Canada, Now More Than Ever

Despite scandals and broken politics, there’s never been a better time to believe in the True North

It’s been a tough week in Canada, with anger and frustration hanging thick in the air. News trucks swarmed outside the Red Chamber and Toronto City Hall like sharks on chum, and as images of lying, deceit, and deception circulated around the news and indeed around the world, Canadians were left to only hang their heads, the image of a friendly, civil, and just society, another sacrificial lamb in a 24-hour news cycle.

In fact, this has been a tough year for Canada—though you can’t blame the US media for only catching on when Rob Ford, a character seemingly coined for Twitter-sized-news, entered the scene. In the absence of locked-out hockey, Quebeckers tuned in to the Charbonneau Commission and watched mayors topple from the province’s largest cities. Montreal’s Mayor Michael Appelbaum was just the latest in a string of house-cleanings, caught too cozy to the construction industry playing fast and loose with public funds.

In Quebéc City, a Parti Quebecois government has spent the bulk of the fall and its mandate trying to divide Quebec and in turn, Canada. With an ironically titled Charter of Values, the ruling separatist party has moved to legislate diversity—a kind of religious fashion police—by proclaiming a new suite of rules to promote a not simply a secular society, but an atheistic society, above all else. Of course, legislating diversity via headscarfs and yarmulkes is appallingly close-minded, but then again, the Charter still labours forward through the National Assembly, the rest of Canada left to wonder what this means for the legacy of another Quebecker, Pierre Trudeau, and his work toward official multiculturalism and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In the wild west that is resource-dominated British Columbia, Christy Clark surprised pundits by coasting to a second term. Doing so with a paltry voter turnout—54%—left Adrian Dix, the NDP, and electorate to do some much needed soul searching on the role of the state and civic responsibility in modern Canadian life.

We continue to wrestle with our energy economy future—from Fort McMurray to Lac-Mégantic—Canadians this year have struggled and suffered over how we can be the best stewards for our land and for our communities. A town of just under 6,000, Lac-Mégantic lost 47 when a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded. Canada’s second most-deadly rail disaster serves as a sobering illustration of a national thirst for energy and a government protecting profits over people. As rail safety and environmental stewardship continue to live in the shadows of resource extraction, we are only beginning to see the cost of resource economy, in lives lived and towns torn apart.

Of course, Canadians could always rest assured that what defined this country—beyond hockey and a religious attachment to Timbits—was a sense of fairness. It was the vision of socialism that had taken root in the wheat fields of Saskatchewan with Tommy Douglas, and grown coast to coast as universal health care. We watched, amused and coy, as Barack Obama spent his political capital to attempt what had been woven into the Canadian identity. We looked on and knew that inequality had no place in our confederation, what tied this vast land together was a feeling of responsibility—to each other, to our veterans, to our seniors, and to our youngest. With a strong social safety net squarely part of the national culture, we were on our way to building an ethical and just society. But the national fabric has unraveled and today the wealthiest 1% earns ten times as much as the average Canadian, who earned, by the way, a mere $27,000 last year. In contrast to the income of the average Canadian, the average listing price of a home for sale in Canada last month was just over $690,000. By those figures, the average Canadian wouldn’t be able to live in the average house in this country.

Still, I am optimistic. More than that, I believe that we need Canada today, more than ever. Gossipy tabloid scandals and broken politics should not weaken Canada’s value and mandate on a global stage far dirtier and far more financially and ethically bankrupt than anything north of the 49th parallel. So, this is a call to reaffirm what’s best about this country—to put aside fat jokes, crack jokes, and gross excess—and remember what made this confederation of people worth fighting for. Let the vitriol chalked around Nathan Phillips Square fade with autumn rains and let us remember gathering there in the memory of Jack Layton. And as we scrawl missives at Rob Ford, let us remember Bon Jack’s last directive to us:

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

For all of this adversity, and there has been plenty, this is still a country bounded together not in exceptionalism, but multiculturalism. This is a country that promotes justice, not vegenance. And while American politicians make empty allusions to God to pick up those last primary voters, we hold tighter to what unites us than what divides us. We share a vast and beautiful terrain with the many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit who have called this land home before us and we owe them and our children a future here better than we found it: More just, more peaceful, more loving; more accepting of diversity and difference; and more solemn and aware of our colonial past. Above all, let us be most appreciative of our greatest resource, not oil or hockey players, but our capacity to work together, and to believe in something called Canada.