This year marks the sesquicentennial of the founding of Canada, but it wouldn’t be much of a Canadian event without a healthy dose of existential angst.
True to form, the hand-wringing has begun. Is it really 150 years? Is it less? Possibly more? Is it inclusive of everyone? With all of our warts, is it even worth celebrating? The debate is on.
That is not a bad thing. I personally don’t like rabid, uncritical nationalism. Objective self-reflection is an integral element of a healthy society.
So, let’s start with the Newfoundland in the room. The first argument against celebrating 150 years is the fact that, in 1867, there were only four provinces involved in initial confederation, and two of those, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, reluctantly.
How can we celebrate 150 years when the vast majority of the country, at least in geographic area, did not join until much later?
It’s a good question. A challenging one, even, especially when the modern malaise of political polarization often seems to pit region against region, special interest against special interest and person against person.
Also, there are plenty of Canadians who might have good reason to be reluctant to recognize 150 as the legitimate start date of Canada. For women, maybe 1951, the year the Northwest Territories became the last province to grant women the right to vote, makes more sense.
Some have suggested 1999, the year Nunavut was founded, as the date because that is when we realized our current geopolitical configuration.
Or perhaps we should be celebrating our 35th birthday, to mark the repatriation of the Constitution in 1982.
And, of course, who could blame—although I know lots of people do—some indigenous people for not lining up to toast the 150th of a nation that perpetuates to some degree an ongoing legacy of systemic disenfranchisement.
I am not advocating any of these positions. To my mind, for better or for worse, 1867 is the date because that is when the constitutional framework for what we are today was put into place with the British North America Act.
We are a marriage of semi-autonomous jurisdictions cobbled together at various times over the past 150 years sometimes as much out of avarice as noble ideals.
We are the sum of our parts, good and bad. We are Quebec separatism and western alienation. We are rescuing Vietnamese boat people and holding Japanese-Canadians in internment camps.
We are liberals and conservatives, monarchists and republicans, capitalists and communists, autocrats and anarchists. We are Catholics and Protestants, Hindus and Muslims, evangelicals and atheists. We are natives and “old-stock” immigrants and new immigrants.
We are kind and charitable, friendly and smart, funny and energetic, peaceful and loyal. We are suspicious and xenophobic and passive aggressive.
We are everything and we are nothing.
Nations, like individual people, do not come fully formed into the world. They grow and learn and change and evolve. They are like families, sometimes stricken by internal strife, but tempered with shared history and common interest.
Things have gotten a little ugly recently. I can’t remember a year quite so politically-charged as 2016. And it’s not good enough anymore, it sometimes seems, to have differences of opinion and collaborate on shared solutions. People who disagree with us have become traitors and enemies, ought to be locked up or kicked out of the country.
Ultimately, we cannot lose sight of the fact there is more that holds us together than drives us apart. Our perceived differences are, for the most part, cracks in the surface, not impassable rifts.
This year holds a lot of promise. A significant anniversary such as a sesquicentennial can serve as a powerful reminder of our commonality. We are far from perfect and we cannot lose sight of the fact we have a lot of work yet to do, but we’ve come a long way in 150 years.
For all of our shortcomings, we are a great country worthy of a big celebration.
