No hug, but Happy Canada Day:
Give a Canadian a hug--or at least a nod
July 1, 2002
BY MARK BROWN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
suntimes.com
Today is Hug a Canadian Day. Not really. It really is Canada Day.
In Canada.
Here it's July 1, better known as three days until the Fourth of July.
The Canadians will celebrate their nation's 135th birthday today with fireworks and parades, but we wouldn't know about that because we don't pay any attention to Canadian holidays.
Heck, we don't pay any attention to Canadians.
This hurts the Canadians' feelings.
That's why I think we should give them a hug.
I'm fairly serious about this.
You never want to hurt your friend's feelings if you can help it, and the Canadians have been very good friends to us--as military allies, trading partners and all-around drinking buddies.
But the Canadians think we take them for granted.
There's probably some truth in that, even if we don't do it intentionally.
Americans generally like Canadians. It's just that, uh, we kind of forget about them.
Such as when we're watching the weather report on television and the forecaster says that the coldest temperatures on the map were recorded in International Falls, Minn., and we think to ourselves, "Well, of course, International Falls is practically at the North Pole." But we forget that there's a whole country between International Falls and the North Pole that takes up at least six inches on the television screen.
The Canadians may not realize that we overlook their existence on our weather maps, but they noticed when President Bush forgot to mention Canada as one of our allies in the war on terrorism during his big speech to Congress following Sept. 11.
They also noticed when the president was slow to offer his condolences after four Canadian soldiers were killed and eight injured when a U.S. fighter pilot mistakenly dropped a bomb on them in Afghanistan.
And they noticed when the Bush administration slapped protective tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber, effectively shutting down lumber mills across British Columbia (that's part of Canada).
For all these reasons, some Canadians are feeling particularly unappreciated this year, a year in which their nation has been particularly helpful to ours, starting with Sept. 11, when they took in 224 diverted international flights that we had turned away from their intended destinations.
I was only vaguely aware of the Canadian grievances and totally unaware of the existence of Canada Day until I received an e-mail recently from Matt Levin, the political, economic and public affairs officer for the Canadian Consulate in Chicago.
Levin provided me with much helpful information, such as the fact that the business that flows across the Detroit-Windsor bridge accounts for more trade than the United States does with the entire country of Japan.
Levin also lists his title in French, which is "agent des affaires politiques, economiques et publiques." I think that's a nice touch because it helps everybody remember that Canada is a foreign country, rather than an extension of Wisconsin and Minnesota that we could just annex if the spirit moved us.
That's another problem for U.S.-Canada relations. Canadians seem so much like us that there's no mystique, no romance.
The consulate estimates there are 25,000 Canadians living in the Chicago area, Levin said.
That could make it difficult to find any Canadians to hug because Canadians can be very sneaky.
They blend in and don't tell you that they are Canadians--until it's too late.
Then they slip a wrist shot past you, or the verbal equivalent, such as, "I wonder if the Canadiens will use Jean Chretien in goal against the Blackhawks this week?"
Chretien is the Canadian prime minister. He is the leader of the Canadians, not the goalie for the Canadiens.
But most of us Americans don't know that, except for the few who know the name of the real Montreal goalie.
Canadians love to trip us up like that.
A popular Canadian television comedy even developed a segment called "Talking to Americans" featuring man-on-the-street interviews in which nonsensical questions are posed to gullible Americans, allowing us to show off our ignorance of Canada, such as:
Interviewer: "Do you think that Americans should be bombing Saskatchewan?"
Unidentified American: "Absolutely."
Interviewer: "What about ground forces? Do you think ground forces should be sent into Saskatchewan, that might be safer?"
Another American: "That's what they're going to have to do. That's what they're going to have to do."
Of course, in this regard, the joke is on them. As anybody who watches Jay Leno knows, we Americans don't know anything about our own country, either.
Among the many Canadians who have slipped past our radar detectors and into American prominence are Peter Jennings, Celine Dion, Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Joni Mitchell, Dan Aykroyd, William Shatner, Michael J. Fox, Neil Young, Shania Twain and Keanu Reeves, along with the rock groups Rush, Barenaked Ladies and Tragically Hip. And, certainly, let's not forget Ferguson Jenkins.
Unfortunately, the only time I've been to Canada was to see the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, and my experience was colored by the fact that the only housing available to me was in a mental hospital. This is true. They moved all the patients into one wing of the hospital and rented out the other as a bed-and-breakfast. It wasn't much different than staying in a college dorm, but the bars in the windows and the guys in the basement wearing straitjackets were giveaways.
Someone is bound to point out that the top management of the Sun-Times is composed of Canadians these days and think that the bosses either put me up to this story or that I am just sucking up.
As far as it being their idea, they would be the first to tell you that I don't take any of their suggestions. And as for sucking up, they would be the first to tell you that I don't take any of their suggestions.
But for just this one day, I'd be happy to give them a little hug.
E-mail: markbrown@suntimes.com |
