Simply
Canadian
Being Canadian is a lot more simple and
substantial than our elites would have us believe. I've long been interested in
what it means to be Canadian. I spent almost half my youth outside Canada
and have a very mixed ancestry. I have also lived in Britain
now for a number of years, which makes the issue even more pressing. But my interest mainly
stems from the context of growing up in Vancouver. This is
a city of large-scale immigration, ethnic mixing and a dizzying menu of American lifestyle options.
These forces constantly undercut a secure sense of where we belong in place
(land) and time (history). Things get even worse when Quebec separatism
is added to the equation. All of which makes it vital to sort out the mess of
Canadian identity.
First of all, 'Canadian' has two
meanings. The first is anyone who is a citizen of the Canadian state. The
identity promoted by successive Canadian governments is light and abstract, consisting of government
symbols, institutions like the CBC and health care system, policies to the left of
American ones and universal ideas like fair play, tolerance and
multiculturalism. This political identity is part of us, but consists of dry, functional creations that
do not answer to our needs for meaning and belonging. Government is also as
likely to divide us as to unite us. Which in turn explains why many Canadian
citizens remain attached to ethnic identities like Quebecois, Serbian, Jewish
or Chinese which are much more romantic and meaningful than being a Canadian
citizen. There is nothing surprising or wrong with this.
All of which brings us to the second, unofficial use of the
term Canadian, which is a cultural and ethnic one. Here a 'Canadian' is someone
who feels primarily attached to Canadian history, its culture and its
landscape. These 'ethnic Canadians' see their cultural and historical destiny, and that of their
children, with this country. One manifestation of this is the large number of
Canadian citizens who state their ethnic identity as 'Canadian' on the census.
In the 2001 census, 39 percent of Canadian citizens (rising to 55 percent of those with
both parents born in Canada) reported their ethnic origin as 'Canadian'. If the origins question
had instead been what is your ethnic identity, that figure would have
plummeted in Quebec (even federalists identify first as Quebecois) but soared outside
it. In other words, by far the largest ethnic group in Canada
outside Quebec is 'Canadian'. Interestingly, most 'Canadians' had
families with over three generations of residence in Canada, but nearly two hundred
thousand 'Canadians' were immigrants, many born in Asia, Africa or the Caribbean.
This raises the obvious question: what does
the deeper 'Canadian' ethnic identity consist of. Let's begin with an attachment
to the homeland. Canada's northern landscape of boreal forest and harsh winters is central
to our identity. It has shaped our art, sports, literature and much else, from the Group of Seven to hockey. The beaver, moose and maple syrup
don't feature prominently in Canada's
airport gift shops by accident. Prime Minister Mackenzie King once said Canada
has "too much geography, too little history." Nothing could be further from the truth.
Landscape is a key component of identity, and even those with a
long history, like the English, cherish their landscapes. Think of the 'green and pleasant land' of
the English immortalized by painters like John Constable or writers like
Wordsworth. Big northern countries like Russia or
Sweden do the same. In Russia, the birch trees, Volga and harsh winters have
left their mark on the work of generations of writers and musicians like
Tolstoy and Stravinsky. Yes, there are no trees in southern Saskatchewan and
it rarely snows in Vancouver, but, like Russians, all Canadians can relate
to some aspect of a northern landscape.
The second component of Canadian ethnic
identity is cultural. I'm not talking about transitory phenomena like the
Tragically Hip or Canadian Tire, however distinctive, but about language. Ethnic Canadians are an English-speaking people
just as the Quebecois are a French-speaking people. The Canadian accent is
similar but far from identical to American English. In much of Europe, half an hour's drive will bring you to a new dialect, but in Canada, you can travel for days
from Ontario to B.C. and hear no differences in speech. The northern landscape
and climate also shapes a distinctive Canadian lifestyle, especially in rural
areas but also in the cities. Remember, the average American lives in Kansas City, Missouri, not Fairbanks, Alaska.
The final aspect of Canadian identity, its unique history, is the most important.
Ethnic Canadians are defined by the blending of three sets of historical
influences, Native Canadian, 'British American' and French Canadien. This
French-British-Native métis process forms the core of Canadian
identity to which numerous others, like myself, have assimilated. Native
peoples of Canada gave us many of our placenames, folkways like the kayak
and lacrosse, and some of the myths and legends which tie us to the land. The
French Canadiens
consist of two groups, one section which remained as habitants
on the land in Quebec, and a second group of
wanderers and pioneers who explored the rest of Canada.
This second group laid the foundations of the fur trade and mixed with the
Indians to form the Métis people of
the West. These pioneers and settlers littered our landscape with French placenames like St. Albert and Lac
La Hache and Canadian political history is very much
about the interaction between the French and British. This brings us to the
British Americans, whose influence on our ideology, institutions and habits
is profound. The mostly English settlers in the United States in 1776 spoke differently and were more liberal-democratic than their
cousins in England. After the American Revolution, some of these Americans
(the Loyalists) moved to Canada
where they brought their accent, folkways and values. If Canada
had been settled directly from England, we would speak and act
differently than we do. The American settlers forged links with the French and
Natives and successfully fought the war of 1812 against the United States. The fact that Isaac Brock, a British American, and Joseph Brant, a Native Canadian, were heroes of the war, shows how the new links worked. Somewhat later, an enormous wave of mostly Celtic immigrants dwarfed the original
American settlers. In contrast to the United States, most were from northern Britain: Scotland
and northern parts of Ireland. Generally speaking, the culture of settlers prevails, but because the new
immigrants outnumbered the natives, they were able to modify some aspects of our accent, politics and patterns of
conviviality.
In the twentieth century, especially since 1945, immigrants from outside France and Britain, my grandparents among
them, predominated. But when these people come to Canada, they do not enter a
culturally-neutral territory. There is an important Canadian ethnic group which
they have the option of joining. As generations pass, old world memories fade
and intermarriage becomes more likely. Some of the descendants of immigrants
will maintain or rediscover their links to the diaspora, but most will simply be
Canadian-Canadians.