The Potluck Solution

So what is it with white middle-aged males protesting the trivial? Guilt? Impotence? Decline of reality television as a viable form of cultural expression? Realization that after half a lifetime they've made absolutely no mark in the world?

I wondered about this mystery this past weekend, after Gary McHale's "March for Peace" in Caledonia last weekend, which was clearly intended to be a rumble with the Six Nations protesters occupying the Douglas Creek lands. Fortunately McHale's Army --- the thousands of counter-protesters he predicted would take up arms against "government duplicity" --- didn't show, leaving him and his merry band of supporters facing off against a potluck dinner organized by the Haudenosaunee protestors.

Only in Canada would a volatile situation with a potential for violence and bloodshed be diffused by tuna casserole and nanaimo bars. Makes you proud, eh?

Here at The Upper Canadian we put on our fancy thinkin' chapeaux and came up with this idea. Since the Foreign Minister, Peter McKay, is on secret assignment in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri by orders of the PMO, maybe Stephen Harper can start a bold new direction in Canadian foreign policy: call it the Potluck Dinner Initiative. Imagine the fun and hi-jinks! George brings the (halal) ribs and Osama brings the tabouli. A massive sit-down along the Demilitarized Zone. Sweet-and-sour meatballs for all! Ditto for Darfur and Somalia and Iraq: Nine Layer Dip works wonders to heal animosities. If it works for the United Church, where the potlucks have resolved many a bitter and vicious theological dispute, surely it will contain larger conflicts on the world stage. The indigestion alone will incapacitate nearly everyone.

Besides it would be truly amazing to have finally a real made-in-Canada foreign policy, reflecting true Canadian values and culture. The Prime Minister could definitively answer his critics who say his foreign policy is a Washington franchise. For what could be more Canadian than eating tortiere and potato salad off a paper plate with people you don't really like?