A rchive Date
[ 28-05-2001 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Events raise doubts of Canadian 'identity'
By Herman Goodden - London Free Press
May 28, 2001
Even 134 years after Confederation, Canada still looks to Britain and the United States for validation and encouragement as a nation. In our darkest moments of national cheesed-off-ed-ness, we contemplate capitulation and flight. On the very same Saturday this month came two news reports underlining our long-standing dilemma of bifurcation.
The first story concerned press baron Conrad Black, who's renouncing his Canadian citizenship so he can pick up a proffered peerage in the English House of Lords. As a dual citizen of Canada and the United Kingdom (which share Queen Elizabeth II as head of state), there is nothing on the books to prevent Black from receiving such an honour while maintaining both citizenships. This drastic measure was necessitated entirely by our small-minded prime minister, who loves to jam his stick in Black's money-spinning spokes every chance he gets.
Though this defection is largely ceremonial (which is to say Black will maintain his home and investments here, including a 50-per-cent interest in The National Post), on his way out the door Black took a well-aimed swipe at Liberal fiscal policies, which have long made this country the least profitable of his world markets: "Having opposed for 30 years precisely the public policies that have caused scores of thousands of educated and talented Canadians to abandon their country every year, it is at least consistent that I should join this dispersal."
In June 1999, Chretien first refused to give his blessing to Black's elevation. While the Queen could have proceeded in this matter without Chretien's approval, for reasons of diplomacy and protocol, she wouldn't. The Canadian satire magazine, Frank, had no such reticence and re-dubbed Black three years ago, faithfully and gallingly referring to him ever since as "Lord Tubby of Fleet."
On the same day as Black's announcement, a report released by American economists Jeffrey Frankel and Andrew Rose contended an instantaneous 37-per-cent improvement in financial health would accrue to Canadians if we put the loonie out of its misery and simply threw in our fiscal lot with the Americans by adopting the U.S. dollar as our own.
Such a prospect might seem like a rather long shot, yet David Dodge, the new governor of the Bank of Canada, seemed to lend it some credence when he told Parliament's finance committee: "In a decade or so, it may well be clear the Canadian and U.S. economic structures have converged sufficiently that there is little advantage to preserving the floating rate (of our dollar measured against theirs). If so, we would have to give very serious thought to dollarization."
This wasn't the way things were supposed to go. Canadian novelist and essayist Hugh MacLennan (1907-1990) thought deeply about our country's role in world history. Unlike our reckless Yankee cousins, the first Canadians refused to cut off ties to Britain and Europe in a bid to hatch a whole new form of civilization from scratch. MacLennan believed that our failure of nerve (or was it a wholesome lack of arrogance?) was a good thing, that maintaining connections with Europe allowed Canadians to simultaneously act as pioneers in the new world and loyalists to the old. Ideally, he felt, we would achieve a balance that was progressive yet humane, fresh yet cultured, and thus mediate between the crude vitality of that industrial juggernaut to our south and some of the growth-squelching traditionalism of Europe.
It was a grand and beautiful conceit while it lasted. Perhaps its most possible-seeming moment coincided with our 1967 centennial and Pierre Trudeau's first term as prime minister. Our dollar was strong. Our military was fully supported and respected. Our universal social programs and our piddling crime rate were the envy of the world. Canadian artists were stepping out of the shadows in virtually every discipline, and thinkers like Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye were making intellectual waves that rolled around the globe.
1967's wonderfully pregnant sense of uniqueness and self-discovery has now gone flatter than a flapjack. Canada now finds itself way too wired - economically, politically and culturally - to the U.S. Jean Chretien won't even risk a discouraging word about George Bush's delusional Star Wars space shield for fear of causing offence, which might have trade ramifications. Otherwise, outside Quebec, we're actively downplaying and erasing our once-defining and sustaining connections with the Old World. I'm not declaring the death of the Canadian experiment in nationhood, but this month, at least, the prospects are not good.
Herman Goodden is a London freelance writer. His column appears regularly in Sunday's A&E section. He can be e-mailed at herman.goodden@sympatico.ca.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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