What Australia could learn from becoming a little bit more Canadian

IT’S home to ridiculously good looking people, who also happen to be really, really nice. There must be something we can learn from this place.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives for a welcome dinner at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Manila, Philippines, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2015. Leaders from 21 countries and self-governing territories are gathering in Manila for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The meeting's official agenda is focused on trade, business and economic issues but terrorism, South China Sea disputes and climate change are also set to be in focus. (Edgar Su/Pool Photo via AP)

HAVE you seen the news from Canada lately? It’s all good.

Canadians are currently basking in the glow of the world’s handsomest prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who has just appointed a cabinet we can only dream of.

Here in Australia, our government is made up of a great deal of lawyers.

In Canada, the new minister for transport is an astronaut!

The minister for defence is a Sikh veteran.

The ministers for justice, fisheries, oceans and the coastguard are all indigenous.

Bloody unbelievable.

Imagine, the folks in charge of protecting the land and its people are the original owners. Can you handle it? There’s more. The minister for sport and disabilities is a visually impaired Paralympian. Logic and experience? Please make the acquaintance of politics.

There are also new portfolios in the Canadian government including climate change and refugees.

When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked why there’s so many women in Canadian politics he answered: “because it’s 2015”. Picture: Edgar Su via AP.

And the thread of unheard of wonderfulness that runs throughout this raft of excellent progressive changes is that half of the Canadian ministers are women. Half. My stars!

And when Trudeau was asked why 50 per cent women? He answered: “because it’s 2015”. Brilliant.

So despite the fact that I’ve lived here for twenty-five years and not once renewed my Canadian passport, people have started to ask the obvious question. Do I want to go back? Surely I must miss my native land more than ever now. But despite these long dreamt of and fought for changes in my original home and the many, many other wonderful things about the great white north, I am not thinking about going back for a minute. Not one.

I know there are polar bears, raccoons and unpasteurised cheese, wild salmon and French, proper snow and great public transport.

I’m hip to the delightful and unexpected aspects of the national character that I miss dearly like the almost total absence of nationalism. If you do see a Canadian wearing a flag, it’s usually there to make sure you don’t mistake them for an American.

And Canadians are NICE. Everybody says so.

They’re also a pretty welcoming bunch and currently stand among very few countries offering to take large numbers of Syrian refugees — 25,000 at last count, and that number is standing firm despite the terrible happenings in France.

So why don’t I just go back to where I came from? It’s not a bad question. It’s not the weather. People always assume that, but I live in Melbourne, so … It’s not the lifestyle; we work as hard as any other western country despite the myth that we’re all constantly out surfing and drinking in the endless sunshine. And it’s not the sea.

Although, isn’t the sea wonderful?

The reason I’m still here is that when I landed in Oz as a miserable young teenager, I fell in love in the way that only teenagers can.

With absolutely everything.

I fell in love with all your silly animals that have trouble defending themselves against predators, make crazy noises and exist nowhere else on earth.

I fell in love with your sarcasm and the way you all don’t feel the need to be so nice all the time.

I fell in love with the smells.

Of eucalyptus, salt, frangipani, jacaranda and sunscreen. With your voices, your terrible cakes, and your cranky superior feelings about the rest of the world.

And like all people in love, I temporarily overlooked the bad stuff. The blunt racism, the nationalism and the breathtakingly casual sexism.

In 1998, in my little citizenship ceremony on the Narrabeen lakes in northern Sydney, I was given a tiny eucalyptus tree with the promise of white blossoms. It lives in my backyard in Melbourne now, leaning a bit precariously and covered in the promised white hairy flowers.

It is very precious to me. It’s there in the corner with the dearly departed pets and it overhangs the ubiquitous shed.

It’s a gumtree, near a plum tree over the fence from a cockatoo.

I’m here for the long haul, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer. This is my home and I love it here.

You’re stuck with me and I’m stuck with you.

But for goodness sake.

Could we please be a bit more Canadian?

Zoë Krupka is a psychotherapist and supervisor with a keen interest in relationship issues, grief and loss and burnout. You can find her blog at zoekrupka.com.