Our country

 I am a Canadian. This is my country.

This is my flag.

Because I am not a "so-called" person or even a "so-called" citizen, I don't live in a "so-called" country. My country is not, as it has been called in a fatuous but fashionable formulation, three telecoms, or two railways, or several monopolies in a trench coat. I live in a country which, like most countries on this planet, is a product of conquest, migration, imperial rivalries, commercial pressures, ambition, and opportunism. My country's history has a lot to be proud of and a lot to be ashamed of, again, in common with most nations on this planet. And, also in common with every other Westphalian nation state, Canada is an amalgam of different identities, histories and ethnicities, held together by a legal definition. 

The trend on the Left to talk about "so-called" Canada, to denigrate this nation as a purely commercial proposition without any real center or vision is self indulgent and self defeating. It cedes moral, intellectual, and political ground to the worst of our conservative opponents. We on the left may sneer at the flag, but we can bet that won't stop Pierre Poilievre from waving it. If we loudly proclaim that Canada is really the plutocratic monarchy Curtis Yarvin and his fellow reactionaries advocate, then we can hardly complain if Canadians who find this country at least tolerable conclude Yarvin's ideas might have some merit.

We can pretend Canada's achievements don't matter to us, but they do matter to a great many people. To take just one example: for the past two years, Canadians have looked south with concern as we read or hear about laws restricting reproductive care framed by legislators with brutal contempt for women's autonomy or even sound medical judgment. We read the stories women whose pregnancies have gone disastrously wrong and who wait, or beg, for lifesaving care, while their doctors fret about the risk of prosecution, imprisonment, or the loss of their medical licenses. That doesn't happen in Canada, and it doesn't happen because one brave doctor defied and unjust law and sixty independently minded Canadian jurors accepted his argument, in one case defying a judge who ordered them to convict. Three telecoms or two railways in a trench coat don't take stands for people's rights and lives. Corporations don't care, citizens do, and it is hard, if not impossible, to be a citizen without a country to be a citizen of. 

That doesn't change the ugly episodes in this country's history, and it doesn't mean many people don't, or shouldn't, feel great pain and carry a deep anger towards the Canadian government. That anger exists, it is a fact, and it is justified. But many of the sneers and quips about Canada not being a "real" country do not come from the dispossessed, the outcast, and the oppressed. The anger that comes from oppressed people doesn't excuse those of us with privilege from doing the hard work of facing the wounds of the past and  preparing the ground for the process of working out an equitable way for us all to live together. 

As we enter the year 2025 of the common era, we in the Canadian center and left will face unprecedented challenges. Our commitment to democracy will be tested by a rising tide of authoritarian voices. Our efforts at economic justice will face challenges from international plutocrats and oligarchs increasingly determined to assert their claims to privilege and power, and to enforce them with violence if necessary. More and more Canadians are falling into poverty, driven by housing costs and inflation, and we are threatened by trade disruptions that may leave many more industrial workers unemployed. In the past, too many of us have asserted that if we cannot have a perfect country, we will have none at all.That is not an ethical stance, it is a tantrum. It is a rejection of the actual task of moving this country away from the current brutal inequity, and toward a more decent and humane social order. That, I believe, is a self-indulgence we will not be able to afford in the coming year.