Now I recall why I don't watch much TV

Christie Blatchford has a few swats at the Mother Corpse:

First, they congratulated the network (that is, themselves) on the astonishing response the contest got - 20,000 nominations, and a million votes (not that the votes would turn out to matter, because the CBC appointed a panel of three judges to make sure the winners would be geographically balanced and culturally appropriate). Ms. Rogers noted "the passion, the avid, fervent love" so many viewers had shown for the country. It was the first of several times the hosts or judges would mention the "passion" in their most insipid voices, as though by saying something is filled with passion makes it so. And then correspondent Mark Kelley came into view to talk about the judges' task - to narrow down the 15 choices they'd made the night before to the final seven.

"It was a gut-wrenching and soul-searching process," he said.

By this point, Strach and I were in hysterics: The show was already like a parody of Canada and Canadians. "What about AK-47s at Jane and Finch?" Strach yelled. "I bet there are more AKs in this country than there are canoes." [. . .]

Mr. Kelley was soon back to tell us that, "A wonder of its own, seven choices overlapped," but that wasn't the end of it. Ms. Jamieson then gestured to the map of Canada and said, "Look at this vast part of the country we are not touching," she said, and the judges began to do a little horse-trading to up the geographical diversity quotient, with Mr. Kelley intoning, "The judges must make an agonizing choice." Ms. Jamieson had already confessed, the night before, that as a Mohawk woman, "I place a lot of value on the process," meaning the consensus-building la-la-la in which she was now engaging, though I think it fair to say that she ran the show, steered the discussion and appeared to be leading Messrs. MacGregor and McGuire around by the nose.

She looked pretty bossy to me, but I am not a Mohawk woman, so what do I know?

Ah, quality television. [Pause] Wouldn't it be a good idea?