Too bad Heritage Canada didn't invite Neil Young to perform on Parliament Hill on Canada Day

As I was watching some of the televised Canada Day festivities on Parliament Hill, it dawned upon me that this was really an extended advertisement for Stephen Harper.

Nobody had anything controversial to say. The prime minister and his family sat politely in the front row beside the governor general and his wife basking in Canadian music.

Harper talked briefly about how this was the best country in the world to raise a family.

Meanwhile, the economy has contracted in each of the first four months of 2015.

This is largely because Harper bet the farm on the petroleum industry at the expense of tourism, manufacturing, and agriculture. (For more on this, check out Jeff Rubin's new book, The Carbon Bubble.)

As this spectacle unfolded on CBC, I kept wishing that Neil Young would suddenly appear on-stage to deliver some hard truths about the Conservative government's tepid response to climate change.

Who can forget Young's famous comment last year that Harper's regime is "a very poor imitation of the George Bush administration" and "an embarrassment to many Canadians"?

Alas, that wasn't going to happen.

That's because this event was being brought to us by Heritage Canada, which reports directly to Harper. Pity.