Canada, renewed

Last night's election results are still reverberating across the country. News coverage of the change seems non-stop, all of it about going forward. It's as if a weight has been lifted. Even the sun has come out.

Two bits of oddness were handed to me by the Universe today.

One arrived while I was sorting a box I'd run across while cleaning my office. I found some items wrapped in newspaper, some personal treasures I'd put away when we travelled in 2011 and rented out our house. The date on the paper affirmed this theory, March 9, 2011. A headline on a letter to the editor caught my eye, The Government of Harper.

The letter, sent by Jeanette Campbell of Mission, B.C. read:

     The media announced recently that federal civil servants were ordered in a December 2010 directive that all federal communications, such as press releases, had to replace the words "the Government of Canada" in their missives with "The Harper Government."

     Have Canadians lost their identity and sense of national sovereignty and pride?

     Prime Minister Stephen Harper appears to think so. Incandescent outrage?

     You'd better believe it. Next misnomer on the plate for Canadians? You guessed it! President Harper. 

Fortunately, things didn't sink low enough for her last prediction to come true. But 'incandescent outrage'? Yes. That seems to be the reason we've had this wonderful change to the Government of Canada.

As for that other bit of oddness sent my way -- it arrived in the post, an opportunity to renew my subscription to a magazine. Yep, Harper's.