Made in Canada

~ Canada is a choice for 38 million of us - it's our home

Canada’s building story has never been clean, easy, equal or painless for anyone who came here and especially for those who were here already …

Citizenship isn’t easy nor simple, nor should it be. It’s worthy of our pride, our work, our tenacity and our outreach to our fellow Canadians - not just today, but every day. But are we worthy of being proud Canadians? … another question for another day.

Today, for those reading this who aren’t Canadians - this is our day, Canada Day, the country’s birthday.

I didn’t come to Canada looking for adventure, opportunity, or reinvention, or as a place of refuge from elsewhere; I was made here.

I was born here.

But “born here” isn’t the beginning of my family’s Canadian story.

I’m the result of someone else’s work.

I didn’t come to Canada for adventure, freedom, opportunity, or some grand design about where life might take me; I wasn’t overholding on a visa, I didn’t arrive by land, air or sea.

My parents were already here - they were made in Canada.

I was made in Canada too.

So was the woman I married.

She was born here.

So were our two children.

They were born here too.

So were our two grandchildren, and their father, and his parents too.

They were born here too.

Born here is a familiar and frequently seen pattern, and we don’t have to wear a label of having ‘made in Canada’ sewn into our bodies.

But that’s not new, not original;

“being born here” is not an achievement.

It’s an inheritance; it’s automatic citizenship.

But it sits on top of decisions made before we arrived, by people who crossed water, borders, language, fear, poverty, and uncertainty - from far away, they came here; and the case of my family, not to big cities, but to so many places that could be called ‘nowhere,’ so it was clear, they were in the middle of nowhere …

Like so many, they made a place, a family, a community; they grew grain and animals, they grew food, families and communities that built roads, schools, churches, villages and towns.

All four of my grandparents were born somewhere else.

They were farmers, somewhere else.

They came to Canada not for romance, comfort, or certainty, but for the opportunity to do work they knew - farming. Backbreaking work. Prairie work. Homesteading work.

They came to break raw land, build shelter, raise families, pay their way with cash and sweat, and earn whatever future that broken land might allow.

My grandparents came to Saskatchewan, as many others did, or they came to Manitoba and Alberta, to build farms, towns, churches, schools, rinks, roads, businesses, and communities.

Some brought money. But most brought little. And so many more weren’t farmers at all. They were merchants, doctors, labourers, railway workers, cowboys, tradespeople, lumberjacks, cooks, and clerks and teachers, and dreamers with no luxury of dreaming too long.

Canada wasn’t a vacation, wasn’t a pit-stop place to work for a season or two, or a try-it-out and work-for-awhile place.

It was a decision.

It was a choice, not an easy one; for hard work, hardship and harsh reality with great land, great growing conditions and winters of the harshest kind.

A great choice; they committed their lives to it, to us, their children and grandchildren.

I’m entirely and completely grateful. I’ve never had cause to doubt the reality, responsibility and value of citizenship I got so easily - I only needed to be born here. I’ve it easy, while so many have had it very hard to get here, to stay here, and it’s been harder still for our original citizens, our first Canadians - and whether we’ve just come here or our ancestors came here 40,000 years ago - we all have a connection beyond a passport or a S-I-N number - we are one country, and today is our annual celebration of what a great place this is and what our collective value as citizens is; so precious, appreciated, valued, treasured and ours to sleep contentedly every night, knowing we’ll we wake up again as Canadians, in Canada. In my case, Albertan too, but Canadian first and always.

On Canada Day, I’m less interested in slogans than gratitude for those who came, those who stayed, those who built, those who served, and those who were here first. We all get to be Canadian. Being a proud Canadian is one part state of mind, and one part choice/decision.