Description 62 - Citizenship

To celebrate my 10th anniversary of being officially Canadian, I look through my old application, friends and family share memories of misplaced hats (goofy and otherwise), and the government implodes.

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Associated links
Feed for the QN Podcast
Citizenship and Immigration Canada: Applying For Citizenship
CBC Becoming Canadian: From Immigrant to Citizen
A Look at Canada
Shawn Micallef covers a citizenship ceremony at the AGO for Spacing Toronto
Town & Country Buffet is closed?
My initial post about the coalition thing
Rick Mercer on the coalition thing (pre-prorogue)
CBC.ca archive on the coalition thing
Canadians For a Progressive Coalition
Rabble TV on the coalition rally
The Tory site for winning hearts and minds

My humble thanks to Sage and Amit (my good friend going back to the mid-'90's and the TPOH mailing list) for their wonderful, thoughtful contributions. And of course, there are my parents...

I neglected to mention the singer early in the rally montage was Richard Underhill, sax virtuoso of the Shuffle Demons (Spadina Bus!) and member of the Kensington Horns featured in my PS Kensington video.

Here's a wacky thing: if I'd stayed in Oshawa, my local MP now would be Jim Flaherty, the guy who presented the budget update that started this whole mess! *shudder*

Shortly after he spoke at the rally, Stéphane Dion stepped down early as Liberal leader (which he was going to do in May anyway) so the party could continue marshalling its forces for when Parliament convenes again January 26. To replace him, the Liberal caucus has chosen our star (at least in words) of Description 14, Michael Ignatieff. He has come a long way as a politician since that speech of his I read in that episode, going through much of that buzzsaw faced by fresh "philosopher kings" and still standing with some of his ideals intact. Those ideals factor into his statements about studiously reading whatever it is the Tories come up with for a revised budget update when Parliament meets up again before lowering the non-confidence boom. He's not saying coalition-no-matter-what, but also maintains the preparation to present a coalition if necessary. While that takes a little of the air out of the passion about a coalition, it is also definitely, prototypically Canadian (ah, "reason over passion" - Trudeau strikes again), holding out for compassion and compromise to the bitter end. We will see how bitter Stephen Harper chooses to make it.