An American friend forwarded an email this morning – one of those chain emails that gets passed around and gives everyone a chuckle except yours truly, because I lack the gene that allows you to enjoy chain emails (and LOLcats).
This particular one got my goat because it’s a list of things that make Canada better than the United States. And as much as I love this frozen blank wasteland with the sodden green lower left-hand corner, I can’t let some of these stand unchallenged. (I’ll give the Tim Hortons vs. Dunkin’ Donuts battle-of-the-transfats a pass, except to say it’s like a choice between freezing to death, and freezing to death while trying vainly to convince frostbitten fingers to roll up the rim to see if you’ve won another cup of godawful coffee. I just can’t feel smug about living in the birthplace of Timbits.)
Here are the claims that finally spurred me to reply:
14. Our civil war was fought in a bar and it lasted a little over an hour.
15. The only person who was arrested in our civil war was an American mercenary,who slept in and missed the whole thing… But showed up just in time to get caught.
Er, no. For one thing, this wasn’t so much a civil war as a revolt against colonial rule; the 1837 Rebellions were our War of Independence, except that up here, the British won. (We ultimately got responsible government out of the deal, but not genuine political independence for another century.)
And there were actually two loosely connected rebellions: one in what’s now Quebec (“Lower Canada”), and the other in what’s now Ontario (“Upper Canada”). The rebellion in Lower Canada was a lot bloodier and longer than the writer claims. With dozens of combat deaths on both sides, and executions of Patriote leaders by the British, this was no hour-long bar fight. The Upper Canada rebellion was much less intense, but still saw killings and, afterward, executions.
Why am I feeling so cranky and pedantic? Partly because I sometimes think smugness is our national neurosis. Partly because I’ve quit coffee, and it’s having an impact. But also because tomorrow, December 4th, is the 170th anniversary of the beginning of the Upper Canada rebellion — which did in fact begin in a tavern, but didn’t end there.
That strikes me as a pretty good day to remember our history, and celebrate the parts of it that are worth celebrating and learn from the parts that aren’t – and to take a harder look at 1837. At one level, the rebels failed horribly… but on another, they succeeded, launching Canada down the road to democracy.
I can draw a lot of inspiration from that story. To turn it into a dumbed-down caricature of ourselves as goofy, harmless drunks… well that, too, is part of our national neurosis.
As the saying goes, those who forget their history are doomed to fail the pop quiz.
One last thing: if you’re looking for civil conflict in Canada’s history, there’s a much sadder story to be found a half-century later with Louis Riel, Gabriel Dumont and the North-West Rebellion. I doubt that will be turning up on too many lists of what makes Canada better than anyone else.
