I came across a Substack post by a “sympathetic” American this morning:
Ross BoultonMy Fellow Americans: Canadian Porch Light Off
It’s an interesting read – here are snippets of what he had to say:
Two hundred and seventy-one years. Eleven generations. …. And through the whole of it, somebody up there kept a light on for somebody down here.
I send honey in December, two quarts packed in newspaper, from hives in a field off the parish road. She sends back mustard pickle, and every year I tell her it’s too sour, and every year she sends it anyway….
This year the pickle came. A card came with it. Three sentences and an initial:
“We’re not coming down. It isn’t you. Love to all of you. — Y.”…
And here’s the thing I’ve been counting up since the card came. She drove. Every time, for thirty years, it was her car and her thirty-one hours and her cooler on my counter. I have never once made that drive north. It never occurred to me that I should, because the light was always on up there and a light that’s always on is easy to stop noticing….
I went out last night and put a bulb in the fixture on my own back step. Sixty watts. There’s nobody coming up those steps from New Brunswick, this year or probably next.
It isn’t her Canadian porch light that went off – it’s been his American “friendly” light that never was turned on (and he never noticed, right)!
I had to leave a comment:
Last evening I mentioned to a friend that the number of US inquiries regarding Canadian ancestry this past year in PEI increased approximately 1000%! Says something about lots of Americans and their disillusionment with what’s happening at home.
I also said, “We don’t want them here.” She said, “Don’t paint them all with the same brush.” I said, “I do – our values are fundamentally different than theirs!”
She got in the car for, what, 30 years and drove her pickles to you and it didn’t even cross your mind to reciprocate? Not once?
That’s the difference I’m talking about – deeply ingrained, unconscious values that violate mine and were you to move to Canada you’d be moving the needle in the wrong direction – more of Canada would begin to experience the selfish discontent we’re seeing played out in Alberta.
I sure don’t want any of it in NS! Not now, not ever!
Maybe she won’t bring her pickles to you.
Maybe you could just drive your honey to her?
The light on your porch means nothing (you had to go buy a bulb and screw it in – so looks like yours was off and you didn’t notice ) – get in your vehicle, pay the cost of gas (which isn’t cheap), and deliver the goddam honey.
Maybe you could arrive at a dark back porch (although her light probably isn’t off, BTW), and you know what?
You could walk up the path and knock politely on the door!
That’s the difference – they don’t notice. “Me, me, me” is so deeply ingrained they can’t notice. The difference is, in Canada our Tommy Douglas roots say we are responsible for one another, and we act on that in all kinds of ways, DEI, not the least of it (well, not so much in Alberta, but that’s another rant).
Even the most sympathetic Americans arrive expecting the porch light to be on, when theirs burned out years ago. They want an escape from the “chaos” they’ve been unconsciously supporting all these years. Maybe they didn’t vote “trump” in 2025. But they’re not engaged in the big resistance fight, they’re looking for an escape to Canada.
I’ve been helping out several Afghan refugee families over the past four years, and what’s been obvious to me has been their efforts to retain cultural identity while trying to become more Canadian. It’s hard being first generation in a new country, I see them struggle every day trying to balance the old and new.
Americans coming to Canada aren’t remotely aware there’s any adapting to do – they think they’re “like us” – haven’t a clue they’re not!
Stay home, stand and fight if you’re not happy with how America has turned out. Use your vote wisely. Actively join the resistance. Do your part to change the direction.
Maybe we should turn off our porch light to those American cousins who eye Canada as a refuge; help them see that escaping to Canada won’t solve their problems for them.
jmn 