A few weeks ago, I found myself in a line of American travellers moving through an airport security area. We were all rushing to get to a flight bound for New York City. We had all removed our coats, belts and shoes, and were waiting to be cleared to the gate. That’s when a fellow passenger struck up a conversation with me.
“Going home?” a guy asked.
“No,” I said. “Home’s in Canada.”
“Kind of the same,” he smiled. “Except you Canadians all say, ‘aboot.’”
I buttoned my lip, preferring to leave well enough alone. Fortunately, I didn’t end up sitting next to him on the plane, so I didn’t have to endure any more of his mistaken perceptions about the similarities between Americans and Canadians.
And believe me I’ve heard them all. We both speak the same language. We both watch the same TV shows. We both enjoy the same freedoms. And we both share Niagara Falls. Yes, I once heard that from a relative, but I was too kind to point out that the Horseshoe Falls are far more dazzling than the falls on the New York side.
Several examples of perceived similarities and differences between Canada and the U.S. have emerged rather dramatically in the past couple of weeks. The other night, the apparent frontrunner in the Republican Party presidential nomination campaign, Donald Trump, blurted out the latest of his policy proposals. He told his fellow American citizens, about one per cent of whom are followers of Islam, that he wanted to shut U.S. immigration doors to Muslims.
Fortunately, aside from the xenophobic actions of a few misguided types on subways and buses in Toronto, Canadians have done just the opposite; they’ve opened their hearts, heads and wallets to arriving Syrian refugees, Muslim, Christian or whatever. And unlike GOP candidate Trump, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has assured the world that Canada will welcome 25,000 by mid-winter.
Coincidentally, one of my senior journalism students covered a weekend event in Toronto, where residents donated hundreds of dollars to purposely stay in tents overnight. The Sleep Out for Syrians event helped raise funds and awareness of the plight of immigrants – many of them Muslims – living with nothing but a thin layer of canvas between them and the forces of nature. The nearly spontaneous event felt so gratifying for all concerned, that even one of its organizers, Elizabeth Dove, was overwhelmed.
“I’ve learned that my community has an enormous heart,” Dove told reporter Sayada Nabi. “We have the power to really make a difference.”
Not to mention distinguishing ourselves from Trump-style fear-mongering.
And then there was San Bernardino. And Colorado Springs. And Roseburg. And the Washington Navy Yard. And Sandy Hook. And, and, and… The shootings of 14 people at a holiday party in a Southern California social service centre, last Wednesday, appeared to rock America. It was the 1,052nd mass shooting in 1,066 days in that country. And it prompted President Barack Obama to speak from the White House about it. And it triggered an editorial on the front page of the New York Times (for the first time since 1920).
“It is a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency,” the Times editorial said Dec. 4. “America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing.”
In contrast, the Province of Quebec illustrated both a sense of decency, observing the 26th anniversary of the murder of 14 engineering students – all women – at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal and, in my opinion, courage by introducing its own provincial registry for non-restricted firearms in place of the long-gun registry struck down nationally by the Conservatives in 2012. In the U.S., as I see it, legislators continue to cower before a National Rifle Association that appears more intent on boosting gun sales than protecting the rights of law-abiding gun-owners and innocent bystanders.
Quebec legislators, meanwhile, fought the (Harper) federal government all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada to preserve data gathered in Quebec, but lost the case. Listening more acutely to recommendations from Canadian chiefs of police than the gun lobby, in this country, Quebec Public Security Minister Pierre Moreau said opposition to the new Quebec law is more ideological than practical. The Quebec bill will enact penalties from $500 to $5,000 for those failing to register non-restricted (certain kinds of shotguns and rifles) firearms.
“The idea is that every gun will have its own number,” Moreau said. “We will be able to know where the gun is and who owns the gun.”
I know that the Quebec government does not speak for all Canadians, but for me, like the welcome this country has offered Syrian refugees, addressing crises with law and logic rather than with brute force and fear, distinguishes Canada.
