So that’s where the AIF goes…

A previous article said it was funded by the PG Multicultural Society and the Ministry of Innovative Tourism Jobs….

I have to see it in reality the next time I am at the airport.

I think it is important for us to support public art. Whether it is good public art. indifferent, or bad is in the eyes of the beholder.

This is a large mobile with pictures. One can buy smaller versions of the same thing in gift shops. We bought one a few years ago in a shop in Kelowna, but never did give it to the person we had intended it for.

So this is not exactly a unique concept. Art rarely is. It might look like it, but may be “inspired” by things around us. Even Calder was inspired by others before him. It is the nature of the thing.

However, I do take issue with the notion that “the sculpture will remain at the airport forever and the only possible changes will be updating the pictures many years into the future.”

Nothing is forever when it comes to public buildings, public art, public landscaping, public anything. In fact, nothing is forever, even the notion of forever.

Simply put, these types of public art will very much become stale dated, most likely before that wonderful arrivals foyer of YXS will need to be replaced.

I hope that at least the airport has provided for the cost of occasional dusting of the mobile.

I’m so sick and tired of politically correct crap.

Like it or not, Canada as we know it came to be from English and French colonialists. Where was our Jubilee celebrations? The old cow is our Queen, too! Our UK parents had THREE stat holidays to celebrate.

Whenever Canada chooses to showcase Canadian culture, it showcases its lack of culture by displaying how many cultures it has. On a long enough time line, multiculturalism turns into Balkanization. Every country who gives up an identity to be all things to all people just has to wait for a dominant culture to rise to the top. I don’t think it will take long.

The world has no culture. Too many diverse people in it.

Canada as “the Aboriginals” knew it did not come from English and French colonialist.

Canada as the first European settlers knew it came predominately from English speaking and French people with a few other minorities thrown in thereafter.

Canada as “we” know it (the we represetning those of us alive today) in the last 100 years came to be from a very diverse group of immigrants.

There is absolutely no reason why the culture of dominant groups of one era in history should determine the dominant culture of future generations of citizens.

Just remember, if that is the logical thinking we wish to follow, then the dominant culture that should guide us should be that of the various First Nations, especially in BC.

I think there is nothing PC in that view. It is simply taking your logic, Ps, and extending it in a rational fashion.

mf: “A previous article said it was funded by the PG Multicultural Society and the Ministry of Innovative Tourism Jobs….”

I stand corrected. It’s not the AIF, it was my tax dollars that paid for this.

Thank you gus, I agree completely.

Pojeb_sa, have you visited any large Canadian city in the last decade or two? If you have and if you think that what lay before you in those cities is only the result of English and French influence, I’m really not sure what to say.

I must say that I LOVE the diversity that we have in Canada and in our major cities more specifically. I love the Lebanese food that is on virtually every corner in downtown Ottawa, that I didn’t experience at all in Western Canada.

I loved learning French from a guy who was born in Algeria, moved to France as a child, then to Canada and who liked to joke about the differences between “real” French and Canadian French.

I love things like the “Carnival of Culture” that was on display in Ottawa this weekend.

I like having places like “Chinatown” and “Little Italy”.

I find it fascinating to go for a stroll at an attraction and try and figure out how many different languages I’ll hear while I’m out and about.

I love visiting Quebec and having the Western Canadian stereotype of how rude French people are shattered most every time I try and dialogue with someone.

I still get a kick out of visiting Montreal and realizing that the city is as diverse as any place in the world.

But most of all, I love watching tourists near the Parliament buildings and other attractions here, as their eyes explode, their fingers point at stuff in every direction, they take pictures like crazy, they wonder around in amazement at what they are taking in and they say things (often in very broken English), “you must love living here”. It isn’t just Ottawa they are talking about, it’s Canada. We must be doing something right . . .

“Livin’ in a city of immigrants
I don’t need to go travelin’
Open my door and the world walks in
Livin’ in a city of immigrants

Livin’ in a city that never sleeps
My heart keepin’ time to a thousand beats
Singin’ in languages I don’t speak
Livin’ in a city of immigrants

City of black, city of white, city of light, city of innocents
City of sweat, city of tears, city of prayers, city of immigrants “
-Steve Earle, “City of Immigrants”

Come see Steve Earle this Saturday at Vanier Hall.