The Christmas pageant is usually a highlight of the year for a school.
It’s a chance for students to showcase their talents while singing, dancing and acting, and there’s usually a packed house with parents and many other spectators.
Most of these Christmas concerts, at least in the public school system, will focus on something related to Santa Claus or the reindeer or the elves, rather than delving into the more religious elements of Christmas. (That’s another debate for another time). But regardless, these concerts should be fun and relatively light-hearted productions.
Oxbow Prairie Horizons School thought they had one of these shows with Santa Goes Green. The promotional material for 35-minute musical shares its concerns with melting ice caps, global warming and surfing reindeer, and how everyone at the North Pole was going to counteract these problems by going green. But first Santa Claus has to be won over.
It seemed a little innocuous at first – a play that encourages young people to be environmentally responsible and to think about issues affecting the planet.
But when the play started, you saw penguins acting as protesters, with one of them holding a sign saying “alternative power rocks!” A line in a song saying “We’re going to turn off the pump,” and have a sleigh that runs like a Prius. Another line in the musical says the price of oil would be the only thing that can ruin Christmas.
You had to know that people in the crowd weren’t going to be happy, and justifiably so.
The story drew so much attention that the Beaverton – the national satirical online and television program – went after the story. I’m a big fan of the Beaverton; they do some brilliant stuff along the lines of This Hour has 22 Minutes and Royal Canadian Air Farce. But this time, it read like city folks cluelessly ragging on rural life and the industries that often play such a big role.
The ironic part is the social media backlash didn’t start until after a post the following afternoon, more than 24 hours after the initial performance was completed. But once one person did criticize Santa Goes Green, then it ignited the fury of local residents, with more than 500 shares of the initial post within 72 hours.
Some of the comments were anger. Some called it a propaganda piece. Others threatened to pull their children from the school or called to have the people responsible for the production fired. It was the types of comments you would expect from social media keyboard warriors in 2019.
I’m all for teaching kids how to be more environmentally responsible and to recycle and to think of ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a practical fashion. But I’m also a big fan of pragmatism, a trait Santa Goes Green seemed to be lacking.
The school should have paid attention to the entire script. Once you see the script even faintly hints at keeping oil in the ground or completely abandoning coal-fired power, it’s time to find a different show.
At this time, when so many people are struggling in the energy sector, and we’re facing an uncertain future with coal-fired power, it’s out of touch to present a play that takes a negative view on the energy resources in this region.
At the same time, I wonder why it took so long for someone to pipe up about this show. Nobody was complaining publicly about the production at first. But once one person commented online, it opened the floodgates.
Most teachers I’ve dealt with, both in the public and the Catholic school system, are great. They’re open-minded and want what’s best for students. I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with the principal of Oxbow Prairie Horizons and a few of the teachers as well.
They’re fine people. But a few of them made an error in judgement.
It’s unfortunate that the school’s administration and the school division were forced to put out this fire when they should have been their Christmas holidays, and that the school division has had to answer calls for something they really had nothing to do with.
Ultimately, we need to remember that we need oil and gas. We need carbon capture and storage using coal. We need a healthy and buoyant energy sector. What’s good for oil and gas is good for the economy, not just in Saskatchewan, but in Canada.
We need children to think about how they can be environmentally responsible, and we need to teach them the benefits of oil and gas, and how energy companies are doing their part to reduce emissions and create a healthier planet.
And we need to take reasonable and realistic steps to reduce emissions and ensure a healthier environment. Use wind and solar as complementary power sources; at this time, they are not options for baseload power.
This is a learning experience for South East Cornerstone and other school divisions, but they shouldn’t have had to have this experience to begin with. If you’re in oil and gas country, don’t have a show that maligns oil and gas. If you’re in a farming community, don’t have a show that questions farming practices.
If you’re on Vancouver Island, then don’t have a Christmas production that rips into the environmental movement.
Make sure the content suits the age of the performers and the location. Do the due diligence.
It can save a lot of grief in the end.
