Tag Archives: canada

The Most Canadian of Social Networks

It may be the most polite social network in the world. It’s Hey.Cafe – a Facebook alternative built by Canadians for Canadians.

I first heard about Hey.Cafe through a reel on Facebook (oh, the irony) from Tod Maffin, a former CBC radio host, author and podcaster. Prompted by the not so veiled threats coming from south of the border, Tod’s been on a “buy Canadian” campaign for several months now and that has recently extended to Canadian alternatives for the big social media platforms. It was Tod that suggested to every Canadian listening (currently about 10,000,000 a week, according to Tod’s website) that we check out Hey.Cafe.

So, I did. It turned out that Anthony Lee, the creator of Hey.Cafe, lives about an hour down the highway from me, here in the heart of beautiful British Columbia. So I reached out and we had a chat – a nice, polite Canadian chat. Because that’s how we do things up here.

The first thing I learned, which was a surprise, is that Hey.Cafe is not new. In fact, it’s been around since 2001. That means there was a version of Hey.Cafe before there was ever a Facebook (which started in 2004). In addition to running a tech support company out of Penticton, BC, Anthony has been developing alternatives to the major social media platforms for the better part of 3 decades now, “Whenever I thought, ‘Oh, I think I have an idea,’ I’d make some changes, that kind of stuff. But it definitely wasn’t a sit down and work on it all day thing, unless I had some time free that I was just like, ‘Yeah, I’ll spend this week working on stuff.’”

Then I asked the obvious question, “Why now? Why is Hey.Cafe suddenly gaining attention?”

There is the “buy Canadian” thing, of course. But Anthony said it’s more than just Canadians being fed up with an American president and his bluster. We’re also fed up with social media founders that have their noses firmly pressed up against said President’s posterior simply because it’s good for business.

And let’s not even get into the simmering cesspool every major social media platform has become, driven by an ad-obsessed business model that monetizes eyeballs at the expense of ethics. Lee concurred, “It’s all about algorithm for them. They don’t care if it’s someone you follow or not. If, if it looks like it’s gonna make some attention, whether it be good or bad, they’re gonna push it in the feed.”

So, are Canadian’s kicking Hey.Cafes tires like a rink-side Zamboni? Yes, finally. Thanks to the plug from Tod Maffin, users shot up from about 5,000 to over 40,000 in two weeks. And it’s still growing. Because it’s still a side of the desk project, Anthony had to cap new accounts at 250 an hour.

Now, those numbers are infinitesimal compared to any of the major platforms, but they do signal a willingness by Canadians to try something not tied to business practices we don’t agree with. At the same time, it does bring up the elephant in the room for anyone going up against Facebook or any of the big platforms – the curse of Metcalfe’s Law. Metcalfe’s Law – named after Ethernet pioneer Robert Metcalfe – says that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users. Having a telephone isn’t much use if no one else has one. For networks, bigger = better. And Facebook is currently 75,000 times bigger than Hey.Cafe.

Given that, does Hey.Cafe stand a chance? I hope so. I supported it with a one-year subscription because I would love to see Anthony Lee’s side project survive and – hopefully – succeed. I did go on and post a few things. I even started a new “café” – Hey.Cafe’s version of a Facebook Group. So far, nothing much has happened there, but we’ll politely wait and see. Again, that’s how we do things up here.

What I did find, however, is a community that seems genuinely, politely happy to be there. And not all of them are Canadian. This was a post from a nurse newly arrived from the U.S.: “Newly landed nurse practitioner from Oregon via Boston (long story). Love the concept of no ads and AI. Now to find some other communities, Bernese Mountain Dogs and skiing!”

I did ask Anthony, given the audience MediaPost (where this post also runs) reaches, if there’s any message he’d like to pass on. For media buyers especially, he offered this, “Whether it be HeyCafe, Bluesky, Mastodon, (consider) using more services that aren’t the big three players. Use more stuff that puts you in the spotlight of communities that are all over the place.”

While Anthony would love for Hey.Cafe to be economically sustainable, maybe the take-away here is not so much about financial success. Maybe these are Canadians signalling a change in our attitude. It’s as if we’ve been in an abusive relationship with Facebook for years but have put up with it because it’s been too hard to leave. But, at some point in abusive relationships, there comes a red line which, when crossed, you begin planning your exit. It doesn’t happen immediately. It may not happen at all, but there is a significant mental shift that happens where you become aware of how toxic the relationship really is and you start planning a life free from that toxicity.

For 40,000 Canadians and wannabe Canadians – at least – that switch may have happened.

A Silver Lining from Northern Places

Journalist Thomas Friedman had a pretty stark open for his recent New York Times opinion piece: “The last year has been one of the most depressing of my nearly 50 years as a journalist”

But if you got past that – he soon presented a silver lining:  “But then I spent time in my native state, Minnesota, after something else that I’d never seen in nearly 50 years: a spontaneous uprising of civic activism propelled by a single idea — I am my neighbour’s keeper, whoever he or she is and however he or she got here.”

I don’t think it’s happenstance that this emerged in Minnesota, one of the most northernly states in the US. I have spent a fair amount of time in the Minneapolis – St. Paul area on business. On those trips, I found something very familiar there, a sense of – for lack of a better word – “Canadianism.”  Minnesota “Nice” felt very close to Canadian “Polite.”

In the piece, Friedman wrestled with a verb that was also new to him – “neighbouring.” He described it as “a basic human impulse to look out for your neighbours and, yes, dig their cars out of the snow on Monday because you know they will do the same for you on Wednesday.”

I think there’s a correlation between neighbouring and living in the North. When you live in a place where the weather can kill you, you’d better be able to count on the people who live next door to you. As Friedman said, “Minnesotans are winter people. Don’t come for winter people in winter. They’re not afraid of the cold. Just the opposite. The weather has forged a unique Minnesota neighbourliness”

The same is true – I would say – from coast to coast to coast (we have three) in Canada. I have written about this before. When almost half the year is a matter of survival, you tend to huddle together to fight the common foe.

Northerly = Neighbourly

Weather has a way of tying you to your geography.  It forces you to define community – at least in part – by those who live in the same area as you. You naturally bond with the people who will help you shovel your driveway, loan you six eggs if you’re snowed in or invite you in on a frosty morning for a cup of hot coffee (and, in Canada, a shot of rye). It is the great common denominator. For many months every year, weather is the number one topic for everyone that lives in the North.

Canada and the Northern states are not unique in this regard. The same is true for the Nordic Countries in Europe. And this translates into many good things in terms of civic engagement. The World Happiness Report has consistently found the same pattern, commenting in their 2020 report: “No matter whether we look at the state of democracy and political rights, lack of corruption, trust between citizens, felt safety, social cohesion, gender equality, equal distribution of incomes, Human Development Index, or many other global comparisons, one tends to find the Nordic countries in the global top spots.”

Neighbouring and Systemic Trust

But there is not a one-to-one correlation between the Northern parts of North America and Northern Europe. In my example of the connection between distance from the equator and civic cohesion, you could rightly say there are anomalies. For example, the politics in the Canadian province of Alberta and states south of the border in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and the Dakotas bear little similarity to the politics of British Columbia, Washington, Minnesota or Maine. Yet all of those lie in the North. And what about Alaska, which is solidly “Red?” You can’t get much further north than Alaska.

“Neighbouring” isn’t about politics. It can be misleading to conflate the two. Being a good neighbour isn’t unique to the right or left. I grew up in rural Alberta and I can tell you from experience that if you need help from your neighbour, Alberta is a pretty damned good place to be.

But there is something else happening in those places – the remnants of a “cowboy” ethic and a feeling of distrust breed by generations of alienation from the power bases thousands miles away in the eastern regions of the country. This is true both in Canada and the U.S. In this case, geography is our enemy. Big, spread-out countries have a tough time keeping everyone happy at the same time. This leads to distrust of the system and the federal government. Chances are your neighbours feel the same way as you do.

But what Minnesota did show us is the basic human dyad – the relationship between two people who happen to be in the same place at the same time. – is still very much alive and well. We still band together when threatened from the outside. But these social connections are like muscles – the more they’re exercised the stronger they get. It just happens that in places where winter is more severe, we are more used to relying on our neighbours to overcome a common threat. That is why Minnesota taught us a timely lesson in what it means to be “neighbourly.”

The Long-Term Fallout from MAGA: One Canadian’s Perspective

The other day, an American friend asked how Canada was currently feeling about Trump and the whole MAGA thing. You may remember some months back a number of broadsides towards Canada from the president that seemingly came from nowhere -– Trump threatening/cajoling us to become the 51st state, on again-off again tariffs, continued assertions that the US does not need Canada for anything, completely unveiled threats towards us from Pete Hoekstra, the American Ambassador to Canada.

We took it personally. “Elbows up” became the Canadian rallying cry – a reference to protecting yourself in our beloved national sport – fighting along the boards balanced on frozen water while wearing sharp blades on your feet. Liquor stores had shelf after empty shelf that once were laden with California reds and Kentucky bourbon. Canadian trips to Disneyland and Las Vegas plummeted. Grocery stores started labeling products that (supposedly – which is another story) came from Canada. Canadian consumers and businesses scrambled to find Canadian substitutes for traditional American suppliers.

That was then. What about now?

Trump and the MAGA train have moved on to an endless list of other scandals and dumpster fires. I haven’t heard a whisper of the 51st state for a long time. While our trade war continues on, fueled by shots across the bow from both sides, I think it’s fair to say that we are now just lumped with every other country reeling from the daily bat-shit crazy barrage coming from Washington. Canadians are used to being ignored, for good or bad, so we’re back to situation normal – all F*$%ed up.

But have Canadians moved on? Have we dropped said elbows? The honest answer is – it’s complicated.

Predictably the patriotic fervor we had early this year has cooled off. California reds are back on the shelves. More Canadians are planning to visit Hawaii and Florida this winter. “Grown in the U.S.A.” stickers are back where they belong, in the produce bins at our grocery stores. When it comes to our American habit – it’s like the line from Brokeback Mountain – “We wish we knew how to quit you.”

Like all relationships, the one between the US and Canada is complex. It’s unrealistic to expect a heavily intertwined relationship like ours to disappear overnight. There are probably no two countries in the world more involved with each other’s business than we are. And that cuts both ways, despite what Mr. Trump says. We have been married to each other for a very long time. Even if we want to go through with it, a divorce is going to take some time.

The numbers from the first six months of our “Buy Canadian” campaign are in, and they are less than inspiring. According to StatsCan, 70% of Canadian businesses saw no increase in sales at all. Even with those that did, the impact was minimal and any gain was usually offset by other sales challenges.  

But if you dig a little deeper, there are signs that there might be more long-term damage done here than first meets the eye. In Canadian grocery stores over the past six months, sales of “Made in Canada” products are up 10% while U.S. made goods are down 9%. Those aren’t huge swings, but they have been sustained over 6 months, and in the words of one Canadian analyst speaking on CBC Radio, when something lasts for 6 months, “you’re moving from fad territory to trend territory.”

The dilemma facing Canadians is something called the “Attitude Behavior Gap” – the difference between what we want to do and what we are actually doing. Canadians – 85% of us anyway – want to buy Canadian rather than American, but it’s really hard to do that. Canadian goods are harder to find and typically cost more. It’s the reality of having a trading partner that outnumbers you both in market size and output by a factor of 10 to 1. If we want to have a Ceasar salad in December, we’re going to have to buy lettuce grown in the U.S.

But we are talking relationships here, so let’s relook at that 85% intention to “Buy Canadian” number again. That means that – 6 months after we were insulted – we still feel that a fundamental trust was irrevocably broken. We’re being pragmatic about it, but our intention is clear, we’re looking for alternatives to our past default behavior – buying American. When those alternatives make economic and behavioral sense to us, we’ll find other partners. That is what is happening in Canada right now.

Should Americans care? I believe so. Because I’m sure we’re not the only ones. The world is currently reeling from the sharp American pivot away from being a globally trusted partner. The short-term reality is that we will put up with it for now and pander to the Presidential powers that be, because we have to.

But we’re looking for options. Our dance card is suddenly wide open.

Our Memories Are Our Compass

“You can’t really know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been”

Maya Angelou

Today is Canada Day – the Canadian version of the Fourth of July. In the past decade or so, it’s been a day fraught with some existential angst, as we try to reconcile our feelings of pride with our often-glaring imperfections as Canadians. In a country known for its readiness to apologize, this is perhaps the most Canadian of Canadian holidays – a day made for wondering if we should be saying “we’re sorry.”

 This year, it will be interesting to see how Canada celebrates. As I’ve mentioned before, what is happening south of the border has caused Canadians to have a renewed burst of patriotism and pride. We may not be united on much, but we universally know we don’t want to be the 51st state. No offence (heaven forbid) but we’re good as is, President Trump. Really.

A few days ago, I happened across a little video posted to celebrate Canada. It was a montage of “Heritage Minutes” –little vignettes of our Canadian past produced since 1990 by Historica Canada. This montage was set to a song by another Canadian icon, “It’s a Good Life if You don’t Weaken” by the Tragically Hip. The 4 minute and 29 second video checked all the boxes guaranteed to generate the warm fuzzies for Canadians: Anne of Green Gables (check), the invention of basketball and the telephone (check), the discovery of Insulin (check), the origins of Superman (check), the naming of Winnie the Pooh (check), our contributions in two World Wars (check and check). It was Canadiana distilled; more than maple syrup – which is more of an Eastern Canadian thing. More than poutine, which most Canadians had never heard of until 20 years ago. Maybe on a par with hockey.

But the montage also reminded me of some not so glorious Canadian moments. We were imperfect, in our abhorrent treatment of immigrants in the past – especially the Chinese and Japanese. And our ignoring – and worse – our attempts to irradicate the incredibly rich and diverse Indigenous history and culture because it was inconvenient to our dreams of nation building.

Canada’s history is distinct from that of the U.S.A. In the last half of 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century, when immigration started in earnest, we were very much a British Colony. Anyone who was not British was treated as either a necessary evil (providing the manual labor required to build a new country) or as a persona non grata. As for those that preceded us – the Indigenous population of Canada – the British saw them as an inconvenience and potential threat to either be tamed or systematically eradicated.

This – too – is part of Canada’s history. And we have to acknowledge that, because to do so gives us a compass to navigate both the present and future. That montage reminds us that immigration built this country. And Canada’s thousands of years of Indigenous past needs to be recognized so the entire history of our nation can be honestly reconciled. We need to fix our bearings to they read true before we move forward.

Canadians today need to decide what we aspire to be as a nation in the future. And to do that, we need to remember where we’ve been. Do we ignore the fact that we are a nation of immigrants and are so much the richer for it? Do we conveniently forget that there were people here thousands of years before the first European set foot on Canadian soil? We need to fully understand what made Canada what it is – both good and bad – an imperfect country that still happens to be a pretty great place to live.

In the song that the montage is set to, the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie sings:

In the forest of whispering speakers
Let’s swear that we will
Get with the times
In a current health to stay

But maybe we can do better than just maintain the status quo. If we remember where we’ve been, maybe we can do better in the future than where we are now.

Happy Canada Day!

The Whole US – Canada Thing – “IMHO”

“Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over. The system of open global trade anchored by the United States – a system that Canada has relied on since the second world war, a system that while not perfect has helped deliver prosperity for a country for decades – is over”

Mark Carney, the New Prime Minister of Canada

I hope the above is not true. Because I’m not ready to sever my relationships with a whole bunch of Americans that I truly love and respect. Maybe that’s denialism, or maybe it’s just my hope that someday – eventually – cooler heads will prevail, and we’ll put this current spat behind us.

There was a good stretch of my life where I spent almost as much time in the U.S. as I did in Canada. I crossed the border repeatedly every month. I was on a first name basis with some of the U.S. Customs and Border officials at SeaTac airport in Seattle. I ran out of visa stamp pages on my Canadian passport and had to get more added. Many people in the search industry at the time just assumed I was American. Some back here in Canada even told me I had picked up an American accent somewhere along the way.

In that time, I made many wonderful friends, who came from every corner of the US:  Boston, Atlanta, Sacramento, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Hartford, Phoenix, Palo Alto, San Diego and Seattle.

I have to admit, my trips to the U.S. have dropped dramatically since November 2016. Part of that is that I no longer need to go to the U.S. for business. But part of it is also just my emotional distress, especially in the past few months. One of the analogies that really seemed to resonate with me is that the current US-Canadian relationship is akin to a messy divorce, and we’re the kids caught in the consequences of that. Going to the U.S. right now would be like going to a family reunion after your mom and dad have just split up. You don’t want to have to deal with the inevitable awkwardness and potential confrontations.

I’m not alone in my reluctance to cross the border. Travel from Canada to the U.S. has plummeted this year. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Canadian entries into the U.S. fell by 12.5% in February and dropped a further 18% in March.  A lot of Canadians have opted out of U.S travel, probably for many of the same reasons that I have.

But I think that’s part of the problem. As awkward as a conversation maybe between a Canadian and an American, whatever their politics, we need more of them, not less. Yes, there is a rift and damage has been done to one of the most successful international alliances in history, but as any counsellor will tell you, healing any relationship requires communication.

Also, I’ve never seen so much media attention from the U.S. turned towards Canada. Half of America seems to have chosen us as a beacon of democracy, truth and justice. While I appreciate that, I feel I have to level with you, my American friends and cousins; we are far from perfect. In fact, I have grave concerns about the future of Canada. We have our own extreme political polarization that has to be recognized and dealt with. It may be a little more polite and nuanced than what is happening currently in the U.S., but it is no less real.

We still have at least two provinces (Alberta and Quebec) who have political leaders that feel their futures would be better outside the Canadian dominion than within it. We have large segments of our population that feel unheard by our current government. We have many acute crises, including housing, a rising cost of living, broken promises to our indigenous community, an environment ravaged by climate change and many others. It’s just that the current economic crisis caused by Trump’s tariffs and vocal sabre rattling about becoming a 51st State has –  well – “Trumped” them all.

While we’re talking about Donald Trump, I have to admit that he does have a point – Canada has taken advantage of America’s willingness to protect the world. We have fallen well short of our 2% defense spending commitment to NATO since the end of the Cold War (we currently spend about 1.37% of our GDP). We have always enjoyed the benefits of cozying up to our American big brother. And in return, we have often repaid that with our own blend of passive aggressive sarcasm and a quiet feeling of moral superiority that is as much a part of the Canadian identity as hockey and Tim Horton’s coffee.

Being Canadian, I feel the need to apologize for that. I’m sorry.

Look. We’re in a tough spot right now. I get that. But I also believe this is not the time to retreat behind our own fences and refuse to talk to each other. This is the time to recognize how special what we had was. Emotions are running high but at some point, I’m fervently hoping this isn’t a permanent split.

Maybe we’re just taking a break. If you want to talk about it, I’m here.

The Quaint Concept of Borders

According to a recent Leger poll, one in five Americans would like their state to secede and join Canada. In contrast, according to the same poll, only one in 10 Canadians would like to see Canada become the 51st State.

Of course, no one takes either suggestion very seriously, except perhaps the President of the United States. And, given the current state of things, that job title is a little ridiculous. Those States are probably less united than they have been at any time since the American Civil War.

All this talk about borders does make a good Facebook meme though. You might have seen it – under the title “Problem Solved” there’s a map of North American with the Canadian border redrawn to extend down the east and west coast to include Washington, Oregon, California, New York, New Jersey and The New England States. Minnesota also gets to become part of the Great White North.

But – even if we took the suggestion seriously – does redrawing borders really solve any problem? Let’s assume that Canada really did become part of the US. It would be a “big, beautiful state,” according to Donald Trump. There have been a few that have pointed out that that state, with our 40 million potential voters, would probably vote overwhelmingly against Trump. Again, according to Canadian pollster Leger, only about 12% of Canadians support Trump.

While we’re redrawing the map of the world, even oceans can’t get in the way. Here in Canada, we are rushing to realign with Europe and its markets. The idea has even been floated that Canada should join the European Union.  Our new prime minister, Mark Carney, has said we have more in common with Europe and the values found there than we do with our American neighbors to the south.

But again, we use the faulty logic of Canadians, Americans or Europeans being identified as a cohesive bloc defined by a border. The recent rush of patriotism aside, Canadians rarely speak with one voice. For example, support for Trump runs highest in Alberta, where 23% of the province’s voters support him. He’s least popular in Canada’s Atlantic provinces, where support dips to 8%

Or let’s hop across the border to the state closest to me – Washington. If you take the state in aggregate, it is a blue state by almost 20 points. But again, that designation depends on an aggregation of votes within a territory defined by a fairly arbitrary border. If you look at Washington on a county-by-county basis, it’s hardly a cohesive voting bloc. Yes, the urban centers of Seattle and Olympia went heavily for Kamala Harris (74% in King County) but eastern Washington is a very different story. There in many counties, for every voter that chose Harris, 3 chose Trump. Ideologically, a resident of Pend Orielle County, Washington has much more in common with someone from Bonner County, which lies just across the border in Idaho, than they do with someone from Jefferson County, which lies on the west coast of Washington.

My point is this: given the polarization of our society, it’s almost impossible to draw a line anywhere on a map and think that it defines the people within that line in any identifiable way. Right now, nowhere on earth defines this more starkly than the United States. Because of the borders of the U.S. and the political structures that determine who leads the people within those borders, almost 2/3rds of Americans lives are being determined by a man they didn’t vote for. In fact, a big percentage of those 2/3rds are vehemently opposed to their President and his policies. How does that make any sense?

Borders were necessary where our survival was tied to a specific location and the resources to be found within that location. This forced a commonality on those that lived within those boundaries. They ate the same food, drank the same water, tilled the same fields, worked at the same factory, shopped at the same stores, attended the same church and their children went to the same schools.

But our digital world has lost much of that commonality. Online, we are defined by how we think, not where we live. This creates a new definition of “tribe” and, by extension, tribal territories. The divides between us now are based on differences in beliefs, not geographical obstacles. And the gap between our beliefs is getting wider and wider. This leaves the concept of a border threatened as something that is becoming increasingly anachronistic. Borders define something that is becoming less and less real and more and more problematic as the people who live in a state or country find less and less in common with their fellow citizens.  As Scottish journalist James Crawford says in his book, The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World, the tension is usually felt more acutely on those arbitrary borders: “Wherever there are borders … that’s where you are going to find the most concentrated injustice.”

This redefining of our world as it decouples from the concept of “place” will place more and more pressure on the old idea of a border defining a place and a common ideology.  When there is less cohesivity between those living within the border than there is between ideologically aligned factions spread across the globe, we must wonder how to manage this given our current political structures based on the foundation of a common territory. This is particularly true for democracies, where you get a whipsaw backlash between the right and left as the two factions grow further and further apart. That prognosis is not a good one. As Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said in their book How Democracies Die, “Democracies rarely survive extreme partisanship.”