I consider myself a patriotic Canadian but I despise what usually passes for "Canadian patriotism".
It's like we have it upside down. We gush over sports, celebrities, and narrow, usually deeply misunderstood points of differentiation from the US. We marinate in nostalgia about our increasingly distant past as a solid contributor to the World Wars and mid-20th-century peacekeeping.
Meanwhile we allow massive and largely uncontrolled immigration without the expectation of assimilation, unchecked foreign interference, refuse to exploit our own vast resources, and tolerate being militarily powerless.
Expectation of assimilation is an interesting question. I think we had it right in the 1990s with the old schoolchild “the US is a melting pot, we’re a patchwork quilt”. We encouraged people to keep their religion, even some of their cultural practices, but to still put up a Canadian flag, enroll their kids in hockey, eventually learn English or French.
I do not think we need to go to a pre-1968 expectation of assimilation. In my opinion it was working in the 1990s. We do great things in Canada, the post-1968 refugee sponsorship (often by faith groups) is a model envied by the world.
But we do need to have some standards. Frankly I think our climate helps here. Nothing makes people Canadian faster than shovelling snow outside with their neighbours! But we got ashamed of saying that people should become Canadian between 2015-2022 (like many things that went wrong there).
I think multiculturalism only worked in the 90's because the numbers were small and most didn't have ready-made ethnic enclaves to migrate to. Some degree of assimilation happened organically. Travel was more expensive making immigration more often a one-way trip, and communications with home were vastly more difficult. I think this quasi-assimilation happened in spite of official policy. Now immigrants can choose to treat Canada as purely a transactional and temporary place.
I think you’re vastly overstating the number of immigrants who treat Canada as transactional and temporary. Even the surge of 2M fake students from India I think can become Canadian patriots.
Right wing blogs play up some tiny number of Islamists cursing Canada for whatever about the Gaza war, or some tiny number of Sri Lankans blockading highways. Most of these protests that feel “non Canadian” are actually Canadian citizens doing it. And not just first generation kids of immigrants either; the U of T tent occupation had plenty of “old stock” white Canadians in it.
The vast majority of immigrants today are just like they were 100 years ago. They keep their old language and culture — you would too if you moved at age 40 — but they moved for a reason and their kids won’t keep the old culture.
Also, Canadian immigration rates weren’t that small in the 1990s. We surged too high in 2015-2023, yes, of course. But we had high immigration before that and assimilated successfully. The internet hurts this but Canada had, and I think could have again, an amazing assimilation engine. As I said, don’t sleep on the effect of climate here. Our winters bind us together.
It's ironic that I can't buy 'Don't Be Canada' from Indigo because it's out of stock. I can buy it direct from the publisher for 1.5x the cover price because of tax and shipping. Or I can buy the book from Amazon for less than cover with no tax and free shipping (a Prime sub isn't my decision).
Sick to death of this rhetoric. We absolutely have work to do and we are all responsible for doing it. Absolutely Trudeau ran us into the ground with his divisive politics and childish behavior and insane policies. The things that make us very different from the Americans are still there and with good leadership it will continue to gain strength. What are you going to do to make it better? Look in a mirror mister and figure it out. It is all of our responsibility to do so.
Rhetoric? LOL. Isn't this always the way when institutional rot and terrible policies manifest in reality? Let's call legitimate criticism of it 'rhetoric' and throw in a heap of blame the victim first and then let's tell them to fix the problem. This was the same move - brilliant, of course - that the oil and gas industry pulled with the whole 'carbon footprint' campaign. People just lapped it up and went out and planted a tree that later set their house on fire. So virtuous. Yup, all Canadians have to do is somehow individually 'fix' systemic problems, which is now absolutely everything currently in decline, starting with those who presume imposed illiberal policies and laws and backed by the majority of cheerleaders who have brought us here won't crush anyone who tries, starting by calling them 'traitors' and sending them off to deal with some Human Rights complaint. Yeah, I can see how this will work. Good plan.
I understand your despair, I felt it as well. I agree inflammatory commentary about traitors serve no purpose other than to keep everyone angry. We need to stop allowing us to be manipulated by anger as well. Absolutely we can do things. Every time you open your wallet, are you buying Canadian if you can? Are you supporting local small business? Are you out in your community making a difference? Are you supporting ideas that will make good things happen? I agree there were insane polices that were complete virtue signally and ridiculous beyond belief. However, are you going to stay stuck in despair? Or, are you going to look at the good things that are happening and find hope? Exciting things….Churchill opening up making it easier for Alberta to bring their product to the world. (We need more Wab!)The acknowledgement of Canada is a country of resources and respectful discourse bringing provinces together instead of fanning flames of discord. It’s starting to move the right way. By the way, as a Western citizen having lived in B.C. and AB, Eby’s grandstanding serves no purpose to make people fearful and angry. Trudeau would have picked up on that and made it worse, PM Carney has refused to do so. I believe in Canada and our future. Will it take time, of course. Lets all be proud, respectful and relentless to support Canada getting off its knees and standing tall.
I started focusing on buying Canadian when the two Michaels were kidnapped, ie, well before the rest of the country thought it might be a good thing. I noticed that we make very little in Canada, especially when it comes to gadgets, clothing, good cars that I like, and appliances. If it comes to choosing a dishwasher made in China vs the US, sorry, still going with the US. And don't make me feel bad. This discussion is being hosted on an American platform because Canada doesn't create such things.
The West outsourcing its manufacturing to China and allowing it to industrialize and become a superpower - especially without demanding any democratic or other reforms from them - will turn out to be our greatest strategic mistake ever.
Pretty hard to “demand” democratic reforms from an authoritarian regime. International trade is focused on making money not on spreading “values “ whatever you may think they are.
We are going in the wrong direction on this unfortunately. One year of a bombastic US president making absurd idle threats as demented negotiating tactics and we are ready to embrace a genuinely dangerous enemy out of weird spite.
Absolutely, we don’t….we need to change that. I also believe in supporting small business world wide and using our money thoughtfully. Getting caught up in catch phrases is mindless, and we need to be thinking about every move we make
I know there are endless debates on whether culture is downstream of politics or vice versa, but in the case of Canadian resistance to American imperialism right now I really do think politics, and all the state institutional capacity, is downstream of culture.
We lost our national myths — conquering the North, hacking civilization out of an unforgiving climate, etc. We started feeling ashamed of our colonial past. In 2015-2022 we even stopped feeling proud of the Canadian Multicultural Miracle and replaced it with self flagellation about “systemic racism”.
And, sure, we have done shameful things, at times. All countries have. But if we only feel shame, everything downstream of that is going to decay. Top talent will leave for countries that want to grow, want to build. Public servants will punch a clock to get a pension, not devote themselves to building Canada. The list can go on. How can one imagine a national civil defence effort like Finland has, if the country itself is built on a foundation of genocide?
I don’t think we need to go back to a pre-1968 national myth of white Britishness. I liked the one that existed in my childhood in the 1980s-1990s, that included multiculturalism. But we need something big and meaningful to rally around. (Is it possible for us to have a national myth that includes Indigenous people but still leaves room for national pride?)
Justin Trudeau was conceited, arrogant and smug and really did seem determined to make Canadians ashamed , that our past was a disgrace and there was nothing to celebrate about this country.
The worst thing is that this creature was kept in power for 10 years by the feckless Jagmeet Singh and the NDP. I was once a member of that party but left it when the able Mulcaire was booted out as leader.
Trudeau was a total globalist. He was the first to exude”Canada is a post national state” and his Cabinet and his advisors continued to push that agenda to keep their jobs. He used fear to keep his minions in line. He was quick to eliminate ministers who challenged him. Any need yo mention JWR and the Lavalin debacle?
This is THE project of our present day. Somewhere, somehow, there is a national myth for Canada that exists. We have to look harder. I want to believe it. It's gonna have to have an ability to absorb intensely different cultural, geographic, and economic structures. Embrace the differences and all that...
I don't disagree. If you can't base a nation on shared ethnicity, which is really the traditional base of the nation state, then you have to base it on shared *something*.
We managed to strike an ok balance in English-speaking Canada up to the 2010's which was something like "white British-influenced traditions but with other cultures sprinkled on top for flavour". The problem is that the other cultures deliberately didn't mix with the main culture or each other, then we added huge numbers from other cultures such that they were no longer just additive 'flavouring' but significant sources of division. Then we declared the main culture corrupt and invalid based on slanderously exaggerated claims of genocide. So shared culture was pretty much out.
We kept going for a while with a national myth based on shared institutions like "free" health care, welfare state and social services, reasonably competent government, flatter social hierarchy than some other places, and the fact that total idiots don't get instant access to firearms. But then these institutions all stopped working properly. I'm not sure what is left.
Poor Peter really really wants to whine about how “broken” Canada is and cry about Canadians feeling patriotic during the games, completely ignoring how patriotic the majority of us are year round. Nobody confuses us for Americans, anywhere. Are you sad because Carney is likeable, present, and working hard to rally folks during a very difficult time??
Depends what you mean by 'patriotic ... year round'. I think a lot of Canadians focus on very superficial aspects that boil down to "we're not the US and are so much morally better because of the healthcare and gun control", wave the flag and then go home full of unearned satisfaction.
This is exactly on the button. The Tate McRae thing (my spellcheck substituted State McRae lol) is exactly the same: “ooo my feelings are hurt, we don’t like her now…” For Pete’s sake (sorry) her market IS the USA, and then all the people who complain about her disloyalty will turn on the Super Bowl, etc.
For me, Canada doesn't really do patriotism (save for Olympic and world cup sports, for example). The reason we don't do patriotism is that someone might see.
That's why I felt slightly irritated when Canadian flags became decorations for pickup trucks. It felt like my feelings as a Canadian were being boxed in. Our flag symbolizes vastness, openness, etc. I even get a bit squirmy when athletes parade around with it wrapped around their shoulders, tbh
I wonder when Carney will let us Canadians know yet again (through another slate of speeches perhaps at the UN and/or Davos and/or WTO, and/or the G7/G20 whatever) when we as a 'sovereign nation' (Liberal brand name and trade mark for whatever the Dear Leader tells us defines Canada) will become the second member of China's 'near Arctic nation'... to defend our lack of commitment and development 'way up there' that Americans point out is a security problem for them. Americans... such bastards. Carney will let us know second hand when the time is right.
And patriotism and Carney's role. The failure of our institutions to protect Canadian culture (I don't know how you do that 'protection' when fully integrated culturally with the US) is merely part of a much larger cracked and crumbling institutional mosaic, starting with Carney making and presenting domestic policy not in the institutional home of the House of Commons where this is supposed to be presented to us 'patriotic' citizens but in foreign lands as part of some speech to foreign bodies. I think that encapsulates just how broken this country is. It seems in Carney's mind, Canadians are a secondary audience. And what could be more 'Canadian' than the land of ice and snow that is needed for all these Winter Olympic sports? Yet we outsource its protection to the US, its development to foreign companies, and the government has a difficult case to prove sovereignty in the far north when federal sovereignty is divided by province, territory, and various indigenous tribes. Does anyone care China is negotiating with tribal chiefs of the far north? Hence, the jab at Carney's recent 'strategic partnership' with totalitarian China, including the open 'exchange' of 'journalists', that is yet another omnipotent decision that can only harm us as a country in the long run, also imposed from above on us plebes. Loss of culture? That is the least of our capitulations.
The whole “diversity is our strength” shtick as expounded by the previous PM and his pack of fools (many of whom still in office by the way) is a perfect explanation for our lack of any real Canadian identity.
I would like to argue your point, but can't. I know I am an outlier with many of my choices, like magazines (I subscribe to four paper ones, two Canadian, two European) my I think it is just easier to watch USA shows, while complaining about CBC funding.
Since you mentioned him, I have to wonder how much if Trump's comments are partly based on how much the previous PM caused Canada to be more divisive, and whether Carney can help fix that.
Such is the Canadian dichotomy and the Canadian hypocrisy. The majority gf Canadians will clutch their pearls every time Trump opens his mouth, will recoil in terror whenever the word "tariff" is spoken and then they'll go back to watching The housewives of Beverly Hills. Canadians make up for their lack of self-confidence with passive aggressive behaviour, they deal with the realities of life by insulting and demeaning those they don't agree with or those they just can't understand.
We were given a wealth of riches and keep looking for ways to squander it just to prove how "righteous" and good we are... we are neither.
Canadians have become small, very small... maybe that's what it's like to live in a post-national state. We look over the fence with envy and get outraged by everything those on the other side say or do.
Oh Canada, how far we have fallen.
Good luck to all the athletes, you'll do great, we are proud of you and all you've accomplished so far and are about to accomplish. Canada doesn't deserve you.
If you want people to be patriotic, you need to start them young. Ergo, the educational system. We need to quit allowing every minority under the sun to dictate what happens in our schools. We need to teach our children to sing “O Canada” every morning, and to say “The Lord’s Prayer” every morning (whether it is your religion or not—children can keep silent if they don’t believe in it). Every day. Why do you think our grandparents were willing to die for their country and go to war not even on their own soil? Values are important and they need to be taught.
I am old enough to remember the outcry when Harper created the "own the podium" program. Canadians are a fickle bunch, when it comes to patriotism. Great read, Peter.
I consider myself a patriotic Canadian but I despise what usually passes for "Canadian patriotism".
It's like we have it upside down. We gush over sports, celebrities, and narrow, usually deeply misunderstood points of differentiation from the US. We marinate in nostalgia about our increasingly distant past as a solid contributor to the World Wars and mid-20th-century peacekeeping.
Meanwhile we allow massive and largely uncontrolled immigration without the expectation of assimilation, unchecked foreign interference, refuse to exploit our own vast resources, and tolerate being militarily powerless.
Expectation of assimilation is an interesting question. I think we had it right in the 1990s with the old schoolchild “the US is a melting pot, we’re a patchwork quilt”. We encouraged people to keep their religion, even some of their cultural practices, but to still put up a Canadian flag, enroll their kids in hockey, eventually learn English or French.
I do not think we need to go to a pre-1968 expectation of assimilation. In my opinion it was working in the 1990s. We do great things in Canada, the post-1968 refugee sponsorship (often by faith groups) is a model envied by the world.
But we do need to have some standards. Frankly I think our climate helps here. Nothing makes people Canadian faster than shovelling snow outside with their neighbours! But we got ashamed of saying that people should become Canadian between 2015-2022 (like many things that went wrong there).
I think multiculturalism only worked in the 90's because the numbers were small and most didn't have ready-made ethnic enclaves to migrate to. Some degree of assimilation happened organically. Travel was more expensive making immigration more often a one-way trip, and communications with home were vastly more difficult. I think this quasi-assimilation happened in spite of official policy. Now immigrants can choose to treat Canada as purely a transactional and temporary place.
I think you’re vastly overstating the number of immigrants who treat Canada as transactional and temporary. Even the surge of 2M fake students from India I think can become Canadian patriots.
Right wing blogs play up some tiny number of Islamists cursing Canada for whatever about the Gaza war, or some tiny number of Sri Lankans blockading highways. Most of these protests that feel “non Canadian” are actually Canadian citizens doing it. And not just first generation kids of immigrants either; the U of T tent occupation had plenty of “old stock” white Canadians in it.
The vast majority of immigrants today are just like they were 100 years ago. They keep their old language and culture — you would too if you moved at age 40 — but they moved for a reason and their kids won’t keep the old culture.
Also, Canadian immigration rates weren’t that small in the 1990s. We surged too high in 2015-2023, yes, of course. But we had high immigration before that and assimilated successfully. The internet hurts this but Canada had, and I think could have again, an amazing assimilation engine. As I said, don’t sleep on the effect of climate here. Our winters bind us together.
It's ironic that I can't buy 'Don't Be Canada' from Indigo because it's out of stock. I can buy it direct from the publisher for 1.5x the cover price because of tax and shipping. Or I can buy the book from Amazon for less than cover with no tax and free shipping (a Prime sub isn't my decision).
I got it at the (Hamilton) public library. Excellent read, btw
Sick to death of this rhetoric. We absolutely have work to do and we are all responsible for doing it. Absolutely Trudeau ran us into the ground with his divisive politics and childish behavior and insane policies. The things that make us very different from the Americans are still there and with good leadership it will continue to gain strength. What are you going to do to make it better? Look in a mirror mister and figure it out. It is all of our responsibility to do so.
Rhetoric? LOL. Isn't this always the way when institutional rot and terrible policies manifest in reality? Let's call legitimate criticism of it 'rhetoric' and throw in a heap of blame the victim first and then let's tell them to fix the problem. This was the same move - brilliant, of course - that the oil and gas industry pulled with the whole 'carbon footprint' campaign. People just lapped it up and went out and planted a tree that later set their house on fire. So virtuous. Yup, all Canadians have to do is somehow individually 'fix' systemic problems, which is now absolutely everything currently in decline, starting with those who presume imposed illiberal policies and laws and backed by the majority of cheerleaders who have brought us here won't crush anyone who tries, starting by calling them 'traitors' and sending them off to deal with some Human Rights complaint. Yeah, I can see how this will work. Good plan.
I understand your despair, I felt it as well. I agree inflammatory commentary about traitors serve no purpose other than to keep everyone angry. We need to stop allowing us to be manipulated by anger as well. Absolutely we can do things. Every time you open your wallet, are you buying Canadian if you can? Are you supporting local small business? Are you out in your community making a difference? Are you supporting ideas that will make good things happen? I agree there were insane polices that were complete virtue signally and ridiculous beyond belief. However, are you going to stay stuck in despair? Or, are you going to look at the good things that are happening and find hope? Exciting things….Churchill opening up making it easier for Alberta to bring their product to the world. (We need more Wab!)The acknowledgement of Canada is a country of resources and respectful discourse bringing provinces together instead of fanning flames of discord. It’s starting to move the right way. By the way, as a Western citizen having lived in B.C. and AB, Eby’s grandstanding serves no purpose to make people fearful and angry. Trudeau would have picked up on that and made it worse, PM Carney has refused to do so. I believe in Canada and our future. Will it take time, of course. Lets all be proud, respectful and relentless to support Canada getting off its knees and standing tall.
I started focusing on buying Canadian when the two Michaels were kidnapped, ie, well before the rest of the country thought it might be a good thing. I noticed that we make very little in Canada, especially when it comes to gadgets, clothing, good cars that I like, and appliances. If it comes to choosing a dishwasher made in China vs the US, sorry, still going with the US. And don't make me feel bad. This discussion is being hosted on an American platform because Canada doesn't create such things.
The West outsourcing its manufacturing to China and allowing it to industrialize and become a superpower - especially without demanding any democratic or other reforms from them - will turn out to be our greatest strategic mistake ever.
Pretty hard to “demand” democratic reforms from an authoritarian regime. International trade is focused on making money not on spreading “values “ whatever you may think they are.
When will we as a country realize it? When we are all learning Chinese and working on our social credit score? (Again, Matt's red line appears.)
We are going in the wrong direction on this unfortunately. One year of a bombastic US president making absurd idle threats as demented negotiating tactics and we are ready to embrace a genuinely dangerous enemy out of weird spite.
Absolutely, we don’t….we need to change that. I also believe in supporting small business world wide and using our money thoughtfully. Getting caught up in catch phrases is mindless, and we need to be thinking about every move we make
Agree. I thought Eby was grandstanding and increasingly sounds desperate.
I'm not sure how many British Columbians take Eby seriously anymore. Still too many, but hopefully not enough to see him get elected again.
I know there are endless debates on whether culture is downstream of politics or vice versa, but in the case of Canadian resistance to American imperialism right now I really do think politics, and all the state institutional capacity, is downstream of culture.
We lost our national myths — conquering the North, hacking civilization out of an unforgiving climate, etc. We started feeling ashamed of our colonial past. In 2015-2022 we even stopped feeling proud of the Canadian Multicultural Miracle and replaced it with self flagellation about “systemic racism”.
And, sure, we have done shameful things, at times. All countries have. But if we only feel shame, everything downstream of that is going to decay. Top talent will leave for countries that want to grow, want to build. Public servants will punch a clock to get a pension, not devote themselves to building Canada. The list can go on. How can one imagine a national civil defence effort like Finland has, if the country itself is built on a foundation of genocide?
I don’t think we need to go back to a pre-1968 national myth of white Britishness. I liked the one that existed in my childhood in the 1980s-1990s, that included multiculturalism. But we need something big and meaningful to rally around. (Is it possible for us to have a national myth that includes Indigenous people but still leaves room for national pride?)
Otherwise, yeah, you just end up with sports.
Justin Trudeau was conceited, arrogant and smug and really did seem determined to make Canadians ashamed , that our past was a disgrace and there was nothing to celebrate about this country.
The worst thing is that this creature was kept in power for 10 years by the feckless Jagmeet Singh and the NDP. I was once a member of that party but left it when the able Mulcaire was booted out as leader.
He got lucky when Covid hit. In an alternate world he would've been sent packing sooner.
In a more intelligent world, he wouldn't have gotten elected in the first place.
His initial election was luck as well. The polls suddenly changed when the body of a four-year-old washed up on a beach.
Trudeau was a total globalist. He was the first to exude”Canada is a post national state” and his Cabinet and his advisors continued to push that agenda to keep their jobs. He used fear to keep his minions in line. He was quick to eliminate ministers who challenged him. Any need yo mention JWR and the Lavalin debacle?
This is THE project of our present day. Somewhere, somehow, there is a national myth for Canada that exists. We have to look harder. I want to believe it. It's gonna have to have an ability to absorb intensely different cultural, geographic, and economic structures. Embrace the differences and all that...
I don't disagree. If you can't base a nation on shared ethnicity, which is really the traditional base of the nation state, then you have to base it on shared *something*.
We managed to strike an ok balance in English-speaking Canada up to the 2010's which was something like "white British-influenced traditions but with other cultures sprinkled on top for flavour". The problem is that the other cultures deliberately didn't mix with the main culture or each other, then we added huge numbers from other cultures such that they were no longer just additive 'flavouring' but significant sources of division. Then we declared the main culture corrupt and invalid based on slanderously exaggerated claims of genocide. So shared culture was pretty much out.
We kept going for a while with a national myth based on shared institutions like "free" health care, welfare state and social services, reasonably competent government, flatter social hierarchy than some other places, and the fact that total idiots don't get instant access to firearms. But then these institutions all stopped working properly. I'm not sure what is left.
Respectfully, what a complete load of horse $hit!
Poor Peter really really wants to whine about how “broken” Canada is and cry about Canadians feeling patriotic during the games, completely ignoring how patriotic the majority of us are year round. Nobody confuses us for Americans, anywhere. Are you sad because Carney is likeable, present, and working hard to rally folks during a very difficult time??
I love it when someone starts off with “respectfully”. What often follows is anything but.
Respectfully.
A grave insult but can you please explain your position a little more?
Depends what you mean by 'patriotic ... year round'. I think a lot of Canadians focus on very superficial aspects that boil down to "we're not the US and are so much morally better because of the healthcare and gun control", wave the flag and then go home full of unearned satisfaction.
This is exactly on the button. The Tate McRae thing (my spellcheck substituted State McRae lol) is exactly the same: “ooo my feelings are hurt, we don’t like her now…” For Pete’s sake (sorry) her market IS the USA, and then all the people who complain about her disloyalty will turn on the Super Bowl, etc.
What does Canadian patriotism or identity even look like at this point?
Asking for a friend.
I think it involves singing one of the every-changing versions of Oh Canada
For me, Canada doesn't really do patriotism (save for Olympic and world cup sports, for example). The reason we don't do patriotism is that someone might see.
That's why I felt slightly irritated when Canadian flags became decorations for pickup trucks. It felt like my feelings as a Canadian were being boxed in. Our flag symbolizes vastness, openness, etc. I even get a bit squirmy when athletes parade around with it wrapped around their shoulders, tbh
I wonder when Carney will let us Canadians know yet again (through another slate of speeches perhaps at the UN and/or Davos and/or WTO, and/or the G7/G20 whatever) when we as a 'sovereign nation' (Liberal brand name and trade mark for whatever the Dear Leader tells us defines Canada) will become the second member of China's 'near Arctic nation'... to defend our lack of commitment and development 'way up there' that Americans point out is a security problem for them. Americans... such bastards. Carney will let us know second hand when the time is right.
What? This is an article about the loss of Canadian culture to the Americans.
And patriotism and Carney's role. The failure of our institutions to protect Canadian culture (I don't know how you do that 'protection' when fully integrated culturally with the US) is merely part of a much larger cracked and crumbling institutional mosaic, starting with Carney making and presenting domestic policy not in the institutional home of the House of Commons where this is supposed to be presented to us 'patriotic' citizens but in foreign lands as part of some speech to foreign bodies. I think that encapsulates just how broken this country is. It seems in Carney's mind, Canadians are a secondary audience. And what could be more 'Canadian' than the land of ice and snow that is needed for all these Winter Olympic sports? Yet we outsource its protection to the US, its development to foreign companies, and the government has a difficult case to prove sovereignty in the far north when federal sovereignty is divided by province, territory, and various indigenous tribes. Does anyone care China is negotiating with tribal chiefs of the far north? Hence, the jab at Carney's recent 'strategic partnership' with totalitarian China, including the open 'exchange' of 'journalists', that is yet another omnipotent decision that can only harm us as a country in the long run, also imposed from above on us plebes. Loss of culture? That is the least of our capitulations.
The whole “diversity is our strength” shtick as expounded by the previous PM and his pack of fools (many of whom still in office by the way) is a perfect explanation for our lack of any real Canadian identity.
Indeed.Ten wasted years thanks to the vacuous, incompetent J. Trudeau. He did his best to cause disunity in Canada.
I would like to argue your point, but can't. I know I am an outlier with many of my choices, like magazines (I subscribe to four paper ones, two Canadian, two European) my I think it is just easier to watch USA shows, while complaining about CBC funding.
Since you mentioned him, I have to wonder how much if Trump's comments are partly based on how much the previous PM caused Canada to be more divisive, and whether Carney can help fix that.
Such is the Canadian dichotomy and the Canadian hypocrisy. The majority gf Canadians will clutch their pearls every time Trump opens his mouth, will recoil in terror whenever the word "tariff" is spoken and then they'll go back to watching The housewives of Beverly Hills. Canadians make up for their lack of self-confidence with passive aggressive behaviour, they deal with the realities of life by insulting and demeaning those they don't agree with or those they just can't understand.
We were given a wealth of riches and keep looking for ways to squander it just to prove how "righteous" and good we are... we are neither.
Canadians have become small, very small... maybe that's what it's like to live in a post-national state. We look over the fence with envy and get outraged by everything those on the other side say or do.
Oh Canada, how far we have fallen.
Good luck to all the athletes, you'll do great, we are proud of you and all you've accomplished so far and are about to accomplish. Canada doesn't deserve you.
If you want people to be patriotic, you need to start them young. Ergo, the educational system. We need to quit allowing every minority under the sun to dictate what happens in our schools. We need to teach our children to sing “O Canada” every morning, and to say “The Lord’s Prayer” every morning (whether it is your religion or not—children can keep silent if they don’t believe in it). Every day. Why do you think our grandparents were willing to die for their country and go to war not even on their own soil? Values are important and they need to be taught.
I am old enough to remember the outcry when Harper created the "own the podium" program. Canadians are a fickle bunch, when it comes to patriotism. Great read, Peter.
And remember, fellow Canadians, the “USA, USA” chant originated with dimwitted Homer Simpson!
I’m rooting for Maggie Schizas!!