In the midst of the ongoing media circus surrounding Rob Ford and the closely watched Senate reform hearings, few Canadians likely noticed the literary scandal that occurred on Wednesday with the announcement of the winners of the 2013 Governor General’s Literary Awards.

Eleanor Catton, who left Canada at the age of 6, and so never grew up here, or schooled here, or experienced any of this country’s life, landscapes or crises, swooped back into the country 22 years later to claim the country’s top English-language fiction prize for her novel The Luminaries .

Why? Because writers don’t have to be residents to claim the country’s oldest and most prestigious literary award, only citizens.

I‘m sure the Canada Council never envisioned such an outcome, although they explicitly state in their explanation of eligibility rules that the writer “not need to be residing in Canada.” Nor do I think the judges were in collusion regarding their choice.

But had this scandal occurred in any other sphere of Canadian life, there would have been swift and considerable backlash. Think of Michael Ignatieff’s tar and feathering for having tried to run for Prime Minister after having lived outside Canada for so long. Or the unprecedented public outcry over whether or not senators Wallin, Duffy and Brazeau resided in the province they are supposed to represent.

I am fairly certain no one will be picketing outside the Canada Council office in the coming weeks, nor any reporters investigating how and why such a national scandal could have ever occurred. Because when it comes to Canadian literature, the educational and major cultural institutions of this country simply don‘t care if our writers live here, work here, or create here.

Don’t believe me?

How else can we explain that the majority of our provincial book awards include residency in their eligibility criterion while the Giller, the GGLAs, and the Griffin Poetry Prize do not? How else can we explain the dearth of Canadian literature taught in our schools? How else can we explain Jean Baird’s needing several years of lobbying and a large petition of signatures to get the government of British Columbia to make Canadian literature a mandatory course for students graduating from high school – and that the majority of our provinces are still without such legislation?

If that wasn’t enough rubbing salt on the wound, in her acceptance speech for having won the Govenor-General’s Award for Non-Fiction, Canadian writer and critic Sandra Djwa talked about how difficult it was to find a publisher for her biography of P.K. Page, one of Canada’s greatest poets of the 20th century. I’m sure if Catton ever writes a biography of a U.S. or Australian writer, she’ll have no trouble finding a publisher in this country.

What makes this event even more tragic is that just last month the Nobel Prize for literature went to Alice Munro, a writer who spent her entire life here, and wrote about here, and helped us better understand ourselves as Canadians. You see, that is the gift storytellers bring to their fellow citizens, a sense of community, of shared experience, of common identity.

Ironically, it was the rest of the world who understood this fundamental part of the writer’s role in nation-building and consequently rewarded Munro for her contribution. Who did Canada award for our country’s top literary prize this year? A New Zealander.

Next winter the Canada Council is holding a national forum on “the future of Canadian literature.” If we don’t start putting Canadian literature and its literary residents first, we won’t need a second forum.

Thomas Hodd fights for Canadian cultural identity and is an assistant professor of Canadian literature in the English department of the Université de Moncton.

Correction - November 15, 2013: This article was edited from a previous version that misspelled Jean Baird's surname.

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