My Canada

[pyat]

bard_bloom asked us to talk about our countries. Specifically, our experience of them.

I am Canadian, but I don't drink beer.

I was born in Burlington, Ontario, a city of white-bread white folks, on the western shore of Lake Ontario. I was born in a hospital named for an Iroquis chief who was chased out of Ohio by American Revolutionaries who believed all men had certain inalienable rights.


When I was four I moved to Montreal, the world's second largest French speaking city. It was on the world stage then, a city of cobbled streets and space age arenas and geodesic domes. We lived next to a graveyard, but all my nightmares were about Daleks, or disembodied fingers.

I could not speak French, so I went to an English school with immigrant kids from India, Africa, and Eastern Europe, all of whom spoke English badly. We learned about the "mosaic", the Trudeau-era ideal of a country with no melting pots or assimilation, where all nations could live as they pleased. You could almost believe it was true, looking at my Grade 1 class.


The city I consider my home is Hamilton, a dingy, faded, blue-collar town, where men in mullets drive rusty cars, listen to Def Leppard, and vote Socialist. I went to school in the poorest catchment area in the country, but didn't know what marijuana smoke smelled like till I was in university.

I watched a lot of publicly-funded television, and dreamed of working, one day, as a writer for TV-Ontario. I went to school with mostly white kids, and learned more about the "mosaic," yet also learned to sing "God Save the Queen" and recite the Lord's Prayer at the start of every school day. My grade school was a memorial to Canadians who died in the Great War, dedicated to this purpose by a King. Brass plaques, 15 feet tall and affixed to pillars, listed the war dead and surrounded us at every assembly or gym class. I spent a lot of time reading the names. A glass case housed a hand-written copy of In Flanders Fields.


I learned French by listening to a talking pineapple. I read Farley Mowat and dreamed about wolves and owls and vast plains. I went on school trips to battlefields from the War of 1812, and learned about Billy Green and Laura Secord, and felt a great deal of nationalistic pride. Our textbooks explicitly told us that Canada was the best and greatest of nations. The 20th century belongs to Canada! A grade 9 history book painted a picture of a frightening alternate future in which Canada would become an American state.


I did not learn much about natives, other than that they fought on our side in 1812, and that Eskimos were happy, smiling people who preferred to be called "Inuit." Something called "Oka" happened and took a lot of people - of my generation, at least - by total surprise, and made me angry, and frightened. I was in my 20s before I realized that Canada's largest Native Reserve is a 25 minute drive from my house.


I visited an uncle in Edmonton, and tripped through praries, and badlands, and Rockies, and found a Tim Horton's everywhere I went. People in Edmonton own guns, yet are somehow also Canadian. I visited a friend in British Columbia, and wondered at the vast Chinese population in Vancouver, and grumbled about the Native who threw a bottle at our car.


I went to school in Toronto, where one could believe the ideal of Canada as a cultural mosaic once again, an open-minded, international place where all races lived (mostly) in (relative) ease. Quebec wanted to leave, and most of my classmates bussed or carpooled to Montreal for a massive unity rally. OUR Canada included Quebec. Jean Chretein was a hero, and the Liberals saved us from Mulroney. Trudeau's ideals were alive and well, in happy, smiling progressive, united Canada.


I worked at a rural newspaper, where locals would refer to the single black policeman in the county as "that chocolate fellow." I covered veterans marches, and spoke to men who didn't want turbans worn in veteran halls. I met and befriended men who'd parachuted into France 24 hours before D-Day. I met a town councillor who wept openly when someone poured root beer on a photo of the Queen. 9/11 happened, and everyone was a friend of America, suddenly. US flags outnumbered Canadian flags, and CF-18 fighters patrolled the skies over Dunnville.

Then Bush didn't mention Canada in the State of the Union addresss, and we got all huffy and anti-American again.

Now I work in Toronto, and get Tim Horton's coffee served to me by beautiful Liberian girls with names like "Eden." I can see a dozen high-rises under construction from the third floor of my office building, and hear a dozen languages in the market next door.


My Canada is a good place, though perhaps not as good as we like to paint it. We're humble to a fault, but we're also really smug about it. We mostly define ourselves as "not American." We're good to everyone who makes it here, and lousy to the people who were here first.

It's not as good a country as we claim, but I still think it is, by and large, the best place in the world to live.

Comments

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

This is gorgeous, and as is often the case, makes me homesick. Oh for a land where mullet dudes vote NDP.

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

That was very eloquently put, and I think describes the experiences of a lot of us 30-something Hamiltonians quite well!

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

*wipes away a tear* that was beautiful.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Téléfrançais!

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

Interesting, the differences even between your age and my age (born 1983)! I sang "O Canada" in school, with a moment of silence afterwards for the first few years, but no Lord's Prayer. My seventh grade history book bent over backwards to tell us how monstrously terrible those horrible European settlers were to the noble Native Peoples. (I don't have anything against Native rights whatsoever, but my textbook went a little overboard in its demonization of the colonists.)

[nottheterritory.livejournal.com]

Looking at that image of the Montreal Olympic Stadium, I'm reminded that, in Canada at least, the future felt more present in 1979 than in 1999.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

I remember that textbook.

And Oka...

And spent a lot of time in Hamilton, visiting Chuck.

[relee.livejournal.com]

I think you forgot a href, and some important quotes.


I had never heard of that Oka thing before. For me the closest to home was the Ipperwash dispute. I rode past the Ipperwash Military Base so many times in my childhood that it became a permenant part of the landscape of my mind. I watched like a stop-motion camera, day by day, as the Military Base was ravaged and the land was taken, with makeshift cabins and trailers.

Here in Sarnia there are still a lot of American Flags flying with the Canadian Flags. During the Afghanistan War the image of crossed Canadian and American flags was very popular on stickers, fabrics and stationery. The Iraq war made most people hate the U.S. again, though. Most people. Some folks support that sort of thing. :/


Farley Mowatt was pretty cool though, eh? I keep telling my friends from the U.S. to give Two Against the North a read. ^.^



If there's one vibe I've gotten from Canada it's that we're better, but benevolent. We engage the world with aid and charity because we look down on them and pity them. But I suppose there are worse ways to view the world. At least we try to get along nicely, right?

[pyat.livejournal.com]

tzoq tells me very interesting stories about Chuck!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

D'ye mean "not better, but benevolent?"

[pyat.livejournal.com]

That's for sure. Now the stadium is falling apart.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I think I was on the cusp of that changing. In grade 9, I learned that Louis Riel was a dangerous lunatic. In university, he was suddenly one of the founding fathers.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Oui!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Jenn!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :) You should write one about Australia... and Canada!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Gwynne Dyer and Elwy Yost miss you.

[relee.livejournal.com]

No, I meant, "Better, but benevolent." like, we're mighty modern Canadians with our future society, and they're pitiful slugs in mud huts. But we are benevolent, and seek to raise these poor peoples from their strife and misery to the light and glory of our modern age.

That's the vibe I usually get from my fellow Canadians.

Not that there's anything wrong with mud huts, but even I was shocked when I saw video of Kuwait and it looked just the same as any city in Canada. You can barely see ancient Babylon between the modern streets and buildings in Iraq.

It's hard to look past those charity commercials, 'Feed the starving children! Watch me make this little girl walk on broken glass!' and realize that most of the world is as 'good' and civilized as we are.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

That's it, twist the knife. :) I'd be there in a second if I could bring my partners.

Elwy Yost is still alive?! Hmm, Wikipedia says he is. He must be doing something right. We watched Saturday Night at the Movies virtually every Saturday at my dad's place... TVO and CBC were truly godsends for bright young weirdos.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Ahh, okay. I gotcha. And yes, we are like that. :)

[relee.livejournal.com]

And it's by far better than some people, who instead of arrogant pity, see children, or worse, dogs, in need of a strong hand and discipline. Bleh.

Though there is that as well. I certainly remember in High School, the nerdy guys were all in favor of genocide for the good of the survivors, over in "The Third World" or at the very least, a campaign of forced castration.

Fortunately when these people grew up they started realizing 'oh yeah they're people, not problems'. Now if only we could get off our high horse and stop thinking it's our responsibility to save them, and start thinking it's our privledge to aide them, we could get this rock of ours spinning in a more positive direction.

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

This was an interesting post. It sorta pissed me off though, and I'm not sure why. *shrug*

I don't know how you could not drink beer.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

There is an nasty vein of knee-jerk anti-Americanism in Canadian culture, and it was a large part of my education, growing up. I felt I had to admit it, while at the same time I recognize that it is not justified.

As for beer - my parents were Salvation Army ministers. I didn't get much of a chance to acquire the taste for it.

[kfops.livejournal.com]

Je suis un ananas!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Un ananas parlent!??

[zenten.livejournal.com]

There is an nasty vein of knee-jerk anti-Americanism in Canadian culture, and it was a large part of my education, growing up. I felt I had to admit it, while at the same time I recognize that it is not justified.

Well, if it wasn't for the anti-Americanism I'm pretty sure most of the colonies would have petitioned to join the Union.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you.

[wytetygryss.livejournal.com]

Do you mean "Un ananas parle" (a pineapple is talking) or "Un ananas parlant" (a talking pineapple)? :P

[wytetygryss.livejournal.com]

That about sums it up, yeah.

[jirris-midvale.livejournal.com]

You're making me miss Canada.

Then again, I am half newfie, which means I miss the Canadian version of Alabama.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Parlant. :)

I didn't say I learned French very well from the pineapple...

[pyat.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! Some folks on my FL have passed it on, too!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Ooh, can I see?

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Sure! Here's one: http://used-songs.livejournal.com/278064.html

The other (by kianir) is F'locked, I fear.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

:)

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

Because it's not about Vermont ;)

[kfops.livejournal.com]

I got ejected from French in grade 8, so I'm not gonna be the one to critique anyone. Now I learn everything from the warning labels in my brother-in-law's truck.

Je suis un sac gonflable! Mais, non! Je suis une bibliotheque!

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

How did you get ejected from French? :P

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

I think the provincial NDP government was probably responsible for the abolition of the moment of silence and for my history textbook's tendencies.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

Did the nerdy guys read Ayn Rand when they were young and un-empathetic enough to take her seriously? That's never a good idea.

[kfops.livejournal.com]

It was moving too fast and my seatbelt was not firmly secured!

That, or something about inhibiting other students' ability to learn.

Or, the deep down truth of it all... I didn't learn the proper rules to English growing up, so there wasn't much hope of me learning French with-out some basic comprehension of language.

Of course, if you were just playing on my new found truck-taught French skills, then that's all cool!

[lee-in-limbo.livejournal.com]

Very nicely put. The anti-American sentiment was perhaps a little downplayed where I went to school, but the sentiment is alive and well in Hamilton, there is no doubt. Dawn points it out to me through gritted teeth whenever we're in public, and she is very selective about whom and what she reads these days because of it.

Hamilton is a strange city to feel wistful about. I think I'd miss the landscape more than anything else were I to finally move from here. I certainly wouldn't miss the proliferation of Tim Hortons. I might miss those stupid smoke stacks though. Especially the one that spits purple flame. It's terribly non-environmental of me, but I've long had a peculiar association with that flame and the concept of inspiration.

Lee.

[relee.livejournal.com]

I really don't know. ^.^;;

[warphammer.livejournal.com]

Doh! Wrong 'reply' button. xvx

[warphammer.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. That whole "thing with the Indians" I only sort of understood when I was listening to Radio Canada International. In there with a couple of months of "There's this criminal court case we can't talk about. Someone talked about it, and we'll talk about people talking about something we can't talk about."... and lots of stuff about Mulroney and Cretien's power struggles in their parties. Oh! And the Charlottetown Accord. Lots and lots about that.

...I listened to a lot of RCI in the 90's. xvx

TV Ontario programming imported to our local PBS station indoctrinated me well before that.

[rowyn]

Another Canadian friend of mine mentioned the Canadian fear of being annexed by the US. It really surprised me, because I can't remember any Americans ever talking about it.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Well, perhaps not recently so much, no. But from the American Revolution onward through the 19th century American politicans often spoke explicitly of "liberating" Canada, or annexing all or part of it in the name of Manifest Destiny. The Articles of Confederation from 1777 assumed the Canadian colonies would join. In 1895, Theodore Roosevelt wrote "the greatest boon I could confer upon this nation (would be) an immediate war with Great Britain for the conquest of Canada... I will do my very best to bring about the day."

There were also a number of military incursions (mostly unofficial) into Canada in the 19th century, in the support of local unrest against the British Crown. Often, these were condemned by Washington (such as the cross border raids by Irish American-Fenians) but also sort of tacitly permitted to continue. I beleive there were incursions by Confederate and Union troops alike during the Civil War.

Diplomatic disputes between England and the U.S. after WWI led to the development of "War Plan Red," a detailed plan for the invasion of Canada. While they were not widely known then, they show up in the news now and again up here as a curiousity piece.

Obviously, things changed after WWII, and what Canadians most fear now is a gradual loss of independence or ability to retain our sovereignty. For example, border states will sometimes do things like divert rivers without the approval of the Canadian government. Or recent incidents include live fire wargame exercises in the Great Lakes - something specifically forbidden by old treaty agreements - or the U.S. refusal to acknowledge Canadian claims to various parts of the Arctic Circle.

U.S. troops or ships have been known to undertake exercises in the Canadian north without getting permission - even in areas the U.S. acknowldges as Canadian. In fact, I believe the main duty of the Canadian Rangers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Rangers) is to monitor U.S. military incursions.

On the more paranoid side - I'm told the U.S. recognizes fresh water as a "strategic resouce," and under some interpretations of the Carter Doctrine, this would open up the possible of an invasion to seize fresh water. And, in fact, in the late 1990s several national media outlets reported that the CIA had current plans for just such a possibility, though I'm sure those were more mental exercises than anything.

Speaking of the CIA, folks up here still remember MKULTRA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA#Canadian_experiments).