Hewers of Wood, Screwers of Everyone

February 19, 2020 7:13 PM

I can forgive Americans for being clueless. I can forgive them their ignorance about this big, cold, confusing place just to the north of them. And that’s why I want to clear something up, once and for all, so I can put your minds at rest and save us all a lot of time and energy. Here it is: Canada is fake.
posted by Alvy Ampersand (37 comments total)

absolutely fake, and Canada's racist as fuck too. Read Desmond Cole's The Skin We're In:
A Year of Black Resistance and Power (or, as early editions had it, The Skin We're In:
A Year of             Resistance and Power ) for some details.
posted by scruss at 7:23 PM on February 19, 2020 [6 favorites]

Gave the game away with the Fords. Totally not believable.
posted by BrotherCaine at 7:31 PM on February 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yep. We get some things right, but we are fucking so much else up. Also, our prime minister wore blackface to a party. Three times. And he represents the biggest left leaning party.

Sigh.
posted by dazed_one at 7:36 PM on February 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

No disagreement here.
posted by klanawa at 7:47 PM on February 19, 2020

It’s cute how Torontonians are often so quick to make the hackneyed claim that Canadian identity balances atop the lone precipice of being “not the USA.”

I’ve lived in four provinces, and many people bond over a feeling of Canada as a tolerant place that prioritizes fairness.

...Which is what makes the current situation in the west so disappointing, as it pulls back the curtain a bit on that pleasant shared lie.
posted by Construction Concern at 7:56 PM on February 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

I really expected this article to go a different way. Still a good read and it is important to know. I for one had no idea that shit was going on.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:26 PM on February 19, 2020

We're too complacent. We preen ourselves on being better than the U.S., but the thing is that's a seriously low bar, and we're not facing up to the problems we have and the mistakes that we make, and trying to improve.
posted by orange swan at 8:39 PM on February 19, 2020 [10 favorites]

but the thing is that's a seriously low bar

But at least it’s A bar. And one you clear. In America we just stomp the bar into the ground, shoot it, and scream at how the bar is a communist for impeding the striding mighty market of of our awesomeness.
posted by Everyone Expects The Spanish Influenza at 8:57 PM on February 19, 2020 [12 favorites]

Some fuckers are just waiting for global warming to make the tar sands economical again.
posted by benzenedream at 9:17 PM on February 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

That was brutal.
posted by valkane at 9:41 PM on February 19, 2020

I'm currently writing doing homework assignment on "Native Culture", which in itself is kind of problematic because it assumes that all Native American people share a culture. Anyways, it's kind of turned into my own personal tangent on how Canada's Reconciliation Policy has affected the recounting of Canadian colonialism so thank you for posting this article! It has sources I can use and hope that the professor is into my interpretation of the assignment!

Now, onto the section where we talk about how Native Culture means that all Native Americans disavow Thanksgiving...
posted by mollywas at 9:42 PM on February 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

That was brutal.

The best kind of brutal.
posted by medusa at 9:46 PM on February 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

The article raises some good points but this is more diatribe than anything else.

"Canada is three mining companies in a trench coat, wearing a stupid hat and carrying a gun."

I guess that's supposed to be funny. How about some facts:

"In 2018, the direct contribution of Canada's minerals sector to Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) was $72.4 billion, which represented 3.5% of Canada's total GDP. The indirect impacts from the minerals sector added a further $25.4 billion to GDP, for a total impact of $97.7 billion."
posted by storybored at 9:49 PM on February 19, 2020 [5 favorites]

Well, and they export some damn fine comedians.
posted by valkane at 9:55 PM on February 19, 2020

Read James Daschuk's Clearing The Plains or watch him on YouTube.

None of this was taught in high school, and not much in university either right through the 90s. Our fakeness is borne out of a systematic suppression of people and the truth.
posted by kneecapped at 9:56 PM on February 19, 2020 [5 favorites]

storybored: How about some facts: "In 2018, the direct contribution of Canada's minerals sector to Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) was $72.4 billion, which represented 3.5% of Canada's total GDP."

Sometimes symbolic importance matters as much as percentage importance. Tim Horton's only generates 0.25% of Canada's GDP and is owned by Brazilians, but we still proudly claim it as quintessentially Canadian. Why not the mining industry?
posted by clawsoon at 5:43 AM on February 20, 2020 [5 favorites]

Canada isn't fake, but everything that's wonderful* about it comes with an asterisk.

*Does not apply if you're Indigenous.
posted by clawsoon at 5:45 AM on February 20, 2020

"Sometimes symbolic importance matters as much as percentage importance. Tim Horton's only generates 0.25% of Canada's GDP and is owned by Brazilians, but we still proudly claim it as quintessentially Canadian. Why not the mining industry?"

Of course it is! I'm not disputing that it's Canadian. Included in that is our asbestos industry, if we want to talk about ickiness.
posted by storybored at 7:15 AM on February 20, 2020

Lucien Bouchard, circa 1996: "Canada is not a real country."
posted by clawsoon at 7:15 AM on February 20, 2020

For those of you who, like me, were expecting this to be a humor piece, try this Daniel Davies classic.
posted by Jasper Fnorde at 7:35 AM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

Sorry.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:42 AM on February 20, 2020

"European settlers spent their first years in this part of the continent hunting beavers en masse ...."

This is patently false. The trapping was done willingly by first nations and metis in exchange for consumer goods which they valued highly.
posted by canoehead at 8:49 AM on February 20, 2020 [6 favorites]

Who is this written for? Doesn't anyone else get tired of being lectured at as if we are a bunch of stupid suckers taken in by the hagiographic mythology of states and people?
posted by Pembquist at 8:54 AM on February 20, 2020 [9 favorites]

I never tire of being lectured as if I am a stupid sucker, after all, as an older white woman, isn't that why I exist?

I really enjoyed this article, just shows, the depths I have sunk to. Especially the parts where the pipeline isn't really in Canada, but bullied into existence with the help of Canadian state actors, in RCMP costumes.
posted by Oyéah at 8:58 AM on February 20, 2020

Who is this written for?

I don't know. It's as much mythologizing as the Glorious Story of Our Nation though. Not untrue, but omits the bits that don't fit its narrative either.

Canada has real problems. Ecologically, we're in a bad way right now. But there are a large number of people trying very hard to turn those curves around. And in some cases we have.

In terms of reconciliation, I'm more hopeful now that I was twenty years ago. It's not perfect, but rights and title are actually getting real discussion now. There is a generation of Indigenous folk who are incredibly competent and completely understand what they're up against, in terms of the "settler" companies and communities. They're making tangible headway in terms of accommodations, land rights and room for Native concerns in Canadian law. Again, no where near perfect, but better than even a decade ago.

Again, Canada has real problems, and the article is right in pointing out all of them. It is silent though on what's being done about them, and the direction the country is headed in.
posted by bonehead at 10:50 AM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]

Who is this written for?

I suppose it's written for people like me who think they're smart but aren't paying enough attention to what's happening with regards to the Wet’suwet’en nation and opposition to the pipeline. Other than - jeez, that's a tough one, I hope no one gets hurt and I sure am glad I don't have to take part in those negotiations.

The "Canada is a sham" bit is a silly stunt, but it does the job; it makes me want to read the piece, then I bristle as the author writes my country into nonexistence and calls me a dupe, and then I get slapped in the face with my own ignorance.

There is a Canada and I think most of us are trying every day to make it a fair place to live. It's really hard work and we're not doing great at it a lot of the time, and it's MOST unfair to the indigenous people of this country but fairness IS one of Canada's central values even when it's only aspirational, and people are trying.

I'm glad I read this. I'd prefer to read something written by someone who is FNMI (First Nations, Metis, Inuit). Guess I'll go searching for that now.
posted by kitcat at 11:38 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

This article is Not Wrong but its basic thesis also applies to nearly every government in the world. Not that that makes it right, it's just also not that surprising.
posted by GuyZero at 11:47 AM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

...Which is what makes the current situation in the west so disappointing, as it pulls back the curtain a bit on that pleasant shared lie.

which makes the Torontonian thesis of Canada being "not the US" basically correct once again as fairness in Canada is only for some people and not others. Everyone love to hate Toronto, but again they are Not Wrong.
posted by GuyZero at 11:49 AM on February 20, 2020

Interestingly to me is Canada is moving past resource extraction in some ways. BC's socialist government just tabled it's third balanced budget in a row (a rare thing) and that despite declining resource revenues both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP.
posted by Mitheral at 1:34 PM on February 20, 2020

"In 2018, the direct contribution of Canada's minerals sector to Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) was $72.4 billion, which represented 3.5% of Canada's total GDP. The indirect impacts from the minerals sector added a further $25.4 billion to GDP, for a total impact of $97.7 billion."

It's not about the economic impact of mining companies. It's their political power and the destruction they cause, both in Canada and around the world. The reality is that the political power of resource industries in Canada is way outsized compared to their economic value. Just look at how the Alberta government is entirely beholden to oil and gas, while logging, mining and gas industries in BC have an insane amount of political influence compared to other similarly-sized industries.
posted by ssg at 2:23 PM on February 20, 2020

Just look at how the Alberta government is entirely beholden to oil and gas,

I sometimes think Alberta consciously chose this path. Yeah, oil companies lobby like crazy, but Alberta could do all kinds of stuff to grow other sectors of the economy. Instead they do nothing.
posted by GuyZero at 2:37 PM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

Great FPP title, BTW.
posted by clawsoon at 5:05 PM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

GuyZero: Yeah, oil companies lobby like crazy, but Alberta could do all kinds of stuff to grow other sectors of the economy. Instead they do nothing.

If you want to blame it on an impersonal economic process, there's always Dutch disease.
posted by clawsoon at 5:07 PM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

The article reads like a contrarian Slatepitch ("Canada is fake!") combined with what Orwell describes as purely negative nationalism. I'm surprised Verman didn't throw in the old joke: "Canada could have had British government, American know-how, and French culture. Instead we got French government, British know-how, and American culture."

What is Canada? Canada is a multinational empire, like the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy. It's been pluralistic from the very beginning, both in language (French and English) and religion (Catholics and Protestants). This is one reason that Canada has been so successful at integrating immigrants and visible minorities: there's no single national mold that everyone is forced to fit into. As a Chinese-Canadian, I feel just as Canadian as anyone else. Joseph Heath on Canadian exceptionalism. A more rigorous discussion of how Canada is based on shared institutions rather than a shared cultural identity: The Myth of Shared Values in Canada.

Presumably the essay wasn't subject to fact-checking. Canada wasn't formed to further the interests of resource companies, but to prevent the United States (after the end of the Civil War) from absorbing the British North American colonies. See The Undefended Border: the myth and the reality.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline isn't carrying natural gas from Alberta, but from northern British Columbia. It's a provincial pipeline. The reason the RCMP is involved is that BC doesn't have its own provincial police force, and contracts its police services from the RCMP.

Verman says that according to a 1997 Supreme Court decision, BC isn't part of Canada - that it's occupied territory, like the West Bank. That seems garbled. Under the 1997 Supreme Court decision, the First Nations still have title to the land - that is, they're the landowners. But Canadian law still applies! (It'd be pretty surprising for the Supreme Court to say that Canadian law doesn't apply.)

Basically, the First Nations in BC are our landlords. Musqueam reserve residents win court challenge over proposed 800% rent increase. Vancouver International Airport, Musqueam band sign 30-year revenue-sharing agreement. Squamish Nation's plans for 6000-unit apartment complex near Burrard Bridge moving ahead.

As landowners, their rights must be respected and accommodated, but they don't have a veto, just as a landowner cannot block the construction of a road. Timothy Huyer explains the legal duty to consult with First Nations. Federal Court of Appeal decision on the Trans Mountain expansion.

The conflict over Coastal GasLink is complicated by the fact that the Haisla (who were opposed to Northern Gateway) support the LNG Canada project, and that elected Wet'suwet'en band councils support Coastal GasLink while the hereditary chiefs do not. Globe and Mail explainer - it's a bit like disagreement between the House of Commons (deriving its legitimacy from elections) and the Senate (deriving its legitimacy from tradition and distinction). For detailed background information, see the December injunction decision.
posted by russilwvong at 11:40 AM on February 21, 2020 [8 favorites]

There's an entirely different challenge facing Canada. We depend on trade and on international stability. The stability of the international status quo was underwritten first by Britain, then by the United States. With the end of the Cold War, and the US dealing with serious internal issues, Canada now finds itself largely on its own, facing hostility from China, Russia, India, and Saudi Arabia. It's an unfamiliar and disquieting situation.

One response is to team up with the survivors: work with US allies who find themselves in a similar situation, like the countries of the EU, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. Another is to build up our hard power - more guns, less butter.
posted by russilwvong at 11:59 AM on February 21, 2020

Wet'suwt'en matriarch speaks out on pipeline protests.
posted by storybored at 11:07 AM on February 22, 2020

[as deadpan as possible] At least the conflict is about a natural gas pipeline, and not something we'll look back on with regret like a golf course.
posted by clawsoon at 3:45 PM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]