OH CANADA!

We are a modest people, slow to anger, hesitant to flag-wave, and bragging is considered “putting on airs.” The Olympics have turned it all around. We began with a promise to sweep more medals, to lead the parade, to excel in our big sports. Very un-Canadian hubris. The results are not yet in, but as of today, Monday, we rank third behind Germany. France and the U.S.

The television experience has been electrifying. Once you get used to putting up with the commentary which seems to be more to fill time than illuminate, you find yourself in the spirit of being Canadian. Are these, I ask, the same people who will say “I’m sorry” when someone mindlessly bumps into them on the sidewalk? Are these the same people who openly deride American jingoism while at the same time wish we were more nation-conscious, and that we had wonderful myths like The Alamo, and Davey Crocket, and Daniel Boone and the guy who chopped down the cherry tree. We have none of them. We don’t even get upset when we discover that most Americans think the Yukon is part of America.

I loved it all – almost. I loved the commercial for British Columbia with its lakes and mountains and beautiful Vancouver. Like everything about the Olympics, even the commercials are great. Except one: one of the major sponsors, VISA, has as its spokesman the gravelly voiced charmer Morgan Freeman. I like Freeman. He is a superb performer. I recall that in one of the awards galas, someone made a snide comment about how many voice-overs he was doing. For the uninformed, that is, the narrative voice of a television commercial. Morgan has every right to make a living. But not please, not as a spokesperson for Canada’s Olympics. I am irritated enough by the barefaced lack of taste, this insult to our sovereignty, that I AM ready to cancel by VISA card. No Canadian pronounces the same of the host city “Vancouvah.”

It is a small thing. Just as the uproar over Arnold Schwartzenagger lighting the torch near the end of the ceremony, rumoured to be a demand by NBC to make their Olympic coverage more palatable to Americans with “star power!" Once again, we apologize for being Canadian. But the overwhelming reality is still that this is our time, these are out people, and this is our pride. Go Canada!