This one is a long time coming and it's based around my experience in my life. As most of you know, I'm Canadian. Born and raised since April 1st 1991. There have been times in my life that I showed great pride for my country, but at the same time. One of the benefits of going on the net is you meet people. Some that live halfway across the world and others just a province or state away from you. It's one of the reasons why I don't give too much of myself out on the net, because if I happened to be arguing with someone who knows where I live and is in walking distance of my home, I'd either have to call the cops or defend myself with extreme prejudice. By that I mean, fists, feet and the nearest thing I can grab to hit someone with.
However much why I bring my nationality up is that as I said, the benefits of the net is that you meet people good or bad. Some of which I've seen in sites and youtube videos related to my likes and dislikes, commenting about Canada. Both it's history and it's current events.
Not a lot of it was good, but it helped me understand more where my fellow Canadians from all walks of life were coming from. Enough for me to form a 3 Dimensional viewpoint of how I look at my country, it's politics, it's impact on the world and how the world reacts to us.
Let's break things down:
History
Like many other countries of the world, Canada has a very complicated, yet still interesting History. Me I was mostly proud of the good aspects of it. The building of cities, the day we became multicultural and our side of the known wars like World War I and World War II which while had bad moments, had moments that became our finest hour when we were doing our part in trying to save the rest of the world. However, that being said, it wasn't all that great. Much like the rest of North and South America, Europeans killed a lot of Natives and took over a lot of land. Save for me being one of Erik The Red's descendants, I do have blood that traces back to those times, but in all honesty unless I see otherwise, I don't recall anyone in my own family for at least a few centuries, doing that. My family both has British, European and Native Blood respectfully in my immediate blood relatives. I have made friends and families of individuals from nearly every single race I can find. I seen the good and bad everyone of each nation has had to experience. However while I do want to explain, in most certain ways, that in terms of my life, I'm not a bad guy. An asshole, but not a bad guy and as far as I'm concerned save for a few select individuals, neither is my family. But the Native Genocide was only the tip of the iceberg. Before the Civil War, we also had slaves of various races, Native, African, Irish, Chinese, you name it. We did the same fucking shit the states did, but that being said, eventually some of us thought it was wrong. We freed them first chance we get and we set up the last stop of the Underground Railroad. We also were responsible for those residential school situations. We took natives from their parents and put them in Christian families because we as a people at the time thought Natives were working for the Devil. Eventually we saw how wrong that was too, as more cultures came flooding in and we tried to make up for it while we can. Hell our Prime Minister is the son of a guy who was trying to lighten a civil war, only to make it worse when both sides came to Canada. My Province's Premier is part of a brother duo (The other a former mayor) that were known Crackheads and Crackdealers. Our last Toronto Mayor before the good natured Olivia Chow took over, cheated on his fucking wife. We did as much bad to our own country as we did good. Hell I live in a part of Toronto where crime is such an all time high, that even children are trying to be gangsters, thanks to the people I seen in my building every day. They corrupt kids, they hurt innocent people and often try to throw our history back in our face as if the only problem we have is the race. That's not even a problem in my case, I don't care what race you are, you could be white, black, middle eastern, far eastern or some Green Skinned Alien from Star Trek for all I know and all I fucking care, but if you do Evil, you're on my shit list. Because of my actions exposing human traffickers, I got labeled a racist pedophile, because their leader is a fake member of the Black Lives Matter movement. The man wears a shirt that says "Defund the police." Yet when I have a problem with him, him and his friends have no qualms threatening to call the cops. Does that sound like a person who wants to defund the police. The 15 year old they raped, who is now 25, despite looking white, has an African bloodline so ancient, that it predates the Islamic takeover of Northern Africa in the 7th Century. Had she died that legacy would have died with her. One of their other victims is a member of the TDSB, the board of fucking education. And yet as far as they are concerned, these people are the bad guys including me. My history no longer concerns me anymore, the past is the past and I'm moving on from it. I will only value to good sides while slightly acknowledging it, should I need to make a point. All in all the point being regarding history is despite your perception of us, we're not perfect, we're not that goody two-shoes and most importantly, we're not that nice. We're optimistic, we try to do the right thing and try to make up for our fuck ups. That's Canada.
Impact On The World
There was a time where even the most hated of countries, loved our country. Mostly because we do go out of our way to help each other out. Hell way before Russia-Ukraine, even Russia was our friends. Way before we detained each other's people, China and Canada loved each other. We were even gonna use Chinese as our third language in honor of them. It was the most voted. I would have suggested Native or Gaelic or Celtic. But somewhere along the lines we started to get a dislike for one another. There are people outside the country whom can't decide if they want to come here even just for touring. Mainly because others come back and say something along the lines "It's not that good as advertised. Weird Laws. So many racists. Blah Blah Blah." I say that not out of annoyance, but I realized something. If I were to go to your country and see what goes on there I'd come back giving the same news to my own friends and family. So as far as I'm concerned all over the world we have those that like each other's country and the blah blah blahs of the world. I used to be offended by this shit, but now it bores me. Because we all do it. Still think we're different.
But enough of the serious talk. There is one thing positive, I do know about regarding us as well as other popular countries all over the world, it's the one thing that many still talk about to this day.
Impact On Popular Culture:
Over the years we've had many great Canadians, from all walks of life having impact on the overall pop culture scenes. Celebrities like Michael J. Fox, Brenden Fraser, Mike Myers, Maurice Lamarche, Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves. Filmmakers like David Cronenberg and whomever the hell made Degrassi. But that's just the people that worked on it. We became so well known, that pop culture has made fun of us both affectionately and aggressively. You've all heard it at one point. A Canadian in a mostly American TV Show or Movie going. "How's it going eh? We're aboot to go ice fishing and watching the Leafs beat the Habs. Have a good one." Even our own country isn't exempt from that because we pretty much started it with Bob and Doug MacKenzie:
Speaking of which, if anyone knows the fuckhead that punched out Rick Moranis, either punch him yourself or drag him to the nearest police station. That shit was wrong.
But essentially we managed to create such a lasting impact on the world that it's hard to forget about us, even if you all eventually start to hate us.
We're not perfect. We struggle with the same bullshit you all do over the years and try to make up for at the very least some of ours.
Take care, stay safe and stay tuned for more.