The old man has been dilatory in attending to his Post. Let me simply claim that as a privilege of age and the many distractions demanding an old man's more immediate attention.
Furthermore a review of the brief history of this publication indicated that my publication tends to dwell on nostalgia, a less than hopeful future for current and future generations, and criticism of past and current political realities. Given the nature and the variety of the institutions and manifold gods we have created, permanent turmoil seems inevitable. With 2010 half over I was determined to find something about which I could "accentuate the positive" in the words of a popular song of my era. Surely, I thought, the beginning of summer in this my 84th year, will make the old man feel better and I will once more find the bit of vigour I still possessed last year. World and local affairs certainly had to improve, did they not? That would provide the positive commentary for the next contribution to the Post! Events conspired against those good intentions.
Put the case of the national celebration of Canada Day at Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The Queen and her consort were on an official visit to the country for ceremonies marking the Canadian Navy's centenary and would be present for the July 1 celebration with her Canadian prime minister at her side. Queen Elizabeth, a year older than the old man, showed amazing stamina as she was forced through all the traditional folderol of military inspections and march-pasts, left to step onto a small reviewing stand with no one near for support in case she faltered or stumbled. I lived in apprehension, knowing I would not be able to manage. She did.
Somehow she also managed to sit through an hour or more of the caterwauling entertainment supposedly representing today's proud Canadian culture. At least it must have been deemed so by the prime minister and his organizers. I found it a mish-mash of the worst sights and sounds from our subsidized multicultural Canadianism the producers could have found. To the old man's ear even the newly minted Canadian Tenors popularized by the recent Olympic Games in Vancouver, managed to butcher our national anthem.
Furthermore, the old man was disappointed by the absence of our Governor General. I could not understand what political reality or formal protocol required her China visit to be scheduled during the Queen's visit. Her presence at previous Canada Day celebrations was one of their more delightful aspects and I thought the Queen and her Canadian representative, lame duck appointment or not, would have made the occasion special.
In this issue I will put only one more case for consideration that was also highlighted for the old man by my view of the Canada Day schlimazel. Somehow, since I was an American born child of foreign immigrants who moved to Canada and became naturalized here in the thirties, the rules of citizenship in both countries have changed without much serious debate. As a young teenager I was informed by US Immigration that I would need to make a choice of country before I reached age nineteen, that if I served in Canadian forces, voted here or otherwise invoked Canadian citizenship as listed on my father's naturalization I could not again be admitted to the US without formal application for immigration to the States as a Canadian. I could not be both.
Today, multiple citizenships seem rampant. Our liberal multicultural policies seem to encourage it. Many from war-torn, oppressive and often theocratic governments, seek the benefits of Canadian generosity and encouragement of the cultural diversity they bring. Often the hearts of those many, their loyalty, their languages, their religions, remain with the country of origin. And soon they seek to impose old-country ways and even laws in Canada. I'm afraid the most fecund racial, religious or cultural groups so liberally accepted in what we know as Canada now will prevail. The consequences will not likely be the one world hoped for, or even one country that we know, but a new tribalism.
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