Unless the Harper government finally does what it said it would do, Governor General David Johnston may be the last white man with any standing in the federal bureaucracy.
I remember causing quite a stir among liberals when I wrote a national editorial for Sun Media congratulating Harper for appointing an “old white guy” as governor-general when all federal hiring ads made it quite clear that white men need not apply.
You’d think I had called the saintly Mother Teresa an infidel, or worse.
For the last fews years, many of us were under the impression that shortly after that editorial went to print, then Treasury Board president Stockwell Day told the Commons that he had ordered the end of the “affirmative” action program that gave preference in the federal bureacracy to those who are bilingual — preferably francophone, of course — or persons of colour, disability or of aboriginal descent.
But we were conned.
Apparently it takes a change in legislation to make merit trump special interest, and no legislation was ever tabled.
So forget about it. Even if you are white and bilingual, you’d best have another tick on your chart.
White only? Forget about it.

Back on Family Day, before heading back to Toronto, I pulled into the Tim Hortons out on Highway 28 for an extra-large, cream only.
Please, don’t tell Saidie at the Eagle’s Nest. Mike McCaskie and I have a pact.
Anyhow, I get to the wicket, and there is young woman, maybe a high-school student, with a smile as big as barn door. “It’s roll up the rim day,” she beamed. And she was beaming.
This is now much Tim Hortons has moved itself into the Canadian psyche. To this young Tim Hortons employee, the first day of the “roll of up the rim” campaign meant that spring just around the corner.
This is what she told me.
And she was excited about it.
Me? The first sign of spring was always the sighting of the first robin, or the catchers and pitchers heading to Florida to begin spring training for major league baseball or, if you want to stretch it, Groundhog Dog if he doesn’t see his shadow.
But it has never been the first day of Tim Hortons roll up the rim campaign.
Perhaps it was a good omen, but the very first coffee I bought on the very first day of roll up the rim won me a free coffee.
But no guarantee of an early spring.