Tom says: “What is Canadian Culture?”
During my Thursday edition of “The Afternoon News,” the same phrase surfaced over and over again during our discussion on what Canadians should be doing to accommodate this country’s immigrants.
The question is: “What is Canadian culture and do we even have one?”
Maple syrup, the noble beaver, the maple leaf, Hockey Night in Canada, Tim Hortons and back-bacon.
Is that what we’re about?
We don’t even have one official language in our country. We have two — so I guess that’s part of it.
We became a country in 1867. We didn’t have our own distinctive flag until one-hundred years later and it took almost one-hundred years to decide on the correct lyrics which would best suit our national anthem.
Is that part of it?
We’ve got ten provinces — each with a distinct education system. What’s wrong with having one system that will work for all? Is that part of it?
According to a recent nation wide poll conducted by SES Research, more than half of us would want limits on accommodating incoming minorities. Is that part of it?
Our culture is what it is. It’s you, it’s me, it’s more than thirty-million of us from all corners of the globe — who’s ancestors decided there had to be a better place.
They came here.
We’re black, we’re white, tall and short, fat and skinny, young and old and we’ve all made our own contribution.
So what gives us the right to say to those who want to do the same thing that we and our ancestors did?
Come on in, but we may not be willing to grant you the same freedoms that we’ve come to enjoy since the first members of our families got off the boat in Halifax.
Oh, by the way, I have to stop for a medium double-double on the way home.
I’m Tom Young.
September 29th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Tom Tongue.. er I mean Young! Man I have literally been listening to you since I was in diapers.
They refer to the U.S. as a melting pot. Well we must be the mother of all melting pots! I have been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit through this country this past summer and every stop is something different. Sure you’ll always have different buildings and such, but the diversity of people you’ll meet is astounding. I reccomend to anyone who is anti-immagrant to go to Ottawa on Canada day. It will be an eye-opener and might just better define what “Canadian” means to you.
Keep up the good work, Tom!
September 30th, 2007 at 9:02 am
You left out one other important fact, the repatriation of our constitution, which was completed in 1981. Followed quickly, by the Constitution Act, 1982, which included our charter of rights and freedoms. Until then our constitution was not, in theory, our own.
This cuts to the heart of, what I see as, Canadian culture. Your examples “Maple syrup, the noble beaver, the maple leaf, Hockey Night in Canada, Tim Hortons and back-bacon ” are cultural icons but not our culture. I feel our culture is made more out of acceptance and accommodation.
We’ve often cited our multiculturalism as one of our strengths, but the Americans claim that this is a weakness. Our history is proud to include, all of our founding cultures and that is the main reason French is an official language. Apparently when asked, about 60% of the unilingual English Canadians, wished they could speak French. I’d doubt you could even ask that question of Americans wanting to learn Spanish.
If we are to compare cultures with the Americans, it seems like theirs was set in 1776 and makes no reference to any contributions before or acceptance of any after, that they stand alone in its development, an apparent immaculate conception by 39 founding fathers. They based their history and politics on standing alone, where much of ours has been inclusive, as initially part of an empire followed by a commonwealth.
My final point, when it comes to limits on accommodating incoming minorities, at least our door is still open. The current situation is product of the worldwide tensions, but we are still light years ahead of most countries whose attitude is “if we let you in, you must toe the line!” I don’t believe there would even be a discussion concerning, Muslim women keeping their faces covered while voting, if we had a Department of Homeland Security.
October 1st, 2007 at 1:47 pm
“So what gives us the right to say to those who want to do the same thing that we and our ancestors did?”
I am all for letting people come here and change things as long as the changes do not segregate their culture or any other people. I think we have too many communities already seperated and as a result it’s hard to work together.
Canadians should work towards seeing themselves as Canadian’s and not white, black, male or female. One big happy community, that works together.
October 1st, 2007 at 3:46 pm
http://www.tamu.edu/classes/cosc/choudhury/culture.html or just use google
SOME DEFINITIONS
Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.
Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.
A culture is a way of life of a group of people–the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. ..
So in short we do have a culture here. We have beliefs based on how we were raised. If morals and behavior is to change here, we would have to be very careful about what is changed.
When I grew up I was taught to never kick a person when they were down, not to hit women, my word was important and never break it, fight fair. If there was a fight in school and more then one person jumped in the other kids ensured it was one- on-one. Then I moved to Toronto (Jane and Finch) and I got a big culture shock. In my area I went out and talked to lots of people and I was shocked to learn some of the beliefs. For example these two younger kids were best of friends. They were always together. One day they stopped hanging around each other and it turned out one stabbed the other over $10. I questioned him about it and he didn’t see anything wrong with that. He honestly thought he was justified because of $10. Another kid there that used to hang around my back yard was stabbed over a basketball game. I am all for learning from other cultures and having lots of people come over, but I would prefer that they take on some of my own values (which I would hope still exists today).
October 4th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I suppose one could look-up the definition of “canadian” in a dictionary and go with it…The difficult question “what is a Canadian”? Or “what is Canadian culture , in my opinion can not be answered simply. It is a lot easier to answer the following: What is Japanese culture? Or what is Spanish culture? These two questions are easy to answer because Japanese people are bound together by a racial and language common denominator as are the Spanish. t is problematic to pin point the exact characteristics and traits of the Canadian culture because there are many.There are many Canadian cultures and there is more than one Canadian language too….all protected under the Canadian charter of rights. I was born in the sixties in Montreal in a predominately caucasian english and french speaking population who worked hard, drank lots of beer and smoked two packs a day without worrying about much of anything other than the hockey game on Saturday night , go to church on Sunday and go back to work Monday morning. Mom was a homemaker and dad earned the income for the family of 7 kids. This Canadian way of life in the sixties has nothing in common with today’s lifestyle . It safe to assume that the Canadian culture 40 years from now will have nothing in common with today’s Canadian culture. Does this answer your question?>
December 9th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Canadian culture is and has been under attack for decades now.Not just our culture but the very freedoms and civil liberties that our forefathers fought to protect during the second world war.
However it is not,as Mel alludes the fault of immigrants coming to Canada.
The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the Cultural Marxist elites who are actively and purposely trying to destroy western democracy.
They control our education system brainwashing future generations with their
left wing extremist idealouges. They control the mainstream media using it to spread their lies and misinformation.
They have manipulated the Canadian political climate through the promulgation of Liberal-Socialist legislation from the left.Most of which has been lobbied for by government funded NGO’s who use OUR tax dollars to promote their extremist agendas.
Through this, the Left wing elites have achieved a virtual hegemony on public discourse where their political dogmas are concerned.
Anyone who dares to criticize or disagree with the priori good propagated by the left will find themselves publicly ridiculed by the mainstream media or subjected to a human rights tribunal for hate crimes.A tool used by the Left to silence dissent.
Canada and western civilization surely is going to hell in a hand basket.
The pseudo egalitarian Ideals of the left are speeding our culture into a moral decline of Romanesque decadence.
The sad part is that the majority of the population are busy fiddling while our once great Country burns.