Oh Canada, A Gentle Giant in a Not so Gentle World
Dany H. Assaf
Lawyer and author of, "Say Please and Thank You & Stand In Line: One Man's Story of What Makes Canada Special, and How to Keep It that Way", and “Everybody’s Business: How to Ensure Canadian Prosperity Through the Twenty-First Century”
Our dear sweet country feels like it is under stress from within and without these days. This beautiful vast land, its collection of people and histories intertwined over time, although sometimes imperfectly or worse, has had an undeniably broad embrace that has provided protection, home, and opportunity to so very many generations. Whether you are religious or not, it is worthy of the phrase “God‘s Country” with what it offers from sea to sea to sea.
It is a giant land, with giant resources and cutting-edge technological know-how, and with people with giant potential. Make no mistake, for all these reasons and more, it is a giant among nations. And we have a kind creed, but our kindness should never be mistaken for weakness. We choose to be kind in this cacophony of the planet’s noises. While with humility and curiosity we can always learn from the world, not everyone is our teacher. Canada is a great nation of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
The world is hungry for its resources and technology, and we are poised to provide for our benefit and theirs. To be able to sell the world what it needs on fair terms is not a subsidy. That’s plain old good business. If anyone is buying anything we’re selling out of charity, they should not buy it. We are not in the business of taking advantage of others and to be coveted is a compliment.
From our energy and critical minerals resources to our Nobel Prize worthy AI innovations, we are only appearing in the opening act of this 21st Century, global economic play. Our part will be led by Canada‘s greatest asset, its people, powered by one of the world’s best education systems and network of institutions. In an increasingly competitive world, Canada’s university system remains in the top 4 globally. This is especially powerful in an era where technology has democratized so many of the tools of productivity to allow us all to directly plug and play into modern markets. Each one of us can be unleashed as an engine of innovation and growth.
On the resource front, almost half of the world’s publicly listed mining and mineral exploration companies call Canada home, with operations in more than 100 countries and a combined market capitalization estimated over $500 billion. Looking ahead, it is these critical minerals that will power the New Economy with lithium and cobalt used in batteries to power electric vehicles, iridium and rare earths in the computers and chips, to the copper and aluminum for the electrical wiring to get power all these gadgets and all the way to potash needed to grow the food that will power the planet’s people.
On the technology front, Canada ranked second globally in the 2024 Global Cleantech Innovation Index. In AI, we were recently ranked number 1 among 80 countries in the Center for AI and Digital Policy’s 2024 global report and have 10 percent of the world’s top-tier AI researchers, second most in the world which includes our own Nobel Prize winning Geoffrey Hinton. All this, along with our vast conventional resources, means we will be an indispensable player with a very important chapter in this global economic show all with a unique opportunity to bridge the old and new economies.
But this best Canadian chapter can only be written by a united people. We can only become stronger if we rally together for an era of shared economic prosperity. And come together socially, where we all can cherish and celebrate our unique tile in this Canadian mosaic, but also observing the Canadian way of saying please, thank you, and standing in line for one another as a sign of our national devotion. While there are pressures threatening to divide us, we must resist taking the bait. There is no scenario where we spend the next decade tearing one another apart and we become both more prosperous and peaceful.
So for 2025, the wish is for a year where we rally. We rally around our strengths, we rally around one another, and we rally around our enormous potential. And where our rallying cries awaken this gentle nation to rise to new heights so that our kids can soar and be a reminder that gentleness is the timeless, ultimate magnanimous hallmark of the power of a true giant among nations.
