Canadian identity
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Early years
For many years, the English Canadian identity was in large measure defined by British influences, and a desire among many Canadians, such as the United Empire Loyalists, to retain British culture and traditions.
Early English Canadians often emphasized their British roots, shunning the idea that they were anything less than British and had an allegiance to any country other than the United Kingdom. French Canadians residents were of a more independent mind, often proudly calling themselves Canadiens and aspiring to a greater self-reliance and independence from Great Britain.
20th century
In the 1920s, the Dominion of Canada began to seek out greater independence from Britain (see: Statute of Westminster), but still remained loyal to the larger Commonwealth. As Canada became increasingly independent and sovereign, its primary foreign relationship and point of reference gradually moved to the United States, the superpower with whom it shared a long border and a major economic, social and cultural relationships.
Canadians have struggled to decide what it is exactly that makes them Canadian. Though Canadians continue to recognize Queen Elizabeth II as head of state, the British aspect of the national identity is barely evoked anymore. The majority of the Queen's duties have now been transferred to the Governor General, who since 1952 has been a Canadian citizen. Up until 1965, the Canadian flag was a Red Ensign, featuring the British Union Jack, but this was replaced by a new design with a red maple leaf. Similar reforms or abolitions of colonial-era symbols and institutions occurred throughout most of the mid-20th Century, and contemporary Canadian society features few noticeable signs of Canada's colonial past.
Unlike other Commonwealth realms, such as Australia, republicanism has not been a highly emotional issue in Canada in recent years. Any debate of republicanism in Canada is mostly academic. This is not, as some suggest, because the monarchy helps Canada distinguish itself from the U.S., nor vestigial loyalty to the Crown, but because there are more pressing constitutional issues, such as the status of Québec, Senate reform and aboriginal rights, which have needed to be addressed. The political role of the Queen in Canada remains largely unknown by the majority of the Canadian populace, and though the Queen is popular as a celebrity figure ouside the province of Québec, the monarchy is rarely given much thought as a "Canadian" institution, despite the fact about one-quarter of Her Majesty's subjects are Canadian. The toned down role of the Queen is a recent phenomenon of the last decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. In the 1940s and 1950s the question of the monarchy was a divisive topic which pitted English against French at all levels of society. The quarrel came to a head in the 1960s when each visit by Queen Elizabeth was met by ever bigger riots in the province of Quebec. Specialists in protocol and diplomacy finally defused the issue in the late 1960s by carefully organizing royal visits which avoided public exposure of the Queen in large French language communities or important social or cultural manifestations in Quebec, save for a few exceptions like the opening of the Montreal Olympic games in 1976.
Modern times
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Canadians now usually define themselves by comparing their differences with the United States. Though today much traditional cultural content, such as TV, movies, music, news, and literature, are widely shared between Canadians and Americans with little thought, many believe a "unique" Canadian culture can still exist, even in an era of deep economic integration between the two nations.
As for the role of history in national identity, Canadian history has had the stereotype of being boring. However, the books of Pierre Berton and television series like Canada: A People's History have done much to spark the popular interest of Canadians in their own history.
Much of the debate over the contemporary "Canadian identity" is argued in political terms, and defines Canada as a nation defined by its government policies. Some Canadians argue that government policies such as publicly funded medicine, higher taxation, emphasis on a loyal opposition, no capital punishment, and gun control make their country "socially" different from the United States. These differences also have played a significant role in migration of citizens from one country to the other.
Within Canadian politics, there is a diverse range of reaction to the United States amongst individual members of the various political parties. There is no "official outlook" or "official view" of any individual party. Both left and right wing sides of Canadian politics contain detractors and supporters of various American policies. For instance, the Liberal party is well noted for having in its employ individuals who regard the incumbent American president George W. Bush as "a moron." This does not mean that the Liberal party as a whole would regard the American president in the same way, just as an American senator referring to Canada collectively as "Canuckistan" in a derrogatory manner would mean that the entire American senate views Canada in a similar way. Confusion of an individual's viewpoints as the viewpoints of an entire country, in part, causes a large amount of tension between both countries.
Recent issues such as lingering trade disputes on softwood and cattle, especially in areas of Canada harmed signifigantly by the closure of mills and inability of farmers (especially within Alberta) to sell their cattle have severely eroded much of the viewpoint regarding America in a highly favourable light in recent times.
Books such as Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values, (http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0143014234/qid=1097691978/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/702-3302719-8176013) by Michael Adams, head of the Environics polling company argues this point using polling research performed by his company as evidence. Critics of the idea of a fundamentally "liberal Canada" such as David Frum argue that the Canadian drive towards a more noticeably leftist political stance is largely due to the increasing role that Québec plays in the Canadian government. Québec has historically been the most secular and socialist region of Canada, and as its influences grow in the federal government, Québec social attitudes will become noticeably more prominent within Canadian society. Canadian federalism does not give individual provinces much power over regulating social issues, which in turn has led to conflicts between the federal government and more conservative regions of the country such as Alberta, which feel helpless in these realms of jurisdiction.
In a poll that asked what institutions made Canada feel most proud about their country, number one was health care, number two was the CBC, and number three was peacekeeping. In CBC contest to name "The Greatest Canadian", the three highest ranking in descending order were the social democratic politician and father of medicare Tommy Douglas, the legendary cancer activist Terry Fox, and the Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau, which suggested that their voters valued left-of-centre political leanings and community involvement.
Outsider perceptions
Despite Canada's ambivalent relationship with the United States, Canadians often remain very interested in how Canadians are portrayed in American pop culture and elsewhere. An episode of The Simpsons in which the family travelled to Toronto (for the last 10 minutes) was one of the most-watched TV programs in Canadian history.
Many Canadians are of the firmly held belief that outsiders—especially, but not exclusively, Americans—have an ignorant or dismissive view of Canadian reality. A very common expression of Canadian identity is to rail against the stereotypes that they believe non-Canadians hold of Canadian citizens. This ranges from Voltaire's purported assessment of Canada as a few acres of snow (which is, in fact, a misquote) to the pervasive myth of American tourists who come to Toronto in July with skis on the roof of their car.
Canadian media personalities sometimes also play with this phenomenon for comedic purposes. During his years with This Hour has 22 Minutes, comic Rick Mercer produced a popular recurring segment called Talking to Americans, in which he would pose as a journalist in an American city, asking passers-by for their opinions on a fabricated Canadian news story. (Some of the "stories" for which he solicited comment included the legalization of staplers, the coronation of King Svend, the border dispute between Québec and Chechnya, the campaign against the Toronto Polar Bear Hunt, and the reconstruction of the historic Peter Mans Bridge.)
There is also a widespread belief that Canadians are generally more liked than Americans, and are treated with more respect when travelling to foreign lands. Many Canadians in turn attach Canadian flags to their backpacks and clothing when travelling, in an attempt to encourage such better treatment and not be mistaken for Americans. Unfortunately, the usefulness of this gesture is somewhat diluted by the tendency of some Americans to attach Canadian flags to their backpacks and clothing when travelling for the very same reason (as well as to ward off terrorist attack). There is some dispute over the prevalence of this assumed international hospitality, however. Will Ferguson has written that Canadians confuse being less hated than Americans with being better liked.
Another very common expression of Canadian nationalism is to link a political course of action, such as the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, to the threat of Canada becoming the 51st state of the United States. This tactic is intended to prey on raw emotion, but is very often effective nonetheless.
Historically there have always been a few minor, yet vocal Canadian commentators who argue that Canadian/American distinctions are ultimately meaningless, and that a union between the two countries is both imminent and desirable. Such advocates include author Goldwin Smith and more recently media magnate Conrad Black. See also Annexationist movements of Canada.
Québec
While the distinct language and customs of Québec are accepted and embraced by Canadians who enjoy Canada's multiculturalism, Québec's repeated attempts at political separation from Canada have made the province appear distant and foreign to many residents of other provinces, especially in the West. Many Québec separatists insist that they are not Canadian, and instead members of a distinct nation.
Even many federalist Québécois who readily identify as Canadian regard French-Canadians as constituting a distinct nation (in the ethnic sense) within the Canadian federation. This comes of the pervasive reality of the culture of Québec which is made of six million francophones trying to maintain an independent culture against the majority culture of 27 million anglo-Canadians (and 280 million more English-speaking Americans just south of it).
Most of Canada's recent prime ministers have been from Québec, and thus have tried to improve relations with the province with a number of tactics, notably official bilingualism which required the provision of a number of services in both official languages and, among other things, required that all commercial packaging in Canada is printed in French and English. Again, while this bilingualism is a notable feature to outsiders, the plan has been less than warmly embraced by many English Canadians some of whom resent the extra administrative costs and the requirement of many key federal public servants to be fluently bilingual. Furthermore, despite the widespread introduction of French-language classes throughout Canada, very few anglophones are truly bilingual outside of Québec. Many English Canadians therefore do not eagerly embrace bilingualism as a defining and admirable feature of their nation.
Things are complicated by sharp differences in the perception of the nature of bilingualism and bilingual individuals, whether one lives and works in English or in French, in Québec or in the other provinces.
Given this and differences in viewpoints on such matters as the relative importance of commercial packaging, language laws and customs, and otherwise trivial cultural things it is not always easy for a French-speaking Canadian citizen to bear a completely Canadian identity, unless one stretches the Canadian identity quite a bit. But this stretching does happen and it does so in the most surprising circumstances. To give but one example: French Québecers bear Canadian passports, and when they enter really foreign lands in distant places they can be given a hearty welcome, as Canadians, given the relatively good reputation of Canada in international circles. This kind of welcome is done of course without taking note of personal political choices and it leads persons with open minds to some philosophical musings on the nature of self image.
At the core one must remember that, like Canadians in other provinces, the Québécois hold the health care system to be nearly sacred (even if there are some quibbles as to how much of it is a provincial versus federal responsibility) and its existence to be non-negotiable. Like other Canadians too, they are very much attached to the CBC, albeit its French-language service, the Société Radio-Canada. Finally, like other Canadians they support Canada's efforts in the international community from peacekeeping to foreign aid and co-operative programs.
Multiculturalism
The state of inter-ethnic relations in English Canada is fundamentally different from in the United States. In gross terms, immigrants to the United States feel compelled to prove their undivided loyalty to the U.S. first, before accommodating their ethnic or linguistic particularisms. Especially in Toronto and Canada's other metropolitan areas, however, there is a strong sense that multiculturalism is a normal and respectable expression of being Canadian.
The indulgent attitude taken towards cultural differences is perhaps a side effect of the vexed histories of French-English and aboriginal-settler relations, which have created a need for a civic national identity, as opposed to one based on some homogenous cultural ideal.
Canadian multiculturalism also feeds into liberal-mindedness in social issues and a greater willingness to tolerate political differences—again, as compared to Americans. Even conservative Canadians may be more willing to consider respectfully topics from socialism to feminism to atheism, that are subject to strong taboos in the United States. Here, too, however, social attitudes in western Canada may conform more largely to those associated with the United States, while attitudes in Québec, Toronto and Vancouver are less censorious.
Trivia
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Canadians often like to see themselves as brave warriors who have to endure each winter a never ending struggle against massive amounts of snow and ice and extremely cold temperatures. They proudly proclaim that their capital, Ottawa, is the coldest capital in the world, excepting Moscow and Ulan Bator.
The search for the Canadian identity often yields some whimsical results. To outsiders, this soul-searching (or, less charitably, navel-gazing) seems tedious or absurd, inspiring the Monty Python sketch Whither Canada?
In the 1970s, CBC Radio's This Country in the Morning held a competition whose goal was to compose the conclusion to the phrase: "As Canadian as ..." The winning entry read: "... possible, under the circumstances." [1] (http://www.salonmag.com/letters/1999/05/18/erotic/print.html)
Robertson Davies, one of Canada's best known novelists, once commented about his homeland: "Some countries you love. Some countries you hate. Canada is a country you worry about."
Pierre Berton, a Canadian journalist and novelist, once alluded to Canada's voyageur roots with this famous saying: "A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe without tipping it."
Douglas Adams said each country was like a particular type of person, and "Canada is like an intelligent 35 year old woman". Much more flattering than America - "belligerent adolescent boy" and Australia - "Jack Nicholson".
A half-joking definition of a Canadian, offered by The Economist in 1993: "an American with healthcare and no guns", in reference to the countries' contrasting levels of gun crime and military spending.
In 2000, Molson, a beer company, created an advertisement for its Molson Canadian brand called "I Am Canadian" about what it means to be Canadian. It depicted an average Joe Canadian, who gives a rant about the finer points of being Canadian. Some critics suggested that this ad was revealing, in that Joe's definition of Canada is almost entirely in the negative; that is to say he defines what he is not more than he defines what he is. This is considered a common symptom of Canadian expression of identity. Shortly after Molson merged with the American Coors Brewing Company in 2004, the company announced that the slogan "I Am Canadian" was being dropped in favour of "It Starts Here".
See also
- hoser
- Canadian beer
- Red state vs. blue state divide - regarding blue state Americans who empathize with Canadians
External links
- a website for Canadian identity discussion (http://www.canadianidentity.com/)
- a government website with extensive information on Canadian culture (http://culturecanada.gc.ca/)
- a long but detailed essay diving into the philosophy of Canadian identity (http://www.lhup.edu/library/InternationalReview/canadian.htm)
- Canadian government link to information on Canadian identity (http://www.culture.ca/canada/explore-explorez-e.jsp?pre=n&category=243)
- An American's Guide to Canada (http://www.icomm.ca/emily/)
- Canada Myths and Realities (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=102&ItemID=6865)
Reference
- Douglas Coupland (2002) Souvenir of Canada. Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 1550549170. [2] (http://www.coupland.com/books/books03.html)
- Charles Blattberg (2003) Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0773525963.