so moving beyond the basics of of Canada what are some of the common perceptions that people have about about what Canada is right what what do people within Canada what do people outside of Canada think of when they think about this country and so some of the common things that people think about when they uh think about Canada they think about particular symbols they think about the maple leaf they think about and maple syrup for instance they think about hockey or LaCrosse or they think about Tim Hortons which is a very uh is a chain a coffee and donut chain across Canada or they think about sort of the physical geography of Canada as another common symbol that people uh that comes up comes into people's minds that they conjure in their minds when they think about Canada so one of our uh one one set of famous artists of Canada are called The Group of Seven and these were seven Canadian male and female painters who drew many Landscapes of Canada's lands like its mountains it's Rivers uh you know it's physical geography and this this uh these paintings about afghanist physical geography sort of captured the essence of Canada it captured the essence of of the beauty of Canada the solitary the rugged nature of of of Canada you know this Canada was this rugged Wilderness that we that we as Canadians tamed uh and brought under our control as sort of some of the some of the images it speaks of the purity of Canada uh in our our links to the land and so you saw this photo that or this this picture of a is an example of one of the paintings of the group of seven that's one of these famous images um that that were painted by by the group of seven and even even today artists continue to to to paint sort of animals and geography of Canada many indigenous artists uh could have added to these these sort of European style images by crafting unique indigenous interpretations and depictions of some of very similar images but using very powerful uh techniques that are different from what were used by the group of seven so so that's what people think about camera you know these are some of the symbols the popular cultural symbols that people think about when they think about Canada but if we move Beyond these sort of images other conceptions of Canada Focus sort of on uh this Advanced Democratic country you know we're one of the best Democratic countries in the world we're a tolerant Society you know we we welcome everybody we're a diverse Society you know we're not just one ethnicity or race but we welcome people from all over the world of multiple race ethnicities genders it's a safe country we don't have the sort of conflict and wars that have occurred in other places like you know even the United States we never had a revolution or a Civil War and we're a free place we have a lot of freedoms they think people also when they think about Canada they think about how we're a sort of a nicer a gentler version than the United States of America you know we share this very long border with the United States almost 9 000 kilometers if you saw in the last map it's a generally undefended border there are 120 border crossings by land but you know we don't have lots of soldiers at our borders compared to some other countries and and you know the United States is uh our biggest trade partner it's got you know we own almost 2.6 billion dollars in goods and services a day crosses the Border 2.6 billion dollars okay so people you know people lots of people sort of think of us as Americans except we're nicer and gentler and that's because again we share this border with the United States and we engage in all this trade now when people talk about the United States they they describe it as this Melting Pot it's a place where you know everyone's diversity or identity are melted down in a pot they're and reforged into sort of a single homogeneous American identity you know everyone can come come to America you're welcome to come to America but you're all going to be turned into Americans you're not you know you're the idea the sort of a common description about the United States is that you know come here live the American dream uh you know you're going to adopt the the ideas of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness come here because the United States is a land of opportunity if you just work hard enough you can succeed like any other American um but again the idea is you know it doesn't matter if you're Italian or Chinese or or any other ethnicity you're gonna cut once you come here and become an American you're an American first you're Mel it's a Melting Pot you're all melted into one into one sort of pot to become the same Canada Canada in comparison is not described as a Melting Pot rather the the kinds of phrases that are used is that Canada is a cultural Mosaic or it's a community of communities so rather than melting people into one identity rather than assimilating them Canada is thought to be more tolerant we're nicer we're more diverse we welcome diversity we protect diversity we want immigrants and refugees to come to Canada and we want them to maintain their identities right that's the idea of this cultural Mosaic you know Mosaic are all these little pieces very different colored pieces that when they're put together they form a cohesive picture and that's the idea of the cultural Mosaic that we're all individual you know or Filipino Canadian and we're we're Filipino or we're Chinese or we're you know we're from Somalia or were from India uh and we all have our our identities and but when you put them together they form this picture of what it means to be a Canadian that's sort of the cultural Mosaic idea so and so that's the idea of like we're a welcoming country we welcome immigrants we welcome refugees to come here be who they be you know be who they are but also to be part of the Canadian experience so if you think about Canada if you think about ref you know our reputation for immigration refugees all you have to do is think about the Syrian refugee crisis which is mentioned in the textbook this crisis happened in 2015 and 2016. you know syrians were fleeing the country looking for places to go and Canada welcomed and resettled 25 000 Syrian refugees across Canada including a bunch in in London compare that to to the United States The Melting Pot they only admitted 16 000 refugees during that same period even though they're you know this great superpower and if you look at in 2022 the Canadian government announced they would welcome somewhere between 55 000 and 70 79 500 refugees and protective persons with a specific focus on Afghan uh eritian Haitian Venezuelan and Yuga refugees given the instability in those countries and that's just refugees that doesn't include the the immigrants or not refugees right so not only does Canada in terms of common perceptions Canada not only is Canada thought to be welcoming a welcoming place for immigrants and refugees but but people think of Canada as being this place that is committed to protecting ethnic and racial diversity it's committed to protecting our individual and Collective identities related to our religious religion language gender and sexual orientation among other kinds of diversity so again when people think about Canada they think about that cultural Mosaic whereas in the United States they think about sort of this this Melting Pot another term that's been used to describe Canada that's related to the cultural Mosaic idea is this idea of community of communities this was a phrase that one of our former Prime Ministers Joe Clark who was a concert Progressive conservative leader and prime minister uh in the late 1970s he he used this term community of communities to describe Canada you know we're not just a community but we have all these we're Community made up of all these different sorts of of different communities uh whether it's Quebec you know around language or or race or region and he saw that as a strength he saw this as a as a thing you know we we celebrate difference but we're also a community a community that that is cohesive and the like and you know so this notion of diversity people have tried to study it and so will chemical a very famous uh philosopher he describes Canada and it's different you know reflecting again Canada's diversity he describes Canada as a multi-national State a multi or a multi-nation state that our national identity isn't just one nation like The American Nation you know we don't have an American Dream an American Nation or an Italian Nation the Canadian nation is a multi-dation it has multiple Nations and in particular according to chemical we have three nations we have English the English Canadian Nation we have a French Canadian nation and we have an indigenous a set of indigenous Nations so two linguistic French and English and then one sort of more more based in identity racial and ethnic identity indigenous nation and that these are the three founding nations of Canada these are the three nations that were here in Canada and were were part of the building of Canada and so our you know our identity is built around this multinational identity and where this multi-nation reality and and that speaks again to this safe tolerant diverse nation is what is assumed about Canada uh there's another another scholar by the name of John Ralston Ralston Saul who talks about Canada's having a metis identity and and by that and we'll talk about metis identity in more detail in future lectures but for now you know he was speaking about the metis identity as a term to capture the mixing of the three nations to produce a unique Canadian identity but also a unique uh economic set a set of Canadian unique Canadian political economic and cultural institutions so you know Canada is diverse we don't just melt everyone in together we we we we mix and match and we we bring together different different ethnicities and different races and different genders different religions and out of that we form this unique set of Institutions uh that that celebrate that that pluralist pluralism of of Canada and so you get you get sort of unique institutions you get for instance if we think about Canada as we'll learn about in more detail the United States is seen as this very individualistic place right it's about every person has the chance to succeed but in Canada we have individualism and collectivism we believe in individual opportunity uh that people should have the individual opportunity to succeed but we also believe in Collective rights we believe that groups individual groups have have rights as well that you know it's not just about individuals but Quebec French individuals and religious individuals all have potentially special sets of Rights so we're you know we're kind of weird in that way perhaps um you know we have a very strong welfare state here we have a strong collectivism where we we say yes you all should have the opportunity to succeed but also we know that that you may not succeed that there may be barriers to success and so uh we you know we we offer what's called a strong welfare state a string of social programs that are designed to help people overcome the sort of individual barriers that they might have so we have Universal Health Care and a subsidized education system among other kinds of things uh yeah and so you know when I traveled to the United States for instance people are curious about our health care System they're curious about they can't believe how little it costs us for the you know in terms of the kind of Health Care that we're able to receive you know the cost of it to have a baby in the United States versus having a baby in Canada it's night and day for instance people are are amazed at how generous our social programs are or during the covet pandemic the Canadian government was able to quickly distribute thousands of dollars in relief money uh as to people who were whose to Canadians who had suffered under the covid-19 pandemic what are some other assumptions or perceptions about Canada or so you know in addition to being known as a tolerant and diverse country Canada has a reputation of being a very safe and peaceful country so when people think of the United States they think of the American Revolution right we're going to overthrow Britain and they you know we're going to fight the red coats and and uh use weapons and guns and bombs and and we're going to fight them fight the the British and we're going to declare independence uh by by military might or they think about in terms of the United States they think about the American Civil War think of all of them the movies and novels and and other cultural things that have been produced around the American Civil War where the north was fighting the South and then I fought a bitter and costly War over slavery uh among other issues and you can think of other countries too not just the United States European countries countries in Asia where they've had you know multiple coups or and you know multiple constitutions even Latin America multiple constitutions uh uh world wars or conflicts with their neighbors you know when people think of Canada they don't think about that they don't think about they don't uh they think Canada's boring they think you you know Canada hasn't had any conflict Canada Canada hasn't had any real wars or revolutions like what's occurred in other countries or even just in the United States they think about a country when they think about Canada they think about a country that peacefully came together in 1867 it was it was about negotiation and compromise it wasn't about armed Revolution against Britain it was about hey let's get together and negotiate a union and let's negotiate with Britain what that Union would look like and what its relationship would be to the to the Empire it was a you know instead of a a civil war they negotiated a federal system where you know the national government would would ensure that National priorities are met but you'd have a set of provincial governments under Canadian federalism where uh diversity and difference would be protected right so for instance you know the the Catholic and Protestant Traditions you know English Canada is Protestant French Canada was Catholic but by by having federalism you and and and uh you know you allowed you allowed French Canadians in Quebec uh by having a provincial government you allowed them to maintain their French Traditions their French uh systems of of law for instance and they're French systems of property you know the senorial system which was mentioned in the in the in the textbook for instance the senioral system of property um and so that's what we think about Canada you think about a country that became independent from Britain not through War but through peaceful negotiation peaceful compromise and Democratic processes they think of you know even more you know even more recently uh they think of former prime minister Pierre Elia Trudeau you know going to England in the in the 1970s 1980s to ask for Independence you know to they think of the queen coming into Canada to sign the documents that would uh that would allow Canada to have more you know more Independence and to reform its Constitution and all this happened without a single shot fired without a single drop of blood being [ __ ] in Contra and shed in contrast to the United States where there was a revolution Canada has this reputation for peace for order and for good government and these are three words that appear promo prominently in our Constitution that Canada's principles are peace order and good government and these principles are are in contrast to the more active and aggressive American principles of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness so as a result you know from this reputation you know Canada for many decades Canada was known as the Peaceable Kingdom the Peaceable Kingdom this term the Peaceable Kingdom was meant to capture our our name our tranquil our and our peaceful Essence not only as a country but as a society it's a term that sort of tried to capture how we are strongly committed to compromise we're strongly committed to gradualism you know we change slowly we don't engage in Revolution we change slowly peacefully the term Peaceable Kingdom captures our deference to Authority you know we we listen to Authority we don't just try and be the boss uh like in the United States saying you know you know the Americans saying we know what's going on we don't need Britain to tell us what to do Canadians are much more deferential to Authority this sort of uh was sort of the Assumption so in 19 and this was a reputation for much of our history for especially for the first half of our history in 1969 again our then prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau who by the way is the father or was the father of uh prime minister Justin Trudeau who's been prime minister since 2015. up to the present in 2023 uh and and onwards uh that Canada the Pierre Trudeau described Canada as being a product of understanding not conflict we are the trustees of reasonableness not violence so again Canada is a product of understanding not conflict Canada or we we are the trustees of reasonableness not violence so actually this this opinion this assumption this perception of Canada is you know seems reasonable for lots of reasons if you think about for instance um if you think about uh Canada and you think about uh U.N peacekeeping forces Canada invented the idea of U.N peacekeeping forces U.N peacekeeping forces are multinational uh armies forces you know of made up of several battalions from multiple countries that the United Nations sends to countries where where war or unrest or Civil War is likely to occur and they go there basically to try and maintain the peace and Canada invented that and that's where part of our reputation comes from especially internationally that we're the inventors of peacekeepings We're the Peaceable Kingdom so and we invented the peacekeeping force and this came out of World War II in 1947 Canada started to build this idea of a peacekeeping force when it sent troops to Korea as part of a United Nations effort to supervise the new elections in South Korea so they were holding South Korea was holding new elections there's a new an emerging young democracy and so we sent forces as part of the U.N to help ensure the elections occurred peacefully and then in 1950 we sent troops to protect the newly elected government there from being toppled from instability but the big moment was in 1956 when Britain and France worked in an alliance had in Alliance with Israel to seize control of the Suez Canal in Africa this is in Egypt basically and these three countries seized the Suez Canal after Egypt the Egyptian government had nationalized had taken control of it um now the rest of the world condemned this these actions by Britain France and Israel so the United States for instance condemned the actions of Britain and France and Israel uh to seize the Suez Canal and there was a there was a lot of the world at the time was was really concerned about this they thought there was going to be amazing if you can think about it a major war between the U.S Britain France you know these were allies in the World War II even think about today right these are allies but at the time in 1956 there was worries that there was going to be armed confrontation uh in that region between these superpowers so as a way of defusing the situation are then foreign affairs minister Lester B Pearson who later became prime minister he suggested that the United Nations send an international Force to Egypt and that it would position him position itself physically between the warring factions to prevent any kind of hostilities from occurring so this was the idea you presented to the U.N the U.N loved this idea and the Secretary General of the U.N after some initial hesitation developed a plan to put this idea into action and that was the create the result was the creation of the United Nations emergency Force which was the prototype for the kinds of Peace peacekeeping operations that we see today uh in the world so what made the unef different from previous peacekeeping operations was that it was a multi-nation force and it was designed to separate fighting forces not just to observe right so so you know the other other previous trips for instance in terms of Canada to Korea it was only mainly about observing but now with the unef the idea was to sort of separate the fighting forces so the way you do that is you create checkpoints across the country preventing you know conflicting groups from being able across across the country to fight and these these the the unef and peacekeeping forces since then they weren't meant to be these highly powerful uh forces they were mainly armed with small and light weapons right uh to and and the job again was to set up physical barriers to impede movement and prevent conflict and this idea helped diffuse the Suez Crisis and as a result uh Lester B Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 and he became known in Canada as the father of peacekeeping right so because this idea was so successful Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize I became known as the father of peacekeeping so if you think about this you know if you think about the Peaceable Kingdom it not only comes from our internal political history which has been painted by our Elites and by storytellers as being this bloodless peaceful boring internal political history with no war or revolution but this reputation for the Peaceable Kingdom also comes from our our role in world politics and International International Affairs right where the Brokers of Peace we send peacekeepers we invented peacekeeping we we're working to to create peace not not not war so when violence does occur in Canada or by Canadians you know the natural response for most Canadians is that well that really isn't Canada when violence happens or when violence is perpetrated by Canadians it's like that's not that's not Canadian that's not actually uh really Canada that's not who we are Canadians are not violent we are not violent that's sort of the picture and so what happens is we get some storytelling about what happens you know when when Canadians perpetrate violence when Canadians engage in violence we describe them as miscreants or deviance right these are people who are not real Canadians they're miscreants or they're deviants uh there's something wrong with them right or they have ill intentions they're not the norm the the second way that that we describe these perpetrators of violence are that these were individuals that were directed to do Violence by alien or foreign conspirators right so alien not not the aliens in space but aliens being non-canadians foreign foreign powers foreign actors we're making our Canadians behave not like real Canadians okay so indeed in in 2023 we see some of this language uh Canadians were starting to get worried about uh the potential of Chinese foreign interference in our federal elections that there were Chinese agents that were causing all sorts of problems with our political system their reports about uh prominent government and officials you know politicians and Public public servants they were being influenced by by Chinese government or they were foreign agents themselves that were trying to ensure that uh there was a minority government rather than a majority government we'll talk about that in the future about the difference between those um so you know so in those in these instances it's about oh well Canadians aren't aren't behaving badly it's because they're being directed to behave badly by Foreign actors and then finally sometimes Canadian a Canadian misbehavior is is explained the way as these are Canadians who are extremely frustrated or are socio-economically deprived of something and so when violence happens it's because these Canadians had no choice they were pushed to behave outside of the normal Canadian experience by things that are out of their control you know they're way too poor or they've been shut out of decision making and they become extremely frustrated they become overly emotional but that's not Canadians Canadians were safe and easy going and tolerant but sometimes so these other people who are engaging in poor Behavior it's because it's not their fault so when you think about these sort of narratives um uh and you think about the Peaceable Kingdom similar narratives are told about our treatment of French Canadians and Indigenous peoples right that you know more recently there's been a lot more later on in our history there's a lot more disagreement and discussion about how Canada has as poorly and may have poorly treated uh French Canadians and have engaged in in awful practices towards indigenous peoples but the prevailing story that the prevailing assumption and the prevailing story that was told by our Elites for many many decades for most of our history is that you know we're the Peaceable Kingdom and we treated French Canadians and Indigenous peoples justly that's sort of the narrative that was being told so when people talk about um the multinational character of Canada being English French and Indigenous when they talk about French Canadians they're talking mainly about Quebec people living in Quebec and Zola Quebec was this French Colony started by France it used to be known as New France Quebec eventually becomes part of the British Empire due to Wars in Europe where they lost and so uh Britain takes over New France tries briefly to assimilate them but eventually decides for most of its history to allow Quebec to remain its distinct identity okay so this long-standing narrative told by English Canadians was that look co-breakers got conquered French Canada was conquered but we allowed them to remain to keep their diversity through federalism they were allowed to remain Roman Catholic instead of being converting to protestantism they can keep their legal system their civil uh civil law system their codified laws rather than adopting the British common law system so indeed and civil law continues to exist in Quebec for instance they had their own property rights system like the scenarial system which is described in the textbook the church was allowed to run Quebec Society for many decades and they had always had done that since since the arrival of French settlers until about the 1960s and even today the the sort of the narrative about the Peaceable Kingdom is that Quebec has allowed many special privileges you know this we call this asymmetrical federalism Quebec is treated differently from the rest of the provinces they have the right to protect and promote the French language over any other they have some control over immigration these kinds of things this is sort of the dominant narrative it's the same thing with indigenous people that for much of our history the dominant of narrative is that Canada is this great tolerant diverse country and that that Canada has treated its indigenous peoples with respect and benevolence that's sort of the narrative that was told that the narrative for much of Canada's history was that Canada is this good and gentle colonizer it helped and it tried to help indigenous people's modernize and assimilate into contemporary Society because that will allow them to to grow and to to be just like the rest of other Canadians and enjoy the the the benefits of of of modern modernity modernity so we you know Canada said we're going to move them off their lands we're going to settle them into what's are called reserves special special tracts of land where they can learn farming they can learn European languages because this will allow them to escape poverty uh they were sent sent to residential schools that indigenous children were taken from their families and sent to live at these boarding schools that were run by different Christian churches like the Catholics and the anglicans to other Protestant groups where they would be taught in these indigenous children would be taught Western education Western language Western religion and again this was seen as being benevolent by many Canadians it was it was framed as being benevolent we're trying to help these people was what Canadians were being told um and you know indeed one historian has tried to argue once argued that residential schools uh were positive because it helped equip indigenous peoples with the necessary education to navigate our political and economic systems and that in turn allowed them to better Advocate more effectively uh for their communities in the courts uh in Parliament and the like but of course as we'll talk about later um the res that you know these these supposed benefits uh if they actually exist are far away by the by the sort of the we're far outweighed by the genocidal the genocide the cultural genocide and the real genocide that was uh inflicted upon indigenous communities through residential schools we'll talk about that in a moment but at any event the peaceful and benevolent and tolerant reputation reputation this peaceful benevolent and tolerant reputation is the dominant or was the dominant one in Canada that it's the one that Canada had for most of its history it's a reputation that continues to exist today in in some parts of Canada but also in many parts of the world it's why many Canadians and many Americans too when they travel they put a Canadian flag on their backpack or their shirt because they know that they'll be treated well by others due to this due to Canada's reputation um in terms of things we've talked about it's International reputation like peacekeeping or helping to liberate France or the Netherlands or Belgium during World War II but the reality as we'll talk about in our final lecture for this week is that the Canadian experience is much more complicated much more or much less black and white much Messier and dirtier and and less pristine than what this reputation I've discussed might suggest so we'll turn to that next