It’s Canada Day.
A day that used to be a celebration of cherished values like kindness and compassion, acceptance and tolerance, quiet strength and dignity, and a work hard/play hard ethic.
Today, I am celebrating the very fine Canadian men and women I have met since the Covid narrative was unleashed upon an unsuspecting and far-too-trusting public.
I was one of them.
I wore a mask and locked down, in the beginning.
I even banged pots on my balcony as a lone trumpeter played a melancholy version of the national anthem in the evenings of those first innocent days of pandemonium.
I had to unlearn the lessons of an education system and media messaging I now understand were designed to create compliant citizens, not critical thinkers.
I had to let go of the comfort and ease of trust in our institutions and reach for reasoning and truth, no matter how painful or scary.
And I had to grapple with my place in a world that was decidedly more mean and angry than the one I thought I lived in.
But the day I saw the first Freedom Convoy trucks rolling across Canada’s frozen highways, the day I saw the maple leaf flying atop overpass bridges in sub-zero weather, held high and proud by bundled children and their equally bundled parents, was the day I embraced my Canadianness.
It was the day I became a patriot.
For those of us formerly of the left, patriotism is not a word we ever used.
It felt jingoistic and foreign, a term reserved for our enthusiastic neighbours to the south.
My allegiances were to greater concepts like human rights and integrity, the dignity of all God’s children.
But celebrating who we are as a Canadian culture does not negate the value of other cultures.
It doesn’t have to be an either/or paradigm.
Being patriotic can be a this/and proposition.
For many years, I belonged to a Ukrainian dance ensemble.
We also performed Russian and Romani pieces, and even included French Canadian dance in our repertoire.
Each country and region added an appreciation for the beauty and nuance of differences.
Once a year, we held an event called DanceFest, where a wide variety of cultures would display their dances.
When I watched the precision of straight-backed Irish girls along with the power of fierce Maori warrior men, I didn’t rank them.
I appreciated the tapestry of human creative expression.
And so it is I have come to appreciate the unique contribution of Canadians, and to call myself a patriot.
I’m proud of our strength, our courage, our humour, and our kindness.
I also recognize that there were those, in the last few years, who succumbed to government propaganda and sometimes gleefully joined the chorus of hateful division and messaging against the unvaccinated.
I recognize that all of us are capable of the best and worst of human behaviour, and during these times of massive mind control, we lost our way.
We lost sight of our ability to stand up for what is right and have compassion for those whose choices are different than our own.
This Canada Day is an opportunity to take responsibility for who we were, who we are, and who we will become as men and women, and as a country.
When I chose to volunteer as the spokesperson for the National Citizens Inquiry in early 2023, I did so as an act of patriotism.
I did so because I believed that if people were willing to hear the truth of what happened to their fellow Canadians, we could begin to heal our differences.
Only then can we turn our attention to those who have perpetrated the greatest crimes our country has ever experienced.
But first, we have to be willing to see them.
We cannot have reconciliation without first facing the truth.
We have to be willing to take responsibility for our part in allowing these crimes to happen.
And when we take ownership of our division, we can never again be conquered.
We really are all in this together.
But that does not mean we are, or should be, the same.
We each have a role to play in outing the truth and correcting the trajectory of our country.
What is your role?
What is your unique value proposition, as they say in business?
Mine is empowering people to find their own strength, their own value, their own wisdom through coaching and creativity.
And as such, I am taking the next couple of months to get back to my personal growth and arts roots and prepare to relaunch Gather Your Wits as a coaching and inspiration resource.
I have stepped down from my public role with the NCI, which you can find out more about in my wrap-up of The Geneva Project below.
Whatever it is that you have to offer, bring it on.
I need you.
We need you.
Canada needs you.
In the not-too-distant future, how we say these words will depend on each of us…
O CANADA! 🍁
🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏
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Thank you for your partnership in outing the truth and being the change. 🙏
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