Oscars > Dem Debate > … > Honoring Canadian Lifetime Achievement
February22
Today the Governor General inducted 37 new Canadians into the Order of Canada. For various reasons I wanted to watch it live today and assumed that our trustworthy Canadian CBC would be showing it.
As I watched the CBC (and quickly checked all the other 200 channels I get), the following news apparently took precedence over even mentioning the Order of Canada:
- The Oscars
- The Dem Debate (how many times do we need to hear that Hillary has to win Texas and Ohio?)
- A cube of water in Beijing for the Olympics
- J-Lo had twins (OMG!)
- The Weather
I know it’s not possible to expect any of these things to take a back seat to Canada thanking Canadians who made a real difference in the world but you’d think at least the CBC would pay some lip service to this event… I was really hoping for a live broadcast but I guess I’m just too unrealistic.
You pose a very good question. Looking at this year’s list of inductees, I can see a group of interesting people who have all had significant involvement in the makeup of Canadian life.
Molly Johnson and Pamela Wallin are names certainly recognizable by a sizable portion of Canadians. While Gerald Schwartz is one of Canada’s most prominent businessmen, this list also recognizes the healthcare with Dorothy Pringle and Ginette Lemire Rodger.
I’m not suggesting that we should force ‘Canadiana’ on people against their will, there certainly is something wrong when we don’t seem to show enough interest to warrant CBC showing this important ceremony.
I wouldn’t place immediate blame on the lowest-common-denominator style culture from the US, but rather something more along these lines:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/books/14dumb.html?ei=5087&em=&en=ed986aa2c486c13d&ex=1203310800&pagewanted=print
(on an related note, do we know if the Governor General allows this ceremony to be recorded?)
The idea proposed in the nyt article seems plausible. Regardless of the root causes, the symptoms are still the same
You’re right about the question of if recording the event is even allowed but as the press release indicates the media is welcome at the event and have an opportunity to interview the inductees. I can’t see any obvious reasons why recording devices would be prohibited. Maybe some of the inductees don’t like them? But I can guarantee everyone wants a picture of them shaking hands with the governor general.
I’m not sure.
With this, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080222.worderofcanada22/BNStory/National/home, at least one media outlet picked up on the event today.
However, it’s clearly more a story about Chrétien and Kosovo.