The Ryder, Walker and Canada

Those of us who saw the 2012 Ryder Cup felt that we were watching an epic sports event – one of the greatest turnarounds in golf history. For those who don’t follow golf, it’s the annual team competition between the best American golfers and the best golfers from Europe. It gets patriotic juices flowing on both sides, resulting in cheering, flag-waving and screaming that often runs completely counter to golf tradition and etiquette. It is more “Happy Gilmour” than Augusta – and golf aficionados are divided on the merits of the Ryder Cup scene.

Before “The Collapse”, I was thinking about how Canadians align with the Ryder Cup teams. We are very much split – with some passionately supportive of the Americans, some for the Europeans, and some who just like the competition. This likely reflects the complexity of the Canadian psyche – some of us see Americans as another version of ourselves, some feel a stronger bond to the “old country” (whatever it is), and some relate to Americans like an older, brasher, more successful sibling. And of course, at the core, this has little to do Americans and everything to do with how we see ourselves.

It’s interesting how this has changed over the last century, since Appleby was started by one of Canada’s most famous economic and cultural protectionists of his era, Sir Edmund Walker. Sir Edmund, who co-founded Appleby with his son-in-law and first Headmaster, John Guest, was one of the great Canadians of his time. In addition to building the Canadian Bank of Commerce into a national power, he also was central in the redesign of the Canadian banking system, and the creation of bodies that would become the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum and the federation of colleges now called the University of Toronto. He had many other equally as impressive achievements. Walker was a central figure in the campaign against Laurier’s free trade proposal with the US, which led to his election loss. Sir Edmund saw "Canadianism" as a function of our role in British Imperialism and not at all linked to the US.

As adults, we are often faced with the question of how to honour our parents, family and community roots, while also staying true to our own beliefs, which sometimes contradict those of our ancestors. I found Michael Ignatieff’s True Patriot Love a terrific account of how he sees Canada in the context of his mother’s family – the famous Grants. For teenagers, especially those who are brimming with idealism, that tension is often felt to a far greater degree. Creativity and innovation, be it for science or the arts or sports or business, is only possible through the ability to question and imagine differently. That is part of what be subscribe to at Appleby, but there is often a trade-off. How do we help our students broker that tension between where they have come from, and where they see the future?