Happy Canada (you hosers!) 🇨🇦🥓☃️

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was recently quoted as saying “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada....There are shared values — openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first postnational state.”

It’s a little disconcerting when your so-called leader says your nation doesn’t have any core identity. Of course we Canadians all know it’s true. Canada has struggled with identity for decades.

Canadians tend to compare themselves to Americans them being our closest neighbor and supposedly closest to us in values but in reality Canada scores low on the following points that Americans score high on:

1. individualism and competitiveness 2. entrepreneurship and high risk-taking 3. utopian moralism 4. inclination to political crusades populist or anti-establishment and anti-elite tendencies 5. God-and-country nationalism 6. intolerance for ideological nonconformity

According to a recent survey Canadian values are strongly dominated by:

Equality and fairness. Consultation and dialogue. Accommodation and tolerance. Diversity Freedom Peace and Nonviolent change.

I think here lies the secret to the Canadian character and something unique that Justin Trudeau alluded to when he said we are the “first postnational state.” Post nationalism is linked to the expansion of international human rights and the recognition that we are part of an interconnected global community.

We’re possibly the only industrialized nation on Earth that is not hung up on nationalism. Canadians just don’t have the pride associated with patriotism that the leading developed nations are infected with. We recognize our strengths and weaknesses and we’re okay with it. We just don’t take ourselves too seriously.

So pour some maple syrup on your bacon and have a Happy Canada 🇨🇦 Day!!