This has been a good week to be Canadian.
Our new PM is starting off with gang busters, and even though I voted Liberal; it was more to get rid of Steven Harper than to elect Justin Trudeau.
Now that Harper is history, my fingers are crossed that we can get back to what I think Canada really is — a gentle, kind, accepting, and reasonable country.
I am grateful to be Canadian. I really am. But, for me, November in Canada is the worst month in this great country, and I tend to hide out.
No, it isn’t the rain or the cold, it’s the damn poppy bullies that are everywhere! November is Poppy month in Canada, and I am one of those people that chooses NOT to wear a poppy.
Now, if you do not wear a poppy during this month, I can tell you from experience, you will be hounded and bullied and shamed.
Still, I do not explain myself and I do not cave in. I will not buy or wear a poppy. It’s personal and it is my choice. I do not participate in anything military, I don’t honour what was or who went before or who may go again. Nope – I don’t support troops.*
I don’t want to debate the tradition, but no one likes to be bullied, so for the most part, I zip in and out of the grocery store every November. I rarely make eye contact with the vets or volunteers with the poppy trays that lurk everywhere, I keep my head down, do my chores; and go home. At least I’m no longer held captive in the ferry line up, like we used to be when we lived on Bowen.
I find it is easier to keep a low profile in November. I used to lie and say I already bought one and lost it, but no more, now I leave it at, “No thank you,†and I keep walking.
Our new PM is rocking it with all the diversity of his cabinet. (diverse in many ways, and yet all wore poppies.) Perhaps one day, we will be able to accept that not everyone is into the reason for the poppy. One day it will be okay not to wear a poppy in Canada.
*Warning — distance yourself from me now, if you don’t want to get in the way of the hell rays and fall out, that come my way when I say such words.