All Gone To Look For Canada

Ever since missing last fall's election, I've become determined to stay abreast on Canadian politics. I'm doing my best, and I so badly want to participate in this democracy as much as I can, but it always seems like I don't know enough to have anything to say. I try to follow Parliament's goings-on via Globe and Mail and CBC almost every day now, but there are so many mixed messages that I don't know who to believe. I can have an opinion about this topic or about that politician, but in the end it's only conjecture, and relatively uneducated at that. For example, when Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper came to an agreement that averted a potential non-confidence vote, the Bloc Quebecois and NDP criticized him for not forcing Harper to call an election; even Tories were riding his back, accusing him of being a pushover like his predecessor, Mr. Dion. Now, my knee-jerk reaction is sympathetic toward Ignatieff. He was probably well aware that the other parties would deride him for not confronting the PM head on, and that an election would be very unpopular right now, during the recession. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Personally, I think he was sticking to his guns and had the peoples' interests in mind, and he wasn't just pandering to a very aggressive head of government. In the end, we'll never know for sure what Ignatieff's motives were, but I'd like to think it was a strategic choice to work with the Prime Minister and the government, rather than against them, which so often seems to happen in Canadian politics. Ultimately though, if I brought this up with people who knew more, I would be argued under the table, no matter what side I took. Maybe if I looked a little closer, I wouldn't be so sympathetic to Ignatieff. My knee-jerk may be justified or it may not. But I don't know yet. So this remaining ignorance has prompted me to find out more about my country. To learn more about the people who are actually running it, for one thing. But that's just the beginning. Politics is but a tiny slice of the pie. I really do ought to get to know Canada better as a whole; not just what happens in Ottawa, but from one ocean to another. I do know a fair deal about this place I call home, but it's not very in depth; it's the result of nearly 20 years of bombardment of media, images, icons, slogans, customs etc. etc. But a lot of it is just scratching the surface. I want to know its history, and to remind myself always why I can be proud of it, or why it should be ashamed of it as well. I've never been the patriotic type, but I think it's a must to know history, especially your own history. I've had the misinformed view that the national context in which I grow has little to do with me, the individual. I am who I am in spite of Canada. Well, I know now that this is complete garbage. I am who I am because of Canada, for better and worse. There's a wealth of culture and knowledge and values in our own backyard (not to mention skeletons in our closet) that are often overlooked in the shadow of not just America, but the huge import of cultures and histories from far away.