With the debates all in and the election just ten days away, what kind of Canada do we want into the future, and which party leader is best able to lead us there?

The thunder of Donald Trump continues to hang over our heads, questioning the sovereignty of our country.

Today, the Against the Flow blog is setting out the main things we value about our country and why our leadership should help us to further advance them.

It may be a surprise to some but at the top of our blog’s list is something that has not been talked about sufficiently in the current election campaign – our arts and cultural sector. This blog is picking just a few parts of the cultural sector. This is not a definitive list. We hope, though, it is enough to give us another reason to be patriotic.

Think back to our terrific contributions to the world, beginning with music. People of a “certain age” will remember Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah; Gordon Lightfoot’s In the Early Morning Rain; Ian & Sylvia’s Four Strong Winds; Edith Butler’s Paquetville;  William Prince’s, That’s All I’ll Ever Become; Great Big Sea’s Ordinary Day, Rose Cousins’  The Benefits of Being Alone, Gilles Vigneault’s Mon Pays; The BareNaked Ladies’, If I Had a Million Dollars; and finally,  and perhaps most memorably, Joni Mitchell, and her quintessential cold nation song, River: “I Wish I Had a River I Could Skate Away On.”  What a rich musical history we have!!

Then, in the visual arts, consider the deep contribution of Atlantic area artists such as Molly Lamb & Bruno Bobak, Millar Brittain, Fred Ross, Alex Colville, Mary & Christopher Pratt, Ivan Gallant, Hermenegilde Chiasson, Mario Doucette, to name a few.

Beyond the arts and culture theme, a key feature of Canada is the country’s bilingual and bicultural heritage, which is enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for both the country as a whole and New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual and bicultural province. 
The diversity of the country is also vital, welcoming newcomers into the mosaic of our nation, not the “melting pot” of the nation to the South.

U.S. President Trump basked in his own accomplishments this week as he doled out his tariffs to the world. But despite the continuing popularity at home of his mantra Make America Great Again, Canada, the World and the United States itself must be very wary of the dictums of this dangerous showman.

Just as he did at the Republican Convention last July and in his speech to the two Houses of Congress on March 4, Trump took advantage of less fortunate individuals, treating them as trophies in his ongoing campaign. 

This week he used all the skills of a Nazi propagandist, standing in front of massive Stars and Stripes flags draped on the White House. The world has not seen this type of menace since Adolf Hitler draped his Swastika’s flags at his rallies during his rise to power close to 90 years ago. 

One of the chief Nazis of that era, Herman Goring, said of Hitler at that time, the “Fuhrer is infallible.”