# Hey Vancouver, Detroit has something to say to you... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 24, 2002, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-vancouver-detroit-has-something-to-say-to-you/105270 "2002-04-24T02:47:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2002, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-vancouver-detroit-has-something-to-say-to-you/105270/1 "2002-04-24T02:47:15Z")
Thanks Canuck fans stood and cheered the Star Spangled Banner at the start of tonights Red Wings-Canucks game. After the shameful display at the Pistons game the other night, you could have Booed and Jeered our anthem, and we would have deserved it. But you didn’t. There was a smattering of boos as the song began, but by the end, Vancouver fans were cheering loudly. That was a class act, and speaking as someone who was at the piston game, and did not boo O Canada, I wanted to say thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2002, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-vancouver-detroit-has-something-to-say-to-you/105270/2 "2002-04-24T03:55:39Z")
Uh, yer welcome. What happened at the Pistons game? ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2002, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-vancouver-detroit-has-something-to-say-to-you/105270/3 "2002-04-24T04:02:51Z")
[They boooed the Canadian National Anthem](http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=%7BE1F1D3D5-77C1-4829-B160-3EE0D99C130A%7D) ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2002, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-vancouver-detroit-has-something-to-say-to-you/105270/4 "2002-04-24T12:45:09Z")
looks like I spoke too soon. The original sentiment still applies, but come on, don’t throw garbage on the ice cause you’re losing. ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2002, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-vancouver-detroit-has-something-to-say-to-you/105270/5 "2002-04-24T13:41:50Z")
Bah. 5-HT the worst garbage that Canadians put on the ice is what skated on a few minutes before the 1st period even began! 😉 bernse - an ex-canooks fan ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2002, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-vancouver-detroit-has-something-to-say-to-you/105270/6 "2002-04-25T03:45:08Z")
Ah, screw the “polite Canadian” mythos. Sure bomb the hell out your “allies”-- as like as not, we’ll lie down for it. But rudeness at a hockey game? Expect to be fighting the “War on Terror” on two fronts from now on. Hell, even when our frigging parliament is finally acknowledged to be a dictatorship, the editorialists [make it into a joke about hockey](http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/columnists/story.html?f=/stories/20020423/4309.html). I’m told Canadians take the game seriously. (Me, the only Puck that means a damned thing to me is a character out of Shakespeare. Or maybe Kipling.) > [@](#): > > Stickhandler will likely get penalty > Anger at Liberal enforcers no reason to attack the referee > Paul Wells > National Post > > Fred Chartrand, The Canadian Press > KEITH MARTIN YESTERDAY DEFENDS HIS HANDLING OF THE MACE: “I accuse the government of being a dictatorship.” > > Finally a good debate. Vigorous argument back and forth. Members lingering in their seats, not because they are sentenced to House duty but because they are engrossed in the argument. Cabinet ministers jumping in, not because their portfolios are under debate but because they feel called to intervene. > > What brought them all? Health care? A billion-dollar debate over equalization? News of corruption at the highest levels of power? > > No. The Commons was arguing about Keith Martin’s game of touch-the-stick. > > Last Wednesday, Dr. Martin (Alliance, Esquimault – Juan de Fuca) picked up the ceremonial Mace, symbol of Parliament’s authority, after Liberal MPs shot down his private member’s bill on decriminalizing marijuana. The party-line vote, with Liberals whipped into supporting a “poison-pill” amendment, put an end to four years’ worth of intermittent work from Dr. Martin. He wanted to assert the death of Canadian democracy, so he picked up the Mace and waved it around briefly. > > Now the thing of it is, you’re really, really not supposed to touch the Mace. Tradition, you know. So the Liberals are urging the Speaker to call Dr. Martin before the bar of the House, which is more tradition, and would express the belief that Dr. Martin has been playing very poorly with others. Yeah, funny stuff. We’re inches away from a general strike, or at the very least rioting in the streets, over here. (What the article _doesn’t_ mention is that there have been almost 172 private member’s bill’s submitted this year, and the “Liberal” gov’t has allowed exactly ZERO of them to be voted on. Assassination is beginning to hold more appeal than parliamentary process for a lot of Canadians – and that’s something we usually leave to the Yahoo Yankees - generally, we’re better than that. Sorry, little OT. [slinks off to swallow some Prozac and watch reruns of SCTV.] ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2002, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-vancouver-detroit-has-something-to-say-to-you/105270/7 "2002-04-25T04:41:51Z")
Um, majority governments typically don’t ever allow private members’ bills to be voted on. If they like the legislation, they introduce it themselves. If not, the legislation wouldn’t have passed even if they had allowed it to be introduced. The net result is the same. Not that I’m exactly fond of the current parliamentary system (speaking as a member of a party that got 1/4 the votes of the Liberals but 1/14 the seats). ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2002, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-vancouver-detroit-has-something-to-say-to-you/105270/8 "2002-04-25T19:27:28Z")
I know, matt. Those of us outside the sausage-factory just get a little green when we’re forced to look at the workings up close. Kudos to you for trying to make a difference. Best I’ve ever managed is to “tape a diagram of a petrol-bomb up on the bathroom wall and jerk off to it,” as Robert Anton Wilson so wryly put it. And wistfully thinking of emigrating, before the whole dying show devolves past the point of no return. But let’s not bring the OT into OT. (Deep down, us Canucks can never resist a hockey metaphor.)