Canada is a country of great
diversity, so it is odd that we might still want to single out anything as especially
special in identifying our nationality.
Yes, we decided long ago that the
maple leaf and the beaver are national symbols. But do we really need anything
else, like a national bird?
That is the question now facing
the federal government, which has been petitioned by the Royal Canadian
Geographical Society to officially declare a national bird this year, the 150th
anniversary of Confederation.
Two years ago the Society’s
magazine, Canadian Geographic, began a project to select a national bird,
inviting Canadians to vote for their favourites. It is not clear how many
Canadians participated, however the Society announced in November a decision:
the whiskey jack, or gray jay, should be named Canada’s official national bird.
The whiskey jack received fewer
votes than the loon and the snowy owl. Geographic, however, rejected those two
because they already are provincial symbols: Ontario (loon), Quebec (snowy
owl).
The feds now must decide whether
we really need to have a national bird. Or should it forget the idea and get on
with important matters such as infrastructure decay, the drug abuse crisis, the
collapsing middle class, criminal electricity rates and planning how to deal
with the damaging effects of a changing climate.
Only a fool would enter the
national bird controversy, which of course does not rule out the politicians
jumping in.
Firstly, naming national things is
passé. That is something countries do when they are trying to define who they
are and what they stand for. We know what Canada is and what it stands for and
have got along for 150 years without a
national bird, and without a national flower as it happens.
Secondly, getting people to agree
on anything these days is like trying to corral chipmunks. Picture the circus
in the House of Commons as MPs argue the fine points of declaring the whiskey
jack our national bird.
Some MPs would argue that both of
the bird’s official names – whiskey jack and gray jay – don’t even use Canadian
spellings. Gray and whiskey are American spellings. In this country it’s whisky
and grey.
(Incidentally, whiskey jack is taken
from Wiskedjak, one of many spellings of the Algonquian
name of the little greyish bird known by aboriginal peoples as a trickster).
Then, of course, there is the controversy that the
whiskey jack is not found in the most populous part of Canada – southern
Ontario. The bird’s southern range,
believe it or not, ends somewhere in the northern part of Haliburton
County.
I was thinking about all this the
other day while alternately watching the Trumpeter’s inauguration on TV and the
chickadees at the feeders outside the kitchen window. (The chickadees were much
more interesting!)
Trump delivered a scornful, dystopian
speech and boasted how he will fix, immediately, all the screw-ups created by
the four ex-presidents seated in the audience behind him.
Meanwhile, the chickadees flitted
and twittered, broadcasting a message that despite cool temperatures and a bit
of grey sky, the world overall is a pretty great place.
If I was voting for a national
bird, or an American president, my choice would be the chickadee. It is a humble
little creature that always appears positive and hopeful about its
surroundings. Also, although its brain is tiny, it is fully functional.
The Cherokee associated the
chickadee with truth and knowledge, traits noticeably missing in the new
American president, and an increasing number of other politicians.
At any rate, I am not voting for a
national bird. We have more than 400 species of birds in Canada. Each has its
own qualities and instead of singling out one as special we should celebrate
them all.
