A Dime a Dozen Blog

Vous n’avez aucune idée comme j’heureux étais de retourner à mon pays après trois ans en Europe et Afrique.  Je suis retourné pour une raison.  J’ai expliqué la raison l’année dernière:

I have undivided loyalties to this country so there are a lot of things I take for granted.  If I travel around greater Vancouver I find street after street named after my family members, I see mountains that are part of family legends 5,000 years old.  I see my ancestral burial ground dating back to the advent of Christendom in these parts.  I don’t think many people can say that and I can’t think of anything that would diminish that.

So my Canada isn’t my phone company, my beer or my health insurance provider.  My country is the place where people make sense.  Just that.  There’s nothing wrong with foreign countries (per se) but they are odd.  My country is not odd.  People here behave as people should, they speak as people should speak and no matter the colour, they share a particular look.  My country is the place where I don’t need to explain things but where I share enough points of reference that I can have an intelligible conversation with anyone. My country is the only country that always gets the benefit of the doubt.  No matter what evil I hear of in the world, I automatically assume that it wasn’t done by a Canadian.

George Orwell criticized patriotism by saying that it didn’t mean being nicer to your countrymen, but being meaner to foreigners.   He has a point there. A lot of Canadians think that to be Canadian, you have to be different and ‘unAmerican’.   That doesn’t make you Canadian, it makes you a Democrat.

To be Canadian, this has to be your one and only home and the one and only place where people make sense.

Je replacerai (?) à Toronto samedi. Je commence des leçons françaises – encore – en deux semaines.

I’ve never watched the PM’s message before, it was good:

PS – Yes, I know my French is terrible – thanks for pointing that out.