It was a lifetime ago but I still
remember my father bending his tall and lanky frame, reaching down to clasp my
hand and walking me across the invisible line dividing Canada and the United
States.
There was no control gate, no
border check, no passports. We simply walked into Minnesota and a little store
where he bought me ice cream.
It was a different time. Smaller
governments, fewer regulations, fewer fears. National identities or the lines
dividing them didn’t matter much to us. Canada was where we lived; the U.S. was
our ancestral home.
It was back then that I formed the
view that Canada and the United States were little different. The latter was
bigger, bolder, more advanced in many ways but we shared much and were much the
same.
Last week I saw how different we
really are. The Humboldt Broncos hockey bus tragedy brought the differences
sharply into focus.
Canadians from coast-to-coast-to-coast
set hockey sticks on stoops and porches to show their grief for the 16 killed
and 13 injured, and for all those suffering from the losses. There was Jersey
Day when tens of thousands of Canadians, and others around the world, wore
sports jerseys to show their sorrow, their sympathy and their support.
A GoFundMe campaign to help the
affected families raised $11 million and counting.
Humboldt showed that despite vast
distances, wildly different geography and many conflicting beliefs, Canadians
come together when it matters. It also showed that we have not lost all our
small-town values.
While Canadians drew together for
Humboldt, our American neighbours continued their descent deeper into a miasma
of distrust and disunity.
The storms of discord in the U.S.
are so fast and furious it is hard to remember on Thursday what happened on
Wednesday. Last week alone saw police raids on the president’s personal
attorney, confusion over Syria policy, presidential pardon of another convicted
criminal, announced resignation of House Speaker Paul Ryan and a former FBI
director calling the president a mob boss and the president calling him a slime
ball.
Once a global beacon of
enlightenment and hope, the U.S. is a wounded and confused state stumbling
along a crooked path through a cultural, political and moral swamp. It is a
nation that has lost its way.
Many blame Humpty Trumpty, the
most psychologically unfit person ever elected U.S. president, but he is only a
historical footnote. The descent began long before him, back in the 1960s that
saw the assassinations of the Kennedys and King, the civil rights wars, Viet
Nam, the cultural wars between liberals and conservatives and growing class
inequalities.
The United States is no longer
united. The bipartisanship that saw people work together to build the American
dream has evaporated, leaving a void being filled by brainless noise and moral
apathy.
Having lost the will to work
together Americans never will solve the problems that are destroying their
society: gun violence, deep-seated racism, a drug addiction and mental health
epidemic and widening chasms of inequality.
Lost also is the will to shoulder
the heavy responsibilities of leader of the free world. Considering the state
of the nation, that probably is a good thing.
A major difference between
Canadians and Americans is how they view compromise. Canadians are seen as a
people who try to resolve conflicts through conciliation and compromise. Our
willingness to compromise has been criticized as showing ambiguity and weakness
- an inability to take a firm stand – but it is a valuable part of our culture.
Americans see compromise as
losing. When you compromise, the other side wins and that attitude is
particularly evident in U.S. politics.
Without a willingness to
compromise the next option is force, which often leads to violence. The world
has seen the U.S. in that movie many times.
The past two weeks have allowed us
to see the best qualities of Canadians while witnessing the worst of America.
We should not be smug, however.
Canadians are different from Americans but they are close neighbours and it is
easy to take on their ways, good and bad.
Humboldt showed us who we are and
why. We need to remember that.
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