S.H.I.T. Happens
Nov. 4th, 2015 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqThere's an online petition going around to rename the Calgary International Airport after Ex-Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It seems to have stalled out. It's also spawned lots of counter-petitions. Among them:
Here's the thing; we're going to end up naming stuff after Harper eventually. As much as I believe he's the worst PM in living memory, and shouldn't be rewarded for his deliberate mismanagement of the country, I have to acknowledge that a lot of people disagree with me. A fair amount of those people live in Calgary. The old Calgary Archers Club grounds will probably get turned into a park after they finish building Stony Trail. Name it after Harper, the way they named another park after Klein. Let them get it out of their system.
Should we be renaming airports after politicians? Well, we've already done it three times in this country with Diefenbaker, Pearson, and Trudeau the Elder. A lot of people objected to Harper getting one since he's still alive and those other three were dead when the renaming occurred. This makes a sort of sense, but to paraphrase Captain Barbossa, that's more of a guideline than an actual rule. Clark is still alive, and he's got at least one school named after him.
In the end, I'd like to keep the airport named Calgary International Airport because that's what it it. It's the airport, in Calgary, that handles international flights. It doesn't need anything else. Maybe if we had a second airport, it would make sense to give them unique names. We don't really need a second airport.
Besides which, no one actually calls it that, unless we're discussing it in relation to other airports. Even then, the trend has been to use an airport's code for that sort of discussion. If I get into a taxi, I just say "take me to the airport".
- A straight up don't do it. Of note, it's got four times as many signatures as the one it's protesting. If nothing else, this should make renaming the airport a non-starter.
- Rename Stephen Harper to Calgary International Airport. Clever. It reminds me of Rick Mercer's attempt to get Stockwell Day's first name changed to Doris as a joke back when Stockwell Day was somebody.
- Rename the airport Stephen Harper International Terminal. SHIT - get it? Gharf gharf. Funny, but not something I'd like to put up with as someone who lives here, regardless of my opinion of Harper's legacy. It does remind me of the Conservatives earlier (brief) incarnation as the Canadian Reform Alliance Party, before the media pointed out what a bad idea that was.
- Rename one of the local landfills after him.
- Better yet, name one of the landfills the Stephen Harper Scientific Archive, in honour of all the scientific libraries he closed, whose contents ended up in landfills, because fuck science.
- Name the airport after someone else. These range from the ridiculous (Wresting patriarch Stu Hart, who, aside from probably taking flights out of the airport, had nothing to do with it), to fairly serious (Naming it for Fred McCall - it was McCall field back in the depths of time)
Here's the thing; we're going to end up naming stuff after Harper eventually. As much as I believe he's the worst PM in living memory, and shouldn't be rewarded for his deliberate mismanagement of the country, I have to acknowledge that a lot of people disagree with me. A fair amount of those people live in Calgary. The old Calgary Archers Club grounds will probably get turned into a park after they finish building Stony Trail. Name it after Harper, the way they named another park after Klein. Let them get it out of their system.
Should we be renaming airports after politicians? Well, we've already done it three times in this country with Diefenbaker, Pearson, and Trudeau the Elder. A lot of people objected to Harper getting one since he's still alive and those other three were dead when the renaming occurred. This makes a sort of sense, but to paraphrase Captain Barbossa, that's more of a guideline than an actual rule. Clark is still alive, and he's got at least one school named after him.
In the end, I'd like to keep the airport named Calgary International Airport because that's what it it. It's the airport, in Calgary, that handles international flights. It doesn't need anything else. Maybe if we had a second airport, it would make sense to give them unique names. We don't really need a second airport.
Besides which, no one actually calls it that, unless we're discussing it in relation to other airports. Even then, the trend has been to use an airport's code for that sort of discussion. If I get into a taxi, I just say "take me to the airport".
