Although Quebec is my home, I am trapped in Ottawa for professional reasons. And Ottawa is not a bad place to be trapped in especially from about August 15 to October 15 when it is at its best.
Today, downtown is all clogged up because there is a special ceremony to commemorate the battle of Vimy Ridge. It's a worthwhile thing to celebrate so it seems a little wrong to carp but carp I must. This stuff is beginning to acquire an aura of compelled worship.
Seeing this stuff, it isn't hard to imagine how we could slip back into having official state religions.
Not unrelated
I remember about twenty years ago now being at the war memorial (one of Ottawa's few genuine architectural treasures, along with The Langevin Block, the library from the original Parliament Buildings and the New Train Station). Anyway, a group of young men had been dressed up in WW1 uniforms for the occasion. At the end of the ceremony these guys marched away and the crowd broke into spontaneous applause.
Behind them, a small group of old men in blue blazers and grey flannels collected their canes and walkers and shuffled off ignored. They're all dead now. They deserved better.
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