I'll Start With You

Maclean's asks and answers the question that has been uppermost in Canadians' minds for years: why do we hate the Canadian Tire guy?

There have been many irritating advertising campaigns in the past, but none have raised the same visceral hatred that Canadian Tire's smooth, middle-aged, middle-class bearded pitchman and his quietly arrogant and condescending display of his garage full of Canadian Tire tools have.

Underneath the facade of the friendly neighbour helping people with their projects lies an overbearing attitude of superiority earned not by anything he's done but from the work of others. He shows off his miracle tools but never lets others actually use them. He keeps his neighbours dependent on his unearned and overrated reputation.

We hate the Canadian Tire guy because he is what we have become as a country: smug, shallow, and self-righteous. He is the perfect embodiment of the Liberal Party's ideal Canadian in general, and the Ontario suburbanite Liberal voterin particular.

When we see the Canadian Tire Guy, we see what we most hate about ourselves.

ADDENDUM: Although The Annekenstein Monster article on the Canadian Tire Guy is nearly a year old, the responses to it had me laughing to the point of tears. "Uglier than a can of smashed assholes" is the crudest, yet most descriptive, comparison I have seen to date in the blogosphere.