A reader passed along this thoughtful piece by Thomas Lifson, at the American Thinker. It’s a nicely condensed version of the historical tug-o-war underlying the modern debate about Canadian “identity”.
Canada’s national identity has always been based on the fact of their being not American. This is an inevitable outcome of living next door to a behemoth with ten times the population and little concern for foreign countries, even (or especially) the ones right next door, whose differences with us are popularly regarded as retrograde imperfections. It is also a product of the fundamental fracture in Canada, between French and English Canadians, who have not embraced the concept of a melting pot, and who therefore do not have that much in common, other than being non-Yankees.
The Americans who have decamped for Canada have tended historically to be our dissidents, the dissatisfied, and historic losers – starting with the Tories who opposed the American Revolution, and reinforced by the contingent of draft dodgers during the Vietnam War. They looked back with anger and contempt at their less enlightened former countrymen. In contrast, the Canadians who moved in the opposite direction tended to be the ambitious strivers, like James J. Hill (the “Empire Builder” railroad magnate) or the current raft of entertainers like Jim Carrey and Martin Short. The exchange generally has not favored the Canadians. While American business and culture are studded with outstanding achievers of Canadian origin, the Americans fleeing to Canada collectively do not occupy a prominent place in the ranks of the accomplished.
Before the independence movement for Quebec became a dominant concern of English Canada, their relative Britishness gave Anglophone Canadians something positive to embrace, as a mark of their difference from Americans. They were a Dominion of the Queen, after all, not just a country. But when the Quebecois assaulted the rest of Canada with an outbreak of terror and assassination in the late 1960s and early 70s, followed by a serious popular electoral movement aimed at independence, the Union Jack had to disappear from the flag, and appeasement of the angry Francophones became priority number one for those who wished to save Canada as a viable nation.
Think of the emotional impact. That very Britishness, which had been embraced as a proud heritage and special difference from the Americans, now became a mark of inhuman domination. Quebec regarded The Union Jack and all that went with it as the lingering wound of an historic oppression with its ancient origin on the Plains of Abraham. This sudden need to discard a former source of pride was a traumatic loss for English Canadians, who take justifiable satisfaction in their inherent niceness. People who live through life-threatening winter weather every year tend to take seriously the obligation to help one another out, provide mutual aid and comfort, and offer a warm smile as the default setting when dealing with each other.
Now shorn of the positive symbols of English Canadian distinctiveness, always fearful of absorption into the overwhelming colossus to the south, and in desperate need of a way to reassure themselves that they were good people (in the face of many years of angry recriminations from the Francophones), Canada had no alternative but to embrace the newly-merging multicultural orthodoxy. This bizarre, murky, and constantly-evolving doctrine has no substance, other than decreeing that virtue is a function of oppression, or if no oppression happens to be available, a pale and lifeless virtue can be salvaged by deference to those who claim oppression.
Good observations. I have another.
I once had a heated debate over a bar table in northern Alberta with a man in his early twenties. He had a list of one word reasons for hating Americans – and he did use the word “hate”, along with “warmongers”, “Vietnam”, and “rude.” Strong words from a man who was otherwise a model of calm civility.
It didn’t make sense to me – it sounded like he’d met some particularly obnoxious people. Finally, I asked where he’d been in the US, to have formed impressions about ordinary Americans that were so different from what I’d experienced in my travels?
He had never been south of Calgary. I guess I should have known. His contempt was bred of a faux familiarity, based entirely on impressions formed by his exposure to various media – pop culture, movies, political news, historical information. Canada is unlike any other country in the way we are bombarded with American media. He was critical in a way you’d expect of someone who disliked a “drunken” cousin he’d only “met” through video of wedding dances. The poor fellow in the video is none the wiser – it’s not a two-way feed.
Had he walked into the bar directly in front of real live visiting warmongering Americans, arm in arm with the distant cousin – he’d still stand aside and hold the door open for them.
Our famous tendency to reflexive politeness is not urban myth – I have apologized too often for being inadvertantly jostled or having my foot stepped on to pretend otherwise. But it’s a phenomenon mostly reserved for strangers – the tendency disappears when we’re around people we know well.
The garbled mixture of scornful superiority and hyper-criticism, alternating with pronouncements and polls affirming our “friendship” and shared values, may be partly a consequence of this struggle. The US as both the stranger and the familiar family member. Mix in a goodly percentage of cultural and economic incest, and it’s a wonder Canadians haven’t come completely off our rockers.
Wow, that was a great link. I’ve read several articles today regarding the U.S./Canada relationship, and that was the best. I am American, and my husband is Canadian. I lived in Canada for two years and loved everything but the anti-American venom that spewed my direction from time to time. That article was the most thoughtful and least snarky of all. I also liked your comment about the guy who “hated” Americans who had never been south of Calgary. When we meet real people, it is very different than the vague images we form from the deluge of mass media noise. I wish people would watch the movie “Splash” where Tom Hanks tells the Mermaid when she cries because someone died on a tv show, This isn’t real. It’s all fake.
It is all fake. Real Americans are not like the ones on tv. If we can just learn to not pre-judge whole peoples by some image we have of them, then maybe we can learn to love each other as individuals. Anyway, thanks so much for the link and the post. Love your work!
I would like to echo Peggy’s comment. Nice find.
Very nice commentary – pretty much nails it, especially the Alberta stuff, IMHO. Although I think Alberta secession is still almost universally regarded (even here) as utterly unfathomable, far greater geopolitical change has occurred during our lifetimes for arguably lesser reasons than those identified in the commentary. Certainly, the last federal election (which returned the most corrupt and scandal-ridden western democratic government in decades to power) generously watered the seeds of doubt many Albertans and other westerners have about our present and future role in Canada and whether the “ties that bind us” together as a nation remain strong enough to ensure our future as a nation.
And just what are those ties? Certainly, economic ties are increasingly meaningless – as the commentary points out, the West, especially Alberta, has become the economic engine that powers much of the rest of the country. What about being bound by shared “tradition”? Again, the commentary nails it – the greatest accomplishment of Trudeaupia appears to me to be the abandonment and (often) denigration of our collective past, out of concern dwelling on it offends (take your pick), Quehecers, natives, “persons of colour”, the sexually disoriented, etc.
How about those much ballyhooed “shared Canadian values”? I have trouble thinking of a single significant “value” I and most of my family and friends “share” with “greater T.O.” or the “pure laine” Quebecois. Values like, what, “tolerance”? – sure, as long as you’re not conservative, white, male and a Christian. “Respect for (the endlessly-expanding list of)”human rights”? Yes, we smugly congratulate ourselfs for entrenching exciting new rights like expanded dating venues for teenage Catholic gays, while the rest of the world stone single mothers and mutilates young girls. “Multi-culturalism”? Sharia law! – coming soon to your neighbourhood Canadian courtroom! “Love thy (Canadian) neighbour”? so when are Mick and the boys coming out here to do a heavily subsidized benefit for BSE, now that the whole T.O. SARS thing seems to be over. I get misty just from thinking about how all we Canadians so enthusiatically embrace all the above, sniff sniff.
The precarious state of Canadian nationhood is well reflected in the Corpse’s most recent attempt at nation-building, the “Greatest Canadian” competition. I think it’s very telling that the “Greatest Canadian” turned out to be the so-called father of that vast, deeply flawed black-hole of a social program called medicare. (Btw, is TCD’s status as “greatest” revoked when the whole thing collapses from the weight of unsustainability?). As has been often noted, it is a perverse “nation” indeed that can only come up with its own broken down, third-rate version of a social program offered in every other western nation as the best thing about being Canadian.
So, yes, secession remains officially unfathomable, but the seeds of secession continue to germinate and grow. What might bring them to fruition? Another Quebec referendum, followed by further billions of federal appeasement? A terror attack on Fort MacMurray by persons Judy Sgro thought were strippers? Paul Martin naming Michael Moore Lieutenant Governor of Alberta? Hard to say, but lots of strange things are happening in our world. Perhaps an awareness of this is why the ROC should start to pay a little more attention and why we Albertans think the only doll anybody should be stomping on is Carolyn Parrish.
There are similar comments on getting to know and like each other in another superlative post on 2Slick. The context is quite different, of course:
http://2slick.blogspot.com/2004/12/our-secret-weapon.html
Excellent post as usual Kate! I have a friend who used to babble on about the evil Americans and how bad America was for the world. It turns out he had only been to USA once for 2 days! That’s it! The entire rest of his opinion of our southern neighbors was based on news and TV shows. I’ve spent at least a year of my life in the US and worked for some big American firms. They’re great people (annoying sometimes, yes), but I’m thankful that they’re our neighbors rather than, say, Syria, Iran or North Korea.
Conservative American View of Canada
An interested article from the American Thinker tries to analyze Canada’s identity crisis with a right-wing slant. The article attempts to link our sole means of distinguishing ourselves in the world as being non-American as opposed to being Canadian….
kate
absolutely true and an excellent post. now, to play devil’s advocate here, can you now apply the same lessons to american conservatives who spit venom and vitriole every time canada is merely mentioned? or for that matter certain albertans and their views on saskatchewan? this plays both ways and as you mentioned the best way to put an end to it is to actually travel outside your place of birth, meet other humans and experience their ways of living. i live and work in seoul, south korea and one of the first lessons to learn here is that there is almost no difference between canadians, americans, australians, brits, irish, kiwis and any other member of english speaking tribes. anyone who claims otherwise is usually a blithering idiot in most ohter areas of their life. and if you think that the canadian variety of anti-americansim is asinine, try watching 5,000 brick throwing, middleclass university students demanding that their barbarian protectors leave the country so they can enjoy the warm embrace of their northern ‘brothers’. that sort of shit puts our mutual bird flipping in perspective.
“now, to play devil’s advocate here, can you now apply the same lessons to american conservatives who spit venom and vitriole every time canada is merely mentioned?”
Who are these people? I’ve yet to hear about these people. AmCons generally get pissy about the French, and only after they’ve been antagonized first.