Earlier this week, Stephen Colbert, the enthusiastically patriotic and clueless character played by Stephen Colbert, television star, interviewed Ujjal Dosanjh, the Member of Parliament for the riding of Vancouver South.
Colbert leafed through papers and performed exaggerated vocal warm up episodes while Dosanjh waited patiently.
"Ok, said Colbert, looking around. "I'm ready... Can we get the Canadian guy in here please?"
Dosanjh, who was born in India and who represents a riding that is 45% Chinese-Canadian and 13% Indo-Canadian, smiled as a (scripted) staffer explained that the MP was sitting in front of him. "I'm so sorry, I just thought I'd be getting some guy who looked like his name was Gordon. So this is also Canadian?" said Colbert. "This is also Canadian," replied Dosanjh firmly.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have based their success on spot-on skewering of the American media, so I guess it's not surprising that Colbert made a point that much of the NBC coverage has failed to broach: that stereotypes of Canada don't necessarily apply to Vancouver.
Mounties, back bacon and references to the Arctic abound in the "local color" segments on NBC morning shows and between events. And sure, most Canadians embrace these stereotypes as symbols of our culture, but it bears mentioning that they apply to a greater or lesser extent depending where you are in the country.
In much of the coverage of these games, Vancouver and Canada seem almost interchangeable. The city is being presented as the paradigm of Canadianness, when -- in non-Olympic years --we're often seen as the "least Canadian" of the major cities.
The rest of our country scoffs at our new-age, yoga-loving lifestyle, for instance. Way out on the West Coast, we've been left to develop our own culture, one that skews left, and laidback. "Less plaid, more Lululemon," wrote a friend from Montreal when I asked, via Facebook update, about the difference between Vancouver and the rest of Canada.
And, of course, our winters are laughable compared to anywhere else in the country, several others piped up. (The American coverage has actually done a decent on this one, largely because the lack of snow on Cypress Mountain and the beaming sun, daffodils and cherry blossoms in the city made it impossible to ignore.)
Other Canadians I asked noted the lack of Tim Hortons in the city, or the fact that Vancouver is less francophone than many of the provinces, and has a much stronger Asian cultural influence. Actually, people had no trouble at all listing several ways in which Vancouver differs from the rest of the nation.
Of course, I understand that Olympic Games operate at the level of nations, not cities. And I understand that the relationship between host city and country is one of synecdoche: a part standing for a whole. But I find my civic pride and national patriotism butting heads. On the one hand, I'm proud to see Vancouver being presented as a symbol for Canada, but on the other, it's strange to see these internal frictions suddenly wiped away.
As a friend from Toronto recently told me when I asked him if he felt proud to see the Olympics in Vancouver:
"Yeah I guess. But it's kind of weird, since I grew up hating the place."
Next in this series:
The Vancouver Games: The Spotlight Goes Out
Previously in this series:
(Hockey) Pride Comes Before a Fall
Follow Frances McInnis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FrancesMcInnis
Mike Morrison: My Tim Hortons Double-Double Happily Runneth Over
So, from Signal Hill to the Empress Hotel in Victoria, Canada is what it is in each and every place; All Canadian and never quite the same.
Yeah, sure the debt doesn't exist in Gordon Campbell's mind because he's good good accountants to cover up where all the money got spent badly, and to cover any tracks of where a little went into someone's pocket it shouldn't have. Enjoy the new HST, as it's part of the way to pay for that debt....which can't be paid with revenues from BC Rail and BC Hydro anymore because, well, Campbell gave away the railway (and gave CN a tip, in fact, for taking it) and BC Hydro has been forbidden to build new generation facilities and has been forced by Campbell to buy power at three times market rates from new private sector power companies, most of which are (like so much else in this province, and increasingly) American-controlled.
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The destruction of business to build the new Canada Line, the harassment of the homeless because they didn't fit the "picture" Vancouver wanted to portray. The tripling of construction costs.
If your name truly does represent that you live in BC then you really should be much more aware of what happens in your Province. You can start your reality check by reading these:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/business/july-dec09/olympics_10-01.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/10/06/bc-olympic-village-overrun.html
http://www.ctvolympics.ca/about-vancouver/news/newsid=11860.html
Some backwoods place in Alberta might be equivalent to Kentucky, not Vancouver. I don't get what you mean by your comparison.
Vancouver is to all of Canada as Los Angeles is to the United States (and is in a similar relation to the province of BC that LA is to the rest of California). La-la Land at one end of I-5, Lotusland at the other. Surrey even comes off as a trashy Orange County......and similarly caught up in its own vanity and make-believe glitziness....
Still, to be united, if only for a couple of weeks, is always nice.
The torch relay was detoured several times because of protesters. No one gathered up the protesters and put them in jail. No, they just moved the relay aorund them. thousands protested the day of the opening ceremonies and all was good.
Then came the day of the anarchists and as most in this city would agree (and the polls show it), the minute you start causing property damage and endangering people, you should lose your right to protest.
Interestingly enough, one of the arrested violent anarchists was an American. If you ask me, we weren't turning enough people aside at the border.
(Mind you, I'm a sucker for a decent cup of coffee and "Tim Bits" at a Tim Horton's, though. :-) )
The whole country is 'multicultural'. Actually, multiracial is more accurate. Canada isn't really multicutural - most ethnicities share the same culture. Cultural differences fade away after the first generation or so. We all Canadian democratic consumers. We're much more of a melting pot than America is.
Being an immigrant country, I've mentioned to people that Canada is what you get if you squeeze the world into a country and Vancouver is the world squeezed into a city. We allow all different cultures to flourish and provide an environment for everyone to experience them.
I think Vancouver has done a great job representing Canada.
This is a case of art reflecting reality, if one may judge from the suppression of dissent by Vancouver authorities, both local and federal. I refer to the dissent from the agreements that were made to satisfy the International Olympic Committee, which I understand will be very costly to the public of Vancouver. There may be benefits for the hotels and the tourism industry, but - according to reports - they come from the pockets of taxpayers and from infringements of the rights of the native population. The dissent was not heard - so I have read - in the Vancouver media and reporters (Amy Goodman, for one) were detained and interrogated by police authorities at the border. Police state tactics.