As the world around us seems to be rapidly falling apart at the seams, this Canada Day we should be extremely grateful that we live in this country. Canada is very far from being perfect: ask the homeless, the Indigenous peoples, the families forced to use food banks, or any of those minorities wondering where Canadian tolerance and compassion went. But it is still Canada: still a light in an increasingly dark world.
At the end of the Cold War, it seemed for a moment that the world was entering a new and better phase. Democracy was a realistic hope for Eastern Europe. There were talks about peace in the Middle East. Globalisation promised a more integrated world of mutual interests and shared prosperity (except for some so-called “Third World” countries from where we would get our cheap imports).
But we’re dealing with humanity here, and we have a positive genius for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just look at the way the world has changed since 1990: country after country tottering on the brink of populist demagoguery; a major war in Europe threatening to expand across the continent. The same thing is happening in the Middle East, where the appalling invasion of Gaza may yet expand into an all-out war in Lebanon, and who knows where then?
Feeling bad yet? Better not look too closely at the Excited States, where an election in a few months may result in either a fascist dictatorship, or some form of civil war. The United Kingdom is also going through an election after making a serious attempt to commit economic suicide through Brexit. France if rushing into an election after the far and centre right made significant gains in the European elections. What a mess!
Doesn’t Canada seem a better option these days? Sure, two-thirds of the population want Trudeau to step down (including a good chunk of his own party), and the current alternative worries me greatly. But neither of them is planning a coup, a far-right takeover, a tendency to subvert democratic norms and traditions. The tone and the rhetoric have become more – let’s say, rude – and the attacks more personal in a way we seem to have learned from our neighbours to the south.
And that is, and always has been, a characteristic of Canadian life: copying what we see down there. Whereas, in the past, people defined “Canadian” to me as “not American”, these days, there’s a much stronger, positive self-image among Canadians: we know there’s so much to be proud of here in so many areas of life. But there is still a fairly large part of the population that seems to wish we were the US, who want to repeat here what they see happening there. Does anyone really think the trucker takeover of downtown Ottawa would have happened without the MAGA example, the growing acceptance, even embrace, of political and social upheaval that has come to dominate American life, and which threatens its very existence as a democratic nation?
After 157 years, Canada stands, as we sing, strong and free. We rightly promise that we will “stand on guard for thee”. I don’t believe that it has ever been more vital that Canadians stand on guard for who they are, what they believe about and want for their nation. We are not immune to the winds of change that sweep the rest of the world. We have seen the first roots of populism, nativism, bigotry and discrimination bear fruit in this land. In this paper’s last issue, an article by REAL Women of Canada (interesting title), took an anti-foreign student stance, demanding that the foreign students not be allowed to stay permanently in Canada, since so many took part in pro-Palestinian protests when, it was said, they ought to have been studying and listening to lectures, like good foreign students.
That concerned me greatly, since I came to this country as a foreign student and was allowed to remain permanently, becoming a citizen and working, and employing, Canadians for the past 35 years. I promote local history, publish two community newspapers, and spend my working career working for Indigenous rights. I am not unique: immigrants are what this nation is built on, and has been from the beginning.
But articles such as the one by REAL Women, while sometimes holding a core of truth, are also slowly poisoning the Canadian atmosphere, and become another drop in the constant flood of ideas and prejudices that can become too widespread to counter. Canadians must be open to ideas, even those opposed to our own. We celebrate (or should) tolerance and understanding. But we have to know when a line is crossed, we have to watch out for ideas and theories that would undermine what Canada values and has built over 157 years. None of this is new. We have had ups and downs in our past – think of the internment of Japanese and Ukrainian citizens during WW2, for example; or the scar and disgrace of the Indian Act over 157 years plus.
This year, whatever your religious or cultural qualms about the words, sing out with even greater sincerity this Canada Day: God keep our land glorious and free. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
