What are we

By Dian Cohen

I was struck recently by how many news outlets led their reports with the announcement that Kleenex, so iconic a brand that it’s the word we use when we want a tissue, is leaving Canada. It made me think of all the other brands that have given up the ghost in this country in the last few years: Delissio Pizza. Stouffer’s Frozen Foods. Lean Cuisine. Swiss Rolls. Bite-size Mini Brownies. Little Debbie. Bagel Bites. Bugle Corn Chips. And these retail chains: Sears. Target. Nordstrom. Lowe’s. And the fact that Canadian news is no longer available on Facebook and soon won’t be on Google.

What’s going on? There’s a simple answer and a complicated one. The simple answer is that we are much too short-term and narrow thinkers. That these brands or retail outlets are gone doesn’t mean that nothing will replace them or that we are in grave danger of becoming an undeveloped country. Nor does it mean we have nothing to offer. Think of what Canadians have accomplished: in sport: hockey, the fiberglass goalie mask, basketball, instant replay. In healthcare: insulin, the prosthetic hand, the electron microscope, electric wheelchair, cardiac pacemaker, the transplantation of stem cells. In communications: telephone, AM radio, the pager, Walkie-Talkie, sonar, computerized Braille, first internet search engine, Java programming language, the Blackberry. In nutrition: canola, peanut butter, Pablum, ginger ale, Bloody Caesar, Yukon Gold potato. In entertainment: Superman, IMAX, Trivial Pursuit. Not to mention the hard cap jockstrap, the egg carton, the CanadArm, Wonderbra, poutine, the caulking gun, plastic garbage bags, plexiglass.

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