Time to kick off some Pride-themed posts, and for two reasons: 1) this is the middle of Pride Week which will culminate in Toronto’s annual Pride parade on Sunday; 2) today is Canada Day which is cause for pride of a different sort.
Today marks the 144th anniversary of Canada’s confederation, a time to celebrate national pride. I would describe myself as fiercely Canadian (the word fierce is cognate with the French word for proud), but I’m also fiercely ambivalent about being a Canadian. Here are some things about Canada that make me fiercely proud:
1. Multiculturalisme – the idea that difference is important and a reason to celebrate.
2. Québec – Once a month throughout my childhood, we would make the drive from Toronto to Montreal to visit my grandparents; for me, Canada is unimaginable without Québec.
3. Sense of scale – I’ve driven from one end of the country to the other. If you’ve never been here, you have no idea. It makes a person humble.
4. Granite – The Canadian Shield is enormous – all that bedrock right at the surface, which is why there are so many lakes here.
5. I’m sorry – in Canada, I’m sorry isn’t always an apology. Sometimes it’s a knife in the back.
6. Street hockey – National Hockey League? Whose nation? Whose hockey? The real hockey happens only after they shut off the cameras.
7. Moosonee – I love that there are still places on this planet you can’t get to by car.
8. 140 languages – That’s how many different languages you can hear in Toronto.
9. Civility – That thing about politeness is still true. But more importantly, it translates into an institutional civility. If, for example, I’m in an accident, I know I’ll be cared for.
10. Same-Sex Marriage – As you’d expect in a large country, there’s more space here to be who you are.
But Canada has a dark side too, which is why my pride is not unreserved. I came to understand this dark side at an early age. It was October, 1970 on one of our Montreal runs to visit my grandparents. We had to stop at the Québec border and pass a checkpoint. I remember the soldiers with their guns. I remember how they leaned in to the open window and questioned my father. The next day, a terrified parishioner came to my grandfather’s manse. She needed a place to stay. She was convinced there was an FLQ cell in her apartment building. I sat wide-eyed as the RCMP officers arrived and questioned the woman, then spoke to my grandparents. Trudeau had declared martial law. Long before Bush’s War on Terror, Canadians discovered how the fear of a terrorist threat can be used to dismantle civil liberties. Since then, the darkness has spread:
1. Afghanistan – The official line is that our soldiers fight to protect our freedom. At least that’s what Don Cherry tells us. If it weren’t for all his crazy-coloured clothes, I’d call him a brownshirt.
2. Athabasca – As global oil reserves dwindle, the pressure to develop this dirty dirty resource will only increase.
3. Mining – 60% of the world’s mining & exploration companies are based in Canada (Corpwatch). Some, like Barrick, have been implicated in gang rape as a strategy to clear land of local inhabitants in developing countries. That’s just the beginning of a long list of exploitative practices.
4. Asbestos – The Conservative Party refuses to recognize it as a hazardous substance (so we can keep exporting our carcinogens to developing countries).
5. NAFTA – local farmers can’t sell their strawberries because California and Mexico produce gets dumped here.
6. Clear-cutting (see NAFTA) – before the big logging companies started hacking down the Amazon rainforest, they cut their teeth on Canadian trees. I guess that’s why the beaver is our national symbol.
7. Residential schools. No one ever thought multiculturalisme might also apply to indigenous peoples.
8. Stolen Sisters – Think we’re a nice bunch of peace-loving people? Think again. We have our fair share of crazy serial killers — Robert Pickton, Clifford Olson, Marc Lépine, Paul Bernardo. But more disturbing is the fact that there are 520 native women listed as missing and presumed murdered. Almost no resources have been committed to locating these women. If you’re a woman and native, nobody cares. See Amnesty International’s Stolen Sisters campaign.
9. Conrad Black – There is a name for monied conservatives who preach a gospel of neoliberal deregulation. We call them criminals. Do ordinary Canadians make the connection between conservative political philosophy and men like Black? Hell no. Instead, we elect them to public office then act surprised when vast sums of money get skimmed from the public purse.
10. Celine Dion – I’m sorry.
This second list of 10 may seem like a downer for a post about national pride. Then again, in the word’s of Howard Zinn: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Enjoy a patriotic Canada Day.