Is a strong sense of national pride tantamount to isolationist thinking? One of the common criticisms of national pride is the development of xenophobic, “Us vs. Them” thinking. Living in Canada, a nation which has a relatively small population of approximately 33,390,000, compared to America, a country of an estimated 303,824,000 people (Central Intelligence Agency, 2008), gave me a glimpse of how this kind of thinking can work. Canadian culture is, at its core, incredibly nationalist. Canadians have an irrational fear of cultural dilution at the hands of America's exported entertainment, news, and world politics. Given the fear and righteous self-view of the dominant culture, it is an inevitability that co-cultures separated from the dominant culture by national identity are treated as sub-cultures. My mother, Molly Galloway, is a Canadian. She grew up in what would also be my hometown, Stratford, Ontario. My father, Wil Perrell, is an American. He spent most of his childhood life in Crossnore, North Carolina. They met in Boston where my mother attended university. Married in Denver in 1978, my parents moved to Canada in the summer of 1984, so that they could have their first child under the superior Canadian health care system that my mother’s nationality afforded them. I was born Aaron Galloway-Perrell, a Canadian-American, June 21st, 1984 in London Ontario’s Parkwood Hospital, the first son of an international couple. The summer before of my birth, my parents moved to Canada and started to build a life there. My father describes living in Canada as the “most fun you can have while surrounded by elitists jerks.” After moving to Canada with his pregnant wife, my father set out to find a job befitting a seasoned pressman ... ... middle of paper ... ...ather or I ever really overcame the subtle discrimination we experienced while living in Canada as we both moved away from it. I did come away from the experience with limited knowledge of what being a co-culture in the minority can feel like, an experience that I believe, has made me a more accepting person today. Works Cited Centeral Intelligance Agency. (2008, August 21). CIA World Fact Book: Canada. (C. I. Agancy, Producer) Retrieved September 11, 2008, from World Fact Book: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/ca.html Central Intelligance Agency. (2008, Auguest 21). CIA World Fact Book: America. Retrieved September 11, 2008, from World Fact Book: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html Perrell, W. (2008, September 11). My father's life in Canada. (A. Galloway-Perrell, Interviewer) Laramie, Wy.
Today Canada and the United States are major trading partners, allies, and two neighboring countries with a long history of cooperation with each other. But is it possible for Canada to protect its independence and culture living next door to the country so powerful and rich as the United States. Since the Canadian confederation, Canada started developing relations with the U.S. As the years passed by, Canada began to relay on the United States in the national defense. Many Canadians think that the military, political and economical dependence would not make a difference to their daily life. But today more then even Canadian culture is affected by the American influence. Media, American artists, economic dependence, American propaganda and political pressure from the United States is making Canada too Americanized. All of these factors reflect on the social life of ordinary Canadians threatening the heritage and the traditions that define Canada as independent country.
Chong, M. R. (2002). Canadian History Since WWI. Retrieved May 19, 2014, from Markville: http://www.markville.ss.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/history/history/fivecent.html
Although Quebec is in Canada, a majority of Quebecers do not identify with the national identity of Canada. Both societies create a sense of identity as well as nationalism (Hiller, 295). Hiller mentions two approaches to assessing Canadian identity; the unitary approach and the segmentalist approach (Hiller, 277). The unitary approach suggests that society consists of people who regardless of their ethnic back ground, identify as belonging to the national society, while the segmentalist approach concentrates on groups and communities that share racial, linguistic, occupational, or cultural similarities (Hiller, 28). While most Anglophones are more unitary or pan-Canadian, Quebec heavily identifies with the segmentalist approach. This dissimilarity of identity perspective may be problematic for the country, at the same time however, it can also be viewed as a struggle where contradictory parties find a way to compromise and reshape Canadian society together (Hiller, 277). Canada’s former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau made it his objective to unite Quebec with the rest of Canada. In 1969 Trudeau’s government implemented Bill C-120, otherwise known as the Official Language act, which made French an...
Central Intelligence agency , "Canada ." Last modified November 12, 2013. Accessed November 27, 2013. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ca.html.
English, John. Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2007. Print.
The younger Trudeau reminds the audience how his father came back to politics after his retirement from it for the Lake Meech and Charlottetown Accords, and again ties it to reminding Canadians of their incredible capabilities. But he passes the torch of responsibility on regular Canadians when he says, “But he won’t be coming back anymore. It’s all up to us - all of us - now”. By including himself as a current holder of this responsibility, he invites other Canadians to stand alongside him to continue the revolution of love. His final words on his father, quoting Robert Frost’s poem, is a beautiful final image, inspiring the audience to follow in Trudeau’s devoted footsteps.
Newman, Garfield et al. Canada A Nation Unfolding. Toronto: Mc Graw – Hill Ryerson Limited, 2000.
Systems: The canadian Future in light of the American Past.” Ontario native Council on Justice. Toronto, Ontario.
Newman, Garfield, Bob Aitken, Diana Eaton, Dick Holland, John Montgomery, and Sonia Riddoch. Canada: A Nation Unfolding. Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 2000. 252-53. Print.
Thompson, John Herd, and Mark Paul Richard. "Canadian History in North American Context." In Canadian studies in the new millennium. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. 37-64.
...nguage, and religion all make up Canada’s human face, but also front how the cultural accommodation will continue with the risk of losing Canada’s main traditions. Faultlines again come into perspective within demographic issues, especially with newcomers/old-timers, aboriginal population expansions, and French/English language. The core/periphery model is also represented. The end of the chapter places a focus on Canada’s economic face as well, dealing with stresses inside the global economy as well as its strong dependency on the U.S markets (Bone, 169) especially with the stimulating global recession. Canada’s economic structure leans on the relative share of activity in the primary (natural resource extraction), secondary (raw material assembly), tertiary (sale/exchange of goods and services), and quaternary (decision-making) sectors of the economy (Bone, 166).
Central Intelligence Agency. (n.d.). The World Fact Book - South America: Brazil. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/br.html.
Many people across the globe argue that nationalism within Canada is simply not feasible. It is said that we as a people, differ so greatly with our diverse cultures, religions, and backgrounds that we cannot come together and exist together as a strong, united nation. In his book, Lament for a Nation, George Grant tells the reader that “…as Canadians we attempted a ridiculous task in trying to build a conservative nation in the age of progress, on a continent we share with the most dynamic nation on earth. The current history is against us.” (1965) Originally directed towards the Bomarc Missile Crisis, the book argues that whatever nationalism Canada had was destroyed by globalization as well as the powerful American sphere of influence. Although it is true that the book was initially written as a response to the events that took place in the late 1950s, many of the points are still valid today.
The first thing we should examine is what exactly is meant by “strong national identity”. A very good example of strong national identity is the U.S.. I doubt there is a man on this planet who is not familiar with the U.S.. People immediately recognize their flag, and most people can tell you quite a bit about them. The same is true of Canada, and what do they know of Canada? In 1995 U.S. President Bill Clinton stated his view of Canada in a speech where he declared, “Canada has shown the world how to balance freedom with compassion and tradition with innovation, in your efforts to provide health care to all your citizens, to treat senior citizens with the dignity and respect they deserve...”(Canada Today 9). We were also rated first in the UN’s 1992 “Human Development Index” (9).
Bryant, T., Raphael, D., Schrecker, T., & Labonte, R. (2011). Canada: A land of missed