Proud to be Canadian

I’ve seen the Canadian flag countless times at home. Seeing it in Belgium felt different.

I’ve just returned from a 455-kilometre battlefield cycling tour of Belgium and the Netherlands with the South Alberta Light Horse. We visited places where Canadians fought and cemeteries where many of them are buried. Canadian flags still fly in the towns we passed through and at memorials thousands of kilometres from home.

At the cemeteries, I kept finding myself drawn to the headstones. The grounds are beautifully cared for, and the rows of white stones seem to go on forever. The headstones of our Canadian fallen are emblazoned with a maple leaf.

Belgium holds Canadian graves from both world wars. Thousands of Canadians who died during the First World War are buried or commemorated in cemeteries and memorials across Belgium. The names of 6,940 Canadians whose graves are unknown are inscribed on the Menin Gate in Ypres. More than 800 Canadian soldiers also died in battle in Belgium during the Second World War.

I knew some of those numbers before I came. I wasn’t prepared for the ages. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-four. The same ages as my three boys.

I kept stopping to read another name, then another. I thought about my sons as they are now: their personalities, their work, the plans they talk about. The young men beneath those stones had plans too. They were students and workers, farm boys and miners’ sons. Someone at home knew exactly how each of them laughed and what he hoped to do when the war was over.

As a mother, I thought about waiting for a letter from one of my boys. I thought about how carefully I would read it, looking for reassurance he might have been trying to give me. I cannot imagine receiving the news that he would never come home, then knowing his grave was across an ocean in a place I might never see.

Belgian families lived through occupation and war. Canadian families paid a terrible price to help end it. Standing there, I felt how closely those histories are held together.

In the fall of 1944, the First Canadian Army helped clear the Belgian coast and fought to open the Scheldt estuary so Allied ships could reach Antwerp. It was an Allied campaign, fought in Belgium and the Netherlands, and it resulted in more than 6,400 Canadian casualties: killed, wounded or missing. Belgium was liberated through the efforts of many nations. Canadians were among those who came, fought and stayed behind.

More than 80 years later, people here still remember them. I’ve seen Canadian flags as I’ve walked and biked through Belgium, and each one has caught my eye. I have felt more openly patriotic here than I often do at home. Once or twice, I’ve wanted to stop in the street and say, much too loudly, “I am Canadian!”

It has made me think about what that means.

In 2015, Justin Trudeau told The New York Times Magazine, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” He spoke of shared values such as openness, respect and compassion and described Canada as a “post-national state.”

I believe those values matter. But I also believe we have a history that binds us, and I can see part of it here. It is in the courage of young Canadians who went to war and in the families and communities that carried on after losing them. It is also in the work generations did at home in our mines, our forests, our farms, our factories and our small businesses. It continues wherever neighbours help neighbours and volunteers give their time to keep a community going.

That history belongs to all of us, including those who have chosen Canada as their home. I want us to be able to talk honestly about our country and still feel proud to belong to it.

Donald Trump’s tariffs, threats and talk of making Canada the 51st state have brought that feeling into sharper focus. I never expected to thank him for anything, but he has reminded many Canadians just how much we value our independence.

Pride alone will not protect it. We depend too heavily on one trading partner. We need other markets, strong relationships with our allies and the confidence to develop the resources Canada has to offer. We should be able to stand with our friends while making our own choices and defending our own interests.

I thought about all of that as I walked among the graves. Mostly, though, I thought about the men who lay there. I thought about their mothers and then about my own sons.

I am grateful that Belgium and the Netherlands remember the Canadians buried here. I wish their families could see the care with which these places are kept and the flags that still fly for them.

I came away grieving for lives they should have had. I also came away proud to be Canadian. I hope we never lose either feeling.