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Think Canada is a progressive paradise? That’s mooseshit
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Quick – picture Canada.
What comes to mind? A progressive wonderland of polite manners and majestic moose? What America might be if it evolved a little? That place you’ll move to if Trump wins?
If that’s what you think, that’s fine by us. In fact, it’s our brand: not America. The nice guys. Dull, kind and harmless. That’s how we like to be thought of.
But it’s mooseshit.
We are not the country you think we are. We never have been.
The first prime minister and founding father of Canada, John A Macdonald, was a raging alcoholic. He spent entire campaigns fabulously drunk and once vomited on stage during a stump speech. When his rival pointed it out, Macdonald shot back that he hadn’t puked because of booze, but because he had been “forced to listen to the ranting of my honourable opponent”. It was a deflection worthy of Trump. Macdonald handily won the election.
The reason the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (our “Mounties”) ride horses is because during the labour movement of the 30s, horseback was the best way to trample protesting immigrants and miners. By the 60s, the horses were mostly just for show and the Mounties’ regular activities included subjecting suspected homosexuals to the “Fruit Machine”, a device designed to measure erotic responses to gay porn.
These days, Canada is the second-largest arms exporter to the Middle East. Our Alberta oil sands produce more carbon emissions each year than the entire state of California. Our intelligence agency is allowed to act on information obtained through torture. And a lot of French Canadians are into blackface comedy.
Little of this is widely known, because we happen to share a border with America. When your next-door neighbour is a billionaire celebrity genius with automatic weapons and an undying need for attention, you can get away with all sorts of stuff. It’s nice to be thought of as the world’s nice guys. And it’s useful – it obscures a lot of dirt.
Last year, Canadians almost came to terms with the lie in our branding. After a decade of the rightwing Harper government, with its pro-oil, anti-science and anti-Muslim ideas, it had become difficult to maintain our sense of smug superiority. Add to that the global coverage of crack-smoking Toronto mayor Rob Ford (since deceased), and the maple leaf flag patch sewn to our metaphorical backpack was coming loose at the seams.
In this disillusionment, there was opportunity. If we wanted to reclaim our reputation as a just and caring and helpful society, perhaps we could try behaving like one. During our 2015 election, everything from electoral and environmental reform to international peacekeeping was put back on the table, and we dared to open our eyes (just a peek) to the neglected, remote indigenous communities where suicide rates are shockingly high and access to untainted drinking water is shamefully low. There was a sense that Canada was ready to grow up and forge a national identity based on what we do, not on who we aren’t.
Instead, we elected Justin Trudeau, a social media savant who has positioned himself, and by extension Canada, as a sunny chaser to the world’s bitter news. Trudeau is the political equivalent of a YouTube puppy video. After your daily barrage of Trump and terror, you can settle your jangled nerves with his comforting memes.
Each week, Trudeau feeds the news cycle a new sharable moment, and our Facebook feeds are overwhelmed with shots of the adorable young statesman cuddling pandas and hugging refugees and getting accidentally photographed in the wild with his top off, twice.
For international audiences, the Justin moment has been a harmless diversion. For Canadians, it’s a dangerous distraction. Canadians care far more about what Americans think of us than we do about Canadian politics. Little wonder that things remain so grim.
Despite Trudeau’s progressive branding, Canada is right where Stephen Harper left us. It’s been a year since the election, and we’re still selling arms to Saudi Arabia, still cutting $36bn from healthcare and still basing our economy on fossil fuel extraction, and running roughshod over indigenous rights to do so.
Too much maple syrup will make anyone sick, and I thought Trudeau’s honeymoon was finally over when, sensing a hot meme, he knelt down to offer a three-year-old Prince George a high-five. But the royal toddler left our common prime minister hanging – and to me it seemed the spell was broken. But it wasn’t. A few weeks later, right as he was backtracking on a campaign promise for electoral reform, Trudeau’s approval rating hit 64%.
Canada’s moment would likely have lapsed by now if not for the American election. The comparison of Trump v Trudeau is just too rich for the press to resist. Canada has a dashing Disney prince for a ruler, and the US is consideringthis guy? The Washington Post dubbed Trudeau “the anti-Trump”. Every idle threat to move to Canada if Trump wins has been treated as a major news event by the Canadian press.
(A note to my fellow Canadians on that: when an American says that they’ll move to Canada if Trump wins, it’s like when the head cheerleader tells the arrogant quarterback that he’s so conceited, she’d sooner date Urkel. Urkel may swoon to hear his name coming from a pretty girl’s lips. But it’s not really a compliment, and she’s never really going to date him.)
Last week an opportunistic Canadian ad firm sent America a shit-eating YouTube sympathy card, in which a handful of pasty Canadians assured their beleaguered neighbors that despite you-know-who, we still think America’s great! The passive aggressive subtext is of course that we also think we’re a little bit better.
But we’re not. And for that, I’m sorry.
Jesse Brown is the co-author of the upcoming CANADALAND Guide to Canada(published in America). Available in May from Touchstone Books.
- This article was amended on 21 October 2016. A previous version incorrectly stated Canada is the third-largest arms dealer in the world; it is the second-largest exporter to the Middle East.
- Some of comments(1424)
oh dear, too late for Christmas thenJesse Brown is the co-author of the upcoming CANADALAND Guide to Canada (published in America). Available in May from Touchstone Books.
So 'lame' that most of the non-English speaking world is trying so hard to get into the English speaking world.
Funny those migrants at Calais don't seem to want to stay in France, Belgium, Germany, Greece ... there's only one place for them it would seem ...
I don't doubt that we need to be more progressive, but while many of us work hard on that I ask.... "Where would you rather live?".
Is there another English-speaking country that is (semi?)-open to changes, and that regular folks can realistically push for a more progressive agenda?
IMHO: We need our very own Bernie Sanders here in Canada.
Our trips to the adjacent provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia have always been pleasant. The fact that it's 'not-America' is a highlight, not a drawback.
I myself am a recent convert to Quebec. I had no idea a place in North America could bethat francophone. And they even do us visitors that want to speak French the enormous favor of speaking very French French so that we can understand them! Oh and I love the whole foody-esque preparation of game dishes and forest edibles that they're doing these days.
Poutine? 'Kind of a disappointment but who cares about that when you can get forest mushrooms and mustard sauce slathered over some formerly wild animal served up to you and then digest it all with what must be the world's best apple liquer?
Hmm my impressions of Canada is that it's strictly business, Vancouver has people working for a ten dollar minimum wage which is not even enough to pay rent.
Great place if you have the money to travel through and see a bit of it though, very beautiful and... Empty in large parts. The arms deals facts were news to me.
Assuming you're British, we're in no position to criticise anyone for arms dealing considering the regimes the UK does business with. Sweden also manufactures military equipment, and that country has been neutral for over 200 years. No society has no shame.
Every northerly country that has a higher standard of living than the US also has a vibrant arms industry. Just check out Sweden, Denmark, and Norway!
The economic situation you refer to has been in the making for a long time and is driven by aglobal economic ideology that has brought food banks, zero hour contracts and homeless people to the worlds wealthiest nations. Greed and corruption do not respect borders.
Maybe Jesse Brown would be happier living in another country, and would not be missed.
I came to Canada 50 years ago, I have travelled the world extensively, working for a multinational company, and there is no better place than Canada, anywhere in Canada.
I thought us Brits were pretty good at self-loathing, but this person wins top prize. It's been a long time since I visited but I encountered a people who were very aware of what's going on politically at home, south of the border and elsewhere. If Canada is so bad why do so many want to go and live there?
Wow, I guess Canadians are starting to act like Americans after all. That thing you just did where you tell someone that dares criticize his own country to move away if he doesn't like it, that's vintage USA American intolerance (with its patron saint Archie Bunker, who appropriately is a fictional character). Oh and that other thing where you claim that there is a best country in the world and that country is your country, well that's also très, très americain.
It's good Jesse Brown can speak her mind and not be labelled, as she might in other places, a traitor or something worse. You can agree or disagree, but one of the features of Canada is free speech (hate speech is something else altogether). Would I miss her if she left this country? I don't know her, but I know she is allowed her opinion. As are you and I. Isn't that a good thing? So I'd miss her exercising her freedom.
Now, as to this: "After a decade of the rightwing Harper government, with its pro-oil, anti-science and anti-Muslim ideas, it had become difficult to maintain our sense of smug superiority." Many Canadians didn't need a decade, or even ten minutes, to detest Harper and Crew even before they won their first _minority_ government. Their last, a majority, was soundly rejected in 2015. Some people felt smug during their tenure, sure; other people felt appalled, and said so from the beginning.
Take every comment on Canada with a grain of salt. It's a country with good and bad things in it, like most others.
This is a nice reality check. As a kind of corollary to the thesis that Americans have a rosy view of Canadians, my experience has been that my fellow Canadians spend way too much time angry about America's failures and not enough time angry about our own. America's headlines are an easy distraction from things that are hard to fix at home. I love and have lived in both countries. The people of each have their strengths and and their blind spots. We get things done best when we focus on what we can fix—the things close to home.
As a "neutral" that's also an impression I've had for quite a bit. I just came back to the US from a trip to Canada and something interesting happened. I was the first in line in an intersection where there were people directing traffic due to roadworks. Being the first in line is an important detail since it made my US license plate highly visible. At some point one of the cars behind me started honking and a visibly upset worker walked towards me and said in a disdainful tone: "We don't honk here!!"
When I said it was someone behind me her reply was "yes, yes, I'm sure....".
Of course this is just an anecdote, I think Canada is a great place, but really not much different than any other western country.
We've been here the whole time they have, and many people who settled here came from the USA, and many Canadians have moved in the opposite direction.
Trudeau is just another typical sleazebag politician who campaigns from the left but rules from the right. He's Canada's Obama or Clinton. And of course the ignorant masses of zombie slaves fall for the oldest political con every time.
Ah either a disgruntled NDP supporter and a lost in the woods Conservative with no leader to genuflect towards at all hours of the day and well at night, well this is a family blog ... oh well.. but there have been real changes towards the left since Harper got booted out... but heh, if you focus your views on what the right wing media chews on (no high five was a big story for them for some reason... desperation does that to yah... ) to try and chisel away at his huge popularity lead, oh well.. your choice...
I'm not aware of anyone that claims that Canada is a perfect paradise on Earth. The point is that it does much better overall than most countries on the planet.
Your having to bring up your 1st PM and what the Mounties did in the 30s and 60s shows that it's hard to find much currently about Canada that's worse than in other countries. Every country has its bad apples. Just because Canada had someone like Toronto mayor Rob Ford is no indication of what the vast majority of Canadian mayors are like. Your other examples are likewise specs here and there; I don't see you providing any evidence of these being national traits or characteristics.
"Our Alberta oil sands produce more carbon emissions each year than the entire state of California."
Well, what kind of comparison is that? California's population of 38.8 million is more than all of Canada (35 million).It seems that there is a tendency on the left to disparage the country that you live in & its inhabitants. Instead of focusing on problems or deficiences which need to be righted, the preference seems to be to slag off entire countries and their peoples, indulging in the type of unthinking prejudice favoured by racists and xenophobes, which the left profess to abhor.
I've been to Canada a number of times. It's a beautiful country with friendly people. It's not perfect, but nor is anywhere, and there are many places much worse.
Exactly. Hyper-patriotic bigots believe their own country is perfect and beyond reproach. Their counterparts on the left take the opposite stance - their country is awful and beyond redemption - and call it the truth. But the opposite of one brand of simplistic idiocy is rarely the truth- it's just another brand of simplistic idiocy.
Instead of focusing on problems or deficiences which need to be righted, the preference seems to be to slag off entire countries and their peoples, indulging in the type of unthinking prejudice favoured by racists and xenophobes, which the left profess to abhor.
Why are you overlooking the fact that the author was quite specific about just which deficiencies he believes ought to be righted? And trying to throw racism and xenophobia into the mix? To do so lends a sense of drama to your comment but nothing more substantive than that.
I used to work for CBC and they issued us a book 'What Canadians Don't Know Aboot Canada'.
Because it is a beautiful natural landscape [except for the parts everyone avoids], with generally 'nice' people who make no claims to culture or consequence, Canada is widely admired. Ask any Canadian what it means to be Canadian and the only thing they can say is 'not American'.
I have never met a single Canadian who can name and spell all the provinces and territories and their capitals, even though there are so few.
Canada is a great place to visit and a pleasant place to live. But it is not a model for anything.
Yeah if only ...
The Vatican ostentatious Ottawa HQ sits beside the PM's digs. The Vatican property is worth about 50 million dollars. Does anyone know why that business need such a palace when people are starving? The worst part for us Canadians as citizens is the meddling.
Paternalism - currently women who want RU486 - something that should be readily available as over the counter meds at any pharmacy - but oh no - the female must make an appointment w/ a doctor, why? It's none of the government's business.
Dying with Dignity - LGBT issues - etc. all affected by the busy body zealotry of the Vatican, why?
There is some chatter that Pierre Trudeau was Opus Dei - he is making the 'secret' hand signal in
his official law office portrait and so ...Our Preamble - belief in god, come on it's 2016, do we have to listen to that? Ugh!
Citizenship - should be just a paperwork deal but oh no - new Canadians are forced to bow, submit and grovel to religion and royal rich folks from a foreign land.
When the media go on and on and on celebrating military prowess as will happen in a few weeks - that too sickening - war is terrible for everyone - not just the military - and both sides in a conflict suffer. No great generation would go along with that. Submission is not worth the syllables.
British colonialism is/was reprehensible - our current generation of tax payers is footing the bill to try and compensate struggling aboriginal populations thanks to abuse.
For me, Canada is a work in progress.
"Last year, Canadians almost came to terms with the lie in our branding. "
"Lies," Jeese Brown (a left-leaning-libertarian with a bee-in-the-butt against the Liberals and CBC)? Because you write or state something does not make it the truth:
"The reason the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (our “Mounties”) ride horses is because during the labour movement of the 30s..."
--No, not the mounted "reason." As mentioned, in 1873 with the founding of the Northwest Mounted Police...Horses...You know, cavalry for transportation..
"These days, Canada is the third-largest arms dealer in the world."
--FALSE. Not at all, Jesse is quite confused a must be dishonestly limiting the entire world to be only that of external sales to Saudi Arabia. Globally, Canada, a G7 economy, ranks 15 in global arms sales.
"Our Alberta oil sands produce more carbon emissions each year than the entire state of California. "
--FALSE. Alberta in 2014 expelled ~250 million metric tonnes of CO2, California in 2012 had it at 350 million metric tonnes.
"Canadians care far more about what Americans think of us than we do about Canadian politics."
Evidently, Jesse Brown disregards care of facts and politics in Canada. All he provided for argument was a unfunny article based upon falsehoods and the right-wing (Jesse was commonly horrified with the Harperites??) talking points that the Liberals have offered nothing but 'social media' and 'selfies.' Uhhm, no.. Here's but a partial analysis of legislative changes that have already been implemented in but one year.
This article is full of so many factual errors, it's hard to know where to start.
First, tarsands oil production does not emit as much pollution as the entire state of California. It produces as much emissions as a small city.. But if you want to include the emissions produced by the end user, you'd find that emissions in California are still far higher than in Canada.
Second, the Mounties did not start riding horses so they could stomp union activists in the 1930s. They rode horses from their creation in the 1870s because until after WW2, horses were the most common way of getting around.
Third, the Mounties enforced the laws of the time regarding homosexuality. Remember Alan Turing? They were no harder on gays than any of their compatriots in other police forces.
Fourth, Unlike what the 'writer' describes, Canadians have repeatedly tried to deal with issues like our poor treatment of indigenous people. Even the infamous Harper regime, set up a Truth and Reconciliation to address that one, and the Trudeau government is trying to implement some of the changes that were recommended.
Canadians are also aware of the right-wing extremists in our midst, and as demonstrated in the last election, we reject their values by a strong majority. But we neither deny their existence nor try to justify their beliefs. The writer addresses many of the issues of concern to the left-wing, but he no more represent their views than the KKK represents the view of the US right-wing.
We never said we were perfect, but this rant is way over the top.
Oh come on - every country is ultimately shitty; has dodgy politics, worse politicians, problems with racism, misogyny, religious tensions...it's because as human beings we just haven't figured out how to live on this planet in such numbers without trashing it and each other. People who live in a country see its problems up close and personal: as a UK resident I can rant for hours on the shortcomings of its politics, economy and culture, and will posit countries such as France or Germany as being in a preferable state when it come to these matters, however, I am also aware that were I to be a French or German citizen my arguments may very well be reversed (not so vehemently at the moment, perhaps). But this stuff is all relative. We can rage at our own country's shortcomings as they are familiar to us and affect us, whereas other nations look like oases of sensible calm (perhaps not Syria, Saudi Arabia, nor the US, but you get the gist of my argument) as we do not see the minutiae of day-to-day life there.
TL;DR As humans we crap up everywhere we infest; all countries are awful, we are awful. Happy Friday!
“The reason the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (our “Mounties”) ride horses is because during the labour movement of the 30s, horseback was the best way to trample protesting immigrants and miners”
They were descended from the North West Mounted Police established in 1873, who patrolled the vast expanse of the Canadian West.“These days, Canada is the third-largest arms dealer in the world.”
It’s not even in the top ten. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industryAnd so on and so on…as with Trump these statements are easily checked via Google, not to do so makes you look amateur or even worse…
Surprised the Guardian subs let this through
The statement that Canada is the world's third-largest arms dealer is flat-out false, a fiction pulled from the author's ear. In an average year it is in the teens - it's bumped up to sixth or seventh in 2015 because of a single deal in an otherwise slow year (the stats show orders not deliveries) but will slide back down the list in 2016.
And of course the Mounties (not yet Royal) were formed sixty years before the Regina Riot, so I suspect that they used horses mainly to get around large tracts of country.
Proggies lie, all the time, and then they lie about lying.
From my viewpoint, Canada seems more welcoming and inclusive towards Arabs and Muslims generally when compared with the US next door- for one thing, you can find Halal food and cuisine in supermarkets and restaurants throughout Toronto and Montreal, which is difficult in Detroit and much of New York (despite both having large Arab-American communities). The huge inequality in income and wealth that scars America is also much narrower in Canada.
Besides, I prefer Canada because of the delicious maple cookies
,Shreddies and Carling Black Label and Labatt's, which are both better than Budweiser. I prefer the passion and atmosphere generated by Canadian Ice Hockey fans compared with the Americans. And there are double-decker buses in Toronto!Sure, the crack-smoking tenure of Toronto mayor Rob Ford and a growing gun and murder problem in Windsor, Ontario, demonstrate that the country is far from perfect but surely it must be an oasis of calm when you compare it with the mayhem south of the line?
Some people are full of hate, especially the right wing trolls. The first thing to catch my eye was the slur on the RCMP. The mounties rode horses because the first 600 recruits were responsible for bringing law and order to a wilderness land mass in western Canada the size of Europe with no roads. Yes, as with any organization there may be some black moments, but they were almost always caused by orders from their political masters.
The problems with the native people have long been troubled. (I have native blood myself) Many aboriginal tribes are very successful using money transferred from the federal government to set up large companies to make themselves self sufficient and prosperous. Some native groups however allow the cash settlements to be embezzled by their own chiefs and they continue to live in poverty. Even today some tribal chiefs of only two or three thousand people have incomes many times higher than the prime minister of the whole country. Any attempt at oversight of the expenditure of these funds is met with cries of racism. Crimes of our forefathers are being recognized and compensated. The crimes of previous generations are not the crimes of their children.As for Mr. Trudeau, like any world leader, he faces the criticism and obstruction of the opposition and perhaps doesn't accomplish as much as he would like. However, he is making efforts to be open and innovative with some success so far. He has been in office for only one year and his legacy has yet to be completed.
Reality Seeker eh... Time to dispel this myth of the crooked chief, of the more than 630 chiefs across Canada we are continually bombarded by the same four chiefs who got caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. Because it is not salacious, no one mentions the six chiefs who only take $1.00, or the more than 450 chiefs that earn less than $50,000.00 annually. A librarian earns more for # sakes.
Canada is the only country in the world that continues with the racist legislation called the Indian Act. That 'rule of law' has been in effect since 1870. When I was born, according to the Indian Act, It was illegal for First Nations to own land, illegal for First Nations to vote and, most odious of all, illegal for a lawyer to represent First Nations. This allowed generations of Canadians to do what they wanted, when they wanted with impunity. Who enforced those 'rules of law'? The 'rule of law' that forced First Nations children into Residential Schools was not repealed til June 2010. (The crimes of previous generations are still being committed by their children.)
The government has ignored two orders from the human rights commission.https://fncaringsociety.com/i-am-witness
There are more than 3000 unsolved cases of missing and murdered First Nation women.
In closing, Aboriginal rights are constitutionally protected. Treaty rights are constitutionally protected. Inherent rights are constitutionally protected. And when have you ever seen in the history of Canada a group of Indigenous people being able to call up the RCMP and say ‘Hey! Our aboriginal and treaty rights…are being violated right now. Can you come in and get rid of these extractive industries until they get our consent?’ Never!”Nice article, but in spite of your delightful image of Canada, I'd still prefer to live in Ontario in a tent, in the dead of winter, than spend another day under a government system that drags people like Donald or Hillary out from the gutter for us to choose from. I promise not to be a burden on your health system, I'll drag myself back over the border for my free veteran benefits.
Anyone in Toronto, London or Stratford need a dog catcher or to pick up park litter? I have a passport that hasn't felt the touch of a Canadian border officer in 2 years. Sad, eh?
What a load of baloney. Of course Canada isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than it was just over a year ago.
Just to point out a few of the inaccuracies posing as facts here: the $36-billion cut in health care funding is actually just a reduced rate of increase in the rate of funding, to an annual increase of three per cent, down from an annual increase of six per cent. Plus, the Trudeau government has committed additional money for targeted areas such as home care. When is a cut not a cut? When it's an increase.
And, yes, our economy is largely dependent on fossil fuels, but it was the previous government that put all our eggs in that basket, refusing to concede that climate change was a real thing and favouring the oil sands above manufacturing and other industries. Trudeau has said he will impose a carbon tax on provinces that refuse to impose such a tax, or an equivalent measure like a cap-and-trade system, on their own. And he will return the tax money to the province. His government has also promised to invest in green innovations, something his predecessor would have considered a waste of money.
It was also the previous government that negotiated the arms deal with the Saudis. Yes, the current government honoured that deal to avoid penalties, but has committed to signing onto the UN Arms Trade Treaty.
As for indigenous people, the federal government and the government of Ontario just started negotiations with the Algonquins that would return a huge swath of Ontario, including the Ottawa area, to that First Nation, plus millions of dollars. In addition to setting up the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (which the Harper government repeatedly refused to do) the Trudeau government has made large funding commitments to improve infrastructure and education on reserves.
And unmentioned here is the fact that there hasn't been any further talk of a Trump-like anti-Muslim "snitch line" to report "barbaric cultural practices" in the year since the Liberals ousted the Conservatives.
Brown seems to think that Trudeau's commitment to openness and compromise means that he's found a way to make everyone on every side of every issue happy with the outcome of every decision on even the most controversial topics. Apparently he thinks that nothing short of such a utopia should justify the majority of Canadians' continued high level of support for the Trudeau government and their renewed pride in wearing the maple leaf abroad.As a child of the white-migrant, nineteenth-century British Empire, Canada is capitalist, masonic, expansionist, exploitative, over-governed, severely surveillanced - and successful. Its people are committed to hard work (when they can get it), polite formalists in public space and intelligent eager conversationalists in private space. (This spatial distinction is important in Canada.)
The failure of Canadian government to appease the desire of its original populations is a sad story. Inadequate government investment in past years balances indigenous people's unclear goals today. Each contributes to a terrible failure of communication and conciliation between immigrants and native peoples. However, this inadequacy is not confined to Canada: it characterizes the entire continent from Alaska to Argentina.
Some Canadian entrepreneurs claim it is easier to expand a Canada-based business southwards into USA and Mexico than east/west across Canada. This may be one of the most subtle consequences of Confederation and the more recent Free Trade Agreement which links Canada, USA and Mexico.
Canada's national myth is based on the necessity to work. But, as in other Northern countries, there exists a deep yearning to develop a welfare state - which Canadian governments at all four levels (federal, provincial, regional, municipal) do and undo with rhythmic regularity. Public servants are often more confused than the public.
A most interesting Canadian peculiarity is "volunteering". This is a social obligation, rather like subbotniks in the old USSR. In some provinces, adolescents are compelled to "volunteer" as they compile a first curriculum vitae to enter the work-force.
These contradictions - more than the dogmatic work-ethic and brutal taxation - make Canada a delightful place in which to live - and die.
I am Canadian, and did not vote for Trudeau, but Harper did so much harm to Canada, it is too much to expect Trudeau to fix everything overnight. I have a number of activist-minded friends who blast every step he takes, but I've come to the conclusion that only instant-Utopia that immediately corrects every historical and contemporary wrong would be acceptable to them (just barely) (and I think this is a consistent flaw shared by too many radical leftist activists the world over).
I am no Maple Leaf flag-waver! Canada's shameful treatment of First Nations is our greatest sin, and my enthusiasm for Canada's 150th birthday next year is greatly reduced by the amount of First Nations communities that are living in 3rd world poverty and lack basics like clean drinking water, when 4 girls aged 10-14 can commit suicide in a week in the same Northern community, when the RCMP and Quebec provincial police can commit horrendous abuse in First Nation communities, especially in the North.
Do not be shy about calling out for a better world and better government, but do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good!
This is clearly Canadian clickbait (shame on the Guardian for publishing, and on me for falling for it, eh.) but I cant resist.
Canada is patently NOT the third largest arms exporter in the world. The fact that you picked third means that you thought about saying second, thought it would raise suspicions, but felt fourth wasn't egregious enough (great journalism). The RCMP was established decades before the western labour riots, in which a single person was killed, tragic but hardly a death stampede. The RCMP was founded in order to police the Western expansion, in an attempt to avoid the lawlessness experienced in America during their own frontier expansion.
I can only assume that you feel that facts can be altered in order to advance your ratings and make your articles more publisher friendly. I feel great shame at having aided you in this quest. Post-fact journalism, which we are inundated with from the left and right of the political spectrum, is what creates the uncertainty in the electorate which is so easily exploited by people like Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, and indeed even Justin Trudeau.
