Kudos for Canada

I travelled recently to Europe, the first time in almost 15 years, taking my 89-year-old grandmother to visit Spain so she can practice the Spanish that she has been learning for the past 20 years. I missed travelling like this. I’m a notoriously nervous traveller and I really hate (yes, hate…) planning vacations. Knowing that this may truly be the last of my grandmother’s international travels, and after her saying how meaningful it would be to her if we went, I procrastinated painfully through a few hours of planning to get us there.

We were out at a Mexican restaurant (Spanish tapas are fine, but I needed the familiar hand grenade of a Mexican ‘sandwich’), a 30-something restaurant employee saw me waiting for my order and proceeded to ask where I was visiting from.

“Canada”, I said.

“Canada! Ah! My brother moved there and tried to apply for his PR, but he wasn’t able to stay.”

“Oh, where is he now?”

“In Madrid. He still misses Canada though and he wishes he can go back. I would like to visit there one day.”

Puzzled, I wondered why Canada. Spain is so beautiful, warm, and its cultural aesthetic had me craving it more. So I asked him why.

“Roman countries—yes, we have a great culture—are not as orderly as a country like Canada.”

It was perhaps a little difficult to read exactly into what he meant by this, but what I took away from it was that people and services, public and otherwise, were more predictable here. I’m paraphrasing this conversation the best I remember it, but the words ‘Roman countries’ and ‘order’ stuck out for me.

And this was Spain. I was reminded of what ‘order’ meant to me in the Paris airport. My grandmother needed a wheelchair (being 89 and all…) and when we landed for our only connecting flight, exhausted, we hoped to see an efficient transfer to our connection. Instead, we were greeted by a disorganized crew of transfer staff who spent the first few minutes after meeting us and others who needed their assistance bickering publicly with each other. We missed our connecting flight after an additional sequence of missteps by the transfer staff and assumptions I held about the order that I was expecting to see.

But, of course, how can I make a broad generalization after a few interactions like this. I don’t live in Europe. It’s been my first time visiting after 15 years. And perhaps my expectations of people are unrealistic. Also, airports, as we can all acknowledge, are chaotic places.

Canada is not exempt. There were recent examples of the lack of care, empathy, and service delivered to those requiring assistance when flying. Air Canada was recently summoned by government ministers (1) to explain the “dehumanizing” experiences of those that made news as a result of their missteps.

But what—at least what I believe anyway—is the salience of what that Spanish restaurant worker told me that day is this: Canada is doing, on average, a good job of setting and meeting expectations for order and service compared to his experience in Spain and elsewhere. This is good. We should be proud of this. Canadians’ perception of corruption (2) in their country, for example, is much lower than many other countries around the world. The OECD’s Better Life Index (3) ranks Canada highly, with Spain and France trailing. The United Nation’s World Happiness Report (4) ranks Canada within the top 15 countries. Spain and France trail Canada at ranks 20 and 29 respectively. (Although, not by much. There are 146 countries on the list, and those at the bottom are certainly a sad lot).

Comparisons aside, the broader point I’m making here is: wherever we live in the world, we should take strides needed to create the conditions where we meet (and exceed) expectations of us as people supporting people, in whatever capacity that is. Canada can’t rest on its laurels here, but we can acknowledge that the improvements we need to make from here are more incremental. Our reputation precedes us. And that’s a good thing.

Notes

(1) Canada's Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez has summoned Air Canada to Ottawa following three high-profile incidents involving passengers with disabilities. These incidents include a passenger who has cerebral palsy, being forced to drag himself off a flight due to lack of wheelchair assistance, and another with spastic quad cerebral palsy, being dropped and injured by airline staff. Air Canada acknowledged violating disability regulations in these cases and expressed regret, stating they have reached out to the affected customers and are committed to improving their services. <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/air-canada-ottawa-airline-disabilities-1.7018398>

(2) Data from 2022. https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022

(3) Data from 2022. https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/#/11111111111

(4) Data from 2022. https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2022/happiness-benevolence-and-trust-during-covid-19-and-beyond/#ranking-of-happiness-2019-2021