Sorry

Last month a wonderful Canadian-style protest erupted over the Harper government’s plan to allow just about any cop to monitor just about anything anyone does in Canada online just about any time on just about any excuse.  Without a warrant.

Canadians used Twitter to mock Vic Toews, the Minister of Public Safety who introduced Bill C-30 in the House of Commons and defended it to various media outlets for the next few days.  The #TellVicEverything hashtag started out funny, clever, and awesome, swerved a little toward rants, and then back to funny, clever and awesome.

Early on, someone began tweeting as VickiLeaks30, publishing some very unsavory elements of Toews’ divorce, all a matter of public record but deeply personal.  Accusations flew, and the Conservative Harperites claimed that the NDP was behind the account, tweeting from inside Parliament.

Turns out it wasn’t the NDP at all, but a staffer for the Liberals.  He resigned, and the most Canadian of rituals ensued: Apologies all around.

Rae reveals Vickleaks - CBC.CA http://www.cbc.ca/video/watch/News/Politics/ID=2202713007

This video from the CBC begins with Vic Toews complaining about the Vickileaks30 twitter account connection to the House of Commons, and asking for an investigation.

After almost five minutes of this, the Liberal leader is recognized by the Chair and begins his apology, first in English and then in French.

At 8:28 minutes, an NDP member is recognized, and mentions that the Conservatives had accused the NDP of being behind all this, and demands an apology.

And, he gets it.

The Bloc Québécois leader then speaks in French.

Just when I thought this couldn’t get any more Canadian, Vic Toews gets up and accepts Bob Rae’s apology, but only after critiquing it for it’s sincerity and worthiness.

Bob Rae now takes his place alongside other notable Canadians who have apologized to people for things.

Apologizing is part of Canadian culture.  Canadians apologize when YOU bump into THEM. They apologize for running up the score. I once saw a musician say “Sorry” to a microphone stand he had banged into.  It takes some getting used to
.
Search Google for “canadian apologies” and you will get 12,900,000 results.



Search Google for “american apologies” and you will get 47,000,000 results, admittedly a much higher number, but most of the results appear to be links to articles complaining that Americans have apologized for something.

We just don’t like to do that.

But there is a theory that “Canadians say ‘sorry’ a lot, but they rarely apologize.  See this excerpt from How to be a Canadian (Even If You Already Are One). 

Pop Quiz!

Fill in the blank.

Damn the __________________.

1. torpedoes
2. Americans
3. Harper Government

Canada’s navy wants to spend about $120 million to retrofit torpedoes they bought from the Americans in order to fire them from submarines they bought from the British, according to news reports.

So Canada has four submarines.  One of them is “partially operational” and the other three are not at all operational.  The navy has a total of 36 torpedoes, none of which can be fired from any of the submarines, even the one that is partially operational.  It takes some getting used to.

Apparently once the torpedoes are converted, Canada will need to spend more money to refit the subs.

All this comes to light in the middle of a federal election campaign, but it was the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency that published the information about the pending sale in a press release dated March 23.  Weapons sales of this nature have to be approved by the United States Congress.  Canada is awaiting approval.

Canadian elections and Solfeggio

Canadian elections are confusing.  Elections here are different than back home.  In the United States, everyone knows when the next election will be.  Here, at the federal level, there’s no set date.  It takes some getting used to.

Canadians seem so proud of their Parliamentary system.  (Proud in a Canadian way, that is.)  I haven’t quite figured it out.  If Democracy were a religion, an election would be a sacrament --- an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.  But as soon as there is a hint of an election, pretty much everyone complains.

This time around, the political pundits are trying to get Canadians fired up about the “In-and-out-affair” which is not what you probably think.  It’s about creative campaign funding, and the Conservative Party just trying to gain its fair advantage, a concept so foreign to Canadians I don't know how I could possibly explain it.

The chief political pundits are on the national news broadcast, called “The National,” are  Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne, and Allan Gregg.

At Issue Panel - Andrew Coyne, Allan Gregg, Chantal Hébert

Most Thursdays, they debate the issues of the day, each taking a different side.  Yes.  There are three sides to everything here.  At least.  They remind me of The Nairobi Trio.

Ernie Kovacs - The Nairobi Trio “Solfeggio”

If we have an election in May, I’ll probably hear “Solfeggio” in my head the whole time.

Canadian Frugality

Yesterday it came to light that President Obama’s proposed budget includes an item which would charge Canadians a $5.50 "”inspection fee” when entering the United States by plane or boat.  This is the same fee that the US charges people from other countries, and from which Canada was exempted in 1997.  No fee will be assessed to the Canadians who stream over the border by car or bus to buy food, clothing, gas, and alcohol at decent prices.  And Canadians are really conflicted about cross-border shopping.

Should we not expect a National Debate on cross-border shopping?

You would think something important had just happened, judging from the reactions of many Canadians.  Who knew?  Canadians are apparently just entitled to visit the United States whenever they please without being subject to the same fees as, say, people from England, Germany or Finland, just because they are Canadians.

It takes some getting used to.

The CBC kicked things off with a story slugged Obama proposed travel tax for Canadians, with a link to a poll question.  The question is:  Border fee:  Do you think the passenger inspection fee is reasonable?  Not surprisingly, the results look like this:

CBC non-scientific poll results

Many Canadians would rather complain about a proposed $5.50 (US) fee than about a $42M (CAD) glass dome which will house Canada’s Parliament…temporarily.  That $42M figure is courtesy of Public Works.  Other sources estimate the cost of Stephen Harper’s Cone of Silence as closer to $100M.

"One Hundred Million"

Canadian cross-border frugality is widely recognized by residents of Michigan and Ohio, who can't find anywhere to park at Wal-Mart in the winter because the parking lots are full of $70,000 motor homes with Ontario license plates.

Last month during the World Junior Hockey tournament Canadians flooded across the border to Buffalo, NY  to cheer for any country playing against the United States.  (It's a shame, really, that Canadians' Gold Medal hopes were dashed by arch-rival Russia.)  Apparently Americans can overlook fans fighting in the stands and general rude behavio(u)r, although some are still surprised and disillusioned when they witness it in their own country.  Donn Esmonde of Buffalo.com wrote about it here.  What sticks with them, however, is Canadian frugality:

Make no mistake, we were more than happy the past couple of weeks to have Canadians sleep in our hotel rooms, eat in our restaurants, drink in our bars and shop in our malls. We love the uncommon smell of outside dollars. All we ask is that you do not be obnoxious about it.

In some cases, it was too much to ask. I talked to workers at a downtown bar/restaurant that will remain nameless, to protect the place’s cross-border business. By tournament’s end, they had disdain for all things emblazoned with a Maple Leaf. The main complaint, and this is not new, is a lot of Canadian hockey fans are awful tippers.

“They would have a few beers and leave like a quarter or 50 cents,” said one bartender, who for job security reasons asked that his name not be used. “Servers said they were getting two-dollar tips on a $25 check.”

No report on the generosity of the Russian fans, but a two-dollar tip on a $25 dollar bar tab in the middle of an event is heroically frugal.

Hey, guess what, Canadians.  It's not your country.  You're don't get to come and go as you please simply because you're Canadian.  Run out of things to do in Canada?  Feel like making your way to the United States by air or sea?  Just pony up the $5.50.  You can always stiff your waiter later on.  You're entitled.

Stop the Presses

Former Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien is quoted as having said, “Canada is like a big canoe…”.
 
Canadian Voyageurs, Walking a Canoe Up a Rapid - Currier & Ives, c1860
I have come to realize that in fact Canada is like a small town.
Canadians make fun of Americans who say things like, “You’re from Canada!  Do you know my friend George?  He’s from Canada!”  Yet more than once I’ve sat in the curling club and heard someone discover that the guy she lived next door to in some tiny town in northern Ontario 35 years ago has a son who is married to her best friend’s niece in Vancouver.

It takes some getting used to.

Canada is really like a small town when it comes to the CBC, the national subsidized English-language broadcast network.  (My French is not good enough to know if that is also true for the French-language network.)

It must have been a slow news day indeed when someone at the CBC in Saskatchewan decided to put a story about a Saskatoon man stuck for five hours in a hole into the Canada-wide RSS feed for the CBC news website.
 
A rescue crew carries a man out on a stretcher after extricating him from a hole at a
construction site. (CBC)
In some of the laziest reporting I have ever seen, two stories on the website and a video do not give the man’s name, do not say how he got into the hole in the first place, and do not press the local police on what they mean when they say it was "not believed to be accidental."

As is often true of stories on the CBC website, the best part is the Comments.  Although we don’t often see Godwin’s Law demonstrated by the posters on CBC forums, sarcasm abounds.  One comment reads:

My condolences go out to the family and friends of the hole in these difficult times.

Another:

So close.. after digging all that way from China, to get stuck at the end..

In that apocryphal story about the canoe, when everyone concentrates on doing his own job to the best of his ability, the canoe glides swiftly on the water --- no matter how troubled.  So thanks, CBC, for a job well done.  You’ve provided valuable insight into the Canadian Identity, if not into the identity of this man in particular.

What Was He Thinking?

An article on the CBC website informs us that Canada hired two public relations guys to represent Canada's interests to the United States.

"While this isn't the first time Canada has hired lobbyists to launch an American media campaign, it's the first time the government is being open and transparent about it, [PMO spokesperson, Kory] Teneycke said, though he refused to discuss how much the lobbyists will be paid or how long they will be retained."

This is what passes for openness and transparency in Stephen Harper's Conservative government. It takes some getting used to.

The story actually gets better.

It turns out that the publicity flaks the Canadians hired are Mike McCurry, former White House Press Secretary for President Clinton, and, of all people, Ari Fleischer, who played the same part for President George W. Bush. Fleisher, apparently, "helped organize interviews" during Prime Minister Harper's visit to the US last month. I guess two of those were his own and McCurry's job interviews.

The vitriolic comments following the story are about what you'd expect:

• Harper and the Conservatives are in bed with the Americans, and Canada is about to become the 51st (and 52nd, and 53rd, and 54th, and 55th, and 56th, and 57th and 58th, and 59th, and 60th) state(s). (Personally, I think you have to be either an American living in Canada or a Canadian living in the US to understand why that's so funny.)
• Ari Fleisher is a big, fat liar
• Mike McCurry is a big, fat idiot for believing that Bill Clinton "...did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinski."
• Americans are big, fat idiots, period.

Well, Canadians, who would you rather have representing Canada to Americans? Maybe Rick Mercer? Be careful what you wish for.

Another bunch of bleeding hearts

It seems that Canada is an attractive destination for former Guantanamo Bay detainees. According to this story:

Many Guantanamo Bay detainees cleared of terrorist charges and slated for release have expressed a desire to live in Canada, and refugee organizations are calling for sponsors.

Canadians think of themselves as tolerant, and they think Canada is racism-free, especially in contrast to the United States. I hear this often. I also heard a guy yell, "Run like you're carrying a watermelon!" while watching a football game on tv in the curling club lounge. It takes some getting used to.

When I started this post a few minutes ago, there were 244 comments on this story. Now there are 255. And despite the popularity of the CBC Television show Little Mosque on the Prairie ("Small town Canada with a little Muslim twist"), many of those commenting do not like the idea. The entertaining part is watching them complain about "terrorists" AND about Americans. Here's one:

Another bunch of bleeding hearts coming to the rescue of "presumed terrorists at some time anyhow". Of course people they are not going to say they are possibly still terrorists simply because they want to get rid of them!!! Especially, the Americans who have been critized to high heavens about that place, what a nice gesture from them to let them come to Canada with all our social programs. Probably they will land in Toronto and help our deficit get even higher? Only a few you say? Dream on, they will get all their families with the great great grand-parents and the 90 or so relatives from each family come here, go on welfare, get Medicare, some will be sick, etc, and you are saying you still want to sponsor them? Get your heads examined, now.

Well the radio call in shows should be pretty interesting for the next little while.

"Oh, if you become V.P., oh, it's Canada for me..."

Welcome, my fellow Americans. Canada is close, but it takes some getting used to.

NSFW (Thank you Rachael Maddow for the link.)

Meanwhile, Canadians are also holding a federal election. Not that Americans would notice. Not that Canadians would notice, if it wasn't for all the complaining that inevitably accompanies the announcement of a Federal election in Canada.

Americans might want to think things through a little. This is not so far from the truth. I have to rely on my Canadian friends and family to do the right thing in the election here. And since I'd like to have a country to return home to one day, I've already cast my absentee ballot for the US election.

One

You can go along here for days on end and not feel like you're living in a foreign country.  Then, something happens to remind you that you are.  Maybe someone says, "Civic elections aren't until November.  It's too early to announce whether the Mayor will run for reelection," and here it is July already.  Or, maybe you go to a minor league baseball game and they play both songs but you realize you're the only one singing The National Anthem and everyone sings "O Canada."  It takes some getting used to.

I listen to a CBC Radio program called "The Vinyl Cafe."  The host, Stuart McLean, reads stories and plays music.  It all feels very Canadian.  Stuart McLean is a proud Canadian in the way that so many Canadians are.  They don't capitalize "proud" in the phrase, for one thing, and you have the feeling that they only capitalize "Canadian" because it's a rule.  Otherwise, it would be bragging.

I almost never hear the entire program, because even though it's on twice each weekend, I am almost always in the car when that happens.  I hear part of it, I get where I'm going, and that's it.  So for me, it's kind of a glimpse of Canadian life, because everything in the stories assumes a past that I simply don't have, not having grown up here.  It's wonderful.

Today, the music was all covers.  McLean played a really strange cover of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" by someone called Cat Power.  She never sings the chorus.

He played a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell.  Yeah, it's better because she has looked at life from both sides now, and she sings with a voice influenced by 30 years of good whiskey and American cigarettes.

The very best cover was Johnny Cash's cover of U2's "One."  It was chilling.  I started crying.  I had to pull over to the side of the road and listen.

Cash just stripped out everything not absolutely necessary, and accompanied himself on the guitar.  In the key of C.  There's not a lot else going on, just that voice and those lyrics.  Stunning.  Interpret those lyrics any way you like.  Bono gave an interview once in which he said:

"It is a song about coming together, but it's not the old hippie idea of 'Let's all live together.' It is, in fact, the opposite. It's saying, We are one, but we're not the same. It's not saying we even want to get along, but that we have to get along together in this world if it is to survive. It's a reminder that we have no choice."

If Bono were Canadian, I'd swear he was talking about "America."

Curling, Lobsters, and Joan McCusker's Email

This is an old joke:

A man watches a lobster fisher throw three lobsters into a bucket. Concerned, the man approaches the fisher and asks if he isn't worried that the lobsters will climb out because the bucket has no cover.

"No worries," replied the fisher. "These are Canadian lobsters. If one starts to climb out, the others will pull him back in."

And that's how it is in Canada. In the US, we learn to recognize and celebrate success. In Canada, that would be bragging. It takes some getting used to.

Last week the Scotties Tournament of Hearts was held in Regina, Saskatchewan. That's the Canadian Women's Curling championships. The winner goes on to represent Canada at the Worlds next month. The opening of the week-long championships marked the ten year anniversary of the Team Canada gold medal win at the 1998 Olympics in Japan. The winning team hailed from Regina. They became national icons ("heroes" would, of course, be bragging) over night.


The team was skipped by Sandra Schmirler, who died just two years later at the age of 36, of cancer. The Sandra Schmirler Foundation keeps her memory alive. The remaining members of that team, Marcia Gudereit, Joan McCusker, and Jan Betker, continued to curl at a high level, but were not able to win another national or international title.

Joan McCusker is now a commentator for CBC's curling coverage. I wish I had Joan McCusker's email, because I think she could help me understand something about Canadians.

Colleen Jones, certainly one of the best Canadian women curlers, won six Canadian championships, two World championships, and a couple of mixed Canadian championships. She is bright, articulate, and gracious. (At least she was gracious to me when I met her, and I'm pretty much nobody.) She was a tremendous representative for the sport and for Canada, and yet Canadians belittle her accomplishments because she chews gum while she curls. I kid you not.

Kelly Scott curls at the same curling club I do. She began this year's Scotties as two-time Canadian champion, and was looking for a third consecutive title. She is a lovely person; polite, generous with her time, gracious, and kind of funny. She doesn't show much emotion on the ice. Still, there were posts on curling forums, articles in newspapers, and general talk among curlers that Kelly and her team "didn't deserve" another championship. Why? Because she has a squeaky, annoying voice when she calls a game.

Help me out, Joan! We all know that Sandra Schmirler is now practically revered for her curling success (Oops! There's that word again!) and for her good nature.

What was it really like out there after 1998? Did the general public say things like, "They don't deserve another win because Sandra did..." whatever Sandra did? Did people complain about her glasses? Did they criticize her style of play?

Well, there's a new Team Canada now, this one led by Jennifer Jones. She doesn't chew gum. Her style of play is more aggressive than Kelly Scott's and Colleen Jones'. She's tall and thin and blond. Let the snarkiness begin.

Talking To Themselves

Boing Boing has a post about Rick Mercer’s “Talking To Americans” joke.

Living in Canada, I often have the opportunity to see Rick Mercer's comedy. And I often pass it up.

Mercer can be funny and insightful, but the "Talking To Americans" bit, once just a segment on a half-hour program, then a series of one-hour specials, is nothing but the same joke over and over again. Americans are ignorant of Canada, but unhesitant to express opinions --- that's the joke. Ha ha.

Well, I get it. I get the joke. Ha ha. When can we stop hearing the joke?

I guess Canadians find the "Talking To Americans" joke funny because Canadians can't actually express an opinion, informed or not, without either prefacing the opinion with "Sorry" or adding "Sorry" to the end. It's that sort of passive-aggressive, snarky, stealth-opinion-expressing practice that makes Canadians seem unremittingly self-righteous, and at the same time timid, to Americans who must live among them. It takes some getting used to.