O Canada, You Are Better Than We
Confessions of a deeply embarrassed American.
Politics and Prejudices and other musings
– Jack Lessenberry
July 1 was Canada Day, the official celebration of Canada’s birth as a nation, and for the second time in three years, I went to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, to celebrate and watch the fireworks from my hotel on St. Mary’s River.
I have always loved and been fascinated by Canada, especially since I began covering Canadian politics and the final acceptance of it as a fully constitutionally independent country when the Queen came to Ottawa in 1982. (Canada got its independence gradually, and for the most part nonviolently.)
Yesterday was Canada Day, the official celebration of Canada’s birth as a nation, and for the second time in three years, I went to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, to celebrate and watch the fireworks from my hotel on St. Mary’s River.
I have always loved and been fascinated by Canada, especially since I began covering Canadian politics and the final acceptance of it as a fully constitutionally independent country when the Queen came to Ottawa in 1982. (Canada got its independence gradually, and for the most part nonviolently.)
This week, however, I was deeply embarrassed that my country has elected (again) such a malevolent boorish pig as its leader, and that he was trying to bully our best ally and friends. Canadians traditionally wear red on what used to be called Dominion Day, and I gave a big thumbs-up to two men whose T-shirts said “Canada Is Not For Sale.”
We took a cruise through the Soo Locks in the afternoon, during which I got a text informing me that the Marmalade Moron announced he was refusing to renew the United States-Canada-Mexico-Agreement, also known as the USMCA, or the “new (and improved) NAFTA.”
If Trump sticks to that, it will badly damage the U.S. economy and millions of workers, but of course he couldn’t care less about that. What matters to him is forcing Canada into subservience. Guess what:
It won’t work.
I have always felt I owed it to our history and giants like Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to stay in America and do my puny bit to try to make this a better place. Today, I feel that I am too old to start life elsewhere. But if I were half a century younger, I would be very tempted to move to our northern neighbor, which is, by virtually any measure, now a better country than ours.
I do hope, however, to see Trump disgraced and then dead, and to see a future real president who will say to a Canadian prime minister and the Canadian people, “I am very sorry/ Je suis vraiment desole.”)
My son gets to plays Miracle League baseball. It’s only 1 game a week early June to early August. July 4 week off. Big rainstorm last week; canceled. Family vacation in June for sister’s dance nationals in PA; missed another. Yesterday was perfect but canceled anyway due to Canada not putting out fires. Don’t talk about Marmalade and rot, put out your fires.
@Eric,
Sure looks like some of that smoke is due to the United States not putting out fires.
https://fire.airnow.gov/#3/41/-98
Canada, like the US, China and Russia, is a large and complicated place. The politics and cultures of Alberta, Quebec and Newfoundland are quite different, even though they use the same currency and have the same UN representative.
I’ve visited half of the Canadian provinces and enjoyed each. My daughter and her family recently moved from the US to Nova Scotia and appear quite happy with their decision. In the past decade, Canada has proven to be a more civilized nation than the US.