6.12.2012

Oh, Country That I Love

Dear Canada.

I love you. So much that today I am in a funk over your imminent descent into a dark place, thanks to the Harper government. I still believe, Canada, that you have all the potential in the cosmos to be an innovator, a leader on the world stage. Your youth, your open space and rich stores of fertile land and raw materials, your well educated population, all of this positions you so well to be great - to gather the world behind your skirts and show them the way forward into a future we have only imagined. Instead, though, you are being dragged under a rock. Held hostage by fear and greed.

Do not despair, Canada, even though my own visage may be clouded with worry and stress, with the strain of concern for my entire nation. Do not despair, my beloved country. Though we are about to be plunged into an ideologically dark time, we can plan and plot and organize and never stop making noise. Let us not let bill C-38 deflate and disarm us, but let us use it to fuel our certainty, focus our energy, and bind us together as one force, one voice, one engine of change and forward momentum. We have been set back, but let it only be the curtain that is pulled back, revealing to us all the blights, that we may begin to cure the ills, and build a country that reflects us, impresses us, represents us.

Love,

Riel