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Wearing our maple leaves on our sleeves
Jun. 30th, 2012 11:15 amAs mentioned before in this space, I was the youngest of four children. So understandably, I tended to be the last to achieve the various landmarks in life - finishing school, getting my first job, and so on. But there was one significant landmark I reached before any of my siblings (or even my parents), at the moment of my birth. I was born here, so I have always been Canadian.
I remember when I was about six, being picked up from school and heading downtown so that the others in my family could "get" their citizenship. I don't remember anything about what citizenship ceremonies involved in those days, or what people had to know about their adopted country to pass the citizenship test (if there was one), or much of anything else about the whole process. If they distributed flags back then, it would have been the red ensign, not our current maple leaf flag. I don't know when the red ensign supplanted the plain old union jack as the usual flag of Canada (in older pictures of post-Confederation Canada, it does seem to be that the union jack was the usual occupant of the flagpole), but I do vividly remember the spirited debate over the "Pearson pennant" in the 1960s - which was originally going to have blue bars at the sides and three red maple leaves rather than one in the middle.
I grew up in a time of burgeoning Canadian nationalism. Quebec nationalism too, but that probably should have been a topic for last weekend, when the province celebrated St-Jean Baptiste Day. I remember the Bilingualism and Biculturalism (B&B) Commission, the growth of Canadian content regulations in the mass media, the growth of bilingualism in the federal public service. I remember going to Expo '67 with my class and again in the summer with my mother. That period from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies was an era of optimism, nationalism and prosperity. Then came the first wave of oil-price shocks (with the threat that we would all be "freezing in the dark") and stagflation followed by the recession of the early 1980s.
In an open economy, an era of free trade and common currencies, is there still a legitimate role for national pride? I hope so.
One thing I have noticed over the past few years is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to buy Canadian. It used to be, for example, that if you bought a pair of jeans, whether its label was Howick, Levi, Wrangler or Lee, the garment itself was almost ALWAYS marked "Made in Canada" and often had the union label. Nowadays, most jeans sold in Canada seem to be made in China, or occasionally Vietnam or Bangladesh. I now gravitate towards the Lois label because most (though not all) of their jeans are made in Canada.
I get particularly annoyed when I see products with labels I think of as Canadian icons - like Roots - only to scrounge inside for the fine print and find that they were made in China. That's not true of all Roots products, mind you, but you have to be careful. There's also a popular line of camera bags which sports a maple leaf on the outside - implying, no doubt intentionally, that they are made in Canada - but inside, most have labels indicating that they are in fact made in China.
What's a poor Canadian patriot to do?
I remember when I was about six, being picked up from school and heading downtown so that the others in my family could "get" their citizenship. I don't remember anything about what citizenship ceremonies involved in those days, or what people had to know about their adopted country to pass the citizenship test (if there was one), or much of anything else about the whole process. If they distributed flags back then, it would have been the red ensign, not our current maple leaf flag. I don't know when the red ensign supplanted the plain old union jack as the usual flag of Canada (in older pictures of post-Confederation Canada, it does seem to be that the union jack was the usual occupant of the flagpole), but I do vividly remember the spirited debate over the "Pearson pennant" in the 1960s - which was originally going to have blue bars at the sides and three red maple leaves rather than one in the middle.
I grew up in a time of burgeoning Canadian nationalism. Quebec nationalism too, but that probably should have been a topic for last weekend, when the province celebrated St-Jean Baptiste Day. I remember the Bilingualism and Biculturalism (B&B) Commission, the growth of Canadian content regulations in the mass media, the growth of bilingualism in the federal public service. I remember going to Expo '67 with my class and again in the summer with my mother. That period from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies was an era of optimism, nationalism and prosperity. Then came the first wave of oil-price shocks (with the threat that we would all be "freezing in the dark") and stagflation followed by the recession of the early 1980s.
In an open economy, an era of free trade and common currencies, is there still a legitimate role for national pride? I hope so.
One thing I have noticed over the past few years is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to buy Canadian. It used to be, for example, that if you bought a pair of jeans, whether its label was Howick, Levi, Wrangler or Lee, the garment itself was almost ALWAYS marked "Made in Canada" and often had the union label. Nowadays, most jeans sold in Canada seem to be made in China, or occasionally Vietnam or Bangladesh. I now gravitate towards the Lois label because most (though not all) of their jeans are made in Canada.
I get particularly annoyed when I see products with labels I think of as Canadian icons - like Roots - only to scrounge inside for the fine print and find that they were made in China. That's not true of all Roots products, mind you, but you have to be careful. There's also a popular line of camera bags which sports a maple leaf on the outside - implying, no doubt intentionally, that they are made in Canada - but inside, most have labels indicating that they are in fact made in China.
What's a poor Canadian patriot to do?
