WTF O Canada?
When you live away from your birth country, it is easy to idealize it a bit, glorify it – focus on its strengths and all the sunshine, lollipops and rainbows good stuff. I am Canadian and have lived abroad since 2003, first in the UK then here in Australia. I haven’t been home since 2005 and so I’ll claim mea culpa on the rose colored glasses thing.
This is just a shorty post to say I have read a couple things today that leave me truly wondering what the state of play is back home. First this story at Democracy Now! Amy Goodman Detained at Canadian Border. Amy Goodman, a respected, well known journalist detained at the border whilst Canadian border staff questioned her, rifled her notes and her computer. It floors me, truly. How many times have I driven to Seattle via The Peace Arch crossing… too many to count. Sounds like things have changed a bit since the last time I did it tho. What’s up Canada? Do we now detain our next door neighbor’s journalists and censor freedom of speech? And what’s up with that Olympics 2010 paranoia?
Secondly, this story, The Most Urgent Threat to World Peace is … Canada by George Monbiot. George is obviously having his own wtf moment around Canada’s very poor showing around climate change and their all too clear ‘fuck you, eh‘ to the Kyoto protocol. As a west coast gal, I think of my Canada as beautifully pristine, environmentally progressive and certainly not ranking 59th (?!) on the climate change performance index.
Desperately wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt , O Canada, but hot damn! you need to pick up your game!
I know, it’s strange. The photo is perfect. Canada has always been one the good guys in my head. The world is going banananas.
We are … emmm … or were, one of the good guys! Sometimes I worry about going home to visit – I worry that the Canada I find upon my return, will little resemble the country I left, or the country I now remember.
Gee that’s depressing. I noticed when I was visiting Canada a couple of years ago that employment in the Petroleum industry was aplenty. Even had a workmate here move to Alberta to work for Petro-Canada. Didn’t realise the insanity behind it all. I don’t think much has changed in Canada in the last 30 years since I left. I found that comforting. Might have to reconsider that perspective.
I feel like the climate literal and metaphorical really is shifting back home. These two pieces of news, tho really struck me.
I had read about the Amy Goodman story earlier this week, but watching the video and really seeing the Olympic protesters and how that dissent is being handled – sheesh. My Gran used to say, don’t worry about cleaning other people’s closets if yours is a mess — here we are trying to ‘clean the closets’ of other countries by pushing human rights agendas – whilst our own ‘human rights closet’ is a tip.