Friday is Canada Day.
It is the one day each year we should think about what it is that makes Canada what it is.
That is not always easy amid the hotdogs and picnics and fireworks, but never has it been more important than it is this year.
When we look around the world right now we seem to be teetering on the edge of disaster.
Yes, one might suggest that often given the near constant conflict which seems all too much the norm, at this juncture there is something seemingly ominous in the air.
Perhaps it is the realization that the United States, long held up as the bastion of equal rights for all, has fallen back to a point where racism, sexism, and anti-religious rhetoric are once again acceptable things. While such things percolate under the surface of most societies, and Canada certainly is not immune, when you have a presidential candidate spouting such things on a near daily basis it gains a level of legitimacy that allows such hatreds to crawl back into the light.
Then there is the boondoggle of the recent Brexit vote where the Brits voted in a referendum to leave the European Union.
The result is a bizarre one on many levels.
To begin with most countries of the world, Canada included, are desperately seeking to be part of ever larger trade blocs as a way to ensure the least resistance to trade goods flowing back and forth.
As an example Canada being part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a trade agreement among twelve Pacific Rim countries signed Feb.4, 2016 in Auckland, New Zealand, after seven years of negotiations.
For the Brits to abandon the EU, arguably the most successful trade bloc, makes little sense, at least until you analyze the results and realize older people carried the vote which was seen by many as a vote against immigration. Again we are back to an ‘ism’ seeping to the surface.
Canada of course is not immune to these unsettling trends.
In November last year globalnews.ca reported police were searching for suspects in connection with a hate crime investigation after a Muslim woman was allegedly attacked and robbed while picking up her children from a Toronto school.
And only days ago the same site reported about a young Muslim mother, who said she was spat on, punched and had her hijab pulled in front of her baby while shopping at a London, Ont., supermarket.
We would desire Canada to be better than this, but certain elements exist, which still focus on hate and confrontation.
Canada was largely built on wave after wave of immigrants.
The new arrivals all making contributions to our multi-cultural country.
It has not always been easy, as the treatment of Doukhobor settlers in Saskatchewan, Japanese residents during World War II, and sadly too many other examples of discrimination attest.
But in 2016, we should have evolved a higher level of tolerance, one which relishes Canadian freedoms for all. The freedom we allow for others which means we too enjoy them. That is the all too obvious secret behind what our country should be, a place of tolerance where we can be who we need to be to be happy and contributing Canadians.
That is what Canada Day is truly about, and hopefully Friday we all rededicate ourselves to preserving such ideals.
