Canada has an identity crisis okay let's be a little bit more clear
white Anglophone Canadians have an identity crisis this isn't just me
saying that there's quite a bit of scholarship on this the reason is Canada
doesn't really have a national concept as a country it's actually several
nations built upon the genocide of several more white Anglophone Canadians
trace their roots back to refugees from the American Revolution often what
passes for identity is how not American we can be while acting almost exactly
like them so if your origin story is from a culture which you then through
historical circumstance actively reject you're left hollow but hey did you know
that doesn't stop Canadian nationalism from being a thing and not just people
and reflective vests who say that we don't hate Muslims oppress indigenous
people or destroy the fundamental life-support systems of the planet fast
enough but if you have a hollow identity how do you create nationalism well that
part's easy we just make a really big deal out of an insignificant war we won
okay kind of won all right it was a draw but that would be transparent and dumb
wouldn't it?
learn more about the war of 1812 visit 1812.GC.CA welcome to step back where we
use the past to understand today I'm Tristan Johnson and let's talk about the
war of 1812 who's ready to talk about a war that was extremely insignificant but
for some reason make a really big deal out of it
Cause we burned down the white house
honestly the reasons for
the war were numerous neither the Americans or British played nice to each
other after the American Revolution most of the debate about whose fault it is
for starting the conflict comes down to which factors you think are more
important the British had been trying to stick it to the Americans since the
Revolution Britain had acted in ways which Americans saw as violations of
their brand-new sovereignty one example was the British impressed American
sailors this doesn't mean they wowed them with the quality of their hardtack and salted
pork impressment is a recruitment technique and by recruitment technique i
mean kidnapping sailors to serve in the Navy Britain expanded its fleet in the
war against Napoleon and turned to press gangs to man those ships but this is
just one of many nasty spats on the high seas the American trade fleet increasing
made the British nervous about competition worse the Americans declared
themselves neutral in the war with Napoleon so yeah
British and American ships were clashing with each other all across the Atlantic
the British also made efforts to limit American expansion one of many reasons
why the American Revolution happened in the first place was anger over Britain
restricting their ability to go into indigenous territory and steal their
land after the war the British continued to arm their native allies in places
like Ohio to curb American expansion the British plan was to make an indigenous
state in the area but let's be honest they were ready to abandon them pretty
soon in the peace deal of the war anyway this was the last chance for the
indigenous people of the region to have hope of their own homeland and yep all
gone most the time Canadians will ignore all of these and focus on manifest
destiny there were a few vocal American politicians
who advocated the British territory which would become Canada should belong
to America they framed it as a second American Revolution they'd be welcomed
as liberators and push the British off the continent blissfully ignorant that
most of the English people living in Canada were loyalist refugees from the first
revolution not to mention many Americans were grumpy about the idea of absorbing
a bunch of french-speaking Catholics
because the British were so occupied with Napoleon the Americans saw this
moment as an opportunity to put them on the back foot before they could rally
people over the Atlantic for a sideshow because yeah the British were a massive
Empire they could crush the Americans and they would with only a small
fraction of their forces so the British and the Americans had themselves a
little war it was super cool with like cannons and muskets and stuff there was
a Laura Secord who I think smuggled chocolate into Quebec and a war hero
named Tecumseh who led a scrappy army of indigenous soldiers against the
Americans who tragically died in battle you guys know the deal at this point but
if you're new to step back you'll know that I'm not really a arrows and maps
type of historian you can go and watch kings and Generals or something else for
that the end of the war was a draw no territory changed hands but the
Americans did get a promise that we would no longer harass them the British
razed Washington DC including yes burning down the White House
cause we burned down the whitehouse
and torching part of Congress Canadians love to rub this one in Americans faces I say
as a Canadian we tend to ignore we also burn tons of Thomas Jefferson's personal
book collection which was a massive loss for historians also some people think it
could have been worse but and I can't believe this is a thing a tornado hit DC
and wrecked a bunch of the city forcing the British to leave now what Americans
remember of this war is a major British defeat called the Battle of New Orleans
which by the way it was not that important of a battle in the scope of
the war it occurred after a truce was already signed but the British fleet
didn't get the order since they were at sea what it did do is make a war hero
out of Andrew Jackson he'd leverage this to become president
and more or less found the Democratic Party so there's that okay in the United
States there's usually not a lot of emphasis in most curriculums about the
war of 1812 I mean it does depend on which state you live in I live in Kansas
and so we don't focus much on it usually when we do focus on it it's the the
Battle of New Orleans because of course you know Andrew Jackson and the ragtag
bunch that is all heroic as huge underdogs against the big bad British
but yeah so it's not really given much attention down here the United States
and as a matter of fact most Americans probably don't know anything about the
war of 1812 other than perhaps the year it started and what's crazy is that the
star-spangled banner' which of course every patriotic American knows all the
words to a lot of Americans don't realize that the words for that song
came from Francis Scott Key during the war of 1812
so yeah if you want to learn more about American history and I guess less about
the war of 1812 check out my channel but honestly the war isn't that big of a
deal in the grand scope of things Americans barely teach it and the
British treat it like it's a small sideshow of the Napoleonic war but not
Canada we stood side-by-side
and won the fight for Canada Canada makes a huge deal about this two-year
war we have reenactments tourist attractions and names on high schools
the absurdity hit fever pitch when the Bicentennial went down back in 2012 it
went down with maybe Canada's most right-wing Prime Minister Stephen Harper
so this tiny war in which no territory changed hands and neither belligerent
really teaches turned into this 200 years ago the United States invaded our
territory
but we defended our land oh yes the Harper government tried to reinterpret
Canadian identity behind nineteenth-century nostalgia British
loyalism and of course no small part military jingoism which makes perfect
sense in a country that is well known for its peacekeeping efforts and in
which more than one in five of its citizens are foreign-born way to go
champ also it was an attempt to build a universal identity around a country
where every province hates every other province a unified nationalism around a
war which occurred primarily in Ontario and Quebec two provinces the other eight
are huge fans of and don't worry even Ontario and Quebec enjoy hating each
other heck I even pitched to mr. Beat you can
watch it on his channel right now go and just take in the blood feud going on in
the comments I warned you mr. Beat I warned you but you see building a nationalism
around something so silly shows just how ridiculous but also dangerous it is it
attempts to construct a narrative but that narrative is only in place so that
a very privileged group can create an exclusionary militarist identity and
then also push a very right-wing agenda today it's imbibing that excellent flavour
of white nationalism all the kids in America are talking about and with as of
this recording three new far-right provincial governments and a really
really dumb election this fall things are looking grim nationalism is a
consuming ideology which uses oppression and even genocide to make an
exclusionary identity that leaves a lot of people out it suppresses
individuality Canada often sold itself on its multiculturalism and it seems
people are ditching that Nationalism is festering in Canada and around the world
and it has already led to some pretty scary stuff
it was during evening prayers on Sunday the witnesses say gunmen opened fire on
40 worshippers inside the past weekend I went to Carrefour Laval and a woman
working here there refused to serve a she said
I'm not gonna serve you if you are veiled
according to Statistics Canada
hate crimes nearly doubled in the last few months
Canada's strength when it lives up to its own ideals is that this is a country
where you're able to be free to express yourself and be yourself no matter what
it is it could be whether you have a different religion a different ethnicity
a different culture or you love somebody different or you come from a different
perspective you're welcome here and the bonds that hold us together are what
make us strong we could create an identity around that in the face of an
increasingly dark world wouldn't it be kind of nice or you know we could obsess
over some war I guess hey if you want to help me make these videos better and
help with the rent and food and stuff patreon.com/stepbackhistory I am
pushing towards being able to do this full-time which means more and better
videos for you so that's cool also check out that mr. beat's video I
mentioned I helped suggest a bunch of pointless rivalries between Toronto and
Montreal two cities love but for many often hockey-related reasons hate each
other thank you all I'll see you next time
Cause we burned down the whitehouse