Dressing like an Albertan

Rule #1: Every male who has ever tried on a cowboy hat thinks he looks great in it. Rule #2: Unless you’re Clint Eastwood or Larry Hagman, you probably look stupid in it.

And so Stephen Harper looked stupid in his cowboy hat during the Calgary Stampede. So did Joe Clark when he participated in the parade. So did Scott Brison, who donned a sheer white outfit and hat (apparently Boss Hogg was his fashion inspiration, although I can’t imagine Brison and his partner sitting down to enjoy an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard together). And yet Harper seemed to be the only public figure who came up for criticism over his dress. This was suprising, since Harper was taken to task for not dressing like a cowboy in last year’s parade.

The Toronto Sun published an editorial critical of Harper’s manner of dress. While generally symapthetic, the editorial was written from an unmistakably Torontonian point of view. To bring Harper up for ridicule was to apply the same haughtiness to every Calgarian who dressed in a similar fashion during the Stampede (including, I add with genuine delight, someone I spotted who combined a western outfit, including an enormous gaudy belt buckle, with a turban).

And so Link Byfield’s rebuttal of that article came as a great relief:

Apparently cowboy hats turn off Ontarians in droves.

If true (and we have no reason to doubt it) we can hardly fault the Toronto Sun for telling us. But what does that say about Ontarians?

It tells us they expect us to conform to their tastes because they find ours ridiculous.

It tells us we may not celebrate our history and traditions if we want to be taken seriously on a national level.

Cowboy garb may be a way to celebrate Alberta’s history; it may just be the prerequisite uniform to party during Stampede week. But in assailing this important component of contemporary Albertan culture, the Toronto Sun managed to argue only that Harper should separate himself from his provincial roots.

I doubt that this is an argument that the primary author of the Alberta Agenda will accept. And, if you believe the polls, Canadians’ continued rejection of Harper may result in his returning to those roots faster than the editorialists at the Toronto Sun would believe possible. But that’s fine by me; Canada’s loss would be, in this case, very much Alberta’s gain.