Geoff Russ: A day for the Canadians

Canada's people make this country what it is, and this is no occasion for sulking.

(Canada Day in London, Ontario - photo credit to Garry Knight.)

The first day of July can be an odd birthday for some, though it does not need to be.

For some, the sorry state of the economy is a mental and economic burden that is often too great to set aside for unadulterated celebration. Partisans also consider it rude, or even actively disloyal, to point out that Canada’s economy is brutalising its younger generations, which can make the day all the more alienating.

Even worse for many, the Liberal Party’s favourite symbols and the ‘values’ of Official Canada are paraded through the sanctioned celebrations. Much of it is geared towards how the rest of the world has apparently made Canada better, rather than what sets Canadians apart within that world.

To celebrate all the societal and cultural differences that have come to redefine Canada over the past four decades is allegedly Canadian in the most profound way. We already celebrate those variations with countless ethnic heritage months, but apparently Canada Day has to be the showreel for them all.

Perhaps it was a miracle that the ruling progressives celebrated Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017, given their preference for behaving as if Canada had existed for less than a third of that time.

Nevertheless, to sulk on 1 July this time round is bad form of the worst kind. The Liberal state is not Canada, nor is the economy, and neither has to be worshipped today. Instead, this is an occasion to celebrate the Canadian people.

Canadians make this country. Some politicians and cultural figures like to nitpick and say that there can be no single ‘all-Canadian type’, and this is true in a sense. We have a rich tapestry of regional and provincial cultures, some more distinct than others. Still, most people know what a Canadian is when they see or hear one.

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There are too many aspects of being Canadian to include in such a short piece, but here are a few.

Having a father, grandfather or great-grandfather who fought in one of the world wars of the twentieth century is a common denominator among millions who live here. Perhaps those same people have, or once had, a holiday home in the Gulf Islands or in Muskoka. Those in the West call them cabins, while those in the East call them cottages. Others of more modest means might take great pleasure in returning to the summer campsites to which their parents once took them, this time with their own children.

Countless Canadians have ancestors who first arrived in Ontario or the Maritimes before heading west, leaving relatives behind with whom many still remain in touch. Others have cousins or other relatives in Britain or the United States.

Looking out at the foothills from Calgary, sailing along the coast of Nova Scotia or climbing a mountain in British Columbia are all time-honoured things to do on Canada Day and have been for more than a century and a half. You cannot experience any of this anywhere else in the world, nor will you be the first Canadian to have done so.

Those three activities alone are possible because of what Canadians have achieved through building and securing our country and making it into a worthy home for the nation. Canadians’ enjoyment of the outdoors is one part of the national character that Official Canada is willing to recognise and commemorate.

However, Ottawa has no use for the family tales of adventure or of volunteering to fight honourably in overseas wars, nor for the old photographs of ancestors who may have worked on a railway or cleared a field on the Prairies.

Not once have Canadians been asked whether their inherited, centuries-old ancestral culture should be demoted to just one more lifestyle option in Ottawa’s multicultural mosaic. This is not genuine nationhood. Canadians were never honestly asked to cede the primacy of their national lineage, languages and expectations.

Being fully Canadian is not a matter of signing a form, any more than buying a golden passport in Montenegro would have made a Haligonian a Montenegrin. When Canada play Morocco in the FIFA World Cup on Saturday 4 July, observe who celebrates if Morocco win. It will be a strong indicator of the value that many people living here place upon Canadian citizenship — a devaluation often encouraged by those with some of the deepest roots in the country who seem uniquely eager to rip them up for one reason or another.

Yet resentment is a poor anthem and the wrong one to sing on this date. Canada Day, or Dominion Day, as many still stoutly call it, will never belong to the golem that is Official Canada in 2026, and neither will Canadians.

Fortunately, there remain millions of people in this country whose family stories and histories were made in Canada alone or in its service. All their memories of the Old World have long since faded, surviving only in diaries and archival documents. They have a magnificent history of daring, loyalty, enterprise and decency.

Those qualities are often scorned by the Canadian state as ‘outdated’ or ‘expired’, except when the country needs them for military recruitment or Remembrance Day speeches. A great number of those who arrived more recently embrace this Canadian character and do not want to see the country’s traditions and sense of self destroyed. Canada’s long story is compelling enough to make one want to be part of the people it created. There is more than enough to be proud of and fascinated by on this national holiday. Ottawa may treat the Canadian character as disposable, but it cannot be taken away from Canadians so long as they remember who they are.

Nor are Canadians merely 159 years old this year. The date 1 July 1867 merely created the Dominion. Canadians did not come into being through a procedural conjuring trick at Westminster. Their story goes back much further, perhaps to 1608, when Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City, or even further, depending on whom you ask. In a similar vein, Italian lineage goes back to ancient Rome and did not suddenly emerge with the unification of Italy in 1861. Those who made their lives here were called Canadians long before 1867.

Nations are akin to families; they do not begin with signatures on a marriage licence.

Canada Day need not be a celebration of the state. We are older and better than Official Canada, and 1 July is for those who carry their inheritance and want to save it.

Geoff Russ is the Editor-at-Large of Without Diminishment. He is a contributor to a number of publications, including the National Post, Modern Age, and The Spectator Australia.

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