This past week, the country celebrated its 149th birthday, allowing us a chance to rejoice in being Canadian.
It’s not always an easy thing to reflect on, as recent events in other countries remind us. First off, we have the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union, then shrugging its shoulders shortly after about why it did so.
Meanwhile, we’re exposed to weekly Trumpisms from our neighbours to the south, expressing a fear about their neighbours to the south.
These cases remind us that love of one’s country can sometimes turn into jingoism and xenophobia with only a little prodding.
The examples, we should point out aren’t exactly the same though. The EU was, at least theoretically, supposed to be a model of cooperation, more than a mere trade agreement.
In North America, if you’re old enough to remember, the free trade deal discussions often cited the EU as a model, but there was really no effort to allow the free movement of labour – and this was long before Donald Trump ever talked about running for office. On top of this, we haven’t even been able to visit the U.S. without our passports for the past 15 years.
Yet, both the UK rejection of the EU and the rise of Trump reflect a level of fear and racism. Still, they also reflect the fact that many people in the world of growing international trade deals are not getting ahead.
Following the Brexit vote, one commentator resorted to that painful cliché: there are always winners and losers with these trade deals.
No kidding. That’s how the economy typically works. The real questions, which never seem to be asked, are how many are winning and how many losing, and how does this compare with 10 years ago? Twenty years ago? Forty years ago?
This would require some real context though, meaning we would have to start paying attention to historians rather than economists. (And when was the last time you saw a historian on the news?)
So as we’re celebrating our country’s birthday, cutting pieces of cake and setting off fireworks from downtown Squamish, we perhaps need to do more than simply pat ourselves on the back for being Canadian. Perhaps, every July 1, we can also spare a thought to ask ourselves what kind of country we want to be and what kind of world we want to live in, especially with our sesquicentennial looming in the not-too-distant future.
– The Chief
