Saturday, October 25, 2008

West Islanders live in Canada's kitchen

posted by Victor Schukov at 9h25

  If you picture Canada as a house, and each province a room, Quebec is the kitchen. Journalistic flies deliriously covet the hot and fresh biscuits that never cease to roll out of this province’s stone oven.  The latest news bit is the one about the Quebec government warning Unilever that its Gold Buttery Taste margarine contravenes the “spirit of the province’s food laws.” Hilarious stuff when you put it in the context of the 2005 police raids on Walmart and other major retailers, in search of “contraband (yellow) margerine.”  I wonder, shouldn’t we be going after producers of soya “milk?” I’ve never seen a herd of soyas. The kitchen is where we try out new recipes. Only in Quebec can we have dedicated inchworms measuring the size of signage written in one of Canada’s deux official languages.  The Commission for Reasonable Abomination, a parole hearing for  cultural asylum lunatics, had no choice but to be launched after the town of Not-Too-Heurexville (used, by the way, in the filming of The Village) adopted a code of conduct for the bewildered Muslim (somewhere) who would eventually veer his cart straight into a village of grinches who should be getting their Internet piped in for free so they can realize that there’s a whole other world out there beyond the dark forest.  And politics. Practically anything organic, burnt or prepared properly, comes out of our kitchen. Reading about what an Ontario member of parliament said yesterday is not liable to cause us to rend our collective garment. But when perilous Pauline Marois says that the ones with the pure-laine aprons should not be ashamed to be intolerant, oh boy, what is that love-it-or-hate-it smell wafting out of the broiler?    Being of a first generation Russian family, born in Montreal, I have a deep appreciation of political leaders who bring something special to the table: gall. Putin has it. I am old enough to remember how jealous Americans were that we had a Prime Minister with character, our family PET, our very own smarter than the average arrogant, home grown poodle.    Deny all you want, but every kitchen-born Liberal leader of our federal family, since Laurier, has become Prime Minister of the manor. Of course, Mon Oncle Stephane broke that streak.  Important Tip for Liberals: Canada WANTS to vote you back in spite of the fact that your party obscenely garnished the gargantuan tax allowance we gave you. All is forgiven. Canada is culturally Liberal, all we ask for is another pompous Quebecer with a bright rose pinned to his label, to mask the odor of the trough.     Canadians demand a sly, pompous, and above all stylish totalitarian. It’s a pity that Jacques Parizeau and Bernard Landry are provincial misfits. They would have made excellent PMs. If we must bed down each night and call out to corrupt, lying patriarchs, they should at least have our respect.   Every family needs a wacko in the kitchen. This is what makes for action, innovation, and yes, accommodation. This is the character of culture Canadians unknowingly have always been trying to steer towards, while paradoxically complaining about it. Quebec is not the problem. Quebec is the solution to a problem we cannot even define.  The kitchen is where we, as a family, commiserate and work out our problems. It is where we start to look at ourselves before we try and fix others in our image. The kitchen is a good place for sibling rivalry to attend to familial cohesion. And we are all better off together.  And, finally, back to the future of reasonable accommodation. Our very own culturally exotic Governor-General Jean said, the debate of R.A. (the words are so dog-eared, they should be abbreviated), “is a healthy exorcize that should take place not only in Quebec but in the rest of Canada as well.” The difference, she said is that Quebecers are talking about it. Another Quebec dish served hot from the kitchen in the big long house. Quebec can always be counted on to bring something new to the feast, never dull and never boring. Canada was born when sexy Quebec warily agreed to marry curious-but-yellow Ontario. Look at the children today. Not too shabby a family, as it goes.