Unapologetically Canadian

On being the anti-America

I bumped into a stranger at the airport today. Literally. My bag was a bit bigger than I’d judged and I knocked into him as we lined up for boarding. We both apologised. Saying you’re sorry when someone bumps you is as Canadian as maple syrup and the Tragically Hip. It may be overblown, but Canadian courtesy and willingness to “go along to get along” are real elements of our culture. It’s what allows us to keep an intrinsically fraught federation and a mosaic of faiths, ethnicities, languages and cultures together despite our differences. We need to work at compromise to get along with each other. And while we may be a large and wealthy country relative to most, we remain the smaller sibling at tables like the G7. We need to work collaboratively to be included at the grown-up tables, and that particularly includes our powerful neighbours to the south.

Or at least it has until now. Donald Trump is now musing regularly about Canada becoming the 51^st US state and has talked about using economic force - including 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports as soon as next month - to bring us to heel. This language and the economic actions that follow pose an existential threat to our independence. To counter it, we will need to repurpose a part of our culture that is less conciliatory.

Trump speaks to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images, National Post

The similarities between the US and us are myriad and our countries are deeply interconnected. But the differences are real, and they amount to much more than long vowel sounds and pastimes on ice. In a recent interview, Justin Trudeau pulled out an oft-used definition of Canadians, “we’re not Americans.” There is a long history in our country of defining ourselves in contrast to the excesses and extremes of American politics and culture.

Predictable though it may be, the statement is an interesting turn from a Prime Minister who famously said early in his term that “'There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” That comment was met with some shock, a strange thing for the leader of a nation to suggest there is no real, cohesive nation to lead. He wasn’t the first to think about our country in these passive terms. Marshall McLuhan once said in 1963 that “Canada is the only country in the world that knows how to live without an identity.” Trudeau Senior’s policy of multiculturalism was the colour print of this photographic negative, the idea that by embracing all cultures rather than imposing a single one we create something new.

Former US President Obama once told a swooning House of Commons that “the world needs more Canada.” The only thing Canadians enjoy more than looking down at Americans is being noticed by them. But like the high schooler who can’t break into the good clique, the only road to cool is to stop caring about being cool. As Ukraine has learned in the face of Russian aggression, a nation’s independence can’t simply be a question of borders and international conventions, it must be one of spirit. To bastardize Kant, if a Canadian identity didn’t exist, it would necessary to invent one.

Canada needs more Canada.

Defining ourselves in contrast risks a jingoistic anti-Americanism: a knee-jerk patriotism of the kind we would criticize if practiced by the object of our scorn. The best kind of patriotism is the kind that says “this is my place so I will care for it and make it the best I can” rather than “this is the best place because I’m from here.” That’s the love Canadians should have for Canada. It should lead us not to be anti-American, but to work to become the anti-America. We can further define ourselves by looking at the extremes and excesses of States and, rather than our standard fashion of adopting them a few years later, move decisively in the opposite direction.

In researching a book I’m currently writing about a great Canadian of the 20^th century, a clear idea emerges of what made Canada one of the most successful and unified countries of that period despite our differences. We are brought together as a nation by caring for one another.

The United States is a casino; the stakes are high but everyone believes they have a shot at the jackpot. If you can pay you can play. Canada has deliberately chosen a different path, one that is not so winner-take-all. This means leaving room for great individual success while still ensuring everyone benefits. The rights conferred by the signature social programs and institutions built over the last 158 years – when they are functioning as they should be – are central to national unity because they send a message of belonging. We are bound to each other by the freedom of knowing there is help when we need it and that we all pitch in to make that possible. Far more than questions of climate, geography, entertainment and cuisine, this is what makes us Canadian.

So what do we do in the face of a threat to our country and that unique approach to building a better life for the people who call it home? Well first, we don’t roll over. We fight fire with fire when it comes to tariffs. That much is obvious, and it’s infuriating to see the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan cowardly capitulating in advance. Trump’s endgame may not be actual domination of the dominion, but neither is this is a brief spat. He intends to reshape America’s economy and its use of power in the world, and he has his eyes on us. He imagines a world where the US is incredibly wealthy, a net exporter, and other countries pay dearly to access that market. He wants us to bend to his will. The more we give, the more he will take; we need to strengthen our spine. We need to be more Canadian than we’ve ever been.

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Ten Ways to be the Anti-America

1. Be the myth. Emphasize, above all, an image of Canada as welcoming and kind to our friends and civil but resolute with our adversaries. As we witness human rights being trampled, government services being dismantled and hate being sown in every direction, we must not only refuse to mimic but also offer an alternative to that destructive approach.

2. Celebrate Canada. We must acknowledge the wrongs in Canada’s past and present, but as a springboard for improvement, not as perpetual shame. At a time like this, we need to find pride in and be inspired by the remarkable in our history, by the challenges overcome and the marvels achieved.

3. Don’t allow identities to divide us. Policies must respond to the different needs of different groups, but we can’t fall for the culture war bait. The source of unity, and the strengths of universality in public programs, is that everyone feels included. The more our terminology or our policies divide us along the lines of class, gender, language, ethnicity etc., the more that feeling and the commitment to a common project are lost.

4. Strengthen the federation. With the Parti Québecois leading in the polls, we once again face the question of Quebec independence. There are no easy answers to this, but sleepwalking into another referendum will play right into the hands of those who would see us weaken. Any thought that anything resembling Canada survives separation, or that Trump would be any gentler with an independent Quebec, is purely delusional.

5. Minimize the damage done by our own politics. The opposition parties have promised to force an election the next chance they get. I understand that, I’ve been an opposition politician. You always want your shot at replacing your rivals. I’m also no apologist for the frequently feckless LPC. The fact is, there is a real crisis and important work to be done. It’s no time for a prorogued parliament, and cooler heads should be asking whether it’s time for a rushed election.

6. Fix primary health care. People are mocking Trump for saying Canadians would have better health care if we joined the US, and rightly so, but for a lot of people anything would seem better than what we’re dealing with today. Scenes of patients lined up overnight for a chance at a family doctor reveal a growing sense of desperation and defeat. Accessible, quality care is always important. It’s now a national emergency. How can we point to shared values when the value proposition is coming up so short? The work of Jane Philpott on access to primary care in Ontario may provide some guidance for how to get this done. It needs to move quickly and effectively to give people the access they need and a chance to once again feel proud of the Canadian health care.

7. Keep people whole. With trade wars will come economic hardship. We learned during the pandemic that it is possible to quickly mobilize social supports. We also saw how quickly political and social instability can rise when tens of thousands of people suddenly find themselves without work at the same time as prices rise. Leadership needs to be looking to ways to facilitate growth in Canadian-owned industry, seek new export markets, and be ready to support people who find themselves out of work.

8. Keep a channel open for the facts. Despite the railing against legacy media as fake news, the rise of the MAGAverse is a symbiotic relationship between far-right politics and far-right media outlets that are unmoored from the truth. Having some degree of shared knowledge informed by professional, ethical journalism is an essential antidote to this poisoning of our information ecosystem. The CBC is an underappreciated social program, a factual safety net that Max Fawcett calls “a deliberate instrument of national unity.” The crucial role of the CBC can’t be underestimated in a time of plummeting news quality and national crisis. See A Modest Proposal for the Mother Corp in my previous series on trust for a novel idea on widening its reach and impact.

9. Strengthen the public service. Donald Trump is freezing, firing and otherwise effing the functions of government at all levels. Health, justice, the military, regulations, fiscal policy, social services; the chaos of his disruption will impact tens of millions people. This is unlikely to produce an enviable experience. A country that works is something to be proud of; a commitment to an efficient, reliable and functional government is worth the effort. This strengthening must also include finally taking seriously the decline of Canada’s military to better secure of our own borders and be a better partner to allies in a time of mutual need.

10. Be the Canada the world needs. Economist recently Paul Krugman warned that “Donald Trump wants you to die.” Trump appears hell-bent on undermining public health in his own country through the crippling of the NIH and the CDC and putting vaccine cynic RFK Jr. in charge of the country’s health. On the global scale, he plans to freeze foreign aid and pull the US out of the World Health Organization. US foreign aid has been instrumental in tackling disease around the world. For example, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), started under George W. Bush, pays for the bulk of anti-retroviral treatment in Africa and has been credited with saving 26 million lives. A ninety-day freeze will cause enough damage, but if this program is ended it will mean the repeat of a humanitarian catastrophe. In this environment, rather than cutting foreign aid as Pierre Poilievre has promised to do, Canada will need to an active part of international efforts to fill the gap left by Trump’s abandonment of the world’s richest nation’s commitments to the world.

So much of what we thought we knew about the world has been upended by the rise of Trump and those who share his worldview. For Canadians, this has moved from a worrisome and disorienting spectacle to real danger to our continued existence. To chart a path to an independent future, we need to look back to what has made us a proud and connected nation in the past.

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PostScript: No One’s Interested in Something You Didn’t Do.

If you are a regular reader of A Larger Scale you’ll have noticed there hasn’t been any regular reading to do. I took a deliberate pause during the Saskatchewan provincial election this fall, not wanting to be a backseat driver and potential distraction during that campaign. I’m also working on two larger writing projects which I’ll be sharing more about with you in the future, and that longer-form work requires sustained attention that is divided by trying to produce regular posts. All of which is to say, while I may occasionally weigh in on issues I can’t stay silent about, I’m not sure when a more regular pace will resume. For now, my assurance that all paid subscriptions have been paused indefinitely, and that when and if I return to writing more regular posts, you’ll hear about it here first.

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