By Heino Molls
The woman I love the most in the world is of Irish descent. A couple of months ago we celebrated her cultural heritage here in Canada on St. Patrick’s Day. I have been thinking about that for a while.
It occurs to me that we should also be promoting “Canadian Culture” around the world, just like the Irish do. So I reckon we have to come up with a “hook” or a theme of some kind to celebrate the idea of being Canadian.
We have Canada Day on July 1 but that is nothing to fool with. That day means too much to a lot of people, including me. Most countries have an Independence Day or a national holiday of some kind celebrating its founding. In my time Canada Day was called Dominion Day. Changing the name makes no difference to what that day stands for. A day to recognize a nation is one that is meant to be respectful, not frivolous.
We need a different sort of day to celebrate “Canadianism”. We need a cultural tag of some sort. There really isn’t any one thing you could point to that reflects what is exactly Canadian. The best thing about Canada is that it embraces so many things and so many cultures.
The Irish have their St. Patties Day when everyone goes to the pub to drink green beer. The Germans have Oktoberfest and drink beer everywhere.
A Canadian cultural day should be celebrated the same way. With a beer. Sponsorship would be a natural for Molson Canadian beer. The kind of celebration where all pretty girls around the world walk about with buttons on that say, “Kiss me, I’m Canadian” and everybody in a bar everywhere in the world wishes they were Canadian.
There is no better day to do that than the May 24th holiday. Everybody in Canada already calls it “May Two-Four” and that is unique to Canadian Culture.
The cultural holiday should be run as “Two-Four Weekend”. How Canadian is that, eh? As a full Canadian cultural initiative it can easily extend from the Maritimes to Vancouver Island.
Truth be known, most Canadians don’t call the holiday Queen Victoria’s Birthday. With no disrespect to Queen Victoria. She did a great deal during her reign and is a great lady we should continue to honour. However, a majority of Canadians already call the holiday, “Two-Four weekend” even though it often does not often fall on the 24th of May.
This cultural initiative will easily work in Francophone areas of Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec. First of all there, are no politics involved. You know that old expression, “there is no ‘I’ in team”. Well, there is no p-o-l-i-t-i-c-s in beer. Secondly, a two-four case of Canadian beer is available pretty much across the whole country.
In fact there is an important holiday in Quebec called Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. Like Victoria Day, a lot of folks don’t call it what it was originally. Some refer to it as “Fete Nationale” and other things. It is in June but it falls on the 24th! June “Two-Four”! This could easily be called “Deux-Quatre weekend”.
All that needs to be done is to change one of the months and we’re all set for Two-Four Canadian weekend around the world. I will wager that Anglophone Canadians would happily change May Two-Four to June Two-Four for the sake of Canadian unity.
People everywhere in the world would walk about boasting things like, “Hey I’m Canadian on my mother’s side” or some such thing. It would be great!
Publicity could be a snap. Canadians are well known for their skills in communication, especially when comes to radio and television. Keifer Sutherland, a good Canadian boy who produces and stars in a show called 24 would probably be pleased to change the name of his television show to Two-Four.
Come on! Let’s get started!
I am going to call the good people at Molson Canadian and see what they think.
Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email [email protected].
