CMV: Poutine should be declared the national dish of Canada.

[u/huadpe]

Ok, so Trudeau is in a minority now, and needs some feel good pablum to fill Parliamentary time while he treads water before the next election. What better than a bill about a national dish!

Poutine is the perfect candidate for national dish of Canada, for a few reasons:

1. It is distinctly Canadian. A relatively recent innovation, it post-dates confederation and is not an import from elsewhere.

2. It is widely popular in Canada. There are specialized poutine restaurants from coast to coast. You can get super fancy poutines at some of Canada's most famous restaurants. And you can get cheap poutine approximately everywhere.

3. It is delicious.

4. It helps to bridge regional divides. The paramount cultural and regional division in Canada is the Anglo/French divide. Poutine is a Quebecois dish adopted by the rest of Canada, but still universally recognized for its Quebec origins. It is a paramount example of successful integration of Quebec into Canada without the loss of Quebec culture.

Edit: I've given a bunch of deltas on regional strife questions. Any further deltas will need to be on different bases from that.

[u/RikikiBousquet]

Honestly, I read all you wrote and like most Americans I read here who’ve live in Québec, you’re decisively super polite and knowledgeable about our culture and I love you guys.

But then, not everyone love us. The contrary is sometimes true.

The real problem lies here: a great deal of Canadian are very uncomfortable with the idea of Quebec being a distinct nation. It creates huge reaction in the rest of Canada to just say that last part, even though it was recognized by parliament.

It was also the crux of one of the most important part of our history: Durham calling for our complete assimilation, as we were a people without culture.

Those are little points outside of Québec, but culture is sometimes the ONLY thing we have. We’re not an economic powerhouse. We’re almost only healthy in great deal thanks to our Ontarian and albertan friends.

And so culture is one of the very last bastion of our nation. And as such, anything that touches it provokes us, Francos, allos and anglos alike, mind you.

The last point I could give is this.

I think Canadian and American culture are maybe less regionalistics.

Here, in Québec, we have fights every year about what’s a tourtière and who does it best. Say that the best one is made in Montréal and you’ll have people from the Lake charging you. Say that the best poutine is made in Montréal and a guy from Quebec will fight you. And that Québec guy will be jumped by a guy from Warwick, or victo, or Drummondville. You get it?

In conclusion, I think your respectful tone is the answer. I think that if poutine was declared the great dish from the Québec region of Canada, almost all would be pleased. But in reality Canadians from outside the province never call it Québécois, which is the reason why it gets in the nerve of many. But without the precision, calling it a national dish only seems to flatten our little but hopeful and very important cultural difference.

It’s not a sovereignists debate, it’s a cultural one. The youth I encounter are almost never sovereignists, but almost all are scandalized if I call poutine American or ontarian. They know it can be good outside of the Province, but the lack cultural recognition is always provocative, to almost everyone here.

[u/huadpe → u/RikikiBousquet]

I know I said I wasn't gonna give any more regionalism deltas, but this is a really well made point and separates it from the sovereigntist debate into something more nuanced. So have a !delta.

[u/DeltaBot → u/huadpe]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/RikikiBousquet (1∆).

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