I like Canada. I’ve been there twice, I hope to visit again someday. I like Canadians. The people I know of Canadian origin, I like, and some of my favorite musicians are Canadian. But I must confess, I have a slowly growing pet peeve associated with a slow drip of news emanating from Canadian sources. It is this: Not content to keep their thoughts and attention on their own expansive great country, a growing number of them have asserted themselves confidently into the political and cultural machinations of the United States.
O Canada
Our second home and only part of our native land
True opinions for all of the Americas, command
With growing suspicion, we watch our neighbor rise – or fall
True North, but that ain’t all
Far and wide indeed
O Canada, not just for thee
God keep those others on their knees
O Canada, not just for thee
Far and wide indeed
O Canada, not just for thee
O Canada, not just for thee
I know we’re cousins, so to speak. We both originated from the British crown and we both have significant history with the French and the Native American sovereign nations. We’re both tied to the French Indian War. Nevertheless, we made our boundaries and established different cultures – some would say, very different cultures.
Canada is often at war with itself, which makes it even more perplexing as to why they’d meddle in our affairs. There’s the English-French divide, which has almost resulted in a full secession of Quebec. There’s a liberal-conservative divide, with the liberals taking cues from an older modern European tradition (think EU liberalism), and then there’s a land mass divide built along similar political lines. A very few ultra-modern sleek cities against a gazillion square miles of either endless wheat fields or desperately remote wilderness and their inhabitants.
Justin Trudeau is the one most guilty of inspiring the latest iteration of Canadians being US experts. Young, urbane, good looking – and did I say self-righteous? He took many-a liberties talking down to the conservative majority in the United States during the Trump era. Not surprising, being cut out of the mold of our own Barack Obama, always thinking himself the smartest person in the room. Trudeau leads in the fashion of the snide left, (I know I’m the one dissing your boy now), sort of a combination of the British version of dowdy, suffocating, paternal liberalism combined with progressive American west coast breezy contempt.
But it isn’t just limited to high-profile folks. Even some of my admirable Canadian friends seem to have, at least from time to time, granted themselves honorary citizenship into the United States, because they speak so freely of our domestic struggles….like they don’t have enough struggles to content themselves at home. They’ll speak disdainfully about a certain stereotype of our citizenry and yet I’ll never hear them speak of their own correlating peoples – and oh yes, they do indeed exist! Go figger….
Dear Canadians, don’t hate me. I still like you even though you’re prone to get out of your lane. It’s never too late to change, so take care of your own house.