Canadian culture: are Canadians patriotic?

Self-tutoring about the Canadian way of thinking: the tutor brings up an age-old peculiarity of the Canadian identity.

To my knowledge, Canada punched above its weight in both World Wars. From both sides of my family, I have military heritage. As a kid I lived on military bases, both Canadian and American.

Since the late ’70s, it’s been apparent to me that Canadians are typically quiet about expressing their feelings for Canada. By contrast, Americans display patriotism more decisively.

Yet, Canadians can show strong opinions about their identity and their country, which we might be starting to witness right now. Canadians sense a threat of tariffs from the USA, and they are responding with patriotism. Perhaps most telling are the personal choices Canadians are making to protect Canada – buying the Canadian product when possible, for instance, or changing vacation plans to destinations which aren’t mentioning tariffs against Canada.

When I was a kid, it seemed a lot of Canadians resented the shadow they felt the USA cast over Canada. They didn’t like that the Canadian dollar was only around 80 cents US, nor did they like the notion that Canada seemed irrelevant to many Americans.

Maybe, nowadays, a little more irrelevance would do us good. If the United States hadn’t noticed us, they probably wouldn’t have hatched the idea of a tariff against us.

However things go, it seems Canadians will be bound by Preston Manning’s description of Canadian optimism: “Things could be worse:)”

Source:

msn.com

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.