Like many Canadians, I was swept up in the buzz around the CBC’s recent programming creation “The Seven Wonders of Canada”. I had some favourites that were excluded (the sleeping giant), I was intrigued by and agreed with some of the inclusions (the canoe), but mostly I appreciated hearing about the various nominations called in from all parts of this country.
As much as I am a fan of this great country and its history, I thought that a fitting companion would be another one called “The Seven Blunders of Canada”.
I doubt the CBC would run it, so I’ll start it here on a blog that most people have stopped reading. Of course there are all sorts of biases involved here, but this is my list. I’d love to see people trackback to me with their own lists. Here we go:
1. Komogata Maru link
Leaving a boat full of perfectly legally arriving immigrants off shore without allowing them to land is a pinnacle of cruelty and intolerance.
2. Residential schools link
We wouldn’t be the first country to attempt to remove culture/religion from natives, but taking first nations children from their homes, allowing health to deteriorate as it did, not informing parents when their children had died, and all the other stuff make this part of our history even more unbearable.
3. Chinese head tax link
Imagine applying a tax on certain immigrants and not on others. Profiting from racism has made many countries strong, unfortunately Canada is included in this group.
4. Internment of Japanese Canadians link
Canadian citizens had their land taken away and sent into camps, almost like what our enemy was doing.
5. Renaming things
Imagine being a First Nations Canadian whose ancestors lived off of a river for centuries, when an insignificant and disoriented white man named Mackenzie paddles up and asks for your help and food. Later you’ll learn that they have named the mighty river after that man.
6. Not buying Alaska
Seward bought Alaska for almost nothing and now the US owns a piece of land that really should belong to us.
7. Not adding Bobby Hull to the Summit Series team
Okay, this one is a little less serious, but no matter how great that team was and no matter how great the accomplishment was, they weren’t the best available team. The NHL/WHA squabble meant increased salaries, an uneven hockey fan base and messed up team dynamics. There were great players in the WHA, and Bobby Hull could have helped make that team stronger.
It is with much humility that I call myself a writer. Even though various educational institutions have downplayed my ability to write, I am often called upon to do so; whether writing a sermon in my role as a pastor, writing an article for a newspaper or newsletter on behalf of the various committees that I represent, or in my self-appointed role as a playwright.
My twenty-minute sermons and my 500 word articles often receive comments from friends and local community members, but they have small audiences and low circulation, so the analysis is limited. Our musical was performed over two weekends to sell-out crowds composed of people from a variety of local communities and a number of diverging educational and professional experiences. We could observe their response as audiences and many of those people also verbalized their thoughts to us. It was the first time that my writing had been given such close analysis by so many people.
As a student in English classes I couldn’t help but think that we were over-analyzing the work in front of us. I couldn’t imagine that the original author, whether William Shakespeare, Margaret Lawrence, Rudy Wiebe, etc.) could have intended that his/her work would be dissected so closely. I was sure that the majority of intricacies my English teacher discussed with us were unintentional, or if they were intended, they certainly needn’t be given much significance. I was a skeptical English student, and looking back, I admit that I wasn’t giving the authors enough credit.
We had essentially seven audiences, and each group responded differently; they laughed at different times, they clapped with different frequencies and intensities, and they made diverging comments during the intermission and after the show. Casts know to anticipate different levels of applause, but it is far more difficult to adjust to the different levels of laughter. After rehearsing the script to death over a few months, it’s easy to forget that there is any humour in the words one has memorized. Lots of times, cast members were surprised to hear the audience laughing at a particular time. They would ask me, as the writer, if I too was surprised.
I was never surprised. I never received a comment about an intricacy of the script that I hadn’t very intentionally included. In fact, I often yearned for more intense critical analysis of the show, to see if even more of my intricacies had been appreciated or even noticed. I was fortunate enough to receive unanimously positive response, which may have simply fed my vanity, but I realized that my previous perceptions were entirely wrong. If this was the case with a less than amateur writer like myself, how much more would this be the case with a more seasoned professional. No matter how closely we look at the writings of another person, you will never uncover all of the hidden meanings and subtle nuances of the text.