BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following poem, titled 'On Being Canadian,' was submitted by Barrie resident Alastair MacLeod.
Being Canadian, I consider myself eh!-symptomatic.
Sorry…
It’s just that our national animal is a rodent
Our national flower is a tree leaf
Our currency is called the ‘loonie’
A major export is maple syrup
And we dare consider Poutine as a national food…
All that gives us a singular sense of humour.
Some claim that anything north of the 49th parallel
is a frozen wasteland.
It’s no wonder others look upon us as having some sort
of identity crisis.
Truly our ancestors and others more recently
have conducted themselves in a less than humanitarian manner.
Because of it, there is shame and dishonour that continues
to permeate our current consciousness.
YET … I stand proud of my country … despite its foibles and faults.
Proud in our diversity: of climate, landscape, traditions and cultures.
(Where else can you drive three hours to experience Arctic air in one direction
or tropical breezes in the opposite direction?)
But I am proudest to acknowledge that I can savour (‘our’ spelling — not ‘savor’ — American spelling)
all this because of the freedoms I cherish.
Freedoms granted, earned … passionately fought for;
defended.
(Sometimes at the expense of those we have wronged.)
We have proven time and again that we can stand up to any and
all adversity and challenges to our identity…
and generally come out more unified than when we went in. That
time has come again.
Though I am aware of our decidedly variegated past, there are
current threats from neighbours — that’s “neighbours” with a ‘u’
because they are OUR neighbours … not ‘or’ neighbours — I know
that we will overcome such annoyances, learn from them and
grow ever stronger in unity and collective purpose…
Because we are CANADIAN!
(I’m just not so sure about the blackflies and mosquitoes.)
