JENNIFER KINGSLEY
I went to high school downtown at Lisgar Collegiate, and on Nov. 11 every year, our entire school would walk down Elgin street to the National War Memorial and watch the Remembrance Day ceremony. I remember standing there, freezing cold in that biting fall wind, and looking into the faces of those assembled beneath the bronze soldiers and their bronze guardian angels. Remembrance Day taught me that each person who was affected by a war or conflict — even if they were part of a collective — was affected personally and uniquely. That their story is theirs alone, and that there is no contradiction between the group and the individual.
My hopes for our country are tied up in those lessons. Canada 150 is the anniversary of Confederation which, at the time, included just four provinces superimposed on indigenous land. Let’s not forget that, but let’s not celebrate it either; we have better things to celebrate. Let’s look into the crowd, into the 36,300,000 souls, give or take, who make up this nation and remember that there is no contradiction between the group and the individual.
People from every nation in the world live in Canada, and we all live on indigenous land, which itself represents many nations. Many of us know very little about the diversity we step into each day, diversity that goes well beyond geography. Yet those stories may be literally within arm’s reach.
This Canada Day, join me in scanning the crowd, as I did each Nov. 11 back in high school. See the individuals. Know that they have struggles, too. If the past can give us an excuse to come together in the present, then let’s take it. And because we cannot take action in the past, or the future, we must take it now. So turn to the person next to you, and start by saying hello. Jennifer Kingsley is a writer, radio producer, and founder of www.meetthenorth.org. She is the author of Paddlenorth: Adventure, Resilience, and Renewal in the Arctic Wild, and she was born and raised in Ottawa.