Playing Hide and Seek with the Canadian Identity

At the start of my Year Abroad and this blog, I asked myself what does it mean to be Canadian? Here's what I've learnt about Canadian identity over the 8 months I have lived in, observed, and academically studied Canadian society.

Before I came out to Canada, I read a couple of humorous quotes about the elusive Canadian identity to get a feel for the country, and one quote that stuck with me was:

"Canadians have been so busy explaining to the Americans that we aren't British, and to the British that we aren't Americans that we haven't had time to become Canadians"- Helen Gordon McPherson

This quote stuck with me because it refers to the insecurity in the Canadian identity while identifying the Canadians as trapped between old colonial ties to Britain and slightly newer ties to the increasingly dominant USA. Indeed, old colonial ties to Britain are evident in the fact that Canada is part of the Commonwealth; the Queen appears on the money; and while I was in the capital Ottawa, a bell-ringing show at parliament included the British National Anthem (I noticed the absence of the French National Anthem....). On the topic of the French, I have noticed slight mockery between the French and the British parts of Canada, but I like to believe this is all in (relatively) cheerful jest rather than serious antagonism, and that overall despite historical tensions and various Quebec independence referendums, the Francophone and Anglophone parts of Canada recognise the benefits in sticking together. To give an example of the (relatively) cheerful jest between the French and English; while I was in Quebec City, the tour guide showed us around the citadel and explained the history. Being the only English person in the group, she would always point to me whenever the English in the story did anything bad to the French, and while it was all rather funny, there was still a perceptible undertone of "Oh those damn British".

The Americans have been on the scene for a long time too, with the British Empire in Canada fighting off American invaders most famously in 1812 when newly independent Americans were seeking to annex Canada and kick out the British from the continent completely. Had the Americans succeeded in their invasion, Canada would be yet another few states of the USA! Indeed,
I get the feeling that even today, a lot of the Canadian identity comes from defining itself against the American identity in the hopes of resisting being swallowed up by America's cultural hegemony.

Dittmer and Larson (2007) use the example of comic books, with Captain Canuck being created in 1975 as the Canadian counterpart to Captain America to help form and intensify Canadian nationalism. As opposed to the all-American comic books in Canada before, Captain Canuck's adventures happened in Canadian places, he spoke both official languages (English and French), and there were plenty of Canadian in-jokes. The creation of Captain Canuck stemmed from collective fears of American dominance and also the perceived need to unify the different identities within Canada (the anglophones; the Quebecois; the First Nations; and the immigrants) into one overarching national unity (Dittmer and Larson, 2007).

Even more recently, as I've already alluded to in my previous blog, Canadians are continuing to define themselves against the Americans through the contrast of Trudeau, Canada's liberal new Prime Minister, and the increasingly successful Republican bid of Donald Trump who plays on politics of fear and encourages xenophobia. In fact, Canada works with a "cultural mosaic" form of multiculturalism that encourages ethnic groups, languages and cultures to co-exist within an overarching sense of Canadian identity, while America works with the "melting pot" form of multiculturalism that expects immigrants to assimilate into a single American identity (Magosci, 1999). Multiculturalism forms the next part of my analysis of Canadian identity.

I was delighted to see Captain Canuck on a bottle
of maple syrup in a gift shop-  a wonderful merging of
Canadian symbols! 

Multiculturalism forms another basis for the Canadian identity, with Canada being considered a world leader in multiculturalism (Nagra and Peng, 2013). Possibly because of this need to act on Canadian multicultural idealogy, Canada is one of only three Western countries (the other two being Germany and Norway) that has taken in its fair share of Syrian refugees. As in any country, there are contradictions between the multiculturalism ideology and the lived discrimination and racism faced by immigrants (discussed with regards to temporary migrant agricultural workers in another previous blog post), but overall Canada has immigrants from all over the world who all retain their cultural heritage (as evidenced by Koreatown, Chinatown, various Serbian/Croatian/Ukrainian/Estonian churches and cultural centres in Toronto etc.) yet still want to be considered within the discourse on Canadian identity (Woods, 2006). Indeed, the Canadian multiculturalism idealogy has succeeded in creating dual identities among immigrants; Nagra and Peng (2013) show how multiculturalism is used by young Canadian Muslims to resist discrimination and pressures to assimilate while creating a dual Canadian-Muslim identity. Multiculturalism thus comes to define Canadian identity and create it.

Canada also seems to be waking up to the gross injustices their First Nations have endured since colonisation, from the residential schools that took aboriginal children away from their families in order to "civilise" them, to the disproportionate poverty and violence facing First Nation women. Yes, there is a long way to go in righting the wrongs of the past but Trudeau in particular has called for creating more respectful relationships with the First Nations, thus suggesting Canada is once again moving towards positive relationships and cultural respect for the First Nations, a move which would be in line with their supposed asset of multiculturalism.

Otherwise, symbols are used to create the Canadian identity. Maple is the obvious one, with Canada cashing in on the maple trademark through a variety of maple-themed products from maple syrup and maple fudge to maple bacon, maple sausages and maple-scented  candles. While this is a great tourist gimmick, it also promotes Canadian pride in a product that is stereotypically seen as Canadian. The flag is also flown significantly more than I have ever seen any flag flown in any European country, perhaps creating regular visual reminders in the Canadian landscape of a need to be proud in the flag and the country, thus producing a Canadian identity. 

Overall, uniting the country as an imagined community through the use of a Canadian identity is an important way of managing the diverse populations in Canada, from the Anglo-Canadians to the Quebecois, the First Nations and various immigrant groups (Mackey, 2000). From what I have seen, the Canadian identity is built on defining itself against the American identity; an emphasis on Canadian forms of multiculturalism, and national symbology. The Canadian identity certainly doesn't express itself as loudly as the national identities of some other countries, but Canadians do have a quiet sense of confidence in who they are, and as Dittmer and Larson (2007) suggest, this identity is slowly becoming louder as the confidence grows. 

Having said all of this, I acknowledge that this discussion of Canadian identity here focuses mainly on an idea of Anglo-Canadian identity; there are yet more subtleties to engagement with Canadian identity by the Franco-Canadians; the First Nations; and various other immigrant groups.