Thoughts on culture, education, and having been a Canadian in the US

Every semester, two or three students who don’t know me drop by my office to ask for advice about how they could move to Canada. I don’t usually have much advice to give them, having only experienced the bureaucracy involved in moving the other way. Today, though, as I was diligently casting my votes in the Canadian Blog Awards I discovered a great blog called “We Move to Canada” that over the last few years has documented a couple’s move from NYC to Toronto.

I’ve only read a few postings on the blog, but have added it to my feed list. One of the things I found fascinating was the insights these blogger offer into what Canada is all about. In fact, it all makes me a bit more homesick than usual. Here’s a bit from a Globe and Mail piece that Laura Kaminker wrote about their move North:

We left behind a large, affordable apartment, great jobs, good friends and nearby family. Waiting for us in Canada was a rented house and a small band of well-wishers we met through my blog (wemovetocanada.blogspot.com). We clutched our résumés, our faith in ourselves and our sense of adventure.
What would we find? Other than Tim Hortons and Don Cherry, the new coins and the new spellings — would it all be pretty much the same?
We knew life in Canada would be different, if only for how we see the United States: foreign wars for profit; unchecked poverty and its twin, rampant violence; increasing government intrusion into citizens’ personal lives; media controlled by the government, and a government controlled by religious fanatics; a corrupt, antiquated election system.
But contrary to what some Canadian cynics say, Canada is not only defined as “not the United States.” Its identity is more subtle than that of the U.S., but then, it’s a more subtle country. Canada doesn’t go around thumping its chest declaring itself The Greatest Nation on the Face of the Earth. Canada speaks more quietly.
I think when Canada speaks, it uses “we” more often than “I.” One might sum up the difference between the U.S. and Canada as individualism vs. community. Of course, both countries have both, but there is an unmistakable difference in emphasis.
The most obvious example of this is national health insurance. Ensuring that every person has access to basic health care requires some sacrifice from everyone — and that’s a trade-off most Canadians willingly accept. Despite whatever problems the system may have, the vast majority of Canadians agree that everyone must contribute toward this greater good.

I’m looking forward to catching up on this blog and to reading it regularly. It got my vote in the blog awards, too.

This news story made me chuckle today.

When we talk about the differences between Canadian and American politics in my classes, student frequently say: “So, the Conservatives are the equivalent of the Republicans and the Liberals are the same as the Democrats, right?” Ummm… no.

In a poll conducted in Canada over the last few days, 1000 Canadians were asked which current candidates they’d favour to be the next president of the US. The results were pretty revealing, I think, of some of the differences between our two countries’ political landscapes.

The survey, provided exclusively to The Canadian Press, says 49 per cent of Canadians expressed a preference for Democrats while only 12 per cent did the same for Republicans.
Even self-described Conservatives — who are supposedly more ideologically in tune with the right-leaning Republicans — favoured the Democrats by a 47-23 margin.
[. . .] Among Republican candidates, Canadian respondents favoured the most socially liberal one.
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani had the support of 6 per cent of respondents, followed by John McCain at 3 per cent, Mike Huckabee at 2 per cent and Mitt Romney at 1 per cent.
In a hypothetical presidential election between Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney, respondents favoured Mr. Obama 49 per cent to 11. And if only Conservatives voted, Mr. Obama would still have won by a 50-17 margin.
I’ve got to think that Mike “Congratulations Canada on preserving your national igloo!” Huckabee is happy that he’s facing voters in New Hampshire tomorrow and not New Brunswick. For one thing, I imagine he might be wondering how he’d fit all those reporters on his dogsled. I keep wondering when that clip from Rick Mercer’s show is going to make the news here in the US.

Online university courses big hit (CBC News)

The free online courses offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are getting more than a million hits a month, an example of the burgeoning interest in internet education.

Including translations on MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) site, the total rises to about 1.5 million hits.

MIT math professor Gilbert Strang says having a world audience ‘is just wonderful.’

(Steven Senne/Associated Press)

Math professor Gilbert Strang’s 18.06 linear algebra course (using and understanding matrices) is the most often downloaded, MIT’s website said; users view his lectures about 200,000 times a month.

I love this story for two reasons. First, as a creator of a couple of online courses with many more in the pipeline (hockey and Canadian literature is next on the agenda), I’m excited about how all these developments are going to transform education. Second, I just had to include the photo of Professor Strang to point out how much tidier my office is compared to his. I feel much better now. Back to work!

Edmontonians blog their way to a world record

Less than a day into the new year, the City of Champions gained a new set of world record holders.

“We will be setting the world record for the largest community blogging event in the world,” organizer Marilyn Jones said when the three-hour event kicked off at 1 p.m.

“Because no one has done this before, we will be setting the record today. And I suspect that by this time next year, we will have a challenge – perhaps from Calgary,” she said.

(Thanks to Steve Cavrak for passing this along)

One of my great pleasures of the last couple of months has been watching my eight-year-old daughter participate in the Vermont Ballet Theater‘s production of The Nutcracker. This year she’s playing the part of an Angel. It’s been a long process of rehearsals which culminates in two performances in at the Dibden Center for the Arts at Johnson State College on Dec. 8 and three shows at the gorgeous, historic Flynn Theater in Burlington this coming weekend. (Here’s a link for tickets if you’re interested.)

Although I helped out backstage at last year’s performances, I’ve been watching the whole process a lot more closely this year. In fact, I’m actually part of this season’s production.

[Read more →]

I’m one of many, many Canadians who is tired of hearing this rhetoric from the Canadian government about how they won’t sign on to any climate treaty without the US doing the same. Canada could play a leading role in this fight and we’re looked at around the world right now as a country that’s not only not doing enough but is hindering the possibility of any significant step beyond Kyoto.

It’s not an accident that Al Gore chose to use hockey as a metaphor today in his speech at the meetings in Bali:

But at that key moment of his speech, Gore talked about hockey, referred to two of the greatest Canadian players ever to play the game and threw a bodycheck at the stance Canada has taken at the UN summit.

Gore heaped scorn on the idea that the world can only have a climate treaty if the United States signs on – the exact position articulated by Canada.

That’s when he used the example of Bobby Hull and Wayne Gretzky. It’s a reference that may have been lost on delegates from such non-hockey-playing countries as Tuvalu, Togo and Trinidad – but not Canadians.

Gore said the world has two choices: feel anger at the United States or move ahead knowing that it will almost surely follow.

“One of the most famous ice-hockey players in history was asked the secret of why he was so good,” Gore said. “He was the best passer in the history of the game, Bobby Hull. Others might disagree (and say) Wayne Gretzky.

“And he said in response to the question: ‘I don’t pass the puck to where they are – I pass the puck to where they’re going to be’.”

“Over the next two years, the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now. You must anticipate that.”

As much as I admire Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, one can’t help but hear Al Gore and wish he were running again. One can only imagine how different this country would have been with him at the helm. On the other hand, what a gift to the world his defeat was in that it gave him time to devote himself solely to making the world think more about the threat of global warming.

Every year on December 6, I mark the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre by taking a moment of silence in class after reading the names of the murdered women. Talking to my students, the vast majority of whom have never heard of the events of eighteen years ago even though it happened only about 90 minutes from here, I cannot help but compare their lives with those of the women murdered at the École Polytechnique.

People across Canada today, and especially on university and college campuses, will be marking this anniversary with speeches, candlelight vigils, and moments of silence. I hope we can all find some time in our classes, homes, or offices to remember the following young women who lost their lives eighteen years ago today.

Victims of the Montreal Massacre at l’École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989

Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Barbara Klucznik Widajewicz
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte

In Canada, December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada. Established in 1991 by the Parliament of Canada, this day coincides with the sad anniversary of the death of fourteen young women who were tragically killed on December 6, 1989 at l’École Polytechnique in Montréal because of their gender.

It’s going to be a busy Spring semester for me, teaching three classes, plus a one-credit winter session course on Margaret Atwood which runs for the two weeks prior to the start of the new semester on Jan 14. I’m teaching two sections of English 182: Colonial/Postcolonial World literatures in English and a senior seminar on The Canadian Postmodern. My syllabus for English 182, which this year will focus solely on recent fiction by native writers in Canada is now available here.

You never know what Google Alerts will bring up on any given day, but today my alert for “Canadian Studies” brought me to a multi-story special feature in the Billings Gazette (yes, as in Billings, Montana) on the Canadian healthcare system. The comments readers have left under these stories are equally interesting as readers debate why they should or shouldn’t help pay for the healthcare needs of “the poor” (one reader’s use of quotation marks, not mine). To my mind, though, the Gazette journalists get it right and they do a great job of pointing out how the Canadian health care system finds its origins in Saskatchewan, and in particular the town of Swift Current (or Speedy Creek as my dad sometimes calls it).

While some of the commenters on these stories spout myths about Canadians flooding the US system and Canadians paying 50% in income taxes, the Gazette gives a balanced take on the pros and cons of the Canadian system. They also help dispel some of these myths, though clearly many of the people leaving comments on the stories didn’t fully read any of the articles. As the Gazette points out,

The tax burden for Canadians is generally higher than in the United States. Data from 2004 say the Canadian tax burden is 33.5 percent of its gross domestic product, while in the United States it was 25.5 percent. But Canadians don’t have to buy insurance or pay out-of-pocket expenses for basic health care.

Canadian officials also point to the low administrative costs of their nonprofit system. Alberta health officials say a mere 3.5 percent of their public health care dollar is spent on administration.

In the United States, private health insurance companies say they spend about 15 percent of premiums on administrative costs and overhead.

There’s also a good story on the doctor currently working in the fine town of Maple Creek. Originally from South Africa, he has a lot of good things to say about the Canadian system:

“The level of care you can provide for every person, for everyone, is basically the same, throughout,” said Le Roux, who moved here with his family from South Africa, in part because he wanted to practice in a broad-based public health system. “You never have to think, ‘Can this patient afford the ultrasound, or the CT scan or the MRI?’ If I think this guy needs the CT scan, I can send him for it.”

The fact that the Canadian healthcare system began in Saskatchewan says a lot about the difference a small, resourceful region can make when they find a creative way to address a problem experienced by the whole country. If you’ve been to Saskatchewan and met the people there, I don’t think you’d be surprised to learn that Saskatchewan is the birthplace of public healthcare in Canada.

Oh, by the way, go Riders!

This is a really cool story…

It is one of Paris’s most celebrated monuments, a neoclassical masterpiece that has cast its shadow across the city for more than two centuries.
But it is unlikely that the Panthéon, or any other building in France’s capital, will have played host to a more bizarre sequence of events than those revealed in a court last week.
Four members of an underground “cultural guerrilla” movement known as the Untergunther, whose purpose is to restore France’s cultural heritage, were cleared on Friday of breaking into the 18th-century monument in a plot worthy of Dan Brown or Umberto Eco.

A “cultural guerilla” movement. I love it. If only more people elsewhere saw the world as they do and took on the responsibility of looking after their own cities, treating them as the cultural treasures that they are: “We would like to be able to replace the state in the areas it is incompetent,” said Klausmann. “But our means are limited and we can only do a fraction of what needs to be done. There’s so much to do in Paris that we won’t manage in our lifetime.” How many things do we pass every day and say “I wish someone would finally fix that!”?

Read the whole story here.