Humanist Values Demand Action
This submission is being composed on the unsurrendered and unceded traditional Wolastoqey land. The lands of Wabanaki people are recognized in a series of Peace and Friendship Treaties to establish an ongoing relationship of peace, friendship and mutual respect between equal nations.
When I protested the US military violence in Iraq after 9/11, I was told that I should, ‘love it or leave it.’ So when I had the opportunity to leave the US 14 years ago and move to Canada, I took it. Since then, I’ve returned to visit family and friends, but I’ve never seriously considered moving back permanently. Today, geopolitical shifts have challenged Canada’s economic stability, international relationships and even our right to exist as an independent nation. Despite that, I am more committed than ever to building a life here. Political movements rise and fall, and I believe we have a duty to take action to protect our democracies where we are. But I also have to be honest with myself about whether or not the country I was born into shares my core values.
My family first immigrated to Canada in the 1700s and were one of the first English speaking families to settle along the Wolastoq river. But in the mid 1800s my great-grandfather made the five and a half thousand kilometer journey to Fort Vancouver in the Oregon Territory, a region that would eventually become a part of the United States of America.
I was born along the Columbia River nearly a hundred years after he made that journey, in what is now the Franz Lake National Wildlife Refuge. I served in the Air Force after high school and put myself through university in the US. I’ve lived in the pacific northwest, the deep south and California. Over the years, I witnessed the growing influence of movements that prioritize nationalism and exclusion over inclusion and critical thought.
When I had the opportunity to make a home for myself in Canada, I took it, becoming a permanent resident in 2011 and a citizen in 2018. I am grateful to be here. Living now, less than an hour away from where my family settled hundreds of years ago. For the past few years, I’d been considering surrendering my US citizenship, but between the $3.4k CAD fee, and the thought that my children might want to attend school there someday, I held off and maintained my dual citizenship.
I was working at Dalhousie University in 2016 when the election results came in, and I remember, like so many of us, watching in disbelief and disgust as the next four years unfolded. The appointment of family and other unqualified people to high offices, the use of violence against protesters, the normalization of racist ideology, the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the separation of refugee children from their families and the indefensible conditions they were kept in, attacks on the democratic process and a mishandling of the pandemic that led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. But administrations come and go, we endure, we work for justice and to strengthen our democracy and eventually things change again. I retained my US citizenship and things did seem to improve after the 2020 election. But then, last fall, despite everything we saw during their first administration, the US electorate decided to re-elect them to another term as president, now with full control of the congressional and judicial branches. I think it was this betrayal, even more than any of the specific policies or actions of the administration, that
solidified to me that it was time to renounce my US citizenship. If the US people want this kind of leadership perhaps it is best for me to sever my remaining connections to the place where I was born and turn my full attention to my new home here in Canada. I remember my mother’s words, quoting Alexander Hamilton, when she was not elected to a second term as a county commissioner. “They’ll get the government they deserve.”
So in late January my partner and I traveled to the US Consulate in Halifax, I raised my right hand and affirmed my intent and desire to renounce my US citizenship. I was one of three people there that afternoon for that purpose.
Humanist Canada lists Critical Thinking, Ethics, Dignity, Responsibility and Care as our core values. Looking at the direction the US is going, I have to acknowledge that not only do they not share these core values, but they are actively working against them. We are still in the early stages of this current term, and already Canada is fighting, not just for its economic livelihood, but seemingly for its right to exist as a free and independent nation. I am proud to see the Canadian people standing up to these bullying tactics, and their rejection of the ideology we see from south of the border. Our leaders, even from parties that I have felt disappointed by or vehemently disagreed with in the past, have stepped up to defend and fight for Canada. While the next four years will undoubtedly offer challenges, I am grateful to spending those years in Canada, where those Humanist values, if not universal, are at least shared by a majority of my fellow Canadians.
I believe it’s important for all of us who share these core values, to stand up against those forces who would weaponize ignorance, see others as less than human, sacrifice future generations for short term profits, and abandon each other to poverty and suffering for their own benefit. In the face of violence and tyranny we need to stand up for our values as Canadians, as Humanists, and as citizens of the world who demand a better future.
If I have one hope in the midst of the chaos of these challenging times, it is that in seeing the consequences of fear, greed and indifference to human suffering; that we as a nation, as humans around the world, finally demand better from our governments. It is my sincere hope that we will come together to create a future based on the common Humanist values of Critical Thinking, Ethics, Dignity, Responsibility and Care.
aspen apGaia
Humanist Canada Member and Chaplain Candidate
Photo by Tom Gainor on Unsplash