Choose Your Canada

Today while walking down the street there was a man walking with his two children. Although it's not Halloween yet one of the children was dressed as Batman and the other as some type of pirate. Both children were thoroughly into their roles and seemed completely unaware that they were a bit out of place. No one laughed but all of the adults in the vicinity smiled at each other. So much, I think, for Stephen Harpers claim that arts and culture do not matter to ordinary people. You might not think that this falls under arts and culture, but it does, this is where it starts. Children imagining and pretending which, if they are not overly discouraged, leads to imagining and pretending on a larger scale. Every parent, or every good parent, would like to be able to tell their children that if they work hard at it they someday might be a great writer, actor, artist or dancer and this is what Stephen Harper is against, this is what he says doesn't matter to ordinary people.

On the whole this is a battle over Canada, over who we are and how we see ourselves. The Canada I see, the one I love is a Canada that is interested in the well-being of friends and neighbors but not overly interested in international power. It is a place where we have great reverence for nature, and even when she is unkind we make the best of it, help one another and try to have a good time. It is a place where we take care of the weakest in society, where we don't put much stock in wealth and power but universally love to gather with friends for drinks and music and talk. It is a place where we like to curl up with a good coffee and a good book on a particularly cold day. It is, in short, a place where things like this happen.

My Canada is a place where people plan for the future, even if it means a few sacrifices now, and aren't afraid to try new things. When our health care system was new everyone was predicting disaster, and there were some bumps in the road making it work but overall it's something that Canadians are very proud of and overwhelmingly would never want to give up. When we came up with peacekeeping the worlds superpowers were perplexed but it's turned out to be a valuable tool, saving countless lives around the world and shaping Canada's reputation as an international peacekeeper, diplomat and honest broker.

Stephen Harper's Canada is a very different place. It is not surprising really as their ideology doesn't come from Canada. It is born, bred and financed in the United States. It is a Canada where nature is a resource to be sold to the highest bidder. It is a place where everyone looks out for themselves - where people might donate to charity or help an elderly neighbor shovel snow but the basic rule is 'more for me now'. It is a place that is fascinated by military power (even if it's only joining in with US military adventures). It is a place where the goal is to become wealthy, even if it means your neighbors go broke. It is a place where parents do not worry about their children having clean air to breathe or clean water to drink as long as there is money to buy them a new iPod at Christmas. It is a place where generally your future is determined by the wealth of your parents - on whether they can afford to send you to University, on whether they can afford Health care because in Stephen Harper's Canada health care and peacekeeping are antiquated concepts, things we no longer need.

Stephen Harper's Canada is, in short, the same as George Bush's America. It does not matter to Harper and his supporters that Bush's policies failed, it doesn't matter that it would destroy any trace of Canadian identity, as long as it makes the greediest people rich. Stephen Harper's Canada, in other words, has put my Canada on the auction block - for sale to the highest bidder.

People have to make a choice. They have to decide if Stephen Harper's Canada is what they want. I frankly don't understand why anyone would choose that Canada, unless Canada never meant much to them to begin with. But we are, as they say, in a culture war and all I can really do is keep fighting for the good guys and hope that Harper's supporters are able to overcome fear and short term greed for a better future for everyone.