Why I Hate Canadians, from its cutesy come-on of a title on down, has little use for nice. Nice, he writes, is 'the blandest adjective in English language, and we have claimed it proudly as our own.'

In 1997's Why I Hate Canadians, Ferguson issues an opening salvo against this reactionary deferral to our own niceness. What's true of him is that he seems almost genetically resistant to the basic structuring tropes of the Canadian identity: that we are better than America, that we are somehow inherently noble and, most of all, that we were nice. It's pat to say of his work that it views Canada as an outsider (despite his hearty Albertan stock). And reading through Ferguson, I've been shaken of it. You don't have to retain some nostalgia for the opening strains of the Hockey Night In Canada theme (the old one, the real one), but have to solemnly respect those who might.

To be Canadian, I figured, is either to be hopelessly earnest about your status as a Canadian or stand outside of the whole operation altogether.

In my mind, his entire library of humour, novels and histories (ick, what an utterly Canadian trifecta) were little more than impulse purchases stacked near the cash at a Chapters: covers wrapped in the cliche upholstery of Canadiana (Mounties, canoes, doughnuts) all put across with a requisite smirk that let's you know that these things have passed into the realm of kitsch, that they're safely embraced between 'scare quotes,' that Ferguson doesn't actually mean them. Vaughn writes that 'his individual works are no longer perceived as singular creations within an artist's history, but as indistinguishable and interchangeable products in a branded line.' I felt pretty much the same about Will Ferguson. Vaughn's recently published collection, Compared To Hitler, where the author nicely sums up his bafflement with Canadian literary-arts super-brand Douglas Coupland. And anyway I'm sure he's already seen plenty of that. I can't properly get away, as I had originally hoped, with titling this column about the author of Why I Hate Canadians, 'Why I Hate Will Ferguson.' Because I don't. For previous instalments, click here.Ĭonfession: I kind of like Will Ferguson. This summer, John Semley asks the tough questions of our nation: Are we Canadians really a funny people? And, if so, how did we get that way? Each week, for 10 weeks, he will explore a new facet of our history in humour.

How to Be a Canadian by Will Ferguson