Last week a student revealed to me that he thought Canada
was a part of the United States. I felt in turns shocked, confused, hurt,
indignant; this is precisely the kind of thing that is supposed to make us
Canadians angry. I explained all this to the student but then found myself
unable to think of all the good reasons why being from Canada is preferential
to being from the States. My minds eye was clouded by oil and I could not see.
Living away from Canada has made me think about our fair
country from a different perspective. I am no longer a Canadian amongst Canadians;
I am now a Canadian abroad. I can take jokes about moose, maple syrup, and
hockey, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to praise Canada when every time I look for Canadian news I am confronted by the realities of Canadian resource extraction and it's related
environmental record (that and Rob Ford). People think of Canada as being one of the last great
nature preserves and yet the truth of how we treat what we are so fortunate to
have leaves me lost for words in conversation with a teenaged Dane.
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