Good explanation from the author on how to move from the US to Canada, along with a reason that I think most, if not all, of us would agree with.
Though I think the author is a bit too nervous on a couple of minor points. FWIW I’m from the US originally and I’m fully into the buy Canadian / buy anything but US brands idea, and I don’t have the same reaction to seeing the Canadian flag everywhere - I think it’s great!
It’s not really that different, people can say they’re American or Canadian first but their life experiences are pretty similar on both sides of the border as they both mostly hang around people of their original cultural background in their personal life and some of them do continue to practice the harmful parts of their culture like forced marriage, caste systems, racism, female genital mutilation, they might send their kid out the US/Canada to do it so we can pretend it doesn’t happen, but it does.
It’s perfectly normal as well! It’s natural to hang around people who are similar to us and we would do the same thing if we moved to a country that’s completely different to ours where there was a community of people of the same origin as us!
As for the other side of the equation, racists exist everywhere so the Americans flying their flag might be the white power kind or not just like some Canadians flying the Canadian flag might be racists that would want all migrants out… Or not. The interviewee’s concerns about Canadians raising their flag is pretty funny in that sense…
I know that Anglo Canadians really want to make themselves believe they’re super different from Americans and that Canada isn’t like the USA, but it’s mostly the same thing with a different political system and mostly public healthcare. Sorry to burst your bubble guys.
Mm, I might have agreed with you about the American-like use of the Canadian flag at the height of the trucker convoy protests on Ottawa.
But our current situation is a bit of a different movement, that is Canadians taking back the meaning of the Canadian flag from anti-vaxxers and xenophobes.
The same thing happened in the USA during the Harris campaign, people of all political leanings wave the flag with pride in what they believe they’re country stands for.
Sounds like an overly broad brush.
Because in the end multiculturalism is what happens in the USA, it was just never made an official thing by the federal government like in Canada.