Every morning, I drive my wife to work on the 401. I take the highway to Richmond Hill and back, and I see thousands of vehicles on the road. None of them have any Canadian flags, stickers or decals. Not the tractor trailers, not the dump trucks, not the Fords, Lincolns, Toyota’s or Hyundai’s.
Trump’s trade war against us started more than two months ago, but you won’t see a sign of it on GTA highways, or on our local roads either.
I always bring this up on every drive. Finally, my wife said something like “This isn’t my country anyways.” My wife is an immigrant. She came when she was 13. It wasn’t a good experience. “But you have to make it your country,” I said, exasperated because she’s worked more than anyone I know to consciously contribute to Canada.
I was thinking about this when I met my neighbour at Nicaroma Cafe on Oakwood. He brought up the issue of nationalism. He said he was happy there wasn’t much sign of it here. He said back in his home country of Chile, nationalism was used to put down people from neighbouring countries. “No thanks. Not for me,” he said and added his thoughts are with the poorest people in the US who will suffer from this trade war.
I wasn’t expecting this. I digested what he said with my double espresso and swallowed my own nationalist sentiments. I could see his point. I asked him if he felt Canadian. He said he doesn’t feel like he’s from here or from there.
I wanted to see overt signs because I see it as a chance to get together and finally wave the same flag for a good cause in the face of the orange giant down south hell-bent on conquering us. But no one’s going to wave the Canadian flag in the city or the GTA anytime soon.
I spoke to a couple of other Midtowners, and their perspectives were similar. “Toronto is filled with people from everywhere” , “I just came to this country,” and “Canadian flag waving could be seen as right wing, exclusive of others. Even a sign of colonialism.”
My hope was that we could all show a visible sign of resistance to Trump’s plan to take over Canada, like a maple leaf, but it’s not that simple.
At least we’re not buying American, and we’re switching to Canadian-made products. That may be the closest we’ll get to a waving flag.
