harper squares

Tories would turn cool Canadians into sanctimonious squares, warns director
MARTIN O’HANLON
January 17, 2006
cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2006/01/17/1398751-cp.html

OTTAWA (CP) - Forget all that fearmongering about Tory intolerance - Albert Nerenberg is painting a truly nightmarish scenario of what a Conservative government could mean: boredom.

Nerenberg, director of the soon-to-be-released documentary Escape to Canada, warns that Stephen Harper might try to turn cool Canadians into sanctimonious squares.

"Canada could be on its way back to Dullsville if Canada elects a Tory majority that would turn things back," Nerenberg says in a decidedly light-hearted news release.

"I'm not saying the Conservatives don't have interesting ideas. In fact, as campaigners, the other parties have been more boring.

"I'm just a dumb hoser, but it seems to me the Conservatives have clearly come out specifically against the things that have put Canada on the map: same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization and their orbiting freedom issues."

Canada has often been ridiculed in the United States and Britain as a nice dull country. American conservative commentator Tucker Carlson went so far as to insult Canada as being "like Honduras except colder and less interesting."

But Nerenberg notes The Great White North has received major media coverage worldwide since 2003 as an exciting, interesting place thanks to our liberal views on gay marriage and marijuana use.

Even Britain's esteemed weekly magazine the Economist deigned to call Canada "cool."

Conservative MP Jason Kenney suggests voters wouldn't mind if Ottawa was a bit more boring.

"No more bags of cash, money laundering and sexy Ottawa scandals - maybe that will be boring but that's peace, order and good government," he laughed.

Nerenberg says his concerns about Harper's hipness were fueled just seconds after Harper became leader of the Conservative party. In the midst of convention cheers, Nerenberg asked the new Tory leader if thought Canada was cool.

Harper apparently didn't quite get it: "It has been one of the coldest winters on record," came the straight-faced reply.

Escape to Canada, to be released in March by Elevator Films, documents how the world took notice of Canada in 2003 during the "Summer of Legalization," when the courts briefly lifted legal restrictions on marijuana.

More about the film is available at www.escapetoCanada.ca.