Canada Day, 2012
July 1, 2012 | 6 Comments
I’m not feeling too bullish on Canada these days. There’s a lot wrong with this country. We have a government that cares more about petro-dollars than about people. Basic workers rights take a backseat to GDP-desires and the convenience of middle class vacationers. Stephen Harper is a grand disappointment in many many ways. However, he has made some wise moves – liberalizing trade, reducing supply management, relegating Michael Ignatieff to a brief footnote in the history of a once-great party. He has even made some defensible, if rather meaningless, moves – eliminating the census, eliminating the gun registry.
His party, unfortunately, is still hung up on abortion, gutting the refugee system, mega-jails and military toys. Think about that the next time someone decries the centralization of power within the PMO.
Last Spring brought so much hope to Canadian politics. Hope wanes, though, as the bright lights cast nothing but shadows of lesser beings. Thomas Mulcair may indeed deliver the next great political victory for the NDP. And it’s oh so nice that the NDP seems so much more interested in the next victory rather than good governance, principles or shame.
Petro-dollars have a charm all their own.
The Liberals (isn’t it grand that we get to list them third these days?) are continuing to demonstrate their love affair with irrelevance. Sure, Martha Hall Findlay shows that even a Liberal can be wise on supply management, but the apparent infatuation with a green MP whose greatest asset is two syllables and whose most memorable moment is a charity boxing match demonstrates the un-seriousness with which they view their own plight.
You see, this is primarily a political blog, so we tend to be obsessed with politics.
Maybe I should have more faith in my country. Maybe I should (as I wrote two years ago) concern myself more with the actions of my fellow Canadians than with preening of our politicians. Lord knows politics shouldn’t have nearly as much importance as we afford it. I know many good people, who do many good things.
That’s the half-glass-full viewpoint, and it’s a worthy one to hold, however there’s a problem with it. Recently, my wife mentioned… someone (sorry dear, I can’t remember the name)… who wrote something to the effect that any language we use to others people – that creates some sort of us vs. them dynamic – is a form of violence (sorry, again, honey, I can’t remember the actual quote). Such a statement is, no doubt, a touch hyperbolic (but as noted two years ago, I’m down with the hyperbole), but there is much to commend about it.
To celebrate Canada Day is wonderful in many ways, but nationalistic celebrations entrench these established divides. Go! Canada! Go! chants at an Olympic hockey game are fun, sure, but such exuberance turns into booing the anthems of other nations (as if singing the anthems of nations at sporting events -anthems that don’t even represent a significant majority of the participants – has much merit at all). The rah rah-ness of simple celebrations will and does morph into My Country Right or Wrong – a powerful statement that has caused immeasurable suffering.
Canada, in all its simplistic stereotyping, is supposed to be a nation above this. We are, we ironically claim, a humble nation, a peaceful nation, a polite nation. Yet, despite all that, we are nation that often defines ourselves most by what we are not. And what we are (supposedly) not is Americans. We have universal health care (without any silly debates about the definitions of “tax” and “commerce”). We have gun control. We are a nation of peacekeepers. Etc., etc., etc.
But can anyone tell me how defining ourselves by claiming we are unlike our closest (metaphorically and literally) neighbours is anything but other-ing them?
Nationalism – and its little brother, Patriotism – demands that we value country first and principles second. We are all, I suppose, expected to adopt a Mulcairian stance when our adoration of nation conflicts with the ideals we hold most dear. Dissent, it is said, is the highest form of patriotism, but even this argument kidnaps the valor of dissent, subjugating it to the higher value, patriotism. In reality, dissent has nothing to do with patriotism. Dissent, ironically, is a form of fidelity. It is fidelity to one’s thoughts, beliefs and ideals regardless of what the tribe demands. It is showing allegiance to something greater than country, for there are so many things that are greater than country.
Canada, as great a nation as she may be, is worthless in comparison to its citizens. Canada has no value except in its ability to empower, protect and nurture individual Canadians (and, hopefully, those who just happen to have been born outside our imaginary borders).
If you’ve read this far, you are probably wondering what my point is. Well, I don’t have one. Canada Day is extremely problematic for me. Nonetheless, I sincerely hope you all have a wonderful Canada Day. I will be spending it with my family, camping with many others, brought together by something far more powerful than patriotism, love.
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6 Responses to “Canada Day, 2012”
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July 3rd, 2012 @ 2:01 am
A bit of hidden Canadian history:
Benjamin Isitt, From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada’s Siberian Expedition, 1917-19, Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.
Between 1918 and 1920, the fledgling workers’ state in Soviet Russia was engaged in a life and death struggle against a series of counter-revolutionary “White” armies backed by expeditionary forces marshalled by fourteen states that had fought as part of the British-French-US-led “Allies” in the First World War and which landed forces in Baku, Murmansk, Archangel and Vladivostok. Among the belligerents was Canada.
Historian Benjamin Isitt’s From Victoria to Vladivostok documents the history of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Siberia (CEFS), its deployment to Vladivostok as part of the attempted Allied overthrow of the revolutionary Bolshevik government under Lenin and Trotsky, its eventual defeat, and demobilization. The book also describes the working class internationalism that was prevalent during this period, and how worker solidarity ultimately derailed the expedition…
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/isit-j30.shtml
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July 3rd, 2012 @ 4:12 pm
“WHEN you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.” Jiddu Krishnamurti
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July 4th, 2012 @ 7:16 am
Et tu, Jonathan.
Viewed from just about any objective measurement, the last ten years have been a golden age for Canadians. Our public finances are the envy of the world and, while we haven’t been completely untouched by the global malaise, pretty much all our economic indices are too. Study after study ( except those from the corrupt and thoroughly discredited UN) puts us near the top of every “ranking”, whether respecting business and investment competitveness and friendliness, social justice or civil freedoms. (The most recent ranked us the bast country for women to live in) Our record immigration levels from all over the world make us the country everybody else comes to study to try to figure out how we combine both high levels of native support and immigrant satisfaction and loyalty. In sport, art and culture, our young people are more competitive and celebrated than ever before. We’ve had a decade of constutional peace. Our cities are largely pleasant, affordable, clean and safe. Health, employment and education levels are all high. House prices are holding. Want me to go on?
And yet, surfing the blogosphere, the proverbial man from Mars would think we are an impoverished, oppressive Ruritania. Dr Dawg and much of the left are in mourning about the Harper darkness that has descended on the land. Over at SDA the regulars bemoan how they live in a dull, grey and oppressive socialist state. And now my frequently sensible pal, Jonathan, celebrates our national holiday by fretting that, if we cheer too loudly for Team Canada, we might end up bombing somebody or even dabbling in genocide.
Rex Murphy had it right a few years ago when he said Canadians have won the lottery of life, but he might have added that this Eeyore nation of ours is too neurotic to see it. You know, Jonathan, it’s really not a good idea to tempt the gods this way.
I think I shall soon give up the blogosphere and take up drinking. Much healthier in many ways.
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Joel Reply:
July 5th, 2012 at 11:11 pm
“I think I shall soon give up the blogosphere …”
Don’t. You. Dare.
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
July 5th, 2012 at 11:57 pm
I’m with Joel – though I suggest mixing drinking with the blogosphere (it’s what I’m doing right now!).
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July 27th, 2012 @ 7:02 am
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