Posted on 06/30/2002 2:15:14 PM PDT by gcruse
Analysis: Canada looking for independence
By E.W. Kieckhefer
United Press International
National
Desk
Published 6/30/2002 1:46 PM
Some Canadians are wondering whether their country should have joined the rebel colonies in the American Revolution as the United States approaches another Independence Day.
They were urged to join in the uprising against the British crown but declined. And over the years, Canadians have felt a sort of smug satisfaction in that decision, believing they had created a better nation. The differences between the two countries never have been great. Still, Canadians always have accepted a dependence upon their governments for what they regard as a kindlier kind of society.
But that sort of mild socialism has come with costs.
Someone has to pay for universal health care, pensions and welfare systems. And lately those costs are being realized. Federal and provincial budget deficits year after year took care of immediate needs but resulted in debts that required first heavier and heavier taxes and then finally sharp spending cuts. Ottawa pushed more and more of the burdens onto the provinces, which ultimately were responsible for carrying out the promised benefits to the people.
The education system has suffered and teachers have struggled with low pay and increasing duties. Many of the crown corporations -- that is, government-owned companies -- were privatized. But the cuts that have caused the most concern have been those in the health system.
True, Canada still has a prescription plan that is the envy of many U.S. citizens who use it, too, but hospitals have been closed and nurses in several provinces have gone on strike to demand pay increases. Many health professionals have just left. Elective surgery often requires months of waiting and patients increasingly travel across the border and pay high prices to get the care they need.
Despite such drastic measures, the Canadian government seems unable to control the cost of the health care plans. The Canadian Institute for Health Information says the cost of health care last year was $3,298 per person. Only the United States, Germany and Switzerland among the Organization for Cooperation and Economical Development nations spend more as a proportion of gross national product.
A recent poll showed slightly more than half of Canadians think they still are getting quality health care but 60 percent said they expect it to worsen in the next five years.
Three-quarters of the citizens polled said they expect any solution will cost them more and a surprising 56 percent said they are willing to pay more just to maintain current levels of health care. About half of them even favored a two-tier care system, with patients paying part of the costs out-of-pocket.
Those are the concerns of the average citizens.
Business leaders have broader concerns, like the recent attitude of Washington on the question of free trade. A steep tariff on Canadian softwood lumber is shutting down mills in several provinces, causing massive unemployment in those communities. But lumber is just one of many Canadian exports to which Washington has been objecting, claiming the Canadians unfairly subsidize production.
Anthony Wilson-Smith, editor of the weekly news magazine Maclean's, told recently of a conversation with a British Columbia food company executive who recommended rethinking Canada's growing economic ties with the United States. He said the relationship has tilted to the point that it no longer is possible to negotiate because whenever trade rules come out in Canada's favor, Washington changes the rules. The businessman said he is quitting in frustration.
But Canada is trapped in its relationship with the United States.
The lion's share of Canada's exports go to the United States. The free trade agreements were designed to lock in that relationship. Expanding exports in Europe and Asia is a long-term effort.
Canadians seem to get little sympathy from the United States now. A recent Woodrow Wilson Center study showed 30 percent of U.S. respondents think of Canada as a U.S. state and only 18 percent said they regard Canada as America's closest friend and ally.
"These things matter," Wilson-Smith wrote in another of his weekly letters to Maclean's readers, "because the issue of Canada's sovereignty, and how we deal with it, will be the defining issue of the next decade -- far more important than the old hand-wringing about Quebec sovereignty." The notion that Canada as a smaller nation can guard its culture and flourish "goes by the wayside whenever we look at the relationship between ourselves and America."
Clearly, Independence Day has a far different meaning in Canada than it does in the United States.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
What do we want a bunch of people who think like Boston's suburbs and our minority slums for?
Ontario and Quebec are truly Sweden-On-The-Saint-Lawrence - a bunch of people who want everything from the government except freedom.
Quebec would break away as French Canada
taking the provinces east of her with her, since
they are Quebec's normal markets anyway. The
problem will be, in absence of transfer payments,
Quebec's being able to keep the maritime provinces
from slipping into poverty. The US wouldn't want
the maritimes for the same reason.
Ontario would remain as Canada.
The popular belief is that Canada, as a whole, refused to participate.
However, as we all later discovered in the 1820s and 1830s, there was quite a bit of Canada South of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence - always had been too! Even though that part of Canada was lightly populated at the time, most of it joined with the Americans in the Revolution. I'd like to point to Vincinnes in particular!
The Canadians have spent over 200 years trying to deny that Canada extended South to the Ohio River (La Belle Riviere in the 1700s). Don't believe them. The American Revolution cut Canada right down the middle, with the most progressive part of the original French habitants chosing to be Americans rather than conquered colones.
This attitude persisted right up to the Civil War. The first American flag in the county seat of Chatauqua County NY was flown about 1863 when the townsfolk suddenly realized all the men had gone South with the Union.
During the Revolution the French throughout what is now Indiana, and in the Green River settlements in Kentucky rallied immediately to the American cause and were instrumental in turning over strong points and military posts and forts to Clark's men.
Many of Clark's men later on married the Franco-American women out on the frontier. Even Clark's sister married one of the Franco-American men!
Prior to the Ashburn Treaty in the 1830s, most folks within 25 to 50 miles of the South shore of any one of the Great Lakes called themselves Canadians.
Webster-Ashburton treaty. Seeing as how this includes Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, and Detroit, I'd be interested to know where you came up with this viewpoint. I assume that Lake Michigan is not one of the Great Lakes under this description.
Are you suggesting they were expecting to be re-integrated with Lower Canada?
As for the support provided the Virginians by the French inhabitants, I agree with your assessment, and would grant that Clark would likely not have been successful without it. However, I also would argue that the French and British could not have cared less whether the people inhabiting the area between the lakes and Ohio River wanted to be part of the US or Canada. It was ONLY Clark's driving Hamilton back to Detroit that resulted in the grant of the Northwest Territory to the US in the Treaty of Paris, IMHO.
And I was worried about Toledo becoming part of Michigan. :^)
For some silly reason, I can't help but think of Spaghetti-O's.
(Excuse the mispelling on the boundary line treaty). One of the most notable things in the final boundary line treaty is that the people affected were not required to move. Each country agreed to make good on the land titles and surveys of the other one.
I have several references to folks from the South of the Lakes areas that are quite interesting. Out in California folks from this area were identified by others as being Canadians!
Personally, I think the merger is inevitable. Already, our borders are transparent and customs checks are cursory at best (I haven't been through one since before 9/11 so it may have changed).
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