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Every lie told incurs a debt to the truth, a debt which must be paid. 

In and or about the mid twenty-teens, Justin Trudeau made the claim 'There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada’. This statement was a weakening of the words his father used back in the 1970s where Pierre Elliot said: ‘Uniformity is neither desirable nor possible in a country the size of Canada. We should not even be able to agree upon the kind of Canadian’ and ‘What the world should be seeking, and what in Canada we must continue to cherish, are not concepts of uniformity but human values: compassion, love, and understanding.’

For me, what the Trudeau family seems to be missing is that ‘compassion, love, and understanding’ are just some of the aspects that make up the core of the Canadian identity. Other terms that were once included to describe Canadians were: courage, resolve, determination, grit, and of course politeness; as such, Canadians were at one time perceived as knightly upon the world stage. 

In considering the words of Trudeau the elder coupled with my additional words I’m reminded of my parents, for my parents carried all of these traits though in different measure. My mother always presented more the words used by Trudeau, with my father typically showing traits more aligned with those words I contributed. 

In years gone past, citizens would refer to their home country as a fatherland or a motherland, and yet neither word accurately describes Canada, Canada being such a young country made mostly of migrants, it holds a floating set of ideals rather than a unique ethnical or religious basis for its national identity. Hence, the recent patriarchs of the Trudeau family have not been 100% wrong, though nor can it be said that the Trudeau family can be considered 100% right. Yes that obvious pun was intended. 

Since July 1, 1867, and even before that, Canada was built by immigrants most of which were British, some French and even some Americans; others also came to what would become or what has been made Canada. In full disclosure my parents are both immigrants, my mother was born in Suomi (Finland) and my father was born in Italy; they met and married in Canada. 

For me, my parents exemplify what it meant to be Canadian. My parents came to Canada at the upper end of childhood, which means that neither had reached their teens yet at the time of their arrival. They each came from a country and culture unique from the other and yet were able to go beyond just cooperating with each other seeing as they fell in love and are still in love to this day. 

They didn’t lose themselves in each other or in their relationship, they stood side by each and held ground against the tempest we commonly call life; in fact they did better than that, they gained ground and prospered. This is the ideal that Canada promised and delivered, then something changed or so it seems. 

In mid summer of 1962, the province of Ontario put forward the first Human Rights Code in Canada. The stated goal of this code and commission was to take note of the economic, moral, and social consequences of discrimination. And at the federal level, the Canadian Human Rights Commission was established in 1977. These two acts for me are two of the tools used to pick the locks that had sealed the gates of the metaphorical Hell we now seem to be neck deep in.

On October 8, 1971 in the Canadian House of Commons, Pierre Elliott Trudeau said: ‘National unity, if it is to mean anything in the deeply personal sense must be founded on confidence in one’s own individual identity; out of this can grow respect for that of others and a willingness to share ideas, attitudes, and assumptions. A vigorous policy of multiculturalism will create this initial confidence. It can form the basis of a society which is founded on fair play for all.’ 

I was 5 years old and in kindergarten when the words above were voiced, and now some fifty plus years later, the intention behind those words has disappeared like a fart in the wind. Any confidence in one’s own identity must come from within and any externalities that prop up an identity will become like a false prosthetic thus atrophying the spirit and a building a reliance on the prop. 

Pierre Elliot’s October 8th message above was naive as it discounted or ignored the idea that humans make choices based on incentives, both internal and external. Internal incentives, outside of biological need, typically are described as virtues or vises; whereas external incentives include but are not limited to: availability, urgency, price, safety, fashion, etc. The naiveté was carried forward by ignoring the influence that historical differences in cultural, religious and attitudes found around the globe affected an individual’s identity. In his time Pierre Elliot wasn’t too far off in his claim ‘can grow respect for that of others and a willingness to share ideas, attitudes, and assumptions.’ mostly because the majority of people entering Canada at that time already shared many ideas, attitudes, and assumptions. 

Seemingly Justin has carried on in his fathers footsteps, while working under the same assumption, or at least I hope so, as there is a ‘new normal’ now in terms of human migration. For now some migrants’ ideas are antithetical to that of the incumbent population. The global has become the local, with all applicable flavours and spices. 

From the use of fire, on to the wheel, then the slide rule, black powder, printing press, and the computer mankind has always liked tools and the use of them. However, as Alfred Nobel found out, a tool can sometimes be used in ways unintended. The intent of the Human Rights laws was to eliminate discrimination based on immutable, or God given characteristics such as race, sex, age, place of origin, religion and more; though, seeing as religion is a belief system, it may change over the course of a lifetime. 

Since inception, additional categories have been added to these acts with the latest being ‘gender identity or expression’. Via bill C-16, the mutable has been made immutable as someone now can identify as ‘gender fluid’; in short, presentation now supersedes substance even in law. There is no ‘my truth’ or ‘your truth’, there is only ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’ for only the truth is unwavering and relentless.