Canada, O Canada

It is challenging to meld peace order and good government to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  I think we could settle on peace, order, good government, and happy, eh?!

I suspect very long term; we will be pre-eminent in North America; it won't be something we actively do or seek out; it will be more the result of what happens to the south of us. 

One of my great grandfathers was from Canada. I've visited the Niagara Falls area, but I've always wanted to go to Perth, where one of my great-great aunts lived. The photos are so beautiful. 

My daughter has already expressed interest in going to college in Canada. Assuming Covid is better next year, we are planning a road trip to Winnipeg to check it out. I think she just wants out, and sees Canada as "America, but fewer people and less stress." We'll see where her emotions are in a year ;)

Thank you Jeanne for starting this topic. I do have plenty of thoughts about it that I hope I can adequately express. 

As a Canadian I grew up like everyone else around me looking south of our border, shaking my head and thanking my lucky stars that I lived in a more civilized country. I took this attitude with me when I moved to the United States only to comically come across American's who looked south to the old confederate states and thank their lucky stars that they lived in a civilized state. That taught me a lot. We as Canadians are accustomed to believe that the worst cannot happen to us, that all those horrible things we read about on the news happens in America and we are safe. I used to believe this too, except that it is an illusion and one that needs shattering if we as a people are to grow and mature into a better nation than we are already. 

Growing up in Toronto felt very civilized, very orderly. I had an instinctive trust in the institutions of power, the government, the police etc.... As an adult I now have precisely zero faith in those same institutions but that's a topic for a different day. There were several points in my life when the brutal reality of what other parts of Canada are like intruded into my own consciousness. In elementary school one of my teachers told me that the reservations where some of our indigenous peoples live are like third world countries, devoid of adequate sanitation, running water etc... I couldn't believe my ears at that time but later I learned she was right. Years later living in Montreal I met some young people from Winnipeg who were first nations. They described such incredible racism to me that my eyes bulged. It was maybe a year later that Macleans magazine (a popular political journal) published an edition with a cover calling Winnipeg the most racist city in Canada and once I read the piece it confirmed what I had already heard before. I had other experiences also that taught me that my rosy perception was heavily skewed towards the fantasy rather than the reality.

At age 19 my mother had a nervous breakdown, she lost her job and we were almost homeless. In the end we moved to probably the cheapest apartments in the city that weren't government subsidized. I remember the cockroaches, the bed bugs, the unbearable heat in the summer, the cold in the winter. This wasn't first world living but we always had healthcare and I received welfare benefits that year as I was trying to finish high school and keep me and mom financially afloat. I went away to Queens university studying with the children of many wealthy people and I resented them. I hated them for how easy life was for them, how cheerful they were, how I felt judged for being poor, I was angry in a very deep way as I just struggled to survive on my own. I learned then that Canada still has classes and that I just did not fit in.

At age 22 I witnessed my first shooting outside my mother's apartment building. I witnessed other shootings later on as well, for some reason I didn't feel fear, it didn't matter much to me if I died, I think that's an attitude I still carry, it's why not much scares me. In 2010 Rob Ford was elected mayor of Toronto and I thought people were nuts. For the first time in my life I realized that there were a lot of angry people around me who voted conservative - this had never occurred to me before. I just always took it for granted that people were better than that, well lesson learned thoroughly since then. I saw in elections from 2010 onwards the seesaw of progressive/conservative victories and how the failure of progressives to deliver on their promises results in a right wing backlash that is mean, small minded, vindictive and petty. Exhibit A was Rob Ford, but this continued with Jason Kenney in Alberta (who I instinctively feel is in the pocket of the oil industry), Doug Ford as Ontario Premier, Francois Legault in Quebec (who is less venal than the others I mentioned) and of course the clown of Canadian clowns Andrew Scheer. Now obviously this is not nice of me to say, I have political biases I admit and I apologize if I offend anyone who likes these people - this is just my opinion. My big fear is that Trudeau has alienated a lot of people not because of policy so much as because of all the petty scandals that swirl around him - I sigh and roll my eyes every time something new comes up. This failure of his may easily translate to a much less enlightened government in the future as lefties like myself move to support the NDP and the conservatives attract more angry people to support them.

I've also seen the rise of big business as Toronto has grown exponentially since my childhood. The rise of endless numbers of luxury condo buildings, sky scrapers, luxury shops in malls, my mother complains that the city is pricing regular people out (a complaint I hear a lot actually). The city has become much more glitzy, glamourous and exciting since I was little, this has been especially noticeable in the last ten years. And while for me this is kind of exciting because I like shopping and selfishly I can afford nice things now, I see the resentment on many peoples faces as prices go up and life becomes harder. This is not just my hometown however - Vancouver is also experiencing much the same thing. My best friend who lives there complains about not being able to afford a decent family home even though both her and her husband are working professionals because in her words all the wealthy Chinese people have bought them up. I hear this complaint a lot from people in B.C., it is racist on the surface but reflects the reality on the ground and the resentment local people feel towards rich foreigners coming in and buying up all the space for themselves.

There is an irony in this however which I believe must be lost on the wealthy foreigners. They choose to dump their money in safe countries that have stable political situations but because of how selfish they are they then create unstable political climates simply by pissing off enough of the locals. Because Canadians believe that the worst cannot happen to us I'm afraid that we are asleep at the wheel and may wake up too late. I've seen resentment grow and I've seen the rhetoric get more belligerent. If American corporations increasingly choose to come north I am afraid that they will influence our politics in directions that are ultimately good for no one.
America has always been an extractive country, a vampire that sucks the blood of it's population to feed it's own insatiable greed and which then discards the bodies like refuse on the road. Canada has long said that it's people are it's strength and that therefore the nation should look after it's people, I hope they continue to try and do this but I worry about the future when I see how angry some people are becoming. More American influence in Canada cannot be a good thing, long term it will create the same conditions there that exist right here where I sit in New England, where people are angry in a way I've never seen before (rightfully so).
So yeah I worry about the future of Canada because I see the patterns of history playing out. But ultimately I don't think it will get too much worse before people decide to turn it around and make it better.