YOU GOT THIS, CANADA!!

Kathleen Wynne

My second granddaughter, Claire, is a particularly gentle, encouraging soul. When she sees me doing something hard and is unclear that I know what I’m doing (can she actually lift that large canoe pack?) she is always the first with a hearty “You got this Grandma!”

I feel like we need to give ourselves that collective shout of courage today. Our boys and girls of winter both lost their gold medal rounds in heartbreaking, overtime periods. And I know, our men won curling and we have medals across the board—all of them hard won and impressive beyond imagining. But hockey. It’s ours. So many of us lived in arenas as kids and found connection with our dads through the game. We played hockey. We dated the boys and girls who played hockey. They were the pride of our town. 1972 doesn’t seem that long ago and it’s our game. Did I mention that?!

But this is a special year. Another year, we might be able to console ourselves with the knowledge that we played strong. The Americans are our friends—rivalry between cousins and all that. Next time it’s ours. You know, the platitudes that applied in the before time. But now, we are in a different time. A time that we are struggling to recognize. There is antipathy in the air.

Within the first few minutes of the men’s game, there was jostling that didn’t feel affectionate. It felt and looked downright hostile. There was more riding on this game than the medal. We want to beat the USA right now. Their leader is bullying us and we are pissed.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the way our Prime Minister is managing the erratic, irrational threat from the White House. He remains the grown-up in the room. But not too deeply buried in our, or let me speak for myself, my dark little soul is a desire to fight back hard. I want all the elbows up we can muster. I want to lay out chapter and verse all the things we have figured out this side of the border that make us the caring, diverse society that we are.

I want to pit our life expectancy against that of the United States. We win because of our access to health care.

I want to pit our postsecondary graduation rate against that of the United States. We come out on top again because of more equitable access to publicly funded education.

And our protection of the LGBTQ+ community. And our protection of a woman’s right to choose what is best for her own body. And our gun laws that are obviously and tragically not the entire answer to horrible shootings, have prevented the scourge of violence we see south of the border.

I am well aware that there are flaws in every one of these propositions. In Ontario and Alberta we have governments that are chipping away at public health care and education. In Saskatchewan, we have a government that seems intent on undermining the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ kids and of course, there is always a loud voice denouncing gun control as a liberal plot against rural Canada. These are real battles and for people like me, they are debates that touch the heart of who we are. But we continue to engage them. We listen to them on our public broadcaster. We share in the debate across the country.

Lately, some of those debates are downright frightening. The devolution of the conversation about the appropriate annual immigration numbers into xenophobia feels dangerous and counterproductive given our low national birth rate and the need for a future workforce, not to mention what many of us believed to be a consensus on multiculturalism. Our inability to find a way to combat the rise of Antisemitism and at the same time acknowledge the dangers of Islamophobia worries me deeply. We are profoundly imperfect.

But I will take our imperfection over that of anywhere else in the world. There is good reason that people from around the world seek out Canada to raise and educate their families.

I am a Baby Boomer. Jane and I are living out the last chapter of our lives. Multiple times a week, I conjure Claire’s ‘you got this Grandma’ to get through.  

We were a lucky, indulgent generation. I know that. But we held onto a vision of this country that we believed was possible and that I believe still is. We’re fighting for it now.

So I just want to say to us all: Olympic medal in hockey or not, you got this, Canada!!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kathleen Wynne - Kathleen Wynne was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 2003 as the MPP for Don Valley West. She was Ontario’s 25th Premier and leader of the Ontario Liberal Party from January 2013 to June 2018. Kathleen has dedicated her professional life to building a better province for the people of Ontario. She is guided by the values and principles that knit the province of Ontario together: fairness, diversity, collaboration and creativity.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Air Quotes Media. Read more opinion contributions via QUOTES from Air Quotes Media.