"Canadians don't show much interest in one of their own citizens going to stay in space for 6 months"

Here is a list of the sum total of advertised opportunities for Canadians in the space program:

Canadian Space Agency Announcements of Opportunity

For two of them the deadlines have expired, and for the third only universities and non-profit organizations are eligible to apply. Frankly, when people talk about the so-called space program (imagine the space shuttle, or the hubble telescope), they are referring to the American space program, and NASA only hires American citizens.

We had an astronaut recruitment campaign last summer - it was the first recruitment drive in 25 years and it ran for a whole month from 22 May - 26 June 2008. There was no publicity until the last week or so. They got thousands of applications. Many of the finalists were government employees (Canadian Forces) or university professors.

Ordinary people just aren't included in the process. Most are not highly paid gov't workers or PhD and work hard to pay the bills. Most hate paying taxes and I don't blame them.