Oh Canada!

I’m only now starting to become cognizant of just how American I’ve become, living here in near isolation for two months now. Not that it’s hard – I think I can count on one hand the number of times I heard “Canada” on TV here. And even talking to my co-workers, it’s astonishing how little Americans know or really care about us – which is sad given how much Canadians define themselves relative to America.

I'm subconsciously starting to adopt more of an American sensibility, almost to the point where I’m starting to see things as an American would. So when a colleague (guess who) sent me this article from Friday's Globe & Mail, I couldn’t help but burst out in laughter.

Liberal MP David McGuinty taunted Mr. MacKay, suggesting that if the Conservatives do not care about the health of people, they should care about the health of animals. Mr. McGuinty demanded to know: "Don't you care about your dog?"

Mr. MacKay, who dated Ms. Stronach when she was a Conservative, heckled back: "You already have her."

Mr. MacKay clearly gestured with his hand to Ms. Stronach's empty seat on the Liberal benches, Mr. McGuinty told reporters later.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t find much humour (or is it humor?) in what Mr. MacKay said. What he said was clearly wrong and he should not have said it. But it’s more the reaction of the Canadian public and news media, and the tone of the article and the manner in which it's written that I find to be really amusing.

Read the Globe article in its entirety… There’s just something quintessentially Canadian about it. The references to the environment, health care, daycare, child-poverty groups, "gender and Canadian studies", the hyper-sensitivity and political correctness, Belinda’s political flip-flop (ideology vs. pragmatism), the obligatory appeal to authority (quote from a feminist Prof), the requisite hockey reference (Toronto Maple Leafs goon Tie Domi), and to top it off the seriousness and sobriety of the Globe and Mail.

This is the highlight

Linda Trimble, chair of the political science department at the University of Alberta, called Mr. MacKay's comments "unduly personal and mean-spirited."

Prof. Trimble, who specializes in Canadian and gender studies, said the remarks demonstrate the continued need for an organization such as the now-defunct Association of Women Parliamentarians, a group dedicated to cleaning up language in Parliament as well as to issues such as daycare.

The notion of a special interest group dedicated to “cleaning up language in Parliament… as well as daycare” is just so… Canadian! Americans would find that so farcical. Down here, Prof. Trimble would be immediately dismissed as a left-wing pinko liberal nutjob – emphasis on the liberal, because it's a four-letter word here.

I actually find it refreshing. You simply wouldn’t see that here, because America has more pressing concerns. Canada is so peaceful, so prosperous, so blessedly free of trouble, that the things that make the headlines are really pretty trivial. And where you’re in a country where a prominent Senator has been indicted for sexually explicit emails to its boy interns, it’s good to be from a country where this is about as ugly as it gets.

Living here has definetely made me appreciate Canada more.