Reddit Reddit reviews A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada

We found 5 Reddit comments about A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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5 Reddit comments about A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada:

u/SunRaAndHisArkestra · 3 pointsr/canada

>Get rid of the charter or rights or create a charter of rights and responsibilities.

>Get rid of hyphenated Canadians. In or your out, choose.

>Solve the native problem, either return canada to them and leave, or they become the same as everyone else, no special rights.

>Canadian and Canadian Citizenship should be synonymous but isn't right now.

>Get rid of multi-culturalism as a vision, no nation has ever been successful like that, instead teach tolerance and to value different perspectives.

While I see your point here, I would disagree with you. In my mind and the minds of some of our greatest thinkers this fact has been our greatest strength. You mentioned "Become a truly bilingual country", but perhaps the fact that we hold bilinugalism so dear is that we realize that we are a State made of many Nations. Quebec and the Quebequois are one.

As to your hyphenation point, I'd argue we are all hyphenated, except for the Natives and it is a shame we don't give two shits about them. The fact that you can be a hypenated Canadian is the top reason (in my limited experience) why immigrates appreciate coming here. They understand that in Canada you can be Canadian and you can be Indian, Chinese etc. My partner is Vietnamese, born in Paris, and calls herself Canadian, French, and Vietnamese depending on the context. Infuriating when having an argument with her, yes, but that doesn't mean it's invalid.

As a final point, your idea that we should be a melting pot and not a mosaic is premised on flawed ideas of nationhood based on the European and US models. John Ralson Saul's recent book on this topic, A Fair Country clarified greatly my thoughts in this area. If you don't want to read it his lecture is online both from CBC Ideas and TVO Big Ideas and highly recommended.

Canada, since before first contact and after, has always been (in its ideals, granted) a conversation between parties. And I think that the fact that Europe and the US are having problems with their immigrant populations while we accept more immigrates that any other nation in the world speaks to the success we have made of our model.

The above does not white-wash the negative aspects. It is admittedly a normative claim.

u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/canada

> Canada is very diverse; it's really a conglomerate of several smaller nations

Kinda like thousands of years with very different native cultures living next to each other?

I think most people have forgotten that Canada is a Metis nation; a merging of European and Native values.

The early Canadian settlers said to the natives "Let our sons marry your daughters, and together we will build a country"

u/mirror_cube · 1 pointr/canada

John Ralston Saul is a good place to start: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0670068047/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

He is very good about pre-Canadian history. Realizes and strengthens the roles that First Nations played in early Canada while addressing the realities/atrocities of some of things we have done

u/apiek1 · 1 pointr/firstnations

I have no problem with the comments given so far. But I do think more needs to be done. Until non-aboriginal Canadians begin understand and care about how the aboriginals were marginalized - to the point of aboriginals being ashamed of their background - this problem will emerge again and again! We need to get the schools history curriculum changed. Non-aboriginals should be proud of their aboriginal heritage too. Not an easy task. Start by reading John Ralston Saul's "A Fair Country", lobbying your provincial MP and writing to the media.