The canadian personality
The canadian personalityOn the sixth day God turned to the angel Gabriel and said, "Today I am going to create a land called Canada. It will be a land of outstanding natural beauty. It shall have tall majestic mountains full of mountain goats and eagles, beautifully sparkling lakes bountiful with carp and trout, forests full of elk and moose, high cliffs overlooking sandy beaches with an abundance of sea life, and rivers stocked with salmon." God continued, "I shall make the land rich in oil so to make the inhabitants prosper, I shall call these inhabitants Canadians, they shall be known as the friendliest people on the Earth."
"But Lord," asked Gabriel, "don't you think you are being too generous to these Canadians?"
"Not really," replied God, "just wait and see the neighbors I am going to give them!"
This humorous little story does point something out. As Canadians, we do tend to focus, not on the good things of our country, but on the bad things that are outside our country. We always talk about how the Americans are running more of Canada then we are, and the only nature part of Canada you ever hear about is the American view, snow, penguins and polar bears. In fact, our country has a vast amount of temperate wilderness, grand provincial parks and even a rainforest in the west. We have all the animals mentioned in the story, but do we talk about them? It seems that all most Canadians do is complain. Complain about the economy, the government, the USA. Anything that can be found that is wrong with our country, we talk about. That sets us apart from the others, most countries talk about their achievements, not their defeats. The USA brags about their strong and mighty army, we whine about our tiny armed forces. The Swiss talk of their great piles of money, while we tell of our failing economy. There could be the odd time where we think of our good contributions to this planet. Then we realize that our importance is going down in world affairs and start to sulk once again.
Another trait that sets Canada apart from the other nations of the world is our great ethnic diversity. No other country in the world has inhabitants from so many different backgrounds, still practicing their cultural traits. Canada seems to encourage being different, while other nations, such as America, try to form all of the citizens into a mold, try and achieve the 'American Dream'.
We do not only have ethnic diversity. But also geographic diversity. Our country has most of the different climate regions that exist. We have polar tundra in the far north. A very large mountain range in the west. There is the Great Plains in the middle. The temperate rainforest, also in the west. Also, immense forests throughout the southern part of this nation.
I have heard from many people that we are a country full of polite, happy, joyful people. I disagree with that statement. I have been to Toronto and Ottawa, and I can see very little difference with these cities compared to an American city of the same size. I was once on a trip to Ottawa for four days. On the first day, I saw a woman with a knife case after some guy and threaten him with it. She was stopped by another passerby however. On the second day of this trip, a boy of about 13 years of age tried to mug me! Granted, I have never been to New York City, but I cannot image that what I was seeing in Ottawa would be any different than what would be in an American city of the same size.
If the countries were soft drinks, Canada would be in a can that tasted very similar to the US drink. Although our can would be better looking, the can would be bigger, but there would be less drink inside the can. There would also be labels on the outside of the can saying that though the drink tasted good, you should not drink because it was not as important as the American drink. Canadians should concentrate on our success more, we seem to be a country of pessimists.