Talk:Canadian identity

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Contents

[edit] Article is a Failure

Almost the entire article is non-neutral and based on supposition and not on facts.

This isn't a very specific critique, but it seems to be true. The article seems to be an abject failure, from its invocation of anecdoted without citations to the confused morass left by politically motivated edit wars. In short, this article sucks.

What's even worse is that I got to this article after going through multiple articles about distinct Canadian cultural elements in areas as diverse as cuisine and social customs. Instead of any participants doing any non-superficial research at all, it appears that contributors have distilled this down to the most superficial, stereotype-ridden examinations of Canadian Identity possible one actually made worse by the inanities of multiple authors.

Archived to May 7 2005 in Talk:Canadian identity/Archive 1

One article in that vein is Chinese-Canadian Cuisine, or whatever it's called. Instead of (as was intended) being about the development of a distinct menu/dining "experience" in Canada, it's become a listing of people's favourite Chinese dishes, often on the premise that because it's made in Canada now it's therefore Canadian, or Chinese-Canadian; so Mandarin and Sichuan cuisines chock up the page even though neither of them had anything to do with "traditional Chinese-Canadian cuisine"; the meaning of term has had its meaning extended is now extended to anything going on in Chinese restaurants in the country NOW. I monitor that page, but it gets really strange - for someone raised on Chinese-Canadian Cuisine, or "Chinese and Western" as we also called it, seeing things spelled in pinyin and people arguing about whether or not some dish I've never heard of is now "Canadian" is really grating. Having people freshly arrived, or who have been raised inside their own cultural ghettos, extrapolating their own experience into "what it means to be Canadian" is REALLY inane, and also annoying/insulting when they show no concern for the identity/feelings/culture they're displacing by such actions. Needless to say, I didn't go wave flags yesterday... To me "Canadian identity" is a political fiction, created more than developed, and more than grating when it's shoved down your throat; the idea that there's a common Canadian identity from sea to sea etc they've been trying to sell to use since they tried to make the Dominion somethign more than a branchplant of the UK; but it never worked. And instead you've got people making up identities by the seat of their pants; and in the case of stuff like Canadian-Chinese Cuisine, as with the Head Tax, you've got the new-blood Chinese-Canadians showing no concern at all for the heritage of the old-stock Chinese-Canadians, and essentially shoving it aside to rewrite the national history/culture in their own image......in general I think this page is problematic and built on political assumptions that were always more of a marketing campaign than a real identity/culture, i.e. a government project, not a nation. True identity in Canada has always been regional anyway IMOSkookum1 16:00, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moved from article

Within Canadian politics, those on the political left (who tend to support the New Democratic Party) tend to be the most opposed to what are dismissively referred to as "American-style" policies, practices, or ideas. On the other hand Canadians on the right (who congregate in both the Liberal and Conservative parties) tend to be more supportive of such "American-style" ideas, and may look to certain U.S. policies as a model to emulate, rather than avoid, sometimes to the point that their opponents note they seem to have the doctrine of "Their country (USA), right or wrong." Politicians and pundits from both groups however tend to be critical of excessive U.S.-bashing, and the idea that the Canadian identity is based on little more than shallow anti-Americanism is often denounced. Conservative Canadians will often argue that Canadians and Americans are becoming indistinguishable in general social attitudes, while Canadian leftists counter that Canadian attitudes are predominately different (i.e. more left-wing and progressive) than American ones and becoming increasingly more so.

The above section was rewritten. The viewpoint of left (consisting of NDP, according to article) being dismissive of American values and the right (consisting of conservatives and the liberals, according to article) and the right being supportive is entirely erroneous. All stripes and shades of people in major Canadian political parties have varying and different views on America. This can easily be seen in Jean Chrétien's Liberal government's utterly cold relations with George Bush, to the point where both leaders were snubbing each other, and in the Conservative Alberta likewise holding a negative view of America due to trade disputes that have severely damaged its beef industry. Both parties have individuals who recognize the need to maintain polite relations with America to ensure cooperation on trade issues.

Worth commenting that old-line Tories were very anti-American, being pro-British and intrinsically nationalistic, with the Grits being regarded as the wannabe sellouts.....also that a standard put-down about another part of the country is "they're more American than we are", something I've often heard in the East about BC, but also is how southern ON can feel to someone from BC; America being the bogeyman, "being like Americans" means having zits on your face or something.Skookum1 06:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm removing the previously contentious section "The snow, the ice and the cold of a long winter."

One of those phrases which alienates coastal British Columbians with the Rest of Canada's obsession with being cold and bleak and everyone having a hockey pond in the back yard; all that stuff - including cliches like the phrase above - do NOT describe Canada in toto; if by being Canadian I'm automatically supposed to identify with all that cold and skates and such, then I must not be Canadian; but I was born here, raised here, live here - so obviously that paradigm, so much like America's apple pie - can't describe "Canadian identity" - not mine anyway; it's only a self-description of what Andrew Coyne today called "the dominant culture" (he meant white anglophones, but if you read his Globe article with a BC jaundice on your glasses, everything he's meaning about multicultural cultures is also relevant to Canada's regional cultures/identities).Skookum1 06:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The first and I think the most important paragraph, "Canadians often like to see themselves as brave warriors..." remains in the article at the head of the Trivia section (the upshot is about Ottawa as the third-coldest capital in the world). The wording of the paragraph might be overreaching a bit, but there's much to it and there it is. The two photos from that section I'm moving elsewhere in the article.

These two paragraphs I have trouble with:

Only the major cities of the province of British Columbia on the Pacific Ocean, are exempted from this extreme weather. But even in British Columbia, the bad weather in the rest of the country gives a sense of unity and common self-image because a great number of citizens of that province have friends and relatives from the icebox or are themselves recent immigrants from the freezing parts of the country. This self-image of valour and fortitude against a cruel winter cuts across linguistic, cultural and regional boundaries.
"Bullshit!" from a BCer who's tired of hearing about how cold it is in the rest of the country, and how that's an excuse for the rest of y'all inundating us to talk about it instead of freeze in it. Don't buy it, won't buy it, don't want it. Take it back. And we have our own miserable weather, thank you very much.Skookum1 06:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

"Extreme" overstates the weather elsewhere, and Vancouver and Victoria (does this include Nanaimo? Prince Rupert?) are hardly the only mild places in Canada - Leamington, Ontario is so balmy it's home to some of the world's largest tomato hothouses. "the icebox," etc. is not encyclopedic. And can the author source the assertion this self-image cuts across the lines mentioned?

Sigh. Yes, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo have mild climates, although the sun rarely comes out in Rupert; even the Southern Interior has a mild climate - down off the Cariboo plateau anyway (i.e. south of it, roughly south of a line from Clinton to Kamloops; the Fraser Canyon, Okanagan, Shuswap - they can get icy (10 below) but they're sunny, and get Chinook effects from coastal weather, much like Alberta but without the subarctic cold. Well, except sometimes, that is. Williams Lake, Prince George etc are a lot colder.Skookum1 06:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
This self-image of valour and fortitude against a cruel winter cuts across linguistic, cultural and regional boundaries.

It looks like that last line was written by Sheila Copps.

Some people believe the brochure bumpf the government sends them (or their realty company).Skookum1 06:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


Canadians eagerly follow all the Winter Olympic Games. They support their athletes with their tax dollars, sending a massive contingent to the winter games every four years . Amateur athletes desiring to compete in the Summer Olympic Games find funding from the government sparse, and sponsorship after the games almost non-existent, with Canadian ad campaigns preferring the prominence of the winter athletes to sell their products.

This is unsalvageable. "All" the Winter Olympic Games are not "eagerly" followed. Plenty of Winter Olympians complain about funding, and no small number of Summer Olympians are well-known and well-sponsored stars. If this stayed in the article I'd really have to put a factual accuracy tag on it, unless it were credibly sourced, which I doubt possible. Samaritan 07:26, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Canadians follow Olympic hockey, and when the women start bringing in medals in the more obscure sports the guys are too busy playing hockey to learn, then Canadians start watching. Most people are nauseated by the CBC's Canada-fawning coverage ("how does it feel to lose today? Are you sad you've disappointed Canadians?" and other inspirational coverage of that kind). One thing is that un-trained, un-neutered Canadians actually watch the Olympics not to see if Canada's winning any medals, but to see who is. In fact, I'd venture that we're probably one of the only Olympic audiences who are interested in and supportive of the teams and athletes of other countries; sure the Yanks will watch the Aussies swim or the Russians lift, but it's to see if they beat the US or not. Canadians will just watch (unless they're tuned into hockey....).Skookum1 06:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Another block move:

To give but one example: While in most English parts of Canada recent prime ministers like Brian Mulroney and Paul Martin are seen as "coming from Québec" because they were born there or because they have been consistently elected to Parliament by Québec voters, the same individuals are seen as representatives of English Canada by nearly all citizens of Québec, because for them the mother tongue or culture and not geography is the main criterion in identity. Even Pierre Trudeau is considered in Québec as being at least partly a representative of English Canada, because his mother, Grace Elliott, was an English-speaker of Scottish ancestry. In this view of things most of Canada's recent prime ministers have been representatives of English Canada and only three (Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Louis St. Laurent and Jean Chrétien) out of a total of 21 were really truly pure laine, or from traditional Québec society.

If pure laine means "from traditional Québec society," has anybody been pur laine since the Quiet Revolution? And the premise of the first part of the paragraph is that "mother tongue or culture" rather than geography is the main criteria in identity, while the second is that Québécois pur laine status (defined by ethnicity, geography, and culture) is the main criteria in identity. Which is it? And how could either assertion be credibly sourced? (Public opinion surveys, maybe.)

With the list of pur laine prime ministers, the reader may walk away with an unstated but heavily suggested implication that modern Québécois probably have some special fondness for Laurier, St. Laurent and Chrétien over all others as 'their' prime ministers. This would be dodgy, at least.

Also: Isn't Paul Martin's mother tongue in fact French? And there are bigger reasons why Trudeau may not be seen as entirely representative of Québec or of French Canada, which are beyond the scope of this article.

The whole paragraph is hard to reconcile, and since it's billed as "but one example," moving it out on its own right now should still retain the main point it was supposed to support.

From 2000 on, in fact, the separatist movement in Québec lost momentum, culminating with the election loss of the separatist provincial party (the Parti Québécois) in provincial elections in 2003. Though they do retain support from many in Québec, this is more for their liberal policies, which contrast sharply with the Québec Liberal Party headed by Jean Charest the Premier as of 2003.

This paragraph had a short shelf life; support for sovereignty in recent polls is very high. Samaritan 07:57, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

-- Actaully, as somebody who's living in Quebec, i can assure you that seperation is still a bizzare topic here. The hardliners, who are always going to support it, no matter what, are as loud as ever, but the /majority/ of the population here at least realises that Quebec /wouldn't/ be better off after a unilateral split. Something to think about... 13:16, 25 May 2005 (EST)

Next, I cut this out of the paragraph on The Greatest Canadian:

[that it] had the deeply conservative ice hockey commentator Don Cherry included in the top 10 of the list was sparked partially out of a desire among Canadian conservatives to make a statement to the network, or more likely as ice hockey is widely respected as the national sport, even by people who are not interested in sports. Supporting the ice hockey theory is that Wayne Gretzky is also on the list, and that Ed Belfour, Gordie Howe, Paul Henderson along with Frederick Arthur Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley of Preston, who donated the Stanley Cup was also on the Greatest Canadian 100 list.

The paragraph went on to say that the top three nominees on the list are probably more important and representative than those. Ice hockey should certainly be discussed in an article on Canadian identity, but without pegging it to speculation about a TV contest in 2003 in which ice hockey figures did okay but not great! What's more, this spares us the otherwise inevitable development of an Avril Lavigne hypothesis, a Pamela Anderson corollary... :) Samaritan 08:13, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

...Then I made a few other changes. The article could still be so much better. :\ Samaritan 08:45, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

A couple issues I have:

- Québec and secularism. Indeed, Québec is more socialist than other provinces, but isn't the Catholic Church still a rather significant part of its identity?

Yes and no. Yes in the historical sense; no in the modern political sense - the Catholic Church has all the influence of a gnat in Québec politics these days. See Québec being (along with perhaps BC IIRC) one of the provinces most strongly in support of gay marriage, etc. Add to that church for sale, church being preserved as part of Québec's historical heritage by the government (to prevent them from being sold, destroyed and replaced with housing, etc) , and so forth because *people don't go to church anymore* (and certainly don't pay tithes), and, well...the church is dying in Québec.--Damian Silverblade 01:25, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

- Politics. At least from my admittedly leftist perspective (I'm an NDP member as soon as I get my card in the mail), the Liberal party is at times quite conservative. It kind of slides between the right and the left, although it makes up part of the Canadian left, it isn't as a whole an entirely leftist party. It has parts, and it has phases, but I think it's misleading to label it as the article does.

As far as the Canadian political spectrum goes, the Liberals are pretty much our center party, with the NDP (and Bloc, when they can be bothered to do something other than waving Québec flags) on the Left and the Conservatives on the Right. Of course, on a more global political spectrum, it gets a lot more mixed - the liberals are quite right-wing ocmpared to what you'd find in Europe, and quite to the left compared to what seems to be average in the States--Damian Silverblade 01:25, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Just some things I thought should be brought up. --Jammoe 15:22, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

The Liberal party is centre-right, not left wing. No doobt aboot that, eh? (Seriously, though, the Libs ain't lefties.) [Posted 11 November 2005, by an anonymous user.]
What makes you say that? Could you add some substance to your opinion? HistoryBA 22:24, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
The Liberal Party Right Wing. I guess what the press says about Wikipedia being a haven for Che Guearra fetishists is at least partly true. As someone who is not a member of a party but leans libertarian (not left or right) and has lived in Europe, I can say that the Liberals (Grits) are right wing in a social welfare state sense. You do not hear much talka bout 35 hour work weeks or expanding paid holiday's from them. But in an Anglosphere and even G7 sense, the Liberals are left wing. After all, name me one major party in any industrialized nation that still advocate one-tier health care, let alone uses it as a cornerstone policy. I think that the Liberals are more a consensus and pragmatic party than anything. They provide what the customer (the voter) wants. I think its safe to say that at least in Eastern and Central Canada the people are more left wing than the press and the elite. And, yes I voted Conservative in the last election. rasblue 15:51, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The challenge

This is potentially a difficult article to get right. Here are some points that, ideally, should get addressed:

  • Three major identities, roughly speaking called English Canada, French Canada and Quebec, with various forms of overlap. Some communities, notably Montreal, are bilingual in character and have a bilingual identity that is different from English and French.
  • First Nation identities
  • Two multicultural phenomena, anglophone and francophone.
  • Politically correct or not, many people defind themselves in terms of what they are not: not American, not anglophone, not francophone, etc.

Peter Grey 28 June 2005 03:46 (UTC)

It's so difficult to get right that you've already got stuff wrong; "French Canadian" is not a single unified identity, but a group of several identities which are themselves quite distinct from each other. (Go ahead and tell someone from Kapuskasing that Franco-Ontarian isn't a distinct identity...I dare ya! *grin*) Bearcat 02:54, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Similarly English Canadian can mean Westerners, Northern Ontario, Southern Ontario, Ottawa/Montreal, the Eastern Townships, the Maritimers, Newfoundland. Anglophone/francophone is probably more fundamental, and gets strangely overlooked rather frequently. Peter Grey 08:37, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I haven't contributed to the discussion lately, but may I suggest rewriting the article to follow the lines usually persued by Canadian political-scientists & sociologists? In this case, that would mean using political-fragment theory and formative-event theory primarily, with a bit of political-economy thrown in for spice. VJ Bell, for one, wrote an excellent book by the name of "The Roots of Disunity" that studies Canadian political-culture using these methods, and built a very compelling explanation of Canada's somewhat strange biography. Colin Cordner July 18th, 2005; 23h40 (EST)

[edit] Trivia

I've seen one of the quotations in the trivia section as being attributed to Pierre Trudeau -- can anyone confirm this? (Pierre Berton: "A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe without tipping it.")

It was definitely Berton, and it's simpler than that, as in "A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe". Period. The Trudeau quote that's a propos here is "English Canada doesn't have a culture. I'm going to give it one" (in reference to opening up/expanding non-white immigration).Skookum1 06:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, if you take a look in the source code, there's another bit of trivia that has been commented out. I think it's pretty stupid and possibly offensive; is there any reason to leave it in there at all? It reads: The belief that Canada is on the brink of break-up has led it to be described as being like "a beautiful, talented woman who keeps on slashing her wrists", while some have described it as being like "a dull party where the guests [the country's provinces] are too polite to leave"."

All three of those quotes are accurate (Note: I _think_ the original Burton quote was "A Canadian... make love in a canoe."). The second quote is attributed to Michael Ignatieff. The third I can't locate a citation for - though both are often quoted in books concerned with Canadian unity. FWIW, I don't find any of them offensive; they seem very much in line with the sort of black humour that Canucks often have whenever unity/identity debates come up. - Colin Cordner, 12h57 August 10th, 2005 (EST)

[edit] Trainwreck

This article appears to be a random mash-up. Some things (like the "Simpsons go to Toronto" tidbit) are even blatantly incorrect - you can't call something an "outsider's perception" when it's written or created by a native Canadian. I don't think neutrality is as much a problem, as a need for a general cleanup. Krupo 19:35, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Contrary to popular Canadian belief, Matt Groening is NOT Canadian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Groening
Just as neither of the South Park creators is, nor so many other celebrities who are mistakenly cited as being Canadian. But I digress...
The confusion surrounding Groening is due to the fact that his father, Homer Groening, was born in Canada, but emigrated to the US.
I do not believe he was refering to Matt Groening as being Canadian but rather to producers/writers Tim Long and Joel Cohen.

[edit] Whole paragraph needs to be rewritten

The following section is so wrong I don't know where to start:

Within Canadian politics, there is a diverse range of reaction to the United States amongst individual members of the various political parties. Generally speaking however, parties of the political left, such as the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party, have tended to advocate a more distant relationship with the United States. In the past the Canadian left has largely opposed economic deals such as Free Trade and Canada's participation in US-led military operations such as the Gulf War.

First of all, in no possible way can the Liberal party be refered to as left wing. This isn't the seventies anymore, old school liberalism has long since been replaced by neo-liberalism. The Liberals are basically the favourite party of the Canadian ruling class, and they use the buffoonish conservatives as a foil and excuse to keep moving in a more right-ward direction. And by the way, occasionaly not going along with certain U.S. policies is in no way a signal that you're on the left. Jacques Chirac opposed the Iraq war, and no one in their right mind would consider his government to be left-wing. France simply had imperial interests in Iraq which were different from the imperial interests of the U.S.

You must not be from an English Speaking Country. Anglosphere By those standards, and by the standards comparing the rest of the G7 Nations Jacques Chirac and France in general is radically left wing. Mandatory 35 hour work weeks? Six weeks paid holiday a year? Only a radical left winger, or a politician afraid of militant unions would favour those policies. rasblue 15:15, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

On the issue of "free trade", the Liberal party has been quite consistent over the years in support of it. It is in fact the Conservatives who radically changed their position, from opposing it through much of the 20th century to completely embracing it in the eighties and nineties.

Read up on John Turner and the 1988 Canadian Federal Election. The major issue was free trade and the Liberals being anti, and the Brian Mulroney Tories being pro-free trade. Yes, even then Mulroney really had to convince his caucus to support free trade. Canadians were sceptical, a little afraid of the "wild west" open market, and yes a little protectionist. In the end free trade won out in the West (who have always supported it), lost in Ontario (who have always been against it, even today)

and it won in Quebec, which was a huge suprise. Chretien supported free trade because Quebec supported free trade. rasblue 15:15, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

In the end free trade won out in the West - NO IT DIDN'T. It only won in Alberta, and in none of the other western provinces; this is yet another example of Alberta equating itself with "the West". Only Alberta and Quebec voted for free trade; Quebec because it was perceived that opening the border to the US would wind up having English Canada absorbed, thereby leaving them alone; and Alberta because they're hard-wired that way. But in NO WAY did "the West" vote for Free Trade; so much of revamped Canadian history is a crock of s**t, especially recent Canadian history.Skookum1 17:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I also object to the inference that the NDP represent the be all and end all of Canadian leftism. Canada has a long history of political and unionist movements (the CCF, the Winnipeg general strike, ect...) which fall far far to the left of where the NDP is or ever was.

The NDP is a merger of the CCF, the cooperative farmers and labour. Read up on it. Get a clue before you post you opinions here. This is an encyclopedis, not a messageboard such as Rabble or babble.ca rasblue 15:15, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Only in comparison to a proto-fascist country like the U.S. can the Liberals be seen as "left-wing".

Compared to Cuba, Venezuea, Ecuador, Chile, yes the Canadian Liberals are not left wing. But comparing them with out comptemporaries in the G7 and in the Anglosphere they are one of the most left wing parties out there. Name me one other major English Speaking Party anywhere in the world that advocates "one tier" universal health care while banning private care for all? rasblue 15:15, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

207.6.31.119 18:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[[One take...]]

First of all, in no possible way can the Liberal party be refered to as left wing.

While the Liberal party is a centerist party by the relative standards of Canadian society, it would likely be classified as left-wing by most political-scientists. The Liberal platform includes support for both negative freedoms (charter of rights stuff), and positive freedoms (universal medicare, access to public education, etc.), which would measure it to be on the left of the spectrum.

By comparison, the Tories (the old party, not the new ones) are often classified as right-of-center, because of their slight lean towards social paternalism.

On the issue of "free trade", the Liberal party has been quite consistent over the years in support of it.

That's a pretty accurate summary. I would guess that the original author only considered the last 20-years of politics in framing that argument.

Colin Cordner 22:52, 27 October 2005 (EST)

I'm not sure you can classify parties as left-wing merely because they support negative and positive freedoms. After all, today's Conservative Party publicy declares its support for the Charter of Rights, public health care, public education, etc. I remember Stockwell Day holding up a sign saying, "NO 2 TIER HEALTH CARE." Did this make him left-wing?
On the issue of free trade, I don't think the Liberal position has been all that consistent at all. Where were the Liberals on trade from 1896 to 1910? Where were they from 1984 to 1993? HistoryBA 15:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

The Conservative Party usually pronounces support for negative freedoms, but they tend to take a paternalistic approach which leads to them supporting legislation which would reduce those freedoms. The issues of reproductive rights, homosexuality, and terrorism are examples where the CP is interventionist, rather than hands-off. Since implementing all of the points of standard CP social ideology would require hemming-in a great number of negative freedoms, I think it would qualify them as a rightist party.

As to the Liberal Party position on free-trade, I have a bit of trouble remembering the details. I only have the impression that they ran against it during the turn of the century (19th-20th), and during the Mulrooney years, but generally were in favour of it at other times. Does anyone have any citations they could share?

Colin Cordner 15:28, 29 October 2005 (EST)

Actually, the Liberals favoured Free Trade in the 19th century and in the 20th century until the 1960s or so. Homey 22:27, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Clean-up

At various times, "NPOV" and "merge" tags have been added to this article, yet there has been scant discussion of either. However, there has been a comment that the article is in need of a good clean-up. I agree with this and am going to remove the NPOV and merge tags and replace them with a "clean-up" tag. I will start by writing a new lead for the article. However, I have no particular attachment to it remaining an article and if others wish to summarize it in a few tightly written paragraphs and merge it with Canadian culture, I wouldn't object. Sunray 20:31, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

YES PLEASE CLEAN UP. Horribly written

[edit] Not Really Important

I agree with everyone here. this whole article looks like it was thrown together by a bunch of american grade 8 students with nothing better to do. Need some major changes

Yes. This is our revenge for sending Celine Dion south. - Bert 171.159.64.10 02:08, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Kweeesht! Are you kidding? Must have been a Canadian; full of too many banalities and textbook cliches on "the struggle to define being Canadian" that only a Canadian would have written it; an American wouldn't care, and if he had, he would have written with more flash and pizazz and probably some unusual takes on us we hadn't seen ourselves. ("Kweesht!" is an expletive/disgust expression from my-part-of-BC's culture/dialect).Skookum1 06:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Funny thing, but as a Yank (a Hoosier, even), when I've visited Canada and worked with Canadians from all over (academia), I see that there really is a "positive" Canadian identity, even if Canadians can't quite put their finger on it. And it's pretty cool. I like the differences, even if I can't pin them down, myself.Dogface 04:51, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] votes for/against deletion

  • for deletion
    • Skookum1 22:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
    • A few parts of this article could probably be merged into Culture of Canada, but by and large this article is unnecessary and not of very much encyclopedic value. Bearcat 00:38, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I would love to have an encyclopedia explain Canadian identity, but I have to concede this article doesn't seem to be working. I suppose the topic is too ambitious. The fact that Canadian identity(ies) is a fuzzy notion is certainly encyclopedic and noteworthy; aside from that there are a few points that could be salvaged and turned into something like Canadian stereotypes. Peter Grey 01:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
  • against deletion
    • I think Canadian identity is a worthy topic for an article, just not this article. This article has been here for 3 1/2 years and has 17 links to it plus 2 redirects, so it's not necessarily useless. The topic does seem to be important (at least to Canadians). A search today on Google revealed 248,000 hits for the phrase "Canadian identity" vs. 117,000 for "British identity" and 114,000 for "Australia identity." What I think should be done is to blank the article and add things back in that are neutral, accurate and on topic. (I actually think this article started off a bit off-topic from the beginning.) Canadiana 23:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

Wikipedia should at least explain why Canadian have such a hard time difining their own identity (the French fact, the US and British influences, immigration and diversity, regional differences). But perhaps we have to start over to do that. Kevlar67 07:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, frustrating as it's been, I do think this has been a more useful forum than soc.culture.canada ever was (rabid loonies from wall to wall, plus adspam all over the place). Wiki's not supposed to be a blog, but talk pages on some issues tend towards that inherently because of the subject matter. I think the main premise here is that we're debating what is largely a fiction of government policy, i.e. that there is such a thing as a Canadian identity, singular, as opposed to a group of identities whic hare Canadian in context but entirely different; NF vs AB, aboriginal-oldstock-newcomer, anglo-french, acadien-quebecois-manitobaine/saskais-metis, the forty different local valley/island identities in BC, plus the maddening swirl of Vancouver's mix, historical and modern; then there's V.I. and distinctions between different parts of the Far North; YT and NWT are very different, ditto Whitehorse and Yellowknife. I think the big mistake in Canadian self-definition is the idea that there's a commonality at all, rather that a set of mutually collective differences, i.e. from the States, from the rest of the world, from Britain, from each other. "Canadian identity" is largely a fiction of the media, especially since the Trudeau year and especially since the new Constitution and the Copps-instigated flag-waving mock-patriotism thing that's so annoyingly a cloy of American rah-rah, and half-hearted at that; I just had lunch with my mother and she despaired, like others her age (84, turning 85 on Sept 3), that "we never had to think of each other in terms of what ethnicity we were" (she said "where we were from", meaning "we" in the sense of family); we never had to wear hyphens and didn't think much if the person next door was Danish-Italian or Hungarian-Chinese; we were all Canadians, even with heavy accents. And there was no doubt that a British Columbian was a very different beastie from an Albertan or Nova Scotian; unless you were an Ontarian and sworn to the mentality that all other Canadians should be cast in the mold of Lower Ontario, which of course we're not. I'll never forget going to Quebec and being treated as if I were just another damned anglo, simply because I was from the other side of the Ottawa River; yet I was nothing like the Ontarians I met there (I was at McGill) and the Ontarians knew I was nothing like them; the irony is my mother's maiden name was Periard, i.e. French. When she re-immigrated to Canada at the start of WWII, to join up, after a childhood and school years in California, where her family had moved from Stanbridge East, Quebec when she was four, the immigration form/officer asked her what her ancestry was; she put her father was French-Irish (French -from-France, by the way, not old-stock de souche Quebeckers even though there are pur laine Quebeckers with the same surname) and her mother was English; what they put on her form was that she was French-Canadian, and although she has nothing at all against French-Canadians she said to herself, vehemently, that "but I'm not French-Canadian. She got sorted and labelled, like a statistic; and that's I think the biggest problem, as anyone who's thought a bit as they filled out the census forms, or tried to work with the ethnicity statistics so often cited in Wiki; they're very misleading and mostly try to categorize you rather than deal with you as a person, as an individual. And that's the scariest thing - individuality and individual identity is being submerged into hyphenated identities; and whatever home-grown culture/identity you have is less important, in the Dept of Multiculturalism and Propaganda's view, than the hyphenations by which they decide who gets how much for funny-costume-day and ethnic-pride day. I want to do heritage/historical writing on my home district (http://www.cayoosh.net) - or rather, I want to get funding and/or credentials for doing what I'm doing...but the response and the process is that I have to take ethnic sides, I can't write about the experience of being a Lillooeter by identity; I'm supposed to come up with things on "the Scots in Lillooet" or the oppression of First Nations or the suffering of the Chinese or the Japanese relocation or retaining Italian identity or Ukrainian recipes; yet none of that applies easily in Lillooet, other than the First Nation issues, because a) most of the Scots "went Indian" (such few there were; the more dominant group, even if Scottish, were from Kentucky and other parts of the Deep South and US West), the Chinese ran the place and had the most profitable goldmines, and the Japanese were in self-supporting centres and stayed on and integrated with all otehr groups; they all became Lillooeters rather than hung onto their ethnic identities; the Italians didn't hang out and open vinyards, cappucino bars and pasta houses and obsess over Juventes; those that needed to hang onto their ethnic affiliation (as with many of the Chinese after WWII) simply moved out because they couldn't handle the integrative identity of the place. It wasn't a question of assimilation; it was a question of shared community in the depths of a fascinatingly isolated and utterly unique and beautiful wilderness/heritage district. Something that, despite its short lived sawmill, is so much more than the "resource town" academics want to classify it as, and something which defies all the cheap generalizations and overglosses academia and media and ethnopolitical groups make all the time, as if all BC's hinterland were classifiable by urban intellectuals intent on writing history and "creating a new Canadian identity". This is the failing opf the Cult of Canadiana - it's destroying local identities and cultures, and foisting new, imported ones on top of vibrant local lifestyles and cultures which only this place could have created. I'm Norwegian, Irish, French and English, and culturally I've got some First Nation, Mexican, and Greek/Hellenic going on in me (as my First Nations, Mexican, and Greek friends have commented to me by way of compliment....). I could have only happened HERE. Yet because I stand up for the idea that there are uniquely Canadian identities which existed before offical multiculturalism, I get branded "racist" and "redneck" for disagreeing with the official/p.c. line, even though I'm told by the same people that "you didn't have a culture" and "you don't have a history". Really? Y'see, that's one of the first things my First Nations friends responded to - "we were told that, too.....". So f**k "Canadian identity"; it's a fiction, and a political agenda, and in its own way destructive of the things that used to make us Canadian: I used to say that, here in BC anyway, the things we all had in common, whatever "race" or "ethnicity" or "class" we came from, were a campfire by the lake, fish on the fire, beer and food in the cooler, the sound of guitars (not recorded music, but live) and the glittering of the starlight; the call of the loon, the mystique of the darkness that was summed up by the myth of the sasquatch. I agree about the issues raised in the paragraph I'm responding to; but I don't think "Canadian identity" is the right title (I also think the Culture of Canada article is sorely going in the wrong direction, but that's a bit of a different argument) and the issue should be the complex of identities that make up all the different kinds of Canadians. It wasn't until the Pearson era, maybe Dief's time, that we even began to look for a common, binding identity and purpose; we were British Columbians, we were Albertans, we were Manitobans, we were Maritimers, we were Quebeckers, we were Northerners, and what bound us together was the Crown/Queen, freedom of movement, the loose glue of the pre-politicized CBC and funny-looking money. And, oh yeay, being different from Yanks, kindred though we are (literally in my case, as a good half my bloodlines on both sides are "down there"). What else bound us together: the starlight, the guitars, the beer, the campfire. Maybe hockey always bound the rest of Canada together; that's nonsense historically in BC where rinks were rare and frozen, skatable ponds even rarer; we had rugby, soccer, lacrosse, basketball, even cricket. In latter-day histories, in fact, we're described as being "too British" (whatever that sub-racist comment really means....). I could go on, and probably will again, but you get the idea, I hope.Skookum1 00:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Special Interest Groups vs Think Tanks

While I approve of the edit that produced this:

In recent years the Canadian right, mostly led by the Conservative Party of Canada and right-wing think-tanks such as the Fraser Institute,

...I wanted to comment that it's notable that neo-conservative groups have habitually styled anybody opposed to them as "special interest groups", while of course being one (or several) themselves. Environmental, human rights, community, and other groups have been styled "special interest groups" as a slag, and only a few (if any in Canada?) have had the wits to call themselves "think tanks". The further irony is that, like "reform", the term "think tank" was originally a liberal/libertarian/intellectual undertaking/invention, until being coopted by the right; and the Fraser Institute in particular sets its hacks (often party or industry insiders) up as "intellectuals" and "articulate". Articulate distortion-mongers certainly; as with everything from global warming-denouncing to rationalizations in support of reduced civil rights...(while at the same time tub-thumping an agenda based around greater rights for capital).Skookum1 01:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to get into the credibility of the Fraser Institute (because I don't enough about any alledged criticism of it to comment), but let's talk more about what an interest group is. You say neo-cons are an interest group. The Fraser Institute is actually described as Libertarian by Wikipedia which is not neo-con, but it doesn't matter for my question: Do we consider general political thought groupings (liberals, conservatives, libertarians, neo-cons, socialists, centrists) as special interest groups? I know groups like Egale (who would normally be considered liberal) are often referred to as an interest group, but that's because their objectives are more specific. But I've never heard it applied to a whole political segment across the board. Otherwise, we're all probably in a special interest group, but that idea seems like an original thought to me. Deet 03:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of US references in Multiculturism Section

Why can't the multiculturism of Canada be discussed without comparing it to the US? I am not aware of any contest between the US and Canada on multiculturism.

"The conventional wisdom is to assume while immigrants to the United States are compelled to prove their undivided loyalty to the U.S. first, Canada is more relaxed and tolerant"...

..."tolerance of ethnic and religious minorities promotes a greater willingness to tolerate political differences- again as compared to Americans, who are assumed to be far more rigid and conservative in ideology.

I know nothing about multiculturism in Canada, but the above comments are purely opinion about the US. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sugplumxx (talk • contribs).

I believe the idea was to compare to prove that Canada isn't the US. But, the section looks pretty POV anyways. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 03:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, if we're getting into what we believe, I think the editor has an axe to grind with the US. lol, there was more about the US than there was about Canada. If you are working on the article, I apologize. I am not qualified. I just wanted to remove some the editorials about the US and it seemed this article had been discussed for quite awhile, but no one had really changed anything. I'll butt out now. ;o) Thanks for the response. Sugplumxx 03:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First Nations aren't immigrants

Canada's large geographic size and relatively open immigration policy have led to an extremely diverse society, including a large set of First Nations and other immigrants. What's this??? Now first nations are immigrants??? This part of the sentence "First Nations and other immigrants" is implying that First Nations are immigrants! Why in the name of god would they be called "First Nations" if they were immigrants! They're the only people in Canada who aren't immigrants! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 142.177.221.47 (talk) 12:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC).

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