Oh Canada

                Yesterday I wept. Tears ran down my cheeks as I tried to negotiate my way along a stretch of Quebec highway which had become perilously laden with snow. The winter storm that had been forecast had arrived. The stress of it had me clutching the wheel in a sort of manic death grip, and when I finally rolled to a stop at a roadside rest station, my fingers ached when pried away. But this was not the cause of the tears.

                I wept because, for the first time in a very long time, I was proud. Proud to be able to say I am a citizen from north of 49. The Syrians had begun to arrive.

                I have made a very real and conscious effort to keep the Know-Mad free of my own political thoughts. The passion I feel for politics and the issues make me write poorly, for a start. I also wanted to focus on stories that could unite, and not divide, as political musings so often do. But not today, not now, in this new era that has dawned for us here in the True North, Strong and Free.

                As a nation we have endured a decade of true darkness. Civil liberties were assaulted. Scientists were muzzled and told that if they wanted federal funding they could not discuss science. Social programs were left in tatters. Debate was labelled weakness, and fascist resolve was heralded as democratic virtue. It was our nation’s darkest hour, the Harperian era. Once lauded as a nation of UN peacekeepers, we had become NATO “yes men” willing to wage war without global consent. People became embittered and sullen. Fear was intentionally sought out to replace thought. And worst of all, xenophobia was dressed up in the rags of patriotism.

                What could we as Canadians do in the face of this reckless agenda of hate? That question was answered. And the CBC, that vital lifeline to the Canadian ethos (as any cross country traveller can tell you, tuned in while the postal codes whir by) was there to share the moment with a people in need of this holiday miracle.

                Calls were made to people from coast to coast to coast, and what these people relayed was a spear of summer sun to me on that treacherous winter road. The Prime Minister and his cabinet were there in Toronto, and again in Montreal, at the airport, to greet the very first plane loads of refugees (refugees no longer, Trudeau the Younger proclaimed, but landed immigrants now, as soon as they walked from the terminal). A spontaneous rally was held in the downtown core of Fredericton, complete with singing and dancing, to welcome these new comers in what must be a strange land. The Saint John Value Village proclaimed that all Syrian immigrants could shop there for free to get clothing and household items. A sponsorship group in Kelowna, spearheaded by the Catholic Diocese there, told of how, after the horror in Paris, the people in that community rallied together, not in an attempt to restrict or limit the immigrants slated to come there, but rather to ask “what more can we do?” And more they did do, pooling resources to sponsor even more families to come and live amongst them. They answered violence with open hearts, investing in the commonality of our shared humanity. In the Yukon, volunteers set up a home for a family of 10, expected to arrive any day now, the whole of Whitehorse prepared to warm them even as the thermostat is set to plummet. A woman in Toronto, along with her mother, re-financed their home, and maxed out their credit cards, to the tune of 250 thousand dollars, so that they could bring all 43 of their family members from a refugee camp in Lebanon. A community group in Prince Edward County, Ontario, fuming at the Harper regime for actively working against the refugee process, has since welcomed a family of 14 to live amongst them, opening their small rural home to the change such an arrival inevitably would mean. Welcoming the change, embracing it.

                The Harperian right still hounds the debate on the periphery; like mad dogs looking for any opening to seize upon at gnaw at. They ask questions like “shouldn’t we do more to help the people already in this country, like the homeless?” Of course, we can and should do more to assist those already in need in this country, but such a narrative is bold indeed coming from the political right that eviscerated social programs during their tenure in office. But the CBC took those concerns to the streets of Calgary, and asked the homeless in that place what their thoughts were, if they felt that the Syrians should be passed over in favour of they themselves. And with a single voice, the homeless on the streets of Big Oil Country answered loudly and clearly, that Canada should do everything in its power to help these refugees. That this debate should not be reduced to an “us or them” issue, that Syrians should not be punished in the name of the homeless community.

                And so I wept. This was the Canada that we had very nearly lost. This was the Canada that we always had the potential to be. Oh Canada, indeed.