Happy Birthday, Canada

"What Canada Means To Me": I'm sure it's nearly as overdone an essay theme as "How I Spent My Summer Vacation". The various definitions have become cliched, easy hooks to hang one's Mountie hat: the cultural mosaic, the nation of minorities, the mouse in bed with the elephant. As an increasingly proud Canadian, I can't let our 138th birthday go by without adding my two loonies.
The knee-jerk answer is "we're not American". That's so common, and these days so patently obvious, as to be almost useless. As a starting point, though, it'll serve.
How are we not American?
I think the first clue lies in the respective mottoes of our two countries. Theirs, famously, is "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". Ours, rather less known, is "Peace, Order, and Good Government". These two mottoes are almost antithetical.
The American slogan emphasizes freedom: not surprising, since America had to fight for her independence from the same nation that spawned us. The idea is central to American mythology: "give me liberty or give me death", shortened to "live free or die". In recent years, the United States has attempted to export its vision of freedom around the globe, not always peacefully.
The Canadian motto is vastly different. Our governments are judged on their ability to maintain peace and order. Rather than imposing our attitude on the planet, we invite the rest of the planet to come to us in peace. We make few demands on prospective immigrants. They don't have to speak our language. There's no single Canadian identity for them to assume: indeed, we encourage them to keep their own. We don't even ask them, beyond the citizenship ceremony, to identify themselves as Canadian. Even known terrorists are welcome here, which (rightly) makes our neighbour nervous.
The Canadian tolerance we display within our own borders is not so evident in our recent relations with the United States. Indeed, the legendary American arrogance we so decry up here is matched of late only by our own sense of self-satisfied smugness. In a recent poll, a whopping 94% of Canadians surveyed said that they believed the world had a good opinion of us. I suspect the truth is that close to 94% of the world has no opinion of Canada, good or bad. Worse, to many Canadian eyes, most of the world can't immediately tell the difference between Joe Canuck and their not-so-beloved Uncle Sam. We're the Northern Nothing, lost in a blizzard of indifference.
I believe, at root, most of us are at least somewhat aware of this, even as we deny it. How else to explain our enormous jealousy of all things American? We gobble up Yankee television and by and large ignore our own (except for those shows, like Canadian Idol, that are knockoffs of U.S. programs). We don't seem to accept our celebrities until they've made it big south of the 49th parallel: it's as if we are afraid to voice our approval until we're sure they approve. This, by the way, is the mark of an immature nation. Maybe in another couple of centuries--assuming we're still here, and still Canadian--we'll be able to appreciate what we have just a little more.
And what is it we have?
A positively VAST land, for one thing. A land so immense as to confound the imagination and make Confederation appear all the more miraculous. Then again, once you've managed to gather the mountains of B.C, the sheaves of Saskatchewan, the bustle of the Golden Horseshoe, the...je ne sais quoi... of Quebec, and the resilence of Newfoundland, not to mention everything else in between, it seems inevitable that you'll welcome the world with open arms.
We function, in a way, like the European Union, and have for generations now. Each region of Canada is a nation unto its own--one of them even thinks that way. Is it really any wonder that socially, we're resembling Europe more and more? There are only two countries besides ours that have seen fit to grant homosexuals the right to marry: Belgium and the Netherlands. We are edging closer to a European view on other things, too: marijuana, euthanasia--even health care, which is on the verge of distancing itself from both its current ailing state and the all-but-terminal mess that is the American system.
This, to me, is something to be proud of. More: it's something to celebrate. In so doing, we should take care not to piss off that elephant to the south of us, though...

In point of fact, we ought to extend thanks to that elephant for preserving our sovereignty, such as it is. We don't like to remind ourselves of this, but we long ago ceded responsibility for our own defense to the United States, and we increasingly expect Washington to provide it free gratis. It seems odd that we would entrust our own defense to a country we proclaim to disdain so much; moreover, a nation that has earned itself more than a few enemies worldwide. It seems to me even more odd to repay that nation with endless lip and sass...even when they don't deserve it.

Canadian pride is on the upswing, lately, and I'm glad to see it.

Most people don't even know O Canada has a second and third (and a fourth!) verse, let alone what they are. Here are verses two and three, which to me speak more eloquently than the verse we all know:

O Canada! Where pines and maples grow,
Great prairies spread And lordly rivers flow,
How dear to us thy broad domain,
From East to Western Sea,
Thou land of hope, for all who toil!
Thou True North strong and free!
God keep our land Glorious and free!
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee!
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee!

O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies
May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise,
To keep thee steadfast through the years
From East to Western Sea,
Our own beloved native land!
Our True North strong and free!
God keep our land, Glorious and free!
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee!
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee!