The Conservative government announced this week it would be cutting off funding to the Community Access Program, reducing its $15 million budget down to $2 million. The initiative, brought forth in 1994, “gives thousands of Canadians affordable access to the Internet in places like schools, community centres and libraries. It provides access to those people who might not have computers or Internet access in their homes or workplaces.”

A noble and just effort for sure, so why the cuts?

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I’ve got a post going up on this.org later today about the government’s planned debate over the lyrics to the national anthem.

It’s kind of a quirky and unexpected thing to bring up in the throne speech, but to me it kind of a fun idea to think about. How important are our national symbols and does it matter if they change?

The national anthem has only been O Canada since 1980 when it replaced God Save the Queen. It’s remained unchanged in English and in French since that time. The French (the original) version has remained the same since it was written in 1880, but the English language version has a long history of amended lyrics, which I discuss in the blog post (I’ll post a link when it goes up).posted!

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