God Bless the United Provinces of Canadia

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 26/09/2007 12:38:46

This trip to Edmonton has helped me in shedding some of the generalised misconceptions that I have had about Canada up until now. An obvious example is that very few of the population here ice fish during their lunch break. One of the biggest surprises I've experienced since staying here is the level of patriotism of the Canadians.

During my years living in Australia, I have formed the (generalised and stereotypical) opinion that America is a very patriotic country. I don't think I'm going out too far on a limb here - television, movies, and sport all point towards Americans being very "American-focused". Things like the "World Series" of baseball comprising of 29 American teams and 1 Canadian team, and the typical American-only travel pattern of a large percentage of the population help reinforce this. But I didn't expect Canada to reach the same level of inward-focus.

My perception of Canadians were of a nice, hockey-loving people - and perhaps a little slow-moving (I'm not alluding to intelligence here, but suggesting a relaxed attitude). For the most part, this perception has been pretty correct. It's definitely a little slower-moving around here, the people are very nice, and the level of interest in hockey is as high as I had hoped. I also expected Canadians to have pride in their country (they seem to be doing a few things right) - but not to the extent that I have experienced.

Firstly, they love their maple leaf. When walking around the city in the afternoon, or on a weekend, the Canadian flag is everywhere. A lot of people wear clothes with a huge maple leaf on it, or even just "Canada" emblazoned very prominantly. Some people wear tracksuits with a huge flag of Canada on the front, and some patriotic message on the back. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think back to a time where I've seen somebody wearing an Australian flag as regular casual wear. Scratch that, there is one dope that occasionally walks around with an Australian tracksuit - but he's a special case.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if people wore the same kind of patriotic clothes in Australia (with the Aussie flag or Southern Cross displayed front and center) - they'd be viewed as dorks (at least by me). And I'm not talking about sporting attire (although the number of people wearing Canadian sporting gear is definitely higher than those wearing similar Australian gear back home), these are just items of clothing that bear the Canadian flag, a maple leaf, or "Canada" in huge letters.

It doesn't stop with clothing, I've been on walks with Canadian flags hanging from windows, on the front of cars and even on the pattern of a dog lead. I'm positive this doesn't happen with the same frequency at home.

The prevalence of the maple leaf is increased ten-fold when you start looking at various companies' logos around town. I've been told that, at one point, a Canadian company would be given a tax rebate for designing their logo with a maple leaf symbol in it. Even though I can find no Internet evidence of this (after two google searches), I can only assume it's correct as the Canadian companies certainly have responded! Even McDonald's have altered their globally omnipotent, multi-million dollar symbol to chuck a maple leaf in the center.

McDonalds

Another stereotype I have acquired in my years was a general dislike between Americans and Canadians. Admittedly most of my evidence has been from the America side (Blame Canada, Canadian jokes, etc), but I just figured Canadians harbored a distaste for Americans as well. Maybe that one time a few Canadians burned down the White House in the war of 1812 had a little something to do with that. But the reality of an anti-Americanism sentiment from the Canadians was a lot less than I had expected.

Certainly - there is a definite desire of Canadians to remain independent of the American identity, there's a distaste towards American politics (specifically George W) and I have heard "Yankee" being used in a derogatory manner a few times. But apart from that, Canadians don't seem to have much resentment towards the U.S. of A at all. In fact, I'm given the impression that a fair number of Canadians are trying to emulate American culture (much the same as in Australia). In general, there seems to be a respect from Canadians towards Americans - with the obvious exception of the "leader of the free world".

Now, I may have given an impression at the start of this entry that I'm not a proud Australian, which is incorrect. This trip has definitely reinforced my view that I'm glad I was born in Australia, and given unlimited funds I would retire in Melbourne (and only visit North America in the hockey season)! I can also support the impression that Canadians love Australians, from my limited experience so far. Although since arriving a few people have said that I don't have an accent, and they didn't know I was from overseas. I might have to start wearing a tracksuit like this to advertise my homeland a little more!

# Posted in the Travel section and tagged as: Edmonton
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

God Bless the United Provinces of Canadia

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