Unify Action - October 22, 2025


Here's Why Quebec And Alberta Want OUT - Canada's Identity CRISIS


Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

179.20183

Word count

3,022

Sentence count

98

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 all right guys it was a quiet week on the university so we decided to take a step back
00:00:04.560 in time to what we used to do a month ago and do some on the street interviews and we decided that
00:00:10.800 it was an important enough topic to ask people what they thought canada's national identity was
00:00:15.840 and we had some of the typical answers so of course people said that our national identity
00:00:21.040 has got to be our diversity freedom to be diverse right or our politeness and kind to others being
00:00:28.800 hospitable your friendliest neighbor in the street um but probably the most important one that we got
00:00:35.200 was our freedom the freedoms of our charters of rights maintaining a country that's uh free and
00:00:41.440 yes freedom is a particularly good identity to have and our freedoms differ a little bit than
00:00:46.880 what they have in the united states and i will get to that but what i want to touch on right now and
00:00:52.160 what will probably step on a few people's toes is diversity people often say that we are a
00:00:57.440 a multicultural society and our diversity is our strength. And I fundamentally disagree with that
00:01:02.880 and I'm sure that I'm going to get some heat in the comments for saying this, but I don't think
00:01:07.140 diversity is our strength. I think unity is our strength. So diversity itself is not an identity.
00:01:13.800 I would say it's more of the opposite of a unifying force. And I'm not saying that it's wrong to have
00:01:20.380 many different people from different backgrounds in a country, but there's got to be one standard
00:01:26.860 in one culture that you all align with or things begin to break down. And obviously, don't take me
00:01:35.000 wrong, this is not saying something bad about the cultures, but this is saying that we need a single
00:01:41.440 culture, one culture that we all align with. And I honestly, I don't think that our main focus
00:01:49.040 should be diversity. And I'm not saying we should throw politeness out either. I think politeness
00:01:54.560 is a good characteristic that we should have in our country, but we need something more. We need
00:01:58.560 a unified culture, right? So when you think of a country, there are a few things that stand out
00:02:06.000 about that country. So it has borders, it has a particular language or a few languages,
00:02:14.240 and it has a culture. So those are the things that kind of hold the country together.
00:02:19.680 another thing that people would often say about our country and our identity is our freedom and
00:02:24.880 yes i think this is a very good characteristic that we should have but our freedoms differ a
00:02:31.200 lot from what they have in the united states so people actually brought this up that oh we are
00:02:37.760 free but we don't we don't harp on our freedom we don't toss it around we don't gloat about it
00:02:42.560 yeah so as for freedoms you said about how we don't harp on about it as much
00:02:46.480 that's because we don't need to and yes our freedoms are quite different from what they
00:02:52.960 would say that they have in the united states and that's actually pretty core to like our
00:02:58.320 constitutions and our legislation so in the united states when you read the constitution
00:03:02.640 and especially the declaration of independence um what you'll see is that the framers of those
00:03:09.520 documents thought, their fundamental thinking was that our rights don't come
00:03:15.760 from man or from one government, they come from God. So the fundamental reason
00:03:21.260 that a government should exist is to preserve those rights, and that's
00:03:24.520 something that's very explicit that you read in the Declaration of Independence.
00:03:28.000 So in the United States, their rights come from God, and it is the government's
00:03:33.820 existence and purpose is to ensure those rights, all right? But in Canada, we have a Charter of
00:03:40.920 Rights and Freedoms, and the basic premise of that is that our rights come from government.
00:03:47.740 They are preserved by government. This is something that the government is allowing us
00:03:51.480 in this country. So it's quite different. So in the United States, their rights should never be
00:03:55.920 taken away because then that would be a crime and a sin against God. In Canada, our freedoms are
00:04:01.200 more of a privilege, not exactly a right. And we might think they are, but in our legislation,
00:04:06.300 it's not really framed out that way. When you think of it that way, that it's much easier for
00:04:11.840 someone to say we can take away those rights because they are a privilege avowed to us by
00:04:16.380 the government. And if the government thinks that we are not using our privilege correctly,
00:04:20.380 then they might want to take away our freedoms. So we see that in some of these cases with the
00:04:25.360 hate speech laws that they're trying to put through. And we saw that with COVID and with
00:04:30.800 the freedom convoy as well. Our rights in Canada, they come from government, not from God. At least
00:04:37.620 that's part of the legislation. So that's kind of where we defer. And yes, I would say we have a lot
00:04:43.120 of freedoms and we should be so thankful for them. And one of the things that actually came up
00:04:48.480 when I was talking to a lot of these people is that they saw an increase and a rise in patriotism
00:04:56.500 due to the threats of Trump on our country.
00:04:59.600 And one of the questions that I posed to people was,
00:05:02.420 so you're saying that Donald Trump has made Canada more unified?
00:05:05.860 I think so, yes.
00:05:07.260 Why weren't we unified before?
00:05:09.220 It's a good question.
00:05:10.220 Why weren't we thinking about loving our country and standing up for our country?
00:05:13.960 And one of the reasons I think that has caused that,
00:05:17.500 the lack of patriotism, is because we don't have shared goals.
00:05:20.880 we don't want to actively work to better our country or preserve our freedoms right so we
00:05:28.100 don't have shared goals in this country and that patriotism that rose when trump threatened our
00:05:34.140 country that was a result of us finally having something unified to go around and bring us
00:05:40.140 together and be okay we're standing up to trump this is our sole purpose this is who we are this
00:05:45.740 is our goal. We're standing up to Trump. This is basically what we're going to do. And in my
00:05:51.160 opinion, that is not quite a good enough reason to love your country or to stand up for it. I think
00:05:55.440 we should love our country because of how amazing our country is, not because of some threat
00:06:01.720 externally. And the sad thing for me was that this rise in patriotism, it probably will fall away
00:06:08.760 when the Trump threat goes away. So I think we need to begin to appreciate our country.
00:06:15.320 And part of that actually comes from understanding our history. And when I talk to people and ask
00:06:23.180 them what our national identity is, they had a really hard time answering, like a really hard
00:06:28.920 time. I was surprised. People, eventually they came up with things like freedom and diversity
00:06:34.160 and politeness but it took them a bit and some people actually couldn't answer me even after
00:06:40.800 sitting there and thinking for a bit what do you think canada's national identity is
00:06:48.880 i really don't national i don't know what the nationals i don't know what it would be and when
00:06:55.680 i told them the questions even off camera what i would like them to answer they're like oh i cannot
00:07:00.320 answer these questions so i'm sorry i can't do the interview and that was actually quite shocking to
00:07:05.520 me like people don't think about who we are as a country and we should right and that's probably
00:07:14.080 one of the reasons we saw that rise of patriotism to trump uh because oh we're like oh we are a
00:07:20.000 country yes we should rise up but the sad thing is it's probably going to die away once the threats
00:07:26.080 go away. And when I say threats, it's threats fairly loosely. They're really more like suggestions
00:07:32.880 and Trump trolling, not exactly an actual threat, like it's actually going to happen.
00:07:38.860 All right, now I want to switch and talk about something that would actually unify us.
00:07:43.880 So we talked about culture already, but there are other things that can bring a country together.
00:07:50.260 And one of those, as we touched on, was a shared goal. And what are our shared goals in this
00:07:55.620 country, right? Like when we have an endpoint that we're all trying to arrive at, we're going to all
00:08:02.620 work towards that, but we don't have an endpoint, right? In the United States, that endpoint seems
00:08:08.280 to be being the greatest and the best and being perfect. We call it American exceptionalism,
00:08:13.520 but in Canada, what goal do we have? And you guys can throw around ideas in the comments,
00:08:20.520 but right now it just seems like we're trying to be polite and mediocre and I
00:08:25.640 don't think that's good enough for a goal as a country but you guys can help
00:08:29.740 me out with that in the comments. So as a country we need to have shared goals. We
00:08:34.760 also need to have shared values and then of course shared culture. And now what
00:08:40.320 are our values in this country? Because they used to be Judeo-Christian but we've 0.95
00:08:45.660 obviously thrown that out the window and now we're trying to be as secular as
00:08:49.020 possible. So what are our values, right? And those radically differ based on who
00:08:56.580 you ask. So people will of course say, well we should have the value of being
00:09:00.360 inclusive and diverse, and of course we should have the value of politeness, but
00:09:04.180 those are just face values. We need to have deeper values like the respect for
00:09:08.940 human life and actual value for the human person, because if we don't hold
00:09:16.020 those things supreme, then eventually really, really bad things could happen. So we need to
00:09:21.380 have shared values, absolutely. And unfortunately that doesn't come, values don't exactly stay the
00:09:29.780 same with every culture that you ask, right? So we need to have values that are uniquely Canadian.
00:09:35.540 And then we also need to have uniquely Canadian culture. And part of our culture is an acceptance
00:09:41.860 and a knowledge of our history so i actually asked a couple people this at the market and
00:09:50.500 one young man he was probably just out of high school and i asked him what he thought of
00:09:58.180 canadian history and if when he had been learning it if he thought it was fairly dry and just
00:10:03.780 disinterested him when when you took that canadian history did you get any love for
00:10:08.500 your country from it or did it feel dry honestly it wasn't it no wasn't much love at all it was just
00:10:15.860 kind of uh showing that the creators of this country were just coming here forcibly uh it
00:10:23.380 wasn't really like something to be proud of i guess they didn't frame it in that sense
00:10:27.780 and that is one of the sad things in this country we are not teaching our history and we're not
00:10:33.140 through the study of our history we're not giving people a love for our country
00:10:36.820 In fact, it's quite the opposite. We harp on all the bad things that have happened in this country,
00:10:41.940 and we don't tell anyone the good things. There are so many more good things that happened in our
00:10:46.500 past than the bad things, right? It seems really disingenuous to say that we have to talk all
00:10:54.900 about the bad and ugly things, but not also talk about the good things. Right at that point, it's
00:11:00.660 basically propaganda so we need to talk about the good things in our history and that is one of the
00:11:07.380 sad things about their school system so with that young man i was able to actually encourage him to
00:11:12.260 go and actually read his history and learn it i should get onto it more people should get onto it
00:11:18.660 because it's it's there's no pride in it and i think it's ironic the people that are trying to
00:11:24.100 be prideful now because of trump were the ones you know hating on it beforehand but it is something
00:11:30.020 that i definitely question like yeah the federal government's not doing the best about it but right
00:11:35.860 and they are trying to hide some of the good things about our history so recently we went to
00:11:42.500 john a mcdonald's uh home and it was actually really heartbreaking to walk around that house
00:11:49.460 and only hear the bad things about john mcdonald and no one i didn't we were fairly quick in what
00:11:58.820 what we did and going through that house. But I didn't see a single plaque celebrating what he did
00:12:04.220 in bringing all the provinces together and unifying all the different factions in the
00:12:09.200 Ontario's, in Ontario's government. No one talked about that. So they were harping all about his
00:12:14.640 bad faults, but no one was talking about, oh, his leadership skills and the fact that he was able to
00:12:18.920 join the French and the English provinces together and actually bring them into one country. That was
00:12:25.240 an incredible accomplishment. And I don't think anyone has unified the French and the English
00:12:29.220 parts of our culture and our country like he did since then. I don't think anyone has done that.
00:12:35.200 So they didn't visit the good things about his past and his career and accomplishments,
00:12:42.600 but they were very happy to visit the bad things. So at that point, it becomes propaganda.
00:12:49.760 All right, so I guess the key takeaway here is that we need to learn our history and we need to
00:12:53.740 love our country. And you guys, in the comments, write down what you think Canada's identity is.
00:13:01.100 Help me out here. I really, I would love to know this, what you think Canada's identity is,
00:13:05.760 and not just characteristics like politeness or diversity, but actually who we are as a core.
00:13:11.020 And I would love to say that we are free, and I hope it stays that way, and I hope we continue
00:13:17.060 to have governments that actually keep us free. But just help me out in the comments what you
00:13:21.120 think about canada's nationality and our identity all right guys um that'll do it for me and for fun
00:13:28.160 i'll just leave you guys off with a video uh from the market of the one person who truly
00:13:33.440 understand understood canada and understood who we are as a country understood our history and
00:13:39.120 this man happens to be a veteran so i hope you enjoy that video all right bye what does it mean
00:13:45.840 to be Canadian? Well for me it's maintaining a country that's free to be able to do whatever
00:13:54.580 you want of course within the law and to follow your dream. We're generally accepting of everybody
00:14:01.940 that wants to come here and be Canadian but not change our way of life to suit them. Come here
00:14:09.420 and be canadian you know to me that that's what it's about yeah what do you think is our national
00:14:15.800 identity do we have a strong national identity i think we do i think it's it's tied to the land
00:14:21.500 to the you know to the rocky mountains to the prairies you know to the maritimes and everything
00:14:26.840 in between you know canada has always been a kind of country of explorers and entrepreneurs
00:14:32.160 yours. And I think that's part of our big heritage and our national identity. And the
00:14:39.480 things that we've done overseas, especially, you know, World War I, Vimy Ridge and all
00:14:44.060 these other things, right? Cap Yong, you know, in the Korean War, that type of thing. That
00:14:49.600 helps with our can-do type of identity. That if you want something done, give it to the
00:14:55.980 Canadians and they'll get it done. 0.99
00:14:57.420 Yeah, yeah. So you're showing history, right? And a lot of people,
00:15:01.660 when i ask them these questions that's not something they bring up right like our i feel
00:15:06.840 like our national pride definitely is strongly attached to our history like in many countries
00:15:11.040 it is like especially in quebec like their culture their history they they really they hold on to
00:15:16.280 that and that is who they are but a lot of canadians don't even recognize what their history
00:15:21.440 is and when i ask them if they love our history or if they ever learned our history properly
00:15:27.940 they're like, oh, I don't really care too much.
00:15:30.560 That's because I don't think it's being taught enough in schools.
00:15:34.860 You know, I mean, they're worried about, I guess,
00:15:37.380 it's been a long time since I've been in school,
00:15:39.660 or university, but, you know, grade school and that type of thing.
00:15:43.960 But if you don't teach it to the kids and make it important,
00:15:47.080 then they're not going to bother.
00:15:48.880 So that's what we need to do is get back to teaching people
00:15:51.900 what it's like to be Canadian and what our history is
00:15:54.340 and the geography of this wonderful country.
00:15:57.040 And he is a veteran. He is a veteran, and so his heart is here in this country, too.
00:16:01.980 Yeah, absolutely.
00:16:02.380 Yeah, thank you for your service.
00:16:04.960 Yeah, so just even being abroad and, like, serving our country,
00:16:09.620 you feel like our national identity is more who we are and our history
00:16:16.580 rather than our diversity and other things, yeah?
00:16:21.820 Absolutely, absolutely.
00:16:23.380 Like both said to my grandparents, came here from other places.
00:16:26.420 but when they got here they were they became Canadian right and uh so my parents felt the
00:16:34.060 same thing right what happened in the old country wherever they were from can stay there and you
00:16:39.980 build a new life here as a Canadian all right guys if you like the video make sure to give it a
00:16:46.900 thumbs up and subscribe and comment it really helps the channel out all right thanks bye