Still Nice, After All These Years

NOTE: I have posted Shane Koyczan’s poem “We Are More” at the end of the blog.

I reread my blogs on a regular basis. Sometimes just to enjoy them, or shake my head at them, or to see if they have stood the test of time. I wrote about being nice nearly five years ago. This is my update.

Sometimes in this chaotic, violent world I feel the need to defend being nice. What it is. What it means. Does it matter or should we all drop the pretense and just embrace all the chaos and the outrage, that seem to be so much the currency of the times. It can be tempting.

And then along came a reminder. I was in Kelowna British Columbia recently, a beautiful town in the Okanagan Valley, about 350 kilometres due east of Vancouver, on the coast. I was staying at the Four Points by Sheraton at the airport and was leaving to head into town for some meetings and media interviews, to promote my book ‘Bubna A Remarkable Woman’ (www.tonywithacapitalt.ca). As I approached the automatic doors at the front entrance a young couple, baby and a mountain of stacked suitcases in tow, approached from outside.

“Oh sorry” the young woman said to me, acknowledging I suppose the space taking enterprise that they had become on this trip.

She and her husband tried to step aside as we passed.

“No, not all, here let me help you with that.”

I reached out to take a bag from the young man.

“The registration desk is just over here.”

Thank you” he said “That is so nice of you.”

And there it was. And he was right, which takes me back to what I wrote so many years ago.

“Canadians are so nice!” I can remember my mother saying when I was a young boy, new to Canada as I was. And it wasn’t a compliment. From an English woman finding her place in this new land it was sharp criticism. It was as though ‘being nice’ was to be invisible, unseen and insignificant. Now with the hindsight of another seven decades, I’ve come to think it was intentional, an admonition.

“Don’t you become nice Tony!”

I wasn’t to know but she may as well have said, “Don’t you become Canadian, Tony!”

Of course, I was eight and didn’t have a clue what my mother was talking about but if her purpose was to impose a question, it worked. It has echoed through the ages, a question posed, a question unanswered. 

Are we so nice?

Can a country even be nice?

And if we are, is that such a bad thing? 

I’ve come to think people of most countries don’t aspire to being thought of as nice. It is as though to be nice is to be a pushover and weak and in this crass muscle flexing world of ours that just makes you vulnerable as a country. No, it is much better to be vivid and angry and demanding. Throw in some good old patriotic chest thumping for good measure but whatever you are DO NOT BE NICE! We see it everyday, everywhere, in every country around the world: The chest thumping, jingoism of the Patriot!

“U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”

Or go to any national sports event in England, with one voice the crowd will roar, “Rule Brittania, Brittania rules the waves” notwithstanding it harkens back to an imperial glory now a full century in history’s rear view mirror. English, Germans, Aussies people from all over the world embrace what it is to be from where they are in full voice, vividly patriotic. Now don’t get me wrong, we Canadians are not beyond such displays but tell me we’re not nice about it. 

GO CANADA GO! GO CANADA GO!                  

And there it is again. Fact is we are nice. And it is more than just a few nice people, Canadians as a whole are nice. Our country is nice. And it is a good thing. My mother was wrong.

Not only are we nice, we have cultivated a Vocabulary of Nice, a vocabulary to be nice with. You can see signs of it everywhere. I can remember a story froma. few years back. I was sitting in a mall coffee shop in Nanaimo BC. I was alone so I amused myself by listening to patrons as they ordered, counting the ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘sorrys’ as they went. In the space of ten minutes fifteen customers came by, politely waiting their turn in line.

“Excuse me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m in your way.”

“No, please you go ahead of me.”

And that was even before any of them had placed an order. In that ten minutes those fifteen customers dropped nine ‘pleases’, twelve ‘thankyous’ and seven ‘sorrys’. And of course the ‘sorrys’ weren’t for anything they had done wrong. It was fantastically Canadian. It was so nice!  We have come to understand that those simple, powerful, little words ease our exchanges not just with friends and family but even more noticeably with perfect strangers. If the expression wasn’t so misunderstood I’d even say that the Vocabulary of Nice lubricates social intercourse.

One of our greatest living poets, Shane Koyczan, a slam poet from Penticton BC, nailed what it is to be Canadian at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. He recited from his poem ‘We Are More‘. I will never forget it. 

“And some say what defines us is something as simple as please and thank you

And as for you’re welcome, well we say that too

But we are more than genteel or civilized

We are an idea in the process of being realized.”

It went on for about three minutes and it was stunning.

“Because we believe in generations beyond our own, knowing now that so many of us have grown past what used to be, we can stand here today, filled with all the hope people have when they say things like “someday”

Someday we’ll be great. Someday we’ll be this or that. Someday we’ll be at a point, when someday was yesterday and all of our aspirations will pay the way.”

 I remember thinking that he had captured everything it was to be Canadian. Being nice is part of that.

In British Columbia we even have something called the Apology Act. It’s to prevent lawyers using an apology against a defendant in a civil case as evidence of fault. How nice is that!? The law recognizes that one of our first instincts when someone has been hurt, for example in a car accident, is to say “Oh, I’m so sorry!” or some version of that. It’s not an admission of fault or responsibility, it is simply what any decent person might say. Nice is good and now nice can’t be used against you in a civil trial in BC.

Through it all I have come to understand that to be nice is a good thing. I have taught my four children that being nice is a good thing and I have gone a step further; I have taught them that to be nice is to be Canadian. It is what we are and far from making us invisible or unseen, being nice is a vivid part of our identity. In fact being nice as it turns out, means you can be seen and you can be heard precisely because it is so different, never more so than now in this raw, coarse world we find ourselves navigating. And never has there been a more visible example of what it is to be Canadian than now, as our Prime Minister Mark Carney navigates the global chaos we currently find ourselves embroiled in. He is what ‘Canadians’ look like. The contrast between ourselves and our American neighbours has never been seen in more stark relief. He is how we want to be seen by the rest of the world. He is tough, resourceful and firm in the face of provocation and insult. He is composed and courteous and kind, and yes, he is nice.

Of course, we don’t have to prove ourselves to anybody. Canada is a tough unforgiving country and being nice was never going to be enough. We have proven ourselves to be a resourceful, uncompromising people, bending our backs into the endless challenges of this country and our history. We have fought wars, we have constructed a society designed to lift all and we are resolute in our unblinking acknowledgement of our mistakes. We will always improve our country because that is what we intend to do. We have a reckoning ahead of us this century, one centuries in the making as we come to understand the grave and historic wrongs we imposed on Canada’s indigenous people. But we will square up to it and learn the truth. And our children will then be taught the truth and we will reconcile. That is the right thing to do. That is being Canadian. That is being nice.

So if you’re reading this and thinking, ‘What a bloviating blowhard’ you’re probably on to something or at the very least you are a good guesser. And if you’re not Canadian this may seem somewhat sanctimonious and self praising and again you may be correct. I know this to be true, as do all those who share my space through this life, I do go on! I can be an insufferable bore. It’s not that I intend to be and I’m not sure that has anything to do with being Canadian or of English heritage. No, that part is all mine. But if this has irritated you in any way let me say,

“I’m sorry.”

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