The opportunity for one of the most patriotism-shy nations on earth to gorge on that very thing begins on May 13. That’s when we learn which of Mark Carney’s Liberal MPs will be sworn in to what Cabinet posts.
The split second the Cabinet is announced, dozens of organizations who have been preparing their “Elbows Up” wish lists for federal funding will push “send” and shoot their proposals into the offices of the Ministers of Canadian Culture, of Sport, Innovation, Indigenous Relations, Foreign Affairs and more.
The last time this happened – calling for new ways to celebrate our home and native land with Ottawa creating buckets of new funding to make those celebrations bigger than watching the Canada Day concert last July 1 — came in 2017, Canada’s sesquicentennial. Ottawa even created a Canada 150 Federal Secretariat to handle all the applications.
The time before that was on July 1, 1995, two weeks after Quebec voted to separate from the rest of Canada, and lost by a vote of 50.58% to 49.42%. Ottawa was scared and chagrined. They felt the heat, then saw the light, quickly funding anything you could slap a Maple Leaf onto. This led to the ‘sponsorship scandal’ involving industrial-scale fraud in grants given to shore up Quebec’s ‘Canadianness’.
The Quebec crisis involved a province threatening to leave. The Trump crisis involves another nation threatening to arrive.
We don’t know what mechanism Ottawa will use to assess and dole out the many millions of dollars to move us from the 33rd most patriotic country on earth to somewhere near the first (the United States, of course). But the need to show our resolve, quickly and bigly, is great.
But where should these dollars go?
You’ll have your own list, as will the Cabinet.
But here’s mine:
a. The CBC. Of all the times in our 158-year history when we don’t need our national broadcaster starved into irrelevance, it’s now. Mark Carney has promised to boost CBC’s funding by $150 million a year.
But that was eons ago in April before Donald Trump sentenced PBS and NPR to death, leaving no public broadcasting in a nation desperate for it. Frankly, I think CBC should get double what Carney pledged. Its job is to hold us together by telling Canadian stories and offering a Canadian point of view in a world drowning in the views of non-Canadians.Ottawa spends just $34 per person each year on its public broadcaster. This compares to $48 in Australia, $96 in Britain and $191 in Switzerland. The average of 20 Western countries is $79. We’re nowhere close to that.
b. The Canadian Olympic Committee. Remember Own the Podium, the program that turned Canada from a fading contender into an Olympic powerhouse – which in 2010 at Vancouver won us more gold medals than any country in the history of the Winter Olympics. The next Winter Olympics will be in Milan in 2026, then the summer games inLos Angeles in 2028. We want to cry for joy and sing our hearts out many times at both. After all, Canada won 27 medals in Paris last summer– our best showing ever.
c. The Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Its annual budget of just over $11 million is a thimbleful compared to the CBC’s $1.38 billion. Its magazine, Canadian Geographic, has the largest circulation in the country with 4.4 million readers each month, and it has the largest educational network in the country with 28,000 teachers. Its educational programs need more funding, like these giant floor maps sent free to schools. The problem is, there’s a two-year wait for the maps because the RCGS needs more funds to produce and distribute more of them. Borders matter, as we know more than ever. And how can you claim to champion your nation when its young people don’t even know its boundaries?
d. The Canada Council Touring Office. It doesn’t exist any more. But in the 1980s and 90s, Ottawa paid to send lots of arts groups from one part of Canada to another, and to send our very best performers to the arts capitals of the world: Paris, Tokyo, London and many more – to promote Canadian culture. The idea of using the arts to promote business is a form of soft power that’s hundreds of years old. As Canada begins to form trade alliances with friends old (Britain and France) and new (Mexico, Japan), let’s show them how good we are on their stages as well as our own.
The idea of true patriot love has done little to help us stand on guard as a nation.
It’s time we brought more than love to the table.
Meanwhile…
1. If your taste in thinkers is…Robert Macfarlane, you know he’s one of the world’s most original thinkers – especially about how we co-exist with nature. His last book,Underland, was rapturously received. His new book is even more daring: Is a River Alive?is driven by a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings, who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. He unveils his bold and radical new book on May 29 at Massey College on the U of T campus. Macfarlane will introduce his book and then be interviewed by Massey College Principal Dr. James Orbinski. Tickets here.
2. A great friend died last month. Nina Wright turned corporate sponsorship into jet fuel for the arts.
Speaking of obits, with everyone living longer, will obit writers be out of a job?
A great online magazine is hard to find. One sponsored by an oil company is impossible. So check out AramcoWorld, published by Aramco, the world’s largest oil company producing 10 million barrels of oil a day. AramcoWorld has been publishing since 1949.
And a great online book is The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Uncommonly Lovely Invented Words for What We Feel but Cannot Name.
3. How to flirt. Last month, my Instagram feed was filled with new ways to stop drinking. This month, it’s new ways to flirt on social media, and of course it’s powered by AI. (Soon, nothing won’t be). So, rather than saying: “How are you doing?”, you can say, “Between saving the world and polishing off a box of donuts, how are you doing?” This one doesn’t actually tell you what it costs, but hey, love is blind, right?
Speaking of sex, here’s Gay Talese, now 93, confessing his life of serial public adultery.
Also, love is never about finding “the one.”
4. I come from Edmonton. Mark Carney comes from Edmonton. More importantly, Warren Buffett’s successor, Gregory Abel comes from Edmonton. As CTV reported onBerkshire Hathaway’s new CEO: “He grew up…as a hockey player and learned the value of hard work as he redeemed discarded bottles and worked for a small company filling fire extinguishers.” He also earned a scholarship to the University of Alberta where he got a degree in accounting in 1984. Abel is also the nephew of Sid Abel, one of the “100 Greatest NHL Players” in history.
5. If your taste in music is bi-polar…you’ll love genre-bending violinist Mark Fewer and Grammy-nominated pianist John Novacek in a dazzling mix of classical and jazz at Hugh’s Room on Sunday afternoon, May 25. Tickets here.
6. Interest in Greenland is big. But how big is Greenland? Nowhere near what it looks on the map. The True Size shows you how big countries really are, and compared to other countries. Shocking!
7. Brits. What are the hardest US accents for Brits to speak? And what are the hardestBrit accents for us to understand? As for Brits Writ Large, when it comes to Harry and Meghan, I agree with The Beast.
8. How To’s. First, how to tell if someone is rich without asking them. Next, how to cope if you have TRS. Next, how non-linear ethnic niches take told. As the opening line says: “If you want to join Britain’s thriving cocaine smuggling industry, you have to be Albanian.” Finally (and appropriately), what really happens when we die?
9. Robert Kennedy is a word-guy, not a numbers-guy. But does he really think half the population of China has diabetes? Next, who’s the fittest President in the world? And why do Black athletes pal around with an orange President? And how do weasel-wordsskew intelligence?
Plus give Trump marks for saying how he’ll fleece people, first, in his regime’s bible,Project 2025, published in 2023. And this week, Trump Media’s Letter to Shareholders where, as one analyst warned: “Many people…will lose money.”
Also, America reminds us that history is not only written by the winners; it’s re-written by them. Here’s how the US claims it won the Second World War…and played a much bigger (and longer) role than anyone in that victory.
10. Want to save the world? No more taking chances on hopeless causes. Now you can use these two reports to help choose the right one for you and the future. The first comes from Wales and helps politicians and public leaders make choices that aren’t from bad to worse. The second is an interactive library of resources for designing futures anywhere.
11. Aging…one day at a time. Bears…one encounter at a time. Lightning…one drone-assistat a time. Calling your parents…also one day at a time. Reinterpreting history…around the Anglo-Nazis. Using calendar age or biological age to chart your risk for dementia. And…serving an ace after you retire.
12. Pardon me? Those two words mean something different in America. Outside America, here are the world’s top universities, including the University of Toronto (#21) and McGill (#45). Equal pay in America still has a way to go. And remember the day you took your driver’s test? This was worse. Oh…and…you think you’re lucky?
I will be out of action next week, so your next Omnium-Gatherum will land on May 24th.