WhatFinger


Politicians, Honouring Canadians

The Game of the Name



The two guys ahead of me at the food court counter were discussing a friend of theirs whose name I recognized as that of a local politician (let's call him Buddy).

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They were bemoaning the fact that Ol' Buddy was being roasted in the media over a little matter of academic claims on his resume that could best be described as figments of his fertile imagination. Everyone knows, the one with the ponytail went on, that holier-than-thou columnists love to skewer politicians. It really was a shame, they both agreed, because ol' Buddy had such a good track-record raising funds for the party there was talk of naming a parkette after him. As the two guys moved out of my hearing, I wondered why in the name of reason we permit politicians to con us into engraving their names on public places. Look around any Canadian city or town and you'll see places named for politicians who did nothing exceptional to justify having their names immortalized at the taxpayer's expense. . There's the Gardiner Expressway, for example, this mistake by the lake is named for a guy who happened to be Metropolitan Toronto's first chairman. There's Hamilton Airport, named for John Monro whose claim to fame is that he was a Liberal MP. Even the military is burdened with the names of nonentities. One of Canada's most famous regiments, currently serving in Afghanistan, is named for a Princess Patricia who actually gave up her royal title to marry a commoner. When we go higher in the game of the name, we find people like Mackenzie King, whose portrait graces the $50 bill. King is best remembered for talking over affairs of state with his dog and his mother's ghost. We should put no one's name or portrait on our currency, postage stamps or public places until they have been dead long enough to give us time to evaluate their claim to fame. The jury is still out, for example, on Pierre Trudeau's legacy, but his name graces the Montreal Airport. There should be exceptions of course to this rule, allowing us to honour people like Terry Fox and Lester B. Pearson. The former, who, by his courage, captured the admiration and affection of the whole country, is celebrated worldwide by the Terry Fox Runs in aid of cancer research, and is the only famous Canadian to be pictured on a loonie. The latter gave us our national flag, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for originating the U.N. peacekeeping operations. Politicians are generally held in low esteem. Some of them deserve it, and some don't. Nevertheless, no community deserves to be blighted with the names and faces of politicians whose only claim to fame is that they did their job. While we're on the subject of honoring famous Canadians, we should heed the Feminists who complain, rightly, that prominent women are seldom honored in the same fashion as men. Of course when you get right down to it there's no reason why we should honour only famous humans. In fact, we could start doing the right thing right away by petitioning the Government of Ontario to change the name of Queen's Park to Northern Dancer Place in honor of a truly great Canadian.


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William Bedford -- Bio and Archives

CFP “Poet in Residence” William Bedford was born in Dublin, Ireland, but has lived in Toronto for most of his life.  His poems and articles have been published in many Canadian journals and in some American publications.


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