There was a staged Conservative attack on Thursday on whether Canada’s study guide for citizenship exams should retain a warning against female genital mutilation.

When I say “staged,” I meant “a high school play level of acting,” the equivalent of a Christmas pantomime with facial expressions stretched to snapping point. It was the political version of the panto guy in the lime green clown suit putting his hands on his hips and terrifying the minion who scurries away with a little bucket.

It all took place in a House of Commons committee meeting. As the Globe and Mail reported, the Conservative immigration critic (in every sense of the word) Michelle Rempel said The Canadian Press had seen a draft guide back in July that no longer contained the advice that FGM is a crime.

Now the government’s Discover Canada guide is a drab dated thing ripe for renovation. In its pages, no Canadian woman has ever invented anything, though they enjoy tobogganing, cuddling and walking on streets and bridges.

Overwhelmingly male, it ignores Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro in favour of writers like Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, and is so outdoorsy that you’d be forgiven for thinking Canada has no cities.

True, removing the old warning against “barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation, forced marriage or other gender-based violence” would seem odd and wrong for a Liberal government devoted to women’s rights. But Ahmed Hussen, Minister for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, responded that nothing had been removed, they were working on a new draft guide and would consult to the nines, there was no deadline and no story, no cunning plan.

And the story faded to grey, which is precisely when it lit up for me.

We want new immigrants to fit in. But do we really? Shouldn’t they be encouraged to be a good influence on the rest of us? Do I want more Canadians who drop their cigarette butts on the sidewalk? Who leave buses by the front door despite the sign saying “Please leave by the rear doors?” The bus driver gave up long ago but I will never yield.

What is the most important thing a Canadian can do in the winter? That’s right, layer. I don’t mean wearing one collared shirt over another collared shirt like the white-rightist American Steve Bannon, the one with the hygiene problem. I guess Nazis layered up like this in the siege of Stalingrad but possibly not thickly enough, and Bannon has a plan.

No, I mean wearing a T-shirt under a waffle-weave under a sweater under a parka. I do not understand why they don’t have coat checks in malls — who shops hot? — and new Canadians might want to lobby for that. Tell us it’s uncivilized.

Canadians form little gangs. It’s not by race or house price, it’s more of a liquid problem. There is an anxious group of us with a habit of decrying the fluid intake of fancy-pants city people. All Canadians drink water, coffee, beer, or mixed drinks but this group sees a malign message, an insult in the choice.

They deplore people “sipping wine, cocktails and skinny lattes.” Opposition leader Andrew Scheer, schlumping along in a TV ad, actually defined his kind of people by their unwillingness to drink cocktails. What? He’s never had a Bacardi and coke? I sure have.

To avoid these subterranean rifts, the new Discover Canada guide should warn immigrants, “Best not to drink at all but if you do, gulp your wine, chug your cocktails and as for coffee, buy it at a Tim Hortons where it will taste just plain terrible but you will be among the volk, so to speak.

Or you could to go Starbucks and have some fun with Scheer. “I’ll have a Grande, Quad, Nonfat, One-Pump, No-Whip, Mocha. No, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll have a Venti Iced Skinny Hazelnut Macchiato, Sugar-Free Syrup, Extra Shot, Light Ice, No Whip.”

There are so many reparable things in Canada but so many splendours too: sex education in schools, Niagara Falls, ice melter, sheepskin slippers, not being American.

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Our catchphrases are good too: “Keep your stick on the ice.” “My surgery is free?” “I hate Rogers Cable.” “Really? I hate Bell.” You can really bond over stuff like this and then you become a real Canadian. We like you, here on Turtle Island.

hmallick@thestar.ca