#Canadiana

[sammaggs]

3x10 Perfect Strangers | Multiculturalism

This episode is (like the rest of the show, but still) particularly and obviously preoccupied with the differences between Canada and America—especially since this is the episode where they fly to Toronto.

As Fraser says upon landing at Pearson about the dual French/English announcements over the PA:

And this is true!

The American “melting pot” philosophy of immigration is an assimilationist one: as different cultural groups join the society, they “melt together” into one common culture. Typically, this means erasing the unique parts of your own culture to become more acceptably American (and you know exactly what that means as well as I do.)

Canada’s multiculturalist approach is instead an example of a “cultural mosaic” model, in which we believe that disparate cultures can co-exist side-by-side and, in maintaining their own individual identity, enrich each other in the process.

The Multiculturalism Act, meant to make preserving and enhancing cultural diversity part of official government policy, was signed in 1971 (the OG Trudeau government was big on this). As of 2016, there were over 250 different ethnic groups in Canada.

Which brings us back to our top GIF!

Punjabi Sikhs in Whitehorse and Vancouver, 1906 and 1908

Sikhs are the fourth-largest religion in Canada, and have a large population out West. Canada actually has the largest national Sikh proportion in the world (at 2.1%), and the second-largest Sikh population in the world (after India).

So naturally, some of them would want to join the RCMP.

I’m going to let this article from the CBC tell this story far better than I could:

And so that’s why, for a brief moment, due South shows us a Sikh officer in a turban outside RCMP HQ.

(Which is actually the Canadian Blood Services HQ, in the building of what was once the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children, built in 1892!)

Quiet Canadiana in due South [more]

[pppapaya]

This is not a drill. The upscaled Reboot is now on YT

[mioritic]

"Cleared path through snow bank to open lake at Island Filtration Plant construction site"

Toronto, 1911

City of Toronto Archives (Fonds 200, Series 372, Subseries 24, Item 216)

[postmodernpostman]

Thank you to my L&O obsession for alerting me to the fact that apparently Due South is beloved around the world, and now has a giant fandom?! I am LIVING.

[hibiscusbabyboy]

"Are Dream Boys even real?"

[pigtailedgirl]

Ah Fraser casually throwing shade at the American school children.

1812, we sent you packing!!!

PS Love that Fraser is not a classroom or kid charmer. He's so annoyed by this kid at the end.

[aeolianblues]

🎵 SONG-TO-GO 🎵

It's Friday again, which means unbelievably, I get to do yet another song wizard new music Friday. For a 5th week! Somehow you're all still here. I'm not out of music, so let's do this!

For the uninitiated, Song-To-Go is a weekly song poll to take a lesser-known song along with you as you scroll!

As with last week, choose songs based on the 30-second Spotify snippets if you don’t know them (I’ve tried to make sure there’s something you won’t know), and if you like them they’re yours* to carry along on your trip!

*as in add them to your library etc., if you like them a lot come ask me and I’ll try and dig up a Bandcamp like for you, hee hee

[last week’s poll, now complete, and you can see the results. Or just listen to more music! And then tell me about it :) ]

This week's picks are all about rock and weird but really catchy indie (and the one ska punk track). What other genres do you want to hear in the next few weeks?

As always, poll’s open for a week, so if you miss this one, I’ll be back with another one by next Friday. I think I'll also keep a running playlist of everything I've posted so far, plus others I'm planning to use for upcoming weeks because honestly, I don't really feel like there's a magician's cloth I'm pulling back to reveal songs. A lot of this is actually just stuff I've played on introducing radio over the last 4 years :P

The growing playlist, here.

Happy scrolling! If you want to give your mutuals a few new songs, reblog and tell them what you liked. Happy listening!

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

It's fun sometimes to try to explain the Commonwealth to my American friends. One of them talked about her plans for Memorial Day and asked if I had any, before remembering that right, we don't do Memorial Day up here.

I got to tell her that instead, I shit you not, the second-last Monday in May is the day Canada pretends is the monarch's birthday so people can get a long weekend in May. Charles III is a Scorpio? Not in Canada he ain't!

(In double-checking my facts just now, I discovered the caveats that this is only patchily observed as a holiday in the Maritimes, and is not at all Québec, not because they hate fun, but because it's more important to celebrate... rebellion against the Anglos? I love it. Very chic, très cool.)

[manifestoagainstoblivion]

Cleaning up the Coulees (2015)

[arcelian]

ok it's firmly back to school season here so I am remembering to ask.

Do other countries have their version of a Canada exercise book or is it just us?

^ this is the version I am most familiar with but there are multiple kinds. The distinguishing features are:

called "Canada exercise book" on the front cover along with a vaguely Canadian design (Canada shape, maple leaf, etc.)

back cover has the conjugation chart for to be/to have and être/avoir

I think sometimes they also have a map of the provinces on the back?

softcover (usually paper but sometimes plastic) and has holes to be put in a 3-ring binder

I cannot overstate how ubiquitous these are. They're cheap and useful and every elementary school uses them. Is this a thing elsewhere or did we just invent it???

[sammaggs]

3x08 Spy vs. Spy | Protection

So this is the true story of how Sports Illustrated came to Canada, and it was such a problem that the government shut it down.

Here’s the thing about being this close to America, and this small by comparison: Canada is at constant risk of having its culture entirely dominated and obliterated by the States. All of our music, movies, TV, magazines—we don’t have the money or the manpower to compete, so it’s all American.

It sounds kind of silly, but in 1991 Canadian magazines were operating on a profit margin of TWO PERCENT. It’s impossible to compete with glossy, expensively-made magazines from America. The government subsidizes our magazine industry now; that’s how magazines like Macleans can continue to exist.

In the ‘60s, to try and stem the cultural hemorrhaging, the government established what we now call “CanCon” mandates, or our Canadian Content laws.

Basically, about one-third to one-half of all the media we consume has to be written, shot, produced, published, created, etc. by Canadians, in Canada. That goes for music on the radio, books on the shelves, shows on the screen, magazines on the rack—everything.

It was codified into NAFTA in '92: Free Trade includes everything except cultural exports.

I mean… they barely tried

The Americans obviously think this is stupid, and also not their problem. We are a huge export market for them culturally—almost all media we consume is American, and that’s big $$$ for American companies. They would love to swallow us whole.

So on April 5, 1993, American publication Sports Illustrated rolls in and slaps the word “Canada” on the end of it. They include some references to Canadian sports teams (even getting some wrong) and try to call it a legal day, even though it was foreign-produced and really did not hit the CanCon marks at all.

And the Canadian. Government. Got. Furious.

The government basically tried to litigate and tax them out of existence entirely. It was a massive controversy through the '90s, which is why they're still bringing it up in this 1997 episode of due South.

And uhhh... yeah Canada fuckin super lost. We lost as fuck. Deeply unsurprising.

Many scholarly articles came out about this at the time, as you can see above, and if you want to know more you can read a great one for free here. But yeah, this is a real thing that happened.

Dave Cole, who wrote Spy vs. Spy, also wrote Perfect Strangers, which includes that perfect bit about the human tragedy that is the lack of arts opportunities for filmmakers in Canada so, he was obviously a big supporter of all this (and rightfully so).

Bonus treat! Because Canada is not real, here's how music qualifies as CanCon: It must fulfill two of the following four conditions:

M (music) — the music is composed entirely by a Canadian

A (artist) — the music is, or the lyrics are, performed principally by a Canadian

P (performance) — the musical selection consists of a performance that is: Recorded wholly in Canada, or Performed wholly in Canada and broadcast live in Canada.

L (lyrics) — the lyrics are written entirely by a Canadian

That's right... it has to fulfill two of the four...

MAPL conditions.

Quiet Canadiana in due South [more]

[denizbevan]

Happy Canada day weekend! 🇨🇦

Here are all my OFMD fics set in Canada! 🇨🇦

Dock of the Bay series

Ed owns a marina in Ontario

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3469171

the camhouse fic, also in Ontario

https://archiveofourown.org/works/46737868

the Montreal boys series!

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3804346

university AU, set in Montreal

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51430027

the WWI AU, starts in Montreal

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3929419

post-canon, winter in Quebec City

https://archiveofourown.org/works/50525413

post-canon, Olympic Games in Quebec City

https://archiveofourown.org/works/53127211

teachers chaperoning a high school dance, set in Montreal

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3952045

fantasy/magical realism love at first sight, set in a national park in Quebec

https://archiveofourown.org/works/55270231

the Into the Woods fic, set in Nova Scotia

https://archiveofourown.org/works/46689085

first sequel to the Finland meet cute, set in Ottawa

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56066173

[storytellingsiregararchives]

The subway train that David, Paz, Hassan, Dana, Hector, and Stella are fully familiar with

[hibiscusbabyboy]

"left to right: Dan Chan, Dennis Wong

My father, Dennis Wong, and my Uncle, Dan Chan, were both dandies. This photograph was probably taken in 1943 when they were both in their 20s. They look so dapper in their 1940s suits."

[ruedesfillesducalvaire]

[Clears throat] Um. Mountie AU, anyone?

Twelve men broke loose in '73 From Milhaven Maximum Security Twelve pictures lined up across the front page Seems the Mounties had a summertime war to wage

(below the cut: more Hip lyrics I associate with this AU)

From Wheat Kings:

Twenty years for nothing, well, that's nothing new Besides, no one's interested in something you didn't do

+

Late breaking story on the CBC A nation whispers, "We always knew that he'd go free" They add, "You can't be fond of living in the past, 'Cause if you are, then there's no way that you're gonna last."

From Bobcaygeon:

That night in Toronto With its checkerboard floors Riding on horseback And keeping order restored

+

In the middle of that riot Couldn't get you off my mind So I'm at your house this morning Just a little after nine 'Cause it was in Bobcaygeon, where I saw the constellations Reveal themselves one star at a time

[the-s-m-experience]

I's the b'y that solves the crime. And I's the b'y that prosecutes them.