Posted on 12/23/2002 9:51:18 AM PST by quidnunc
In a poll earlier this month of citizens of 44 countries, only in Canada among all Western nations did a majority of people express satisfaction with their country and its prospects.
Obviously these Canadians are not marching to the drumbeat of negativism from their political and media elites. Traditionally erring on the side of self-abnegation, Canada's image-shapers have been working harder than usual of late to disparage their country, particularly in comparison with the U.S.
Indeed, the proximate cause of this latest bout of self-deprecation appears to be the supposedly turbulent relations between ourselves and the Americans in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 2001 tragedy, although the link is not always obvious.
At a time when economic growth in Canada is continuing to outpace our G-7 peers, and fiscal probity at home contrasts with budgetary crises in Washington and some 40 U.S. states, former Ontario premier Mike Harris reminded a Montreal audience this month of Wilfrid Laurier's exaggerated hopes for Canadian greatness.
"In modern times much of (Laurier's) sense of confidence and self-assuredness has been muzzled," said Harris in an extended whinge about burdensome taxes, the brain drain, and Ottawa's inexplicable sloth in adopting U.S. defence and domestic security policies as its own.
Canada has its virtues, to be sure. But in a recent National Post interview, Deputy Prime Minister John Manley cautioned us against "parading our moral superiority" lest we offend the Americans, who turn out these days to be just as sensitive to perceived slights as, well, us.
And when an obscure right-wing U.S. journal, National Review, ran a jeremiad on Canada's apparent lack of haste in signing up for George W. Bush's "war on terrorism," our own Maclean's conflated this puerile essay into a November cover story on Canada's possible destiny as "America Lite," a pallid version of the U.S.
"You define Canadian culture as Mounties, health care and a beer commercial — that's not what a serious normal country does," Review writer Jonah Goldberg told Maclean's.
"Face it, Canadians are extremely similar to Americans. Your anger is so heightened, because the differences are so small."
The reader is warned that some of what follows might be smug, even gratuitous. Not everyone likes an enumeration of our continental differences, much less a parade of Canadian blessings.
If you're one of those, this might be a good place to stop reading.
It would be unkind, but not entirely unreasonable, to observe that our normal neighbour to the south defines itself by mute submission to the outcome of a stolen presidential election, by freedom to bear assault weapons, and by a socially corrosive ethic of every man for himself.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com ...
No Canadian newspaper, for instance, thought it judicious to reprint a fairly restrained column by a dumbstruck Gerard Baker — respected correspondent of London's Financial Times — who covered Bush's tour de farce in Europe last May.
Among the highlights in that whirlwind of gaffes, the U.S. president made ooh-la-la google eyes at reporters while viewing a semi-nude Venus at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg; sneered at an American journalist who graciously spoke French in addressing Jacques Chirac at a joint press conference by Bush and the French president ("He memorizes four words and plays like he's all continental," said the mocking Bush); and managed with a witless remark about his own failing memory as a man in his mid-50s to discomfit Chirac, 69, who had just coped with speculation about his possible senility during a recently concluded presidential campaign.
"Bush's comments and demeanor had been a little less than that expected of visiting schoolchildren," wrote Baker, "let alone heads of state. Europeans — not just the elites, but much of their populations — simply find Mr. Bush irredeemably uncouth, a walking, talking version of every American they love to hate."
Are we angry? Some of us are, you bet.
This Dave Olive really doesn't much like the U.S. does he.
Granted, but it has a considerable readership which approves of its tone and editorial stance or it wouldn't be able to survive.
That "obscure right-wing journal" has a circulation twice the size of Prince Edward Island's entire population and the highest traffic of any U.S. conservative weblog.
It probably also has more influence on the administration than any other conservative outlet.
"Obscure" perhaps to witless Canadian scribes perhaps - who given their status probably know all too much about obscurity.
The Toronto Star is the voice of the average Canadian.
It cannot be used as toilet paper because the ink comes off.
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