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From: chapman@fornax.uucp
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: definitions of culture
Message-ID: <192@fornax.uucp>
Date: Sun, 22-Feb-87 18:30:49 EST
Article-I.D.: fornax.192
Posted: Sun Feb 22 18:30:49 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Feb-87 21:36:22 EST
Distribution: can
Organization: School of Computing Science, SFU, Burnaby, B.C. Canada
Lines: 76

I think Doug Thompson is on the right track with his comments about
Canadian culture.  It seems to me that our "culture" is defined by
what we do and say as a country.  You can't get a nice neat 25 words
or less description of the overall culture of 26 million people.

This is a problem with most discussions in newsgroups like this; an
attempt is made to deal with an incredibly complex phenomenon in a
few short paragraphs - inevitably something is lost or uncommunicated.
However I think it is instructive to enumerate some examples   of
our country's behaviour and see how it compares to other countries,
and in particular in the context of free trade to see how it compares
to the US; if only to get a "flavour" of the culture.

Here are a few, perhaps everyone can add some examples of their own.

1. Canada is one of the few (perhaps only) countries which has had
   the ability to become a major nuclear power and yet we have
   resisted the temptation to stockpile or even manufacture nuclear
   weapons.

2. Health care is of good quality and access is almost universal (you
   still have to have some money).  It is unlikely you would have
   your dialisys (sp?) machine turned off because you are broke.

3. Canada has not (recently anyway) attempted to force it way of
   life (or advance it's economic and political interests) on other
   countries through military force - covert or otherwise.

   Ditto for economic force.
 
   Canada does not directly support violent dictatorships, notorious
   for human rights violations, merely because they are economic or
   military allies.

4. Canadians are not egotistical enough to think they know what is
   "best" for the rest of the world.

5. Canada lets itself be pushed around a fair bit by other countries.
   We seem to have a foreign policy of being "nice guys".

6. We apparently have a reasonably high regard for the worth of human
   life in general as evidenced by our broad system of "safety nets"
   in the social services area.

7. Canadians are quite self critical and self effacing as can be seen
   in our media, and we are capable of admitting to the world when
   we make mistakes.

8. Although our environment isn't exactly squeaky clean it seems in 
   good condition when compared to a lot of other industrialized
   nations.

9. We have quite a low murder rate compared to some countries.

10. There seems to be a smaller distance, economically, between the
    rich and poor than is the case of a lot of other countries.

11. Political and economic decisions seem less tied to military
    interests in Canada.

12. Education through to post secondary is generally available to
    all who desire it at relatively low cost (however this has been
    changing -particularily in BC).  You do not have to be upper
    middle class or above to be able to attend university.

13. We seem fairly federally oriented - the balance of decision
    making and enforcement powers between the federal and provincial
    governments is in the federal government's favour.

14. We send quite a bit of money and other aid to third world
    countries.

That's all off the top of my head. Anyone with more positive/negative
examples?

john