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The Great Canadian Identity Crisis | The Walrus

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Zed or Zee? Our democracy could depend on the answer

S everal years ago, I developed an intense and unrequited interest in the letter Z. It is the one letter whose name changes at the forty-ninth parallel. Even now, I can only read it as “Zed” with effort. You’ve read it too, and its sound in your mind tells you something important about who and where you are. Z is a small hook on which I have hung an excessive weight of fear and hope. Z means that I am here. On most days, being in Canada does not mean much beyond the ordinary, but there are days when I cannot read or hear or say the letter Z without a sense of stupid, unearned relief. One was t

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