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August 23, 2005
Flip a coin
George Karrys wrote to the Post to express his disappointment, which I share, over the reactions to the Royal Canadian Mint's idea of a five-dollar coin to benefit Olympic athletes. His letter reads, in part:
Imagine the furor if Canada fails to win a gold medal at Vancouver 2010, as we failed to do in Montreal 1976 and Calgary 1988.
As it is, we're only 170-odd days away from Torino 2006, which means there is plenty of time for Canadians to scoff at their Olympic heroes and heroines, then suddenly leap to their defence and support ... before promptly forgetting about them, returning to the "burning issues" of the day. For shame.
Couldn't have said it better. If I had to choose one phenomenon to use as an example of the worst in the Canadian psyche, I would point to reactions to Canada's performance at the Olympics without a moment's hesitation. We demand the best while refusing to pay for it, and rejoice when we get it; but we instantly forget these successes as soon as someone high-profile screws the pooch and go into a blubbering sulk. Fatuous, ungrateful, and petulant — not a worldbeater's temperament, I'm afraid.
Far more shameful, though, than our mistreatment of Olympic athletes, is our use of poor families, homeless people, etc., as rhetorical devices to shoot down funding for those athletes. From the CP article:
And although people said government should support athletes, most thought any savings from a paper-to-coin conversion should go to health care, helping the homeless and social programs.
It's as if I asked a friend to sponsor me in the Terry Fox Run to the tune of $20 and he said "Okay, but only if you give the money to the Heart and Stroke Foundation." If there's no coin, this money doesn't exist to give to anyone. But what really gets me is that this reaction — no, spend the money on social programs! — can peacefully exist in a Mike Harris voter's cerebral cortex. People support the homeless and the downtrodden only when something they hate even more comes along, in other words, and only to make it go away.
Posted by Chris Selley at August 23, 2005 09:41 PM
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