Tag Archives: Canada

Canada Day redefined

Usually this day is a day when I would wear red and white. I am an immigrant, but I am a proud Canadian. I have met many people who, like me, were not born in this country but fully adopted it as ‘home’, and like me many people feel like the adoption is mutual. Canadians accepts us as Canadian, despite being born abroad.

But today I will wear an orange shirt. Today I find it challenging to show pride in a country that secretly buried its children on Residential school grounds. Today I stand with the people who did not immigrate to Canada, but who were forced off their land, and forced to send their children to schools that abused them and attempted to colonize them, and stripped away their different languages and their cultures.

This isn’t the Canada I’ve grown to know and love, but it is every bit my Canada. This tragedy is not a history to remain buried, it is a history to face, and reconcile. I will wear red and white again on Canada at some point in the future, but to heal the wounds that run so deep, and generationally hurt so many people so deeply, I choose on this day to wear orange. I choose to say that every child matters… those that died because of racist segregation at residential schools, those that are dealing with generational trauma, those that hurt knowing the truth and are awaiting reconciliation.

I am not wearing orange in defiance, I am wearing it in unity, in solidarity. I am Canadian, and as a Canadian I am not someone who can be proud of the history of buried and forgotten children that have recently been discovered. As a Canadian I will wear orange to represent the Canada I want to live in, one where we do not forget our past, and we remember that every child matters.

Good news on the vaccine front

I will admit that I’ve been critical of the vaccine rollout in Canada. I really thought that it took much too long to get things started. However, I now have to say that I’m very impressed with how things are going. Have a look at this chart as of yesterday:

It seems that Canada’s strategy of getting the first shot to as many people as possible is paying off. I get my second shot next week, and I just read that the new Canadian goal is to have every person from the age of 12 and up to be able to get their second shot by September… every person that wants it.

That’s the new challenge we face, how many people in our population will not choose to get vaccinated? With the Delta variant hitting the unvaccinated population extremely hard, Covid-19 is proving to be hearty and resilient. The Delta variant spreads very easily, and on average causes much harsher symptoms, putting more people in hospital than other variants.

Reducing the threat of this variant, and subsequent variants is best done with a comprehensive vaccine rollout. Reduce the likelihood of spread, and you also reduce the likelihood of mutation and new variants. The spread of measles provides a good lesson for us. Measles is preventable by vaccine and numbers have gone down for years heading into 2010. But the last decade has seen spikes due to anti-vaccine sentiment, and a larger population of unvaccinated kids in different populations.

Canada is lucky. For such a large country, we don’t have a massive population, and the population we do have predominantly lives in a narrow band near the US border. So, not many people, but mostly living in a concentrated area. This makes vaccine distribution easier on two fronts. The third and final frontier is the willingness of the population to do their part.

Our younger generation seems to be more willing to do their part than in other countries. As soon as the 18+ population were given the opportunity to get a vaccine in Canada, uptake has been good. Since younger age groups seems hard hit by the Delta variant in England, it is comforting to know that the Canadian population that had to wait the longest for their turn at getting the first shot have been so willing.

It’s good news all around in Canada, and so now as the vast majority of the population lines up for their 2nd shot, it’s my hope that we also see more people take advantage of their first shot. This is the challenge ahead of us. Not the rollout of the second shot, that is going very well. Rather it’s the rollout of the first shot to the population who seems hesitant to do their part. The closer we get to full immunity, the more likely we are to be protected from dangerous variants spreading through our communities… and our loved ones.

0.9 Percent

There are well over 5 million people in BC. Yesterday less than 50,000 people were vaccinated. Less than 1 percent. I know things are ramping up, and many good people are doing the best they can to support quick (and fair) distribution of the vaccine. And I know 50,000 vaccinations in a single day is good… But when I see the challenges the US has, and the fact that they have vaccinated as many as they have, it makes me wonder what else we could be doing? And what else should have already happened?

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I don’t want to jump the queue, but I want everyone who wants a vaccine to get it faster than the current rate. It should be possible to make this happen.

Our big ‘neighbor’

I remember driving through Indiana and meeting a couple older teenagers at a motel pool where we stopped for the night. It was the early ’90’s and these kids knew very little about Canada. They asked if I knew of Larry Bird and the NBA? They asked if we used the same currency? And they asked what the big mall was like? After a couple questions, I realized they meant West Edmonton Mall, and living in Toronto at the time I said, “You tell me, you live closer to it.”

That wasn’t a fair response, but I was growing weary of questions like this. As a Canadian on my travels through the States, I’ve been asked about hunting moose, dog sleds, igloos, and one of my favourites, if Canada was an American State?

I don’t pretend to know a lot about America, especially their history, but Canadians have an unfair advantage over Americans when it comes to knowing about each other’s countries. We see their news, they don’t see ours. We watch their television and movies. We follow their social media and business icons. We eat a lot of food produced in the US, and eat at restaurant chains that are American owned.

Canadians know we are significantly different than Americans. I’m not sure (beyond cliches) that the same can be said in reverse. It matters more to us when we rely so much on the US. And, if you look at a population map, the vast majority of Canadians live relatively close to our border, and that is not true for Americans.

Americans can live their lives not knowing anything about Canada. We don’t have the reverse option. Our election will be a ‘blip’ of news ‘down south’, theirs have and will continue to flood our media sources. Tariffs disputes affect individual companies in the US while they affect entire communities and Provinces in Canada. We will watch their blockbuster movies, and while some of them are filmed in Canada, they will be American films that Canadians might know were filmed here, but most Americans won’t.

We have a very large and powerful neighbour to our south, and we can’t ignore the influence they have on us. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next 5-10 years. The closed border, the discrepancy between our two countries in Covid-19 cases, their leadership, and the impression the US has on the world stage, has all changed the way the US is viewed in Canada.

The little brother or sister eventually stops looking at his bigger brother or sister with admiration and awe. I think we are seeing a similar relationship transition between Canada and the US. I just hope these two siblings remember that we are all part of a North American family and keep trying to play nicely together.