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Illustration by Drew Shannon
Like millions in this country, I spent the evening of Thursday, Feb. 20, in front of the TV, captivated by the Four Nations hockey final. Packed cheek-by-jowl into a downtown Toronto pub, the unbridled pandemonium that accompanied Connor McDavid’s goal, all flailing limbs and tossed beers, was one of the most joyful sporting spectacles I’ve been a part of.
That could be the result of a success-starved sporting life as a fan of both England’s national soccer team and Tottenham Hotspur (who finally broke their trophy drought in May), but it’s impossible to disassociate that hockey game from a web of political issues. For me, though – a recent-ish newcomer to this country – it also represented several personal revelations about belonging, home and community.
I emigrated from the U.K. nearly two years ago. I had no previous ties to this country (the closest case was my grandfather who, as a child, was nearly being evacuated here during the Blitz before having a last-minute change of heart, a wise decision considering the passenger ship was sunk by the Germans).
But I’ve been blessed to find a network of welcoming, funny, outgoing and thoughtful individuals that has only grown. (There were also a few absolute knobheads, but such is life.) The natural cycles of adventure and homesick depression followed, but over time, my affection for the idiosyncrasies of Canadian life grew.
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I spent last summer in Serbia and Central and Eastern Europe, a wonderful, thrilling and culturally enriching experience. By August, however, I was more than ready to return home – and for the first time in my life, “home” meant somewhere different from the place I was born. And at some unidentifiable point in the past few months, when speaking to friends and family in the U.K., I made the subconscious switch from “them” to “we.” Truth be told, this moment for me, like the wider uptick in pride for all things Canadian, has correlated with the actions of a certain convicted felon and the expansionist fervour of our erstwhile neighbours down south. You don’t need a political science degree to understand that threats to sovereignty tend to have a “rally round the flag” effect.
It has sometimes been exacerbating explaining to those outside of Canada the extent to which Donald Trump’s existential threats dangle over Canadian life: how we could come to see Wayne Gretzky as a complicit traitor and no longer the Great One; why I’m boycotting American products; and that, yes, booing The Star-Spangled Banner and removing American booze from liquor-store shelves is justified and proportionate.
That’s not to say my feelings of “Canadianness” are purely an anti-Trump response. But what’s been happening over the past several months has crystallized sentiments that were bubbling within me and made me realize I truly do love living here – Toronto as a city and Canada as a country. I could write about all manner of knackered cultural clichés, about hockey and poutine, the fundamentally decent nature of the people and the stunning landscapes. But if they seem overused, it’s because, by and large, they’re true.
In recent years, this country’s politics and wider Canadian life have included an abundance of cynicism, and in many cases, rightfully so. A healthy dose of skepticism and desire to see things improve are natural and vital elements to social progress. Sometimes, though, it’s necessary to step back and appreciate the positive aspects that define this country. Sometimes, there’s no one better placed to see this fuller perspective than an outsider.
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Sure, such sentiments on my part could be seen as disingenuous bandwagoning at best and disrespectful at worst. If the idea of Canadianness I’m falling in love with is so deep and so special, how can I really appreciate it after less than two years?
To take it back to that hockey game, I could not, a mere few years ago, have envisaged reacting in such a way, singing along to O Canada horrendously out of time and tune (and yet still better than the rendition in Boston that night) and pouring my heart and soul into a sport that I’d hitherto barely acknowledged. Yet in that moment, I got no strange looks or judgment for my boisterous and obviously non-North American accented shouts. I wasn’t simply a sports fan – I felt like part of a team of 40 million.
You can’t yet call me Canadian, not out of hesitation or lack of desire on my part, but because this process of joining a nation is a journey, one that will have setbacks and moments of unease, plus industrial bouts of bureaucratic frustration.
So, for now, all I can do is profess my deep and growing affection, grounded in the values and multiplicity of perspectives of its people, and try to positively add, now and going forward, to the values that make Canada so desirable, until the day I can proudly say, “I am Canadian.”
Now, where’s my Molson commercial?
Thomas Law lives in Toronto.