Friday, November 19, 2004

Political Correctness 101

Recently I read the advisers to Her Majesty in their wisdom, recommended that the Waterloo Room in Buckingham Palace, undergo a name change for a day while it served as the locus for a state visit by Mr. Chirac of France. It seems the reminder of Napoleon’s defeat would prove to be too much for Monsieur Chirac to bear, weakened as he is from his recent prostration at the bier of his dear friend Yasser Arafat.

The room will be given a suitably neutral name, one I have already forgotten – this thanks to some vestigial defence mechanism my brain triggers to combat the virus of political correctness.

How long will it take for some Quebec politician to find an opportunity to press for the same sensitivity to be shown to government officials from Quebec when they venture into the provinces of the ROC? Wolfville could become Montcalmville for a day the next time it hosts a meeting attended by Quebec delegates. The mind boggles.