So what is wrong with Canada?
Canada is a colonized country adrift suffering endless betrayal and poor choices made over many decades.
Economic union is political union.The nation which is eager to die sells to a single country.—Jose Marti
The man who would trade independence for security deserves to end neither.— Benjamin Franklin
History is not dead it is not even past—William Faulkner
The acquisition of Canada was the first ambition on the American confederacy, and never ceased to be so.—Thomas D’Arcy McGee
Canada as a separate but dominated country has done as well under the United States as women, world wide,have done under men; about the only position they have ever adopted toward us, country to country has been the missionary position and we are not on top.—Margaret Atwood
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People around the world are asking what is wrong with Canada? The answer lies with history which are the great encyclopedias gathering dust on musty old shelves. We are shy about opening them up as they are a peerless record of our deeds, misdeeds and serial follies.
For our purposes the story starts about sixty years ago. A curmudgeonly old Canadian philosopher by the name of George Grant wrote a book called Lament for a Nation. It was a rather audacious thing to do as it appeared all was well in the post-war world where peace and prosperity returned with a vengeance. White picket fences were every where and there was a new Chevy or Ford in every driveway.
As philosophers tend to do they project into the future. For Grant there was every sign Canada was headed for colonization rather being than becoming “the shining citadel on the hill.” Our neighbor to the south was proving to be a rambunctious empire builder and Canada with a 4400 km open border would be easy pickings, unless Canada’s political and economic elites were capable of the “thrust of intention” required to maintain nationhood. In other words we would have to choose continentalism or nationhood. Now we see the end result.
About the same time there was another curmudgeon, a journalist by the name of James M. Minifie. He chipped in his two bits with a book called Peacemaker or Powder-monkey. He cautioned us:
“In the preservation of independence there is no alternative to vigilance. Independence is indivisible. You cannot have it intact here and in tatters there. It is as absolute as pregnancy. If a nation is not independent, it is dependent, and other appellations fit equally well—satellite, fellow traveler, or even lackey, as Churchill once called Mussolini.”
We flirted with the idea of being a peacemaker on and off, mostly off, eventually becoming a full blown powder-monkey paying for and fighting the empires endless wars along with every other NATO member state. Its known in the trade as “coat tailing on the empire .”
Along came Mel Hurtig, Publisher, Author, Politician and ardent nationalist documenting The Betrayal of Canada. He was right of course, but where there is no sense of betrayal, there is no betrayal. Our ever so pragmatic elites led us down the primrose path to colonization with barely a murmur of discontent.
Along came David Orchard, activist, nationalist, politician with his Fight for Canada, alas, too little too late, nobody could bother, the hubbub was too loud.
Today our discontent has turned to outrage and we wonder why. Our politicians are no more than bickering partisans indulging in the perks of power, flush pensions, and groupies to US Democrats. When Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton arrive in Ottawa there is no shortage of obsequious standing ovations.
Then comes the redoubtable John Ralston Saul, another damned philosopher, having written some of the most important books of our era, and a Canuck at that. When Saul wrote his book A Fair Country he wrote the sequel to Grant’s lament. Saul is akin to the jury detailing the outcome of Grant’s prophecy. Saul wrote his book fifteen years ago which affirms both writers as having great prescience. Saul’s quotes below are deadly accurate in describing the state of Canada today.
“Perhaps this intellectual vacuum in public policy is also an echo of the colonial undercurrent I keep coming back to. Leaders in colonies can rarely absorb local culture—their own culture—into the way they think. At some profound, unconscious level they think and act as if they find themselves accidentally in the colony. Accidentally or temporarily. Their citizenship is an inexplicable emotional accident. Their real culture is that of the empire. Or, in the words of economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, “the colonized mind is parasitically obsessed with the extraneous relation with the colonial powers.” It is their responsibility to echo the empire’s culture in order to keep standards up in this provincial place. -JRS
2. “Canada’s leaders hate to hear any suggestion that they still suffer from colonial reflexes. They are convinced of their sophisticated worldliness. After all, only a sophisticated, worldly person could understand that the destiny of a smaller country is to have its interests defined by the empire of the day, indeed by outside influences in general.”-JRS
3. “We imagine ourselves playing particular roles at home and abroad, yet we rarely play them, or only do so in a narrow, hesitant short-term manner. The outcome of all this is an increasingly dysfunctional elite, ill-tempered to the role it is meant to play. As for the citizenry as a whole, we show signs of uncertainty and frustration, as if we feel ourselves adrift.”-JRS
Another book by Saul must be mentioned here, his, The Unconscious Civilization. Consciousness and colonization play one on the other. The consciousness of a society makes it more or less vulnerable to colonization. A confident determined society with well established values and strongly aware of its history is less vulnerable to colonization. Canada being a relatively new country, sprawled across a vast continent and sparsely populated made it an soft touch for colonization.
As we are seeing in the present world crisis the state of consciousness in so-called Western democracies is passive, cynical, and inured to despotic governance over many decades. Too much emphasis on war and empire and too little on building better societies. Western democracies are suffering a profound betrayal and abandonment by elites in the ultimate class war where we are headed toward neofeudalism.
As Minifie suggests Canada has been less than vigilant in trying to retain even a modicum of sovereignty, to where absolute compliance is assumed and colonization replete.
Saul’s third quote, I submit, very accurately sums up the mood of the country today. The building and maintaining of nation states requires Grant’s “thrust of intention”. and Minifies’ desire for “independence, and Orchard’s loyalty”
Where there is no sense of betrayal a low level of consciousness exists and colonization is replete, the historic cycle complete.
Canada has in too many ways become a pallid carbon copy of the empire to the South as we are so busy trading goods and services social rot is taking place on both sides of the border. As corporate capitalism dominance accelerates social and democratic values have been denigrated and abandoned. The stealth ideology of neoliberalism is a social fragmentation bomb dropped on both countries. We are living Sheldon Wolin’s inverted totalitarianism — the trappings of democracy with no real democracy.
So what is wrong with Canada (and a lot of other so-called Western democracies)? Colonization is a societal wrecking ball on both sides of the Canada/US border. Empires are ruthlessly self-serving and more than willing to cannibalize the own societies, and those of their allies.
Canada’s federal politicians are in hiding and their betrayal and sloth is palpable.
“as if we feel ourselves adrift.”-JRS . This is exactly what colonization does to societies.
(All linked books available at Amazon.ca)
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Canadians, should be asking why not one of our politicians or parties are speaking for peace, at a time the world is tilting towards more war exhausting Western societies.
Our constitution states it is the obligation of our government to deliver ”peace, order and good government.”
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For further reading:
The anarchist Emma Goldman who died in Toronto in 1940 wrote that "western democracies are just fascism in disguise", and that "the most violent element in society is ignorance". The average Canadian is as ignorant as the average US citizen, by design.
Perhaps Canada needs to stop sucking up to the 'dear neighbours' to the South.