{"id":20122,"date":"2018-03-14T15:33:42","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T19:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20122"},"modified":"2018-03-14T15:33:42","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T19:33:42","slug":"brocks-banter-late-arrivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/brocks-banter-late-arrivals\/","title":{"rendered":"BROCK’S BANTER: Late Arrivals"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the 90s. Why does it look like 1986?\u201d asked Marshall, as they viewed an old music video of a Canadian one-hit-wonder through the wonders of YouTube.
\n\u201cThe 80s didn\u2019t come to Canada till, like, \u201993,\u201d replied Robin, the one-time teen sensation whose single, \u201cLet\u2019s Go To The Mall\u201d apparently took Canada \u2013 or, at least, a few of our country\u2019s larger malls \u2013 by storm one crazy summer after Canada 125.
\nThis scene from CBS\u2019s comedy \u201cHow I Met Your Mother\u201d originally aired in 2006, but it struck a definite chord with me on the first viewing for its sheer honesty.
\nGrowing up in that time, it always seemed like we, as Canadians, were slightly behind the times when it came to our American cousins, whether it was adopting the latest fashion fads or finding our own home grown pop culture equivalents to what was once the latest thing in the States.
\nThis even extended into our corporate culture, where once-popular Canadian brands were seen as \u201cless than\u201d \u2013 and increasingly so \u2013 which each new innovation launched by their American counterparts.
\nWe have seen that so many times it is almost pointless to count, but let\u2019s look at a few examples.
\nFor those of a certain age, perhaps the most relatable example is the Sears catalogue which always seemed to fall just a little bit short in terms of sheer variety when compared with options south of the border.
\nMore recently, there was that collective national realisation that the offerings of Tim Hortons, Country Style, and a host of other outlets just weren\u2019t cutting it when news started to rumble that the legendarily exotic Krispy Kreme was looking to make northern inroads.
\nAnticipation reached fever pitch when those inroads were finally borne to fruition. The opening of each outlet was a media event, crowds were lined up around the block and those close enough to the window were having religious, and possibly erotic experiences watching that glaze drizzle onto each and every donut rolling off the assembly line.
\nAnd who can forget the palpitations Canadian consumers experienced as soon as the American discount chain Target announced it was hopping the border. As soon as they announced their intentions, a national outpouring of scorn towards our own brands became very fashionable, as were fictitious claims from Canadian consumers that Target was something for years \u2013 nay, decades \u2013 they had been clamouring.
\nAgain, the opening of each Target location \u2013 including the one here in Aurora \u2013 was another media event (guilty) with photos and live videos of the opening day line-ups coming in the first half of that week\u2019s newspaper or that night\u2019s media broadcast.
\nThis sense that the grass was always greener once seemed to be confined to our shopping habits and pop culture tastes.
\nAfter all, we, as Canadians, almost collectively looked on at our American cousins with a smug sense of both superiority and dismay as voters took a match to the dumpster that was their political landscape.
\nAdmittedly, they faced a tough choice.
\nIn the one corner was a highly qualified, experienced woman, who had dedicated her life to public service, prepared to carry on the legacy that had been created and developed by her predecessors.
\nIn the other corner was the scion of a family business empire whose political experience was largely confined to flirtations with politics, teasers on just what position and party he would ultimately grace with his golden touch.
\nDespite his obvious wealth, he somehow tapped into a sense of anger, of disenfranchisement, a frustration with the so-called elites he pledged to bring down, despite being an entrenched member of the \u201celite\u201d himself.
\nAs we know, it was a winning formula, with the latter eventually pipping the former to the post \u2013 well, technically speaking. She might have won the popular vote, but, in a complex, convoluted, and, to some, inexplicably complicated weighting system, he ultimately took home the grand prize.
\nIt\u2019s not that he represented what the American people stand for, or ultimately need. Rather, he positioned himself as a saviour, one that would deliver them from whatever forces \u2013 real or fictional \u2013 that were allegedly keeping them down, apparently keeping them from, in Oprah parlance, realising their best life. Whether he has delivered \u2013 or ultimately will deliver \u2013 on those high expectations is immaterial.
\nIt is, in this case, all about the personality, brand mottos, and the sure belief that he will ultimately meet expectations \u2013 but, if not, it is anyone else\u2019s fault but his.
\nWe looked on that situation as if we were watching our own neighbours\u2019 house burning down. Keeping a keen eye on the fire to make sure the flames didn\u2019t spread to our own house and, at the same time, remaining thankful that it is not us, just hoping nobody gets hurt in the process.
\nWe couldn\u2019t imagine a world where politics could be so dictated by personality, a world where votes would be too close to call, too convoluted to break down into an infographic, and spur discussions that would belie the tenets of our Canadian identity.
\nI wonder how many still feel that way.
\nIf it once took 13 years for the 80s to fully take root in Canada, things may have accelerated in recent years.
\nAt this point, however, it is, for many, only a flirtation but it will be interesting (to pick the most benign adjective available) to see how things progress.
\nAs Kathleen Wynne said on Sunday, we have all seen this movie before. And, for the perspective of many who watched what unfolded Saturday, we just might be joining the movie already in progress.
\nWe might not know how the movie will end in the United States, but do we really have all that far to look?
\nSears is shuttered, Krispy Kreme outlets have been retrofitted into dollar stores and shawarma houses, and Target completely missed the bullseye \u2013 gone from Canada whence it came, many stores now filled with the resurgent Canadian Tire.
\nMaybe it\u2019s time to start the countdown. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir \u201cThis is the 90s. Why does it look like 1986?\u201d asked Marshall, as they viewed an old music video of a Canadian one-hit-wonder through the wonders of YouTube. \u201cThe 80s didn\u2019t come to Canada till, like, \u201993,\u201d replied Robin, the one-time teen sensation whose single, \u201cLet\u2019s Go To The Mall\u201d apparently took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5ey","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 15:10:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}