WE ARE CANADIAN SPECIFIC © David Watts

Canadian Specific ®

ALL We are Canadian Specific.

3 We are Canadian. We come from Canada,

2+3 live in Canada

ALL and breathe the Canadian Spirit.

1 Canada means “meeting place” and that is what we are: a meeting place for ideas and innovation

2 a meeting place for people and cultural traditions

3 a meeting place for land forms and river systems

ALL Canada is all of these and so are we.

3 A meeting place is open.

ALL We are Canadian Specific.

2 To be specific is to have a focus.

1 A country like Canada may have more the one focus in its territory.

3 A people like Canadians may span several projects in their life story.

2 In a given moment an enterprise like ours functions best with a single focus, maybe two, three at most.

1+2 That’s what makes us specific—

ALL —Canadian Specific.

3 Our target is the Canadian classroom:

1 the classrooms of public and private schools

2+3 both secular and church-sponsored

2 the classrooms of universities and colleges

1+3 kindergartens and day care centres

3 the open air classroom of national parks and historic sites

1+2 of home schoolers and parent support groups

3 the classroom of our national holidays and celebrations

1+2 the classrooms of media and tourism when these are intended to educate

1 Education is drawing out of the self onto a larger stage with a larger framework

2+3 That is our focus.

1+3 Any setting that does that in a Canadian context is our target.

ALL We are Canadian Specific.

1 Our topic is the Canadian Connection.

2 Canada is connections: in time and space, in transport and commerce, in communications and culture, in science and spirituality

3 Canada is a connector with other times and places

1 Our founders and first peoples connect us with places and developments around the globe. Their names are our names:

3 Esterhazy, Saskatchewan and Esterhazy in Hungary

1 Vilna, Alberta and Vilna, Poland

2 Westminster in Britain and New Westminster, BC

3 Our national animal links us to Dickens, to Wellington and Napoleon, who all wore beaver hats

1 Names like land God gave to Cain, dominion from sea to sea—link us to spiritual traditions

2 Our products and inventions are worldwide links—Canadian wheat and timber, the Canadarm and telephone…

1 insulin and maple sugar, paper money and peacekeeping

3 Almost every topic has a Canadian angle:

1 Canada and the Titanic

2 Canada and standard time

3 Canada and frozen food

2 Canada and global communications

3 Canada and the chocolate bar

1 Our job is to identify these connections and make them known.

ALL We are Canadian Specific.

3 Our target is the Canadian classroom.

1 Our topic is the Canadian Connection.

2 Our task is bringing the two together:

1 gathering evidence of our connections

3 making it available and interesting to our fellow learners

1 bringing our history to light

3 bringing our heritage alive.

2 Canada is a meeting place—

1+3 so is Canadian Specific

3 The first huts called Kanata were a meeting place for peoples along a River

2 Today Canada is a meeting place that spans half a continent, links three oceans, and brings together people from around the globe

1 Our first transcontinental railway, the C.P.R., used its network to link resources and markets, people and products, nationally and internationally.

1+3 It became the Northwest Passage between East and West, the Old World and the New, and adopted the slogan “Canadian Pacific Spans the World.”

ALL We at Canadian Specific Enterprises intend to do no less.