[potsie]

I see it more as a take on a type of masculinity. The 'Canadian' angle is secondary to this IMHO - the type of man in question being one he's associating with a certain kind of Canadian.

Agreed. I'm paraphrasing from memory, but Gord said the term "Hard Canadian" was used by Trailer Park Boys' creator Mike Clattenburg -- a term used to mean Hardcore Canadian...as is, "Have you met Ricky and Julian? Those boys are hard Canadian." I think Gord just liked sound of that term -- and he used it as the character's name in his song. Here, it's not about a hardcore Canadian - with all the stereotypes embedded in that, more so it's about a guy (or type of guy) who is just an asshole. The fact he's "Canadian" is a nice subversion of the stereotype that Canadians are nice, polite people. Such a maligant fella, this hard Canadian:

I agree with what you're saying here. I phrased the Hard Canadian as being a contrast to the archetypal Canadian and you more accurately phrased it as subverting the Canadian stereotype. As such I think "Canadian" is absolutely integral to the song. I don't believe it's secondary, and in fact without that descriptor the song loses it's duality. The general press likely added "Hard Canadian" to the (mistakenly) lengthy list of Gord's patriotic lyrics ("Look, he mentioned Canada!) but once again he is not holding red and white pom-poms. He loves his country but he's not bursting with nationalism. He's suggesting that there are assholes in this country as well, and this applies nicely to Harper but whether it was truly written about him will likely remain undetermined.

There is a video of him introducing the song at a show in 2011 where he seems on the verge of stating whom the song is about, but before rushing in he pauses to carefully chose his words and in doing so ends up being a bit more vague.

[youtube]ekOC2Z2bnbk[/youtube]