CBC: Excessive Royal Wedding Coverage

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has taken every possible opportunity in recent weeks to report on the impending marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton, a subject that doesn't affect Canadians in any significant way and most Canadians don't really care about.

Canada's state media apparatus has always been somewhat out of touch with what Canadians are interested in, but their recent obsession with British Royalty has been particularly uninteresting.  Lately I've started changing the channel over to CTV whenever the a "Royal Engagement" segment comes on.

The above graphic was meant to illustrate the convoluted and mostly meaningless way that the wedding is relevant to Canadians, but I'm not sure I really got the message across.

I did come across one interesting story on the CBC website while I was researching this post.  Apparently, some British parliamentarians are considering amending succession laws so that a daughter born to William and Kate would have a place in the line of succession.  If Britain made this change and Canada didn't, then Canada could technically recognize a different person as "King of Canada" while his older sister would be "Queen of Britain."  Hilarious.

Iqaluit Mayoral Bi-elections!

My home town of Iqaluit, Nunavut will be electing a new mayor on Tuesday.  Here's a story about it that CBC wrote up the other day: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/12/08/iqaluit-mayoral-forum.html

Iqaluit (Photo courtesy of Joyce Tannouri)

As a mayoral election in one of Canada's thirteen capital cities you would think it would get more media attention.  Although, on the other hand, as capital of its least populous territory, Canadians probably care less about this election than Americans care about who the mayor of the capital city of Guam will be.  Although, on the third hand, I don't believe Guam receives quite as much money from the central government as Nunavut does.  On the fourth hand, the mayorship of Iqaluit doesn't have much to do with that money.  I could go on like this all day.  Also: was everyone aware that people from Guam are called Guamanians?  I digress.

The important issues in this election seem to be mainly waste management, housing, and those posts that separate foot traffic from regular traffic.  Why can't they build sidewalks, people ask?  Also: why can't they get one of those sidewalk sized snowblower things to clear them with, people ask?  I'm not sure that these posts have really been discussed in the campaign, but I just find it ridiculous that a Canadian capital city can't install a few sidewalks.

Check in next week for the thrilling conclusion of "Iqaluit Mayoral Bi-elections!"