Our Neighbors to the North Are Terribly Fragile

The world's most politically correct country..eh?

You may have noticed the global snort of derision when it became known that Money For Nothing, a 25-year-old Dire Straits song written by Mark Knopfler and Sting, has been ruled too offensive for Canadian radio play.

What’s interesting, apart from the simple lunacy of suddenly banning a tune that’s 25 years old and has already been played about a billion times, is the reason: A radio station in St. John’s received a complaint.

That’s all it takes in Canada: One person to take offense.

A week ago we learned that the entire city council of London, Ontario had been ordered to take sensitivity training after a friend of one of the councillors posted a saucy song on his Facebook page. The council member quickly took it down, but “at least one person who saw it … complained,” according to the London Free Press.

On Wednesday Graeme Hamilton reported that Montreal chef Martin Picard had withdrawn from plans to host a gala dinner at Ottawa’s annual Winterlude festival next month, after the National Capital Commission told him to drop any thought of including foie gras on the menu (which with Picard was a certainty). The reason: the always tremulous NCC was afraid animal rights protesters might turn up and disrupt the fun. After all, some obscure local group of animal rights weenies “mounted an eight-person protest against Mr. Picard in December.”

Eight people.

Minority rights are fine and all, but when did it become the practice that, in a country of 34 million people, a single person could overrule all the others simply by declaring they were offended?

Just for fun one Canadian should complain that they were offended by the red maple leaf on the flag - reminds them too much of a commie star. Will they change the national symbol to placate that one fragile Canadian?