Oh, Canada...

So this post is coming out of a conversation I had with Tim the other night, so if you like it than thank him, but also thank me cause let's face it I'm the one writing it.

I love my country. I like to think of myself as a proud Canadian. I watch hockey, I drink beer, and I consider myself quite polite. Ever since I was a kid I've had this idea of Canada being perfect. Canada as the peacekeeper, Canada as the home of human rights, Canada as the one country without an embarrassing history. I mean our history is so boring that I've always figured we all just agreed on everything. Like we arrived and complimented the First Nations and asked if we could stay here, and of course they said yes and ever since we've been living in harmony. Unfortunately our history is really no better than that of our neighbors down south.

There are many parts of our history that aren't exactly things to be proud of. Many people don't realize this but Canada took part in slavery. And you just have to say "residential schools" and any self-aware Canadian should feel a wave of disgust come across them. I mean I was in poli-sci the other night and we watched a video about Genocide. One of the guys said that there is no country that does not have some sort of history of genocide. A few years ago I would've thought, "but not Canada right? We're all too nice here, we'd never do something like that." This time I just knew that, yeah our country has committed such atrocities. And it sucks.

It really sucks having a perfect image of something shattered. Whether it's your country, or something else entirely. Whenever you start to look past the perfection you start uncovering the truth, you rarely find anything good. Sometimes it feels like one of the main goals of university is to make you think less of Canada. Really university just makes you think about everything differently, but sometimes I feel professors are going out of their way to make me feel worse about my country.

The bottom line is that Canada is so far from being perfect, and maybe when I say I'm Canadian I don't feel so self-righteous like I used to, but like it or not Canada is my home. And it's going to take a lot for me to stop watching hockey, drinking beer, and being polite.