American And Canadian Culture Is Fundamentally Different

“Our fair Dominion now extends from Cape Race to Nootka Sound. May peace forever be our lot, and plenteous store abound” – Maple Leaf Forever (Canada’s unofficial anthem until the late ‘60s)

One day in university, myself and one of my roommates in our slum apartment near the UVic campus were discussing American politics (I was and remain a bit of a nerd). I remember that when the debate turned to the U.S. military, he accidentally said that “our troops” should be brought home from foreign entanglements.

Similarly, on election night last week, someone on the CBC panel argued that the Democrats do not represent “the majority of Canadians” before quickly correcting herself.

The truth is, many Hosers believe on some level that they are in some way citizens of a broader American empire. This is rarely clearly admitted or articulated, but is revealed in occasional Freudian slips – unintentional errors of speech that reveal subconscious feelings.

This little brother mentality is also apparent in attempts to import American history north – most laughably in the positively desperate desire on the part of some academics to pretend that pre-Confederation Canada had widespread slavery (it didn’t, but just imagine all the flashy American critical race theory conferences our professors could attend if it did!).

We are not the United States. The U.S. was founded as a republic with a Constitution proclaiming that the foremost right of citizens is to chase the “pursuit of happiness”. This hyper-individualistic, blank slate experiment created countless impressive technological innovations, while also giving birth to the capitalist hellscapes of Las Vegas and Disneyland, and thousands of cults. In America, nothing has ever been done in moderation.

Canada is a constitutional monarchy with a Constitution that emphasizes “peace, order, and good government”. Moderation is our middle name. We never dabbled in the idea of an individualistic blank slate country, instead cherishing the cultures of the peoples who joined together in Confederation: English and French Canadians in all their many regional manifestations, and the varied Indigenous peoples.

The founding American mythos is a bunch of rowdies tossing boxes of tea into the Boston harbour to protest a 3-cents-per-pound tea tax. Our founding story is that tens of thousands of Loyalists hated the American Revolutionaries so profoundly that they upped stakes and fled to Canada in horse-drawn wagons.

Our distinctive culture is not purely theoretical. We have the 7^th most guns per capita in the world, but nowhere close to the number of mass shooting in the United States. Our most raucous political event in recent years was a bunch of fed up truckers and their supporters honking horns in our capital city. We largely disregard extreme levels of individualism, participating with pride in collective traditions like wearing poppies.

Whether or not you were happy with the results of the American election, we would all do well to remember our roots in this northern Dominion and resist the influence of American mannerisms, values, and even spelling. Let’s be proud of who we are.

Editor’s note: My 500-word Counter Current column is published once every two weeks in the Islands Marketplace paper on Salt Spring Island. This piece will appear in the November 15th, 2024 issue.