On Being Canadian - Abroad
by Andrew Caddell
Canada Day (or Dominion Day) is always a good time for Canadians to take stock of themselves, if they are not too busy barbecuing or jumping into the closest lake, river or stream. Or that is how I imagine it, living in Europe and confined to a small celebration of Canadian expatriates and diplomats.
Canadians, it is often said, can rarely provide a definition of themselves - aside from the catch-all 'NOT American', like the popular beer rant that dominates Canadian television and e-mails from Canadian friends. Having lived outside of Canada for the past five years, I have gradually developed a different perspective.
Although I have lived from Calgary to St. John's and studied our history in depth, it has only been since I left that I can genuinely appreciate it, seeing Canada and Canadians through different eyes. The great Scottish poet, Robert Burns, wrote 'Wad some great Pow'r the giftie gie us to see oursels' as others see us'. This is the last Canada Day I will spend abroad, so allow me to recount how Canadians are seen - from a kaleidoscope of memories gathered living and travelling on three continents.
First of all - one big disappointment - we are expected to be Americans - and why not? We look the same, dress the same, eat the same food, and to the untuned ear, sound the same. Once the word Canadian is mentioned, or the passport offered, however, the conversation changes.
A Swiss border guard delayed my entry for several minutes the night before the Quebec referendum to tell me how much he hoped Canada would stay together - because it was a good example for his own country's trilingual and federalist dynamic. International aid workers told me they put Canada at the top of their list for requests for support - because we were always seen as making commitments to good causes and setting a good example for others.
Our linguistic abilities are always taken for granted - with sometimes humourous results: Europeans expect every Canadian to be fluently bilingual. Our hockey abilities are also assumed: every time I missed an open net, my Swiss oldtimer hockey teammates berated me.
In a small village in Côte d'Ivoire, hours away from the closest telephone, I met people who knew that Canada was a country that could be trusted, although they also did not relish the idea of going there: 'Too cold', they said. Others, living in refugee camps in Macdedonia, could not be more effusive in their praise of Canada - both for joining in the war for their Kosovo homeland and with the ambition of moving to a place where peace and ethnic harmony were taken for granted.
In Bangladesh, the rickshaw pullers know one phrase in English - 'Your country, sir?' Whenever I responded 'Canada', a big smile would appear, and the statement 'good people'. I met a Bangladeshi bank manager eager to emigrate, and 'although he was doing well in Dhaka' he desired a better life, free of corruption, and pollution. For him, Canada represented a sort of paradise.
I learned about patriotism from my father on his first trip back to the battlefields of Italy in half a century. He worked his 82 year old back to attention and saluted the Maple Leaf flag at Casa Berardi, where many of his comrades lay buried. I cycled through Vimy Ridge, Beaumont Hamel, and Juno and heard the voices of men who never came back. I wept unashamedly when I found a cousin whose life was cut short two weeks after D-Day. The potential he never met was the sacrifice he and others made for a Canada respected as a small country with strong values.
There were days when embarrassing 'family' issues arose - like our treatment of the native peoples, or Quebec separatism. But they were always raised in a civil and respecting way, as if Canada, while not perfect, could be expected to solve its own problems.
So as I prepare to return home, what is it that makes me proud to be a Canadian? The best answer lies in the words of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who said 'My parish is the world, and my religion is to do good.' If ever there was a genuinely international, open society, it is ours. And rather than breaking down our traditions or ignoring them, we should recognize our heritage as a people and a country as something that makes us good and great. The rest of the world knows what the word 'Canada' means. Let us celebrate it ourselves.
Happy Canada Day
This article originally appeared in the Montreal "Gazette" in June of 2000.