In his 1997 book National Dreams: Myth, Memory and Canadian History, which explores the roots, foundations and part-truths that form the basis of Canadian identity, historian Daniel Francis wrote that civic ideology in a country like Canada must be a deliberate product: something that needs to be “continually recreated and reinforced.” Canadians rely on this social construct more than other people, Mr. Francis argued, “because we lack a common religion, language, or ethnicity, because we are spread out so sparsely across such a huge piece of real estate.” It is not, as Mr. Francis wrote, something “we come by naturally.”
Surely that is even more true now than it was more than 25 years ago.
But if you ask the average Canadian heading into 2025 what it means to be Canadian – how they would describe our civic ideology, or the values, behaviours, and outlooks that unite us as Canadian – I suspect many would stumble over an answer. They might offer cheesy tropes, mythical aspirations, or characteristics that distinguish us from the Americans: we like hockey and Tim Hortons; we are global peacekeepers; we are inclusive, diverse and tolerant; we have universal health care, free access to abortion, and relatively low rates of gun crime.
But that kaleidoscope of Canadian identity, which might have been a genuine source of national pride decades ago, is a tired and largely inaccurate description of “Canadianness” when tested against the reality of life in Canada in 2025. We are global peacekeepers, except that our commitment of uniformed personnel to UN peacekeeping missions is at an all-time low. We are inclusive and tolerant, but for the synagogues routinely being firebombed and the brawls breaking out between ethnic groups. We are a diverse population, but short-sighted immigration policies under this government have upended the entire system, destroying our immigration consensus and creating considerable problems of integration. We have universal health care, but it comes with extraordinary wait-lists for non-urgent procedures, a dearth of family doctors, and regular ER closings owing to staffing shortages. (Might we interest you in MAID instead?)
Crimes involving firearms are up, housing is laughably unaffordable, and Tim Hortons doesn’t bake its doughnuts fresh in-store as it once did. Indeed, the things that used to define us as Canadians aren’t really true any more. It is no wonder, then, that according to a recent Angus Reid survey, Canadians’ pride in their country has dropped to a 30-year low.
But that’s only part of the problem. Civic pride still exists in countries with significant social and economic problems (the U.S. is the most obvious example), but as Mr. Francis wrote in his book, it needs to be fostered, cultivated and reinforced. Yet that hasn’t happened in Canada in a very long time: in 2021, Canadian flags at federal buildings were at half-mast for nearly half of the year, following reports that possible unmarked graves were discovered at former residential schools. Justin Trudeau has called Canada genocidal for its treatment of Indigenous women and girls. When he first became Prime Minister, he said Canada could be the world’s first “post-national state,” adding that “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.”
In his book, Mr. Francis tried to explain how national unity is, to a certain extent, a function of forgetting. “We describe ourselves as an inclusive cultural mosaic, while forgetting that racism was at the heart of Canadian culture for generations,” he wrote. That may have been true in 1997, but Canada in the 21st century has arguably done the opposite: we remember so much, so deliberately, that we kept our flags at half-mast for Canada Day in 2021. Younger generations in particular have internalized the idea that civic pride and reconciliation with our country’s historical wrongs are fundamentally incompatible; that to be proud to be Canadian is to somehow fail to properly recognize the hurt this country has inflicted, and continues to inflict, on marginalized groups. Indeed, the data in the above-cited Angus Reid survey showed the lowest rates of deep emotional attachment to Canada among those aged 18 to 34 – lower, as a cohort, than those who had been in Canada for less than 10 years.
This is a remediable problem, however: one that can be addressed by both meaningfully tackling the social and economic problems that grate at national pride, and by actively promoting a sense of civic identity. As Mr. Francis wrote more than 25 years ago, Canadians are so spread out, so diverse, and so varied in experience that we cannot, and should not, expect that unity and cohesion will simply happen by accident. We’ve lost our national identity and with it, our pride in our country. But with some effort, and a deliberate course change from Canada’s leadership, we can get it back.