Canadian Navy Dissed

CBS TV new's reporter Sheila MacVicar filed a story on Friday about global efforts to clamp down on pirates in the Arabian Gulf.

"Japanese, American, French - this is an enormous international effort aimed at thwarting piracy."

She mentioned how American, Italian, Chinese and French ships were cooperating to fight piracy and recounted the story of how an American ship and an Italian helicopter thwarted an attempted kidnapping.

While she was narrating, video was shown of what appeared to be the war ship and it's crew, in action against the pirates, as well as an armed raiding party in a small boat, confronting the pirates directly.

Everything about the video struck me as odd. Very odd.



The ship, the crew, the helicopter and the boarding party were clearly Canadian, I instantly recognized the distinctive blue shirts of the seamen.
The actions depicted on film were completely unrelated to the story, but that's not the impression that the story gave.

In fact MacVicar who was born in Montreal and graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, never mentioned the word Canada in her story at all, when it was clear that she was embedded on a Canadian ship.

At the end of the story, she finally mentioned that she was aboard the HMCS Winnipeg, but again failed to mention that it was a Canadian ship. Few people, even Canadians know that HMCS stands for 'Her Majesty's Canadian Ship'

How strange to omit mentioning the Canadian Navy in the story, considering that she was their guest?