Red Ensign Standard XVlll

The Red Ensign Standard has been raised once again from Tipperography:

I love America and I love Americans. I believe the world owes this country and its people a tremendous debt of gratitude for incredible sacrifices they have made to give us much that is good. Instead they receive mostly sanctimonious, self-righteous carping from those who believe themselves to be above the difficult work and who also lack the resources and strength to do it. So I will return to Canada and Canada will become a more grateful country. The difference I make may be epsilon, but epsilon is greater than zero.

And this is what brings me to the Red Ensign Brigade. Before we decided to return to Toronto I had decided that should we stay in America, I would have to give up the Red Ensign bloggers. Although browsing through the blogs, reading the opinions and learning what everyone is up to is interesting, I’m afraid the reports on Canadian political issues only serve to get me a little too over-excited. The Canadian political scene can be interesting, but it is also largely inconsequential and irrelevant to anyone not living in Canada. On the other hand, it has also been incredibly refreshing to get political commentary from this group. I would have despaired greatly at the thought of going back to a place represented uniformly by the CBC and The Globe & Mail. But the Red Ensign bloggers let me know that there are other Canadians (some living in and and some, like me, living outside of Canada) along with a few citizens of other places with ties to Canada who care about this country and who have found a way to give a voice to the viewpoints that don’t come down from on high.

I cannot characterize them all as having the same perspective that I have. (Just take a look at a few of the links.) But they are all different voices and they all have a lot to say. They are the “other Canadians” and they are Canadians making a difference. I hope I have done justice to them with this week’s standard.

Tip, you have dispensed justice to us all. I am a day late and a blog short. For some mysterious reason my blogspot has been refusing my commands so I also owe Tip an apology for being late with this posting.