What is happening in Canada?

Canadian mining firm Infinito Gold is still pursuing the government of Costa Rica for $1 billion based on the people’s rejection of an open-pit prospecting and extraction project. This rejection, which has been tendered thrice, is making headlines because some Canadians believe that the Calgary-based company has gone far enough and is now embarrassing the national pride.

There is also the outrageous case of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who has admitted to a string of behaviors that are nothing less than conduct unbecoming the leader of one of the most powerful cities in Canada. Mayor Ford has no intentions of stepping down, which is something that has caught the attention of the world media and is embarrassing quite a few Canadians -but not all.

What is happening in the nation that proudly stands A Mari Usque Ad Mare (from sea to sea), a country that is often better known as the best neighbor and ally the United States could ever hope to have? How can Infinito Gold and Mayor Ford be so bold as to tarnish the dignity and gravitas of an entire country?

As it happens, there are a couple of petitions addressed to John Morgan, Infinito Gold’s CEO, to drop the crazy lawsuit against Costa Rica. Perhaps, however, the lawsuit may not be so crazy after all. It is crazy on the surface when we consider that here’s a Canadian company taking on a sovereign power, but it turns out that Infinito Gold’s tenacity may have some reasoning. Writing for Esquire, Charles P. Pierce explains:

…there’s gold in them thar hills and a Canadian company wants it, and Costa Rica would rather not live with the economic devastation that comes with digging this gold out. So the company does what the real powers in the political universe do when confronted with the inconvenience of national sovereignty.

But international arbitration expert Gus Van Harten says Infinito Gold may have a case. He says through international trade agreements signed between countries, international arbitrators have the power to override court and government decisions of sovereign countries.

So now we have some understanding of why Infinito Gold might ignore this petition that has collected more than 2,000 signatures from Canadians who are basically saying: “Stop it! You are embarrassing us!”

Can we now use Infinito Gold to explain Mayor Ford? It appears that Dahlia Lithwick from Slate has done something even better: She explains Mayor Ford as part of a paradigm shift in Canadian national pride:

I have never been prouder to be a Canadian in my whole entire life.

I think that after a lifetime of being typecast as the tall guy in the corner in the ribbed turtleneck and ugly Kodiak boots, Canadians may be secretly loving this chance to suggest to the world that deep inside each and every one of us lurks a 300-pound loon perfectly capable of flattening a city council member in his attempt to jump a heckler in the middle of a council meeting.

And so Tuesday Rob Ford was on the Today show, being celebrated for his unbridled American-style bonkers-ness. He is being feted by fun-loving people everywhere for his truthiness (“I didn’t lie. I don’t smoke crack, I haven’t smoked crack in over a year.”), for his refreshing honesty (“But show me the video … Because I want to see it. I can’t even barely remember it. I was very, very inebriated.”), and for threatening his colleagues with retribution (“Mark my words, my friends, this is going to be outright war in the next election.”). He is both humble (“I don’t look at myself as the mayor; I look at myself as just a normal, regular person.”) and also freakishly nuts (“Yes, one day I do want to run for prime minister.”). 

When NBA star Lebron James traveled to Toronto earlier this year to face the Raptors, he was approached by Canadian journalists who wanted his opinion about politics in the city he was visiting with his championship team, the Miami Heat. He did not know about the Mayor Ford affair, and when a reporter from the National Post briefed him on it, Mr. James was visibly shocked and asked two important questions: Is Mayor Ford still in office? Is he a good mayor?

Mr. James did not get a straight answer to his final, incisive question; but, one possible answer would be that both Mayor Ford and Infinito Gold are just going through a phase of unapologetic tenacity, which might now feel like an embarrassment for some Canadians, but in the future may be known as part of Canada’s national identity in the 21^st century.