurred in Berlin in 1936," he wrote.
"We reacted quickly to the column with an online apology from LeBreton late Monday and an in-paper version the next day.
"Some have accepted the apology; others have not. I want to personally say that I’m sorry the column appeared in my newspaper, and I know LeBreton sincerely regrets his comments.
Good for him.
LeBreton also issued a backhanded apology but it was meaningless and he said he didn't mean to insult Canadians by comparing them to Nazi Germany. Idiot.
Luckily, from what I've been reading, this is a minority opinion. With the exception of some members of the British Press, who admitted on CBC that they were hard on Canada simply because they were hosting the next games and were trying to generate interest in the Olympics (or was that to lower expectations?), most people have been very complimentary of the Games and the people of Vancouver.
Still, I find it stings that only the Stars and Stripes or the Union Jack can fly without someone being accused of being a Nazi.
The original article and the apology can be found
HERE
Sorry. Rant over. But I had to vent and this seemed like the best placed to do it.