Oh Canada

Canada Day

Today is Canada Day, and already a newspaper may be waiting for you on your front doorstep, full of headlines crowing about this year's successes. Truly, so the pundits say, this is the year when Canada stood among equals; the year when we took our place on the world stage; the year when we grew up as a nation. To which I reply, in the patois of my Ulster forebears, “Catch yerself on.”

Admittedly, it has been a good year. The vein of cautious Scots pessimism that runs through our various banking centers and regulatory groups in some ways insulated us from economic collapse. Vancouver's Winter Olympics provided the much-ballyhooed showcasing of Canada to the world, principally in the person of our immensely talented, determined and gracious athletes. Who else but a Canadian gold-medallist would apologize for over-exuberance upon winning gold?

Also, this is the year that our medical system didn't collapse yet, and our robot Prime Minister continues wearing sweaters, which keeps the political cartooning industry busy.

However, what everyone will be pointing to and shouting about as the defining moment for this year is of course Sidney Crosby's overtime goal in Men's Olympic hockey. It clinched victory over the Americans (always particularly satisfying) in our national sport, added a record-breaking fourteenth gold to our medal count, and unified the entire country in a whooping, hollering, lumberjack cheer. Every Canadian, regardless of race, creed, political affiliation, age or stance on the whole Starbucks vs. Tim Horton's debate, threw their arms up in the air like they just didn't care and partied like it was 1867.

Everyone except, and this is the important bit, for at least two people. As the third nail-biting period drew to a close with the promise of overtime, the game and our national pride hanging in the balance, my mother and father got up, switched off the television and went for a walk in their own little corner of heaven.

Their home, the place where my brother and I grew up, is a little country jewel in the Fraser Valley, ringed by snow-capped mountains. The winding, hilly roads are lined with either aromatic fir and pines or sussurating birch and ash. Curious horses and cows will walk over to greet passers-by, and the air is filled with the hum of busy insects and the bright calls of small birds. It is an unutterable paradise.

So my mother and father walked their usual route chatting, I would imagine, about small things: when to invite friends over, what to have for supper. It's not that they didn't care about the hockey, or the electric sense of national unity that was palpably charging the entire country. Very simply, they didn't need to physically participate in watching the event unfold to experience that sense of total belonging, of togetherness. This country, which they had chosen to call home, had chosen them back time and again.

In 1969, a young couple arrived in a wild land, leaving behind a troubled country. With charming naivety, they had drawn a line from their home in Belfast, Northern Ireland, all the way across to Prince Rupert, BC, figuring that, as it was at the same latitude, the weather would be the same. What they found was essentially a frontier town, and within a year my five-foot-one mother, who had lived in towns all her life, was hiking out of the bush with half a dressed moose carcass strapped to a back-board.

But the where and the when is not important. What is important is that Canada welcomed them. The country was wide open. When they tried to return to Northern Ireland several years later, with the intention of buying a small farm, they found intolerance, small-mindedness, and very real danger. The contrast was unlivable. Ireland told you who to be based on who your ancestors were, and what you believed; Canada asked the question, “Who would you like to be?”

And that's why I can't embrace this year as being the year that Canada was elevated to greatness, or the year in which we could finally feel proud of this country, because I have been a proud Canadian since the day I understood what this place truly is.

Mordecai Richler famously said, “Canada is not so much a country as a holding tank filled with the disgruntled progeny of defeated peoples,” which is par for the course for that sour old goat. Consider me, then, well and truly gruntled. If my parents had stayed, the course of my life would have flowed down the same old valleys. Here, the rivers are young, and they carve their own way.

I love this country. I would no more emigrate to Australia, or America, or the U.K. than I would cut off my limbs, or carve out my heart. I owe Canada an unpayable debt as not only the safe haven my parents found, but also the land where I grew, was educated, found friendship and love and limitless opportunity. Even though I have not a single ancestor buried here, my roots feel as deep as anyone who can go back several generations; Canada's soil is fertile, and will grow anything you choose to turn your hand to.

In eleven days, it will be July 12th, marching season in Northern Ireland. The old order is dying there, and perhaps this year will be quiet, with the usual posturing and sabre-rattling sounding less like approaching storm clouds and more like the receding footsteps of a retreating army. I certainly hope so. Either way, on the day, my Catholic father will likely receive a phone call from my Ulster Protestant godfather, who usually likes to sing “The Sash”, a marching song that might have been highly inflammatory in its place. Here though, it has no context, and as such, the pair of them will share a bittersweet laugh, both lamenting the idiocy of the conflict, and rejoicing in being well out of it.

Mom and Dad, your sons both thank you. You could not have chosen a better place for us. Canada, this day your son thanks you as well. When we stand on guard for thee, may it be to hold high the welcoming beacon of a better life.

Come on over: it's a really big country.

-Brendan McAleer, July 1st, 2010