Chapter 22: Oh Canada, my home and native land…

…true patriot love, at all thy son’s command, etc, etc, etc. Well, I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. A number of Canadians on my circulation list have become quite irate with me for my critical comments about Canada. They have taken my mostly tongue-in-cheek critique personally. (And this, even though most of my critique has centered on the irrefutable fact of Canada’s terrible climate!) What is so ironic is that this defensiveness is itself so quintessentially Canadian! It’s really quite funny if you think about it. Canadians are the first – always the very first – to criticize Americans for their overdeveloped and quite repulsive brand of patriotism, but then we go and manifest it ourselves. Having said that, I would argue that Canadian patriotism has a totally different genesis. It comes not from a superpower ego, but rather from our national inferiority complex. We Canadians don’t want people to think that we are Americans, but we don’t believe our good traits stand out on their own, so we’ll tell the world over and over and over again how we are different (and better) than the United States. Well, personally, I think Canada has a lot to be proud of relative to the US (no guns, universal health care, total impossibility that someone as stupid as George Bush could ever be elected, etc, etc) but still, Canadians are so serious, so earnest, so dorkily Canadian on this topic. It’s really quite boring.

So I stick to my guns here. The thing about Canadians is that when you meet them and discussion turns to the Land of the Maple Leaf, they will inevitably tell you, in a voice just brimming with pride, as though it were a personal achievement, that Canada is the Second Biggest Country in the Whole World! And then they will begin to list famous people that have come out of Canada. Except it’s so embarassing because the list runs something like this: “ummm, the guy who invented insulin, and Margot Kidder – you know, Lois Lane from Superman who’s now in rehab? -, Bryan Adams, Pamela Anderson Lee, and about 8 other Playboy playmates, um that gold medal sprinter who broke the world 100m record, oh no we can’t count him, he took steroids and was stripped of his medal….”

So, readers from all over the world, let’s do a straw poll, and I will collate and publish the results in my next dispatch:

1. If I were to criticize your native country, making some unkind, and hopefully humourous, comments about the weather, food, political system, dress style, or any other national characteristic, would you be likely to take it personally and get upset with me? (South Africans, all of you are excluded from this poll. I remember well that you would get upset with me when I did NOT join in the general chorus of criticism of South Africa!)

2. Global readers, have you ever had the experience of meeting a Canadian (aside from me in my younger years) who bored you to tears with argument about Canada being wonderful and/or different from America? Have you ever met a Canadian who got upset with you for not knowing much about Canada, eg what the capital city is, etc.

3. Have you ever been upbraided by a Canadian for mistaking him as an American?

Send me your votes by e-mail.

And for those Canadians who are reading this, and reeling in fury and disgust from my refusal to take your feelings of hurt too seriously, let me just say this. If I don’t like Canada, so what? You’re still totally free to love it. Why must I cleave to your view, any more than you must cleave to mine? And then let me offer this: I love you for who you are, not where you live. You are all much, much, much more than just your nationality. And by the way, the weather in Vancouver, has been glorious the last two days, and when the sun shines in this city, the air practically sparkles. My Gucci sunglasses are knocking ‘em dead!