Tag Archives: Canada

Today we celebrate

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Today we celebrate Canada’s birthday. Happy 147th Canada! I could discuss the wisdom that comes with age, the importance of celebrating milestones or indeed, Canada’s history, but one of the things I’ve always liked about Canada is our appreciation of a good discussion, we like to think.

Canadian Politics

Although Canada became a country in 1867, we did not gain our full political freedom from the British cabinet until 1982 when the Constitution Act patriated the Canadian constitution. Some might have gone to war.  In fact, our American neighbours made no bones about their bid for independence. Freedom was worth bearing arms for and they certainly were not going to wait around for a distant British Empire to give them permission to lead their own lives.

Here in Canada we used pens and patience to achieve our freedom. It’s not that we’re not up for a fight.  We have certainly been in enough conflicts to put that idea to bed.  It’s more that as a nation we’d rather have a debate. Quebec has been contemplating the possibility of separation for years now.  Periodically a referendum comes forward to determine if enough Quebecers are ready for separation, a vote is taken and if the outcome is no (and it has been so far) we go back to business as usual. Think about it, a peaceful referendum. No guns, bombs or violence needed.

To tell the truth, we tried violence for about seven years in the 1960’s as a way of resolving separation issues. Eight deaths and many bombings later we determined that political action would be more appropriate and the Parti Québécois (a separatist party) was cemented into our political landscape and has been a political player in Quebec ever since.

Canadian Writers

We are not a homogenous group. We are not always friendly or even always polite, but we do like to think.  I am proud to say that some of the world’s literary giants are Canadian, folks like Margaret Atwood, Anne Hébert, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Robertson Davies and Carol Shields to name a few. Did you notice that many of our great writers are also women? It’s something else that makes me proud to be Canadian, not to mention give me some hope.

Canadian Industry

We are not renown for our cooking. Poutine, bacon, beaver tails, Nanaimo bars and maple syrup are chief among our offerings and while popular they are noted far more often for being bad for our health than their culinary delight.

We are known for our natural resources, oil and logging are two of our biggest industries and that may explain why you think of lumberjacks when you think of Canada.  However, despite our history and the importance of the primary sector in Canada, our biggest industrial sector is service. In short, we use our brains because we like to think.

Canadian Communicators

This would not be complete as a post on a communications blog without a nod to some of the pioneering Canadians whose thinking helped to shape communications for all of us. People like  Harold Innis who saw the influence oral and written communications had on culture and warned us of the perils of embracing media that only focussed on the present. He feared the communications monopolies that were a reflection of the increasingly narrow ownership of newspapers, radio and television. I have to wonder what he would make of the internet, Google and the explosive popularity of social media like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Then we have that great Canadian communications thinker, Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan allowed us to to step back from our means of communicating long enough to understand it’s influence over what were communicating. If the medium is the message, then would we write longer if we weren’t writing blog posts? Would we write differently if we were writing for print? Do we tell stories differently for YouTube? He also predicted the invention of the internet a full thirty years before it came into being.

The next medium, whatever it is—it may be the extension of consciousness—will include television as its content, not as its environment, and will transform television into an art form. A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization, retrieve the individual’s encyclopedic function and flip into a private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind. (1962)

 

Yes, we like to think. So on this Canada Day I wish all Canadians around the world happy birthday and hope that all of our friends join us in celebrating our big day. Indulge in something good but bad for you, take a walk in nature and of course, give yourself some time to think.

What comes to mind when you think of Canada and Canadians? 

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Why Spying Will Make Us Communities Again

Why Spying Will Make Us Communities Again

Over the last few weeks I’ve had lots of practice at feeling awkward for strangers. There always seems to be a new, uneasy revelation in the news about someone’s privacy being invaded. Around the world and in my own neighborhood privacy breaches seem to abound and as these various pieces of information are aired I keep thinking sooner or later people will figure out that what they really want is more face to face time with their neighbours and colleagues. Although the technology to end it may be in the works, I pleased to say that I think it’s still possible to have a private conversation in person. I suppose if I’m giving credit where credit is due, then I’ll tip my hat to Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning for our new found need to engage with real people.  After all, it was their efforts that made us realize that “private” isn’t what is used to be.

As I watch the coverage of the American diplomatic incident that left Washington distinctly uncomfortable and the Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, apologizing for saying, “Fu@$ the European Union” in what she thought was a private telephone conversation, I can’t help but think she’ll be having more face to face meetings in the future. I bet German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, whose cell phone was bugged by the U.S., is also thinking about having more face to face meetings too. Their experiences should certainly make us all consider the value of always being on our best behaviour.

Of course now that Canadian travellers know that their cell phones have been picked up and tracked for days after they had walked through Canadian airports they can feel a little like these powerful political leaders, invaded. Just like their more famous counterparts, the records of all of their calls and emails have been captured by government entities, in the case of Canadians; the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) did the work.

Now we too can think twice about what we say on our cell phones or using them at all.  I haven’t carried one for two weeks and rather than feeling disconnected or untethered, I find myself strangely more in the moment wherever I am.  It could be because no one can call, text or email me to disrupt the moment and I’m not disrupting it by looking at my phone for messages.

Don’t get me wrong.  My decision to not carry a cell phone isn’t a political statement. I don’t have one because I changed positions and haven’t sorted out if I actually want or need one. The recent revelations have simply added to the debate. What occurs to me is that we wouldn’t have to worry about our cellphones being bugged if we didn’t rely on them so much.

More than anything I worry that as more private exchanges are released for public consumption we will start to normalize these intrusions into our privacy. In many respects we already have. Target, Shoppers Drugmart and many other retailers send me specialized coupons based on the things I have purchased while by myself in their stores. Facebook tells me they own my content on their platform, Google tells me they are making my online experience more effective by tracking every move I make and the government tells me they are keeping me safe. As someone in marketing I can’t help but appreciate what can be done with all of that information, but I also know some simple truths.  Knowledge is power and all of that knowledge is an awful lot of power for very few people.  No one needs to know everything about me and I certainly don’t need to know everything about complete strangers. There’s also that small detail about the ethics of intrusion.

Perhaps I’m looking at this all wrong. As a friend of mine pointed out, privacy as we recently knew it was a relatively new construct.  Having grown up in a West Indian family, I know that there is very little that is private in a real community.  I could track the movements of my cousins in Montreal while visiting in Barbados and that is before Facebook, social media or the Internet.  My family never needed spyware to figure out what was going on with family members around the world. Perhaps all this spying and gathering of data is simply a reflection of a very natural human instinct to know. Of course, I actually knew the people “spying” on me and their incursions into my privacy really did keep my world much safer and of course they were never trying to sell me something.

So, whether these privacy breeches are natural, abnormal or just plain creepy, it makes me think it’s time for more dinner parties.  Perhaps we should think about recreating the old fashioned salons, those gatherings intended to entertain and teach.  Those intimate exchanges where the cell phones and laptops are left behind.  I’m not suggesting the abandonment of contemporary media, I am a blogger after all and I make my living in communications and marketing, but maybe a little less time online and a little more time in the world around us would be good, not all of our communities need to be virtual.

What do you think, too much time spying?  Is it time to spend more time in person? Should we just get used to having less privacy?

Image courtesy of adamr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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