In the history of embarrassing publicity stunts, Friday’s decision by the Conservative government to grant Canadian passports to “Santa Claus” and “Mrs. Claus” will surely go down in infamy.
At a ceremony in Vaughan, Ont., Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander presented the magical couple with fancy new ePassports, effectively granting them Canadian citizenship, even though they are fictional characters.
The stunt was ostensibly about the country’s high-tech new documents, which feature a small electronic chip for extra security. All new Canadian passports as of Canada Day have been of the electronic variety, and Santa and his wife (who doesn’t have a first name) were given the “2,999,999th and 3,000,000th” ones, according to a government release.
“Whether you are travelling by car, by boat, or with a team of flying reindeer, Canada’s ePassport is the most convenient and safe way to go,” said Alexander, a government minister and an adult.
The timing of the passport ceremony could be coincidence, but it comes mere weeks after the federal government staked a claim to the North Pole despite not having the science to back it up. The Conservatives even used the issue to attack Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau for not being sufficiently belligerent about the country’s territorial claims.
“All of a sudden the Liberals are suggesting that Santa Claus is no longer Canadian and that they would abandon the North Pole and abandon Santa Claus,” Paul Calandra, Stephen Harper’s Parliamentary Secretary, said in Question Period.
Russia and Denmark (through Greenland) also claim the North Pole for themselves as part of an international scramble for arctic resources. In 2007, a Russian submarine even placed a flag on the ocean floor at the North Pole, because Vladimir Putin.
About a fifth of the world’s remaining oil and gas deposits are thought to be under arctic waters, with thinning ice due to climate change making those resources more attainable than ever before.
Will Russia retaliate by giving Santa a Russian passport? Only time will tell.
UPDATE: This 2008 story about then-Immigration Minister Jason Kenney granting Santa Claus Canadian citizenship is eerily familiar. It seems the Santa-is-Canadian stunt is not only silly, but also unoriginal.
