Alanna Scarborough runs with a flag for Canada Day celebrations in Bobcaygeon, Ont. on July 1, 2022.Fred Thornhill/The Canadian Press
Negativity is in the air, and it’s easy to get down on this country. We are constantly being force-fed a narrative about how broken Canada is – and this message, a Toronto by-election result this week suggests, can be rather effective in the vote-attracting department.
So, this Canada Day weekend, please consider a few things that might make you feel slightly less hopeless about this country. I won’t go into the obvious – the things that all Canadians unanimously agree are just wonderful and in absolute-zero need of fixing: the CBC, Air Canada, the TTC, the health care system, the Toronto Maple Leafs. I could go on.
But seriously, folks, there is much to celebrate here. I have plucked a few examples from these very (web) pages in an effort to offer some good, clean Canadian solace to Globe and Mail readers.
I admit the Ontario Science Centre is perhaps a tricky place to start. The Doug Ford government’s snap decision last week to permanently close what Globe architecture critic Alex Bozikovic calls Toronto’s “great Brutalist temple of childhood wonder” was not only devastating but so abrupt, leaving no chance to say goodbye. The roof could collapse under heavy snow, engineers warned.
As Mr. Bozikovic reported, the areas at high or critical risk make up a tiny percentage of the roof panels needing replacement by Oct. 31. But the Conservative government, already eager to move the institution down to the lakefront, isn’t even going to try fixing the problem; instead announcing, just before a long summer, that the place was closed, forever.
So if you want to talk about broken things – roofs, governments etc. – this would be a fine example.
And then something amazing happened. Science-loving philanthropists offered big bucks to keep the Science Centre open. They include former Shopify executive Craig Miller. “If they choose not to do it, we’ll stand up and do it,” Mr. Miller’s wife, Sabina Vohra-Miller, told The Globe. Then, AI guru Geoffrey Hinton offered to donate $1-million.
Canadians care. And they’re willing to shell out for it.
Every Saturday, Paul Waldie’s “Pitching In” series profiles good people helping others: offering free haircuts to people in need; raising money for Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children by jumping out of a plane – the charitable skydiver, a centenarian; even donating their own organs. We are a generous bunch. (Yes, it would be great if none of this help was needed. But it is.)
Death and disease affecting the very famous is nothing to celebrate (well, there are exceptions, I suppose), but in two recent examples, they have shone a light on some great Canadian talent – and grit.
The new documentary I Am: Celine Dion is “an affecting pageant of intense emotional moments,” writes Brad Wheeler. It provides a window into strength and perseverance as Ms. Dion battles a rare neurological disorder.
At Massey Hall on May 23, musicians came together to honour Gordon Lightfoot, who died May 1. It was an all-Canadian evening, Mr. Wheeler reported, with tributes from Allison Russell, Sylvia Tyson, Burton Cummings, Geddy Lee, Tom Cochrane and others. The moment that really got to The Globe’s music critic was a silent one: Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy mouthing the lyrics to All I’m After, as Julian Taylor sang them. “This was not performance,” Mr. Wheeler wrote. “It was private joy in plain sight.”
Now this might sound weird, but another regular feature showcasing Canada’s positive qualities are The Globe’s obituaries. They are full of stories of the ultra-well-known, but also people you’ve never heard of who have made this country better in all sorts of ways. (Maple) syrupy, I know. But true!
An Arctic biologist who, back in the 1990s, demonstrated that climate change was hurting polar bears – animals that subsequently became not just symbols of climate change, but helped people understand the threat of global warming, and care about it. Ian Stirling, “grandfather of polar bear biologists,” died in the spring.
A Chilean-born writer and professor whose 2020 debut novel Là où je me terre, widely read in Quebec, helped illuminate the immigrant experience in that province. Caroline Dawson was only 44 when she died of bone cancer in May.
A pioneering cellular biologist who helped create the foundations of cancer stem-cell research. Connie Eaves developed a groundbreaking technique to separate cancerous stem cells from normal ones. She died in March at 79, from complications related to colorectal cancer.
Sonja Sinclair, an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, who worked as a top-secret codebreaker in Ottawa during the Second World War, deciphering messages sent to Vichy France delegates here – and decades later played a part in the defection of Russian ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov.
I could go on.
There is a lot to be down – even terrified – about these days, yes. But maybe this Canada Day, let’s take a breath and a moment to notice the good around us. It would do us all some good.