Canada Day 2011

I am not an Accidental Canadian

Sport holds up a mirror to a nation, and one could hardly blame Canadians everywhere from flinching away from the image reflected by the Stanley Cup playoffs. Rioting, looting and general thuggery filled the streets of downtown Vancouver as the home team - Canada's adopted team - lost to the Boston Bruins after pitched warfare in seven acts. Today is Canada Day, and I'm afraid we're going through a bit of a rough patch.

Where once Canada stood as a beacon of progressive thinking and humanitarian ideals, we now face continual challenges to the character of the nation. Our government has cut funding for women's programs and aid to African nations. Canada's track record on environmental issues is frankly appalling. The enormous cost of our medical system continues to balloon unsupportably. The poorest are falling through the cracks. Our government groans under the yoke of excessive bureaucracy. The Prime Minister is a cat person.

How different from last year when, so the pundits said, Canada finally 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 was a good year. The vein of cautious Scots pessimism that runs through our various banking centers and regulatory groups had insulated us from economic collapse. Vancouver's Winter Olympics provided a 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?

However, what everyone pointed to as the defining moment for the nation 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 of 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. The Old World 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 refuse to allow either thrilling Olympic victory or ugly commercial defeat to colour my national feeling. I am not Canadian by accident: my parents chose this land for me and 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 New Zealand, or America, or the U.K. than I would cut off my limbs, or carve out my heart. I owe Canada an unrepayable 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.

As for my children, as yet unborn, if they choose to work abroad or marry someone in Australia, then so be it. In the meantime, if this is going to be the country I choose for them, then we've got some work to do.

At 7 a.m., the morning after those all-too-well publicized riots, a small army of people arrived in downtown Vancouver. They were armed with trash bags and some wore Canucks Jerseys; the city's streets were covered in debris and broken glass, but by 11 a.m. ninety percent of it was gone. A police cruiser received a spontaneous covering of Post-It notes thanking police and firefighters for their efforts to keep people safe.

I walked through the downtown core today where a diverse mix of people were wandering about the sunny streets, some striding purposefully, some stopping to listen to a street performer drumming outside the Skytrain station. The windows of the iconic Hudson's Bay Company are still boarded up, but above them flutters hundreds of flags. As I get closer, I can see that on each one is written a small message of kindness. Hundreds of strangers have come together to counter the destruction with a simple display of love.

You know what?

That's my Canada.