[BRIEF NOTE] O Canada! despite everything
Jul. 1st, 2010 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldToday's Canada Day is going to be a low-profile one for me: I'm drinking a red slushie and eating a small chocolate that came in red chocolate wrapping with my coffee, while I'll be setting fireworks off later tonight. Don't confuse this low-profile Canada Day for a lack of my personal happiness with Canada, mind: although I agree with Hannah Arendt when she said that she doesn't know any groups, only individuals, all in all I consider myself quite lucky and very happy to be a Canadian. Canada, by and large, is a country that works.
Two years ago I blogged about how Canada came about, ironically enough, because the different ethnic groups and provincial jurisdictions now comprising Canada wanted as much self-rule as possible. The Francophone Roman Catholics of Canada East (now Québec) wanted as much self-government as possible in order to avoid their assimilation; the Anglos in Canada West (now Ontario) resented the role that Francophone Catholics played in determining their domestic policies; the smaller colonies on the Atlantic shoreline were looking for some larger framework that could help guarantee their prosperity; and everyone, from sea to sea to sea, was looking for something that could keep them from becoming American in the aftermath of the Civil War and Britain's declining interest in its remaining North American possessions.
Canada was a jury-rigged polity, a best-case compromise, with a national anthem that (as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
james_nicoll observed today) has completely different English and French lyrics, and an existence that (as Andrew Barton observed) is expected by any number of futurologists to come to an end any moment now. And yet, this unlikely project worked, and 143 years later it's still here, and Canada remains popular with nearly all of its 34 millions. Even a goodly number of Québec's separatists are so attached to Canada that they'd want an independent Québec to be in a fairly tight confederation with rump Canada. The idea of Canada has staying power.
Two years ago I blogged about how Canada came about, ironically enough, because the different ethnic groups and provincial jurisdictions now comprising Canada wanted as much self-rule as possible. The Francophone Roman Catholics of Canada East (now Québec) wanted as much self-government as possible in order to avoid their assimilation; the Anglos in Canada West (now Ontario) resented the role that Francophone Catholics played in determining their domestic policies; the smaller colonies on the Atlantic shoreline were looking for some larger framework that could help guarantee their prosperity; and everyone, from sea to sea to sea, was looking for something that could keep them from becoming American in the aftermath of the Civil War and Britain's declining interest in its remaining North American possessions.
Canada was a jury-rigged polity, a best-case compromise, with a national anthem that (as
james_nicoll observed today) has completely different English and French lyrics, and an existence that (as Andrew Barton observed) is expected by any number of futurologists to come to an end any moment now. And yet, this unlikely project worked, and 143 years later it's still here, and Canada remains popular with nearly all of its 34 millions. Even a goodly number of Québec's separatists are so attached to Canada that they'd want an independent Québec to be in a fairly tight confederation with rump Canada. The idea of Canada has staying power.
