I'm From Canada

I’m from Canada,

The part we put on postcards,

Beautiful British Columbia.

It’s actually not that far,

In distance or politics,

In behavior and history.

You see, I’m from Canada,

So people will leap at the opportunity

To stereotype me,

To make fun of me for being

too polite or saying sorry.

But I should be sorry,

Sorry for everything the world has come to believe,

Sorry for the history that we tried to delete,

Sorry that you get all of the hate

Because I am from Canada,

And we’re just as guilty and deserving of shame.

You see I’m from Canada,

Where our villainy is insidious,

And we try to play the hero:

“Don’t compare us to America”,

Because we are scared that through being compared, our heinousness will slip out of the darkness.

We may not have as many mass shootings,

But our gun problem is just as bleak,

Mental health is ignored just as much,

Where a man without a will to live and nothing to lose can regain his gun license with ease.

I am from Canada.

And it is not okay,

That that is a fact people celebrate.

And that we pretend to be better when we are filled with just as much hate.

Muslims and Hindus are discriminated against for their religious regalia,

We slaughtered our indigenous populations through targeting children!

We cut their hair and stole them away,

Left families broken and culture frayed.

And we didn’t even stop there.

Today, the RCMP is more likely to stop a Native person than me, even if we’re doing the exact same thing,

Indigenous people will vanish and it is brushed off as them being “flight risks”

When in reality racism prevents prevention or solution.

And we’ve been doing this for centuries.

Because I am from Canada,

And I know this to be true even if we don’t learn it in our textbooks.

During WWII we turned Jewish refugees away,

We’ve supplied Saudi Arabia in the arms race,

We take petty retaliation against other powers because we can,

We burned the white house down once and would probably do it again.

I am from Canada

Where going to the doctor is free,

But you must pay for prescriptions and the ability to see.

And where dental and therapy is not covered properly.

Your government treats you poorly, ours does it secretly.

Because I’m from Canada,

With three major parties in fiercely fractured factions,

None of them can agree, and neither can we,

Because the PPC are scarier than the Conservatives,

The Liberals are far from liberal,

And NDP and Green are seen as lesser parties.

I am from Canada,

And I am far from patriotic,

I am tired of pretending

That we have any right to be

the “better of the sister countries”

All we do is hide behind American centralism

And the wonderful wildlife we are actively eliminating,

All we do is hide and bury our issues in unmarked graves,

Like the residential school children we tried to deface.

We need to be held accountable just as much as the United States,

Called out on our flaws and failings.

By media and populations worldwide.

Because we are not free of blame.

I am from Canada,

And I am ashamed.