Welcome to Canada—Bienvenue au Canada
Don your favourite touque, grab a pop, and get comfortable on your chesterfield. Let’s journey across the 9,984,670 square kilometres (km2)—second in land area only to Russia, with the United States at 9,834,000 km2—that I call home.
Along the way, we’ll talk about communications and indulge in a few of our treasures:
■Listen to Drake and Shawn Mendes, Bryan Adams and The Tragically Hip, Rush and Neil Young; Anne Murray, Frank Mills, and Glenn Gould;
■Read Farley Mowat, Wayne Johnson, Nino Ricci, and Lawrence Hill; Robert Munsch and Lucy Maude Montgomery; or Jacques Poulin and Marie Laberge;
■Catch a flick starring Christopher Plummer, Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Oh, Ryan Gosling, or Rachel McAdams.
Explore the history and geography that make us who we are. You’ll gain insights to inform your communications approaches to reach the 36,029,245 people who live here with me.
I’ve watched the notorious Lake Erie undertow at Point Pelee, Canada’s southernmost mainland tip, in my hometown, Leamington, Ontario (which is farther south than parts of more than 25 US states). And wondered what the weather was like almost 4,634 km away at Canada’s northern boundary, Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. I’ve felt the sting of wind-whipped surf at our most easterly point, Cape Spear, Newfoundland. And wondered what was happening 5,514 km away at our most westerly border, Boundary Peak 187, Yukon.
A PATCHWORK COUNTRY
We’re bound by our commonalities. Yet, our history and geography demand we show our unique and vibrant colours. The land itself is a potpourri of 39 terrestrial regions and an estimated 2 million lakes—the most in the world. Our borders enclose more than 52,000 islands and 48 national parks. Our population consists of over 250 ethnic origins or ancestries. More than 1.67 million people in Canada identify themselves as an Aboriginal person (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis). Nearly 1 million immigrants landed at Pier 21 alone between 1928 and 1971.
To me, what makes Canada great is our amalgam of hybrid traditions, views, and cultures. It is a posture that at once unites and individualizes. And makes us delightfully eclectic.
We’re peacekeepers, yet we’ve spearheaded the offense in notable battles. Canada completed more than seventy peacekeeping missions between 1947 and 2001, including in Rwanda, Somalia, and Syria; and more recently in the Gulf War, Haiti, and Afghanistan. We played critical offensive roles during World War I in Ypres, Passchendaele, and Dieppe, and our most notable offensive in history saw 14,000 Canadians storm—and take—Juno Beach, Normandy, on D-Day, June 6, 1944. And we back our military through organizations like supportourtroops.com, woundedwarriors.ca, and 1,350 branches of the Royal Canadian Legion.
We endorse the metric system—when we want to. Ask us at what temperature to cook the Thanksgiving turkey in October: we’ll give it to you in Fahrenheit. Ask us for the temperature outdoors: we’ll give it to you in Celsius—sometimes. When it is hot (our average summer temperature mid-country ranges from 77° to 86°F, or 25° to 30°C), it’ll be Fahrenheit because it sounds hotter; when it’s cold, you’ll get it in Celsius because, well, it sounds warmer and makes us feel better. We still buy 2×4s and describe the fastest cars by their 0–60 speed in miles per hour, while our roads are regulated in kilometres per hour (1.6 km = 1 mi).
Quick Tip: To do an approximate C-to-F conversation in your head, take the C temp, double it, and add 32—you’ll get a close-enough number.
We believe in law and order, yet alcohol smuggling was a popular business in many Canadian coastal and Great Lakes towns during Prohibition, particularly between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, and along the Saskatchewan–North Dakota border. The Canadian Bronfman family (Seagram’s) is known to have done business with the likes of Arnold Rothstein, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, and Arthur “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer.
We have our own football league, but 4.33 million Canadians tuned in to Super Bowl LIII.
We’re irritated by the stereotypes of how cold it is, yet we embrace our winter sports with gusto. The country boasts almost 300 ski resorts, more than 121,000 km of organized ski-doo trails and 610,000 registered snowmobiles, almost 30 curling organizations and associations, and more than 620,000 registered ice hockey players in the 2018–19 season (our son once believed he’d have his citizenship revoked for not knowing how to skate).
So what? These idiosyncrasies are important considerations for audience analysis and developing messaging. For messaging to be effective, the audience must see itself in it: Canadians want the complexity of our collective character—our ethos and history, our heroes, landmarks, and pastimes—reflected.
TIES THAT BIND
While the National Sports Act of Canada acknowledges lacrosse as our national summer sport, you’re likely expecting a diatribe on hockey:
■The Canadian women’s national hockey team has more wins than losses to the US team.
■The Canadian men’s junior team has a record eighteen gold medals.
■Canada has more active players in the National Hockey League than any other country.
■My favourite Canadian players are Darren McCarty, Hayley Wickenheiser, Bobby Orr, Steve Sullivan, Jonathan Toews, Luc Robitaille, and Sydney Crosby.
■Darryl Sittler (after whom my brother is named) has an unmatched 10-point game.
Instead of writing at length about Ron MacLean and Foster Hewitt (you haven’t properly experienced televised Canadian hockey unless you’ve heard this veteran commentator exclaiming, “He shoots … He scores!”), let’s turn to an arguably more critical bond: our Charter of Rights and Freedoms (The Canada Act 1982).
“Canadians [are] … satisfied with their freedoms-from instead of exploiting their freedoms-to.” Peter C. Newman, Canadian author and journalist
Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms reconfirms English and French as our official languages and articulates our fundamental freedoms:
a.conscience and religion
b.thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the press
c.peaceful assembly
d.association
Our Charter came about not by rebellion or war, but through years of evolution, debate, consultation, and compromise.
Canada’s first Bill of Rights was not part of the Constitution, meaning it could easily be changed and was ineffective in protecting Canadians’ rights. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau committed himself in 1968 to a constitutional bill of rights, and under his leadership, our Constitution (originally the British North America or BNA Act) was patriated from Britain and the 1982 Charter was added.
“Canada is the only country in all of the Americas to have gained independence completely without violence, our founders having preferred a more incremental strategy.” Pierre Berton, Canadian historian and journalist
Many elements remain from the BNA Act, which created the Dominion of Canada under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on July 1, 1867—Canada Day. Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II remains our head of state: when we make our oath of Citizenship, we promise to be loyal to her (and to her successors). And we retain democratic structures like the governor general as the Queen’s representative; the Senate of 105 lifetime appointed members; and the House of Commons of 308 elected members allocated by population.
PEACE, ORDER, AND GOOD GOVERNMENT
Many posit that the way we think, act, and behave comes from Section 91, the Peace, Order, and Good Government Clause. The Canadian ethos values the greater good over individual liberty. According to Tommy Douglas, seventeenth premier of Saskatchewan, under whom the continent’s first single-payer universal healthcare system was formed:
We are all in this world together, and the only test of our character that matters is how we look after the least fortunate among us. How we look after each other, not how we look after ourselves.
This ethos and history of compromise colours the way we see ourselves: a middle power comfortable with multiplicity and incremental change. And it should colour the way you approach communications in Canada.
“This is just the way things are in Canada. Authority, rules and proprieties are all hallowed and respected, and that includes traffic lights. Order is accepted as a higher virtue than freedom, security as a greater boon than liberty.” Michael T. Kaufman, New York Times Magazine writer
It also shapes how we behave and what we expect during a crisis. During the 1970 “October Crisis,” Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act in response to the kidnapping by the Front de libération du Québec, a militant Québec independence movement, of high-profile political figures James Cross and Pierre Laporte, whom they also murdered. Media questioned P. Trudeau’s approach (CBC Archives: Just Watch Me, 1970; on YouTube), which significantly expanded police power, allowing for arrests and detention without laying charges and suspending civil liberties; however, opinion polls showed most Canadians supported his actions. He demonstrated leadership. He was calm and decisive. He was accessible to the media. His actions were consistent with his personal repulsion for violence. He was the definitive voice of the crisis.
Another definitive voice, that of Michael McCain, was heard during the Maple Leaf Foods listeria crisis of 2008, during which fifty-seven people were sickened by contaminated deli meats, twenty-two of them dying. As president and CEO of Maple Foods, McCain held a live initial press conference—during which he answered questions until the media had no more (sources familiar say it lasted two hours), instead of cutting them off—and multiple subsequent pressers.
The Maple Leaf Foods case, now a gold standard, holds clues to our expectations during crisis:
■make accessible a leader who is directly accountable for decision making, not a spokesperson or corporate statement;
■show authentic humanity and compassion, humility and contrition, eliminating corporate speak;
■make decisions that place the greater good above all and support those actions with data; and
■apologize and accept responsibility; according to experts, McCain’s apology (which can be found on YouTube) was unconditional and his assumption of responsibility, unequivocal.
While consulting and collaborating with your Canadian legal counsel is always important—and critical during crisis—Canada is not as litigious as the US. According to Canadian corporate lawyers, the punitive damages typically awarded in Canadian civil litigation are insignificant, except in rare, particularly egregious cases. And while class actions against corporations do take place (including against Maple Leaf Foods), these are evolving, with courts beginning to certify a class on a national basis instead of litigating across multiple jurisdictions.
Maple Leaf Foods also offers the gold standard post-crisis. Do not attempt to wipe events from corporate or public memory. Embrace them. Maple Leaf positioned itself as a listeria expert, launching a national listeria education and outreach program.
Within one year, Maple Leaf Foods recovered almost 75 percent of the 30 percent of sales it lost at the height of the crisis. Even with twenty-two listeria-related deaths, the brand remained strong. McCain not only addressed the greater good, he also restored trust.
TRUST AND DISTRUST
Effective communications campaigns reach people where they are; therefore, we must explore trust, specifically, the 2020 “Edelman Trust Barometer.”
Large trust gap: The gap in trust between the Canadian informed public and the general population is greater than in any other country (16 points vs. 8 points in the US); meaning, you must target carefully and encourage your organizations to engage with the masses through tangible action—they need to feel cared for.
Canadians are generally trusting: Even the more “distrusting” general population falls into the neutral zone on the Index, and the informed Canadian public is 14 points more trusting than their US counterparts. This means you can approach Canadians from a more neutral or confident stance—as long as you do it with credibly sourced facts.
We trust media (traditional, owned, social, and search engines): Canadians trust traditional media more than people in the United States (by 9 points). This means a carefully constructed, traditional media relations campaign can move the dial. Do not mistake this US/Canada differential for significant trust; the 2021 “Edelman Trust Barometer” showed a trust deficit for search engines, owned, and social media, with only traditional media barely remaining in the trusted category (55%).
Canada/US trust alignment: Canadians and Americans are more aligned; meaning, while you need to customize messages and choose local spokespeople (the 2021 Barometer reinforces this need, showing Canadians look within their community for individuals they trust to address important issues—almost half believe government leaders are purposefully working to mislead them), you can more easily export existing campaign principles. Topics on which we’re aligned include:
■a sense of injustice and lack of confidence in the system, overwhelmingly (more than 50%) believing the system is failing us, calling for change, and believing (47%) that capitalism as it exists today does more harm than good in the world.
■a belief that companies should place more importance on stakeholders than on shareholders for long-term success.
■pessimism about economic prospects.
■distrust of societal leaders to address our countries’ challenges.
Corporate Canada: Canada is home to more than 2,700 head offices (with more than 50% of them in Ontario and more than 30 of them being multinational, with 14 in the Fortune 500). Canadians strongly believe corporate CEOs must act to effect societal change and must speak out on societal issues like diversity, climate change, training for jobs of the future, and ethical use of technology. This fact, combined with Canada’s diversity profile and relative population size (about one-tenth that of the US), creates a communications opportunity for the Canadian leadership of US-based companies operating in Canada.
Many international organizations place future global leaders as general managers of their Canadian operations as a testing or proving ground. While they are there, demonstrating their competence inside, why not leverage them to build corporate reputation—and their skill set—outside?
Canadians expect these general managers to speak. You need a place to test your messages. So, create thought leadership platforms; train and leverage your executives as media spokespeople; let them address The Canadian Club and The Economic Club of Canada. See what happens. Use the lessons to tweak your messaging for the US audience.
And wherever possible, get them involved in local Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices and shareholder activism. According to the 2020 “Edelman Trust Barometer” special report on institutional investors, 95 percent of investors expect their firms to intensify the ESG effort, and 80 percent of Canadian firms now screen for diversity and inclusion metrics—the highest in the world.
Not only do almost three-quarters of Canadians expect companies to take actions that both increase profits and improve communities, but we also tend to buy more often from those we trust.
Trust affects buying habits: According to Reader’s Digest, 90 percent of Canadians agree that when a product or service’s quality and price are similar, we tend to buy from the company we trust more. Most trusted brands in 2020 included Kellogg’s, Behr, Shopper’s Drug Mart, and Sun Life Financial. Further, they pay more attention to companies they trust and are more likely to remember their advertisements.
Canadian figures we trust: Reader’s Digest also publishes a list of the most trusted influencers who, notably, are not politicians or business moguls. The 2015 list included journalist Peter Mansbridge, scientist and environmental activist David Suzuki (who also attended my high school), home repair expert Mike Holmes, comedian Rick Mercer, and retired astronaut Chris Hadfield.
“Canadians are famously polite. We’re a nation of door-holders and thank you-sayers, but we joke about it, too. How do you get 30 drunk Canadians out of a pool? You say, ‘Please get out of the pool.’” Colonel Chris Hadfield, first Canadian to live on the International Space Station.
DIVERSE LANDSCAPE AND CURIOSITIES
As much as good order unifies us, remember our different personalities. Our interests and views are as varied as our landscape:
■New Brunswick boasts the Bay of Fundy’s 15-metre-high tides, where over 100 billion tonnes of water rush in and out during each tidal cycle;
■Nunavik features Parc national des Pingualuit and a meteoric crater on the Ungava plateau filled with exceptionally clear blue water;
■Southern Ontario presents majestic Niagara Falls, where 168,000 cubic metres of water per minute cascade down an average of 57 metres from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario.
Diversity is also found in each region’s unique landmarks:
■The world’s largest hockey stick in Duncan, British Columbia, with a reach of 62 metres, weighing 28,000 kilograms;
■The 3-metre-high beaver in Beaverlodge, Alberta, paying homage to Canada’s national emblem;
■Ontario’s Big Nickel stands over 9 metres high in Sudbury; the 8-metre-tall Canada Goose in Wawa, Ontario; The Big Apple in Colborne (the world’s largest apple-shaped structure, capable of holding 653,800 real apples); the Tomato Tourist Information Booth in my hometown, Leamington;
■The Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake, Yukon, along the Alaska Highway;
■The world’s largest cèilidh (KAY-lee) fiddle stands in my current home province, welcoming visitors to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, with its 18.2-metre height.
While Canada’s unique landscapes and landmarks offer fodder for creative campaigns, embracing our regional diversity is critical to achieving message penetration. The fact that there is no interprovincial free trade in this country offers some insights into the prevalence of our differences. Even our three groundhogs often have different perspectives. In 2020, Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie Sam predicted a longer winter after seeing his shadow; while in Ontario and Quebec, Wiarton Willie and Fred la marmotte predicted early spring.
DIFFERENCES MATTER
Canada’s Aboriginal peoples have perspectives that differ and matter, and it is critical that you seek to understand them. Section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982 declares that Aboriginal peoples in Canada include First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. “First Nations” is a general term encompassing more than 630 communities, representing more than 50 Nations and 50 Indigenous languages. It is appropriate to use this term as a general group name provided you are not also making reference to Inuit or Métis members.
Understanding what Aboriginal peoples care about means understanding injustices: the current and ongoing lack of clean drinking water on federal reserves; the widespread killings and disappearances of Inuit, Métis, and First Nations women and girls, including 2SLGBTQQIA people (learn more by reading “Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls”); and the government and religious authorities’ operation of more than 130 compulsory boarding or Residential Schools (which operated into the twentieth century), designed to assimilate Indigenous children into the “dominant” culture by forcibly separating more than 150,000 of them from their families.
In the first half of 2021, the Cowessess First Nation discovered 751 unmarked graves at the site of a former Residential School in Saskatchewan. Weeks earlier, the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation announced the discovery of the remains of 215 children at a similar former school site in Kamloops, British Columbia. You can learn more by reading the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Understanding means educating yourself on these appalling tragedies and working to heal.
Understanding also means learning the views, needs, experiences, and capacities of these communities. It means consulting those who live on reserves under federal jurisdiction as well as those who seek support for their community leaders and agendas while living outside those reserves. It means understanding priorities. It is demonstrated through consultation and co-creation of research, strategy, and initiative implementation, for which financial compensation is often expected.
You may wish to explore the various First Nations education programs offered by Yukon University (https://www.yukonu.ca/programs/all). The more we seek to understand unique challenges, perspectives, and heritage, the more inclusive and localized our solutions and approaches can be.
REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES
Localization is also required across our provinces and territories. For comprehensive appreciation, it is important to work with local public relations experts or agencies (Canada is home to more than twenty major PR firms). To give you a flavour, one that is by no means complete, here are a few examples of regional differences:
Saskatchewan: More than half the population lives outside large centres and is primarily agrarian—not to be confused with lacking financial means or sophistication. The agricultural community is highly sophisticated in their operations, with technological firsts in crop science, plant protein, agricultural equipment, and clean energy, and is strongly influential in public policy.
British Columbia: Canada’s top exporter of fish and seafood also relies heavily on tourism, film, mining, and forestry, as well as on the knowledge economy in and around Vancouver. Here, living outdoors is a way of life, people are generally early adopters of innovations that protect the environment (like electric vehicles), and the culture is heavily activist. Uniquely, the seat of government (Victoria) is on Vancouver Island. Just the logistics (helicopter or float plane) of live (post-COVID) meetings with government stakeholders and regulators must be purposefully planned, unlike in Ontario where you can typically take a day trip (at most) or a brisk walk (at least) to reach provincial decision makers. British Columbia is also likely to be found collaborating or aligning with the Yukon, where gold, silver, and ores account for 25 percent of their exports.
Nova Scotia: Highly relationship-focused culture, with the provincial government as the major employer, meaning it has a powerful public relations voice. Issues such as clear cutting, pulp milling, coal mining, and fishing rights concern its residents. Fish, seafood (like Digby scallops and 720 tonnes per year of South Shore lobster), and farm produce are its largest exports.
Newfoundland and Labrador: The country’s third-largest fish and seafood exporter delivers snow and queen crab, shrimp, Greenland halibut, and cod, but iron ore and oil from offshore oil fields like Hibernia, Terra Nova, and White Rose are significant economic drivers. It has the highest unemployment rate in the country, relying heavily on federal funding support.
Québec is different.
A DISTINCT SOCIETY
About a third of any given Canada-wide company’s business typically comes from “la belle province,” and it holds almost 25 percent of the country’s population. It is important to understand how Québec is different. And it is much more than language.
Several laws and regulations on language have been enacted since 1867, including the 1988 Official Languages Act. While New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province, Québec is “French First.” Québec’s Charter of the French Language regulates product packaging, public signs, posters and commercial advertising, websites, and more. Meaning: When communicating in Québec, remember that these public channels require your creative and your logo to include a “sufficient presence of French”—you may need to add a French language tagline or descriptor.
When developing slogans or creative campaigns, it is not wise to directly translate them—and do not make the mistake of using an online translation tool. Instead, employ professional translators who are certified in Québec or Canadian French—Parisian French is not the same. Further, build into your planning timelines enough days to complete translation and validation, and implement the English and French on the same day, at the same time. For a press release, add three working days. For a presentation deck that requires translation of both speaking notes and slides, add seven working days.
Likewise, when developing national media campaigns, it is not enough to simply translate the English press release. Deploy Québec-specific statistics and data; leverage a Québec-based opinion leader and a spokesperson who speaks Québécois or Canadian French. Partner with a Québec-based agency who holds relationships with local government stakeholders and regional media.
QUÉBEC’S AND CANADA’S MEDIA LANDSCAPES
To best understand Québec’s regional media, let’s explore a brief history of the province.
Jacques Cartier claimed present-day Québec City and Montréal for France in the early 1600s. In 1759, the British defeated France on the Plains of Abraham, ending France’s empire. Some were not satisfied with the expected integration, asserting that Québec and the Québécois people are a distinct nation. Thus, French Canadian Nationalism was born.
Québec’s culture and attitude are heavily influenced by the long history of efforts to secede, including two referendums on sovereignty-association in 1980 and 1995, both of which resulted in narrow “no” votes.
Not only are René Lévesque and Jacques Parizeau key figures in the sovereigntist movement, they are also key influences on Québec’s regional media, each holding host, producer, editor, or columnist positions with multiple outlets. Their legacy is a regional media landscape with strong political views.
Aside from some Québec outlets, in general, partisan lines among the five political parties that currently make up our federal parliament are not as clearly drawn in the media here as on US networks like Fox News and CNN.
Québec’s local media remains strong despite consolidation. La Presse, with increasing online presence, remains the widest-reaching daily; investigative programs like TV-A abound; and the province has more talk radio programs than other parts of the country, where regional presence is declining more significantly. (Our largest national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, has limited regional bureau presence. This contraction has significant implications for PR professionals.)
So how do PR professionals reach specific provinces or regions, particularly during crises? As an example of the latter, during the tragic shootings in April 2020 beginning in Portapique, Nova Scotia, and ending one hundred kilometres away in Enfield, first responders and police relied primarily on social media and word of mouth to spread information and instructions to help protect citizens.
For planned campaigns, invest in audio and video news releases, and matte stories. Matte stories can reach over 1,600 community newspapers via services like Fifth Story, for a fee. Community papers are critically important in provinces with highly rural (Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia) and remote (Ontario, British Columbia, the Territories) populations, as well as for highly regulated industries in which paid placements, sponsored content, and direct-to-consumer advertising/advertorials may not be permissible (for example: direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medications as treatments or cures is prohibited under Health Canada’s Food and Drug Regulations).
Our publicly funded broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), while also contracting, remains relatively well resourced, with journalists in over forty Canadian cities plus international bureaus. It is home to key regional news radio, such as Metro Morning, which is number one in the Toronto market. It produces podcasts and website content that supplement its radio and television programming. And its evening TV news, The National, averages just over one million viewers per night (although Canada’s most-watched evening news is CTV National News at 1.6 million). It is home to CBCKids, comedy (check out This Hour Has 22 Minutes), and investigative programs like The Fifth Estate.
While magazine readership is declining, 44 percent of Canadians twenty-one to thirty-four years old and 67 percent of those between fifty and sixty-nine still read print magazines. The leading English magazines (by readership) include Reader’s Digest and Canadian Living, with the top French titles being Chatelaine, La Semaine, and L’actualité. Maclean’s is our national news magazine.
Aside from the obvious borderless reach of internet news, the population along the southern Canada–US border is an important consideration. About 66 percent of Canadians live within one hundred kilometres of it, meaning many of us regularly consume US media, particularly those in larger border towns.
CANADIANS ARE NOT AMERICAN
Despite sharing the world’s longest land border, perhaps the greatest consideration is that we are not American.
“We are not Americans who happen to have drawn the worst climate and the best geography; we are a different people.” June Callwood, Canadian journalist and founding member of the Civil Liberties Association
We see moments like Thanksgiving (October) and Remembrance Day (November 11) as solemn observances and not as commercial opportunities. Since 2010, at least four US-based retailers launched Remembrance Day sales in Canada, which were considered disrespectful.
We’re inventors but not innovators. Canadians invented the garbage bag (Wasylyk and Hansen), IMAX (Ferguson, Kroitor, and Kerr), the fibreglass goalie mask (Plantes), insulin (Banting and Best), and the square-headed Robertson screwdriver. But we aren’t keeping pace with the world on producing innovation. According to the Coalition for Action on Innovation, Canada’s productivity falls well short of the US’s and has declined since the 1980s. Investment in research and development is limited to academic centres and government labs, and private sector investment is stagnant.
In fact, we stifle our own innovation. The Avro Arrow aircraft was the world’s most advanced supersonic all-weather interceptor. But in 1959 our government ceased Avro’s work on the Arrow and the Orenda Iroquois engine, destroying the five operational Arrows, all those in development, and all engineering drawings and plans. Its inexplicable termination incited the demise of Canadian aeronautics innovation.
“We’re the only country on Earth whose citizens dream of being Clark Kent instead of Superman.” Peter C. Newman, Canadian historian and journalist
And we have an abundance of heroes who aren’t always obvious:
■Terry Fox for his Marathon of Hope, beginning the national cancer-research fundraising effort;
■Hope Swinimer for founding the first privately owned wildlife rehabilitation centre in Nova Scotia;
■Team Canada for their 1972 win over the Soviet national team in the 1972 Summit Series;
■The people of Gander, Newfoundland (population 11,000), who cared for more than 6,500 passengers and crew of 39 planes diverted there from US airspace on 9/11 (and in fact the entirety of Newfoundland and Labrador, which opened their doors to more than 17,000 grounded international air travelers).
In short, we are home to enough characters and figures to fuel campaigns without inserting foreign (to us) figures who may not value peace, order, good government, and—above all—the greater good.
I hope your journey across our history and geography has generated insights to inform your strategy and inspire your content.
Perhaps along the way, you took a swig of truly Canadian beer (Moosehead, Caledon Hills, The Banded Goose, Landwash), munched some ketchup potato chips, enjoyed Farley’s antics in Lynn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse comic strip, or sipped a Caesar.
EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
If you’re now intrigued enough to further your professional development or build a career in Canadian public relations and communications, there are an abundance of possibilities. With more than twenty major PR firms having offices across Canada (including multinationals like Argyle, Citizen Optimum, Veritas, and Weber Shandwick), there is plenty of expertise, local knowledge, and resources to help address your needs or pursue a meaningful career.
To locate Canadian firms and experts, use one of these resources:
■Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms: http://ccprf.ca/
■The Manifest: https://themanifest.com/ca/public-relations/agencies
■PRovoke (formerly The Holmes Report): https://www.provokemedia.com/latest/news
■Sortlist: https://www.sortlist.ca/public-relations
You can also find local experts and professional development opportunities through various professional associations, each of which also has their own accreditation and awards programs:
■Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS): https://www.cprs.ca/
—CPRS Awards of Excellence: https://www.cprs.ca/Awards/Awards-of-Excellence
■Public Affairs Association of Canada: https://www.publicaffairs.ca/
■Council of Public Relations Firms: http://www.prfirms.org/
■Local chapters of the International Association of Business Communicators
—IABC Toronto Awards: OVATION Awards, Communicator of the Year, Student Awards (https://toronto.iabc.to/)
And if you’re interested in formal education opportunities, Canada is home to several excellent certificate, degree, and postgraduate programs across the country at schools like Royal Roads University (British Columbia), Mount Saint Vincent University (Nova Scotia), Memorial University (Newfoundland), Sheridan College (Ontario), McGill University (Québec), Brock University (Ontario), University of Calgary (Alberta), and my two alma maters: University of Western Ontario and Humber College (Ontario). Wishing you good learning.
TAKEAWAYS
1.To achieve message relevance, it would be a mistake to simply extend an American-made campaign to the Canadian marketplace; and further, to assume that even a Canada-adjusted campaign will effectively reach the nation’s population without considering provincial, territorial, and regional differences.
2.Consultation and co-creation with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis are prerequisites on certain issues.
3.Language, while an important factor, is not the only factor making Québec a unique marketplace.
4.Leverage local thought leaders, spokespeople, data, landmarks, celebrities, characters, geographical wonders, and heroes to regionalize your press releases and other materials.
5.Find a Canada-based communications partner for local relationships, perspective, information on regulations, and unwritten expectations.
6.Approach crises with a definitive, authentic voice that is accessible and takes accountability.
7.Respect the peace, order, and good governance we value—it defines who we are as individuals and as a nation, and influences the way we process information.