Posted on 11/02/2002 8:00:36 AM PST by albertabound
The new Canadian: Proud, confident and free A caring but conservative citizen has emerged from the turmoil of the 1990s
Kathryn May in Ottawa and Robert Sibley in Montreal The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, November 02, 2002
A new, self-confident Canadian who believes strong social programs will help make the country more productive and competitive has emerged out of the past decade's economic turmoil.
They are unswerving in their support of social programs for health, education, unemployment and child poverty. Yet they are also fiscal hardliners who reject government handouts, big job-creation programs and deficit financing, demanding more trade liberalization as well as balanced budgets.
These Canadians are proud, unashamed, cosmopolitan and downright confident about the country's future and their distinctness from Americans. And they make no apologies for the seeming contradictions that mark the nation's split personality as sharing and caring but fiscally conservative.
The portrait of this new Canadian identity is a composite of trends pulled together by Queen's University professor Matthew Mendelsohn, who conducted an exhaustive review of all public opinion research, surveys and polling done during the turbulence of the late 1980s and the 1990s.
"The 'I am Canadian' ads are no aberration," said Mr. Mendelsohn yesterday a two-day Montreal conference on Canada's relationship with the United States.
Canadians are plugging into something real and wouldn't have happened 20 years ago, he said. "Canadians are very proud of their national identity, and the irony, of course, is that Canadians now love to shout about how quiet and modest they are."
Mr. Mendelsohn was speaking to about 120 delegates -- primarily businesspeople and academics -- at the second in a series of national conferences intended to get Canadians thinking about their country's relationship with the United States. The gathering was sponsored by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.
These new, post-modern Canadian citizens are voting less, have no strong political affiliation and distrust politicians but see a role for an "active" government in their lives.
Mr. Mendelsohn found the Canadian identity underwent a transformation during the deficit-cutting 1990s.
"Canadians are comfortable with expanding trade and international markets ... but they see it linked to their prosperity," said Mr. Mendelsohn. "I saw no evidence that this is linked to support for neo-conservative values, but rather the belief that trade leads to prosperity."
Mr. Mendelsohn said Canadians are as committed as ever to high levels of spending on social programs, from education and health care to public transportation and the environment, to "soften the edges of the market and promote opportunity for people."
This shift poses huge challenges for policymakers, who have to balance these seemingly conflicting values in shaping policies on everything from the economy and international development to poverty, the environment and health risks, said Judith Maxwell, president of the Canadian Policy Research Networks.
The think-tank is currently conducting a cross-country consultation with Canadians to take stock of the "social contract" which defines what Canadians expect from each other and from their government. Its report, aimed at laying out a social blueprint for the Canada of the future, will be completed next spring.
"What we're looking for is how citizens articulate this value base that is threaded through (Mr. Mendelsohn's findings)," said Ms. Maxwell, who noted that the self-confidence Canadians are indicating is something "we haven't seen before."
Mr. Mendelsohn said Canadians have the same social values as before; what's changed is how they want benefits delivered now that they reject the traditional vehicles of deficit spending, big programs and "governments acting as mafia dons dispensing job creation money to favoured supplicants."
Another key trend of the decade is the emergence of a "pan-Canadian" national identity. For the first time, Mr. Mendelsohn said, Canadians are firmly attached to the country and more likely to call themselves "Canadians first" and less likely to identify with a province -- except in Quebec.
The most dramatic turnaround was Canadians' openness to trade liberalization, a far cry from the hostility of the late 1980s when the majority opposed free trade.
Mr. Mendelsohn said the support for liberalizing trade is rooted in the image of Canada "doing good in the world" within a global society. Canadians support peacekeeping and for the first time in years, a growing number think more should be spent on foreign aid. This is a sharp contrast to Canada's diminished role on the world stage and the government's spending reductions on defence and aid.
Although all signs suggest Canadians are gung-ho about freer movement of goods, services and people in the North American marketplace, that doesn't mean they want to give up their social, political and cultural independence. They are prepared to work with Americans on mutual "managerial" issues, such as border security, but they will balk at business elites trying to promote economic ties that undermine their sense of identity and values.
"On issue after issue the vast majority of Canadians believe that how we organize ourselves as a society is preferable to how they do it in the United States," Mr. Mendelsohn said.
Indeed, he argued that most Canadians would be surprised to hear that a "small coterie" of academics and business elites are even debating, much less promoting, North American integration.
The idea of continental integration has little resonance in most people's minds, he said. "They would certainly react with reticence and overt hostility to the very thought of it."
Such views were supported by Andrew Parkin, of the Centre for Research and Information on Canada. Mr. Parkin presented the results of two recent polls indicating that, among other things, Canadians want to join the U.S.'s new military command for North America, but by a large majority reject harmonizing Canada's policies on health care, immigration, taxation, banking or the environment with those of the U.S.
Canadians are as committed as ever to equalization, or the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. They believe people should have access to the same quality of schools, hospitals and universities, regardless where they live, said Mr. Mendelsohn. Despite this, inter-regional tensions and jealousies are running high, with many Canadians complaining their provinces don't get a fair shake out of federalism.
Canadians have accepted the identity entrenched for them in the Charter of Rights. Bilingualism and multiculturalism, matters of bitter debate 30 years ago, have become firmly rooted in the Canadian psyche, even in the four western province.
"We are Pierre Trudeau's children," he said.
A worrisome trend, however, is shrinking support and sympathy for Aboriginal Peoples. Canadians don't care for the idea of "special status" and feel aboriginals are demanding too much and should accept the realities of 21st century life.
But Mr. Mendelsohn also noted that Canadians have a distorted and even unrealistic view of Canada's place in the world.
"In some ways we are -- and I see this in some of the public opinion data -- collectively immature. We don't understand the realities of power or our place in the world or in the eyes of the United States."
Canadians, he suggested, delude themselves in thinking that they are somehow special in the American's eyes. But in reality "we are just another country."
While we may look at our relationship with the U.S. through the lens of economics and trade, the Americans see their world through the lens of security, especially since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
If Canadians want to protect their prosperity, along with those values that provide them with a sense of distinctiveness, they are going to have to meet the Americans' security concerns, he said.
© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
It should be noted that the "I am Canadian" ads are actually plugging beer.
Just another country riding our coattails.
Well ,I'll be a SOB!
To tell the truth, I saw some reasons for encouragement in there.
They are also some of the biggest whiners about how bad health care and education are but refuse any market solution.
Social programs make nations more productive the same way tapeworms make people more productive. More and more effort is required to feed the parasite, or the host falls over dead.
So schizophrenia is their national identity?
For the biggest horse laugh - which we need, as we ready for the old so called "white gold" (snow),is that we are Pierre Trudeau's children. God, between him an laughing Brian Mulroney, the country went almost backrupt.
Canada's icon, him and Mandela both. I ask- please do not trust the Liberal government of Canada and its shills- Please.
Could be. He had a way with women, but a poor taste in them.
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