This is What I Remember About Being Canadian
I remember a time when being Canadian meant thinking about diversity very differently than we seem to do today. I guess that’s not surprising in itself, things change, even Canadians, but I have to wonder why nobody else seems to remember this attitude towards diversity.
by Corey Reid
To be fair, I’m not very good at remembering things. This is something anyone will tell you about me: “That Corey,” they’ll say, “he tries, sort of, but he just can’t keep anything in his head.”
My memory is, to put it mildly, not to be trusted.
I have forgotten some pretty spectacular things, including, once, my family’s holiday in Hawaii, on the day of our flight. I’ll tell you the story someday.
But I have this lingering memory about being Canadian. I can’t quite track it down, but something about Canadian diversity seems different today than how I remember it. Something isn’t getting said anymore about Canada that I recall being said all the time. Maybe I’m making this up. But it seems to me like being Canadian used to be different.
When I was Forgetting
When I was forgetting about Hawaii, my family lived in one of the more affluent suburbs of a not-very-affluent town in central British Columbia called Prince George. This was not what anyone would call a particularly diverse town. My class included one black kid, a couple of Chinese kids and an Indonesian kid who’d been adopted by Norwegian parents. There were some Polish Catholics who lived across the street and they seemed pretty exotic to me.
It was a pretty white world, is what I’m saying.
But this was in the 1970's. Canada was led by Pierre Trudeau, who announced that Canada was deliberately seeking to be a “multicultural” country. I can remember in Grade 2 doing a whole array of exercises and activities encouraging us to celebrate the idea of Canadians as “multicultural”. A picture of “Canadians” always involved mixes of ethnicities, funny (to me) hairdos and costumes.
I can’t find anything about these multicultural “kits” we used. I can’t remember what they were called, of course, so tracking them down has so far defeated me.
But I loved it. Even in my white, white suburb, which was hardly a “cultural mosaic”, I loved the idea. It was exciting. A vision of a world full of differences and things to learn, adventures just waiting to be had.
I recognize now that many things were being papered over in all this. Damage was being done. People were being exploited. Even at the time, as kids, we knew things weren’t fair. Racism, sexism — we knew. Kids are highly attuned to noticing when things aren’t fair. It doesn’t take long for us to realise they almost never are.
But multiculturalism, the idea of diversity, seemed fair.
It seemed right. That people being different from each other was wonderful, something to be sought out and celebrated. That diversity should be an end in and of itself, because diversity is GREAT.
Being Canadian, to me in those days, never seemed very exciting. Nothing exciting had ever happened in Canada. But a vision of a future Canada, a Canada full of all these different peoples — that excited me. And it seems to me now that it seemed at the time that this vision was uniquely Canadian. There were other countries that welcomed immigrants, that struggled to integrate people of different backgrounds, but in Canada, I remember that we wanted everyone to share their native cultures, instead of adopting some built-in “Canadian” culture. I remember believing we would become together the whole of us.
As a kid growing up in this, forgetting about important stuff like Hawaii, I just accepted it whole heart. Of course this was a good idea, and of course this was what it meant to be Canadian.
That’s what I remember, anyway. That being Canadian meant being excited about building a diverse society where everyone is welcome.
The “Burden” of Diversity
“Diversity” seems like such a heavy concept today. We are fighting a long history of white supremacy, and patriarchy, and the horrors that were done to anyone who could safely be exploited. These fights are real and serious and people are still getting killed in the name of supporting or fighting for diversity.
I’m no danger, of course, no matter how it all plays out. What I feel isn’t terror or exhaustion, but just the sense that I forgot something. That maybe a lot of people forgot something, because I remember this excitement that never gets talked about anymore.
And if I can’t pretend to feel the heavy weight of oppression, I can at least speak up about that vision and how exciting it was. I can talk about how I remember (I think) drawing murals of “Canada” and being excited to get as many different shades of skin colour, and funny hairdos and whatever into the picture. That even Canada could be exciting, if we sought out and embraced diversity.
I don’t see any of our political leaders articulating this excitement. At best, I see people earnestly trying to look like they CARE, like they’re really worried about the “problem” of diversity. Like it’s this burden that us white people are going to hoist up on our shoulders because we’re so great. At worst, I see them actively trying to use the idea of diversity to scare people. I don’t see anyone proclaiming “Canada is going to be diverse as hell, and it’s going to be AWESOME!”
Forgetting to Remember
Pursuing diversity is hard and challenges us all —but for those of us who are most comfortable in the current system, it’s first and foremost a chance for us to grow and learn. There’s nothing for me to lose: maybe a modicum of the privilege I currently enjoy, but in exchange I get a richer, more adventurous life. I don’t have to justify this as some huge effort or sacrifice I’m making. For me, a privileged recipient of Canada’s wealth and opportunity, pursuing and celebrating diversity is an opportunity.
Diversity is exciting.
And this is what I don’t see anyone in the media or politics saying. This is what I remember about being Canadian: that we have the opportunity to make a truly diverse society. Why would we let that pass us by?
Now, you shouldn’t trust my memory. Maybe I don’t really remember anything about being Canadian. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe what matters isn’t what I remember, but what I celebrate. What I cherish and build together with all other Canadians, whoever or whatever they be.
