Delusion-Elle

I've never considered myself to be a particularly proud or patriotic Canadian. Over the years and after travelling to Europe, Asia, and all over the United States, I  have noticed that my attitude towards my own country has improved; never do I ever feel more Canadian than when I am not in Canada. I'm able to be more appreciative of life here: clean (tasty!) drinking water, universal healthcare, general acceptance of different cultures, and favourable reception in foreign lands, to name a few.  All that being said, there's still this inferiority complex with regards to many aspects of American culture and European history. But I digress, this is a post about being Canadian, and like I said, I never really thought of myself as a "proud" Canadian.

FOR MAPLE SYRUP~~~

Funny thing, though. When I meet people who live here, and have lived here, for a number of years who refuse to become citizens, I cannot help but feel a prickly sense of pride in my country swell within me. Why don't you want to become a citizen? You've lived here for years and years; you enjoy it, and I have to say that it is a pretty damn good place to live. There is no conscription, our economy hasn't tanked as badly as the States', we don't generally face all that many extreme weather instances, most of us don't walk around with firearms. What is keeping you from taking that small leap from permanent residency to citizenship?

After talking to and getting to know a permanent resident, the topic of "being Canadian" did crop up in conversation. The segue which brought us to the topic is irrelevant -- also, I'm not 100% sure that I remember it exactly, but I think that it was about touristy "I love Canada" clothing -- but what she told me came as a surprise. For the sake of convenience, I'll refer to her as Friend A. Friend A did not want to become a Canadian citizen. She had no desire to associate herself with this country that she had lived in for the last 8 years of her life. She was proud of her heritage to the point of prejudice against Canadians, despite the liking she had taken to me and various other Canadian-born folks (i.e. descendants of immigrants but not actual immigrants ourselves). She said that she saw few benefits to becoming a citizen of Canada -- that the big draw of being able to vote as "useless" as she did not care what happened in terms of politics anyway. I remember feeling a combination of things. Shock was a big emotion, but I also felt offended by this. What, was my country not good enough for her? Every other sentence from her seemed to condemn Canadian habits and Canadian culture -- Canadians were "cheap", the men didn't pay for the women's share on dates, we changed romantic partners as often as people change their outfits, the women don't dress nicely, the weather is terrible, and on and on. From here, the anger in me rose and thankfully petered out eventually. But this led me to thinking... what is Canadian culture? What makes someone Canadian?

We are a land of immigrants. Same as with the United States, very few (or none, if you go back far enough) of us are of the indigenous people. If anything, it means that Canadian culture is rich. We were shaped by the combination of England, France, and America's tug of war for land, and then we were settled by people from all over Europe, Africa, and Asia. We, along with the rest of North America, are so different from where our people started. Canada itself is a funny case. We are caught in a crossroad of sorts. Unlike America, we love our European roots. We did not have some grand battle for our freedom and independence, and although that means that our relationships with European countries are not strained, it does add to the weird inferiority complex we have in regards to America. Ah, America, how we love and hate thee. When times are good, we look to them as an example of what we could be if things had gone wrong. Otherwise, we spend our time wishing we had their glamourous culture and boisterous nature (as well as their currency and pricing, but that's getting into specifics). Our love-hate relationship with America is as much a part of Canadian culture as our politeness. Is that what being Canadian is about?

Yes and no. There is more to us than that. There is a certain image of us: nice, polite, simple folk who live in regions of great wilderness with eccentric habits. To an extent, I believe that this image does shape us. We strive to uphold these views, and really, they are not particularly negative. That being said, we only strive so far. I think that I've touched on Canada's mosaic makeup of ethnicities versus America's melting pot before, but I think that there's been a gradual shift in our culture towards the melting pot, which I think is great. I'm tired of a Canada divided into little ethnic neighbourhoods where people cling desperately their Old World sensibilities and traditions to the point of rejecting Canadian values. I understand that people want to keep traditions and certainly I support the preservation of culture, but at the same time, this is Canada. We have our own values, beliefs, and culture (as jumbled and confused as it is). I don't support the complete desertion of tradition, but I think that if more people incorporated Canadian values into their lives, it would create a happier environment for all of us, and certainly it would make it easier for the younger generation, which oftentimes is caught between cultures with conflicting values. I know that it's hard to accept change, and as we get older it only gets harder, but I have seen kids struggle with this discrepancy in culture and they will be the ones left behind in the dust. In the end, we are in Canada and in order to succeed in this society, there is a certain amount of "Canadianness" that you need to have because you know what? Your kids are still going to be graded according to Canadian standards. They're going to be taught in school using Canadian methods and they're going to be compared against other Canadian children. And okay, I probably really have no business blogging about this, but it just frustrates me to see people here who blatantly reject Canadian culture, make absolutely no efforts to fit in, and then they go and tell Canadians off for having Canadian values.

But then this brings me back to my earlier thought: what constitutes "being Canadian"?

I just feel a bit weird now since I've never used the word "Canadian" that many times in one blog entry.