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Miss Universe Canada gets little attention despite record ratings for Miss USA

At the recent Miss USA pageant only two of 51 state beauty queens believed evolution should be taught in schools, including winner Alyssa Campanella of California. More than a week of discussion over this fact has followed.

When it came to the Miss Universe Canada competition the following Saturday in Toronto, though, the only advance media attention related to the fact that Ashleigh Clark of Saskatoon had a prominent tattoo on her back.

But there was no body art to be seen on 20-year-old Chelsae Durocher of Tecumseh, Ont., a student at the nearby University of Windsor who won the opportunity to represent Canada at the global pageant in Sao Paulo, Brazil in September.

And with record TV ratings for the Donald Trump-owned Miss USA, whose winner will also compete for the Miss Universe crown, it would seem pageants are ready for a resurgence.

Nonetheless, attention for Miss Universe Canada was limited. The Windsor Star even needed two extra days to notice a local resident will spend the next year wearing the tiara.

Without some controversy, it would seem a national pageant is no longer considered big enough news.

Two decades have passed since the last time a Canadian network broadcast such a show. CTV gave up on Miss Canada after 1991, due to mounting costs of the 45-year tradition combined with a growing advertiser resistance to the concept.

Since then, reality shows have gained ratings by putting people in far more compromising positions, which made the idea of young women eager to walk down a runway in a bathing suit seem dignified by comparison.

The stories of what motivated the 56 contestants to compete for the Miss Universe Canada title can be intriguing, too. Not many other events in the country incorporate representation from cities large and small, anglophone and francophone, with contestants from across the multicultural spectrum.

Still, notwithstanding Toronto Sun columnist Mike Strobel, who happened to be a judge, the event itself earned minimal coverage.

The lack of attention might have been a blessing, however, compared to the 2010 hopeful who apologized after telling a group of high school students the pageant organizers didn't want the contestants "looking anorexic like an African child with the ribs going on."

Whether or not this year's Miss Universe Canada Chelsae Durocher believes in creationism, though, has so far remained a mystery to the nation she has been elected to represent.