Canada Day 2024

We're grumpy these days. Mr. Poilievre tells us that "Canada is broken." It's Poilievre boilerplate -- over the top and mean. There is much to fix and improve. But there is much to celebrate.

Happy Canada Day.

Image: Britannica

Canada Day 2023

Where we live, smoke is in the air. It irritates our eyes and, when we go outside, we wear masks. These are difficult days. But let's not be overcome with cynicism. There is still much to celebrate in this country.

Happy Canada Day.

Canada Day 2022

Another Canada Day. The celebrations this year will be on Lebreton Flats, not Parliament Hill. Anti-vaccine protester James Topp has arrived in Ottawa, where he was joined by Pierre Poilievre. Tamara Lich, who was in the capital in February, will spend the day in jail after violating her bail conditions -- for a second time. 

Everywhere these days democracy is under attack. But, despite the howling, there is much to celebrate.

Happy Canada Day.

britannica.com

Canada Day 2021

This Canada Day is like no other I can remember. The graves of all those children -- recently and soon to be discovered -- make this a somber day. There is so much we didn't get right. Martin Luther King said that "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." There is so much to do.

Image: The Guardian

Canada Day 2020

Canada Day in the Time of COVID. Tourism is the lifeblood of our town. And the tourists have arrived in groups, shoulder to shoulder. They don't wear masks. When the locals remind them of the rules, their response is: "There's no COVID here!"

It's all rather surreal. In two weeks, we'll discover what kind of a day this was.

Nonetheless, Happy Canada Day.

Image: South China Morning Post

Canada Day 2019

This year, in Ontario, Canada Day will be a bit strange. Doug Ford  has announced that the celebrations at Queens Park have been cancelled -- to save money. The suspicion is that he cancelled the event because his presence there would be greeted by a chorus of cascading boos. He's been running into a lot of them these days.

The Liberals -- who don't possess official party status -- have announced that the celebrations will go on. They will pick up the tab.

It's a reminder of the political landscape these days. Wherever you are in this country, enjoy the day. Despite the presence of politicians like Mr. Ford, we have a lot to celebrate.

Image: Times Colonist

150

Our 150th birthday is not quite as ebullient as our 100th. Perhaps we were just more naive back then. The teepee on Parliament Hill reminds us that our history is incomplete. And, God knows, our future is uncertain -- because the planet's future is uncertain.

Still, we have much for which to be thankful. We are a nation of immigrants who have -- for the most part -- found a welcoming home here. We still have plenty of room and bountiful resources. With those blessings come responsibilities.

As I get older, my respect for Mike Pearson grows. As a young Canadian, I saw him as a man with a lisp and a funny bow tie. In my old age I see him as a wise man who devoted his life to the quest for peace, knowing that peace was always elusive and hard won.

On this somewhat fractious Canada Day, I remember his take on world problems:

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self interest.

Wise words. Happy Canada Day.

Image: Extraordinary Canadians

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lesterbpe300118.html

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lesterbpe300118.html

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lesterbpe300118.html

Building A Country

When Barack Obama addressed Parliament two days ago, he recalled what the other Prime Minister Trudeau said about building a country:

A country, after all, is not something you build as the pharaohs built the pyramids, and leave standing there to defy eternity. A country is something that is built every day out of certain basic shared values.

In 1867, Canada seemed like an impossible dream. In 1995, we almost lost it. But the country has endured.

May it continue to endure. And may we continue to build it.

Image: ottawacitizen.com

Canada Day 2015

                                         http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.ca

Yesterday, Greece defaulted on its creditors. We are in yet another financial crisis. Jim Stanford writes:

No one can predict how the European drama will unfold next. Or how other after-effects of the 2008-2009 crisis (such as the coming rise in U.S. interest rates) will shake still-fragile economies around the world. What is certain, however, is that globalized, financialized, polarized capitalism is incapable of finding the stable and efficient equilibrium fantasized by conventional neoclassical economists. Repeated outbreaks of credit-fuelled, speculative exuberance are inevitably followed by panic, retrenchment, and recession. This will keep happening. We don't know precisely when the next crisis will occur, nor its precise proximate cause. But we do know another crisis will occur, with 100 per cent certainty. And we do know that the 99 per cent of humanity who do not possess enough financial or business wealth to support themselves without actually working for a living, will be asked again to bear the brunt of the subsequent pain and dislocation.

On this Canada Day, we need to remember that those who presently hold the reins of power are manically devoted to the same neo-classical economics that has caused our recurring financial crises. And it doesn't have to be that way:

This pattern of repeating crisis and growing polarization is hard-wired into the DNA of modern capitalism: an economic system organized around the self-serving decisions of a surprisingly small and privileged segment of society. This crisis, no different from the last or the next, was not an unpredictable, unpreventable, one-off occurrence: a "black swan" event. Rather, it was the predictable, preventable result of an economy that puts the interests of financial wealth above the interests of the vast majority in working and supporting themselves. And it will happen again, unless and until we change the fundamental rules of the game.

Stanford writes that,  just as Naomi Klein suggested in The Shock Doctrine, these crises are organized for the benefit of the fabulously wealthy few:

She showed how ruling elites regularly take advantage of moments of fear and confusion, arising at moments of economic, social, or even natural disaster, to enforce painful changes that they were preparing for years -- but that most people would not tolerate under "normal" circumstances.

Today is a day to reflect on what we've become. And what we've become -- particularly in the last decade -- is an ongoing tragedy.

Canada's Veterans On Canada Day

                                                                                      http://www.cbc.ca

As we celebrate our good fortune today, we would do well to remember this country's veterans. Stephen Harper rode to power espousing a new militarism. But, Jeffrey Simpson writes, Harper and Co only love the military in theory. They don't put their money where their mouths are:

Capital spending on military equipment has declined four years in a row and remains on a downward trend. As a share of the defence budget, capital spending has dropped to the lowest level since 1977-78.

These arresting facts, and others, were recently unveiled in a paper by David Perry, senior security and defence analyst for the Ottawa-based Conference of Defence Associations Institute. He notes that the defence budget became the sitting duck for the government’s deficit-reduction strategy. Defence cuts accounted for a quarter of the overall drop in government spending in the 2014 budget.

And those who have returned from battle have been forgotten. Anne Bergeron-Oliver reports that there has been a spike in homeless veterans:

The number of homeless people identified by Veterans Affairs Canada has skyrocketed over the last five years, jumping from just 35 in 2009-2010 to 236 last year.

But the true figure could be much higher. Experts suggest there could be thousands of veterans living on the streets yet to be located by government and volunteer organizations. A City of Toronto report released last year revealed that 16 per cent of the 447 people sleeping on Toronto’s streets identified themselves as veterans.

“It’s quite shocking,” said NDP Veterans critic Peter Stoffer. “How many more have not been identified?.

Sometimes a picture is, indeed, worth a thousand words. Julian Fantino provided that picture as he hustled away, in order to avoid a confrontation with Jenny Migneault, whose husband suffers from PTSD:

“Mr. Fantino, I’m just a vet’s spouse,” she shouted at the minister. “You’re forgetting us, once more. We’re nothing to you.”

But, then, what would you expect from a cabal of armchair warriors? We must do more for our veterans -- starting today.

Keep The Militarism Out Of It

It's traditional to look back at our history on Canada Day. And on this Canada Day -- our 146th -- the Harper government has decided to review whether we teach our history the "right" way. Specifically, it feels that not enough emphasis is placed on our military prowess. Tom Walkom writes, in The Toronto Star, that Canada Day is a day for nationalism, not jingoism. The government is correct, he says, when it claims that Canadian citizenship has been devalued:

Where the Conservative government is off base, however, is in its attempts to refocus history solely on Canada’s military successes in war.

War is not unimportant. Canadians have fought in many — from early conflicts that pitted aboriginal nations against one another to Afghanistan and Libya.

But not everything is war. And not all wars in which Canadians took part were necessarily virtuous. To think otherwise is to veer into jingoism, where our team is always right simply because it is our team and the other guys (whoever they are) are always scumbags.

And, so, the Harperites spent a lot of money trying to convince Canadians that the War of 1812 was a glorious example of Canadians standing on guard for thee. The problem with that thesis is that war is never glorious.

My father was a World War II vet. Before the days of satellites, he was trained as an aerial photographer, tasked with the job of  photographing potential bombing targets. But, when he finished his training, he was given command of an anti-aircraft battery. Thus, he spent most of the war shooting at targets, rather than photographing them -- and, in the process -- becoming one himself. He survived and came home, he said, because of pure dumb luck. Most of those he trained with never came home. My mother's first husband died in Europe and, like my father's fellow trainees, never came home.

The Harperite taste for militarism is the dream of adolescents who have never been tested in the crucible of war. One suspects they couldn't survive boot camp.  Canada has always been the impossible country -- a huge land mass with a sparse population, whose constituent parts have managed to survive for 146 years. One hopes the country will survive the Harperites.

Canada Day 2012

Back when I taught high school students -- it seems like such a long time ago -- I used to proclaim that, were I king, I would make a cross Canada trip a mandatory part of the high school curriculum.

Before they graduated, I wanted every student to see the tide recede and roll back into the Bay of Fundy. I wanted every one of them to stop at a lookout on Mount Royal and look down on the lights of Montreal. They would have had to spend another night on the banks of the French River in Ontario, and watch the sky open up, as they left the Lake of the Woods and headed for Winnipeg. And, most of all, they would have traveled from Banff to Jasper, surrounded on both sides by those mountains.

That would never happen, of course, particularly in these times of austerity. But it could probably be done for the cost of a few F35's or a couple of prisons. The point is that it's a matter of priorities. And, despite all the flag waving, the Harper government's priorities are elsewhere.

Stephen Harper proclaims that I won't recognize Canada when he's through with it. I continue to cling to the belief that anyone who is deeply familiar with the Canadian landscape knows that he or she is very small in the grand scheme of things.

And I continue to hope that Canadians will see Stephen Harper for who he is -- a very small man.

Canada Day 2011

This has been a difficult year. In Alberta, a forest fire ravaged the town of Slave Lake. In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Souris, the Assiniboine and the Red Rivers have inundated huge swaths of prairie farm land. In Quebec, the Richeleau River has twice driven its valley dwellers from their homes.

Many of us remain unemployed. Our youth struggle to find a place in society. And the government which recently took office was not -- if one is to believe the polls --  the choice of a majority of Canadians.

There would seem to be little to celebrate. Yet, with each Canada Day, my thoughts return to one place. It's not Parliament Hill, although I always try to watch the ceremonies there. It is not to the Montreal of my youth. It is not to our home on the shores of Lake Ontario. My thoughts return to Peyto Lake, in the Canadian Rockies.

At Trent University's recent Convocation, Sandra Laronde reminded her audience that the way to survive a journey is not to look at your feet and count the steps. The strength to endure, she said, comes from always keeping your eyes on the horizon. For me, Peyto Lake represents the horizon. For others, the horizon will be somewhere else.

Today is a day not to count our steps, but to look outwards and to appreciate the beauty which is before us.

True Patriot Love

On July 1st, the Prime Minister proclaimed, "Today we celebrate the most peaceful, prosperous and enduring democracy the world has ever known." A bit over the top, I'd say; but it's the kind of rhetoric that other politicians have used before. And, if the polls are to be believed, Mr. Harper was only voicing what the vast majority of Canadians accept as true. As Jeffrey Simpson wrote last week, "almost 90 percent of [Canadians] believe they live in 'the best country in the world.'"

The problem with this kind of boilerplate, Simpson wrote, is that Canadians begin to repeat the Chapters-Indigo slogan: the world needs more Canada. "The assumption supporting this assertion," he claimed, "is that we Canadians are so worthy, morally upright and generally well intentioned, that the world would be a better place, if it were more like, well, us. Which, in turn leads Canadians to their deadliest sin: an unsinkable moral superiority."

Then, to remind us that there are many less than superior accomplishments in this country, Simpson enumerates some of our shortcomings: we have the world's worst record for per capita green house gas emissions; Canada is "almost alone in flogging asbestos around the world;" and "the decline of manufacturing and the struggles of high technology reveal Canada for essentially being what it has always been -- a hewer of wood and drawer of water, a country excessively dependent not on brain power but on natural resources."

Some might view Simpson's comments as sour grapes -- what they claim is a national tendency Canadians have for raining on their own parade. But that claim misses Simpson's point: "There are admirable aspects of being Canadian," he writes, "and these have all been justly celebrated on Canada Day. But self satisfaction can lead to a refusal to acknowledge weaknesses, to allow patriotism to curb critical thought, to refuse to face hard choices, and to cover a slow, albeit comfortable, slide toward international marginality and domestic mediocrity."

It has always seemed to me that one of the reasons for prairie winters is to remind human beings -- who all too easily fall victim to their own delusions of grandeur -- that, in the grand scheme of things, they are less important than they perceive themselves to be. A prairie blizzard carries a simple message: humility is the handmaid of reality. We are, indeed, a country of vast and varied blessings. But smug self satisfaction isn't one of them. True patriot love recognizes that fact.

Oh, Canada

Today this country marks its 141st anniversary. For a nation which was cobbled together out of a collection of dissimilar colonies -- one which has always considered itself a nation rather than a province -- the fact that the marriage has lasted for one hundred and forty-one years represents, indeed, the triumph of hope over experience.

We owe at least some of our longevity to luck. We have been blessed with an abundance of natural resources and space. Lately that has meant that, in a world gone wild for commodities, we have prospered. And all that space has given us room to blow off steam when we got on each others' nerves.

But we also have survived. We have done so in the darkest of winters; and we have done so despite geographical and cultural barriers -- by, more often than not, finding a way around them, instead of confronting them head on. It's not a particularly heroic way to solve problems; but it leaves behind less scar tissue. In the process we have built institutions -- first a railway, then a telecommunications system and, finally, a publicly financed health care system -- founded on the principle that survival requires sacrifice -- at times, unequal sacrifice.

That ethic of sacrifice has been under attack for a generation by those who have maintained that self interest is in the public interest. They have told us that such is the way of the newly globalized world -- and it is time we got with the program. But in a country which is (geographically) the second largest in the world and which is home to a surprisingly small population, self interest has always run up against the needs of the community. And, most of the time, the community has triumphed.

However, as James Travers points out in today's Toronto Star, we live in an era when our community is now the world. We can no longer afford, he writes, "to live in splendid northern isolation." Besides having obligations to our fellow citizens, we have an obligation to the planet and its citizens. This means we must work to establish trading systems which fairly distribute our own and others' resources; we must sell our oil and reduce the greenhouse gases it generates. Most of all,we must work to see that the grain and other foodstuffs, which have made us wealthy, feed an increasingly hungry planet.

The challenges are more than daunting. But they were just as daunting in 1867, when this seemingly impossible country looked like it would be the victim of American Manifest Destiny. We are not perfect. The Prime Minister's recent apology for the treatment of native children in residential schools should remind us of that. On the other hand, our belief in "peace, order and good government" -- as prosaic as they are -- have got us this far. Those values have built a considerable nation. They also have their place in the world of the 21st century.

After 140 Years

Jacques Cartier was not impressed when he sailed down the St. Lawrence in 1534. "The land God gave to Cain" he concluded as he looked at the landscape. John A. MacDonald also acknowledged the difficulties inherent in the place he called home. But, after cobbling together the British North America Act with the other founding fathers, he turned to Isaiah for inspiration: "The wolf and the lamb will graze together and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock . . . . They will do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain."

One hundred and forty years has not changed the physical geography of the place. Anyone who has stood on the open prairie and watched a winter blizzard blow in, or who has tried to navigate the Bay of Fundy when the fog is a blanket thrown over the bow of the vessel, knows the feeling of insignificance -- and terror -- Nature can unleash on this, North America's attic. And the lion and the lamb have never coexisted as idyllically as MacDonald hoped they would. Just ask David Suzuki, who spent part of his youth in an internment camp during World War II. Or ask native Canadians to retell the sad history of life on a reserve or in a residential school.

And yet -- and yet -- as we celebrate Canada's birth for the one hundredth and fortieth time, there is much to be proud of -- in the usual unobtrusive Canadian way. Many claim that Canada should have disintegrated decades ago -- and, during what is almost a century and a half, it frequently appeared to be ready to do so. Yet the country has weathered the First World War, The Depression, World War II and two referendums whose purpose was to determine whether or not the citizens wished to tear the house down. From its three founding races -- British, French and Native -- it has evolved into a mosaic of races and cultures which bear little resemblance to the country's original inhabitants.

And what is most remarkable is that in a world which has been torn asunder by ethnic rivalries -- from Rwanda, to Bosnia to Iraq -- Canadians, despite their occasional lapses into ethnic insanity, have continued to strive for for that vision of tolerance which MacDonald found in Isaiah. As John Ibbitson writes in his book, The Polite Revolution, "We are a nation of strangers, bringing in more strangers by the hundreds of thousands each year, from every region of the globe, who then learn to live together as friends."

There is always something a little messy about this mix. To those who have not taken the time to understand how the country works, it appears to leave us without a clear sense of identity or history, where region counts more than country and where urban neighbourhoods function, at times, like city states. But it is that autonomy to act as free agents, while agreeing that somethings -- like the longest railway in the world, Medicare, the CBC, public higher education and the Canada (or Quebec) Pension Plan -- are national institutions and the product of the national will which make the country unique.

And make no mistake: Canada is unique. If its environment can make one feel insignificant, that same environment -- in different circumstances -- can soothe the soul. The same prairie landscape looks different under a summer sky, stretching out to infinity. And the Fundy mudflats are a source of wonder when the tides roll in on a clear day. Then there are Niagara, the Rockies, Payto Lake and the Fraser Canyon. There are no other places like them on earth.

But, most of all, it is the dream of the peaceable kingdom which drives the vision of Canada as a nation. The American humorist, Josh Billings, said: "There may come a time when the lion and the lamb will lie down together but I'm still betting on the lion." For the last one hundred and forty years Canadians have placed bets on both beasts, convinced that they will be able to work something out. They haven't always succeeded -- at least immediately. But Canada was never a done deal. Canadians know that each generation has to renegotiate the bargain. It is that commitment to renegotiate the terms of nationhood that we celebrate this Sunday. We are all the better for it.

On an entirely different subject, I want to thank Ron Hart for his advice. His comment on last week's post is actually attached to my post of June 5th. I have followed his recommendation. I recommend that readers of this blog visit his website at www.safewatergroup.org.