Some Real Canadian Branding

When Tony Blair was British Prime Minister nation branding was all the rage. It was Cool Britannia this and Cool Britannia that. The novelty wore off: Britons were more interested in jobs, schools, a National Health Service worthy of a first world country, and so on. 


An optimist might have hoped that what was a shallow shrill exercise in self-promotion would have run aground on the British coast, but no. According to an article in yesterday's Sunday Star, there's been a cross-border effort with CBC Radio, Public Radio in the U.S. and Bruce Mau Design, a respected Toronto firm, to rebrand Canada by pitching out its 20th century brand icons - mukluks, Tim Horton's, lumberjacks and the like - and replace them with 21st century equivalents - oil sands, charging for plastic bags, the Occupy movement and - I kid you not - Justin Bieber. Of course, the idea is to get people talking and bloggers blogging. So in that spirit, here are a few suggestions to really brand Canada as a place the whole world can admire and wants to visit:
Cuts to arts funding are reversed and arts budgets are increased 10 per cent a year until Canada spends, as a percentage of its GDP, the same amount that the French spend. Seed money from the federal and provincial governments is allocated to artists' collectives to build or buy their own live/work spaces, much like La Ruche, the famous "beehive" that housed, and houses, artists in Paris. Crown land is allocated expressly for the establishment of artists' colonies, much like those in England, the U.S. and other countries. And, last but not least, the feds launch a massive ad campaign lasting years and years to convince, really convince, Canadians of the value and importance of the arts. 
I mean, if that crew of nincompoops at City Hall can produce OneCity, the best transit plan ever to surface in Hogtown, then anything's possible.