... a funny thing happened to Canada during my time away, when I returned the whole place was blue ... which isn't unthinkable considering this is a land that can conjure up the ol' igloo imagery ... please don't tell me you haven't heard the urban-myth/joke-tenet which holds that Canadians are all bilingual ice-dwellers ... ice, like water, being blue ... kinda ... but I digress ...
... having "fast-forwarded" to a time when political conservatism doesn't necessarily mean hardening of the arteries and Liberalism laments it's loss of lustre, the blue I'm observing is a sang-froid PC blue ... worthy of comment, not only because 1993 was the last time Canada had a Conservative majority government, but because, in recent years, inexorable political blue-ing has been tempered by a liberal touch of rouge ...
... embedded in the "blueprint" and original nomenclature of this regrouped party is the instinctively seductive oxymoron Progressive Conservative ... a term which reaches for a middling territory that if we're all honest we'd like to think we can inhabit ... the "progressive" prefix psychologically loosens the reins of conservatism and sets up a rocking abbreviation - catchy, multi-purpose initials ... PC! ...
... in Pan-Canadian terms, there is still per-capita nostalgia for Trudeau style liberalism despite the slipped Grit grip on parliamentary control ... but with tories twiddling the pitch-control knob in virtually every postal-code and owning up to their lack of a rockstar Prince Charming leader, there's probable cause to expect Canada to strut some staid stability for years ... until the pendulum corrects ... meantime, Brigette DePape has decided, braveheart pagegirl princesses can be rockstars too ...
... for more of my favorite things about Canada, see another urban-myth/joke-tenet which casts us as polite pedestrian crossing users, members of a Peace Corps who have Police Constables instead of Po-Po ... a place where the Pacific Coast (and everything east) is just that, Pa-cific, as in peaceful ... and "up there in the beaver-belt" your playboy clubs are littered with pussy-cats eh? ...
... the thing is, it's all true, Canadian flava is served on ice, pretty cool, but we do hold proficiency certificates in some regular "found-all-over-the-world" type stuff as well ...
... private citizens get prostate cancer "up here" too ... Lotto and Petro-Canada make a lotta money! ... pre-natal and palliative care is just about free, but, too many of those who can find jobs punch cards or sort paper-clips to eke-a-living (beware, oblique reggae reference) ...
... the previous century loomed Canada's proto-cultural cloth into is its own kind of blended fabric and we've become our very own parent company, a feat which happened on the Liberal watch, in the interest of keepin' it real ... Prince Charles gets to keep his Kingdom and Privy Counsellors who once lorded, get new peers ... a genteel momentum spins Canada away from empire, but with enough rotation to run a young realm and bring balance to old allegiances ...
... the trick now is to reconcile the concoction of red and blue essences that gives Canada soul, and to season the stew with some-o'-dat Latin liberalis, as provided by Canadians of exotic origin ("exotic" - used the literal way, not any PC one) ... the Maple Leaf flag may only have red on it, but the white spaces, if taken for snow and ice, make frigid blue inescapable and implicit...
... conservative Canada can afford to allow itself to lead, but "Progressive" must preface PC regardless of what PC stands for ... ... except for the, um ... prostate cancer ...
... having "fast-forwarded" to a time when political conservatism doesn't necessarily mean hardening of the arteries and Liberalism laments it's loss of lustre, the blue I'm observing is a sang-froid PC blue ... worthy of comment, not only because 1993 was the last time Canada had a Conservative majority government, but because, in recent years, inexorable political blue-ing has been tempered by a liberal touch of rouge ...
... embedded in the "blueprint" and original nomenclature of this regrouped party is the instinctively seductive oxymoron Progressive Conservative ... a term which reaches for a middling territory that if we're all honest we'd like to think we can inhabit ... the "progressive" prefix psychologically loosens the reins of conservatism and sets up a rocking abbreviation - catchy, multi-purpose initials ... PC! ... 
... but just as easily, as seen south of the border, the script can flip ...
... allow me to represent for the word "liberal" - from the Latin root "liberalis"(another freedom) which somehow acquired a sheen of shame when right-wing pop culture set the context ...
... consider too the mixed (up) shadings within the term Politically Correct - to be correct is good, yeah? ... yet, the words flatter to deceive, proving far too subjective to deliver either correctness or even the promised connotation ...
... allow me to represent for the word "liberal" - from the Latin root "liberalis"(another freedom) which somehow acquired a sheen of shame when right-wing pop culture set the context ...
... consider too the mixed (up) shadings within the term Politically Correct - to be correct is good, yeah? ... yet, the words flatter to deceive, proving far too subjective to deliver either correctness or even the promised connotation ...
... in Pan-Canadian terms, there is still per-capita nostalgia for Trudeau style liberalism despite the slipped Grit grip on parliamentary control ... but with tories twiddling the pitch-control knob in virtually every postal-code and owning up to their lack of a rockstar Prince Charming leader, there's probable cause to expect Canada to strut some staid stability for years ... until the pendulum corrects ... meantime, Brigette DePape has decided, braveheart pagegirl princesses can be rockstars too ... 
... for more of my favorite things about Canada, see another urban-myth/joke-tenet which casts us as polite pedestrian crossing users, members of a Peace Corps who have Police Constables instead of Po-Po ... a place where the Pacific Coast (and everything east) is just that, Pa-cific, as in peaceful ... and "up there in the beaver-belt" your playboy clubs are littered with pussy-cats eh? ... ... the thing is, it's all true, Canadian flava is served on ice, pretty cool, but we do hold proficiency certificates in some regular "found-all-over-the-world" type stuff as well ...
... private citizens get prostate cancer "up here" too ... Lotto and Petro-Canada make a lotta money! ... pre-natal and palliative care is just about free, but, too many of those who can find jobs punch cards or sort paper-clips to eke-a-living (beware, oblique reggae reference) ...... the previous century loomed Canada's proto-cultural cloth into is its own kind of blended fabric and we've become our very own parent company, a feat which happened on the Liberal watch, in the interest of keepin' it real ... Prince Charles gets to keep his Kingdom and Privy Counsellors who once lorded, get new peers ... a genteel momentum spins Canada away from empire, but with enough rotation to run a young realm and bring balance to old allegiances ...
... the trick now is to reconcile the concoction of red and blue essences that gives Canada soul, and to season the stew with some-o'-dat Latin liberalis, as provided by Canadians of exotic origin ("exotic" - used the literal way, not any PC one) ... the Maple Leaf flag may only have red on it, but the white spaces, if taken for snow and ice, make frigid blue inescapable and implicit... ... conservative Canada can afford to allow itself to lead, but "Progressive" must preface PC regardless of what PC stands for ... ... except for the, um ... prostate cancer ...
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