Change-of-Name Law Looming?

Forced Change of Names: First they came for the street names, and then they came for the surnames ...  

Apparently some folks with anti-European leanings consider BC's street names "colonialist", which for some reason to them means "unsafe". (History is dangerous, it seems, so they demand CHANGE. Street signs, addresses, maps … all must be changed, at vast public and private expense. Safety-ism First!

How soon before everyone who shares surnames with certain historical figures will be forced to change them? (New Government Directive produces Discredited Surname List …  If your name is on it you must change it in the name of equity, inclusion and diversity. Plus job prospects, university admission and access to food and housing.)

If you share a surname such as as Macdonald, Cook, Holmes, Pemberton, Dean, Robson, Seymour, Dunsmuir, McNeill, Helmcken, Blanshard, Wallace, Wark, Trutch -- and many others -- you will need to legally change yours, and will then be issued a Non-Colonial-Name Passport, which will allow you to travel, receive services, and possess personal stationery.

Please be advised that Canada Post has committed to a new standard of non-delivery of mail to "triggering" addressees.

The Government will begin this name-laundering reform with public education, but if propagandistic coercion fails to work, fines and social ostracism may be considered.

Some colonial-era explorers' street names will survive (such as Quadra, San Juan, and Gonzales) as they were named for "brown people". Some Anglo-citizens have responded with a nascent #mynametoo movement on Twitter.

Investors' tip: cancelled street signs will one day become valuable collectors' items, like once-censored books are today. Above is one such sign, for a Mr. McKenzie who was the manager of early Vancouver Island's colonial Craigflower Farm (another shady Scot then ...). 

Some obstreperous free-thinker citizens are not reconciled to this name-banning:

In an act of reconciliation, Victoria's Trutch Street gets a new name - Victoria Times Colonist

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/victoria-s-trutch-street-lekwungen-truth-1.6351665

Vancouver mayor looks to change street named after colonial B.C. politician Sir Joseph Trutch - BC | Globalnews.ca

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA! Are you being wished many happy returns?

Today we celebrate the birth of Canada. Usually a birthday isn't considered a day for hurling insults, it's usually reserved for compliments and good wishes -- but not for Canada on July 1st 2020.

On early morning radio detractors start the day by explaining why they don't celebrate Canada's birthday, and others, who do, apologizing for it. (How Canadian can you get? Maybe that IS the celebration.)

One commentator says Canada is "racist", another that it's "colonialist", which seems to amount to the same thing in current social justice-speak. It's interesting to deconstruct the word "colonial" however: a colony is but a collection of people who live, work and share resources for mutual support in what may be a hostile environment. (Even ants and beavers do it.) The Canadian climate and wilderness was certainly hostile for the first farmers, traders, communicators, town-builders, arts-creators and social service providers who settled here. 

"Social services" meant orphanages, hospices, food charities and such as provided by women from backgrounds where "care and share" philosophies were valued (Quaker, evangelical, communitarian, convent-based or whatever). The "communicators" used written words and felt it was worth setting up schools to teach young people to read and write them. 

Gradually these early settlers joined up their colonies up into a nation (note for those who don't read history: we haven't been a colony for quite some time) in which prosperity and voting rights were eventually made available to everyone, constitutional equality and freedom of conscience were protected, and all without a single bloody national Revolution. Tolerance, accommodation, learning to adjust to irrational or resentful criticisms of other citizens were part of the colonial equipment -- and still are. 

So Happy Birthday Canada, and congratulations for being born! No wonder millions of immigrants from all over the world clamour still to settle within your boundaries.

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