Tod Maffin

I watch an inordinate amount of Youtube. I find video makers I like and I stick with them for years. I’m always finding new people to follow. My tastes are quite idiosyncratic. I do a few AMSR things — rug cleaning, pet grooming, and wood turning among them, I follow tons of lefty political pundits, different musicians, especially bass players (I play), fantasy book bloggers, prog bloggers, little town drive-arounds…

There’s such a wide range of stuff on YouTube to pay attention to, and good content doesn’t necessarily happen in particular categories. My YouTube habits do reflect my interests, of course, but I seem to regularly find new things to be interested in.

A recent find’s name is Tod Maffin. The page I linked to labels him a “Canadian Identity Commentator.” He’s a public personage “up there:” does – his website claims – 40 public events a year. Used to be a radio host on CBC radio. I suss out from the info around him that he’s fairly corporate, though not overbearingly so. Check out the video after the link above, you’ll get a pretty good idea of his schtick and why I like it.

What he’s up to is pretty straightforward. He’s an ambassador for Canadian life. His most immediate call to action is to get US healthcare workers who are suffering in the current environment to relocate. My feelings about this are mixed, because I’m an American and I want good health care people to be here, but I can understand the allure of moving to a place that has a sensible and human-oriented system. I mean, Jeez, I’d like to move there myself!

From his point of view, it’s smart and compassionate work. For me, it’s bittersweet, because if we didn’t have the clowns we have running things, Maffin’s gambit would feel a lot less like a rescue operation. But we live in the world we live in. And with the terminal toddler nitwits we have running things, it’s reassuring that just to the north of me, there is a functioning society full of nice people. Not people without problems (anyone with no problems is in the cemetery,) not people living in a utopia (any country where someone like Pierre Poilievre is a prominent national politician is no utopia,) but people who do civility like they were born to it, and also people who recognize that part of civil life is the duty to take care of each other.

And that’s what Tod Maffin advocates for, and works to sell Canada as, to those who can help it become even better at that for its people. And though he focuses on healthcare workers, he’s pretty expansive. Here’s the video I saw that originally piqued my interest:

I’ve since watched a dozen or so other videos of his, and have enjoyed them all. He talks about various topics, but in every video I’ve seen, he centers Canadian identity.

He’s worth your time. Check him out. And maybe he can put in a good word for New England. I know a lot of us would happily switch over.

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