Editor, The Record:
No apologies from me for the cynicism about Canada Day and all the flag waving and firework displays. Not that those aren't fun things to do, because they are. It's right that we should celebrate our country.
What's not right is losing our independence on a scale that would make even the Fathers of Confederation question they bothered forging a country.
I'm a Canadian nationalist when it comes to economic and commercial areas for the simple reason that a country that loses control of the economic decisions within its borders loses both the right and the power to protect itself and to make those decisions which benefit us, rather than corporate boardrooms in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Our fate was sealed the moment former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed the Free Trade Agreement with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan who had become a follower of that Libertarian Ayn Rand who waged war on the very concept of the common good.
From that act of treachery, our democracy was hobbled, and the words in our anthem about being the "true North, strong and free" became meaningless rhetoric that can only be uttered in the past tense. Either we rally to the defence of our country's future — even if that means short-term pain — or we surrender to reality and stop pretending that we're anything but a branch plant of the new economic order.
We are our own worst enemy. We're letting the country slip through our fingers but never mind — we can wave flags and sing the new version of O Canada: What a bloody mess we have made of thee.
Robert T. Rock
Mission