Reason 2
Canada is not unified- With Canada's various groups and cultures, it makes it difficult to decide on a hero who appeals to all of them. Charlotte Gray provides some great examples of this when she says "Louis Riel is a hero to Métis and francophones, and a mad trouble-maker to anglophones. Even national figures are enmeshed in regional rivalries: Pierre Trudeau is the darling of Toronto's Liberal élite and a menace to Quebec nationalists and Alberta oilmen." So this proves that it is possible to become a hero to some groups within Canada, but darn near impossible to win over all of Canada.
To read more of Charlotte Gray's article and to check out more...visit this site :) http://www.greatquestions.com/en/KeyDebates.html?id=HeroesSymbols
It's interesting to compare your two ideas- that on the one hand, we have these "collective" heroes (peacekeepers, the gang at Vimy Ridge) but any individual heroes are for a very specific group (Toronto elite- Trudeau, Metis- Riel). These seem to be contradictory on one hand... but perhaps we have a sense that we "should" have national heroes, and so we identify a safe group that most people can buy into?
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