I enjoyed much of this essay, but respectfully disagree that Canada was based on institutions. Institutions organized us, but we were founded on a shared vision of accommodation, bringing together historic enemies -- English and French, Protestants and Catholics -- in a way the Old World had never managed. That has been our template ever since and is why, despite our various failures to live up to our ideals, we have become the most diverse, inclusive, and welcoming country in the world, something obvious to anyone who has travelled abroad.
The implosion in national pride since 2017 is thanks entirely to a federal government and prime minister that chose to present us to ourselves and the world as a racist, genocidal hellhole from which only the reigning party and our former PM could save us. This destructive spell ended with the re-election of Trump, when we had a chance to see what a real racist hellhole looked like, and when our national scold was replaced by a prime minister who cheered our accomplishments.
Today, as before, we recognize when we have failed and make good faith attempts at correction, while rejecting the endlessly negative mantra of "decolonization", proud to have inherited parliamentary democracy; responsible government; universities with liberal traditions of open enquiry and advanced programs in arts, science, architecture, etc; a justice system rooted in English and French common law; a precise system of weights and measures; and a tradition of welcoming others to join us.
Canada is home both to Indigenous peoples, to peoples from elsewhere who have been well and truly Settled for nearly half a millennia, and to peoples who have settled here, past tense, ever since.
The greatest of JTs many sins and failings was to begin degrading and discarding our national symbols and our histories, substituting them with the ill conceived and unrealistic strategy that "sunny ways" and "economic environmental suicide" would give us sustainable society and by referring to the country he allegedly "led" as a "post-national" entity.
His unseriousness and immature elitism led us a long way down. Interesting that the thing pulling us up is an asshole neighbour and a maybe over serious PM
Happy Canada Day 🇨🇦 for at least another 159 years!
Extremely well said, Allan, and thank you. I would add only that our recovery as a people from the corrosive Trudeau years says more about our resilience and innate sense of ourselves as a nation than anything else ever could.
Ask most people who say they are proud to be Canadian what "Canadian" means, and they will come up with either "not American" or various pieces of left bureaucracy.
That's because the actual fact, that Canadians are a binational people, and that many many people with paperwork that says they are "Canadian" are in fact not, is something we can't honestly discuss.
That's the received wisdom, but that's not my experience. I think the received wisdom is just plain wrong.
People I know talk about freedom, cooperative, peaceful and cooperative attitudes to other countries, our liberal values and our sense of social responsibility that no one gets left behind.
'Not American' is part of our history. 250 years ago there were a large number of people who didn't want to be part of the new United States who moved north. What was the impetus for building a railway to what's now B.C.?
Being 'Not American' isn't necessarily a negative thing :-)
A lot of peoples are not American. If that's all we have, we don't have much.
And why did those people not want to be part of the US? They didn't all of a sudden dislike their neighbours. They had positive reasons for doing what they did.
The binational lie is part of the problem. Andrew hit the nail on the head with "Canadian nationhood was never built on a shared history, or language, or ethnicity".
I sometimes question if the people who criticize Canada’s lack of identity the most are the people who haven’t spent enough time in another country to understand that national identity is a very loose collective of things but the common thing that holds a country together is actually brig a part of the same country. The shared politics, processes, and cultural norms. I think it’s actually that simple.
Look at the Us - you could say a belief in capitalism, or independent spirit, or many other things. But at its core - people in the US are as diverse as people in Canada. In many ways the search for a clear and easily communicated national identity seems to be a uniquely Canadian project. Even if you zoom in to a provincial level, you can’t define Albertans broadly either. Even at a town or city level there is variation - geographical location is actually the determining factor unless someone is temporarily present from another country they identify more strongly with. Otherwise? Maybe we’ve spent too long looking at our collective belly buttons and searching for an acceptable definition rather than living like we care about the country we’re part of.
I think Andrew is approaching the root of the problem. He is absolutely correct in "Canadian nationhood was never built on a shared history, or language, or ethnicity". He is also correct in identifying the need for strong institutions. The problem is that Canadian institutions have never been fit for purpose. They seem intentionally constructed to evade accountability while pushing a Laurentian normative history, language and ethnicity (ex. binationalism, Anti-Americanism).
A good first step in building a stronger nation would be for the Feds to agressively encourage free movement of people, goods, services and capital to build a shared sense of prosperity. That would entail the hard work of ending provincial favoritism around procurement, requiring complete recognition of credentials across all provinces eliminating all barriers to inter provincial infrastructure.
I suggest the very messiness you talk about is what distinguishes 1980s Canada from today. We are aware of our struggles as a nation, across all 13 provinces, and territories. We are trying to be accountable and transparent about needing to reconcile past transgressions. Today I am pleased to live in Alberta and reclaim the maple leaf. I just wish my province better understood its powers under the Constitution and UCP separatists realized poor healthcare and education services fall entirely under UCP decisions making and not the Federal government’s, even if they try to blame immigrants. Alberta has been a significant user of temporary foreign workers. Why wouldn’t they want to stay after getting a chance to be here. We need nation building now that is both about infrastructure and building respectful and welcoming communities.
The Province does recognize its jurisdiction and needs to usurp all management of healthcare from the Feds. That would mean diminishing the Canada Health Act to only the principal of portability, using the NWC to invalidate the right to strike and replacing health and education transfers from the Feds with direct taxation to the Provinces (ex. reduce federal rates and have have provinces pick up the room). One of the problems with Canadian institutions is that they are unaccountable. Keeping the two orders of government in their lanes would be major progress.
In my experience, many Canadians are all over the map. And, save for July 1st, most of us put about as much effort into thinking about what it means to be Canadian as we do into figuring out the best route home at rush hour.
The country only occasionally feels truly unified—usually when something happens that affects everyone, like the “elbows up” parade. We were unified in ’72 like almost nothing else in my 58 years: Paul Henderson’s goal is a fixed point in time, as the traveling doctor would say. We were unified again in ’76 because, hello, Canada was hosting the Summer Games. We even ran a national lottery to help pay for it.
Sadly, the Big O fell into disrepair, and that feels a lot like Canada at the moment. For reasons known only to ourselves, the country has allowed itself to slide into structural decay. Our political system makes real change impossible without, say, a referendum, while power in this country ultimately rests with the GTA, Montreal, and Ottawa.
I honestly don't have a clue how we fix this as a people. Forget about the idiots we send to Ottawa. They are part of the problem.
We are, as a people, region first. Nation second. (Unless we are playing the Russians in 1972 or hitching a ride into outer space with our friendly American neighbors.)
What might unify us?
A new NHL Commissioner
Hating the Leafs, unless you’re a Leafs fan, in which case hating them even more.
Correcting Americans when they say Canada is basically the same place.
Complaining about winter like it was personally invented to punish us.
Defending public health care while waiting half a day to see a doctor.
Treating Tim Hortons as a national treasure while insisting it used to be better.
Taking our shoes off at the door like it is written in the Constitution.
Saying “sorry” when someone else bumps into us.
Becoming instantly patriotic during hockey, the Olympics, or both.
Uniting for brief, beautiful moments when we beat the Russians or mildly annoy the Americans.
😢for you today. Maybe get involved in a cause or community where you can feel you make a difference for others? Connections are what creat community and a sense of belonging.
“To the extent we thought about Alberta at all… “ is a very telling comment (you could substitute Western Canada) and is still very much a part of the eastern Canadian ethos which does so much to explain the current divisions in Canada.
Right on, Peter. I immigrated to Ottawa in ‘77 and lived there for five years before moving to Alberta. Ottawans at that time referred to anywhere beyond Bells Corners as ‘out West’, with just a hint of a sneer. Every time my wife and I returned to the capital our family and friends treated us as if we were home from an arduous exile from civilization.
Forty-plus years later and that really hasn’t changed. Which is a pity.
With the focus on the Alberta referendum, I can share personal experience having grown up between Alberta and the US.
Canada seems abstract in Calgary. The only exposure to the federal government is in Banff or at the airport. The Stampede eclipses Canada Day. Ottawa might as well be on Mars. Occasionally Mars attacks with measures like the NEP or regulatory barriers. Sure, Calgary is somewhat of an anomaly as it a post modern city built on ambition rather than institutions but the Federal government's historical neglect exists throughout Alberta.
The US does a much better job of building a shared national pride built on actual accomplishment: the relentless western expansion, military victories, technological prowess and economic supremacy. More importantly, living there I experienced tangible progress delivered by the federal government: the Interstate Highway network, the cost benefits from the scale of interstate commerce, job opportunities enabled by robust private sector capital.
I’m proud to be a Canadian. I’m proud to be a Nova Scotian. I’m proud to be a Cape Bretoner. I don’t need to explain it- I just am.
“ We are an Island, a rock in a stream. We are people as proud as there’s been- in warm summer breeze or in wild winter wind the home of my heart Cape Breton”.
When you share values, you can survive political disagreement. In fact, under the former circumstance, the latter can be quite healthy, even essential.
Great day for our you g generation, kudos to them all for raising our national pride from a previous 34%
Not so great for some of us doing our best to provide the life we had to our children.
May they find the same happiness as we had raising our children and enjoying life.
Tough to place our current situation on Trump… not a fan… Our PM JT did us tons of harm. The two combined had created division and a terrible future for our next generations.
I enjoyed much of this essay, but respectfully disagree that Canada was based on institutions. Institutions organized us, but we were founded on a shared vision of accommodation, bringing together historic enemies -- English and French, Protestants and Catholics -- in a way the Old World had never managed. That has been our template ever since and is why, despite our various failures to live up to our ideals, we have become the most diverse, inclusive, and welcoming country in the world, something obvious to anyone who has travelled abroad.
The implosion in national pride since 2017 is thanks entirely to a federal government and prime minister that chose to present us to ourselves and the world as a racist, genocidal hellhole from which only the reigning party and our former PM could save us. This destructive spell ended with the re-election of Trump, when we had a chance to see what a real racist hellhole looked like, and when our national scold was replaced by a prime minister who cheered our accomplishments.
Today, as before, we recognize when we have failed and make good faith attempts at correction, while rejecting the endlessly negative mantra of "decolonization", proud to have inherited parliamentary democracy; responsible government; universities with liberal traditions of open enquiry and advanced programs in arts, science, architecture, etc; a justice system rooted in English and French common law; a precise system of weights and measures; and a tradition of welcoming others to join us.
Canada is home both to Indigenous peoples, to peoples from elsewhere who have been well and truly Settled for nearly half a millennia, and to peoples who have settled here, past tense, ever since.
The greatest of JTs many sins and failings was to begin degrading and discarding our national symbols and our histories, substituting them with the ill conceived and unrealistic strategy that "sunny ways" and "economic environmental suicide" would give us sustainable society and by referring to the country he allegedly "led" as a "post-national" entity.
His unseriousness and immature elitism led us a long way down. Interesting that the thing pulling us up is an asshole neighbour and a maybe over serious PM
Happy Canada Day 🇨🇦 for at least another 159 years!
The Liberal Party is Canada. Why would the country need other symbols?
🤣😉
Extremely well said, Allan, and thank you. I would add only that our recovery as a people from the corrosive Trudeau years says more about our resilience and innate sense of ourselves as a nation than anything else ever could.
Ask most people who say they are proud to be Canadian what "Canadian" means, and they will come up with either "not American" or various pieces of left bureaucracy.
That's because the actual fact, that Canadians are a binational people, and that many many people with paperwork that says they are "Canadian" are in fact not, is something we can't honestly discuss.
Yet.
Happy Dominion Day! ( Psalm 72 )
That's the received wisdom, but that's not my experience. I think the received wisdom is just plain wrong.
People I know talk about freedom, cooperative, peaceful and cooperative attitudes to other countries, our liberal values and our sense of social responsibility that no one gets left behind.
He's just wrong. As a nice liberal GenX, he has to pretend that Canadians, as a nation, don't exist.
And so, here we are.
Now now… don’t be trash talking genX. We might need to put the millennials in their place. 😏
'Not American' is part of our history. 250 years ago there were a large number of people who didn't want to be part of the new United States who moved north. What was the impetus for building a railway to what's now B.C.?
Being 'Not American' isn't necessarily a negative thing :-)
A lot of peoples are not American. If that's all we have, we don't have much.
And why did those people not want to be part of the US? They didn't all of a sudden dislike their neighbours. They had positive reasons for doing what they did.
The binational lie is part of the problem. Andrew hit the nail on the head with "Canadian nationhood was never built on a shared history, or language, or ethnicity".
I sometimes question if the people who criticize Canada’s lack of identity the most are the people who haven’t spent enough time in another country to understand that national identity is a very loose collective of things but the common thing that holds a country together is actually brig a part of the same country. The shared politics, processes, and cultural norms. I think it’s actually that simple.
Look at the Us - you could say a belief in capitalism, or independent spirit, or many other things. But at its core - people in the US are as diverse as people in Canada. In many ways the search for a clear and easily communicated national identity seems to be a uniquely Canadian project. Even if you zoom in to a provincial level, you can’t define Albertans broadly either. Even at a town or city level there is variation - geographical location is actually the determining factor unless someone is temporarily present from another country they identify more strongly with. Otherwise? Maybe we’ve spent too long looking at our collective belly buttons and searching for an acceptable definition rather than living like we care about the country we’re part of.
Good to hear Ottawa hasn’t change! :-) OK, OK just kidding Andrew. Happy Canada Day
I think Andrew is approaching the root of the problem. He is absolutely correct in "Canadian nationhood was never built on a shared history, or language, or ethnicity". He is also correct in identifying the need for strong institutions. The problem is that Canadian institutions have never been fit for purpose. They seem intentionally constructed to evade accountability while pushing a Laurentian normative history, language and ethnicity (ex. binationalism, Anti-Americanism).
A good first step in building a stronger nation would be for the Feds to agressively encourage free movement of people, goods, services and capital to build a shared sense of prosperity. That would entail the hard work of ending provincial favoritism around procurement, requiring complete recognition of credentials across all provinces eliminating all barriers to inter provincial infrastructure.
I suggest the very messiness you talk about is what distinguishes 1980s Canada from today. We are aware of our struggles as a nation, across all 13 provinces, and territories. We are trying to be accountable and transparent about needing to reconcile past transgressions. Today I am pleased to live in Alberta and reclaim the maple leaf. I just wish my province better understood its powers under the Constitution and UCP separatists realized poor healthcare and education services fall entirely under UCP decisions making and not the Federal government’s, even if they try to blame immigrants. Alberta has been a significant user of temporary foreign workers. Why wouldn’t they want to stay after getting a chance to be here. We need nation building now that is both about infrastructure and building respectful and welcoming communities.
The Province does recognize its jurisdiction and needs to usurp all management of healthcare from the Feds. That would mean diminishing the Canada Health Act to only the principal of portability, using the NWC to invalidate the right to strike and replacing health and education transfers from the Feds with direct taxation to the Provinces (ex. reduce federal rates and have have provinces pick up the room). One of the problems with Canadian institutions is that they are unaccountable. Keeping the two orders of government in their lanes would be major progress.
In my experience, many Canadians are all over the map. And, save for July 1st, most of us put about as much effort into thinking about what it means to be Canadian as we do into figuring out the best route home at rush hour.
The country only occasionally feels truly unified—usually when something happens that affects everyone, like the “elbows up” parade. We were unified in ’72 like almost nothing else in my 58 years: Paul Henderson’s goal is a fixed point in time, as the traveling doctor would say. We were unified again in ’76 because, hello, Canada was hosting the Summer Games. We even ran a national lottery to help pay for it.
Sadly, the Big O fell into disrepair, and that feels a lot like Canada at the moment. For reasons known only to ourselves, the country has allowed itself to slide into structural decay. Our political system makes real change impossible without, say, a referendum, while power in this country ultimately rests with the GTA, Montreal, and Ottawa.
I honestly don't have a clue how we fix this as a people. Forget about the idiots we send to Ottawa. They are part of the problem.
We are, as a people, region first. Nation second. (Unless we are playing the Russians in 1972 or hitching a ride into outer space with our friendly American neighbors.)
What might unify us?
A new NHL Commissioner
Hating the Leafs, unless you’re a Leafs fan, in which case hating them even more.
Correcting Americans when they say Canada is basically the same place.
Complaining about winter like it was personally invented to punish us.
Defending public health care while waiting half a day to see a doctor.
Treating Tim Hortons as a national treasure while insisting it used to be better.
Taking our shoes off at the door like it is written in the Constitution.
Saying “sorry” when someone else bumps into us.
Becoming instantly patriotic during hockey, the Olympics, or both.
Uniting for brief, beautiful moments when we beat the Russians or mildly annoy the Americans.
Outside of this, I got nothing. What's your list?
The Freedom Convoy. It unified us into two groups, but what could be more Canadian than that?
The freedom convoy would never have happened under another PM, I think.
Neither would taking the performative knee at the unproven site of mass graves
It does feel like we've been played.really
Loyalty is our strength.
And our weakness.
😢for you today. Maybe get involved in a cause or community where you can feel you make a difference for others? Connections are what creat community and a sense of belonging.
“To the extent we thought about Alberta at all… “ is a very telling comment (you could substitute Western Canada) and is still very much a part of the eastern Canadian ethos which does so much to explain the current divisions in Canada.
Right on, Peter. I immigrated to Ottawa in ‘77 and lived there for five years before moving to Alberta. Ottawans at that time referred to anywhere beyond Bells Corners as ‘out West’, with just a hint of a sneer. Every time my wife and I returned to the capital our family and friends treated us as if we were home from an arduous exile from civilization.
Forty-plus years later and that really hasn’t changed. Which is a pity.
With the focus on the Alberta referendum, I can share personal experience having grown up between Alberta and the US.
Canada seems abstract in Calgary. The only exposure to the federal government is in Banff or at the airport. The Stampede eclipses Canada Day. Ottawa might as well be on Mars. Occasionally Mars attacks with measures like the NEP or regulatory barriers. Sure, Calgary is somewhat of an anomaly as it a post modern city built on ambition rather than institutions but the Federal government's historical neglect exists throughout Alberta.
The US does a much better job of building a shared national pride built on actual accomplishment: the relentless western expansion, military victories, technological prowess and economic supremacy. More importantly, living there I experienced tangible progress delivered by the federal government: the Interstate Highway network, the cost benefits from the scale of interstate commerce, job opportunities enabled by robust private sector capital.
I’m proud to be a Canadian. I’m proud to be a Nova Scotian. I’m proud to be a Cape Bretoner. I don’t need to explain it- I just am.
“ We are an Island, a rock in a stream. We are people as proud as there’s been- in warm summer breeze or in wild winter wind the home of my heart Cape Breton”.
Thank you, Andrew. I think you've hit upon "the intangible" that is actually crucial.
As for the usual lot of naysayers here, well, all I can say is, enjoy Canada Day. We really do have much to celebrate.
Love it. A country big enough to hold dissonance.
Hear! Hear!
When you share values, you can survive political disagreement. In fact, under the former circumstance, the latter can be quite healthy, even essential.
Great day for our you g generation, kudos to them all for raising our national pride from a previous 34%
Not so great for some of us doing our best to provide the life we had to our children.
May they find the same happiness as we had raising our children and enjoying life.
Tough to place our current situation on Trump… not a fan… Our PM JT did us tons of harm. The two combined had created division and a terrible future for our next generations.
NGL, I flew the american flag for Canada day