Canada: a country of (anti-American) whiners
<<A little invasion is what Canada needs
Jonah Goldberg
National Post
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
WASHINGTON - It's quite possible that the greatest favour the United States could do for Canada is to declare war on it. No, this isn't a tribute to South Park, the TV cartoon that popularized a song -- Blame Canada -- calling for an outright invasion of America's northern neighbour. A full-scale conquest is unnecessary; all Canada needs is to be slapped around a little bit, to be treated like a whining kid who's got to start acting like a man. Why would such a war be necessary? The short answer is: to keep the Canadians from being conquered by the United States. In effect, it would be a war to keep Canada free. But first some background.
Five decades ago, historian Frank Underhill wrote that the Canadian is "the first anti-American, the model anti-American, the archetypal anti-American, the ideal anti-American as he exists in the mind of God." In a sense this isn't really true. Philosophically and politically, the New Soviet Man was a superior anti-American: He not only hated America but had a blueprint for its replacement. After all, the perfect anti-American must be pro-something else; he must offer a viable alternative to that which he detests.
Canadian anti-Americanism does none of this. It is anti-American by reflex, which is to say that when America goes about its business, Canada flinches and calls this tic "the Canadian way."
Virtually all of Canada's public policies were born out of a studied contrariness to U.S. policies, real or perceived. Canada's disastrous health-care system survives because of three things: vast sums of (poorly spent) money, the limitless patience of Canadian citizens who are regularly willing to wait between four and eight months for necessary surgeries, and the widespread fear that any reform might constitute "Americanization." There's every reason to believe that Canadians would embrace at least a few market reforms -- which might, for example, reduce the wait for an MRI from a national median of 12.4 weeks -- if only it didn't seem like capitulation to "American-style" health care.
Health care is only the most prominent example of the Canadian ethos being frozen in the headlights of anti-Americanism. The dysfunctional state of Canadian democracy is partially attributable to Canada's fears of seeming too American. Preston Manning has spoken about the need to permit cross-party coalition building in Parliament -- yet he is very quick to caution that Canadians don't want "American-style" politics. But Canada is barely a functioning democracy at all: Its governmental structure, if described objectively, is far more similar to what we would expect in a corrupt African state with decades of one-party rule.
In fact, nothing would be better for Canada than a rabble-rousing, American-style democracy. It's not as if Canada had no conservatives: The western region, for example, is remarkably similar to America's in its laissez-faire attitude, but the stagnant political system simply doesn't permit the expression of such regional differences at the federal level. Canada's Senate was intended, like America's, to represent regional interests -- but because Canada's is appointed by the Prime Minister, its Senators tend to be geriatric cronies appointed as a reward for sycophancy.
One reason Canadians are reluctant to reform this bizarre system is that Canadian culture confuses its quirks with its character. Feeling swamped by U.S. culture, Canadians have stitched together a national identity from whatever's lying around. They try to plug leaks by restricting foreign ownership of bookstores and mandating huge quotas for homegrown cultural products. Canadians cling to this barely seaworthy raft, and are loath to untie a single plank from it. This explains the famous Canadian radio survey which asked listeners to complete the phrase, "as Canadian as ..." (looking for something like "as American as apple pie"). The winning response was: "as Canadian as possible, under the circumstances."
Given all of the above, it's not surprising that when you talk to ordinary Canadians -- who are, by and large, a wonderfully decent and friendly bunch -- they have a ready vocabulary to explain the U.S.-Canada relationship. They talk about how America is Canada's "big brother" and how, like any younger sibling, Canada is naturally inclined to find fault with its more accomplished elders. But this metaphor leaves out an important part of the dynamic: Kid brothers normally express their objections not to their big brothers, but to their parents. "He failed his report card!" "He's guilty of 400 years of racism and oppression!" And so on.
For much of Canada's history, its parents could be found in the British Empire. Canada was founded largely by loyalists who rejected America's rebelliousness toward King George; it was never the prodigal son to England, but rather the good son who never left home. With independence, the Canadians were left without a parent to suck up to and with a resented brother who was now their only real protector. Indeed, the U.S. has supplanted dear old Dad as the most important player on the world stage; this new circumstance has prompted Canadians to find a surrogate parent in the United Nations. And that's a real problem, for both Canada and the U.S.
It is no exaggeration to say that Jean Chrétien is no friend of the United States. Shortly after 9/11 he made a series of idiotic remarks about how America essentially deserved what it got from al-Qaeda: We were attacked because we are too rich and arrogant, and the rest of the world is too poor and humble. He's never backed off those remarks and has even reiterated them. Chrétien's view is the settled opinion of most of Canada's intellectual class.
The Chrétien government believes that the war on terrorism is basically illegitimate. Hence Chrétien's mortifying foot-dragging before visiting Ground Zero; his insistence that it wouldn't be right to outlaw Hezbollah on Canadian soil; and his government's absurd hissy-fit over America's attempt to police its borders against immigrants from terrorist states who try to come through Canada. These policies are partly the product of a longstanding Canadian desire to be the UN's favourite country: Breaking with its immediate family -- the U.S. and Britain -- Canada has found a new family in the "international community." Canada has internalized the assumptions and mythology of UN-ology: not just anti-Americanism but also the belief that Western nations don't need military might anymore. As a consequence, Canada is simply unarmed.
Canadians have long talked about how they are a "moral superpower" and a nation of peacekeepers, not warriors. While they were never in fact a moral superpower -- when was the last time a dictator said, "We'd better not, the Canadians might admonish us"? -- Canadians were at one time a nation of a peacekeepers who helped enforce UN-brokered deals around the world (Suez 1956, Congo 1960, etc.). Today, Canada ranks Number 37 as a peacekeeping nation in terms of committed troops and resources, and it spends less than half the average of the skinflint defence budgets of NATO. Chrétien talks about not sending troops to Iraq; in truth, even if Chrétien wanted to join the Iraq invasion, Canada's role would be like Jamaica's at the Winter Olympics -- a noble and heartwarming gesture, but a gesture nonetheless.
Despite Canada's self-delusions, it is, quite simply, not a serious country anymore. It is a northern Puerto Rico with an EU sensibility. Canada has no desire to be anything but the United Nations' ambassador to North America, talking about the need to keep the peace around the world but doing nothing about it save for hosting countless academic conferences about how terrible America is. It used to be an equal partner in NORAD, but now chooses to stay out of America's new homeland-defence plans -- including missile defence -- partly because it reflexively views anything in America's national-security interest to be inherently inimical to its own, partly because it draws juvenile satisfaction from being a stick-in-the-mud. In a sense, Canada is the boringly self-content society described in Francis Fukuyama's The End of History, except for the fact that history continues beyond its shores.
Naturally, America is going to defend itself with or without Canada's co-operation, but this self-Finlandization has serious consequences nonetheless. If, for example, al-Qaeda launched a September 11-style attack from Canadian soil, we would have only two choices: Ask Canada to take charge, or take charge ourselves. The predictable -- and necessary -- U.S. action would spark outrage.
We certainly don't need the burden of turning "the world's longest undefended border" into one of the world's longest defended ones. And that's why a little invasion is precisely what Canada needs. In the past, Canada has responded to real threats from the U.S. -- and elsewhere -- with courage and conviction (for instance, some say more Canadians went south to enlist for war in Vietnam than Americans went north to dodge it). If the U.S. were to launch a quick raid into Canada, blow up some symbolic but unoccupied structure -- Toronto's CN Tower, or perhaps an empty hockey stadium -- Canada would rearm overnight.
Indeed, Canada might even be forced to rethink many of its absurd socialist policies in order to pay for the costs involved in protecting itself from the Yankee peril. Canada's neurotic anti-Americanism would be transformed into manly resolve. The U.S. could quickly pretend to be frightened that it had messed with the wrong country, and negotiate a fragile peace with the newly ornery Canadians. In a sense, the U.S. owes it to Canada to slap it out of its shame-spiral. That's what big brothers do.
This is an excerpt from Jonah Goldberg's cover story in the upcoming Nov. 25 edition of National Review.
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