US News and World Report, in its “Best Countries Report” for 2021, ranks Canada number one for “quality of life, social purpose, good job market”, being corruption-free and “caring about human rights and social justice”. (The Report is based on a survey of 20,000 global citizens.) Some may question lining countries up in a popularity contest, yet comparisons do focus minds on what a country's characteristic are. For Canadians, this report gives us a moment not to be ruled by resentments and obsession with the negative.
Of course, one salient Canadian characteristic is our apology addiction. We insist on apologizing because we have a top-rated country, seemingly embarrassed at our very successes. Is our latest version of being “committed to social justice” a need to encourage minority groups to criticize and complain? Does “Pride” month in Canada take pride in self-abasement?
Commentators have got into the irritating habit of adding “systemic” to every noun, such as the noun “racism”. The rest of the world doesn't consider Canada racist. (Maybe they've looked at our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which most Canadians seem not to have.)
That the Constitution forbids racism doesn't mean everybody actually likes everybody else. Liking and hating are emotions, and you can't legislate emotion. People feel what they feel; we can only demand that rights be equal and speech non-hurtful, which Canada attempts through robust anti-hate-speech laws. Of course, many people don't mind seeing white people spoken of hurtfully – even most of the white people. Even having built from our founding colonies the nation deemed most civilized in the world, they accept “anti-colonialism” barbs, but maybe this suggests moral advantage: you can absorb insult when you feel relatively unassailable.
We already know we have the grandest landscapes, longest coastline, biggest lakes and rivers, most fertile prairies on Earth. We have exciting wildlife, theatrical weather. We fall down though in taking care of the environment, conservation-wise, and we aren't as humane as we should be about animal welfare. But to fellow humans ... well: stop complaining, humans! Get out on Canada Day and celebrate your good fortune in living here.
Historically we've been “systemic” in the ways that count: easy-going, fair-minded, hardy and self-sufficient, a nation of strong women, hard workers, caring parents. Our ancestors dealt with hardship without demanding all manner of mental-health disability handouts. But we don't begrudge help now to the growing percentage of the population that does want it – that's part of the Canadian way, the way of tolerance.
The capital city of my province however, finds the whole country guilty of ... something. Something “colonial”. Boycott Canada Day, demands City Council! Most Canadians won't, however. We're too much like our national animal, the beaver: carrying on regardless. It's interesting that the beaver is our symbol. In a world of nations that adopt bears, wolves and eagles, totems of predatory violence, we chose the beaver, an inventive, hard-working, home-building river-shaping creature that works in teams. The houses beavers build out of branches they harvest are architecturally elaborate, meant for family life. They even have baby-beaver play rooms. Beavers keep their offspring safe, and each generation learns from the one before. They live in colonies (sorry!) and ecologists are realizing that it's beavers that have kept our native woods alive and our water table high enough for agriculture, through their river-damming industriousness.
Yes, there's a definite fellow-feeling between Canadians and Castor canadensis. From Castor we've learned Systemic Beavering. Beavers like peace and social order, they like to live-and-let-live and get on with whatever role in the community is theirs. Probably, if another beaver gets too aggressively critical, they just swim away. A good idea, on Canada Day. Let's systemically celebrate that.
