Quote:
Originally Posted by JHikka
A lot of the point of Canadian is that we can make it be whatever we want it to be. Canada isn't a nation-state in the traditional sense as we don't share language, or history, or religion. There's no hard-and-fast requirements, it's almost literally just being in Canada to some degree. I have friends of mine who moved to Canada when they were children but who grew up in more rural, Canadian areas and towns, and I consider them more robustly Canadian than myself a lot of the time. I might look more 'Canadian' in some eyes because i'm white and born here and descended through some British ancestry, but I consider those foreign-born friends as having lived a more authentic Canadian upbringing and being shaped by that. A lot of it simply depends on where you are at that moment.
I suppose we'll find out as the idea of Canada and Canadian culture shifts and changes pretty frequently. A lot of it is just personal preference and ideology. I consider people like Simu Liu and Ian Hanomansing just as Canadian as people like Alex Trebek or Eugene Levy.
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Sure. I'd even make the argument that some who are new to this country and are more interested in it and what Canada is are more Canadian than 'domestics' who've been here for generations but gawk abroad almost exclusively now.
I have this nagging suspicion that if we don't define ourselves to be
something in the near future, we'll end up being nothing. The post-national state isn't something I necessarily aspire to.
Our flexibility might either be our salvation or our downfall, but some backbone about what we believe in and who we are as a country, flaws and all is - in my opinion - the better option.