COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. SATURDAY, JULY 1, 2023. The dread Canadian wildfires of late spring/early summer 2023 affect Canadian as well as US cities, suburbs, exurbs, rural small towns, rural townships, district townships (in Northern Ontario) and (especially in Canada) the still quite vast North American wilderness beyond.

And in some parts of the second largest political geography in the world Canada Day fireworks are being cancelled as a result of too much smoke and hard-to-breathe fresh air.

In some no doubt dubious gesture of compensation our patriotic deep thoughts on Canada Day here are illustrated by photos of recent Canada Day fireworks in the six cities of Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton (most northerly city of more than 1 million people in North America), and Vancouver.

This is of course for the most part a very big-city view of Canada. And a new Leger poll nicely reported on by Nicole Thompson at The Canadian Press suggests that big-city Canadians are not exactly the proudest Canadians. (See her June 29, 2023 “Conservative voters less likely to be proud to be Canadian, new survey suggests.”)

The six least populous provinces

The summary chart of the Leger report that Ms Thompson helpfully includes at the end of her online article starts with the good news that Canada-wide the “Total proud to be Canadian (%)” in the Leger “Web survey of 1,512 Canadian adults conducted June 23-25, 2023” was “a strong majority” of 81%.

The chart goes on, however, to reveal more subtle trends above and below the Canada-wide average. By province and/or region, eg, two groups are notably above the 81% average in their proud to be Canadian populations.

First are the two mid-Prairie provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan at 87%. Next are the four provinces of Atlantic Canada at 86%. And then, not surprisingly perhaps (?), all six together in this highest proud to be Canadian sector are also the least populous six of Canada’s present 10 provinces.

Though these six least populous places do constitute a clear enough majority of the 10 provinces, they currently together account for just somewhat more than 13% of the total Canada-wide population. If Leger’s latest reading of at least a slight tendency of the six smallest provinces to host the strongest proud to be Canadian populations is right or correct or accurate in any serious degree, so to speak, that really is something worth thinking about a little longer and harder …

The four most populous provinces

The demographic weight of the confederation is nonetheless increasingly in its four most populous provinces of Ontario (15.5 million), Quebec (8.8 million), BC (5.4 million) and Alberta (4.7 million).

And on the proud to be Canadian issue these four large provinces (with some 85% of the Canada-wide population today) divide into two ostensibly different groups.

On the one hand are the moderately above average provinces of BC (84% proud to be Canadian) and Ontario (83%).

On the other hand are the two rebel provinces of Quebec (only 77% proud etc) and Alberta (only 68% : and here is yet another case of the argument that “Alberta’s role in confederation today is to make Quebec look good.”)

What “proud to be Canadian” really means

As noted in Nicole Thompson’s article (quoting Howard Ramos, chair of the department of sociology at Western University) : “when somebody says that they’re not proud to be Canadian, it doesn’t mean that they’re not patriotic.”

Professor. Ramos goes on : “It might mean that they see the country moving in a direction that is not the direction they believe is right … People can be patriotic, can feel loyal and devoted to their country, without feeling proud to be Canadian.”

Or as similarly urged on Ms Thompson by Daniel Béland, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada :

“Some people, when they think about ‘Are you proud to be Canadian,’ they think about, ‘Are you proud of being under the leadership of Justin Trudeau, are you proud to be under the Liberal leadership.”

“Proud to be Canadian” by political party preference in 2023

All this is nicely borne out by the June 23-25 Leger poll’s numbers on “Total proud to be Canadian (%)” by political party preference.

Note here as well that we are currently, in 2023, in a federal political situation where a Liberal minority government is being kept in office by an agreement with New Democrats.

And thus (it could be said), the above average proud to be Canadian political parties at the moment are Liberals (97%), New Democrats (87%), and Greens (83%).

The below average parties are Conservatives (76%), Bloc Québécois (60%), and (hard right-wing) Peoples Party of Canada (45% — and btw Conservatives are especially numerous in Alberta, and the 60% BQ number is almost certainly closer to the mind of francophone Quebec than the 77% “Total proud to be Canadian (%)” for the province of Quebec.)

Happy Canada Day 2023

We want to end our patriotic thoughts here with a special Happy Canada Day to all 19% of Canadians at large (and varying other percentages by other characteristics) who are not proud to be Canadian in 2023.

Canada is not the kind of country you have to be proud of — especially all the time. And if you really don’t agree with the federal government of the day (or if you are an Indigenous person or other sometimes persecuted minority eg — if such a thing altogether exists or at least ought to in the increasingly diverse Canada of the 21 st century) why should you be proud of what the country is and is not doing?

There are also of course many things about Canada today that could be and no doubt should be changed. And may we all have enough will and energy to see at least some of the changes we are most convinced about actually happen!

Meanwhile, there does remain a fair amount about Canada that works, more or less well enough most of the time, in a turbulent and even sometimes alarming global village today. Happy Canada Day 2023 to everyone who is interested, wherever they may be right now!