Joy S. Roberts, Ph.D.
A version of this article appeared as an opinion column in the Guelph Mercury, October 30, 2003
Lately, I've been thinking about what it means to be Canadian.
It's not just that the topic has come up a lot since a family we used to swap homes with in Europe has decided to move here and are now comfortably settled into a neighbourhood where the children can play unsupervised for the first time ever and the parents can do business without two sets of books for the first time ever.
It's also that over the past year or so, the world seems to be recognizing Canada. Why just last month, we made the cover of the The Economist. This promoter of capitalism and bastion of all that makes money, actually called us "cool." All this attention has caught my attention too and I am asking "why now"?
My reading suggests that Canada, thanks to quiet leadership, some good decisions made in the past, and some luck finds itself in a very fortunate position. Unnoticed by many of us, Canada has moved into the spotlight and become a model for what a society should look like in the 21st century - because of our multicultural fabric, our tolerance, our levels of immigration, our social safety net, and our human rights leadership. After all it was a Canadian who drafted the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, our Canadian Charter of Rights is impressive in action, and our work on group rights with respect to the three founding nations (French, English and Aboriginal) is catching attention as a model for other countries. Under Lloyd Axworthy's leadership at Foreign Affairs, Canada was the leader in the creation of The World Criminal Court and the International Land Mines Treaty. We also played a significant role in the Kyoto accord on the environment.
As I have debated topics with friends - whether with sparkling new Canadians who chose this country over all others, or with the rare few who share my minority status as eighth generation Canadian - we all get passionate about why we live here and why we want to invest time and energy protecting the things we think are important. Certainly it can seem a daunting task at times.
With the fall of the Soviet Empire and the end of the Cold War we, like many others, were hopeful for change in the direction of greater international cooperation. What we have, instead, is a period of great flux in which it is not at all certain what direction we are headed. There are many alarming events taking place in the world right now, on top of the old problems that desperately need attention, problems such as poverty, inequality, lack of human rights or, in many cases, even of human dignity, disease and nuclear proliferation.
So what can we do to make a difference and to protect what we enjoy about our society? My partner, Doug McMullen and I, along with friends Michael Barnstijn and Louise MacCallum, discussed ways to generate more discussion in our community. Like us, Michael and Louise had recently moved to the area and were impressed with its diversity and the fertile ground for ideas. Together, we recruited T. Sher Singh, a local litigation lawyer known for his work in media and race relations. Soon we were joined by Sandra Gallant, a retired high school principal. Before long, other volunteers and supporters joined in and it became feasible to start The Guelph Lecture - On Being Canadian. We hope the evening will encourage people to pay attention to the Canadian model - and we think it can be called a model for the rest of the world, even while we work on improving it. On November 1, Severn Cullis-Suzuki will arrive in Guelph to give her perspective on what it means to be Canadian and what role Canada should play in a changing world. Speaking at the River Run Centre at 7 p.m., she will talk about what has changed in her view in the 10 years since she gave her famous talk at the United Nations Summit on the Environment in Rio, at the age of 12. Her definition of the environment has expanded now to include the social and political realms.
While the answers may not be clear, it is clear that underlying every feature of our society there have been decisions made and leadership shown. The journey that brought us to our present democratic society has not been a scenic route of haphazard turns. Canadians have had to make profound choices among competing visions of the public good. And Canadians have had to show leadership - not just in this country, but globally.
Today there are more choices to be made. Perhaps we should get talking about them and carry on the tradition that has been so important in every generation.