The things you wish we had?
 

So what are the things you wish Canada had to distinguish ourselves from the US?

I.e. in terms of language, culture, traditions, transit, education, sports, media etc.

People who gave a crap about this country - it's accomplishments, failures and sense of who we are, really. John Ralston Saul is someone who floats to mind as an archetype.

The rest will follow in natural course.

But hey, others have said it better than I - we are but a wannabe colony (whether British or American) inhabited by wannabe colonists. The best measure of success to those types is to mildly impress the powers above them.

To me, the most visible success of a country is being something that doesn't give two craps about what others think of it and makes itself into what it wants - I can't imagine the Swiss or Danes giving much of a crap about what the UK or America think of them. They've built their own success in their own mold.

If we had another language all our problems would be solved. On the other hand, if we had another language, we would not have been part of the powerful British Empire until 1931. In other words, we would have been a small independent republic and the Americans would have bullied us, especially in the period 1865-1917.

So we’d be culturally rich and sure of ourselves, but our standard of living and human rights would be like a Latin American country or the Philippines.

So, short of another language, I wish we had a border with at least one other country so we would have some additional perspective.

Canada needs second and third dimensions. It's mostly east-west, without much north-south or high-low

????

For me, the main things I wish we had aren't things that would differentiate ourselves from the US by having; they're things that currently differentiate us in a negative way by lacking. For instance, a car-brand or other high visibility consumer product maker or seller associated solely with Canada (regardless of where it's owned or the products are made which are separate issues from the branding), or having a home-grown and based head of state which was recently discussed in another thread.

The US presidency as an office and institution are entirely of US making, whereas ours is based in and associated with somewhere else. When people globally talk about the queen, it's in terms of the queen of England or the British royals, and any other country is only raised as a technicality or afterthought. As silly as it sounds, I've actually heard people try to argue that keeping a foreign head of state (not legally foreign, but functionally foreign since they're not from here and have never lived here) makes us "unique" despite literally having the same head of state as several other countries including not only the UK but also Australia, NZ and others LOL! Even if it did make us unique, it's like a singer arguing that he's unique among his peers because they all write their own music whereas he only does covers. Umm... Congratulations?

I think the US national identity "layer" as someone previously described it, is closely connected to this to the point that such an identity would be far more difficult if not impossible were the country's structure and institutions not homegrown and instead merely offshoots of somewhere else. That, and unlike Australia, there's really no major geographic region that is totally ours and not shared with the US. We have arctic but the US also has Alaska. We have the Rockies but so do they. Ditto the prairies, great lakes, Pacific and Atlantic coasts, etc. Without significant isolation in terms of time and geography, the landscape and legal/political structures are the only things left that would spawn the kind of distinctiveness that some people people crave. I guess if I had to choose one thing to have that makes us unique from the US it would be a totally unique region. But as I said, generally we're more negatively unique by lacking things than if we had them.

I have no idea how that happened other than that I'm trying to use windows on a tablet and such a thing should never be attempted. :)

I think splitting up the large provinces, and by extension enabling a greater degree of legislative autonomy, would help Canada grow along more dimensions than just "east vs west" lines.

The US has 50 different state level experiments going on, and each is growing somewhat distinctly from each other. This allows people to rally behind the differences that they celebrate, and sell themselves more broadly to the rest of the country along these cultural lines.

Imagine Canada had 25 different provinces, each with it's own immigration quota, education system, health care, food traditions, landscapes & nature they sell.

Also I think we should do like Australia did, and hybridize our political system to give representation to each of these regions. Let the senate be elected and have representation form each region. That would help give each region a distinct political voice and would feed into the unique cultural characteristics of each place.

My degree fucking finally.


Edit: Oh woops. I thought it was "you" not "we" :haha:


Well in that case, I wish Canada was a more equal federation. Ontario split into 3.5 (unequal) parts would be a fabulous start. Central Ontario would still dominate at around 10 ish million people, but Southern Ontario (border Kincardine to Port Erie) - perhaps named Huronia or Tecumseh - with three million ish people would be a good start at eliminating the preeminence of current Southern Ontario. A confederated Northern Ontario - perhaps called Winnipekwa or something Ojicree - would hopefully stabilize the development of the north by finally allowing northern concerns to be addressed by northerners, not southerners who have never even stepped foot north of Haliburton. The .5 would be the National Capital Region, a rhombus from Clarence-Rockland to Quyon east west, and Poltimore to Kemptville north south would be ideal. A nearly equal territorial cession from both Ontario and Quebec.

Apart from population distribution, a farrrrrrrr greater connection between the east, west, north, and south transportation wise is not only a wish, but is required. The mid-Canada road, railway, and power corridor proposal comes to mind. This would allow for greater resource development, along with greater attractiveness for the settlement of established northern communities along the route, namely Rouyn Noranda, Timmins, Geraldton, Armstrong, Eabametoong (Fort Hope), Thompson, Flin Flon, La Ronge, Fort McMurray, High Level, and Fort Nelson. Combine all that with a fully revitalized and doubled-in-size Port of Churchill and a modernized rail connection to the port, and Canada might actually be ready for the 21st century (by the end of the 22nd century)!

I'm no fool, obviously this would be a good $200 billion, maybe even up to $400 billion investment, but it is required for our long term economic competitiveness, political stability, enfranchisement of northern communities, and sustainable growth. I also believe projects like this are integral to nation building, something Canada has a dearth of at the moment and has for decades, which has led us to our current point of the weakest sense of national unity maybe ever.



Here's a really rough idea of what I'm talking about. Pink is new provincial borders, orange is the strengthened connection from Thompson to Churchill, thick blue is the Mid-Canada Corridor, and the thin blue are the new/strengthened road connections to the primary network. Thought it would be funny to do it American-style and just have them completely blanked out :haha:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...e747a562_h.jpg

I remember reading (no idea where) that Canada could have had British politics, French culture and American know-how. Instead we ended up with French politics, American culture and British know-how.

That old joke worked better back when British politics seemed like something worth emulating ...

Where does the knock on "British know-how" come from? I've never heard anything disparaging like that before. If anything, it's pretty clear that Britain has more to be proud of in that area than most any other country there is.

Yeah, that seems to be a thing and it puzzled me too - my first (and only) contact with this British Know-how self-depreciation phenomenon came through watching The IT Crowd, where one early running gag is that some piece of equipment will totally malfunction then they spot a "Made in Britain" label on it and go all "ah, that explains it".

Well said! ;)

On topic for this thread and speaking of politics, I wish we had an elected senate instead of the useless joke of an upper house that we have. (Should they ever even think of doing anything other than brainlessly rubber-stamp what gets sent their way, they're immediately reminded that they're unelected and have zero legitimacy, and they back off.)

And that yellow marker with a star on it, that indicates Calgary is now the capital? :p

There's also that giant Chad Head offshore platform, off the coast of Labrador.

The way I heard the joke was we got British cuisine, which is fair game to knock IMO

Democratic Socialism.

I underlined the important parts.

If we get it can I smash it? :notacrook:

While we're at it can be get a Bloc Canada party.

Depends on what you mean by smash. Like it's a noun but it's not a tangible noun, it's an idea or concept.