A few weeks ago, on the morning of September 6 to be exact, I was sitting in my Nova Scotia, Canada kitchen overlooking the beautiful Lunenburg harbour, reading the news on my iPad. As I finished an article about North Korea’s claim that they can fit a hydrogen bomb on a missile that could hit an American city, this email came in from my ex-mother-in-law, Rosalyn Borg:

Tricia: I don’t trust “what’s his name” to keep us out of a war.  In that case, a draft might be re-instated and Lucas would be the right age. If you have yet to get his Canadian citizenship papers, NOW IS THE TIME. PLEASE. Hugs, Rosalyn. *

Over the last week or so, my husband and I have been watching the The Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick (we get Boston PBS WGBH here in Nova Scotia). I highly recommend that everyone–everyone–watch it. It is heartbreaking: The jingoistic senselessness of fighting year after year (1955-1975) without any hope of “winning.” The faces of the boys (19- & 20-year olds on up) who fought and died on both sides. The thousands of civilians–including so many children–who died horrible deaths in the vicious confusion of it.

You can’t help but cry as you watch. And you can’t help but want to tie Trump down into a chair and force him to watch it.

I think of my son, 24, and step-son, 25, and all their friends, and the young women in the forces now too. I think about how class has dictated who goes to fight these wars.

When Trump was voted in, my American friends asked me jokingly if they could come to stay in our Nova Scotia house too. I laughed and said sure, and I had visions of my rooms and hallways filled with cots for all my American friends.

Now I am thinking this was not so much of a joke.

Today, on another warm, sunny morning in what I’ve started to call Paradise (Lunenburg, Nova Scotia), I shiver to think where Trump and Kim Jong-un might take us. Or so many other actors in the global “war on terror.” The calm of our kitchen–the morning sun on the sailboats and glassy waters of the harbour, trying to decide whether or not to go for a run before sitting down to my computer–this in contrast to the news makes me feel guilty. I tell myself: I am a Canadian citizen, and it is OK to be here and look forward to this day. I’m safe, or kind of safe, and I can keep my son and step-son safe.

But no, no one is safe.

Here are a few lessons I’ve learned upon returning to Canada, for my American friends thinking–either fantastically or seriously–about moving here.

Lesson One

You will always yearn, worry, and miss loved ones in the other country, and you will always worry about the world.

Lesson Two

If you become a “dual citizen” (as I have been since 2008, the first year I voted in the USA, for Obama), you will slowly become a little bit of an odd duck in both lands. Or, to use my mother’s phrase (she was dual British-Canadian), you are neither fish nor fowl, not entirely embedded in or faithful to either community. This, for me, feels sad and can lead to moments of cognitive dissonance. (For instance, US patriotism is so different from Canada’s, and Canada’s political spectrum is shifted considerably to the left of the US’s. Sometimes I literally have to take a moment to remember which country I am in and define the context, before I know what I think on an issue. Does this make me some kind of a chameleon, shifting to accommodate those around me? I hope not, I try to always find my centre. But I am aware of how the sands shift under my feet.)

Lesson Three

When you are in the USA, you get almost zero news about Canada unless you dig deep for it, but when you are in Canada you are swamped with American news. In fact in Canada, a hell of a lot of the news is actually American. I suspect the newspapers in many countries in the world contain an undue amount of articles about the USA. Especially now, when things in the Unites States are so openly fractured.

Because of this news situation, Canada is often thought of, by Americans, as a Shangri-la. Or at the least, a nation of very nice boring people (Rob Ford being an exception–he was a not-nice boring person). A few examples to support my point (and you can click on any of them to find an article with details):

• Canada has its own alt-right media entity: The Rebel Media.
• Last year, the Globe & Mail reported that Canada was the second biggest arms exporter to the Middle East.
• Three Inuit activists were in jail for 10 days because they asserted their right to protest Nalcor Energy’s plans for a dam at Muskrat Falls, Labrador.
• Canadians disagree on whether schools named for Sir John A. MacDonald ought to remove his name (he was an avid supporter of residential schools for First Nation peoples back in the late 1800s).
• Three Toronto cops were recently acquitted of sexually assaulting a colleague, even after one of them admitted to incriminating behaviour.

All sounds familiar, eh? I know, you don’t hear any of this in the American news. You hear instead about Justin Trudeau posing with pandas, or how Canada’s immigration web site crashed on November 8, 2016, because of Americans desperate to get away from Trump.

So do you want to get away from Trump? Can any of us get away from Trump?

It feels as if I have been arguing against Americans coming to Canada. I am not, in fact. Canada needs immigrants. Canada Immigration Minister, John McCallum is calling for more immigrants: see some details here.

And, in case you were wondering about that email I got from Rosalyn: my son Lucas Biespiel is already a Canadian citizen, just by virtue of my being his mother, and we should have his official documentation proving that by early 2018. And even if he wasn’t, Vietnam “draft dodgers” showed us there are ways of avoiding a senseless war.

To provoke some deeper thought perhaps–or just for fun–below are two, super short self-quizzes… one for Canadians, one for Americans. Please try them, and then click on the image below for the answers.

As always, I’d love to hear your experiences and thoughts (in the comments, below).

With love,

Tricia

Test for Canadians:

Who was the first President of the United States?

How many states in the US?

What does July 4 celebrate in the United States?

Would you want to live in two countries, and if so, which ones?

Test for Americans:

Who was the first Prime Minister of Canada?

How many provinces in Canada?

What does July 1 celebrate in Canada?

Would you want to live in two countries, and if so, which ones?

For answers, click below (don’t peek!).

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