It would have been interesting to listen to the conversation when two unlikely dinner mates sat down for a casual meal 30 years ago. Both men were recently elected politicians, but they couldn’t have been more different.
One was an urban francophone with a background in international finance. He held an important cabinet position in the Liberal federal government.
The other was a rural anglophone with a background in livestock. He had a tentative position in the cabinet of a Conservative provincial government.
The unlikely dinner companions had some business to conduct, but it was the personal conversation that stretched into the evening that would have interested most Canadians.
Both men had seen a lot of Canada before they ventured into public life, albeit from very different perspectives. You might have thought the banter would focus on different political perspectives, but the gents spent most of the evening engaged in considering a perplexing question: Just what is a Canadian?
All these years later, that question is more relevant, particularly considering U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s recent teasing.
Trump said Canada would make a fine state and started referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as governor Trudeau. A politician with a sense of humour — and I’ll grant you they are rare — would have replied that Canadians aren’t interested in being a state, but we would consider rolling Alaska, Montana, Wyoming and parts of Colorado into the 11th province.
Trump’s taunt had a gaggle of Canadian politicians wrapping themselves in the flag and indignantly stating that Canadians would never join the U.S. As if.
Those rare moments of quasi-patriotism beg an obvious question: What defines Canadians other than the desire not to be American?
What about Canada is worth saving? What are the values that define Canadians? And why, if we are proud of being Canadian, don’t we talk about it?
Trudeau has suddenly discovered that Canada requires some protection. This, apparently, is a new revelation.
Here is another news flash for Trudeau — nations are not just a legal agreement charted on a map. Nations are a combination of geography, culture, shared values, history and customs. Absent these, you can call the place Canada, America or Greenland and it won’t make any difference.
In 2015, Trudeau proudly proclaimed Canada as the first “post-national state.” That is to say, we are a country with no core identity.
It gets worse. Not only do we have no identity but, according to Trudeau, we have a shameful history. Trudeau and his ilk have been busy tearing up the country’s founding principles, apologizing for every historic slight, real or imagined.
The haters have piled scorn on our historic figures, splashing statues of Sir John A. Macdonald with red paint, desecrating war memorials and smearing the reputations of historic figures like Dundas and Ryerson. The haters would have you believe Canada is a place of profound racism, committed to genocide.
According to this narrative I’m not a Canadian. I’m a colonialist.
Trump isn’t a threat to Canada. It is the poor souls who engage in nation-hating who are bent on destroying our country, its traditions and its values.
Back in the day, those two youngish politicians agreed Canadians had two distinct characteristics. No matter where we live, we all have stewardship of some of the world’s last wilderness and are profoundly decent people.
That’s a start. Heck, you could build a nation on less.