Normally I find overt patriots highly annoying, but I have to say, I love my country. While there may be better countries than mine, I could never imagine not being Canadian.
I stand on guard for this...and poutine...sweet, sweet poutine...
I come from the land of back bacon, hockey, good beer, and most importantly, poutine. We’ve got our healthcare, openly gay and transgender military members, gay marriages, gun control, 1 year mat/parental leave, and abortion. Ontario struck down prostitution laws recently. Legalizing marijuana seems like it’ll be on the cusp soon. Hell, in my province abortion is covered by Manitoba Health. We have some great Canadians too out there, spanning the globe in the arts, sports, politics, etc. We have all of this and our version of the Conservatives are in power. Canada is home to some of the nicest people on Earth, between the Acadians (holla!) and the Newfoundlanders, we will kill you with kindness.
So of course we look at the States and want to offer some BC bud, tell everyone to chill out, and have a nice big batch of that poutine I was talking about when they get the munchies…maybe later we can head down George Street in St. John’s and play pub golf as you vent your troubles on our listening shoulders. We promise we’ll hold your hair as you sob into the toilet trying to justify that normally you drink more than this and you’re NEVER this emotional. We’ll try not to be condescending, but forgive us our snickering. We just don’t get what’s going on down there. After all, we’ve got it so good right? I mean, who’s REALLY the land of the free in North America?
Hey, it’s not like we’re racist and treat our Aboriginal population like garbage…..oh wait. We totally do. But it’s not like we have a severe lack of access to abortion because it’s very rarely challenged….oh shit, that too? But at least we’re not trying to keep our poor people down with a shitty welfare system…..ah crap, we do, don’t we? At least our Prime Minister respects women….except for that one time he called us a left-wing fringe group….okay, so I’m not exactly making a great case for Canada here, but we’re totally better off right…..right?
(cue the cricket chirp)
We are a very cocky, yet complacent people. The problem up North is that we think we won and have the right to point and laugh at the States (or the more Canadian response would be passive aggressive comments about how much that must suck for you, because we don’t see anything like it). We haven’t won. We have a long way to go.
After years of systemic abuse by the residential school system, our Aboriginal people have still not received the proper help they deserve. There are so many lives that have been broken by it, and you better believe it has affected generation after generation. However, our government thinks that just throwing money at them will make it go away. It doesn’t. I’m pretty sure our very white government KNOWS that it isn’t working and they are keeping it up just to keep them down. WE did this to them, yet we are so unwilling to help. Ask the average white Canadian, especially male, what they think of this and you will get a litany of racism that could rival the most remote “South will rise again” places in Georgia. This is a problem.
We still have a province that insists that a woman go before a panel of doctors and get approved for an abortion. My province only has 2 clinics, both in the capital and one is like pulling teeth to get scheduled at, let alone find. This leaves a lot of people hanging and this is a common problem from province to province. There is also a coalition of pro-life Conservatives in our government, and you better believe that they have tried some slippery-slope legislation to chip away at those rights. This is a problem.
Our welfare system just doesn’t work. It’s very arbitrary as to who can get on and who gets denied, and people who do need the hand up for a while do get rejected. It’s also ridiculously hard to get off of. This is a problem.
Our PM minimizes women. He also silences members of his party who show dissent. Our senate waited until a day that a lot of the liberals were out and voted down an important environmental bill that would have allowed us a better environmental record (guess what, ours is shit). The PM promised senate reform since they are not currently elected…yeah, didn’t happen. THIS IS A PROBLEM.
Add up all of that and you still don’t have the biggest problem of all. Our biggest problem is that we take everything that we do have, think we’re okay, and then stop fighting. We have a sense that we’ve done great and we have enough, so let’s kick back, relax and laugh at a bunch of Americans. Meanwhile, as we sit and think that we’ve won the fight, people will start chipping away at what we have from underneath us. We’re so saturated with how bad the States are that poor legislation can go by unnoticed here, sometimes until it’s too late. We take our country for granted. We treat activists like idiots because we’re fine, eh? We also have a hard time making noise and agitating the masses because apparently we’re just too polite for that. Our loud activist community is hopeful, of course, but it’s small. After all, it’s just not the proper Canuck thing to do…I mean, those signs and the noise, they might bother some people!
So to all those Americans out there (especially the activists) who have gotten the brunt of Canadian passive aggressive “we’re better” bullshit, let me just say the National Word……sorry. Hopefully you’ll still stand with us if shit hits the fan up here.
We’re still pals…….right?
May I simply say: Hell yeah!
(eh)
Thanks for a most interesting piece, MA. I appreciate a realistic appraisal of Canada’s strengths and weaknesses, which is something I haven’t seen much of here. Loving your country requires you to see it as it is, so that you can work to make it what it could be.
Loved the post. Last year I went to a poutine party (spouse works with a bunch of Canadians). It was….interesting LOL. I grew up eating cheese curds, but not with gravy!
@Ms.M
Did they layer it appropriately with fries, cheese curd, gravy and repeat 3 times? Because that is life changing good stuff.
@Marie Anelle
Yup, and the fries were homemade in a deep fryer just before the assembly. My older son LOVED IT!
I grew up in Wisconsin, on a dairy farm no less, and just prefer my cheese ‘straight up’.
Canadian complacency is absolutely shameful when you consider the decades of protests, strikes, risk-taking politicians, and the open-mindedness of average joe Canadians who helped make our country what is is. It’s terrible how little awareness or honour we have for the people who made it all possible. Voting Tommy Douglas “Greatest Canadian” just doesn’t count when we allow Harper to run the country as if he has a majority.
Sing it, sister!
Let’s not forget how developers control municipal politics and that trying to keep land near cities in the Agricultural Land Reserves tends to be a losing battle.
Or the pressure from conservatives to destroy what few regulatory requirements on businesses that we have (and which are usually managed by the industry anyway!)
I have my own perspective on this, having lived in Ontario with my ex. I’m an American citizen, he was an Argentinian citizen. I went where he could find work after we graduated (ah, to be in my 20s again, and very naive about power structures in relationships!).
When I visited the local equivalent of a Social Security office ahead of time, they told me flat out that as his partner, but ‘only’ fiance and not his wife, I would still be able to get work I just had to have my employer follow a basic procedure and that’s that. So I moved there, almost didn’t make it across the border because I was honest with Canada that yes that big moving van meant I was moving with him, and why.
Got through, applied for every job I could find. Finally, found one in the local mall, degrading one but whatever, I was broke and he wasn’t paying for the two of us. I did everything I’d been told to do and promptly found out about the hell that was American immigration to Canada. Keep in mind this was BEFORE domestic partners were allowed in to work/study with their partners, because I wasn’t married I had literally a vacation stamp in my passport AND I wasn’t allowed to leave U.S./Canada to travel abroad, they said if I did I wouldn’t be allowed back in. They also said I couldn’t work or study. I kept calling Ontario and Buffalo immigration offices, with no help or resources and like I said, very broke. This went on and on and on. (The marriage itself was not possible at that time.)
When I asked about immigration rights and rules they could only quote me ones on refugees and/or people not from America. When I asked about domestic laws I might have recourse to, they said tough shit, you’re American. It was this no-man’s-land…not foreign enough, not domestic enough. And no one ever tried to help me, ever. It was completely demoralizing.
When things broke up and he was driving me back to the States for my move, because of airport TSA papers he hadn’t removed from his passport (moron) I was screamed at for hours at the border crossing, not allowed to be near to him or check on my cat (in the car) or get out the info they were asking for (the friend’s address I was staying at in New York). I was treated like a criminal on both ends, so surreal. Like I was going to be jailed. I’ve never gone back. (Much like my great-grandfather who bicycled out of Ontario back in the day.) Also, I got a bunch of the passive aggressive shit for both being an American and a french-speaker (I’ve lived in francophone countries and studied it a long time) when I was in english-speaking Canada. It was odd how that worked out.
As a fellow Cannuck I so completely agree with this post. I would like to add that you forgot our constant worship of the Beaver and Tim Hortons. I think that we should be proud of our socialized medicine its just too bad that so many don’t even have a family doctor but hey we’re better than the Americans right (sarcasm)
@veganmarcy
That is all so terrible. One of my best friends is going through the immigration system for her American husband, and whenever people complain about how easy it is, I am convinced they have no idea.
Ditto on the French thing. I come from the heart of the Acadian Peninsula in New Brunswick, everyone’s first language is French. Despite the fact that I have an amazing handle on the English language, I get to hear people make degrading jokes about French people….though it’s great when I throw a line of French right after and they stutter.
@Renee Martin
How on EARTH did I forget Timmies?!
I’m totally on guard for Canada, and not just because some of my best friends are Canadian (really, they are!). I’m always impressed that Canada managed to accomplish serious cultural/political milestones like single-payer healthcare and gay marriage without the hateration and prolonged political bloodshed we’re suffering over the same things in the US. It’s fucking exhausting being in the trenches for those things here, so kudos to Canadians for getting it done with reasonable civility and efficiency.
That said, the “OMG, your USian mat leave/health care/unsubsidized education sucks! Canada’s way better!” can sound an awful lot like gloating, and on the days when I’m worrying about how my disabled family members will get proper care if they’re denied insurance, I might get stabby if I have to hear about how that would all be paid for if only we lived a few hours north of here.
Oh, and I think Timbits are overrated. But the gloriousness of poutine more than makes up for it.
@BeckSharper
It’s especially galling when we have some really gross human rights problems to deal with as well.
Oh, and I’m so on board with the Timbits comments. No one goes to Timmies for the donuts or Timbits. It’s more like the national watering hole.
Anelle, I agree with much of what you said, particularly on Canadian complacency about itself, but I’ve been debating on a small point for several days with myself about it. I should really be doing other work too, but hell, I need a break.
In a sense I think my experience with this sort of thing has more to do with having lived in the States for five years than it does with being “Canadian.” I think maybe it’s possible that ex-pats struggle with this in a slightly different way. Partially because to me, the central paradox of my navigation of this issue is that I spend a lot of time defending America to Canadians, and a lot of time defending Canada to Americans, while feeling in effect that neither of their “models” is exactly my cup of tea. In fact, personally, I would prefer living in the States, but that has more to do with my individual aspirations. But each audience only sees one side, it seems to me.
As a person who has, even very recently, been accused of “bragging” to Americans, I have to say, I learned that most of the time it was not even worth it to mention Canada when speaking in conversations of any political kind. Inevitably it drew this accusation, though often, I was mentioning it not because of some kind of deliberate desire to assert superiority, but because honestly it inflected my reaction. I remember speaking with someone once about how they were still paying off their third child (then a toddler) and just kept saying, “I’m horrified. I don’t understand how you live like this.” To be honest, I still don’t, and I get that to some extent you could wrap that up in an argument about Canadian economic privilege. But on the other hand, what was I supposed to say? Nod sagely and ask about payment plans? Pretend that this was conceivably okay when it wasn’t? I mean, some people would say, “Just sympathize.” But I did. I was not telling this person that if she had known better she would have moved to Canada before giving birth. I was not claiming moral superiority. I was expressing how horrifying it is not to have these kinds of things (i.e. health care) as fallbacks. The whole time I was in the States I was constantly thinking about how it affects a place to not have that kind of even imperfect social safety net.
But several exchanges like that one – although to be honest that one didn’t result in any blowback for me, since my interlocutor seemed to understand the spirit in which the comment was made – taught me ultimately that it was considered rude to bring up to Americans the experience of any other polity than their own. I get it, but I don’t think that it’s anything more than a somewhat arbitrary rule.
Although I have dropped most spontaneous mentions of Canada from my conversations, I do still from time to time get into a situation where someone would make an assertion about Canada – usually about how Canadians are all hypocrites because it is “just as bad” there – and when I would defend Canada from this assertion, I would again get told that I was “bragging.” I don’t know what to say to this exactly. Partially, again, because I rarely if ever describe Canada as perfect. But the assertion that every place has its downsides isn’t, and shouldn’t be, equivalent to the idea that all downsides are equivalent.
And yet I make this comment kind of expecting an attack for it, because again I’ve implied that there might be some value to the critique of America that the existence of other ways of organizing things and still, you know, being committed to freedom and democracy and all that good stuff, itself suggests.
Again, I think this has mostly been about my particular experience. And it’s funny, because it makes me not want to bother writing things here and in other spaces, often, because as someone who has lived in both Canada and the U.S. (currently the former) it is virtually impossible to keep that from inflecting what I write. It’s just a fundamental fact of it. But to do so is characterized as “bragging,” and that’s frustrating.
ETA: fixed confusing typos.
@Marie Anelle – not to threadjack, but would you mind elaborating on the whole dynamic surrounding people speaking French in Canada? I understand a little of the history of Quebec vs. the rest of Canada (I think) but the idea that veganmarcy would get shit for having learned French in school as an American is bizarre to me. Do people from France get that sort of reaction, too? I find this puzzling. If the question is too off-topic, please feel free to ignore me.
@Marie Anelle: I’ll flash my regional colors and say Tim’s doughnuts ain’t got nothing on a hot, fresh Krispy Kreme (the mere thought of which has me drooling into my keyboard).
I second what baraqiel says and I’d happily read a whole post on being Acadian, personally. I know relatively little except what I’ve heard from the Acadians’ southern cousins, the Cajuns (Who have tried to convince me that their cultural staple, boudin blanc, is delicious. It is not.)
@Michelle: That’s an extremely amazing perspective and I never thought of it that way at all. I would LOVE for you to post about it.
@baraqiel: As BeckySharper suggested, I will definitely write a post on being Acadian and how that relates to Francophone/Anglophone friction. I’ll be able to write a better angle that way since I’m not from Quebec and East Coasters hate separatists more than the rest of Canada does.
@BeckSharper: I used to work for Krispy Kreme Customer Service. It turned me off forever, lol. That and I hate hot donuts.
@Marie Anelle – Hooray! I look forward to it.
[...] Canadian Complacency: How We Don’t Understand the US and How We Don’t Fight Hard Enough …. This is a fantastic post about how Canadians spend so much time comparing ourselves to the US that we miss those things in our society that need to be fixed. I know I’ve been guilty of it. It was so exhilarating to move to a country that makes it easier for disadvantaged people to access medical care and quality education that I overlooked some of the stuff Canada needs to work on. [...]
Originally I had written out a rather lengthy, and quite frankly brutal response to this, but something stopped me. I’m not sure if it was realizing that I was about to be very rude to someone for no reason other than I disagree with them, or the fact that I noticed that not a single response was negative.
Call it pessimism, but I smell filtered replies. I could be wrong, but I would appreciate some clarification, because if I had such a strong response to this I can’t see no one else on the planet having the same reaction.
@h00t: We do not delete dissenting comments except to remove trolls or comments that are inconsistent with our commenting policy, which is clearly stated in our FAQs. All the comments that were made are the ones you’re reading here. None were “filtered.”
You and everyone else are welcome to disagree with posts provided you do so in a respectful way instead of “being very rude for no reason other than I disagree with them.”
I am an American who moved to Canada after George Bush became president, in 2002. My parents are both european, and I was brought up to like everything that Canada stands for (or thought it stood for)
After enduring immigration to Canada, 8 years of attempting to penetrate Canadian clannishness, unfriendliness, passive-aggressive snarky behavior and more, I am headed back to the US.
Bottom line to all the liberals who like Canada, let me save you the trouble. They don’t like you, they never will, and they will relish the opportunity to inflict indignities and slights on you when you are stuck in their country, despite the fact that you would have been nothing but nice to them were they in the United States.
To my fellow Americans: stop putting down your country in public. It isn’t making you any friends, and guess what: it IS true that they’re jealous of you and resent you for what they thought was your easy life, and uou will not be able to make up for it by tearing about your country and humbling yourself for their benefit. Instead, be proud of being Americans: you are more generous, friendly, kind and open than most people in the so-called first world. You still may not get their friendship or love, but at least you may have their respect…
My .02c after having the veil torn from my eyes.
Sign me…a former idealisic American Liberal
digiwench – “To my fellow Americans: stop putting down your country in public. It isn’t making you any friends, and guess what: it IS true that they’re jealous of you and resent you for what they thought was your easy life, and uou will not be able to make up for it by tearing about your country and humbling yourself for their benefit. Instead, be proud of being Americans: you are more generous, friendly, kind and open than most people in the so-called first world. You still may not get their friendship or love, but at least you may have their respect”
Well said digiwench, for all its negatives (name me a country that does not have them), the USA is still a great NATION with many amazing people. America bashing is almost an Olympic sport in Canada, though perhaps it is understandable. When you grow up in the shadow of the most dominant cultural force of the 20th century, and when your country owes FAR more of its own identity to Uncle Sam than many a Canadian would like to admit, it is perhaps understandible. The overwhelming majority of the best television, movies, music, magazines, and consumer products were either directly produced in the US or were inspired from American ingenuity. Even the very means of moving from point A to point B in this vast country was shaped by the USA, imagine how further behind in its development, Canada would be, if it were not for the millions of cars and trucks produced under the flagship of the Big 3 Detroit autonakers, and the $$$billions invested by US companies / citizens willing to invest their own money. The Great White North would be decidedly less great and much more white.
Reading the last few comments, looks like people really hate Canada, saying we’re clannish, unfriendly and passive-aggressive. What kind of people were you hanging around? Admittedly, we inherited British snobbery into our national character, which we’re not proud of, but come on, we’re not monsters.
Serious question, though: while reading “Good Soldier Svejk” by Jaroslav Hasek, I began to wonder if the Canadian national character is in any way comparable to the Czech national character? Are we anything like Svejk in our norms/mores/behaviour?
Honest answer – speaking as an American, no, we’re not friends, and we never will be. If the issue was one of governmental differences, I’d be willing to forget it, tomorrow. I’ve never seen the individual Russian or Persian as being my enemy, and culturally speaking, I tend to be rather fond of Arabs. When past aggression, however, has taken place on the grass roots level instead of the governmental, there is no basis for forgiveness.
I can remember a time when Usenet was the Internet, and was primarily an American network, having been an American creation, made using American taxpayer dollars. Which is to say, an era in which the Canadians were guests in our virtual home. You were lousy guests.
Many political issues were being sorted out in that era, and as the current era shows, they were in need of rational resolution. The Canadian contribution to the discussion was to ensure that rationality was the one thing that never had a chance to enter the discussion. Even the slightest hint of deviation from Political Correctness would bring a massed, flaming response from our “polite and tolerant” northern neighbors, who would do their damnedest to get those dissenting with their own bizarre views censored by their own providers.
In those bad old days, one gave away one’s userid and primary ISP with every post, and IT professionals weren’t very afraid of losing their jobs (yet), so a very effective strategy for silencing those who had the bad taste to beat one and one’s friends in an argument was to round up a mob, and harass the staff at the primary ISP of the person one disagreed with until some employee went along with one’s attempted “plug pulling”, just to get the complainers off of his back. Your countrymen became well known for playing that game.
Putting this in historical context, they were interfering in the internal politics of the United States, by getting views contrary to their own silenced, by orchestrating these campaigns of harassment, removing balance from their field of battle, in the forum (Usenet) in which the American political consensus of the era was being formed. Insane views became normative, because they could not be challenged, and history ended up going down a very bad path, as a result.
There is no forgiving that. No, we are not pals. A pal is somebody you’d like to see show up, not somebody who you hope will get run down by a truck. There is no forgetting years of backbiting, defamation and what would today be called cyberstalking. Personaly, given my druthers, we’d break off diplomatic relations with your country, seal the border, black hole all electronic communications from it, and send every national you have back to you, preferably by the most degrading means possible. Having them hackled, and in a slowly moving cattlecar, with children invited to throw things at the prisoners as they pass through town, sounds like a good option. I guess we could H bomb every town of over 100 people you have without making a real dent into our arsenal, but that would probably be wrong, so I’ll settle for the mere humiliation and degradation of our Canadian visitors. One should be reasonable about these things.
Glad I could clear that up for you. Here’s hoping you and all of your neighbors have a lousy day.
As an American that lives in an expat community surrounded by tons of Canadians, I would like to simply say…
Thank you.
Hello, I would like to say thank you as well. I came to Canada on a scholarship for graduate school for which I was aggressively recruited. I am originally trying to process the interpersonal experience and rejection I experienced. At first I did not understand than I begin to blame myself and try so hard to fit it in. I grateful that I had not suffered the resulting low-self esteem in a manner that effected the quality of my thesis writing. I thank you for this because it’s helps me to understand that the fault is not with me. Which I had internalized. What must be understood is that there is a difference between local organic culture and International Politics. A people can be completely miserable mean and Judgemental and yet establish systems that have justice and Equaltity. In contrast in the United States which is not really a democracy their is a country with a horrible and evil political system of exploitation. And a areas of people who in their daily lives are very friendly, hospitable, welcoming, funny and chatty. Because the major decisions of the country are made to exploit the country itself and world for profit by a few or even an ideology it does not reflect the life-world character of the people who happen to live there. It’s a pretty simple concept to understand. I hope Canadians would fight for the poor of America and not make fun of them every other second. It is disgusting way to treat people in tragic circumstances.