The Canadians who actually built our country were not nice. They were impolite.
getty
For thirty-seven seasons, the most famous Canadian on television made his living being “polite.”
Alex Trebek hosted Jeopardy! with such warmth that he became shorthand for our national character. Accepting an award near the end of his life, he joked that audiences figured he was a nice guy, knew he was Canadian, and concluded the whole country must be a special place. Then Trebek added, “Well, it is! And not just because we’re nice.”
Trebek understood something the rest of the world often misses. In a BBC Travel column, Eric Weiner wrote that “Canada is to niceness as Saudi Arabia is to oil,” and compliments like this have a way of defining our identity.
But run the history of this country through the Jeopardy! format and a different answer keeps coming up. The Canadians who actually built our country were not nice. They were impolite.
Impolite Canadians
In The Impolite Canadian, I write that “An impolite Canadian is someone who breaks free from the country’s cultural myth of quiet deference and instead leads with boldness, clarity, and conviction. They’re someone who speaks uncomfortable truths, challenges the status quo, acts decisively in the face of complacency, and stands unapologetically for Canadian values and interests without losing respect or integrity.”
Take Tommy Douglas. When he pushed universal healthcare in Saskatchewan, doctors walked off the job and critics predicted economic collapse. He moved forward anyway. Today, Medicare sits at the centre of Canadian identity, and we forget how radical and how deeply resented it was in its moment.
Then there is Elijah McCoy, born in Ontario to parents who had escaped slavery. Trained as an engineer, he was shut out of engineering jobs, so he took railway work and invented from the margins. His lubrication systems transformed industrial machinery, and he filed patent after patent, 57 in all, insisting on technical excellence in an industry determined not to see him.
And then there is Nellie McClung, who did not request inclusion in Canadian democracy so much as demand it, helping drive the Persons Case that forced the law to recognize women as persons at all. Or take Christine Sinclair, who scored more international goals than any player in history while refusing to accept second-tier treatment for her sport, captaining Canada to Olympic gold and testifying in Parliament for pay equity within the same stretch of her career.
None of these people were rude. But all of them were impolite, and their disruption has been a real force for good.
We Listen to What Culture Rewards
Forbes contributor Jack Zenger studied leaders rated in the top tier for innovation and found their colleagues described them as “fearless and doing what’s right versus what may be politically correct.”
The irony is that the traits that define great leaders are the ones our nation is prone to punish.
Diane Hamilton captured the dynamic when she described organizations whose real message to employees is that “innovation is good, but not if it disrupts the comfort of the status quo.” She was writing about companies, but she could have been writing about Canada.
We say we want bold founders, fearless researchers, and leaders with conviction, then we reward consensus, defer to committee, and treat open ambition as slightly suspect. People listen to what a culture rewards, not what it says.
The Final Question
So here is my Final Jeopardy question. If Douglas had waited for consensus, if McCoy had accepted invisibility, if McClung had asked politely, if Sinclair had taken the budget she was given, what country would we be living in now?
The answer is a smaller one. Every institution we brag about internationally was built by someone willing to be resented for a while. The impolite Canadian is not a new invention. It is our actual inheritance, buried under a stereotype we mistook for a personality.
I will take that category for everything I have. The next round of nation-builders is already out there, in labs and locker rooms and council chambers, deciding whether disruption is worth the cost. Our job is to stop teaching them that the highest Canadian virtue is never making a fuss.