A Canadian

My father is from India by way of England and didn’t become a Canadian citizen until I was 14. His family lived in India from 1874 until 1947. My mother was born in the same hospital where she gave birth to me in Burnaby, British Columbia. Her father was born in Dilke, Saskatchewan in 1912, her mother in Winnipeg in 1920. My grandfather used to deliver milk in a horse drawn carriage on Canada Way when it was still a dirt road and along with two brothers and a sister, served in the Second World War. And while that might seem to make my mom’s side of the family “old Canadians”, it makes them relative newcomers compared to some.

Our history is not glamorous compared to the histories of many. Hell, we didn’t even have our own constitution or basic charter of rights and freedoms until some years into my own lifetime and it wasn’t something that required us to take up arms to achieve (just some political tomfoolery at the Chateau Laurier). If anything, Canada is thought of by most as being polite to the point of it being a fault. The funny thing about our past is how well it will actually serve our future. Polite or not, our general acceptance and concern for others is what has and will continue to make us great.

I live in a city that is filled with ethnic and cultural diversity. But unlike many cities in the world, those ethnicities don’t tend to keep to themselves, afraid to mix and mingle with the rest of the population. Vancouver is a beautiful mess of different flavors and languages and what’s exciting about that is that they’re all Canadian flavors and languages. Vancouver is constantly being voted one of the top 10 places in the world to live, and for good reason. Sure, it’s a naturally wondrous place, but its real draw is the fact that we have somehow been able to defuse the usual underlying tensions that exist in cities with many different ethnicities (Hell, even our organized crime cooperates!). In Vancouver varying ethnicities and cultures, lifestyles, and religious diversity are the sorts of things we welcome because they ultimately offer us a greater understanding of ourselves by way of opening our eyes to new and interesting ideas. Sure, we have our problems just like anywhere else, but nowhere near as often and not historically because such hate was ingrained into the psyches of young people by their parents. I speak of Vancouver because I know it best. But it could be said of many cities in Canada or of the country as a whole. Our strength lies in the fact that our acceptance of each other is ultimately what makes this country such a wonderful place, be we Quebecois, English, Hindi, Haida, Mandarin, Hispanic, Arabic, Slavic, or African. Given that, our future is something to be excited about indeed.

Above all, the native peoples of Canada are owed a debt of gratitude. Their noble temperament given what has happened and continues to happen to their people is not only admirable, but an example to us all. I can only hope that their spirit as a people is something that finds its way into the mindset of all Canadians and I count us very lucky to have such a national heritage.

I was thinking today about what makes a nation great. Do wars? Conquests? Riches? Dominance? An over glorified sense of ones own history? What would be the Canadian answer to that question do you suppose?