In 1972, famed Canadian author Margaret Atwood wrote Survival: A Thematic Guide To Canadian Literature. Atwood claimed in the book that ‘survival’ was a central theme in Canadian fiction, building on similar claims by writers like Northrop Frye and D.G. Jones. The book was controversial when it was published, but the role of ‘survival’ in Canada runs much deeper than many people realize. Survival isn’t just a theme in our literature, but also of our history. In the aftermath of Canada Day, it’s an ideal time to consider the role of survival. Different groups have come to Canada as a place of refuge long before Confederation or even the British Conquest.

Many impoverished French women came to New France, the colony that would later become Quebec, as the ‘filles du roi’, or ‘Daughters of the King’, finding a better life in Montreal or Quebec City than they would in France. When the Americans drove out supporters of the British Crown during the American Revolution, many of the United Empire Loyalists fled north to the colonies Britain won from France in the Seven Years War, becoming some of the first Anglophone Canadians. Famines plagued Ireland in the 19th century, leading many Irish to find new homes and prospects in Canada.

During the late 19th and early 20th century, there was a massive immigration boom as people came to Canada from all over the world. Many of these people were leaving behind despotic regimes. As just one example, Alberta’s rich Ukrainian heritage comes in part from Catholic Oblate priests like our own Father Albert Lacombe arranging for Ukrainians fleeing the tyranny of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. During and after the World Wars, people came to Canada to find better lives than they could in post-war Europe, or to flee from the brutal oppressions of Communism and Nazism. Since the Second World War, Canada has become a home for people fleeing conflicts in places ranging from Vietnam in the 1960s to Syria today.

Unfortunately, survival in Canada also has its darker side too. The most obvious example is with Indigenous people who’ve had to survive everything from violent government coercion to hateful insults and physical assaults to the ruining of their food supplies by settler Canadians. Black immigrants fleeing American slavery or Jim Crow often found that things weren’t much better for them in Canada; the destruction of Africville in Halifax being one example of what they had to survive. Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and trying to find refuge in Canada before the Second World War were forcibly sent back to their deaths. Canadians whose backgrounds were from enemy nations during the World Wars, such as Germans, Japanese and Austrians, were interned in camps and often had their property stolen.

Survival isn’t just an element of Canadian fiction. It’s also an important element of our history, not just for Canada as a whole but also for individual peoples’ own family histories. Too often, we overlook those stories, but they’re often an important factor in who we are.

   

Gee, another nice list of just how bad whitey man always is.

Bad, bad whitey.


Bad, bad settler whitey. Why aren't we calling ourselves the invaders ?

   

I wouldn’t call one sentence about FN and one sentence about Africville out of a 5 paragraph essay “a list of how bad whitey man is”. You’re obviously over-sensitive and want to silence even the briefest mention of topics you don’t want discussed.

But you ask a good question: I’m genuinely interested to hear YOU explain to me why the settlers shouldn’t be called “invaders?” Like what do YOU think is the difference?

   

Boo, fucking, Hoo, Margaret Atwood.

She's always looking for problems that aren't there like, for example, a totalitarian Christian theocracy that's all about the sex slaves in a world where apparently Islam doesn't exist.

Although...what's that one by Stephen Leacock where all those drunks are going overboard in Lake Ontario after a celebration on a steamboat, or something like that? That would be survival, I guess.

   

Come to think of it though, there was also "Sam McGee who was from Tennessee" who couldn't handle the Canadian cold.

But he got warm at the end. So that would be survival too, maybe.

   

Gee, and here I thought I was being more pro-Canadian by outlining how so many people from other parts of the world have found homes and new lives here in Canada.

I'd also point out that the far-left crowd, the kind who organize protest marches on Canada Day and listen to garbage music like Propaghandi, would accuse me of being a closet fascist and/or imperialist for all the positive stuff I've written about Canada over the years.

And no, I do not consider the problems in Ireland, Nazi Germany, the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, Vietnam, Syria or anywhere else that prompted immigrants to come here to be "whitey's" fault, much less anything to do with Canada.



The reason I mentioned Atwood was because she was the one who talked about 'survival' in our literature. It made for a good jumping-off point into everything else I noticed about Canadian history. Her work isn't really the sort of thing that interests me.

   

No, you have simply made a list of how bad white Canadians were, including against
other whites, so let's not consider that racist. That's just whitey being mean.

You have made absolutely zero connection between the normal list of whitey crimes,
and this .. again... Laurentian 70's vision of the country as 'survival'.


The idea has been portrayed as usual as a contrast to the USA.
More well defined than "ugh, it's free health care, dude, that's why we are different."

They conquer.
Us, due in no small part to our climate, only survive.
We don't conquer.
We don't succeed.
We don't thrive.

We only survive. The winter. Having meaners like the USA for neighbors.
And then, of course, we all have to survive what big bad whitey is going to throw at us.


Yes, the self hatred programming goes back that far.

   

Islam doesn’t exist in Gilead because the right wing Christian extremists who run the country executed all the non-Christians, atheists and unpious heretics.

You’d probably like it.

   

Go back and read the piece again. I said survival was an element of our history, not the be-all and end-all of it. Of course we've succeeded and thrived-often against expectations. We punch way above our weight in terms of positive impact on the world, as I've pointed out in previous reflections.

People fleeing tyranny and famine from all over the world have made new lives in Canada. That's not something to hate, that's something worth celebrating.