The Canada that could have been

An early map of Canada including the provinces of Athabasca and Assiniboia. Way too many Prairie provinces.

“Our national anthem was written for a nation that no longer exists”

Stephen Marche on “O Canada.”

When the Conservative government proposed changing a single line of our national anthem this past spring, the outrage was ferocious enough that the idea was shelved in less than forty-eight hours. The prime minister’s spokesman couldn’t back down fast enough: “We offered to hear from Canadians on this issue, and they have already spoken loud and clear. They overwhelmingly do not want to open the issue.” I can only surmise that Olympics-fuelled patriotism was blinding a large and vocal swath of the country to the fact that the national anthem doesn’t need cosmetic surgery; it needs a complete overhaul. Face it: “O Canada” is the worst song you sing or hear on a regular basis.

Should Canadian writers mention Canada?

Well, what harm could come of it, other than poverty?

Let’s be honest: We all know the primary reason for such erasures. It’s to make the book more saleable to Americans. We all want our books and films and TV shows to be published in the United States, and we know a large proportion of their entertainment-consuming population is not interested in looking beyond their borders. The story might be set in Ottawa, and it might be recognizable to Canadians as Ottawa, but if the Americans think it’s a nameless northeastern U.S. city, they’re more likely to buy it, so let’s not scare them off by naming it. Toronto in particular is a good stand-in for urban U.S. life anywhere, as we’ve seen in a thousand movies; you just blur out the CN Tower and you’ve got instant everywhere.

“North of America, hard to ignore”

OK, he had me at “poutine!” (Via George Murray, who’s waaaaaaaayyyyyy on the other side of Canada from me.)

Steven Galloway is proud to be a Canadian writer

I didn’t discuss those controversial Barbara Kay pieces about CanLit that the Post ran a while back because I try to keep a positive tone on CanCult, and I didn’t really see anything interesting or useful in them. In that spirit, I will link to the response by Vancouver writer Steven Galloway, whose opinion matches what I try to do on this site.

I’m proud to be a Canadian writer. I consider it an honour to travel outside the country as a representative of Canadian literature. Instead of focusing on the books we don’t like, let’s each of us find some that we do and read them, engage with them and as a result engage with society as a whole, and take some pleasure in what we, a country with a short history and relatively small population, have been able to accomplish in the world of literature.

For all your Canada Day needs

This roundup of video and song links on Metafilter is better than anything I could put together.

CanPlaceNames on Twitter

Looking for a daily dose of Canadiana? Try CanPlaceNames on Twitter. It’s the account of Melissa Edwards, “author of the Geist Atlas of Canada, mapper for Geist mag and lover of awesome Canadian place names.” A sample entry:

Revenge of the nerds: Square Hills, SK; Brainerd, MB; Geekie Lake, MB; Loner Mountain, YT; Dorking, ON.

What’s the real problem with CanLit?

Marc Cote, publisher of Cormorant Books, responds to the Globe article “Publish, and your book will probably perish,” which asked if Canadian publishers are getting worse at selling books.

For the media, the term “Canadian publisher” invariably means “Canadian-owned,” with overtones of incompetence, including the canards of poor editing, ineffective marketing and an inability to sell books. Such is the lot of a noble industry in a market dominated by foreign-owned and foreign-controlled publishing houses, with capital and expertise built up over the last two centuries through colonialism, protectionist laws and tariffs, inexpensive labour and a unified market.

Canadian bookstore and library shelves are filled by approximately 80-per-cent foreign-authored and -published books. These are promoted by U.S. television programs and magazines such as 60 Minutes and People, which have, respectively, more viewers in Canada than The Fifth Estate and more readers than Maclean’s. Canadian books occupy some 20 per cent of shelf space. Their greatest promotional vehicles are CBC’s Canada Reads and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Authors lucky enough to be selected for glory will see their sales climb to an average 10,000 copies for a nomination and 30,000 for a win — numbers an Oprah selection can match in days.

Previously:

• Do Canadian book publishers do enough to sell your book?

Is Elizabeth Bishop a Canadian poet?

Zach Wells chronicles his failed attempts to get permission to reprint an Elizabeth Bishop poem in his new Jailbreaks anthology.

Date: January 31, 2008
From: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
To: Zachariah Wells

Subject: Permissions request dated 12/6/07 to include “Sonnet” by Elizabeth Bishop in your forthcoming publication JAILBREAKS: 99 CANADIAN SONNETS

Dear Zachariah Wells,

Thank you for your interest in FSG and the above-cited author. My apologies for the delay in responding to your request, which came in just after we had moved to a temporary work location.

Please note that this request has been denied by our editorial board as Ms. Bishop is considered an American poet and including her work in an all-Canadian anthology may cause some confusion.

As such we will not be able to grant the permission you have requested. Again, we appreciate your interest and extend the best for the success of your project.

Best wishes,
_______
Permissions and Copyright Manager
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

*
Date: January 31, 2008
From: Zachariah Wells
To: FSG

Dear Ms. ___,

Thank you for your reply. While I imagine FSG can’t be persuaded to change its mind, I must protest that regarding a poet such as Ms. Bishop as being exclusively American (in the sense of the word meaning a national of the United States) is arbitrary. Ms. Bishop, as I’m sure you know, spent significant portions of her childhood in Nova Scotia–often returning as an adult–and those experiences are rendered movingly and memorably in much of her finest work in verse and prose. Her mother was a Nova Scotian and her father’s family was from Prince Edward Island. The Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia has recently acquired Ms. Bishop’s former home in Great Village, Nova Scotia, and established it as a writer’s retreat. Her work has also already been included in an exclusively Canadian anthology: Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada (Goose Lane Editions, 2002).

Also, if you will forgive my self-quotation, I would like to share with you something relevant from my introduction to this anthology of sonnets:

Something that strikes me, looking at the roster I’ve assembled, is the sheer number of immigrants and emigrants peopling this anthology—border-crossing poets who can’t be confined to the national or regional boxes we tend to put them in. This is reflected by the formal variety of the poems and it says a great deal, I think, about the portmanteau portability and cosmopolitaneity of the sonnet, a poetic form whose protean history is a (sometimes) gentle rebuke to hidebound provincialism. The poets in this book have launched their sturdy sonnet craft and sailed them, in Fred Cogswell’s phrase, “to wider regions where the river goes.” I invite you now to follow.

The inclusion of Ms. Bishop’s poem is important to me, not only for its own exceptional merits as a poem, but as an illustration of the above-quoted argument. My book also includes poems by such poets as Malcolm Lowry, Goran Simic and Eric Ormsby, poets whose residence in Canada has been transient or quite recent. In this context, and given what I say in my introduction, I can’t see how there would be any significant amount of confusion generated by Ms. Bishop’s inclusion. I know that during her own life she objected to being included in women-only anthologies, and that her wishes on this front have been disregarded since her death, but I know of no such objection to being considered Canadian. American, she is, yes, but American in the broadest sense, given her attachments to New England, Florida, Nova Scotia and Brazil. Questions of geography and identity have always been paramount for her in life and work; if there is confusion about her affiliation to a given country, it is an ambiguity that I think pleased her—or at least preoccupied her—and that she would not wish to discourage.

I hope that these arguments are persuasive to you and FSG; please let me know if there is any chance you might reconsider your decision.

Best regards,
Zachariah

Should we remove God from our national anthem?

On the eve of Canada Day the Globe asks if God still has a place in our national anthem and opens the issue up for discussion.

It’s a fascinating debate with wide-ranging implications.

That’s why globeandmail.com has invited our regular panel from several major faith-based communities and a representative of the atheist/humanist/free thinker groups to debate these questions:

Given Canada’s history of intertwined politics and religion, and given Canada’s increasing multicultural nature, should all references to “God” be removed from our national anthem, O Canada? What does the inclusion of “God” say about our country? What would its elimination say about our country?

(Image is a pic I took in a cemetery somewhere.)

.ca not as good as .com?

The one-millionth domain name ending in .ca has been registered — it’s krauselaw.ca — but all the cool sites still use .com. Except for CanCult, of course. (Mainly because CanCult.com is already taken.)

The .ca domain has grown with the Internet, and exploded with the advent of the World Wide Web. But for all its successes, the .ca domain still suffers from that most Canadian of afflictions: a conflicted second-fiddle status, next to the behemoth that is .com. That domain, the favourite of Americans and companies around the world, has a cool 76 million names registered, to our one million.

If there’s a truism on the Internet, it’s that everyone wants an address that ends in .com. An address like that means prestige and global stature, which is why it’s almost impossible to get a good one any more. Online startups have long since been reduced to mangling the language in new and exciting ways just to find a free domain name. I was about to suggest “Snuzz.com” as an example of the kind of unfortunate domain name that’s still free, but upon checking, I see that it’s been taken, too.

Not so north of the border! In fact, you could register Snuzz.ca right this instant, because the market for Internet addresses just isn’t as hot. To a certain extent, it’s understandable: Who wants to look provincial on the world stage?

Senator proposes law to keep portrait gallery in Ottawa

Senator Jerry Grafstein wants to make it illegal to build the new Portrait Gallery of Canada in any other city — especially Calgary. OK, I made up the “especially” part — but you know that’s what he’s thinking.

Senator Jerry Grafstein’s bill, which will have its second reading in the Senate next week, would amend the Library and Archives of Canada Act, requiring the gallery to be located in Ottawa, rather than any of the other nine cities competing for the museum.

“Governments have to respond to bills. They can stall it, they can reject it, but they have to respond to it. They cannot ignore it,” Grafstein said Tuesday.

He argued that the gallery displaying works from the country’s portrait collection needs to be close to the special building operated by the national archives where the entire collection is stored — located in Gatineau, Que., directly across the river from Ottawa.

In addition, it should be where it can attract visitors already there to see other national collections.

Actually, there are some good comments about the issue by CBC readers:

Keeping the Portrait Gallery in Ottawa would eliminate the stated $2.5 million annual operating costs to ship artifacts outside the National Capital Region, as reported by Library and Archives Canada in the media.

Due to the concentration or cluster of national institutions that already exist in Ottawa, there are economies of scale that would be of benefit to the Portrait Gallery remaining in Ottawa. As part of a family of museums, it would benefit from destination marketing campaigns, programming synergies with federal and local cultural facilities as well as an extensive small business network available in the community that supports the museum sector such as artefact conservation services, translation services and historians.

If the Portrait Gallery was located away from Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada would become the first country among the G7 not to have such a gallery in its national capital.

Is Newfoundland Canada’s biggest mistake?

The Post continues its series on Canada’s Biggest Mistakes.

Newfoundlanders often ponder that alternate world in which they drove the “Canadian wolf” from the door. The bitter truth is that those who came closest to being right about joining Confederation in the referendum fight of 1948 turned out to be the most extreme, most paranoid of the anti-federates. They said that Confederation would lead to an exodus of Newfoundland’s young and most talented. They said that Ottawa would run the cod fishery short-sightedly and perhaps destroy it. They said, long before Churchill Falls, that joining Confederation would leave Newfoundland at the mercy of French-Canadian interests. Can history offer any retort?

“I call myself a Church Street fag over and over”

The Post hangs out with Sky Gilbert.

A lot of the people I know hang out around the Drake (1150 Queen St. W.). I call myself a Church Street fag over and over. I just don’t believe in the whole Queen Street queer scene. It just isn’t quite the same as Church Street. I think what’s going to happen, ultimately, is like New York where the gay bars are all over town. The idea of a gay street is not happening the way it used to anywhere. In New York, you have Chelsea, but I don’t know if Toronto’s big enough to sustain that. In Toronto, I think it’s much more likely that gay bars will be all over the city. But Queen Street hasn’t convinced me that it’s the new Church Street.

“We have got to stop whining about how bad this place is”

Eye Weekly offers a snapshot of Richard Florida — author of The Rise of the Creative Class, The Flight of the Creative Class and Who’s Your City? — and some reasons why he chose to live in Toronto. I love the fact it has to be justified.

The author of a book venturing to explain “How the creative economy is making where to live the most important decision of your life” could have lived anywhere — and, yet, he chose Toronto. The global attention granted Florida’s populist theories will lead us to wonder who should feel more grateful for that.

“This is one of five, six… three? No, two — two! — really great cities in North America,” Florida tells his fellow professor, Meric Gertler of the Faculty of Arts and Science, between signing copies of Who’s Your City?, whose $32.95 cover price included admission to the after-work event. “And my humble opinion is that this is a much more peaceful country than the one I left. When I lived in DC, every conversation seemed to be about who we were going to invade next.”

But it was during his time at George Mason University where his theories of a Creative Class took shape — after establishing his academic career at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh — becoming the stuff of best-selling books, an institute, and lucrative speaking gigs. “I thought that if I moved to Washington that maybe I could change the United States,” Florida demurs. And, when that wasn’t quite happening, he made a little spreadsheet — not on a computer, but napkin scribbles, he clarifies — to help pinpoint the precise place where he needed to be.

Oh, combined with the fact that Rotman School dean Roger Martin offered him an opportunity to run the $120 million Prosperity Institute from a Toronto base. (And, for what amounts to a tertiary part-time job as a professor, he earns $169,999.98 per semester according to this week’s Public Sector Salary Disclosure.)

Marketing agencies choose to ignore opt-out list

Michael Geist reports that the Canadian Marketing Association and Marketing Research and Intelligence Association are refusing to honour the wishes of people who don’t want to be contacted by their members. (Previously.)

Second, some industry groups have reacted with considerable hostility toward iOptOut.ca. For example, both the Canadian Marketing Association and the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association have advised their members that they may be able to ignore Canadians’ opt-out requests since the requests are not “authenticated.” There is no requirement under Canadian law for such authentication and the CMA itself runs an opt-out list without authentication. In fact, neither the Canadian nor the U.S. do-not-call list features telephone number authentication. Moreover, the MRIA has deliberately entered false information into iOptOut.ca, presumably in an effort to undermine the site’s reliability (less than 1 in 1000 registrations have been demonstrably false). Other organizations have sought to stop opt-out attempts by simply blocking the email requests before they enter their email systems.

While these actions can be challenged before the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, they foreshadow a more troubling concern. The imminent arrival of a Canadian do-not-call list will reshape telemarketing in Canada, forcing thousands of organizations to pay closer attention to the privacy preferences of their customers. There is no right to opt-out of the law, but it would appear that not everyone will welcome the do-not-call list with open arms.

Is multiculturalism Canada’s biggest mistake?

Barbara Kay certainly thinks so.

Don’t like our marriage and divorce laws? Use yours! Don’t like our languages? Don’t learn them! Don’t like our foreign policy? Instead of joining the Armed Forces where you have no choice where you fight, join the Reserves, where you get to match up your deployment with your “belonging”!

Do our money-lending rules offend your religious sensibilities? We’re sorry. Perhaps we’ll try the Islamic system, as the Globe’s Sheema Khan suggested this past weekend.

Multiculturalism is Canada’s greatest mistake, but if it is any consolation, it is every western country’s greatest mistake. And now some of them are paying a terrible price. If I have to elaborate on the names Pim Fortuyn, Theo Van Gogh and Ali Hirsi, then you just haven’t been paying attention.

The CBC: Not Canadian enough?

The National Post reports that the parliamentary report on CBC/Radio Canada has been released and it takes issue with the broadcaster’s level of CanCon.

One of the more alarming stats shows how Canadian content on the nation’s broadcaster during primetime (defined as between 7 and 11 p.m.) has slipped steadily over the past few years.

For instance, during the 2004-2005 season, only 67% of primetime programming on CBC was Canadian, down from 87% during 2001-2002. It’s remained steady on Radio-Canada, going from 86% in 2001-2002 to 85% in 2004-2005.

Cross-Canada Tour — Montreal

and o from brainware 3000′s Flickr stream

Cross-Canada Tour

I’m starting a new photo feature here on CanCult called the Cross-Canada Tour. It’ll consist of photographs of Canadian scenes that I discover in my online adventures. Starting it off is fall in Vancouver from jmv’s Flickr stream.