Mother Canada

I just came across this news article about a proposed statue of Mother Canada which is a24 meter statue of "doleful woman with her arms outstretched toward Europe and the Canada Bereft monument at Vimy in France."  Which is sickening on its own but to add just that little bit more of kick, it is proposed to be built on the edge of Cape Breton Highlands National Park, specifically Green Cove.  As the article mentions Green Cove "of such geological significance that it is being considered for a provincial geoheritage designation" and "Leona Aglukkaq, 28 former Parks Canada managers said the project -- with an interpretive centre, snack and gift shop, theatre and steel walkway -- does nothing to enhance the site's ecological integrity."  Once again militarism trumps the environment.

Two cultural analysis points:

1) A keystone to Harper's re-visioning of Canadian history is to make the industrial slaughterhouse of Vimy Ridge into the cradle of the Canadian nation-state. This is being promoted on everything from new school text-books to the back of the twenty dollar-bill. I have traced the origin of this meme back to a 1960s book by the head of the Canadian Legion.

2) The conservative view of women divides them into:
a) Good mothers (& daughters) who are always faithful, soft yet feisty in defense of the domestic, virginal yet always willing to comfort males.
b) sleazy Commie-whores who don't shave their arm-pits and spend their time spitting on returning soldiers in between getting abortions.

The good news is that the comments following the article are about 80% against the idea.

Being a fantasy fan, giant statues are always something I take a shine to, but its so cliched and odiously jingoistic- the naming of the donor rings and all the other crap along with it makes me sick. The location, in the midst of a park, also is inappropriate and spoils an impressive natural vista. I don't think it will end up happening. That being said, i do feel for the locals, who could use the employment opportunity, short lived as it would be.

I think we should be focusing our efforts instead on a Westward-facing Champlain Colossus out of that iron that corrodes to a nice red protective layer, 500 feet tall, to dwarf the Statue of Liberty (301 feet) and be placed on a some high cliff along the St.Lawrence... :-)

How about a Champlain Colossus that stands astride the St. Lawrence so that boats must travel between its protective legs?

A giant silver Tommy Douglas with one boot of the neck of a skeletal figure of Disease with gold Dollar Signs in its eyes?

A giant Statute called 'Mother Canada' with her face in her hands weeping, below her a line of First Nation children marching to residential school?

A giant chrome statue climbing the CN Tower like King Kong but in the shape of John Candy?

A massive yet full-functional Canadarm that moves a nickel statue of an astronaut from the ground to the top of a 3-story iron pillar at dusk and return him to the ground at dawn?

[left]For the militarists - a giant statue of Norman Bethune kneeling to give a blood transfusion to a wounded member of the Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion
below a copy of Bethune's poem "Red Moon" (perhaps put this is Sudbury's memorial park to help make-up for the lack of acknowledgement of the Spanish Civil War volunteers on the ridicolous 'Wall of the Dead' already there - the wall that perversely lists 'Vietnam' as a war Canadians fought and died in)

There are a 100 cool Canadian statues to make!