I Am A Cool Moose

For a moment at the start of the century, Canada felt like we were in the zone. We were a moose with sunglasses on the cover of the Economist – cool, but also Canadian in that we needed someone outside of our borders to confirm it for us.

We were even feeling good enough about ourselves to shout it out load, even if it had to be through the "I Am Canadian" beer commercial, which in itself seems like an appropriately Canadian vehicle.

What were the ingredients for this feeling good about ourselves? We were breaking new ground on ratifying Kyoto, on legalizing gay marriage, and on decriminalizing marijuana use. At the same time, we were generally standing apart from George W. Bush while he inflicted his narrow-minded America upon the world.

In short, we were expanding tolerance and telling the world that Canada was on the side of a more hopeful future. Things weren’t perfect, but we could be proud.

To show how this can also work in reverse: I have a good friend from the U.S. who was in Ottawa shortly after the fall of Baghdad. He’s the kind of guy who has built up a thick skin through long public service, and has a wonderful sense of humour he uses to smooth the rough edges. Over a drink, though, I was shocked when he teared up while talking about Abu Ghraib, about how for him the event was such a violation of everything that America stood for, that as an American it repeatedly brought him to tears even though he had nothing to do with it.

On this Canada Day in 2010, Canada does not bring me to tears, but it does make me sad. If you watch Joe’s beer commercial rant now, it comes across as dated, as about someone we no longer are. We have replaced vision with making do, tolerance with division, and debate with shouting at each other. Ottawa is a log-jam, with elected officials now consistently failing to move forward measures that inspire and engage us, that advance us as a people.

The worst part of this is our abject failure to provide hope to young Canadians that we will step up to the challenge of letting them live their lives with the stable climate that we took for granted. I constantly look at my four year old son and apologize silently for the conflict and diminished opportunity he will inherit. Many of our elected officials have chosen strip mining of tar sands over a clean energy economy, and as a result have replaced the cool moose we once projected to the world instead with a shameless dealer of dirty fossil fuels to addicts everywhere, defending the dead-end past rather than building a better future.

I refuse to accept that this is who we are, and what makes me passionate about my work is that I believe that most Canadians feel the same way I do. We are better than this and will be better than this. We will not get there, though, without coming together to change the behaviour of our leaders. And, for that to happen we must deepen our investments as citizens, as Canadians.

For now, though, a little break. Like thousands of others, I’ll be camping this Canada Day weekend, trying to figure out a way to watch the World Cup games without electricity or cable, and having some beers with friends and family. I’ll reconnect, recharge, and regroup. And then I’ll reengage. I hope you will too.

Happy Canada Day.

Matt Price
Policy Director