My Country, Mon Pays
In this strange COVID season, let’s take time for gratitude as we celebrate our country’s birthday.
Gratitude not just for this vast land with its bounty and beauty, but also for the people we call fellow citizens, and for our guests who will become our fellow citizens. Gratitude not just for the large liberty safeguarded in distant battles, but also for the quiet daily peace we cherish amongst ourselves.
Canadians operate on the assumption that it’s normal to work together to sort things out and make them better. We’re a pragmatic people who have at the core of our Constitution “peace, order and good government”, generally leaving “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to the individual, as long as they’re not too rowdy about it. Governments of all stripes at all levels mostly understand their job is to administer honestly, provide for tomorrow, and keep their noses out of our private business.
We respect learning and listen to the advice of experts. We don’t have a lot of time for self-righteous extremists.
None of this is because Canadians are sissies– if you think we are, you’ve never played hockey. Nothing is more Canadian than a bench-clearing brawl with helmets and sticks and blood and teeth all over the ice, but nothing is more Canadian than having a beer with the other team afterwards– just to show there are no hard feelings.
Canadians have it good. But it’s not because we’re smarter or better. We’re not. We’re just lucky. Lucky because our forebears came here with an intent to make a better place. We’re lucky because they valued dreams and education, with each generation standing on the shoulders of the last.
We’re lucky because our early history coincided with the evolution of liberal democracy. We’re lucky that our natural and human resources are so bounteous that we needn’t be stingy. We’re lucky that we hold a general skepticism toward anyone who thinks he has all the answers, and we’re lucky that we haven’t put democracy up for sale to the highest bidder.
But mostly we’re lucky for two reasons which might not, at first sight, sound like good luck. The first is climate. The second is our two founding colonial races.
Gilles Vigneault sings, “Mon pays, ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver, … Mon chemin, ce n’est pas un chemin, c’est la neige” — ” “My country is not a country, it’s the winter, … my road is not a road, it’s the snow.” He certainly has that right!
Of course winter can be a time of magic, of frozen lakes, of lacy frost on the windowpane, and the shimmer of moonlight dancing across a bichromatic landscape.
But “pretty” doesn’t build character. Harsh does. Winter is a relentless, merciless, demanding mistress. Winter forces us to overbuild our infrastructure and transportation and maintain them at huge individual and communal cost. And because we’re all vulnerable before her onslaught, winter is the great leveller.
And when we can no longer tolerate one more day of winter, summer arrives, first with a muddy quagmire, then with a sky darkened with blackflies and mosquitos, then with tropical heat and humidity.
“Temperate” applies to less than one per cent of Canada’s climate map. Our climate is one of brutal extremes.
Our harsh climate has always made it essential that we protect one another, both at a community and institutional level– whether by a pioneer barn-raising bee, prairie farmers’ co-ops, mutual insurance companies, caisse populaires, or universal medicare. Pooling resources for a common good is what you do when survival is in question. Anyone who tries to grab everything for himself is shamed and chastised.
But there’s a second reason for our good luck, and it’s this: it was a huge stroke of fortune that in colonial days our French and English forebears got stuck with each other in sufficient numbers that notwithstanding their mutual dislike and distrust, neither could ignore the other, nor take up arms to eradicate the other. Because we were forced to cohabit the same land, there was no option over bitter centuries but to work something out.
An interminable series of sullen compromises ultimately resulted in something unexpected and wonderful, reminiscent of the old couple who “staying together for the kids” finally discovers a deep respect and affection for one another. Out of Lord Durham’s “two peoples warring in the bosom of a single state” arose an alloy unmatched on the planet.
This truly is a big deal. Having become conditioned to “play nice”, and having come to understand that there is more to democracy than the draconian will of the majority, we’ve mostly understood that compromise and co-operation are not weaknesses, but strengths. This understanding has infused our political and social character. Bilingualism/biculturalism has grown into multiculturalism– a bonus, not a burden, a microcosm of the entire planet and a Noah’s Ark of reason. This country has much to demonstrate to the world.
On his deathbed, Jack Layton (one of the “great Prime Ministers we never had”), dictated a love note to his country, “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.”
He understood this magnificent country.
Happy Canada Day, 2020.