To all Canadians:
Sorry, that was wrong.
We don’t do battle cries.
We are Canadian.
But neither do we whimper in the night.
We are Canadian,
Ourselves, and no one else,
Not second-rate copies of other countries
Not a child built from leftovers
Not an afterthought.
We talk about ethnicity and culture,
Not race or class.
We talk about mosaics
Not melting pots.
We talk about “we” and “together”
Not “me” and “alone”.
We are Canadian:
united in difference,
polite to a fault,
keepers of peace.
We have all come from somewhere
and we have planted it here.
We will never forget its value
–we are Canadian.
We may bring down the volume,
but guess what?
we’re still singing.
We may harass ourselves,
but we will never be degraded.
We may apologize for offending,
but we will never apologize for existing.
We are Canadian.
No enemy can be so great as our own winter,
no army so great as our cold,
no missile so piercing as our wind,
and yet here we are.
We
are
Canadian.
And we don’t do battle cries.
This?
Is a statement of fact.
