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  #101  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2017, 8:23 PM
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The reason being that Trailer Park Boys doesn't pretend to be anything other than a show about a trailer park in Nova Scotia, Canada. If the same crew had done the same show but set it in Paducah, Kentucky, then it would be a different story. (As they did with Wayne's World and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.)
Most Canadians on SSP seem not to believe me and I am not sure how you'd quantify this but this is one of the big differences I notice between Vancouver, Halifax, and some other places around Canada (mostly it comes down to east of Ottawa vs. west of Ottawa).

It really is noticeable how much regional flavour you get in the culture that's consumed in Atlantic Canada. People in NS love NS stuff and they also love stuff from the rest of the region including Newfoundland. Trailer Park Boys is one example of this. Amongst my FB friends the death of Jim Dunsworth (Lahey) was making the rounds in a way similar to the way the Gord Downie is nationally. I can rattle off the names of a whole bunch of "Atlantic" celebrities that people barely know in the rest of Canada. The old 22 Minutes crowd was part of this even though they are mostly from Newfoundland and many have moved on now. I am thinking of examples like Rick Mercer and Mary Walsh.

It gets to a very cheesy point with things like the life-size Theodore Tugboat.

It is the same with food and music.

Vancouver is not really like this at all, even though there's more production here of TV shows and movies and this city has more people than all of Atlantic Canada. Quebec on the other hand is much larger and has an even more developed regional cultural/entertainment industry, and people there consume less from other parts of North America.

I will leave it up to readers to decide where other cities starting with letters like T and C fit in!
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  #102  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2017, 1:13 PM
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Most Canadians on SSP seem not to believe me and I am not sure how you'd quantify this but this is one of the big differences I notice between Vancouver, Halifax, and some other places around Canada (mostly it comes down to east of Ottawa vs. west of Ottawa).

It really is noticeable how much regional flavour you get in the culture that's consumed in Atlantic Canada. People in NS love NS stuff and they also love stuff from the rest of the region including Newfoundland. Trailer Park Boys is one example of this. Amongst my FB friends the death of Jim Dunsworth (Lahey) was making the rounds in a way similar to the way the Gord Downie is nationally. I can rattle off the names of a whole bunch of "Atlantic" celebrities that people barely know in the rest of Canada. The old 22 Minutes crowd was part of this even though they are mostly from Newfoundland and many have moved on now. I am thinking of examples like Rick Mercer and Mary Walsh.

It gets to a very cheesy point with things like the life-size Theodore Tugboat.

It is the same with food and music.

Vancouver is not really like this at all, even though there's more production here of TV shows and movies and this city has more people than all of Atlantic Canada. Quebec on the other hand is much larger and has an even more developed regional cultural/entertainment industry, and people there consume less from other parts of North America.

I will leave it up to readers to decide where other cities starting with letters like T and C fit in!
There is very much the Old Canada vs. New Canada dynamic at play there.
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  #103  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2017, 5:10 PM
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There is very much the Old Canada vs. New Canada dynamic at play there.
Part of what's interesting about it to me is that a lot of "New Canadians" aren't aware that this dynamic exists. Some people think of it as a French vs. English language thing and others don't think about it at all.

These are the people who tend to say that Canada is a blank slate, it isn't like other countries that have culture worth preserving or culture to preserve at all, and anybody who has any qualms about migration to Canada changing anything must be racist because there is no other conceivable objection. But then these same people tend to be pretty receptive toward claims that other countries have unique cultures worthy of preservation, either nationally or regionally. Canada is to them a special case I guess.

Another interesting topic of conversation here in Vancouver is "escape plans". If things go south in Vanocuver, BC, or Canada, where can you move to? Almost everybody already has or can easily get citizenship in some other country. I wouldn't be surprised if this has an impact on support for riskier political policies in one's current place of residence. I think about Vancouver in this way a bit (I don't want them to, but if things really go downhill I will move back to the eastern part of the country). But I don't have the same attitude about every part of Canada.

In newer parts of the country you also get more "what's your ethnicity?" type conversations where people say they're Italian or German, etc. I don't identify as anything other than Canadian (or maybe I will say I am from Nova Scotia or a Maritimer depending).
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  #104  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 4:42 PM
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These are the people who tend to say that Canada is a blank slate, it isn't like other countries that have culture worth preserving or culture to preserve at all, and anybody who has any qualms about migration to Canada changing anything must be racist because there is no other conceivable objection..

People actually think and say that? I thought it was just a figment of Acajack's imagination?

Seriously though, the clean slate mindset IMO doesn't even primarily originate with newcomers. They're for the most part just repeating what culture-cringey native-born Canadians have told them.

I am totally serious about this.
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  #105  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 4:46 PM
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But then these same people tend to be pretty receptive toward claims that other countries have unique cultures worthy of preservation, either nationally or regionally. Canada is to them a special case I guess.

.
... and that the small, medium or large scale importation of those cultures into Canada (often with a few warts even) is totally legitimate.
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  #106  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 4:54 PM
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I am not sure about "blank slate" verbatim but lots of people have said to me (in Vancouver) that they don't think Canada has its own culture. I think these were all native-born Canadians.

(I tend not to bring up these things or talk about them much with acquaintances but they come up pretty frequently.)

Quebec stuff comes up probably every couple of weeks and there are always nuggets of wisdom about how people there are racist, Quebec French isn't real French, etc. I've also seen a few French people here announce that they are not from Quebec lest somebody make a grievous error!

Last edited by someone123; Oct 23, 2017 at 5:20 PM.
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  #107  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 4:56 PM
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I've also seen a few French people here announce that they are not from Quebec lest somebody make a grievous error!
Yes, of course. The "chameleon" phenomenon!
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  #108  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 5:28 PM
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People actually think and say that? I thought it was just a figment of Acajack's imagination?

Seriously though, the clean slate mindset IMO doesn't even primarily originate with newcomers. They're for the most part just repeating what culture-cringey native-born Canadians have told them.

I am totally serious about this.
(Anglo) Canadian culture is subtler, so it tends to get lost in the din from the polity to the south of us and our historical parent across the pond. It shares a lot of mindset from both those places too, so it is hard to definitively call it 'Canadian'.

I could see how the locals misinterpret it as not really existing.

I liken it to this: some people can appreciate the subtle differences in taste between types of scotch. I can't. It all vaguely falls under the category of 'scotch' to me.
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  #109  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 5:40 PM
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Quebec stuff comes up probably every couple of weeks and there are always nuggets of wisdom about how people there are racist, Quebec French isn't real French, etc. I've also seen a few French people here announce that they are not from Quebec lest somebody make a grievous error!
That often? Is it maybe because people in your entourage are aware of your francophone roots?

I have a hard time believing that Quebec comes up that often as a topic of discussion among random circles of acquaintances in Vancouver.
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  #110  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 5:56 PM
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I am not sure about "blank slate" verbatim but lots of people have said to me (in Vancouver) that they don't think Canada has its own culture. I think these were all native-born Canadians.
I've had immigrant and first generation Canadians ask me point blank why they should care about or take an interest in Canada's cultural heritage when most native-born Canadians (seemingly) don't give a shit themselves.

Obviously it's a generalization, and quite a few native-born Canadians do care, but to the casual observer it can often seem almost like a *fringe* group.

And of course you have some immigrants who buck the trend and are more Catholic than the Pope, and make a deliberate determined effort to absorb all things Canadian (CFL, CBC, HNIC, curling, Strange Brew, Red Green, Tragically Hip, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Stompin Tom, Pierre Berton, etc.) regardless of the ambient indifference.

It's fun when you meet those types of people.
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  #111  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 7:07 PM
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It's fun when you meet those types of people.
I have also met a few immigrants that try very hard to "mimic" the French Canadian accent too (with a few swears here and there).
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  #112  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 7:36 PM
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That often? Is it maybe because people in your entourage are aware of your francophone roots?

I have a hard time believing that Quebec comes up that often as a topic of discussion among random circles of acquaintances in Vancouver.
It's possible but it's hardly something I play up or bring up. I have closer friends who might ask me to translate things but that's about the extent of it.

Mostly I encounter university-educated people who are somewhat interested in current events. The face covering issue is a good example of something that is a pretty big deal for this group. It comes up a lot. I could see other groups being less interested in these types of topics.

I've also mentioned before that the French language has a weird status in the US and parts of Canada. It's a bit like Latin was way back when. So some people like to talk about the language, how well they know it, etc. just as a social positioning thing. I dislike those conversations and try to avoid them. People here in Vancouver and most Americans also have super low standards of what counts as bilingualism.
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  #113  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 7:43 PM
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It's possible but it's hardly something I play up or bring up. I have closer friends who might ask me to translate things but that's about the extent of it.

Mostly I encounter university-educated people who are somewhat interested in current events. The face covering issue is a good example of something that is a pretty big deal for this group. It comes up a lot. I could see other groups being less interested in these types of topics.

I've also mentioned before that the French language has a weird status in the US and parts of Canada. It's a bit like Latin was way back when. So some people like to talk about the language, how well they know it, etc. just as a social positioning thing. I dislike those conversations and try to avoid them. People here in Vancouver and most Americans also have super low standards of what counts as bilingualism.
Interesting insights. As usual.
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  #114  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2017, 8:20 PM
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I have also met a few immigrants that try very hard to "mimic" the French Canadian accent too (with a few swears here and there).
More than a few in my case.

It's not always a question of mimicking the accent necessarily, but almost all of the immigrants I know here pepper their French with Quebec expressions.

In the case of those who learned French here it's likely because that is *the* French they learned.

In the case of those who already knew it before arriving, it's either osmosis or a willingness to fit in, I guess.
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