Posted on 09/29/2004 6:03:59 AM PDT by OESY
TORONTO, Sept. 28 - As one of Canada's pre-eminent historians, David Bercuson of the University of Calgary is not your average couch potato. But with beer in hand and feet up on the sofa, he watched the Olympics on television last month to cheer on the world champion hurdler Perdita Félicien to win a gold medal for Canada.
When Ms. Félicien inexplicably stumbled into the very first hurdle like a rank amateur, Mr. Bercuson dashed straight to his computer. He knocked out a screed declaring that her sad performance, and that of the entire Canadian Olympic team, was just another symptom of "the national malaise'' that is making Canada a second-rate, uncompetitive nation.
"It's not the individual performers whose shortcomings are on display for all the world to see,'' he wrote in an op-ed article for The Calgary Herald. "It is the very spirit of the nation and the sickness that now has hold of it that is at fault.''
His acidic commentary is characteristic of the view of a growing number of historians, foreign policy thinkers and columnists from some of the nation's top newspapers. Many see themselves as part of an informal school that has no name or single mentor, but all are writing the same assessment: Canada is in decline, or at the very least, has fallen short of their aspirations.
For these thinkers, Canada is adrift at home and wilting as a player on the world stage. It is dogged by not only uninspired leaders but also by a lack of national purpose, stunted imagination and befuddled priorities even as its economy prospers.
"I'm in almost total despair,'' Michael Bliss, a University of Toronto historian, said in an interview. "You have a country, but what is it for and what is it doing?''
In a newly published updated edition of his classic "Right Honorable Men," about Canada's leaders through history, Mr. Bliss wonders about the recent "decline in quality" of the nation's leadership. "A logjam developed in the river of Canadian political history," he wrote. "Where are the visionaries?"
Canada may still have a glowing reputation as a sensible country that promotes peace and social justice abroad, and it is a pioneer in decriminalizing drugs and allowing same-sex marriage. But, they groan, the bold foreign aid programs of the past have been much reduced.
It once built great railroads, conquered the Arctic and had the world's fourth largest armed forces at the end of World War II, pioneering peacekeeping in distant trouble spots. But today, they argue, Canada outfits its peacekeepers with 40-year-old helicopters and decrepit jeeps akin to dune buggies.
The country, they say, has seemingly come to define greatness by how much money it sinks into health care or day care. Even so, education budgets are shrinking and there is brain drain of doctors and other professionals to the United States.
Such themes run through two widely sold recent books by two of Canada's most distinguished authors, "Who Killed the Canadian Military?'' by J. L. Granatstein and "While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World" by Andrew Cohen, which earlier in the year was on the Canadian best-seller lists for 10 weeks.
The two books hark back to the days when Canada lifted far more than its weight to win World Wars I and II and when Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1956 for his role in establishing a United Nations peacekeeping force that settled the Suez Crisis.
"What has happened to that sense, that impulse for excellence, that sense of ambition that gives life to a nation?'' asked Mr. Cohen in an interview. "We're a country with a strange attitude toward success."
Mr. Granatstein had a similar critique. "We're not soft so much as softheaded,'' he lamented. "A country is not just a health system."
Canadian intellectuals note that if there is an Eeyore lurking in their midst, they are not alone. The chronically depressed can also be found inhabiting other intellectual traditions. Danish and Swedish intellectuals, too, tend to have an overcast view of their country, from time to time, Mr. Bliss noted, "and they go through long winters too.''
Desmond Morton, a McGill University historian who has written jointly with members of the school of thought but is not a member himself, said nations that sit next to countries with far more power and confidence - like, say, Belgium beside France - share "these envy problems."
But pooh-poohing his colleagues, he said, "They would love to be greater, but being great has a cost - usually to the foot soldier.''
Explanations for Canada's supposed and undoubtedly debatable demise vary among the thinkers. Nevertheless, intellectual complaining about the state of the nation seems to be as much a part of the Canadian tapestry as curling and maple syrup.
In that regard, the dialogue is eerily reminiscent of the past. Some of the best-selling books in Canada during the 1960's and 70's went by such titles as "Must Canada Fail?'' "Lament for a Nation," and "Silent Surrender."
Many intellectuals on the left posed the theory that Canada's economy and culture were destined to be swallowed up by the United States. Others viewed the divide between Quebec and the rest of the country as so wide that complete national disintegration was virtually inevitable. Neither prediction has come true.
Several of the new school of thinkers were young in the era of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, a leader whose panache and focus on big national issues like opening Canada to "third world" immigration and striking an independent foreign policy made him recognizable around the world. His policies are criticized by some of these same thinkers for shrinking the size of the military and diluting the national character. But at least, they say, he was a man of big dreams.
Prime Minister Paul Martin, by comparison, looks to them simply asleep.
The gloominess was much in evidence in recent weeks as the National Hockey League headed for a season-killing lockout and Mr. Martin met with the provincial and territorial premiers to promote federal financing for health care, without taking any meaningful measures to re-engineer a system short on doctors, technology and affordable drugs.
"Two of Canada's defining institutions - health care and hockey - are sick,'' wrote the columnist Jeffrey Simpson, no stranger to pessimism, in The Globe and Mail. In an interview, Mr. Simpson said that while this was not a particularly bleak time for the general population, pained intellectual musings are not that surprising for a country "that has never had a defining national myth'' like America's Revolution or Civil War.
"Besides, if Americans had to live through our long winter,'' he added, "it would test their optimism as well.''
You would think an Historian would know better. Virtually all of these accomplishments belong to Great Britain.
Despite never fighting for their freedom; Canada was granted her independence, well after WWII, by a benevolent Great Britain. Canada is an incredibly young nation, that is just now building her own history.
There is the key, Trudeau's "visions" of socialist paradise for Canada. Trotting on the path to "shining vision" of Socialism, where there is better tommorrow, everything is free and averyone is happy. Instead of dumping and bitching about US, time to wake up O'Canada, or you will end up Soviet Union way, with brain drain South - colored freeloaders in. (Wanna adopt sKerry?)
It's not the cold, it's stupid!
Again; British history, not Canadian.
Is this guy really a historian?
Look at what 46 years of Trudeaupia wrought. Its going to be fun to watch the Liberals squirm as they face a less than glorious future in the minority Parliament that opens Monday.
Canada isn't even a nation, for all intents and purposes. The combination of 1) the nation's governing structure (a loose confederation of provinces), 2) the disparity between the French and British influences in languare and economics, and 3) the North American Free Trade Agreement has resulted in a country that functions as a collection of regional fiefdoms more than as a unified nation.
"What has happened to that sense, that impulse for excellence, that sense of ambition that gives life to a nation?'' asked Mr. Cohen in an interview. "We're a country with a strange attitude toward success."
Gee you don't hear much about this in the U.S. MSM, I wonder why? < sarcasm >
Since you are not, it would be wise to get at least two facts straight when writing about Canadian history.
You do have a handle on one fact - that Canada was formerly British. The rest of your 'facts' are more like 'rhetorical flourishes'.
Canada entered WWI as a part of the British Empire, but entered WWII as a quite independent actor.
Socialism does not look good on any nation, even yours!
No. Throughout WWII, Canada was a British colony.
Well, I was born after WWII, but I know from many people who were there that they went to fight as Canadians. They may have technically been British subjects, but there were Canadian through and through. Of course that was when being Canadian meant something positive.
BTW, my dad flew Halifax bombers in WWII and told me on more than one occasion that when they were returning and couldn't make it to their home base, and therefore needed to find a base at which to land, they'd always seek out the Americans because they were treated so much better than they were by the arrogant Brits.
He loved, and still does love, Americans and the US.
Guess the fruit (no sexual stereotypes meant!) doesn't fall too far from the tree.
Um...no, it wasn't.
I love the photos on your home page.
I live in Calgary, so naturally they strike close to home.
Cheers
Jim
How about for starters Canada actually voting for a real leader not some wimpy liberal commie.
Wrong. The Statute Of Westminster made the White Dominions of the British Empire sovereign states. It was adopted by the Imperial Parliament in 1931 and then Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand effectively became independent countries.
I am always eager to learn new facts, and welcome the correction of any of misunderstandings I may have.
Please advise when Canada's war for independence started, who were the Canadian heros that fought against the British, and when that noble struggle for freedom ended.
I eagerly await your display of knowledge, and facts, on this subject.
Thanks. I was up in Calgary a couple of weeks ago. You didn't have much of a summer there, did you? LOL.
Too many Canadians are woefully ignorant of their own history. However; I am not here to weaken another mans faith.
Canada has been subject to British rule, and her laws, well into the 1950s, 1960s, and even the '70s.
Interesting facts to consider would be when Canada wrote her own constitution, or adopted her own flag.
I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you.
Tell me again; when was the Canadian war for independence?
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