“Canada shouldn’t even exist. It’s the craziest, weirdest idea for a country.“ The whole class kept silent. Some were greatly proud of their land of peace while some, separatists, wished for nothing more than to be left out of the Maple leaf country. Others dreamed of moving away to the United-States or Europe. However, nobody understood when the English teacher said:

“Canada should not exist. Do we have an official language?” But a few whispered the answer. “No, we have two: English and French. And then there’s a bunch of people speaking Chinese, Punjabi and Spanish.”

A much patriotic teen sat near the back, closely listening to each word spurted by his Teacher. With each sentence, he could only ask himself what Mr. B really thought of his country.

“Ethnically, we’re very accommodating. Did you know that, proportionally to population, Canada receives the most immigrants in the world? And we pride ourselves on it. As if, at times, we didn’t care for our own culture.” That last comment was bound to spark a few flames in the minds of the canucks. Too many times they hear that they’re too tolerant with immigrants.

“Geographically, Canada is of great unwieldiness. Notice how we have this immense country, but most people live on this, what, 100 mile border on the south. As far away as possible from the cold. We’re so large, it can actually be more troublesome to fly from Montreal to Vancouver or Whitehorse than to London or Paris.”

Students were having trouble getting where he was going with all of this. So Canadians weren’t proportionally placed all over the country and we didn’t mind accommodating immigrants. So what?

“Yet, although we have this strange country, although we live in towns like Toronto, where about 50% of the citizens weren’t even born in Canada, we manage to keep everything in order. When the Quebec referendum of ’95 was half a percent from passing, taking us that close to not living in Canada anymore, what happened? Were riots thrown, as would have happened in pretty much any other region in the world trying to separate? ” The students followed history and geography, they had heard of places like Sri Lanka and Pakistan. “No, we all went back to our homes and to our work, watching hockey with our French and English, Canadian and non-Canadian friends.”

They were finally beginning to understand what he meant. Why Canada ‘shouldn’t exist’. How many times had he spoken this speech? He seemed to have it down pretty well. At least a dozen times, that’s for sure.

“Other countries, as they look at ours, can only wonder how we manage to have a crime rate that has been dropping since 1993, even though it’s relatively easy to acquire weapons and punishments are far from strict. There’s not even death penalty.”

He was right. Canada shouldn’t exist. How could it even? It didn’t seem logical.

“Other countries, as they look at ours, can only wonder how we are capable of managing what is one of the most functional democracies in the world.

Maybe Canada shouldn’t exist, but it does. Canada is the True North, Strong and Free.