Canada is the product of late Victorian liberal idealism by design. In the face of the growing prosperity and the US Civil War, the Maritimes, Upper & Lower Canada decided they would rather have control of their futures than let Washington DC dictate it. But to build a country with two distinctl…
Canada is the product of late Victorian liberal idealism by design. In the face of the growing prosperity and the US Civil War, the Maritimes, Upper & Lower Canada decided they would rather have control of their futures than let Washington DC dictate it. But to build a country with two distinctly different societies was going to be a challenge. Historically, the English and the French have not gotten along.
So Confederation was their answer to the challenges they faced. They also needed to claim Rupert’s Land before the US did. Ambitious goal to build a railway to the Pacific. But they did it. And we have been doing that ever since.
We live in a climate that will kill the unprepared and careless. Recent fatalities of people trying to cross into the U.S. and amputations from attempts to enter Canada are harsh reminders. So even if you don’t like your neighbour, you check on them after a blizzard, or help sandbag when there is a flood, and go back to being annoyed after. You step up and volunteer to help like in Gander NLD. Now not everyone is like this, but enough of us are like that.
We play hard. Hockey and lacrosse are part of our competitive DNA. On the Prairies, the guys still get together on a Saturday, dump a case of beer in the snow bank and play until someone loses a tooth. Then they drink their beer and agree to meet same place next week, weather permitting. And hard play means we work hard too.
Now culturally, we have long cold winters, and with immigrants not being forcibly assimilated, the food, the music, and the languages get fused into something new. Music and the Arts here have created global stars, and the US cultural factories crave more and more from us.
With national level TV pre-internet, we saw ourselves in a clear reflection. Now we don’t see as clear a reflection, but we see ourselves clearly enough as being different and distinct in the world. We accept that our neighbours may be recent immigrants from the other side of the world. My own heritage is European: one side arrived in the 1780’s, and the other in the 1950’s. We are all blended together with one thing in common: we know how lucky we are to be here.
At a national level, I’ve met people from BC to NS and had the privilege of travelling from coast to coast. (Still haven’t made it to Nunavut yet.) no matter where I travel in Canada, the attitude that drives our behaviour is that we can be nice to strangers, and we don’t need to fear strangers. Call it compassion. Our government is meant to provide ‘Peace, Order, and Good Government’, and allot of our collective behaviour stems from that imperative.
13 provinces and many First Nations act like a big unruly family, but we are a family. There will be many who believe we aren’t, but we are. We know we aren’t prefect, but when someone picks on your family, we stand together. Two World Wars showed us just how powerful a family we are together.
We are Canadian means a pretty big concept.
Canada is the product of late Victorian liberal idealism by design. In the face of the growing prosperity and the US Civil War, the Maritimes, Upper & Lower Canada decided they would rather have control of their futures than let Washington DC dictate it. But to build a country with two distinctly different societies was going to be a challenge. Historically, the English and the French have not gotten along.
So Confederation was their answer to the challenges they faced. They also needed to claim Rupert’s Land before the US did. Ambitious goal to build a railway to the Pacific. But they did it. And we have been doing that ever since.
We live in a climate that will kill the unprepared and careless. Recent fatalities of people trying to cross into the U.S. and amputations from attempts to enter Canada are harsh reminders. So even if you don’t like your neighbour, you check on them after a blizzard, or help sandbag when there is a flood, and go back to being annoyed after. You step up and volunteer to help like in Gander NLD. Now not everyone is like this, but enough of us are like that.
We play hard. Hockey and lacrosse are part of our competitive DNA. On the Prairies, the guys still get together on a Saturday, dump a case of beer in the snow bank and play until someone loses a tooth. Then they drink their beer and agree to meet same place next week, weather permitting. And hard play means we work hard too.
Now culturally, we have long cold winters, and with immigrants not being forcibly assimilated, the food, the music, and the languages get fused into something new. Music and the Arts here have created global stars, and the US cultural factories crave more and more from us.
With national level TV pre-internet, we saw ourselves in a clear reflection. Now we don’t see as clear a reflection, but we see ourselves clearly enough as being different and distinct in the world. We accept that our neighbours may be recent immigrants from the other side of the world. My own heritage is European: one side arrived in the 1780’s, and the other in the 1950’s. We are all blended together with one thing in common: we know how lucky we are to be here.
At a national level, I’ve met people from BC to NS and had the privilege of travelling from coast to coast. (Still haven’t made it to Nunavut yet.) no matter where I travel in Canada, the attitude that drives our behaviour is that we can be nice to strangers, and we don’t need to fear strangers. Call it compassion. Our government is meant to provide ‘Peace, Order, and Good Government’, and allot of our collective behaviour stems from that imperative.
13 provinces and many First Nations act like a big unruly family, but we are a family. There will be many who believe we aren’t, but we are. We know we aren’t prefect, but when someone picks on your family, we stand together. Two World Wars showed us just how powerful a family we are together.
We remember ourselves: Nous nous souviendrons.
We are Canadian.