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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 01/22/2003 12:16:59 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Don't get me wrong. I have a high regard for Professor Michael Bliss. His stirring clarion call to Mr. and Mrs. Central Canada to suck it up and vote Alliance has been justly celebrated, not least in this space. But one cannot say the same about last week's predictions of an eventual U.S.-Canadian "confederation." If Gordon Campbell had written the column after the customary "glass or two" face down in the grass skirt of his cocktail waitress, its bleary good-time glow couldn't have been deluded.
A North American "confederation" is never going to happen. Not now, not in 50 years. Europeans, living on a continent of mostly failed nation states that rewrite their constitutions every generation as they lurch from Third Empire to Fifth Republic, have concluded understandably enough that supranational institutions are the way to go. Equally understandably, Americans have no interest in diluting either sovereignty or democratic accountability in transnational bodies. Canadians are free to fantasize about a North American Supreme Court with the likes of Madame L'Heureux-Dubé on it, just as I'm free to fantasize about being strapped to a rack while a whip-wielding Sheila Copps walks across my back in stilettos. But my fantasy's got more chance of coming true.
A North American Central Bank managing a North American currency? Forget it. When the loonie slips below 60¢ -- circa 2005 -- then, as Prof Bliss says, "the debate about a united currency will become serious." "United"? Canada's welcome to use the U.S. dollar as its currency, as, indeed, any other country is. But we won't have any say in the management of that currency. And the notion that simply doing business in U.S. dollars would transform our fortunes is very curious: The loonie is not the problem, merely a symptom thereof.
As for Canada "joining" America, we've got more chance of getting admitted to the EU, or, come to that, the Arab League. Prof. Bliss may confidently assert that "we are becoming more similar to the Americans in our culture and our values," but, values-wise, he's looking at the graph back to front. If the Prof. really believes the border is "not so much a fence as a lawn-marker," he should try living in a Quebec mill town on the hitherto informally monitored Maine line. This coming Sunday, eight timber-road crossings will be permanently closed and the four bigger border crossings will be open only until 2 p.m. and shut all weekend. Quebecers who work in the Maine woods will either have to make a hundred-mile detour or look for other employment. On the Canadian side of the line, there's talk of mill closures. The lawn-marker just got replaced with razor wire.
Within 48 hours of 9/11, it was clear that Canada had a choice: It could be inside a North American perimeter or outside a U.S. perimeter. Given that the trucks were mostly backed up on the northern side of the border, the answer seemed obvious. But the siren song of "Canadian values" -- i.e., Liberal Party values -- was too powerful, and, as we know from Kyoto to the gun registry, whenever the national interest conflicts with Liberal platitudes the Grits go with the latter. Last fall, when the U.S. announced that Canadians born in selected Middle Eastern countries would be required to submit to "special registration" procedures, Ottawa's privacy commissioner responded by demanding that "place of birth" be removed from all Canadian passports and The Toronto Star huffed and puffed about "Muslim-focused racial profiling" full of "contempt for due process."
They have a point. Effectively, the commissioner invited the U.S. to treat all Canadians as Syrian, and increasingly they do. No more profiling! That's great, isn't it? Unless you're a Quebec logger.
It seems right to me. Only a small number of Canadian citizens are active-duty terrorists, but, as we've learned over the last year, a majority of Canadians dissent in less harmful but equally fundamental ways from the American view of the world. That's their right in a democracy, but, equally, Washington has a right to take it into account. "Cultural" tastes are irrelevant. So we like Cameron Diaz. Big deal. So do the Irish, and the Belgians, the Finns, the Slovakians, Venezuelans, Tanzanians and Papuans. As I wrote a year ago, "One of the lessons of September 11th is that every day millions of people wear baseball caps, listen to Britney, watch Friends, eat at Dunkin' Donuts ... and they don't have a clue about America." Nothing new about this. The Merry Widow was both a blockbuster sensation on Broadway, and Hitler's favourite operetta. It's not enough. And on the things that matter -- which, no disrespect, Avril Lavigne doesn't -- the gap is wider than ever.
Professor Bliss talked about whether a "Republican government" would "want us as we are now." But that formulation's too parliamentary: The reality is that to get any additional stars on that flag there has to be something in it for both teams. In the Fifties, when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted, each party figured they'd got a state apiece. They were right, though not about which state was whose. On those terms, eight out of our 10 provinces have no chance of admission to the Union, since the GOP would be signing its death warrant. The only possible scenario is a deal by which Alberta and B.C. wiggle through -- Alberta for obvious reasons and because to Republicans it hosts the only assimilable population of Canadians -- or, at any rate, the least unassimilable; B.C. to even things up on the grounds that, given its propensity for electing charlatans, sleazeballs and all too human failures, the Dems might regard it as at least potentially rich soil. It would also fill in the map, leaving the "continental U.S." as a pleasing semi-serifed L-shape from Alaska to Florida.
On the other hand, if Albertans ever got mad enough to kiss off Canada, they might well conclude they could make it on their own. The trend of the last decade is for weak, incoherent federations to dissolve into smaller states, and this still seems the likeliest outcome for Canada. Washington would rather see an independent Quebec than Senator Landry and Senator Parizeau coming to town to collect their booty.
America didn't change. We did, and in a dizzyingly short time. What would it take for the Americans to revise their view? Well, we could change back. It won't happen, can't happen. Indeed, on present demographic trends, it's more likely that Alberta will gradually lose the will to resist joining its neighbours in the Trudeaupian stupor.
In short, the U.S. cavalry won't be riding to the rescue. What I find slightly unnerving is the way as distinguished a commentator as Professor Bliss could so misread the situation. Whatever it once symbolized, the border is now a very real dividing line between the two principal manifestations of Western democracy: an American system which emphasizes the primacy of individual liberty, and a Euro-Canadian system of top-down statism. Even without the war, the differences between the two are likely to increase rather than diminish over the coming years.
But, since the war, our flabby Dominion's position has weakened further. Not to be alarmist but I'd say the U.S. is coming to regard Canada the way Australia regards Indonesia. Yes, it's geographically close, an important trading partner, a cheap vacation destination and a nominal ally, but it has to be pushed and chivvied into taking even the most perfunctory action against obvious enemies, and everyone knows that all kinds of dodgy characters have the run of the joint. Bali was a soft target for the terrorists because it exists in both worlds -- a Western enclave in bandit country. Canada also exists in both worlds: We're the country that supports both the Princess Pats and Hezbollah.
Washington knows that now. The big story since September 11th is that they finally see us for what we are: foreigners.
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Any chance we could make a few covert overtures to Alberta and B.C.? You know--on the sly?
Sadly, this is quite possible. If Europe falls--to Islam--it will become clear whether Canada is part of Europe or the U.S.
When Europe falls, "the U.S. cavalry won't be riding to the rescue". There are already too many crosses row on row, in Flanders' fields.
And they are unlikely to remain standing anyway as the dark night of Islam descends over The Continent.
This sums it up perfectly.
Americans have no interest in diluting either sovereignty or democratic accountability in transnational bodies...were it only the case, giving up language, border, and culture to illegals.
Would you explain why you say this?
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