Sound Off: Canadian Pride

In 2003, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the Olympic Winter Games were coming to Vancouver, the entire committee was ecstatic, and all across Canada the feeling was the same. The Olympics are coming back to Canada! What a beautiful opportunity to show off our accomplishments and display our national pride. But how much do we even have?

As Canadians, we are told that we are proud of our athletes. We hear it in TV ads, we see it on Tim Horton’s mugs, we read it on cereal boxes, but how much of it seems to fall on deaf ears? Canadians do accomplish a lot, but most people couldn’t be bothered to care about much other than hockey, and then look at the medal count and wonder how we’re being beaten yet again. Displays of national pride are rampant at the gold medal game when the Canadian dream team takes on the Russians, but who has heard of that skier who just made the accomplishment of a lifetime? As long as the medal count is rising, it doesn’t matter.

The apathy among Canadians is disturbing. There is no chance that any Canadian athlete will receive the almost cult-like following the US women’s gymnastics teams saw in Beijing 2008, nor will the Olympic trials make national television in the way they do south of the border. When the actual event comes along, a small sense of pride emerges and we pretend to care for a while, but in the months leading up to it, well, there’s a hockey game on....

Our Canadian athletes are truly spectacular. The Canadian athletes competing in the Winter Games excel and achieve a standard of excellence. They compete with the best, and they prove themselves worthy of being in the top ranks again and again. Their lifetime of achievement deserves more than our apathy. It deserves more than our support even. It deserves our devotion.

Pat K - lead vocalist, Stereos

“I think that Canada doesn’t have the patriotic fervour that the States has, but I do not think that is a bad thing at all. I think Canada has just the right amount of pride. I know I’m patriotic, but I think that those countries that get way too patriotic just look ridiculous. So I think that Canada has just the right amount of patriotism and doesn’t need to worry about competing with others. They do it just the right way.”