Canadian flag outside the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic on September 4th, 2004 at approximately 16:43:08 (AST) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today’s blog was going to be examining an issue with how some police officers treat domestic violence incidents… but that has been derailed by the bumper sticker I saw this morning. Yes. A bumper sticker.
A Ford minivan had a Canadian flag on its back window. Nothing wrong with that. Not until you get close enough to read “Fit in or Fuck off”. I wasn’t quick enough on the trigger to snap a photo, nor can I find one on Google this morning.
Why does this upset me and warrant a blog post? Because, when you get right down to it, I am insulted. If the statement had not been places on a Canadian flag I may not have been as upset but as it stands, I’m disgusted.
Canada is a country of diversity. We have two national languages. We have schools that offer language classes in Ojibwe, Japanese, German, Spanish, Latin and, of course, English and French. There are private schools that are specifically Jewish or Muslim, on top of our “public” Catholic schools. Only 1/3 of our population increase is due to births, the rest is immigration. The 2006 Census showed that nearly the same number of people spoke a non-official language as spoke French. 520,380 people responded to the Census indicating they spoke neither English nor French.
In 2006, based on the Census responses, there were approximately 1.7 million people of Aboriginal origins, 2.2 million of East and Southeast Asian origins, 1 million Dutch and 10 million that identified as simply being Canadian.
According to the 2001 Census there were 10 million people of the Catholic religion, followed by 3.7 million people who have no religion affiliation. There were 411, 520 Muslims, 268,910 Jews (Yep. More Muslims than Jews), 253,735 Buddhists and 18, 925 Pagans.
In 2006 there were approximately 1.1 million single-mother households. 1.34 million common-law couples and 6.1 million married couples. In 2006, of all couples, 0.6% were same-sex couples. 9% of people in these relationships had children.
80% of the population lives in urban areas with only 20% of the population living in rural areas. The urban area with the largest population is Toronto.
6.5 million Canadians over the age of 15 possessed a high school diploma in 2006. 5.8 million possessed a University-level degree or diploma. 6 million did not possess a degree or diploma of any kind (which isn’t that bad since those who are 15 have not yet finished high school).
The median age for men is 40 years and for women 42 (I rounded). In 2006 there were 16.3 million men and 16.6 million women.
So, how does one fit in while being a Canadian? I suppose the easiest way is to be a 42 year old, Caucasian, married woman with a high school diploma who is a Catholic living in Toronto and speaks English.
What are the rest of us to do?
Related articles
- Oldlantic Canada and the aboriginal tsunami: What surprises to expect from census data on age and gender (news.nationalpost.com)
- Census data reveals under-40 population flight (blogs.windsorstar.com)
Ranting Rhetoric 